Sonic Rush 2

Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Adventure 2 is a platform game developed by Sonic Team USA and published by Sega in 2001 as a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Sonic Adventure 2 is the sequel of Sonic Adventure. It is also the only game where Sonic wears Soap shoes to promote the product. There were also many billboards in the game that promoted the shoes.

It was released in North America on June 5, 2001 and in Japan and Europe on June 23, 2001 to mark the 10th anniversary of the release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. This game introduces two new playable characters, Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, and is also one of the few Sonic games to officially feature Doctor Eggman as a playable character. On December 10, 2001, a port of the game called Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was released onto the Nintendo GameCube in Japan, followed by North America on February 12, 2002 and Europe on May 3, 2002.

Single player

Gameplay takes place between two parallel storylines, the "Hero" story and the "Dark" story; the player has the option of advancing in either one or the other at any time. The "Hero" story featuring Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and the non-playable Amy, while the "Dark" story featuring Shadow, Rouge, and Dr. Eggman. Each hero character plays similarly to their respective dark character, and vice versa. Levels advance in order for each storyline, alternating between each of the playable characters.

Levels featuring Sonic or Shadow are designed in much the same way as they were in Sonic's levels in Sonic Adventure, where in the player's primary objective is simply to get to the end of the level. Levels with Tails or Dr. Eggman allow the player to control a mechanized robot walker and generally blast their way to the end, much like E-102 Gamma's stages in Sonic Adventure. Knuckles and Rouge are required to scour their levels for shards of the Master Emerald (with the exception of 2 stages where they must find keys into Eggman's base and 1 stage where chaos emeralds are located), again, much like Sonic Adventure. Interspersed between the levels are various bosses, which one particular character must fight. The main story line can only be finished when both "Hero" and "Dark" story modes are finished, and an extra story feature is revealed where the player must use all the characters to win.

Within Action Stages, players collect rings and defeat enemies, with a timer counting the time spent within the level. At the end of each stage, the player is given a score based on the number or rings collected and time spent within the level. The more rings and less time, the higher the score is. The player is also given a rank-based performance, a letter grade that is either A, B, C, D, or E, with A being the highest and E being the lowest. Irrelevant to any other factors, an A Rank is automatically awarded to players that complete any score-ranked mission with all of the rings from that level in the player's possession. There are five missions within each Action Stage; in order to obtain the second mission, the player must complete the first one, to unlock the third, the second mission must be finished, and so on. In order from first through fifth, the missions are to complete the level, collect 100 rings, find a "lost Chao" using the Mystic Melody upgrade, finish within a time limit, and complete a "Hard mode" version of the Action Stage.

Emblems are also given within the game; there are 180 Emblems in total. In order to gain all 180 Emblems, players must defeat every mission within every stage, achieve an A rank in all stages and missions, etc. After collecting all 180 Emblems the player unlocks an extra level 3-D Green Hill level. 3-D Green Hill is a remake of Green Hill Zone from the original Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Two-player mode

There are some characters that can only be played on two-player mode. These include, Amy Rose, Metal Sonic, Tikal the Echidna, Chaos, Chao, Dark Chao. On the dreamcast version these extra characters are unlockables, they do not come with the special abilities they get on the Gamecube. EggRobo (Kart Racing), and Big the Cat (Dreamcast only). However, using Action Replay these characters can be playable in single player mode.

A multitude of levels from single player are playable. The levels playable in two player mode are mostly the same as the normal game; Sonic, Shadow, Amy and Metal Sonic race, Tails, Eggman, Chao and Dark Chao(or Big) have a shootout, and Knuckles, Rouge, Tikal and Chaos hunt for emerald shards.

There is also another secret that is able to unlock on both Dreamcast and the Game Cube version.If you get an A rank on every character's missions (Game Cube Only), or beat every characters mission (Dreamcast Only) in one player mode you get a secret suit that you can only use in two player mode. These suits also look different in each version of the game, but Tails' and Knuckles' suits look the same in both (except Knuckles gets tribal marks with his suit in the Dreamcast version).

