Sonic Adventure 2

I used to bang this bad boy on the gamnecube way back when and i loved it runs well for an old ass game my only issue is controls are inverted by default

It's Sonic Adventure 2. What else is there to say. It's a perfect game lmao

It's been over 20 years since [i]Sonic Adventure 2[/i] was released originally for the Dreamcast, but for fans of the series, it's still worth revisiting for all of its goofy, edgy, early '00s glory, even in spite of some serious jank. [i]Sonic Adventure 2[/i] is a game of divides; its story is neatly divided into two halves (excluding the extra finale "chapter"), and it's core gameplay is divided into three game-modes. Mechanically, players will primarily find themselves zipping along obstacle-laden courses in typical Sonic the Hedgehog fashion, running through puzzle-and-platforming-driven obstacle courses, and timing automated run-and-gun segments. The course-driven racing sections are a delight; longtime fans will find a lot to chew on, between hidden ways to optimize runs and a difficulty curve that feels surprisingly fine-tuned once you get a handle on the somewhat floaty controls. The mecha run-and-gun sections are significantly less enjoyable, but they are at least over quickly and have an easily discerned rhythm; meanwhile, while they're probably less egregious overall, I found the easter-egg hunting levels to be a royal pain. They're not badly designed, but anyone losing patience with the non-racing levels has my sympathies and subsequent commiseration. The peaks of rail-grinding and time-trials are matched by the lows of slow-paced gameplay, resulting in a gameplay curve that feels engaging in aggregate but sometimes stifling in equal measure. But it's the other divide, the [i]narrative[/i] divide that is what makes [i]Sonic Adventure 2[/i] special, and any conversation surrounding it has to contend with the Hero and Dark story modes. Half of the game follows long-time series protagonists Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails the Fox, and Knuckles the Echidna as they are (somewhat typically) challenged to defeat the reliably-evil Dr. Eggman. However, the other half the game actually follows the main villains, including Eggman himself and then-series-newcomers Rouge the Bat and Shadow the Hedgehog. Both of the original [i]Sonic Adventure[/i] games are noteworthy for the odd but ambitious storytelling techniques they use, often decentralizing their plot by following a number of protagonists and falling back on unreliable narration. While the results here aren't entirely baked through (Knuckles and Rouge's inclusion in the story feels arbitrarily compulsory until the end of the first act in each campaign), the results are surprisingly compelling. Weirdly, the Dark campaign actually proves to be the better one, retroactively explaining and expanding on the events of the Hero campaign. It's messy, to be sure. The visuals are clearly in need of polish, the voice acting is about as laughable as you might imagine for most of the game's runtime, and when the game bugs out, it can be infuriating. However, the shonen-esque nonsense of the plot is surprisingly entertaining if weirdly paced, and by the time the credits roll for the third and final campaign, it's hard not be a little invested in the plot. It's the kind of high-octane, weirdly sincere cheese that could only come from its specific moment in time. Is it the best Sonic game? No, not even by a country mile. But there's also no escaping that it shifted the window on what these games were expected to be, and even franchise entries now are beholden to this old title. From modern fans clamoring for a return of the old Chao garden minigame to Shadow's return to the franchise in the [i]immediate[/] next Sonic title, people loved [i]Sonic Adventure 2[/i] in a way that echoed out into the surrounding pop cultural space. "Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog" nothing. Grab it on sale rather than the full $10, perhaps, but if you're even passingly interested, it's certainly worth a spin.