Game Vs. Game! This week: SA1 Vs. SA2

[recme]

the new topic this week is sonic adventure 1 vs. sonic adventure 2. i feel like we've had this topic before, but i guess its just me.

i enjoy sonic adventure 1 better tbh. the controls and music just felt better to me.

[Neweegee]

I like Sonic Adventure a lot, but I have to choose Adventure 2. Even though Sonic's stages and controls were more fun in SA1, almost everything else was better in SA2, it also had a really cool Multiplayer mode and a lot of extra Missions. Plus I can have a lot of fun playing as any character in SA2, but SA1 I only really liked playing as Sonic and Knux.

I did miss the Hub worlds from SA1, though.

[NICKtendo DS]

I'll go with Sonic Adventure 2, since it has more stages I like.
1 had Emerald Coast and Speed Highway, maybe Windy Hill
2 had City Escape, Radical Highway, Metal Harbor, Green Forest and Final Rush/Chase (which one was the Sonic one again?)

[Koopaul]

Sonic Adventure 2 mostly because it expanded on the Chao Garden big time and made it amazing. Also I loved the music is SA2, yes even the cheesy Knuckles rap.

[Shade]

Played Adventure 2 first, played it quite a bit more than Adventure 1.

Adventure 1 hands down.

The character movement in 2 felt so weird and mechanical (especially the Tails and Eggman levels, pfff, what's up with that?) compared to the first game. SA1 actually felt like a 3D version of the classic Sonic I was used to. I thought the environments and themes of the acts in 2 felt really uninspired and boring, where with Adventure 1 every level felt so unique and fun to play through.

[Koh]

I haven't played either, so I'll contribute to this thread by posting ProJared's review of it.


Who agrees/disagrees with his points and why?

[Jermungandr]

I disagree but regardless I can still understand where he's coming from and respect his opinions. Good video.

I think part of the difference in opinion may be contributed by the fact that he actually cares about getting A ranks in levels, and I don't, which in turn makes the Knuckles and Tails stages more enjoyable. If I were to actually try getting A ranks in Knuckles stages I'd probably tear my hair out.

[~Axis~]

I like SA2 better than SA1 because sega attempted to improve on what they had in the latter game. The mechanics worked slightly better and the story mode was changed to "teams" instead of individual characters, which felt better to play if you ask me. I especially liked how the story transitioned from one character to the next within the same story. It felt complete.

Gameplay also felt much better. With the exception of Eggman and Tails, everyone moved and played better. Extra modes and a cool multiplayer mode to boot where you could even play as Chaos.

Music was great. Improved from the previous and had leaned more towards rock which I like. Who doesnt like Jun Senoue and his skills?

Graphics improved... slightly. Not much of a thing to point out though.


I like this game because sega worked to improve what they had and for once beyond the classic era it was successful. Something that I hope to see in the future.

[Omegajak]

I could S Rank City Escape, Metal Harbor, Green Jungle, White Jungle, Final Hazard, and Final Rush because they're really easy when you know what you're doing, and frustrating to watch others positively when they don't. Sonic Adventure 2 is awesome, but if you asked me "What was the better 3D Sonic game?" I'd say it was 1 only because it set standards and followed a lot of rules Mario 64 had set.


Sonic Adventure is an all encompassing 3D Sonic experience. So it get's the vote. only thing it shoudl do to set itself more apart is they should have let Sonic be Super Sonic anywhere after beating the game. Still a pretty dumb idea that was cut.

[Kosheh]

* Kosheh rolls fedora down and around arms

I like Sonic Adventure 2 because

* Kosheh catches fedora

it has Shadow in it.

* Kosheh firmly plants fedora on head, and goes to work on sketching his edgy Sonic OC in his drawing book

[Helmo]

SA2 has an even worse Camera than SA1, and that' saying something.

[Darky's Manifestation]

while i don't care at all anymore about sonic or it's future; i keep a soft spot for the adventure games, and i still love them as of today.

SONIC ADVENTURE

Spoiler

sonic adventure seems fine at first glimpse. it's just a more sonic - thus conceptual somewhat a more edgy mario 64. it's got it's over world, the goal is still to get from point A to point B in the fastest way you can when you play as sonic, so nothing changed there really. it had more characters which seems to make it the longer and better game,  the characters were set as the their own story mode, so after you played all of sonic's levels, or since the moment you meet tails in game, i don't remember actually you can start playing as tails, then knuckles, amy, big, gamma etc

as far as i can remember tails levels were pretty alright; they were just sonic's level but with a twist. you also had to race sonic to the end or something. seems like something the older games would have done. all things considered the sonic and tails levels really were just a 3d re-imagination of the classic 2d side scroll levels, which had it's flaws but i think many 3d games had those flaws at the time because 3d was pretty new at the time. the problem is the sonic franchise kept them.

i personally never really enjoyed the knuckles levels; i mean they we're pretty cool! knuckles was a pretty cool character and the levels gave you - unlike the sonic ones- a lot of freedom to explore and discover.

except if you wanted to get a A rank, you had to hurry up and they pretty much just expected you'd knew where the emerald shards we're located. which was pretty frustrating because most of the times they were pretty far away from each other. other than that they knuckles levels - except from the fact they were a bit glitchy at times- were at least playable.

gamma's gameplay was a bit weird, but i liked it. it loved gamma as a character, and his gameplay was just so off the wall and he felt so out of place i just experienced it as fun. also his story pretty much was about killing his own siblings, and finding out he has feelings even though he is a robot. that was a blast.

i'm still not sure what the hell amy's mode was suppose to be, and i rather stab my owns eyes out than to ever play big the cat's mode again. that probably was the most boring and forced video game experience ever.