Plot

The Dark Story is the first to begin with Dr. Eggman breaking into a high-security G.U.N. facility where a secret weapon is being held, as he had discovered in his grandfather Gerald Robotnik’s diary. Eggman discovers that this weapon is Shadow the Hedgehog, the self-proclaimed ultimate life form. Shadow demonstrates his powers on a powerful security robot sent to contain him, and offers to grant Eggman one wish, asking to rendezvous with him on the Space Colony ARK. The Hero Story begins with Sonic escaping into Capital City after being mistakenly apprehended by G.U.N. forces for stealing a Chaos Emerald from Capital City. Defeating reinforcements sent to capture him, Sonic encounters another hedgehog named Shadow, who can use the power of the Chaos Emeralds to warp time and space with his special ability, Chaos Control. Sonic realizes that he had been mistaken by G.U.N. for Shadow, Shadow escapes and Sonic is captured. Shadow aims to use the powers of the Chaos Emeralds to avenge the death of Maria, Gerald Robotnik's granddaughter, who was killed by G.U.N. forces onboard the ARK.

Hero Story

Knuckles confronts a treasure hunter named Rouge the Bat over possession of the Master Emerald before Dr. Eggman arrives to steal it. Knuckles proceeds to deliberately shatter the Master Emerald to keep it out of his hands, knowing that he has the power to restore it, and begins traveling through the mountains to find the scattered pieces.

Tails travels in his mech, the Cyclone, to the top-security Prison Island where Sonic is being held, encountering Amy in trouble with Eggman. Tails saves Amy from Eggman and breaks Sonic out of prison. Sonic flees into the jungles of Prison Island where he encounters Shadow again. After getting into a fight, Sonic learns that the island is set to be destroyed by explosives, so he flees with Tails and Amy.

Eggman announces his plan to destroy Earth with his new weapon, the Eclipse Cannon, onboard the Space Colony ARK, lest he becomes supreme ruler. As a demonstration of its current level of power, Eggman destroys half of the moon with the cannon. Sonic, Tails and Amy realize that Eggman is using the power of the Chaos Emeralds to fuel the cannon, and that the effects would truly be devastating should he obtain all seven. Tails reveals that he is in possession of a Chaos Emerald himself, and the group uses it to track down the other six.

Knuckles, having been searching for the pieces of the Master Emerald during these events, emerges from the sewers and joins group. Believing the Emeralds to be with space, Tails tracks down the President while he is negotiating with Eggman and learns of Eggman's location. The heroes infiltrate Eggman’s secret pyramid base and narrowly board Eggman’s shuttle as it takes off for the ARK.

Tails reveals that he has created a counterfeit Chaos Emerald with the same wavelengths and properties as a real Emerald; however, it is designed to reverse the effects of the Emeralds and destroy the Eclipse Cannon. Sonic goes to place the fake Emerald in the cannon when Eggman announces that he has captured Tails and Amy and has them at gun point. Meanwhile, some of the Master Emerald pieces Knuckles recovered had fallen overboard the shuttle before it reached the ARK, and manages to salvage a few on a nearby asteroid field when he encounters Rouge again. During their confrontation, Rouge nearly falls to her death in a lava chamber beneath them when Knuckles saves her, but only for the Emerald pieces she has. Regardless, Rouge inexplicably relinquishes the pieces she had collected and runs off.

Sonic confronts Eggman over his friends, with Eggman demanding he hand over the Chaos Emerald. Sonic tries to give Eggman his fake Emerald but Eggman, taking a gamble, correctly assumes that it is fake and jettisons Sonic into space on an escape pod rigged with explosives. Sonic manages to use the powers of the fake Emerald to perform Chaos Control at the last second before the pod explodes. Tails, however, thinking that Sonic is dead, avenges him and defeats Eggman himself.

Sonic reappears in another part of the ARK and reaches the Eclipse Cannon where he finds Shadow waiting. Shadow is impressed with Sonic's abilities, but still aims to stop him. Sonic defeats Shadow in one final confrontation and destroys the Eclipse Cannon, during which Tails and Amy look out the window, relieved to see Sonic alive and well.

Dark Story

A treasure hunter named Rouge the Bat confronts Knuckles over possession of the Master Emerald before Dr. Eggman arrives to steal it. Knuckles proceeds to deliberately shatter the Master Emerald to keep it out of his hands, knowing that he has the power to restore it. Rouge vows to find the scattered pieces, finding a few in a nearby oasis.

While Rouge infiltrates Eggman's secret pyramid base to fulfill an undisclosed mission, Eggman arrives on the ARK and meets Shadow, who proposes using the ARK's ultimate weapon, the Eclipse Cannon, to help Eggman coerce the people of Earth into surrendering to him. To power the cannon, they need the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds. Joining in on this plot is Rouge, who offers to use her treasure-hunting skills to aid them.

