Sonic Adventure VS Adventure 2 Breakdown

[SpongicX]

I notice how there are a lot of Sonic fans across the internet who argue over whether Sonic Adventure 1 is better than Sonic Adventure 2, yet they can never seem to give any good reasons or breakdowns as to why they like one over the other. I decided to come right out and discuss what I personally find to be the best Sonic Adventure game, while breaking down what I liked and disliked about each game, to help explain the reasoning for my choice. If you don't agree, that's fine, it's just my personal opinion, we don't need to turn it into a debate. I'm just here to say what I liked more, and why. I'll give some comparisons between how each Adventure game handled certain things, while also including elements that each game had over the other. 

I thought the first game, both the Dreamcast and DX version were better. They  had better gameplay, lighting and shading effects, better controls, faster speeds, better physics, music, better level designs, and a better sense of exploration. 

If I can give one thing that Adventure 2 had over the original Sonic Adventure, would be it's final episode. While the final story in Sonic Adventure had amazing build up, I'm afraid the fight itself was anti climatic. The in game model of Perfect Chaos was lame, compared to the awesome CGI monster we saw in the opening of this game, same with the water effects. I'm aware that technology wasn't strong enough to portray that final battle any better, but at least Sonic Generations showed how awesome that battle would have been with modern graphics, and they didn't even need Super Sonic for that! But Sonic Adventure 2 definitely had the better finale. It's plot twist struck many first time players out of nowhere, and got players wondering what the heck is going on. Even with such awful voice acting, the story of Sonic Adventure 2 still came out strong. It marked the first time Eggman and Sonic had to work together, I also liked how we had to control the other characters as they helped out with trying to stop Gerald Robotnik's revenge scheme from destroying the planet. I loved how Amy talked some sense into Shadow, which caused him to assist Sonic into defeating the Bio-Lizard, and of course, Shadow's heroic sacrifice still hits me in the heart every time. Even knowing that Shadow will come back in Sonic Heroes, I still get sad every time I see Shadow die, and give out his last words to Maria. 

Adventure 2 also had better sound effects in certain parts of the games, especially when it came to the sound effects from explosions. In the original Adventure, explosions gave out a cartoony squash sound effect, where Adventure 2 gave out a firey boom or smash sound. Adventure 2 also had some nice improvements to the Chao garden, like the Hero and Dark Chaos, Chao Karate, more missions for Race Mode, the ability to teach your Chao to plant special trees, etc.

Other than the finale, sound effects, and Chao Garden addittions, I really found Sonic Adventure 2 to be lackluster compared to the first. There were far too many shooting and treasure hunting levels. Although there were different gameplay varieties in Sonic Adventure, there were still fewer of those stages compared to the Sonic action stages. I even liked playing as the other characters. Their small doses of different gameplay didn't drag the game down for me, although I would have preferred each character to at least have an optional replay mode for going through the same stages as Sonic. I didn't even mind Big the Cat's levels, some were hard at first, but I personally liked the fishing missions. 

Sonic Adventure 2's levels all felt too similar in appearance, there were too many stages about cities, deserts, temples, harbors, highways, and space. I also got annoyed with how there were more stages for treasure hunting and shooting than there were for Sonic and Shadow. There just aren't enough stages for Sonic and Shadow. I also hated how Tails was only playable in the Cyclone, it would have been neat to be able to get in and out of the Cyclone. I like controlling Tails on foot more than being stuck with a slow and heavy machine. Another thing that bugged me was how Team Hero and Dark's gameplay was too similar with their counterparts. It would have been nice to see more differences between Tails and Eggman, Knuckles and Rouge, and Sonic and Shadow. Maybe if Team Dark had differences from Team Hero, like Shadow being able to shoot Chaos spears as a projectile attack, Eggman to have the ability to fly in his Egg Mobile, or have Rouge fly instead of glide, maybe the gameplay would have been a little more fresh, instead of feeling like twice the amount of unwanted gimmicky levels. 

