Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (GameCube)
	Developer Sega of America Publisher Sega of America Reviewed by Erik "Bondo" Bondurant [Feedback] [Author Bio] Review Date March 19, 2002

Rating (out of 5.0) 4.5 out of 5.0*

Judge for yourself

Strengths Long single player quest Loads of multiplayer modes Great chao mode Weaknesses Problematic camera control Ridiculous ranking system

* Notes Gaming Voice ratings are based on the technical and/or gameplay merits of a given product as well as the developer's choice of features and delivery of same. Our rating is not an endorsement of the thematic content of a given title. Gamers and parents are cautioned to determine if such content conflicts or coincides with their values and beliefs.

The basics of gameplay in SA2 are the three different control styles. Sonic and Shadow (good and bad characters respectively) share the style that resembles most of the first game’s action with fast paced running, but when more intense platforming elements show themselves, the sloppy control becomes evident and often results in the falling to ones death. This can be overcome by being very careful, but some of the misses are unbelievable and poorly timed.

The second style is Tails and Dr. Eggman which is like the E-102 levels from SA1 with a run and gun style; of the three these handle the best as long as you go forward -- the camera angle basically prevents any backtracking for extras. The third style is Knuckles and Rouge following the Knuckles style from SA1 where you search for crystal shards. This proves to be the most frustrating style and also due to it not being linear like the others also causes the most motion sickness, as you have to spin the camera a lot.

You can play through the story with either the good trio or the bad trio, alternating between them to make it to the end. Even if they are hampered by slight problems, every character has brilliant level design, especially towards the end. Between each level there are short cinematic bits and sometimes a battle between your character and their gameplay counterpart. By finding the chao key on each level you get to take a brief stop by the chao garden before continuing on in the game so that you can drop off any animals and drives you collected so that your chao can level up.

Once you make it through the 14 or 16 levels (depending on the side you play), you will have completed one side of the story and you will be pushed to attempt the other side. When both sides are finished you open up a wickedly hard final challenge in which both sides team up and you must use each character’s powers in tandem.

Each of the 31 levels have five different goals that when completed give you an emblem. The emblem collection is one of the many things that add amazing amounts of replay to the game. There are a total of 180 emblems: 155 from the action levels, 3 from finishing the different story sections, one per character plus one for the final stage for getting “A” rankings on all levels. The rest come from the Chao, Kart, and Boss modes. Getting “A” rankings unfortunately isn’t very realistic, as the standards are just amazingly high. While I was able to get an “A” on the Kart levels, I got “D” or “E” rankings on 80% of the levels.

These same 31 levels are all playable via multiplayer. This is where the change between the Gamecube and DC versions is clearly seen. While the DC version featured some levels, the switch to include all of them makes the game as strong a multiplayer game as it is a single player game. This continues into the Chao Garden where you can compete against your friends to see which Chao is superior in the Race or Karate modes. While the user control is fairly minor in these modes, it is still fun. While there hasn’t been any changes to the actual Chao raising features of SA2, that is fine as it was already solid. With three levels of maturity and a variety of special transformations possible, the Chao mode will get almost as much playing time as the rest of the modes. While the GameBoy Advance has taken the place of the Dreamcast VMU, the options aren’t very enjoyable so you don’t have to worry about missing out if you don’t own a GBA or Sonic Advance.

The biggest problem in SA2 as I hinted at before is the camera control. Why they even give you an option to move the camera is beyond me because it reverts back to the default setting after one step. While this isn’t a problem for finishing levels usually, trying to retrace steps for special items is nearly impossible. Only the Knuckle/Rouge levels actually give you adequate control and with that control usually comes the possibility of motion sickness. The graphics aren’t superb being as they were made originally for the DC, but that isn’t really a problem. Unlike some, I find the music to be very enjoyable and it is nice that Sega allows you to listen to it at your leisure in the Extras menu.

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is a great long game, something that hasn’t been able to be said too much about the current Gamecube games. Between the single player, emblem collection, multiplayer, and chao modes, SA2 Battle lasts even into the triple digit hours making it a very worthwhile purchase. I highly recommend this game.