TGS 2001 FallSonic Adventure 2 Battle hands-on

Sega showed off the latest build of Sonic the Hedgehog's GameCube debut at the Tokyo Game Show. The preview build of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle featured a sampler of all the game's selectable characters, as well as some of the minigames created specifically for the GC. The game was running on an HDTV via the GameCube's D-terminal TV cable and showed that it's improved since its first appearance at Space World in August. As development on the game progresses, it's beginning to veer away from being a straight port of the Dreamcast version released earlier this year.

Graphically, the game has improved a bit since it was first shown. The frame rate and color remain solid and bright, although the game is still a bit jaggy in places. Texture quality, which was rather spotty in the Space World build, is much more solid now. There is still some fade-in and pop-up on certain stages, just as in the DC version, and the camera is still somewhat problematic. At the moment, the camera feels as though it's too close to the action, which, coupled with Sonic's trademark speed, makes for some disorienting moments during the game. The character-select menu for the TGS demo has undergone a bit of a tweak--we chose from a lineup of the game's six playable characters standing next to each other.

Each character had one stage to run through, which showed off the game's progression. Sonic ran through the Green Forest level, Shadow ran through the Radical Highway level, and Rouge looked for shards in the Dry Lagoon level. Outside of the few blemishes mentioned above, Sonic Adventure 2 on the GameCube looks and plays as well as the DC version.

In spite of being so new, the game's extra two-player modes also managed to display the polish of the main game. Fans of the Sonic Adventure series will recognize a few familiar faces in the roster of selectable characters for the races. In addition to the cast of Sonic Adventure 2, you'll be able to select Mecha Sonic from Sonic's 16-bit glory days, Tikal and Chaos from Sonic Adventure, and hero and dark chao mechs driven by their respective chao. Not every character is selectable for every game type--for example, the mechs were not available in the standard race game that had players trying to get to the end of a level first. A number of the two-player games were available, although not all were selectable in the demo. We were able to try some of the minigames, including a scavenger hunt, which had us competing against another player to grab a shard and take it to a specific area first; a standard two-player race; and a battle game that had us piloting the chao mechs.

So far, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is shaping up to be more than a straight port of SA2 for the DC, which is a good thing. The new battle games, plus the recently announced link feature to Sonic Advance for the GBA, are giving the game its own unique twist. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is slated to ship alongside Sonic Advance for the GBA on December 20 in Japan.