I liked how Sonic had fast momentum in Sonic Adventure, but I felt he was a bit more sluggish in Adventure 2. The action stages felt a lot slower than the speeds Sonic could run at in Sonic Adventure. In the first game, Sonic's Spin Dash was the best interpretation of Sonic's spin dash in a 3d Sonic game. The speed and controls for Sonic's spin were fast and smooth, and made traveling a lot more fun and easier as Sonic, along with being able to quickly cancel his spin dash to pick up some speed on certain terrains. In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic's spin dash made it a lot harder to constantly use the spin dash to pick up speed, since they gave sonic a somersault kick when pressing b, instead of holding b. Sonic's somersault kick does not give Sonic speed, and even slows him down. Sonic Adventure allowed players to keep curling and uncurling Sonic's spin dash, to gain a lot of momentum and speed, but Adventure 2 got rid of that. 

The light speed dash was easier to use in Sonic Adventure, since it's use was set up to allow players to take their time to charge it up. While Sonic Adventure 2 made the light speed dash faster to access, they designers made the horrible decision to have the light speed dash share the same button as Sonic's bounce command. This ended up causing sonic to sometimes miss a trail of rings, and drop straight off a cliff fall instead. This issue even carried on over to Sonic 06, and wasn't fixed until Sonic Unleashed, where they finally gave the light speed dash it's own button, instead of sharing the same button as the action command.  Shadow's light speed dash worked a lot better, but it's probably due to not having an action command while in midair, which makes jumping and light speed dashing a whole lot easier. It's not just mid air trails of rings that were the problem though, towards the beginning of Green Forest, if you take Sonic towards the left path, there will be a trail of rings along the ground, yet the light speed dash command becomes unresponsive at many times, and it's hard to 100% successfully perform a light speed dash, without trying again after at least one failed attempt. Adventure's light speed dash may have been more time consuming, but it was more functional than Adventure 2's. 

One fault both games have are glitches. Sonic Adventure's glitches are mostly occurred by stage design faults, rather than controls, while other glitches might occur from bad luck, like slowing down, or accidentally running off the dock in Emerald Coast, during the whale chase. Adventure DX seemed to have more glitches than the Dreamcast version even. However, most of the glitches in Sonic Adventure are easy to avoid if you remember how they were triggered in the first place. Some might remember how running up against an edge in Emerald Coast might cause Sonic to clip through and die, but players will likely keep in mind next time to not run so close to the edge next time. Adventure 2's glitches are a bit more frustrating, especially for players who are trying to get a perfect rank on each stage. I already went over Sonic's faulty light speed dash, but there's also the wonky cameras in certain stages, especially for Rouge's outer space stage, which makes gliding away from the gravitational pulls to be incredibly time consuming. Glitches that occur from stage designs, which can easily be avoided upon first experience can be less frustrating than glitches that can occur many times from bad control responses and bad camera work.  Sonic Adventure did have a wonky camera at times, especially during Sonic's version of the Final Egg level, but the game actually had adjustable cameras for auto and manual controls, to help fit a player's preference. It even allowed players to look up and down. Adventure 2's camera controls only consisted of rotating left or right, so if the camera locked onto a spot that blocks off your view from above or bellow, there are times where it's impossible to rotate the camera left or right to fix your view. 

As for the visuals, while Sonic Adventure 2 had better 3d models, textures, animations, mouth movements, and backgrounds, it just wasn't as appealing though. The game lacked a lighting engine, which even the original Dreamcast version had. I liked seeing the colorful cast of characters have a shiny appearance to them, it gave a sort of visual flare to the game. Sonic Heroes on the other hand had too much of it, and it was more like a solid white gloss, instead of the soft phong lighting used in Sonic Adventure. Sonic Adventure 2 just all around had a darker color scheme , and very thick shadows. I liked it better in Adventure, where it had a good mixture of light and dark, along with colorful lighting and soft shading effects that even interchange depending on where you go in the game. I liked how the beach levels in Sonic Adventure gave a sunny gloss, I love how the snow level gave a freezing look with it's lighting, how the fire filled areas had a burning red and orange glow, etc. Sonic Adventure just had visuals that gave the game a more adventurous feel, while Sonic Adventure 2 just felt grimy most of the time. Even when the characters were standing under intense sunlight, the characters still looked like they got an overcooked tan on their skin, the lack of lighting effects in Sonic Adventure 2 just didn't look right to me. 