With the three each in possession of their own Emerald, they only need four more. They locate three of the Emeralds on Prison Island. Eggman goes to distract the G.U.N. forces on the island, encountering Amy Rose and threatening to capture her before being caught up in Tails' timely intervention. Rouge manages to retrieve the three Emeralds, but is cornered by security. Shadow, having set explosives throughout the island, encounters Sonic again, but flees to save Rouge and the Emeralds and escape in the nick of time with Eggman.

With six Emeralds in their grasp, the three discover that Tails is in possession of the last. They follow the group of heroes to Eggman's base where Eggman confronts them, but they manage to escape on Eggman's shuttle to the ARK. When Rouge arrives, she plots to steal the Emeralds for herself when she learns that some pieces of the Master Emerald are nearby. She collects a few before encountering Knuckles again. During their confrontation, Rouge nearly falls to her death in a lava chamber beneath them when Knuckles saves her, but only for the Emerald pieces she has. Rouge inexplicably relinquishes the pieces she had collected and runs off.

Eggman discovers that the heroes appear to be in possession of two Emeralds; since there can only be one left, he deduces that one Emerald must be fake. He captures Tails and Amy to lure Sonic into a trap, jettisoning him into space with the fake Emerald on an escape pod rigged with explosives. The pod explodes and Sonic is apparently killed; Tails tries to avenge Sonic, but Eggman ultimately overpowers him.

Rouge, meanwhile, is confronted by Shadow, who realizes she is a government spy to prevent the firing of the Eclipse Cannon. Rogue counters by revealing evidence that Shadow may not be the ultimate life form as he believed. Eggman suddenly announces that, with all seven Emeralds in hand, he is ready to fire the Eclipse Cannon. Shadow goes to deliver the final Emerald when he encounters Sonic, very much alive, having used Shadow's ability of Chaos Control using the fake Emerald to escape to safety. Shadow is impressed by Sonic's abilities, but nonetheless defeats him. Eggman places the final Emerald in the cannon, and his dream of world domination is about to be fulfilled...

Last Story

The last story picks up where the first two stories left off. Though Eggman has placed the seven Chaos Emeralds into the Eclipse Cannon, it will not fire at Earth. He discovers an announcement made by his grandfather Gerald Robotnik, explaining that the Space Colony ARK will collide and destroy the Earth with the power of the Emeralds. All the others, save for Shadow, are at a loss at what to do, especially when Eggman gives them his grandfather's diary, which explains that Gerald went insane after his granddaughter Maria's death. It also reveals that Shadow, who was originally created by Gerald to benefit humanity, was finished to carry out Gerald's revenge.

The two sides agree that they must use the power of the Master Emerald to negate the effects of the Chaos Emeralds and stop the collision, and work together to reach the cannon's core. Shadow refuses to help until Amy tells him to give humanity a chance. Realizing this is what Maria would've wanted, Shadow goes off to assist the group.

Sonic and Knuckles reach the core and encounter the Biolizard, a prototype of Gerald Robotnik's experiments to create the ultimate life form, and thus the "Shadow" that Rouge had discovered earlier. Shadow arrives and defeats the Biolizard, allowing Sonic and Knuckles to place the Master Emerald in the core, designed to appear like the shrine of the Chaos Emeralds, and negate the Chaos Emeralds' power. However, the Biolizard revives and uses Chaos Control to fuse with the Eclipse Cannon, continuing the ARK's collision course. Sonic and Shadow use the power of the Chaos Emeralds to turn into Super Sonic and Super Shadow.

The two hedgehogs work together to defeat the Biolizard once and for all, and use the power of Chaos Control to stop the collision course and place the ARK back into Earth's orbit. However, Shadow's powers seem to have drained completely, and he plummets to Earth to his apparent death. The Earth saved, Sonic and the others think fondly of Shadow's courageous sacrifice before returning home. Although later in Sonic Heroes, everyone finds out that Shadow didn't really die, but fell to Earth unconscious. One of Eggman's robot's had been sent to pick up the body.

Chao and Chao World

Chao are children of Chaos, and are raised and taken care of much like real babies are taken care. They eat fruit from trees, and just like babies when first born, they do not know how to swim. Although they do know how to crawl from the moment they are born, otherwise when they crack from their eggs.

Chao World is the world full of the Chao, with gardens and a school. The school has a principle, a doctor, a fortune teller, a classroom for your Chao to learn, and a Black Market(where you can buy food and Chao eggs). The Black Market returns in Sonic Adventure DX. You can be every character to go to Chao World, except for Amy Rose.