SONIC ADVENTURE 2

Spoiler

sonic adventure 2 is the better game out of the two for me because two reasons:

while it got rid of the over world system ( which to be fair, didn't add that much to SA1 anyway, but it was new and i understand they wanted to experiment with it at the time ) it also kept the aspects that were actually good about SA1. the point was they really weren't all that exciting in SA2 though. turns out i really only enjoyed the shooting mech levels as gamma, because as tails or eggman they felt bland, boring and pretty frustrating time to time. controls felt weird, and while they weren't all that different from gamma, at least gamma felt a bit more light and floaty.

the emerald hunting times two with the addition of rouge felt just a bit too much. some levels were fun, other just way too frustrating. i remember being stuck for a while on the prison island emerald stage of rouge, just because i couldn't find the damn thing. i reset the stage a couple of times just to re-locate the emerald piece and give it another shot. 

really now, the shoot and search levels just felt like errands you had to do, and as reward you'd get to play a fun sonic or shadow level again. i don't think that's good game design. but the fast levels weren't flawless either, in fact i still think the path you had to walk on was just way too less than the abyss around it. one mistake and you would fall to your death already. it looks cool, because design wise it feels like you're high above the ground but game play wise it was just frustrating. 

the other reason i prefer SA2 is... nostalgia, really. while SA1 had that too, it just isn't as strong as SA2. I mean Chaos is a pretty cool character, and it's back story was pretty neat at the time. SA1 just kept more true to the orginal games with it's angel island, chaos emerald and master emerald all taking place in a urban world.

SA2 had the angsty and aggressive shadow the hedgehog, wich was a even more cooler sonic cause he was dark and sonic was already the definition of a cool character. not only that but there was also the military, and sure why not even the president. eggman also felt a lot more dark this time around; he blew up a piece of the moon! and his plan was to fire that cannon at earth so that people would fear and obey him. i thought eggman just made silly robots.

the level design felt a lot more dark and realistic than SA1's one. military district, city's at night in terror, rain forests and the game even took place in space at a certain point. SA2 had an edgy story and you had to know it. while SA1 was more subtle with it's story and it's progres SA2 shoved it right into your face.

that being said; it still think the final battle of SA2 - how ridiculously it might have been, still remains as one of the most memorable final moments of gaming to me. the way the hero's and the villains had to team up to prevent the ark from crushing straight into the earth just felt so powerful, and it was something i never experienced before at the time. i was still young and only played a couple of games. mario didn't have to team up with bowser in the end of mario 64, in fact he still was the final boss, so there was no surprise there. but SA2's final just like such a surprise and plot twist, i was completely hooked. 

even though the final boss it's design was a complete fucking bad joke ( a gigantic fucking ugly lizard that was suppose the be the prototype of what shadow eventually became, how they went from that to shadow i don't fucking know ) it just was completely rad to battle it as not only super saiyan sonic but also super saiyan shadow! i say it that way because SA2 was indeed the first time i've experienced sonic's super form. i've heard about it, and saw some pictures of it at the time but i never expected it to see it in this game, so you can imagine how excited i was.( i didn't finish any classic sonic game at the time, and i've played SA1 after SA2 ) 

but not only that, but during the final battle a defined and extended version of the tittle screen played and it even had lyrics! as of today i still consider live & learn one of the most memorable songs in video gaming and it's probably one of my biggest guilty pleasures. it really just adds up to the feeling SA2 gave me, the feeling of '' this is it, this is the moment, this is what it was all about, it's now or never.''

sadly, SA2 was also the death of the franchise. SA2 set the tone of the darker theme the games that followed would also follow. and we all know what then happened. non the less SA2 was a big part of my youth, and to me the ''dark'' game i'd play because it appealed to me because i wanted to be edgy, but not too edgy because then i 'd had to get a xbox or ps2.

tldr;



[video=youtube]http:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBeHlIcmmOY//[/video]

[TomGuycott]

I have a preference for SA1 rather than SA2, but a lot of that boils down to bias.

The most certain thing about both of them is that they have not aged well, they are full of problems, but have enough good going for them to be enjoyable to return to.

I'll have to save a lengthier post for later, I've got to go back to work.

[Jermungandr]

I think this entire thread is about boiling things down to bias, so you're in the clear.

[Goemar]

Adventure 2 was awful. The Tails/Robotnik and Knuckles/Rouge levels just sucked. Yes the music was awesome (to the point that it made the final boss good even though it sucked) but it was a really disappointing sequel.

I think a lot of people love it because they picked it up on the GameCube and it's cool edgyness made a big impression on their young minds.

Or the Chao garden. And I fucking hate Chaos.