Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Adventure 2 is an enhanced digital port of the original game that was released on Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation 3's PlayStation Network and on the PC via Steam on October 2012.

The PlayStation 3 version was also available to be streamed on the PlayStation 4 via the PS Now subscription service while the Xbox 360 version was made backwards compatible on the Xbox One on December 2017.

Plot[]

Hero Story[]

This story begins with a military helicopter (Sigma-Alpha 2) flying over the city with Sonic being captured aboard it. Suddenly, the pilot starts shouting "What?! The hedgehog is gone! He's taking out everyone aboard!" At that moment, Sonic the Hedgehog jumps out of the helicopter, rips off a piece of the wing to use as a snowboard, and then jumps off. After he destroys a military mech, he encounters a near look-alike of himself named Shadow the Hedgehog who has stolen a Chaos Emerald from the bank a while earlier. Sonic realizes that the military is mistaking him for Shadow. Shadow proceeds to use the emerald to transport to a different location, and Sonic is arrested.

At the same time, Knuckles the Echidna and a mysterious character named Rouge the Bat are fighting over who owns the Master Emerald. Dr. Eggman tries to steal the Master Emerald, but Knuckles stops him in his path by breaking the Master Emerald into pieces. Knuckles and Rouge have a hunt for the pieces of the Master Emerald. Knuckles finds the first three pieces in Wild Canyon.

The next day Miles "Tails" Prower comes to Prison Island in search of Sonic, rescuing Amy Rose from Dr. Eggman in the process. Then Amy frees Sonic from his cell, and Sonic escapes on a missile. Knuckles leaves Wild Canyon, and heads for Pumpkin Hill. There he finds three more pieces of the Master Emerald. Knuckles leaves Pumpkin Hill, and heads for the Aquatic Mine. Meanwhile, Sonic gets weary, jumps off the missile, and lands on a small island in a vast jungle. There he confronts Shadow once again.

He soon discovers the jungle is going to explode and leaves just in time. When they get back, Eggman is on televisions everywhere and it is revealed he is being taped from a space-station named "Space Colony, ARK". Suddenly half of ARK comes off, revealing a long pointer called the 'Eclipse Cannon' which shoots out a powerful beam and destroys half of the moon. A timer on screen appears saying 24 hours until mass destruction. Later, Tails discovers Space Colony ARK and the massive power of the Eclipse Cannon. He has to find Sonic, tell the President and escape the military all before it is too late. He eventually finds Sonic and escapes the military.

Meanwhile, Knuckles finds the last three pieces he can find of the Master Emerald in the Aquatic Mine. He later pops out of a manhole beside Tails, who is talking to Sonic and Amy over a phone on loudspeaker. Tails chases down the President, then he and Sonic tell the President about the situation they are in. Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Amy then head for Dr. Eggman's "secret" base inside the pyramid. Sonic breaks through the security system. Knuckles then has to find three keys to get into the rocket room. Knuckles defeats King Boom Boo, the king of ghosts. After that, Dr. Eggman appears and summons the Egg Golem, which Sonic has to take care of. As soon as he is defeated, they blast off in the rocket.

In all the excitement of the space ship, the cargo bay opens releasing the pieces of the Master Emerald Knuckles had collected. Sonic remarks that only the Master Emerald pieces were inside there. Knuckles thinking quickly takes control of the ship causing it to spin out of control. Knuckles jumps ship and lands on a small planet and finds the pieces he lost, leaving Sonic, Tails, and Amy screaming on the ship which then crash lands into the ARK. He defeats Rouge and gets the rest of the Emerald. Meanwhile, in Space Colony ARK, Tails is heading for the engine of the Eclipse Cannon. He destroys the engine, so it's up to Sonic now. Amy gets kidnapped by Eggman and demands the last emerald in exchange. Sonic, who has a fake chaos emerald, makes it to the central control room. Unfortunately for Sonic, Eggman anticipated the likelihood that one of them had the fake emerald, and after tricking Tails into admitting that Sonic had the fake emerald, Eggman then shot Sonic out of an escape capsule that was going to explode in the middle of space. Before being launched out, Sonic encourages Tails to stop Eggman, and tells Amy to take care of herself. Just before the pod exploded, Sonic also considered the possibility of using the fake Chaos Emerald to escape via Chaos Control, due to it having similar wavelengths to an actual Chaos Emerald.

All Tails, Amy and Eggman can see is a capsule blowing up, so they presume Sonic was killed in the vicinity. Tails is so riled up that, in a burst of anger, he defeats the Doctor. Meanwhile, Knuckles (with the full Master Emerald) spots Sonic coming out of a portal. Sonic tells Knuckles how he used Chaos Control to save himself, and speeds to the Eclipse Cannon. Sonic confronts Shadow one last time, and destroys the Eclipse Cannon. Tails, grieving over Sonic's "death", briefly and half-heartedly attempted to tell Sonic that he managed to defeat Eggman. Sonic, having apparently overheard Tails' comment, responds by congratulating him, causing Tails and Amy to learn that Sonic survived. Sonic then told them to look outside. They then look out the window and sees Sonic at the tip of the cannon smiling.

Gameplay[]

Gameplay takes place between two different points of view storylines, the "Hero" story and the "Dark" story; the player has the option of advancing in either one or the other at any time. The "Hero" story features Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and the non-playable Amy, while the "Dark" story features Shadow, Rouge and Dr. Eggman. Each hero character plays similarly to their respective dark character and vice versa. Levels advance in order for each storyline, come between each of the playable characters.

Levels featuring Sonic or Shadow are designed in much the same way as they were in Sonic's levels in Sonic Adventure, where the player's primary objective is simply to get to the end of the level. Levels with Tails or Dr. Eggman allow the player to control a mechanized robot walker and generally blast their way to the end, much like E-102 Gamma's stages in Sonic Adventure. Knuckles and Rouge are required to scour their levels for shards of the Master Emerald (with the exception of two stages where they must find keys into Eggman's base and one stage where Chaos Emeralds are located), again, much like Sonic Adventure. Interspersed between the levels are various bosses, which one particular character must fight. The main story line can only be finished when both "Hero" and "Dark" story modes are finished, and an extra story feature is revealed where the player must use all the characters to beat it.

Within Action Stages, players collect Rings and defeat enemies, with a timer counting the time spent within the level. At the end of each stage, the player is given a score based on the number or rings collected and time spent within the level. The less time is used and the more rings obtained, the higher the score is. The player is also given a rank-based performance, a letter grade that is either A, B, C, D, or E, with A being the highest and E being the lowest. Irrelevant to any other factors, an A Rank is automatically awarded to players that complete any score-ranked mission with all of the rings from that level in the player's possession.

There are five missions within each Action Stage; in order to obtain the second mission, the player must complete the first one, to unlock the third, the second mission must be finished, and so on. In order from first through fifth, the missions are to complete the level, collect 100 rings, find a "lost Chao" using the Mystic Melody Level Up Item, finish within a time limit, and complete a "Hard mode" version of the Action Stage.

Emblems are also given within the game; there are 180 Emblems in total. In order to gain all 180 Emblems, players must defeat every mission within every stage, achieve an A rank in all stages and missions, etc.. After collecting all 180 Emblems, the player unlocks an extra level 3-D Green Hill level, a remake of Green Hill Zone from the original Sonic the Hedgehog game.