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The new HD graphics are not perfect, but they’re suitable. It’s a perfect side distraction from the traditional levels, and being forced to play through the levels isn’t as bad when you take your time looking for animals to enhance your Chao. Additionally, there’s a Kindergarten, races, karate fights, and a black market to offer plenty of chances to spend more time in the Chao Garden. There are even unique Chao evolutions, like one that resembles Sonic or the main character from NiGHTS. Chao Drives will increase stats but not change the physical appearance at all, in case you like the way your Chao already looks.Įventually, they will evolve depending on what kind of animals they were raised with. If a Chao is given a couple of gorillas, for example, that Chao will then take on a unibrow and purple gorilla appendages, along with a Power stat increase. Small animals and “Chao Drives” are found throughout the levels by destroying enemies, and when given to Chao, their stats begin to grow. Each Chao is a blank slate, ready to take on any characteristic and statistic given to it. It’s understandable, since its inclusion is what turns this from a weak 3D platformer into one of the greatest pet simulators of all time.įor the uninitiated, the Chao Garden is a lot like the Tamagochis of yore. With every new Sonic release, there will be someone out there clamoring for a new version of Sonic Adventure 2‘s Chao Garden. Perhaps the best news of all is that there’s finally a reason to go back and revisit the Chao Garden. Boss rush might have been entertaining if the boss fights weren’t already uninteresting, especially considering both the Hero and Dark sides have similar, if not identical, boss fights. There are three difficulties of simple races - no power-ups or special moves at all, which makes for an incredibly boring game mode. The kart racing is as barebones as possible. There are also kart racing and boss rush modes, neither of which are really worth the time. Emblems are rewarded for completing a level and are only used for getting unique Chao eggs from the Chao Black Market. There’s little incentive to complete them, except to get more Emblems. For example, one objective tasks you with finding a hidden Chao in each level, forcing you to explore the nooks and crannies within each.
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Every level has four alternate objectives to accomplish which are mildly entertaining and provide the opportunity to take a new approach. The Story Mode almost feels like work to get through, but after completing it, Sonic Adventure 2 opens up. They’re monotonous and just downright boring most of the time, making those longer fights feel like a trudge. None of the encounters are particularly interesting, either - each one usually consists of repeating a single tactic for up to five iterations. Some fights can take a whopping thirty seconds, but when the boss’s weak point isn’t clear, it can take upwards of five minutes as you try the limited options each character has. Other times, the camera will get stuck on walls or flip out and obfuscate your character. Many times you’ll want to see what you’re jumping down onto, but it is impossible and will result in you making a leap of faith, sometimes to your doom. It is possible to rotate the camera horizontally most of the time, but you cannot ever move the camera up and down. Hell, they are still messed up quite frequently today. This game comes from an era in which 3D videogame cameras weren’t quite understood. Sonic Adventure 2 has two stories: “Hero” and “Dark.” Each consists of three mission types: Sonic and Shadow run through some speedy 3D platforming, Tails and “Eggman” use their robots to go around shooting things, and Knuckles and Rogue need to find three pieces of whatever happened to scatter throughout the level. MSRP: $9.99 (PSN) / 800 Microsoft Points (XBLA) Sonic Adventure 2 (PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade ) The controls and camera are borderline offensive at times, but at least the Chao Garden is still as amazing as ever! Certain aspects of this high-definition re-release simply aren’t as enticing as they were over a decade ago. I can clearly remember rollin’ around at the speed of sound. I have some pretty vivid memories of spending entire days playing Sonic Adventure 2 on both the Dreamcast and GameCube.