Sonic Adventure 2: Battle

Sega of America

           Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is a great game.  It is the best adventure game on the Gamecube so far.  I never thought I should see the blue hedgehog on a Nintendo console.  The game has many features which make it a must have for any Gamecube owner.  I was excited when I first put in the disc in.  I have to say that the intro movie was not that spectacular as the one in Mario Melee, it was just ok.  The English voices sound somewhat dull but luckily, you have the option to change it to Japanese with English subtitles.  If you do, the game will have an anime feeling to it.  This game offers hours of game play.  You will find yourself playing it repeatedly.  There are new moves for sonic such as grinding on rails and much more.

            The game play is one of the best things about this game.  There is an adventure mode where you can choose to play the hero side consisting of Sonic, Tails and knuckles or the dark side consisting of Shadow, Dr. Eggman and Rouge.  Sonic and Shadow have levels in which you have to run as fast as you can.  Knuckles and Rouge's levels require you to go treasure hunting.  Tails and Dr. Eggman’s levels consist of shooting everything.  You have to play trough all three types of levels in order to finish adventure mode.  After you finish each level, you get to see a cool movie that develops the story.  All I can say is that the treasure hunting levels are fun once you get the hang of it.  At first, I had no clue what I was doing and this level just seemed to suck.  After I playing for a while I still problems understanding the clues that you get in the computer terminals found throughout the stage.  The clues help you a little and the radar that beeps and changes color depending on how close you are to an emerald is really cool.  It is very hard to find those emeralds in this mode.  The shooting part of the game was much easier to learn although I had problem enemies that were above the ground.  It feels good to destroy everything you see and lock on to enemy targets and watch them be destroyed by seeker missiles.  All this modes of playing make a well balance game.  Once you finish the game, you get the option to play the stages over and they give you can choose to complete certain tasks each time you play.  I liked the first level in the hero story the most because you get to play with Sonic and the song in the stage is the coolest one in the whole game.

            The 2-player mode is also very fun.  You can have races, which are unlocked in the dark and hero adventure modes.  Alternatively, you can race, shoot each other or find the emeralds faster than your opponent.  The two-player mode features more characters that are not accessible in the 1P Adventure such as Amy, Chao, Chao guardian and others from previous Sonic games.  The racing is good but it is different from any other racing games. It took me some time to learn to play it because at first I thought it was garbage but then I found tricks you use to control your car.  Each mode of battling has four levels each with sub stages so that gives you many battles.

            The Chao are the thing that makes this game so special.  Chao are like pokemon, you see them hatch from an egg and then you raise them.  It is the coolest thing.  Also, during the 1P adventure there are different animals and chaos drives that you can collect and give them to your Chao to help them grow.  You can feed your Chao coconuts from some trees but you must first get the fruit off the tree by shaking it.  You can also pet, carry or hit your Chao.  The Chao are lovable creatures; they laugh, they cry, they sleep like if it were the real thing.  You can also enter you Chao in competitions.  Some are races where your Chao has to swim, fly, run or climb or all of them combined.  You can also put your Chao in a Karate tournament that is fun.  You have no control over you Chao in these scenes but you can cheer them on to fight harder.  The neat thing is that Sonic Adventure 2 Battle can be linked to the Gameboy Advance trough the link cable.  It is cool because you get a Tiny Chao garden where you can watch your Chao grow.  The Gameboy advance Chao garden let’s your Chao grow faster and it has hidden items not available in the normal Chao Garden.  However, batteries run out fast on the Gameboy Advance if you really want to keep your Chao in the tiny Chao Garden then you should buy the Sonic Advance videogame that comes with a built-in Chao garden.  Then you can take your Chao anywhere and take it back to the Gamecube Chao Garden. 

            Overall, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is a really good game.  The adventure mode provides you with a great story and many hours of game play.  The two-player mode is also fun.  The Chao is the thing that will keep you coming back for more playing stages over and over so you can get more power ups for your Chao.  The Chao are the coolest.  The camera angles on some stages are bad and sometimes you cannot even see your target or where you are.  Too bad that this problem was not fixed and it is hard when you are running upside down in one of Sonics levels.  You will probably overlook this minor problem once you get into the game.  It is very addictive and I would recommend you to buy it as soon as possible.  It is even better if you hook it up to the Gameboy Advance.