2/5 ★ – KirbyHeeHo's review of Sonic Adventure 2.

Despite being a very popular Sonic game, I was never too fond of it. After recently replaying this game, I came to a more definitive reason as to why I didn't like it. Most of the problems come from the gameplay styles that aren't Sonic and Shadows. Before I get into the main stages, both of the main stories feature this kart stage that ends up being 3 minutes of "Press and hold A until it's over", which is incredibly boring. I couldn't fit that in anywhere else, so I figured I'd add it here. Anyway, onto the main stages. First off, the mech stages. These stages are similar to Gamma's gameplay from the first Adventure game, essentially allowing you to go through stages while shooting enemies in a mech. Tails and Eggman have mech stages in this game, and Eggman's were a bit better. Overall, these stages are just boring and feel like Hell to actually go through. I just couldn't come to enjoy them. Next up, the treasure-hunting stages. These are like Knuckles' stages in the first Adventure game and Knuckles and Rouge go through them. These stages do NOT work in this game for a couple of reasons. First off, they downgraded how the radar works. You can only track one item at a time instead of all three. Essentially, this means that if you were near two items that you were hunting for, the radar would only pick up one of them. You could be near one and not even know. What especially kills these stages is how they just don't work for this gameplay style. Stages can either be closed in maze-like halls or be open-world levels that are just way too big. It's a problem when these stages end up taking about 20 minutes to complete. The better gameplay style would be the one present in the traditional speed stages. Sonic and Shadow go through these and despite being the better of the three, they're not all that good in this game. Firstly, I hate how linear these stages are. In the 2D Sonic games, stages had multiple paths that you could take in order to get to the end while the first Adventure game had stages that were open-world. That's really the only reason I can put into words as to why the speed stages just didn't work for me. Overall, the Dark story had the better levels and is a bit shorter. The Last story is where this game actually becomes a little fun. I actually really liked the final stage, which features minute-long sections where you get to play as almost every character in the game, while the remaining character goes on to fight the boss, which is kind of eh for me. The music for this stage is also highly underrated. Overall, the bosses of this game are boring with a lot of waiting, but the final boss is thankfully a solid one. This game also features a Chao Garden side game like the first Adventure game. This mode is probably the only reason I'd ever revisit this game, as it's a majorly upgraded version of the first Adventure's Chao Garden, which was really good.