Sonic Adventure 2 Discussion, Speculation, Media Topic

[Chooch]

I find it weird that people are mocking the story NOW as if people really did take it 100% seriously. Stuff like Sonic jumping into the limo was just meant to be fun and kind of out there. You guys are talking as if the kids of 2001 were sitting in their speccy glasses going WHOOOA. INTENSE.

But I was a kid in 2001 and I did do that.

[goku262002]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2St0S9eLFhg

Yeah, Can someone subtitle the previous video? this voiceover is just too damned boring and rather hear their voices instead even if its in another language.

EDIT: wait a sec, they are 2 seperate interviews. well get both in japanese and sub them.

Edited October 6, 2012 by goku262002

[Law]

The only thing keeping this game popular now is nostalgia.

[Komodin]

The only thing keeping this game popular now is nostalgia.

This, and the Chao Gardens, for some nigh-inexplicable reason.

[Stritix]

The only thing keeping this game popular now is nostalgia.

Not at all. I don't have any nostalgia with it, and I'm having tons of fun with the game.

[SilJeff]

I think this game has aged pretty well. ESPECIALLY if you consider SA1's aging

[buba]

Well, well, well, what do we have here?

3 games for me to try for the first time.

[Space☆Tomoki]

Got the XBLA port on Thursday. It's a pretty fun game, just as I remembered it. The color saturation and the HD resolution does wonders for the game, imo; it looks absolutely gorgeous in HD. The game feels great on the 360 controller as well. The speed stages are great as usual, and strangely enough, the treasure hunting and shooting levels weren't as bad as I remember them... maybe that's because I'm more experienced now? I don't know. *shrugs* I'm glad Big's cameos are back, as I've never owned the Dreamcast version, so now I can experience Big's silly cameos for the first time. Feels good, man. My only complaint so far is that some of the in-game cutscenes are in 4:3 still. Sucks that SEGA couldn't get all the in-game cutscenes to be widescreen, but yeah, this will probably be my go-to version of the game, as I am still too lazy to hook up my Wii or Gamecube to play it.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Spider-Man Noir

[Faseeh]

The interviews are up on Youtube but I don't feel like watching them as much as I am tempted to. I'd be nice to watch them after actually playing this port.

Anyways, I watched it for a while. Takashi's English voice is nice. ~~~

Edited October 6, 2012 by Faseeh

[Tornado]

I find it weird that people are mocking the story NOW as if people really did take it 100% seriously. Stuff like Sonic jumping into the limo was just meant to be fun and kind of out there. You guys are talking as if the kids of 2001 were sitting in their speccy glasses going WHOOOA. INTENSE.

At what point in the past decade were there people who were not taking it 100% seriously and making it known just how much of a pinnacle of storytelling it was? We'd all be dead from alcohol poisoning if we played a drinking game for how many times people have claimed the series needed to go back to "dark and serious and mature stories like Adventure 2;" especially every time a simple and silly game (Heroes, Colors) comes out.

Hell, even I did it 8 or so years ago when I was new around here.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Tornado

[JezMM]

I dunno, the way I always saw it knew it has cheesy presentation, but it was still a much more complex plot than we've had in recent years, at least in the sense that... stuff actually HAPPENED. It felt like a series of events linked together rather than just "Opening Act Of Story - Do A Load Of Levels - Closing Act Of Story".

[Chooch]

Now that this game's level design and story events are fresh in my head I have to say:

I still think the first Sonic Adventure is a better game. Sorry guys.

[...]

Now that this game's level design and story events are fresh in my head I have to say:

I still think the first Sonic Adventure is a better game. Sorry guys.

[Soniman]

And it's quite ironic, since the sequel is most of the time, supposed to improve upon the problems the first game had, and add something new to the table.

[Jango]

Fun Fact: The game is 11 years old. A time where just about every 3D game had bugs :V

[JezMM]

SA1 and SA2 were wholly different games. SA2 did improve and answer to a lot of the criticisms of SA1, but it also did them in such a way that brought in whole new criticisms. I consider 2006 more a natural sequel to SA1 in terms of gameplay than I do SA2 to be honest.