I also liked the sound track in Sonic Adventure a lot better. Adventure 2 had some memorable songs and background themes, like City Escape, Live and Learn, Bio-Lizard, and Metal Harbor, but a lot of the music in that game was annoying for me. I didn't like any of the Knuckles rap music (dodges a bunch of stuff being thrown at me by angered fans), and I didn't like the repetitive sounding espionage like music for Rouge. Hearing those tunes loop over and over got annoying for me, especially since they weren't catchy for me. The rest of the game was mostly filled with too much rock and roll, and no other variety. Not to mention how awful the sound mixing was in that game, how can anyone hear what the characters are saying without subtitles, when the music is blasting so loud through the speakers, that you hear nothing but a bunch of muffled banter behind it all. Sonic Adventure had better character themes, a chilling, yet exciting main theme that carried over well into the final battle. While I liked Live and Learn, I thought it was a little too upbeat to be used for the final battle in Adventure 2. It worked well as a main theme, but not epic enough for a showdown as threatening as having two super powered hedgehogs trying to prevent a hurtling space colony from smashing into Earth. 

Adventure also had a better  variety of music. Sonic Adventure had more than just electric guitars rocking out through the entire game. We also had some music that gave a lot of fitting atmosphere to the levels we were exploring. Windy Valley gave a soft and chimey atmosphere, which changes from sounding like a panic filled storm, to turning into a wild free ride running down loops. Twinkle Park gave out a sense of excitement, like you're a kid thinking an amusement park is a dream come true, while the mirror room segment of Amy's version of that level gives off the feeling of being lost and scared in a maze full of illusions, while something menacing may be chasing you. The African inspired music and chanting from Mystic Ruins gives off a majestic sense of wonder and mystery, while the music of Lost World gives a sense of danger and mystery at every turn. 

Sorry that this breakdown is so long, but so many people go around saying they like Sonic Adventure or Adventure 2 more, without going into detail or reasons as to why they like one over the other. I just thought I would put some deep analysis to discuss why I personally like Adventure more than Adventure 2. If no one agrees with me, that's fine, it's just my opinion, but my intention is to reach out to those that may feel the same way about Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, but they can't quite explain the reason why.  

If anyone would like to say which Adventure game they liked more, please feel free to comment on this topic. Just please be respectful towards others' who may have opinions different than yours. This is meant to be a discussion on what we like to see in 3d Sonic games, and should not be treated like an argument thread. 

[TB100]

While Sonic Adventure 2 did better in terms of presentation & story, (The cutscenes have aged better & the story is less convoluted then SA1.) When it comes to the soundtrack & gameplay, Sonic Adventure is defintely the superior game in my opinion. (In fact, SA1 is my favorite 3D Sonic game, and it's my second favorite Sonic game just behind S3&K.)

[Baconjack]

I really really like both Adventure 1 and Adventure 2 in different ways; such as:

• Adventure 1 had a better soundtrack, sorry Live & Learn fans.
• Adventure 2 had far better cutscenes and had a better story that encouraged you to play both stories, although the sound editing was rubbish in English because the cutscenes were made for Japanese, although Adventure 2 was made by the US division of Sonic Team.
• Adventure 1 had marginally better gameplay, although the camera wasn't as good, the levels were well designed in Adventure and the controls were better in Adventure 1 for a keyboard.

However, I find Adventure 1 to be the slightly better game, although Adventure 2 is great, nostalgic value puts SA1 one place above SA2 in my favourite Sonic games.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'm hearing this a lot, but what makes SA1's soundtrack "better?" Kinda interested in knowing why.

[FriendBot]

I guess people argue that Adventure's music is better because of its diversity while pretty much two-thirds of Adventure 2's music is rock. Though I'd argue that Adventure 2's music is more memorable.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

17 minutes ago, Soni said:

I guess people argue that Adventure's music is better because of its diversity while pretty much two-thirds of Adventure 2's music is rock. Though I'd argue that Adventure 2's music is more memorable.

I don't know about two thirds given that each character has a musical theme in their levels, what with Rouge having jazz and Bossa Nova, Knuckles with Hip Hop and R&B, Shadow with Industrial and Drum and Bass, and such. More so when that's a good half of the game.

