For more than 30 years, Sonic the Hedgehog has entertained fans worldwide. Whether television shows or video games, Sonic and his friends have created a community of love around the blue hedgehog for more than three decades.

The Sonic video games are where I really cut my teeth into the series. I still remember playing the first Sonic video game for the Sega Genesis. The 2D gameplay was revolutionary for its time in the 1990s, as Sega was competing with Mario titles on the Nintendo 64.

As Nintendo would slowly begin to pull away from Sega, the Sonic series had one more trick up its sleeve: Sonic Adventure, the series’ first 3D Sonic game. The game was released on the Sega Dreamcast console in 1998. The game was such a success for Sega that even though the Dreamcast busted as a console, forcing Sega to stop competing in the console business, before the demise of the Dreamcast, Sega released the sequel to Sonic Adventure in Sonic Adventure 2, the game that introduced the Sonic fanbase to one of the series’ most iconic characters in Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic’s rival and The Ultimate Lifeform.

While I thoroughly enjoyed Sonic Adventure (and still do to this day), Sonic Adventure 2 built on what worked in the original, and what became the end product is the most in-depth Sonic game of all time. From the plot, to the gameplay, to the replay value, Sonic Adventure has it all.

Plot

The presence of Sonic Adventure 2 is Dr. Eggman — Sonic’s arch nemesis since the series’ inception — breaks into Prison Island and begins storming through the base. He is searching for a top-secret military weapon that his grandfather, Professor Gerald Robotnik, had created. However, the military had shut it down, as they feared its power. He eventually finds it encased in a stasis capsule and unlocks it by entering the password “M-A-R-I-A.” The capsule unlocks, revealing Shadow, who thanks Eggman for freeing him. Shadow tells Eggman that, in return for freeing him, he will grant him one wish. Shadow simply tells Eggman to gather more Chaos Emeralds, a jewel in the Sonic series that harnesses energy for power, and meet him on the Space Colony ARK.

In the desert, Knuckles the Echidna and Rouge the Bat (a new character in Sonic Adventure 2 who is a government spy) are fighting for possession over the Master Emerald, which isn’t as powerful as the Chaos Emerald, but it allows Angel Island in the Mystic Ruins from Sonic Adventure to stay afloat. Suddenly, Eggman drops in and grabs the Emerald using a claw, forcing Knuckles, who we learn from Sonic Adventure is the guardian of the Master Emerald, to jump up and punch the Emerald, shattering it into pieces. 

While Rouge and Knuckles go search for Master Emerald shards, Eggman returns to his base in the desert, where he discovers Shadow broke into a bank. However, the news cast mistakes Shadow for Sonic. Sonic, who is now on the run trying to escape from the police, runs into Shadow for the first time. Sonic is amazed when Shadow uses Chaos Control to disappear when the police come and arrest Sonic.

Meanwhile, Eggman and Rouge make their way up to the Space Colony ARK, where Shadow reveals his grand plan: The Eclipse Cannon, a powerful weapon that if harnessed with all seven Chaos Emeralds, can rule the world. The trio agrees to work together and heads back to Earth to find the emeralds. While searching for Emeralds on Prison Island, Eggman interacts with Sonic’s friends Tails and Amy, who have come to rescue Sonic from prison after seeing him be mistakenly arrested on TV.

Once Eggman leaves Prison Island, Tails and Amy rescue Sonic from jail. At the same time, Rouge finds three Chaos Emeralds in a locked room and Shadow and Sonic meet up inside a green jungle, where Sonic learns Prison Island is about to blow up thanks to a bomb Eggman set in place. Shadow uses Chaos Control to save Rouge before the island blows up while Sonic also saves Amy and Tails.

Once they get back to the ARK, Eggman fires a test shot, with the Eclipse Cannon destroying the moon, with a countdown clock on every screen in the city counting down from 24 hours, signaling when Team Dark plans to use the weapon of mass destruction to destroy Earth. Seeing the countdown on the screen, Sonic, Tails and Amy meet up with Knuckles and use the Echidna’s treasure hunting skills to unlock Eggman’s base in the desert. After fighting an Eggman robot, the heroes use a rocket to fly up into space and chase Eggman on the Space Colony ARK.

While on the ARK, Knuckles and Rouge both finish finding the pieces of the Master Emerald and square off, where Rouge coincides the Master Emerald to her rival. Meanwhile, Sonic, Tails and Amy plan to trick Eggman into a fake Chaos Emerald that looks like a real Chaos Emerald and has the same wavelengths and properties of the real emerald, just not as powerful. However, what the heroes don’t know is Eggman hears their plan and tricks Sonic into entering this tube, which Eggman sends off towards Earth. While Amy and Tails think Sonic is plummeting to his death, what they don’t know is Sonic uses the fake Chaos Emerald to perform Chaos Control and escape the tube just before it crashes into Earth.

