Review by: Matthew Dujnic
Published: March 14, 2002

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is the second Sonic title to hit Nintendo hardware. The requisite response is probably a half smile and a comment along the lines of, “Never thought we’d see the day.” Sonic was, after all, conceived as a mascot to topple Mario. The Sega vs. Nintendo days are over, though, and now that Sonic has graced the GameCube, it’s become clear this town really is big enough for the both of them. That’s because the two mascots rule two completely different types of platform gaming. Mario may hold the ledge to ledge, head stomping crown, but what Sonic does, Sonic does best, and he’s back to do it some more in this latest installment.

Doctor Eggman is back, once again looking for the ultimate power to control the world. This time, his plan is to commandeer a weapon from GUN, a top-secret military organization. The weapon he seeks is said to be some sort of ultimate life form. Eggman soon discovers this life form is actually a mysterious black hedgehog called Shadow. Shadow leads the doctor to the true prize: the enormous space colony, ARK. There, they reactivate the station’s Eclipse Cannon, a weapon powerful enough to destroy the Earth. But to realize its full destructive power, they will need all seven Chaos Emeralds. Lucky for them, a sassy treasure-hunting bat named Rouge offers her help to retrieve the emeralds.

Meanwhile, Sonic finds himself being pursued by GUN troops, who have apparently mistaken him for the escaped Shadow. Sonic and his friends, Tails and Knuckles, subsequently stumble upon Eggman’s nefarious plan. The narrative continues to unfold as real-time cutscenes between Action Stages, but in truth, the game’s story doesn’t fit together as well as the cleverly threaded plot of the first Sonic Adventure. Unlike the first game, though, Adventure 2 is focused exclusively on action, so the plot isn’t of primary concern. From the beginning, you can choose to play either the Hero or the Dark story. Both quests have their own set of Action Stages. No matter which quest you choose (you can even skip back and forth), you’re in for three different styles of platforming.

The first style is the series signature: high-speed hedgehog action. In these stages, you run as either Sonic or Shadow through elaborate rollercoaster-like settings. Flying leaps, half-pipes and loop-de-loops comprise your path; it’s about speed, not exploration. Dash plates zip you ahead; springboards bounce you about, and some stages feature bungie cords and streetboarding for more high-speed action. This play style is a polished rendition of similar levels from the first Sonic Adventure, but there are some significant additions. For example, the grind shoes. They allow your hedgehog to slide along rails in the Jet Set Radio fashion. In the beginning, rail grinding is limited to a few fun moments, but some later levels are composed almost entirely of rails, so this technique must be mastered.

Secondly, there are the shooting stages. Again, anyone familiar with the first Sonic Adventure will immediately recall the ED-103 robot. The action is the same this time around, except you now control Tails or Eggman inside a two-legged machine. You are armed with a lock-on cannon, which is activated by holding down the fire button. While the button is held down, you can swing the laser sight around, targeting enemies. When you release the button, missiles launch to dispatch them. The more targets you destroy at once, the higher you score for each hit. These stages move at a slower pace than the hedgehog ones, though the path from start to goal is still linear. Jump from platform to platform, blast anything in your way, and eventually you’ll reach your objective.