Now that's diverse.

[TB100]

I think in the end of the day, it all comes down to personal perference on which Adventure is better. (I think an important factor is which one you started wth, People who played SA1 before SA2 are more likely to say SA1 is better, and vice versa.) but i think something we can all agree on, is that while they're still fun, both games have aged horribly over the passage of time, & that they both deserve a proper remastering as opose to the shitty ports we got instead. 

[SpaceySpace]

After replaying both games these past 2 months I gotta go with SA2. SA2 DOES HAVE some repetitive soundtrack HOWEVER I feel like people enjoy the 1st game's soundtrack because they hear it more? Due to most of the characters sharing the same levels which I considered to be a flaw. On top of that even though SA2 & SA1 have roughly the same amount of stages SA1 is LONGER in a bad way. Since:

• You can't skip any cutscenes (until DX)
• You watch the same cutscenes OVER & OVER Again with different characters (Chaos 4's transformation 3 times & the Gamma vs Sonic one 4 times).
• 7 unskippable end credits.

I'll admit SA1 had a much more "charming plot" but it just dragged on too long for my taste unlike SA2.

On 11/27/2016 at 8:26 PM, SpongicX said:

The light speed dash was easier to use in Sonic Adventure, since it's use was set up to allow players to take their time to charge it up

I gotta disagree with you there buddy. SA2's light dash wasn't perfect due to the button placement but I really had an issue when I was in the sewer recently...

Although I DO agree that Shadow had a WAY BETTER time of using the light dash because it doesn't have the bounce bracelet.  

On 12/6/2016 at 7:23 AM, BlueBlur91 said:

 

I think in the end of the day, it all comes down to personal perference on which Adventure is better.

 

Absolutely agreed. It is a lot like food tastes. Some of you guys might enjoy peanut butter but I for one DESPISE it & can't even stand the smell of it. Doesn't mean I'm wrong or right it is just my taste/opinion.

On 12/5/2016 at 4:42 PM, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

I don't know about two thirds given that each character has a musical theme in their levels, what with Rouge having jazz and Bossa Nova, Knuckles with Hip Hop and R&B, Shadow with Industrial and Drum and Bass, and such. More so when that's a good half of the game.

Now that's diverse.

Which soundtrack did you prefer then?

[SpongicX]

On 12/6/2016 at 7:23 AM, BlueBlur91 said:

I think in the end of the day, it all comes down to personal perference on which Adventure is better. (I think an important factor is which one you started wth, People who played SA1 before SA2 are more likely to say SA1 is better, and vice versa.) but i think something we can all agree on, is that while they're still fun, both games have aged horribly over the passage of time, & that they both deserve a proper remastering as opose to the shitty ports we got instead. 

Adventure 2 was my first Sonic game actually, and I liked it, but I grew to love Adventure DX more. 

On 12/9/2016 at 1:06 PM, SpaceySpace said:

After replaying both games these past 2 months I gotta go with SA2. SA2 DOES HAVE some repetitive soundtrack HOWEVER I feel like people enjoy the 1st game's soundtrack because they hear it more? Due to most of the characters sharing the same levels which I considered to be a flaw. On top of that even though SA2 & SA1 have roughly the same amount of stages SA1 is LONGER in a bad way. Since:

• You can't skip any cutscenes (until DX)
• You watch the same cutscenes OVER & OVER Again with different characters (Chaos 4's transformation 3 times & the Gamma vs Sonic one 4 times).
• 7 unskippable end credits.

I'll admit SA1 had a much more "charming plot" but it just dragged on too long for my taste unlike SA2.

I gotta disagree with you there buddy. SA2's light dash wasn't perfect due to the button placement but I really had an issue when I was in the sewer recently...

Although I DO agree that Shadow had a WAY BETTER time of using the light dash because it doesn't have the bounce bracelet.  

Absolutely agreed. It is a lot like food tastes. Some of you guys might enjoy peanut butter but I for one DESPISE it & can't even stand the smell of it. Doesn't mean I'm wrong or right it is just my taste/opinion.

Which soundtrack did you prefer then?

These are just opinions dude, calm down...