Can I admit something? I'm not that big a fan of either Sonic Adventure game. I don't think they're terrible but I don't lavish them the way some fans do. Maybe it's because I didn't own a Dreamcast and didn't play them until they were aged Gamecube ports so maybe they would've been more spectacular if I had played them when they first came out, I don't know.
Now among Sonic fans I hear debates over which Adventure game was better but to me they both have an equal amount of flaws but if you took the best aspects of each, you'd have the perfect Sonic Adventure game. Let me try to explain.
The friends: Now at the time, being able to play separate stories as other characters was probably novel at the time back when everyone wasn't sick of them but the advantage of SA1 is you could just play Sonic's story which was the longest and had the most levels, a whopping 10 compared to five for Tails, Gamma and Knuckles, 4 for Big and 3 for Amy whereas Sonic Adventure 2 not only had less Sonic/Shadow levels but you were forced to play the mech/hunting levels as well and the Emerald hunting levels in particular dragged on waaaay too long. Plus a lot of folks took offense to Tails driving a mech and wanted him to play like he did in SA1 but rumor has it Tails wasn't going to be playable in SA2 and was shoehorned in at the last minute. The mech play works for Eggman because he has no powers, just technology. There were times in SA2 where it seemed like the shooting/hunting stages dragged on way too long and I was dying to play a fast/fun Sonic/Shadow stage again. The same complaint could be made about Unleashed. That the werehog at the most should've only been a 3rd of the gameplay and it drug on too long. Thankfully Sega has stopped doing stuff like this to pad out the game time focusing more on making a short, well made game with replay value.
Hub World: SA2 is stronger here because it has a cleaner, more streamlined map system same with the Wii Unleashed and Colors. Let's get this straight. Hub worlds in platformers are mostly pointless. It was something game designers used during the early jump to 3D to show off 3D engines and let's face it, the trend is "whatever Mario does, we do the same thing" Mario had a big open hub world in Mario 64 and everyone wanted Sonic to have a big open world exploration game which really doesn't fit with Sonic's high speed race to the finish gameplay. The hub in SA1 was pretty empty and pointless as was Peach's castle in Mario 64. Recent Mario games have ditched the hubs as has Sonic. Generations has a sort of hub but it's also very tight plus you can simply go to the camera thing near the shop and select the stage you want to visit.
Story: Both adventure games make attempts at decent stories beyond the "Eggman steals Chaos Emerlds and kidnaps animals" of the earlier games but as with most Sonic games, are marred by bad voice acting and some plot holes. In SA1 though the in game cutscenes are weird. All the characters are really jittery when standing around and the mouth movements are weird. Sonic has weird facial twitches at times and Tails and Amy look like sock puppets where the in game cutscenes of SA2 have the characters moving slightly more naturally. Though in SA1, I grew tired of them constantly recycling the "Eggman finds demon god/monster, Eggman loses control of demon god/monster and it turns on him, Sonic turns super to save the day" thing that happened in every game up to Unleashed. Probably why we were all happy to finally get to fight Eggman in a giant robot in Colors FINALLY and even with Generations, the time eater never turns on him..er..them. But neither SA story fails as bad as Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic 2006.
Chao Garden: The Chao gardens, let's face it, were Sega trying to get their hand in the massive populairity of Pokemon and Tamagotchi pets at the time. In the Dreamcast, you could upload that chao to the memory card and carry it around with you like those old keychain pets of the late 90s and this is probably why they dropped it (since we don't count Chronicles garden) but most agree that SA2 had a more engaging Chao garden system with the Chao being able to turn Hero or dark depending on who spent the most time with them as well as taking them to school where they learned tricks to show off in the garden and the "Battle" version with the option of Chao Karate. Some players totally skip this though as it was mostly an optional thing to keep you busy after the main game was done. I really hope Sega considers some sort of online support for the Chao garden when they port Sonic Adventure 2 to consoles (they missed a golden opportunity with SA1 on that).
So for me between the SA games, there is perfection. Both games have flaws though and it might explain why some want to see Sonic Adventure 3 in hopes that it would combine the best aspects of the two titles into the ideal Sonic Adventure game but sadly the game that was supposedly the successor to SA2 ended up being total ass. (Sonic 06 of course) But for me as 3D Sonic games go, I think both Colors and Generations are far superior.
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