Sonic Adventure 2 All Cutscenes
What kind of hedgehog are you?— TaglineSonic Adventure 2 ( ソニックアドベンチャー2, Sonikku Adobenchā Tsū ) is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by in 2001 as a part of the. It is the sequel to.Sonic Adventure 2 was originally released on 23 June 2001. In Japan, it also came with a limited-time ( バースデイパック, ) during the first two days of release to mark the tenth anniversary of the release of the original. This game introduces two new playable characters, and and is also one of the few Sonic games to feature as a playable character. Contents DevelopmentTeam Sonic USA along with in U.S.ASonic Adventure 2 was developed by, the now-defunct U.S. Division of, and published.
In Sonic Adventure 2, ALL of the games cutscenes are canon, and none of them contradict each other (unlike in the original Sonic Adventure where cutscenes would show different results for rival battles, this game skips any cutscene that would contradict another) Ive compiled a list of every cutsc.
Sonic Adventure 2 Cutscenes In A Nutshell
After the longtime series contributor brought select members of Sonic Team to America to polish up the English release of the original, the team immediately their first project as the U.S. Branch of Sonic Team - Sonic Adventure 2- shortly after the release of the American version of Sonic Adventure in 1999. It was designed to be more action-oriented than the slower-paced, more story-driven Adventure. The development team ran the game at 60 frames per second with 'tempo', giving Sonic a variety of actions rather than focusing on speed alone. Its levels facilitated this flow, making Sonic seem faster than he was.Taking inspiration from their Southern California location for the game's levels and environments, the developers were inspired by (their headquarters) and other American locations, such as (where they vacationed during its development), the and the. Sonic Team thus decided to set Sonic Adventure 2 in the fictional 'Central City', featuring their own takes on these landmarks. Compared to Sonic Adventure, the sequel was intended to have 'more of an American flavor'.
Although the game's level design prioritized the frame rate, it was more streamlined than Sonic Adventure because of the team's experience with Dreamcast hardware.Throughout its development cycle, Sonic Adventure 2 changed rather dramatically. Early media and interviews with Yuji Naka point to there only being three playable characters initially: Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman.
After outcry from gamers wondering where certain franchise-staple characters were, Tails, Shadow, and Rouge were revealed to be playable. The fact that Tails, Shadow, and Rouge were possibly added to the roster later in development may help explain why over half the levels in the game recycle assets from other stages.Iizuka described the Chao as a 'relative neutral entity' in Sonic Adventure. In the sequel the developers expanded the creatures' presence, adding the ability to raise 'Hero' and 'Dark' Chao to reflect the conflict between good and evil. For the same reason, all six playable characters have roughly equal gameplay time (unlike Sonic Adventure, where 's and 's stories were short).
In Sonic Adventure 2 Chao have the ability to socialize, so they resemble a 'real artificial life form.' Other early preview material point to the game at one point having branching storyline pathways; one example given of this in effect was a scenario involving Sonic trapped, underwater, in a submarine. The player would be given one of two options: Make Sonic try to pilot the submarine to safety, or open the hatch and take his chances in the water (despite Sonic being unable to swim). Though scrapped for Sonic Adventure 2, branching storyline pathways were eventually introduced in Sonic Adventure 2 pseudo-sequel Shadow the Hedgehog; however neither Sonic Adventure 2 nor contains any scene with a submarine in it.Sega announced a follow-up to Sonic Adventure and a spinoff (which would become ) on October 4, 1999. The newly named Sonic Adventure 2 appeared at 2000, with Sonic Team adding video shown there to its website on June 30.
Sonic Team posted a trailer and a number of screenshots on May 30, 2001, with Sega promoting Sonic Adventure 2 as the last Sonic game for the Dreamcast and as marking the series' 10th anniversary. Sega held a 10th-anniversary party for Sonic in June 2001, at which attendees could compete in a battle tournament; the winner played against Iizuka.Sonic Adventure 2 was released worldwide on 23 June 2001, marking Sonic's 10th Anniversary.
A special collectors edition of the game was produced, featuring a large blue case that contained the game, a music CD (featuring tracks spanning Sonic's 10 year history), a Sonic the Hedgehog Retrospective booklet, and a commemorative coin. Though originally intended to be limited edition, so many copies of the 10th Anniversary Edition were published that it is fairly easy to find one for relatively cheap.Gameplay Single playerGameplay 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, and the non-playable, while the 'Dark' story features,. 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 or 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 or Dr. Allow the player to control a mechanized robot walker and generally blast their way to the end, much like 's stages in Sonic Adventure.
