User Rating: 7.8 | Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (Reprint) GC
By D-MonDRV | Review Date:
After Sega’s Master System flopped, they needed to try and find some mascot that could actually compete with that fat Italian plumber, Mario. Sega’s artists drew out all kinds of animals, then they make a bunny named Sonic. Later they thought, “How would a cutesy bunny compete with a fat plumber that jumps high?” The answer was Sonic The Hedgehog. A blue super fast Hedgehog that loved adventure, and laughed at the thrill of danger. Sony released many great super speedy platformers for the Genesis. Sonic even had his own pinball game. But now Sega’s DreamCast messed up sales, and Sega has become a 3rd Party. The day that nobody thought would be coming has arrived. Sonic The Hedgehog is now on a Nintendo system. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is a port of Sonic’s second adventure title on the Sega Dreamcast. For the GameCube version, Sega added a superior multiplayer mode, and a Chao Garden. When you pop in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, you choose either Hero or Dark. You can be a hero, or fight for the dark side. Decisions decisions… When you’ve made your choice, you’ll see a brief introduction of the characters. As heroes, the point is to advance the story and counter the dark side’s evil plans. As a member of the dark forces, you must counter act and take the offense right at the heroes. Sonic is no longer the main guy in the spotlight. On your quest, you’ll have to use different characters to progress through new areas. Therefore, the play control varies with each character. As Sonic or Shadow, you can use the A button to jump. Press the A button again to do a homing jump which will make Sonic aim at a target. The control stick will make Sonic or Shadow run like hell. You collect your moves as you progress, so I won’t spoil anything for you. As Tails or Dr. Eggman, you’re on robotosized machinery. You have a lot of heavy artillery and defense, so you won’t have to worry too much about being hit a lot. The A button will cause you to jump. Later on in the game, you can unlock an item that can cause Tails or Eggman to float for very short periods of time. The B button is your lasers. Use those to kill all the robots you see. Be careful, shooting a Chao Robot will cause it to not give you advice, and it will complain. As Knuckles the Echidna or Rouge the Bat, you must find three shards of the Master Emerald before time runs out. Both characters have a sense to find them, and the shard will flash at the bottom of your screen. The A button is to jump as usual, and pressing the A button a second time will cause Knuckles or Rouge to glide. While gliding, gravety will be reduced, but you’ll still fall. Your sharp claws and knuckles will pierce through any baddies while gliding too. You can also climb with the characters using the control stick. Pressing B while standing will let your character use a light punch. Pressing B while gliding will let your character slam down digging at that area. While climbing, pressing B will let you dig at the area at which you are hanging. The play control for each character may seem awkward at first. And the camera can seem annoying, but you’ll get a feel for each character and their respective camera as you advance through the game and get used to each of the abilities. The graphics are everything you can come to expect to. Though not great, Sega has corrected every graphical glitch from the Dreamcast version, including jagged lines or color coding. The visuals MUST be good considering that there are a lot of cinemas in the game. The skies, waters, and battle animations are flawless, but could be improved. They are up to par for this generation, so it won’t be that much of a problem. The Audio is probably the best thing about this game. It features good voice acting, and the music has a lot of rap, punk, and rock. The voices are crystal clear, but Knuckles may sound too mature and Tails….not right. The music is so good, that you’ll find yourself digging for the lyrics of each course, because they’re THAT good. Collecting Chao Drives will also have a nice ‘whao’ sound to it. The audio in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is absolutely nothing to complain about because this game is pretty loud when turning it on. The adventure mode is what’s old to the game. The GameCube extras include a battle mode. There’s race, battle, or hunt. In race, it’s the first to complete an area wins. You can choose from Sonic, Shadow, Metal Sonic, or Amy Rose. In Battle, it’s a shoot em up melee. Choose from Dr. Eggman, Tails, Dark Chao, or Hero Chao. In hunt, it’s about finding the 3 shards of the master emerald. Choose from Knuckles, Rouge, and two others you’ll find out later. Later in the game you can unlock a fun racing game. WITH KARTS! Also new to the GameCube version is Chao Garden. There, you choose one of the characters and feed it and make it enter contests. It’s future depends on the character you’re using. A hero will make the Chao you’re caring for turn good, and a Dark character will make the Chao evil. After finding chao drives in the levels, give them to your Chao and watch them gain experience RPG style! You may also find and hatch another egg! This is the first game to make use of the GCN-GBA link cable. Once you transfer the data onto your Game Boy Advance, you can raise your chao on it, and put it back later! Note that this will only be used if you have Sonic Advance for the Game Boy Advance. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is Sonic’s first game on a Nintendo console, and it’s been a great debut. Though Sonic doesn’t play the role you hoped for, it’s still a solid adventure game nonetheless. It will take at least 10 hours for each mode to complete, but the multiplayer mode and Chao Garden add extra depth into the game that can make Sonic’s Nintendo GameCube debut an honor to have in your GCN library! Look for Sonic Adventure DX coming to all consoles soon.

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