All Upgrades for SA2 [Dark]

All the upgrades for the Dark Side!

Intro

Well, I finally finished taking all the pictures I needed! Now we can get to business! My other guide was the Hero side and you can look at that here. This guide also goes in chronological order assuming this is the first time you're going through the story. With that said and done, let's get to worrrrrrk.

Also sorry for taking 6 years for what should have been a weekend project.

Pick Nails

So the first upgrade you'll recieve is the Pick Nails found here in wonderous Egg Quarters! When you start the level, just keep going forward and then you'll end up in a blue room.








Once you end up here, jump onto that blue box there and push the green button. The rocket will fly out and you can follow it into another room where the upgrade lies.








These things allow you dig into walls and the ground. You can occasionally find some power-ups there too.

Jet Engine

Our next upgrade lies here in the Lost Colony! DUN DUN DUN!!!!!










Keep playing until here. Then go the left. You should see the boxes below. Jump on 'em and get the upgrade!









This Jet Engine lets you glide across gaps and such. It sounds small, but it saved my life one too many times.

Large Cannon

Yay! Tons of points to make you feel special stage! Weapons Bed!










Once you get here there should be a bunch of bombs over to the left. Break 'em and enter one of the rooms where your upgrade shall lie.









Just lets you deal with those pesky iron crates.

Light Shoes

MAN. DON'T YOU LOVE CAPS LOCK WHEN YOU'RE FRUSTRATED? I SURE DO. AND DON'T YOU LOVE REWRITING THINGS 4 TIMES? MAN I DO TOO. Pent up anger aside, here we are with Shadow in GreenWhite Forest!







Once you get around here go back a bit and find a brown box. Break and jump down a spooky hole.\










These are the Light Shoes! Get near a trail of rings and tap X/B to blast away! Get it? Because in Sonic Heroes, Sonic says "Blast away!", during his team's Team Blast... I'm sorry.

Ancient Light

Look at Shadow being all cool and "edgy" in this picture. He clearly has a high confidence level! He's also in Sky Rail. Nothing important.









Once you get here, homing attack the mono beetle and get to the other side.










Get yourself in this position and homing attack the other beetle. Others will appear so you can chain them. Once you get to the top of the pillar, I'll call it, you get the Ancient Light upgrade!








But how does it work? Well by holding down X/B, Shadow will charge up Ancient Light and when you let go infront a bunch or enemies or infront of a few item boxes, he'll hit all of them in rapid succession. Except for the occasional hiccup.

Iron Boots

DON'T YOU LOVE THIS LEVEL? I LOVE THIS LEVEL? IT BROUGHT BACK SO MANY MEMORIES OF GOOD JOYFUL UNFORGETABLE MOMENTS. IT WAS OVER PRETTY QUICK TOO. NO LIES WHAT-SO-EVER. MAD SPACE WON'T CAUSE YOU TO GO MAD.






Evantually you'll make it to this gross planet that has gravity! There will be a tower thing with an opening on one side. Go in and find your Iron Boots! Kinda weird though. I always thought that an object had to be enormous in order for it to have a gravitational pull, but what do I know?






So what do these things do? Just let you break metal crates. In case you haven't noticed, that's like a third of the upgrades.

Protection Armor

Oooh! Cosmic Wall! My favorite Eggman stage! It's fun with lots of things to shoot at! Who doesn't love it?









Here's a shot from above when you're going down it. I'm sorry, but from my pictures, I can't seem to get a good angle of where the upgrade lies, but just keep looking around here and I'm sure you'll find it!







It's pretty obvious what these things do. It's armor. Nothing more.

Mystic Melody [Shadow]

Oh boy! Final Rush Chase! Get to a lot of these pillars and climb to the very top of each.










When you get here, jump over to the top half of that other pillar and go up. Keep following the path from there.









If all goes well you should end up here. Mystic Melody is used by using Y to select it, then pushing X/B to play a flute. Just like the heroes, it's main use is to find the lost chao in certain levels.

Laser Blaster

Beginning our backtracking to get the upgrades you probably came here for, we take it back to the very first stage of our story, Iron Gate. To get the Laser Blaster, play the stage as normal until you get to this gate right after the elevator section.




