Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

Yo.

In our game design class we had to play a bunch of old shitty games and review them.

I'm going to write a review of a game called "Sonic Adventure 2 Battle" on Nintendo Gamecube.

In my opinion the single player mode is good and diverse, even though the levels are extremely linear. There is a bunch of different interactions that you can do with the enemies and other objects in the game. I really liked the boss battles which add some diversity and additional challenge through out the game.

But this game isn't perfect. Oh god there are so many visual and mechanical bugs inside the levels. Sometimes the camera just goes inside the wall, sometimes you can't see the background or even platforms you are supposed to jump in, and sometimes when you are supposed to perform a specific action you just instantly drop through the floor or get stuck inside a wall and die horribly.

Inside the main game there is also a "mini-game" of sort. You raise these creatures called "Chao" and compete with them in different kinds of races. The Chao-dudes hatch from eggs, and you can give them crystals and animals that you collect from the main levels in the game. The Chaos grow stronger and you can race with them. The stronger they are, the better are your chances to win with them. There is also a huge diversity in appearances with the Chaos. I really think this whole "Chao" -thing adds quite a good amount of diversity and replay value to the game.

Chao

Then there is the multiplayer mode. Personally, I think the race mode where you pick a stage you want and try to get to the end of the level faster than your friend (opponent), is definitely the best one of the multiplayer modes. Unfortunately there aren't too many stages to choose from, and you are forced to play the same stages again and again. After a short while it starts to feel really repetitive really fast.

There is also a "Treasure hunt" -mode and "Battle" -mode. In the treasure hunt mode you choose one of the 4 available characters (same applies to all multiplayer game modes) and try to find a hidden treasure using your pulsating and color changing crystal shaped radar-kind of thing. When you are really far from the treasure, the radar is gray, and when you get closer and closer to the treasure, colors change from gray to green, yellow and red. Player who finds the most treasures before the timer hits zero, wins.

Then the Battle mode.

In Battle mode you try to finish off your opponent by shooting him and using different kinds of "special weapons" which you can use by collecting rings in the arena type stage.
You can also race with the machine-like battle mode characters in some stages, but I would not recommend it. Racing in this mode is pretty much just a horrible version of the other multiplayer game mode.

You can also use different kinds of special skills in all of the multiplayer modes and try to fuck with your opponent.

TL;DR

Pros:

• diverse
• different game modes
• the Chao "mini-game"
• multiplayer racing is pretty fun...

Cons:

• ...For a short while.
• extremely linear
• all game modes are full of visual and mechanical bugs
• special attacks in the race mode (IMO)
• camera. Nuff said.

I rate this game 3 Teemos out of Heimerdinger.


Review by William Paavolainen