Neo wrote:Sonic Adventure's Knuckles stages were just trimmed bits of Sonic's levels.
I liked how Knuckles got to explore bits of others' levels. After all, Sonic 3 & Knuckles had three characters take various paths for the same zones, and that was one of my favorite parts of the game. Getting to explore areas with Knuckles with far more detail and freedom with him than you do as Sonic was a lot of fun.
Neo wrote:The stages in SA2 greatly benefited from being their own thing, with stages like Wild Canyon making it clear where you are at any given point, through structures such as the wind tunnel, the giant head and the array of boxes. Even large stages like Death Chamber make sure you know where you are and by extension where everything else is, with color-coded hallways and unique designs in each main room.
Wild Canyon is boring because it's too simple. Death Chamber sucks, and the different colored rooms and warps don't make it any less annoying to go through.
Neo wrote:The single-emerald radar allows you to focus on each one at a time, and gives the chance to implement an actual hint system. Furthermore, it's been simplified to just green-yellow-red to make it more obvious when you're actually getting closer, with the exclamation mark balloon in Battle being a welcome addition for diggable pieces.
Except using the hint system gave you a crappy grade on the game's ranking system, and thus discouraged me from using it. The emeralds also blinked in Sonic Adventure 1, dude. Plus they were accurate.
Neo wrote:And finally, the emeralds in SA1 are barely hidden at all, making the entire thing completely pointless and offering no challenge at all, other than having to resist turning the game off as Knuckles climbs a wall and completely destroys your speakers.
Because Knuckles' raps don't get annoying to hear looped for 10-20 minutes, right? Or Rogue's scat singing, either.
For the first couple of levels in Sonic Adventure 1, yeah they're not hidden that well; you can't dig yet, remember? I remember the emeralds being out of the blue in the sequel in the first levels in 2 also.
Neo wrote:which level archetypes did you miss in the sequel?
Ones surreal, interesting, or fun. I also missed spacious outdoor places, of which there are a grand total of 2 of that aren't on a harbor or in space. And there's nothing like the coolness of Casionopolis, Lost World, Sky Chase, or Twinkle Park in Sonic Adventure 2, which gives us the following:
- Three pretty levels based off San Francisco, of which only Sonic's is any fun, and also two tedious kart levels
- Five unique but boring pyramid levels, of which only Sonic's is even remotely fun
- Two ugly jungle levels
- Two lifeless levels in a harbor
- Six space levels (Meteor Herd, Crazy Gadget, Final Rush, Mad Space, Cosmic Wall, Final Chase)
- Four tedious shooting levels in boring grey corridors
The game's few unique levels are the treasure hunting levels like Pumpkin Hill, Aquatic Mine, Security Hall, and Mad Space. They were fun in small doses in Adventure 1, but not when they make up a third of the entire sequel.
But level variety aside, most of Adventure 2's levels fail to impress me. Many of the levels feel like they're in rooms, there are very few shortcuts/alternate paths, the missions are inconsistent in difficulty (Tails' 100 ring missions are super tedious), and they abuse the grind gimmick more than needed. Grinding is fun in City Escape, but not in levels where you need precision timing or you die. And yes you might have more control in Adventure 2 over your character, but you sure don't over the camera, which is terrible and causes a good amount of deaths in levels like Sand Ocean. I can't begin to recount how many times I died in the Mystic Melody challenges backtracking and falling since the camera doesn't go back with you.
Sonic Adventure 1 also had a bunch of mini-games to tinker with. Twinkle Circuit, the Casinopolis pinball machines, the desert/snowboard races, Sky Chase, Hedgehog Hammer, and more. Adventure 2, meanwhile, gives you two shit kart levels that you're forced to play in-game with the absolute worst characters in karts and an expanded Chao Garden that I barely touched.
Neo wrote:the second had upside-down gravity.
Oh yeah, the worst Sonic level in the entire game, complete with shit camera and controls and the still not working light speed dash. Give me Death Act Zone Act 2 from Sonic and Knuckles any day.
Neo wrote:And there's 30 levels in the sequel compared to the 11 in the original. Honestly, if there's something I can't understand people complaining about is level variety and originality.
Except half of the game's levels are blatant copies of each other, or heavily use the backgrounds/textures of other levels, only with different music.
Tails' levels suck.
Neo wrote:Dammit. Fell straight for your bait, didn't I?
You sure did.