Chao Garden is the home for Chao(For more information, go here). Here they can enter Chao Racing(for more information, go here). Also, if you hook up your Gameboy Advance to the Nintendo Gamecube, you can drop your Chao into a tranporter and then drop it into the Gameboy Advance, and you can play Tiny Chao Garden(this is for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Dreamcast holds Chao Adventure). There are trees for you to shake so that fruits will fall off for you to give to the Chao to eat.

For more information, go to The Chao Website

Villains

The Biolizard, Prototype of Ultimate Life, is a creature which appears as the second to last, and final, boss; it is also seen briefly in a flashback in Shadow the Hedgehog. The Biolizard appears as a giant and alien looking lizard with a life support system on its back with tubes running down its neck to its head. The massive creature can either attack by trying to bite its enemies with crushing jaws, or attempting to hit them with its tail. Biolizard can also generate large black orbs from its mouth, create smaller, but extremely numerous, pink egg-like orbs that it can shoot at a target and manipulate gravity. Additionally, as a product of Project Shadow, the creature can use Chaos Control.

The Biolizard was an earlier version of "Project Shadow", a government project run by Professor Gerald Robotnik that was intended to create an "Ultimate Lifeform" as a first step towards humanity discovering the secret of immortality. Due to the experiments, it later needed a life support system. While the Biolizard was successful in the way that it was could regenerate and restore itself, and could self-reproduce, it was also unruly and dangerous. It was locked away when Gerald, with the aid of the alien Black Doom, produced a more advanced being: Shadow the Hedgehog. The military, on Earth, began to worry and fear about what Robotnik was building on the ARK. When GUN came to Space Colony ARK in order to put a stop to Professor Gerald's plans, they found the Biolizard and captured it. It didn't go without a fight, however, and it killed almost all of the GUN soldiers.

The Biolizard remained encapsulated aboard the ARK until Doctor Eggman placed the seven Chaos Emeralds into the Eclipse Cannon. This initiated a hidden program by Gerald, that would use the Emeralds to power the ARK into a doomsday causing collision with the planet below. The program released the Biolizard to defend the Armageddon plan from tampering by the combined forces of Eggman, Sonic the Hedgehog and friends. But Amy Rose had convinced Shadow to help save the Earth, and he engaged and defeated the giant reptile in battle by damaging its Life Support System. Knuckles rushed in afterwards and used the Master Emerald to negate the power of the Chaos Emeralds, supposedly putting a halt to the collision course. However, the Biolizard then used Chaos Control to teleport outside and fuse with the space station itself, becoming the Finalhazard. Its body mounted on the eclipse cannon, it continued the rush towards Earth by pulling it there itself. As Finalhazard it attacks with the pink orbs and firing out energy beams from its damaged Life Support System. It was, however, weakened by the loss of its Life Support System, revealing slight weak points on its body, and was destroyed by the combined power of Sonic and Shadow in super form. Together, Sonic and Shadow then used Chaos Control to place the ARK back into orbit, ending the collision course and saving the planet. If an Action Replay code is used, it is easy to ignore the Finalhazard, and the screen will start to get red. This means its entering the atmoshpere. Sonic's friends and Eggman tell the player when the colony will enter the atmoshpere.

King Boom Boo is the king of all ghosts. He has ghost powers, but he and his ghost minions can lose power because of an artifact with a sun and moon side. When the "sun" side is up, it creates light and they lose power. When the "moon" side is up they become stronger and gain powers. These powers include throwing plasma balls and shooting a plasma beam from his mouth. He will also attempt to bite you at close range. He was defeated by Knuckles at the Death Chamber in Sonic Adventure 2 as a boss.

The Egg Golem is a boss character appearing in Sonic Adventure 2. After Knuckles the Echidna defeats King Boom Boo, Dr. Eggman appears and summons a giant animated statue called the Egg Golem to battle Sonic. To defeat the Egg Golem, Sonic must run to his back, jump across the platforms that stick out, and attack the Golem's control mechanism atop its head. On Dark Side, Eggman has to kill the Golem after Sonic kicks the control pad off its head, making it fight its master(Eggman). While this is happening, Sonic and his friends get into a rocket before it takes off.