Shadow, shocked to see the blue hedgehog still alive, raises Sonic to the Eclipse Cannon, where Sonic stops the Cannon from firing.

In the last story, we learn Professor Gerald designed the Eclipse Cannon and Shadow for evil to get revenge on the people that killed his granddaughter Maria hundreds of years ago on the ARK. The heroes decide to work together to stop the Cannon from firing. In the final boss fight, Sonic and Shadow appear in their Super forms to stop the original ultimate life form biolizard from plummeting towards earth, but in the process, Shadow falls to his death. The game ends with a tribute to the black hedgehog. 

This plot is one of the darkest and deepest plots in the 30-plus year history of the Sonic series. There has never been a plot in a game in which Eggman is so evil. His voice sounds like pure hatred towards his rival, Sonic, and his plan is almost full proof. There’s multiple times where he threatens to kill Amy and not just with words, as he points a loaded gun at her on numerous locations. His Eclipse Cannon plan is almost full proof, and if it wasn’t for him finding out about his grandfather’s intentions, he probably would have controlled the world. He also is the smartest he’s ever been in any Sonic game. Tricking Sonic to walk into that tube with the fake emerald before launching him down to Earth was as close to a perfect plan Eggman has ever had. If it wasn’t for Sonic pulling off magic with the fake emerald, Eggman would have again succeeded in his quest. There was not really a fault with his plan; it was just Sonic being Sonic that caused his plan to fail.

Gameplay

Similar to its predecessor, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2 has different styles of gameplay. For Sonic Adventure 2, there are three different styles of gameplay:

1. Speed (Sonic and Shadow)
2. Mech (Tails and Eggman)
3. Treasure Hunting (Knuckles and Rouge)

The Speed gameplay plays exactly the way Sonic Adventure Sonic levels were played. They are full of action and enemies, and the fast play of the levels makes their replay value even higher than most Sonic games.

The Mech stages are similar to E-102 Gama’s story in Sonic Adventure. Unlike in the first Sonic Adventure game, Tails is in a shooting mech instead of free-flying. Him and Eggman both attempt to shoot enemies while working to the goal ring.

Treasure Hunting stages work similarly to Knuckles’ story in Sonic Adventure as well, however, the stages are much longer, and the radar only activates one out of the three items that are needed to be found at a time, instead of all three radar’s being on the whole time in the first Sonic Adventure game.

The Sonic/Shadow levels fly by, the Tails/Eggman stages are not difficult for the most part, and the Knuckles/Rodge levels always present good replay value with the distance of the maps and the randomness of where the Emeralds will spawn.

Replayability

Speaking of replay value, Sonic Adventure 2 has the best replayability value out of any video game, maybe ever! The reason? The 180 emblems.

In Sonic Adventure 2, once you complete a stage, you earn an emblem. In the game, you can collect 180 emblems, which leads to a secret 3-D version of the first-ever Sonic level, Green Hill Zone. However, collecting all 180 emblems is extremely difficult, and a task I have yet to complete, and I’ve had the game for more than two decades!

Why is achieving this near-impossible task so difficult? There are 31 stages in the game (16 from the Hero Story, 14 from the Dark Story, and one from the Last Story). Each stage (besides the two cart racing stages) have the same five missions:

1. Normal
2. Collect 100 rings
3. Find the Lost Chao
4. Time Trial
5. Hard Mode

If you add the 10 other missions between the two cart racing levels, that equals 155 total emblems players can achieve just by completing the missions (31*5). If players achieve an ‘A’ rank on all missions with each of the six characters, they earn an emblem for each character. Defeating all three boss modes (Hero, Dark, and All) earn players three emblems, and the same applies to the Kart Racing Mode (Easy, Medium, and Hard). Achieving all those tasks put the players at 167 emblems. The remaining emblems can be found by playing the Chao Garden.

Chao Garden

The Chao Garden is one of the best features in the game. Players can open blue chao boxes while playing levels and not getting hit once acquiring the Chao Garden key. The Chao Garden allows players to feed their Chao Chaos Drives, which can be found by defeating enemies in levels, to upgrade their chao and raise them as either Hero or Dark chao, depending on the player they are using. Upgrading chao takes a long time, but the reward allows players to participate in chao games to completely 100% the game.

Final thoughts

There’s a reason why Sonic Adventure 2 is still relevant and played by many YouTuber’s today. There’s so much to do in the game, the plot is the most intense plot in any Sonic game, and the replayability of the game from both the mission and Chao Garden perspective makes the game stand out from other games of the Sonic series, both past and present. There’s also hidden upgrades the players acquire that are not needed to complete the main objectives, but they are required to complete missions three and five of levels. 

All of the hidden Easter Eggs in the game makes Sonic Adventure 2 never feel old. It is a game that has continued to stay relevant for two-plus decades. It is, indeed, the greatest Sonic game of all time.