And are required to scour their levels for shards of the Master Emerald (with the exception of where they must find keys into Eggman's base and 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 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, 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 ' using the Mystic Melody Level Up Item, finish within a time limit, and complete a 'Hard mode' version of the Action Stage.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 level, a remake of Green Hill Zone from the original game.Two-Player ModeThe characters from the Two-player mode of Sonic Adventure 2: BattleUnlike its predecessor, Sonic Adventure 2 has a multi-player mode.
Like the single player mode, 2P Player has action racing (/ levels), treasure hunting (/ levels) and shooting (/ levels). Each type of stage is played split-screen except for the shooting stages. Spoiler warning: Plot, ending details or any kind of information follow. Hero StorySonic in City Escape.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, 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 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, and a mysterious character named are fighting over who owns the. 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.The next day comes to in search of Sonic, rescuing 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. There he finds three more pieces of the Master Emerald.
Knuckles leaves Pumpkin Hill, and heads for the. 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, '. Suddenly half of ARK comes off, revealing a long pointer called the ' 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 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.
Seriously, I don't know if it's because it was 1998 and fully voiced cutscenes weren't an industry standard yet, or because Sonic Team wasn't experienced in making them, or what. But the bottom line is that Adventure's cutscenes are some of the most awkward, poorly paced, and confusingly edited I've ever seen. There are huge, distracting pauses between lines, the background music sometimes drowns out the dialogue (which got even worse in Adventure 2), there's a noticeable lack of sound effects for just about anything, and the camera sometimes seems to focus on the oddest things rather than what storytelling logic would dictate.Is this the fault of the translation team? Did the Japanese cutscenes flow better, or were they just as awkward? Most of the blame is the fact that's pretty much the first time SEGA/Sonic Team did anything like that with the Sonic franchise, and in games in general as that was around the time such things were beginning to become a main part of the gaming industry.Keep in mind before those games it was pretty much the original Genesis trilogy for Sonic, that was a pretty massive step for the company to take with no real prior experience. All things considered, the Adventure games really weren't the worst by far at their time.
There were many games just as bad, if not worse in taking the leap to 3D with cutscenes/acting and such.I'd say the games did. Average to okay for the time all things considered. Most developers were virgins in this territory back then. On one hand, lip syncing was still a fairly new art around the time. Conker's Bad Fur Day was famous for it, and the Crash games didn't do a bad job either, but that's about it? It doesn't help that SA1 was a launch title too, so there's every chance they didn't have time to manually edit facial expressions for every single line.On the other.
Simply choosing facial expressions at seemingly random is a strange design choice no matter which way you spin it? Simply rigging a jaw to flap open and closed during dialogue would've looked boring, sure, but at least not so ridiculous that it's so easy to make fun of.
Buggin' face aside, the crappy localisation and port jobs are what's blame for the cutscene problems in these games.A lot of the cutscene related mishaps in the adventure games were due to the localisation being bad. This ranges from an incomplete english lip sync to translating the same lines 3-4 times (which is what got SA1 its 'Different dialogue for every story' thing for the most part), and the English VAs often delivering poor quality lines because I don't think they were given any context.I haven't noticed any times where the background music drowns out the voices in SA1, but I know the lack of sound effects is something you have SADX's crappy port job to thank for. Compare the to and you'll see what I mean by SADX and the localisation screwing things over.SA2 is the same thing just made worse. The Dreamcast version doesn't have the horrible drowning out voices thing, and the characters cutting off their lines is solely due to the English lines being too long for the parts where they're supposed to play in the cutscene (SA1 only progressed after the lines finished playing, so they could get away with it in that game. SA2 however, doesn't wait.)The translation for SA2 is hilariously bad. As an example:Japanese (translated).
Knuckles: I saw Eggman go inside the pyramid and more importantly, I saw that bat girl go inside with him as well.Knuckles: You saw them too, right?Amy: Well yeah.The meaning here is changed from 'Is it true Rouge is working with Eggman' to 'Did you see Rouge entering the pyramid with Eggman' and it makes no sense at all because of course Amy didn't see them enter the pyramid. In fact, neither did Knuckles when talking about Rouge because she was busy off stealing emerald shards at the time.Both games' ports also have major problems with removing lighting effects. Here's a (SADX's should be obvious enough if you ask me). SA2B's cutscenes also have serious problems with model inconsistency, with only a handful of cutscenes in the game making use of the updated GameCube models. Pay attention to Sonic's ears in cutscenes, they're triangles on the DC model and they're rounded on the GC one. Japanese (translated):English:The meaning here is changed from 'Is it true Rouge is working with Eggman' to 'Did you see Rouge entering the pyramid with Eggman' and it makes no sense at all because of course Amy didn't see them enter the pyramid. In fact, neither did Knuckles when talking about Rouge because she was busy off stealing emerald shards at the time.Both games' ports also have major problems with removing lighting effects.