With regards to bug fixes and such at the end of the day I get the impression that SEGA gave this the money and time required to add in the mandatory "new stuff" rereleases require (achievements, leaderboards, uhh... a "Help And Options" menu item... and now they realise HD and widescreen), but not the time to fix stuff, which would have probably required breaking down and rebuilding the game at this late stage, a proper remake.

Edited October 6, 2012 by JezMM

[-Mark-]

Finished both this along with NiGHTS yesterday.

Man though, there were some serious issues with the sound in this port. The voices were constantly drowned out by the BGM, which was in turn drowned out by the sound effects. Omochao? What Omochao? He sounds like a quiet mumble at best in this version. It's quite annoying, but certainly not game-breaking, at least.

I found it a little jarring that cutscenes kept alternating between 16:9 and 4:3. Whilst FMV obviously can't be 'expanded' in the same way cutscenes using the in-game graphics can be, there were quite a few of the latter left in 4:3 as well, as well as some of the cutscenes being made noticeably darker in this version. I'm guessing there were some visual effects used in cutscenes that were made for 4:3, and would just 'stop' at the edge of the original screen ratio. Okami's Wii port had this problem a bit too, so I'm guessing they thought it would look better to just leave any custcenes in question bordered.

One weird thing is that, in a couple of very rare cases, you can see where the scenery cuts off sometimes; basically stuff from fixed camera angles that was originally off-screen due to being in 4:3, you can now see since it's widescreen. Only happens literally once or twice, but it's still a little odd.

A few of the later cutscenes were darkened as well, it felt like I was watching Pokemon back after the Porygon epilepsy scare. D:

EDIT: Regarding bugs etc that remained unchanged, it's a port. Ports very rarely fix anything unless it's absolutely game-breaking or has a serious impact on the game. SA2 has nothing like that. Also, going in and editing parts of the game takes much more time and effort than just the usual porting procedure.

Edited October 6, 2012 by -Mark-

[Jango]

Man, I can accept all the bugs and oddities, but those pixelated textures piss me off A LOT. It's absolutely ugly to look at, seriously. And now that new texture glitch I've pointed up, in the first TailsxEggman boss, where the skybox texture get mixed with a piece of the battleship, that is completely UGLY and AMATEUR, since that didn't even happen in the DC or GC version...

I had a laugh with the "How to Play", it says one of the functions of the Battle DLC is change the tittle screen lol

Oh, and the Battle DLC didn't put Big in Wild Canyon.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Jango

[Shane]

Speaking of Big, is Wild Canyon the only level he's missing from, or have you guys found more levels where he didn't appear?

[-Mark-]

Was he in Wild Canyon originally, or have they just missed him from this?

[Jango]

Was he in Wild Canyon originally, or have they just missed him from this?

[Stritix]

Fun Fact: We're in 2012. A time when we have the technology and hardware to fix these bugs :V

[Marcello]

Fixing bugs would break the game. Break it!

[Jango]

They did fix quite a lot of bugs in the new HD port.

I want you to name these lots of bugs, because I still had encountered most of then... texture glitches or not.

[TheOcelot]

SA1 and SA2 were wholly different games. SA2 did improve and answer to a lot of the criticisms of SA1, but it also did them in such a way that brought in whole new criticisms. I consider 2006 more a natural sequel to SA1 in terms of gameplay than I do SA2 to be honest.

With regards to bug fixes and such at the end of the day I get the impression that SEGA gave this the money and time required to add in the mandatory "new stuff" rereleases require (achievements, leaderboards, uhh... a "Help And Options" menu item... and now they realise HD and widescreen), but not the time to fix stuff, which would have probably required breaking down and rebuilding the game at this late stage, a proper remake.

I expect it would have cost SEGA a lot more to fix the bugs in SA2, than in last years Sonic CD re-release, thanks to Christian Whitehead doing most of the work for them. That's assuming that SEGA really do have the budget to spend.

I don't think SA2 is a bad port, just perhaps not a great one.