Riding on the success of the original launch title, Sonic Adventure 2 for Sega Dreamcast arrived worldwide on June 23, 2001. That's 10 years exactly after the first game was launched across the world on Sega's Genesis and MegaDrive systems, and as you can imagine, Sega and their mascot have changed considerably over the years. The original Sonic Adventure went down pretty smoothly with Dreamcast owners, eager for games to feed their new baby. As such, the average gamer was enveloped in the then-amazing speed of the title (an astounding near-constant 30fps), its textured environments and the classic Sonic gameplay that had been virtually unchanged since the original title. So much so, that the game's frequent collision detection, clipping and graphical problems were ignored or dismissed. But the flaws were there, probably due to SonicTeam's last minute working against the clock to get the game out to new Japanese Dreamcast owners. Have SonicTeam delivered a more polished product this time around?

Well, the RPG-like elements of the first title are all but gone now, save for the fact that the characters still get basic upgrades to their characters' abilities. Adventure Fields have been ditched in favor of a linear structure which follows characters from level to level, and character selection is no longer an option players are given.

This avoids the slight disappointment of the first game's promise of 6 characters - while it was technically true, it was easy to see that the game had been modeled around Sonic and the remaining 5 characters' sub-games were simply remixes of his levels, or cutting-room floor ideas if you will. Personally I would have loved to see the RPG-style elements come back to this title. Although I didn't think they were Sonic-styled in the strictest sense, I thought they fit into the first game very well and gave a welcome break from the action. The storyline this time around is much the same as before. Dr Eggman (alias Robotnik) is still trying to take over the world. Slight sci-fi touches have been injected into the plot with the introduction of Sonic's lookalike and rival, Shadow, who has been designed to be the "ultimate life form". That's really about as deep as it gets.

Comparisons aside, the classic Sonic gameplay here is still present - well, at least some of the time. There are two basic quests, one for the Hero side containing Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and also the Dark side featuring Shadow, Eggman and Rouge. Sonic and Shadow's levels are by far the best in the game - running, jumping and collecting rings, as before. Tails' levels are a bitter disappointment - whereas the first Sonic Adventure title saw him flying free, Sonic Adventure 2's replacement is the exact opposite: Tails and Eggman are locked into robot machines and have to target enemies, much like E102 Gamma in the first game. This restriction of movement cripples these levels and makes them seem more like slow-moving highway pileups. Knuckles and Rogues' levels are in the middle of the scale in terms of playability - they're allowed the most movement as they can fly around and stick to walls, which is lots of fun, but the treasure hunting for emerald shards can sometimes take awhile and is not for the impatient. A two-player mode is also included. This halves the frame-rate but the mode is still fun for a couple of plays.

Graphically, Sonic Adventure 2 is stunning. For those who wish to inspect further, the optimizations done to bring this game to Dreamcast running at a pretty much constant 60 frames per second are at times visible. For the average gamer, the experience of running around at blistering speeds is more important than complicated level structures - while still on the high of the amazing speed, most people at first won't mind or even notice that the level geometry has been sacrificed for speed. The Crash Bandicoot-esque "corridor platformer" elements that are beginning to show here may, however, harm the potential for repeated playing: the game is much more of a one-off experience.

The soundtrack has taken on a slightly different tone (har har) this time around. Characters still have their own theme songs as in the original Sonic Adventure but some of these, such as Tails' song, have been pretty much molested and now sound like crap. There is some fun, memorable, although at times cheesy music in here. Space limitations may have been a problem, but it might also have been a good idea to provide music tracks without vocals as in Sonic R - some might find Sonic's soft-rock lyrics a little painful: "Rolling around at the speed of sound, got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow...", and the same goes for the rapping over Knuckles' levels.

Of course, the English dubbing is just as bad as before - Rogue's voice is particularly cringe-worthy. I'd recommend playing in Japanese with English subtitles which thankfully is an option. I would assume the Japanese voices aren't as badly acted as the English ones but since I don't speak the language, I have no solid way of telling. But since I was given the option of covering over the atrocious dub with something else, I gladly accepted it. There are no problems related to Presentation. The menus are clearly laid out and even allow you to use different Themes (skins) downloaded from the SA2 web site, which is a nice touch. Luckily, these are already stored on the disc and are simply unlocker files, meaning you don't have to use up valuable VM space with a badly compressed picture. Booting on a PAL system gives the choice of 50hz (full-screen, retaining good speed with frame dropping rather than sacrificing the pace of the game) or the original 60hz (obviously much better). Load times are very short and are actually welcome pauses given the linear structure of the levels.

Calling Sonic Adventure 2 a disappointment would be very wrong indeed - sequels rarely live up to their originals and considering this has all sorts of new additions and an improved look, the faults that have crept in are hard to stay bitter about. I would not hesitate to say however that compared to Sonic Adventure, it's definitely the inferior of the two. If you've played the original you'll probably long for familiar environments similar to the Station Square Casino, Twinkle Park, and the Mystic Ruins, but this has been pushed aside in favor of a more Californian Summer Sonic. It is definitely worth owning but I would have welcomed a continuation of the first game more than an alternate take on the Sonic universe. If you just bought a Dreamcast, are fully aware of the fact that it's aging and can accept some graphics that by todays' standards are primitive, l recommend you buy the original Sonic Adventure instead.

Roundup

game	7
visuals	8
sound	7
presentation	8
overall	7

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