Here's a (SADX's should be obvious enough if you ask me). SA2B's cutscenes also have serious problems with model inconsistency, with only a handful of cutscenes in the game making use of the updated GameCube models. Pay attention to Sonic's ears in cutscenes, they're triangles on the DC model and they're rounded on the GC one.You can speak Japanese?To be honest, I was also bummed by the lack of expression for Chaos. To be honest, I can completely forgive the cutscenes, given their age. What I can't excuse is the English voice acting, I mean holy crud. It's damn near Resident Evil stiff.This.
The acting is atrocious in both SA games, and Sonic Shuffle, it only got mildly better in Heroes. Its so bad I can't believe anyone was up in arms when 4Kids opted not to use those actors in Sonic X, and got even angrier when Sega later made the X cast the official cast of the games. Think what you want, but the 4Kids cast were far better actors than anyone in the SA cast.
Even when the acting was bad it still wasn't nearly as bad as any of those guys. I still think its a shame we lost the 4Kids cast, as they really improved as it went along, and the voices are still the voices I associate with the characters to this very day. I miss them, but at least we still have Mike.The only decent actors out of the SA cast were Ryan Drummond and David Humphrey, and thats become even more apparent to me since I just recently started to replay both games.
Everyone else is terrible.The lip sync always bugged me about those games, and theres really no excuse for it when there are other games that came out around that time had much better lip sync. The background music drowning out the dialouge was annoying too. Its been awhile since I played it but, I think Heroes is where they finally improved the lip sync, but I think the music still drowned out the voices. The acting is atrocious in both SA games, and Sonic Shuffle, it only got mildly better in Heroes. Its so bad I can't believe anyone was up in arms when 4Kids opted not to use those actors in Sonic X, and got even angrier when Sega later made the X cast the official cast of the games.
Think what you want, but the 4Kids cast were far better actors than anyone in the SA cast. Even when the acting was bad it still wasn't nearly as bad as any of those guys. I still think its a shame we lost the 4Kids cast, as they really improved as it went along, and the voices are still the voices I associate with the characters to this very day. I miss them, but at least we still have Mike.The only decent actors out of the SA cast were Ryan Drummond and David Humphrey, and thats become even more apparent to me since I just recently started to replay both games. Everyone else is terrible.The lip sync always bugged me about those games, and theres really no excuse for it when there are other games that came out around that time had much better lip sync.
All Super Sonic Cutscenes
The background music drowning out the dialouge was annoying too. As for people saying 'Well it was 1998, give it a break', actually no, in that same year Metal Gear Solid 1 came out and the cutscenes were well directed and properly paced, with voice acting that still holds up perfectly today.SEGA should have hired people that actually knew what they were doing.Properly paced? The cutscenes in MGS went on forever!
Jokes aside, yes the cutscenes in MGS were had much better direction than Sonic Adventure's but that game was also directed and produced by Hideo Kojima, who's been quoted saying he started out wanting to make movies and that game is like 80% movie so. And it's not like the animation in cutscenes was significantly better than other titles at that time. The characters have zero facial animation outside of bobbing their heads when they speak, and most of the time they're standing still, only moving with the occasional gesture or speaking to each through the codec with slightly animated portraits of the character's faces. As for people saying 'Well it was 1998, give it a break', actually no, in that same year Metal Gear Solid 1 came out and the cutscenes were well directed and properly paced, with voice acting that still holds up perfectly today.Yeah it does, but mind you, Kojima is a director who has been heavily influenced by film and telling a story through that medium, look at other developers back in the late 90's how many other developers back then did it to that standard?The answer is not many. And those who were starting to pull it off had already had at least one maybe two games under their belt.
Take Capcom, they had Resident Evil under their belts from 1996 and it was notoriously bad, RE 2 came out in 1998, it's a lot better but was a lot better but still contains a few howlers. I do agree the cutscenes are pretty bad. I know it was their first big Dreamcast game, but even the Playstation had more palpable cutscenes early on. Even the use of stock animations could have been palpable if they weren't so buggy and there was more of a variation of animations (take the Klonoa remake for example, doesn't look amazing, but at least it looks like it's flowing properly and certain scenes even give off decent emotion).The English translation also worsened it a great deal with cornier scripting.
Not sure why, this was the one 3D game they had free reign to edit the dialogue how they wanted (making Eggman sound more sinister in Tails' story was a neat touch though). For comparison here is the Japanese script directly translated (turn on Closed Captions).