1.5/5 ★ – daneh's review of Sonic Adventure 2.

(Review based on Hero story, as I don't intend to go any further than that) Sonic Adventure 2 is a game I've been wanting to play for quite a while, but unfortunately did not hit with me as is evident with the score I'm giving it. I honestly really tried liking it, since I thought the first adventure game was fine and assumed this one would be better. Please note I'll be speaking purely from opinion and I don't intend to mention any of the criticisms as if it were fact, since I'm very aware I'm in the minority regarding my opinion of the game. I guess I should start saying everything I liked about this game, and the first thing that comes to mind is its identity. Everything from this game is as stylish as it's ever been; the characters each have their own loud personalities that are funny to watch in cutscenes, the music is bombastic and awesome and fits perfectly with Sonic. The story is obviously very over-the-top but I'd argue the game leans into this as a positive, like its genuinely so funny seeing Sonic having a conversation with basically George Bush. On the gameplay side, honestly I might prefer the Sonic levels in SA2 over the first adventure game, they feel a bit more linear but I feel speed plays a bigger part and it's fun to try to go as fast as possible, the level design supports Sonic's moveset decently well. Now this game would be good in my opinion if it relied more on these positive aspects, but unfortunately I gave it a 3/10 for a reason. First of all: The PC Port is horrible. I know it might not be fair to criticize the game based on this but with constant crashes, freezing, frame drops, broken cutscenes, etc, it definitely made my playthrough more insufferable than it should've been (my PC is good and should not have issues running something like this). If possible I don't recommend the steam version of this, although it was personally the only way I was able to play the game so it's not like I had much of a choice. Issues aside, the actual game itself wasn't very fun to play either way. SA2 starts off strong with the iconic City Escape stage, and yes this was indeed very fun, but the game never quite reached this high again for me. I know this is like the most common complaint for the game but I can't help but agree: even though Sonic levels are fun, that's only 1/3rd of the game, with the other 2/3rds dedicated to Tails and Knuckles stages which are just completely awful and soul-destroying for me. I could barely stomach any more of these. I'm aware a lot of people like them but this genuinely brought down the game for me a ton. Tails stages weren't fun since it just didn't feel good to control and the level design wasn't as tight, more than anything it was frustrating since they weren't too difficult but still felt cumbersome. But Knuckles stages are far, far worse. They are the bane of my existence. Shitty fetch quests in huge levels with randomly placed goals and often times god awful mechanics in the levels. I just can't put into words how much I hate these levels, they are worse than just "not fun". I can see how some people can like them, but they just didn't do it for me, not at all. I will say this game felt a tiny bit more polished than the first Sonic Adventure, which was notably a bit wonky at times. Still, as I said, it only feels a *tiny* bit more polished. I wouldn't say there's game breaking stuff necessarily and stuff that is broken beyond repair, but there are a lot of sections, even in Sonic levels, where it just feels like some stuff could've used a bit more work, and a lot of parts just play out weirdly, I lost a ton of lives to stuff not working as it should which was quite annoying. Is Sonic Adventure 2 unredeemable? Hell no. It's got awesome stuff. Is a 3/10 score a bit harsh? Maybe yeah, it's probably objectively higher than that and I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to my dislike of this game. But nothing can change that apart from a few specific aspects of it, my time with Sonic Adventure 2 was simply not good. I'm sorry.