Differences between Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2

Instead of jumping on a capsule at the end of a stage, the player jumps into a giant ring with a flashing word in the middle of the ring saying, "GOAL."
Adventure fields do not return in Sonic Adventure 2, but alternate stories return in the form of Dark Side and Hero Side. This game, though, does not have alternate stories for each character, and 3 characters are in one story. There is a 2 player gameplay, unlike Sonic Adventure.
When treasure hunting, the radar lacks the blue indicator, which indicated the Emerald was very close in the previous game.
Tails does not roam around any more without a mechanical system, and is always in the Cyclone in its walker mode. However, when roaming around Chao World, both Eggman and Tails run around without their walking robots, and Tails can fly around again, without getting tired as quickly as in Sonic Adventure.
A new action was added to Sonic and Shadow, the somersault.
The music to the speed up shoes is the same musical writing, but different instruments.
The personal theme songs for the heroic playable trio of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have been completely redone and appear completely different than how they were in the original Sonic Adventure.

Reception

Opinions of Sonic Adventure 2 are variable among both professional reviewers and fans of the Sonic series. At its initial release on the Dreamcast, Sonic Adventure 2 was the recipient of very positive reviews, averaging an 89% according to critic compiler Metacritic. However, the Nintendo GameCube port (Sonic Adventure 2 Battle) fared considerably worse in terms of reviews, despite having no single player gameplay changes from the Dreamcast version and only an 8-month gap between their releases.

To date, the game has done well with sales of 1.44 million units in North America alone, making it one of the GameCube's highest selling games, and it is still one of the most popular GameCube games. This game also made it to Player's Choice

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

There is an update called Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. This version of Sonic Adventure 2 was released on December 20, 2001 in Japan, February 12, 2002 in North America, and on the GameCube's launch (May 3, 2002) in Europe.

This game is also the first Sonic the Hedgehog game on a Nintendo system, having been released ten days before Sonic Advance in Japan.

Features and Differences

This game changed a large portion of raising Chao, the artificial life form available in both Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2. A Chao's stats can be viewed from within the game. The player can transfer one Chao from Sonic Adventure 2 Battle to the "Tiny Chao Garden" section in Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2, and Sonic Pinball Party with the GCN-GBA Link Cable. (If a Game Boy Advance is connected without a GBA Game inserted, a version of the Tiny Chao Garden can be copied temporarily into the Game Boy Advance's memory.) Also, the introduction of Chao Karate, in which the Chao stats are used for stats in fighting. The Chao fight in a fighting game style, but with minimal influence from the player and very little in the way of actual Karate. The layouts of all three Chao Gardens were changed slightly.

As with the Dreamcast version, after collecting all 180 Emblems, the player can unlock a 3-D version of the Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1, with a remixed version of the music from the original stage. Only Sonic is playable on this stage and while the player is given a ranking, it is not recorded on the map screen.

New "Battle" multiplayer options were added, including the addition of new characteristics to the multiplayer-exclusive characters (whom, in the original, had to be unlocked, but now additional features for the kart mode are unlocked for their previous requirements).

In the GameCube version, the boxes in the Crazy Gadget level have a red 'x' on them instead of the Dreamcast's version's green 'x'.

Minor special effects were added to the game, such as rain in White Jungle. Moreover, some cutscenes were redone slightly, with different or improved character animations and camera angles.

Quite noticeably, the cutscenes appear to play faster than on its original Dreamcast counterpart. Such as when the hero side crash lands on ARK and wonder where Knuckles had gone off to again.

Big the Cat's cameos did not remain in the stages, but he can still be viewed in some story sequences by rapidly pressing the A and B buttons throughout the scenes. He no longer appears in the Hero Side story. He was also replaced by the Dark Chao Walker in the game's multiplayer mode.

Another difference in this version can be found on the 5th Mission for the Cosmic Wall stage: as opposed to the requirement of 50,000 points for an A rank (as was the case on the Dreamcast version), 100,000 points are required instead.

The Dreamcast version is known for its infamous commercial which shows a scientist approaching a hedgehog labeled "Good Hedgehog" and petting it. The camera then goes to a tank labeled "Bad Hedgehog" where a cow is being lowered in. Eating sounds could be heard along with screams from the cow until the screen goes back to the bad hedgehog burping (this is a parody of a scene from Jurassic Park).

The Gamecube version's advertisement shows several real life hedgehogs being trained to take on the roles of Sonic and Shadow in the game.

Soundtracks

3 original soundtracks were released for Sonic Adventure 2: The vocal album called "Sonic Adventure 2 Vocals Collection: Cuts Unleashed" the score called "Multi-Dimensional Sonic Adventure 2 Soundtrack" and in North America the "Sonic Adventure 2 Official Soundtrack"