After breaking down that gate, you should be in this room with 4 item boxes (or what's left of them) and two yellowish cylinders. Break the cylinders revealing 6 metal boxes ready for destruction and claim what's rightfully yours.




What this beauty allows you to do is create explosions every time your homing missiles destroy an enemy. Makes larger crowds a little easier to deal with, but it's not game changing or anything.

Mystic Melody [Rouge]

Here we are in one of the prettiest stages in my opinion, Dry Lagoon. This one is real easy. As soon as you load in, run up to the square on the right and dig into the small patch in the center.





Not even a second later and you're in the holy light of Mystic Melody. Just a silly gimmick that makes the chao missions possible.

Mystic Melody [Eggman]

We travel into Sand Ocean in search of another situational upgrade needed for 180 emblems. Take a little trip on the spinning platform and step off when you see the picture to the right.





Crack open a few containers and the treasure is yours. I love seeing Eggman hold his little flute the way he does. Just thought I should let you know.

Flame Ring

This upgrade require the Light Shoes upgrade found earlier. I've heard of that name before... Just can't put my finger on it. Oh well.









Just progress as normal throughout the level until you reach this place with two paths. The camera will kindly show you the right side, but you're obnoxious and want to rebel left. A quick somersault under the spinning object and you'll be greeted by a trail of rings. Just press X or B while in infront of them and you'll quickly be sent to the other side of the pit. Go up the road and collect your prize.
Like many other upgrades in this game, this just allows you to break metal boxes which is cool, but not super useful unless you want to track down certain animals for chao raising and whatnot. As some of you may know, there's an alternate method to get to the other side without the light shoes. By spindashing and jumping off that little sliver of road, you can reach the other side too. It's a little hard, but it saves backtracking to this level again if you're the impatient type.

Treasure Scope

Our final upgrade is upon us and it looks the coolest. It lies in Security Hall. You'll need the Mystic Melody for this. When you load in, you'll wanna go to the right and into the corner and on to the 2nd level with the yellow containers. Activate the Mystic Melody ruin and take the platforms that appear to some metal boxes. Destroy them and walk into the last upgrade of the game!

These function exactly like Knuckles' Sunglasses. Press Y to cycle through the various actions you can do until you see "Treasure Scope" and then press X or B. Your vision will be slightly tinted and you should be able to see hidden items and such. Jumping resets your view and hides the items again. These are usually needed for the hard mode levels.

Ending

Well that wraps up this guide that really should've been finished a long time ago. Many thanks to all who found my original hero guide helpful, rated it, and commented on it. It's nice knowing so many people like what I did. Screenshots were clearly done at different times and I should probably get to fixing it, but I wanted to send this out already. Lots of credit to Sonic Retro[info.sonicretro.org]. I couldn't remember a few but they did. Hope you all stay safe during this uncertain time.
Bye!

[MrJordiePaws]

Thank you for all of the information on how to get the upgrades, I love Sonic Adventure 2 and this guide has made things even easier.

[MarioTheMii]

I loved reading this guide and the Hero one from a few years back. Please do the upgrade guides for Sonic Adventure 3 if we ever get it, I just love the personality in each section. tysm

[auzefreitas]

SA-DX and SA-2 Battle is amazing

[jadziaadrienne]

Amazing guide! I'm glad this was out there, as videos are not nearly as cool as well-written guides like this. I'm totally blind, but grew up with Sonic Adventure and Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast, and eventually the Gamecube. Now I'm trying to teach my oldest daughter how to play the games I grew up loving. Yes, I said, totally blind, but with sighted help, and being brought up with Sonic on the Genesis, I learned how to play 3D Sonic games with sighted direction. Your guide was a great refresher and an awesome quick reference with pictures that my daughter was able to use.

[Shitanotosaurus]

@El_Has they were talking about the picture, not the platform

[friend]

this is confusing AF, theres no rings to speed through for shadows flame ring idk if im blind or something can u help me

[El_Has]

Eggman's mystic melody is to the left on the spinning platform, not the right.

[The Dutch Cyborg]

I've got all upgrades thanks to you!

[GlassAnimal]

Hi @クリンジ - My gf and I are currently re-playing this game and your guide has been super helpful! Thank you!

[nomallife]

@mortusevil Thanks for letting me know, should be fixed now