1) Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Adventure 2 is a masterpiece. Not in the way a video game would be considered a masterpiece by having solid gameplay and design. No. Sonic Adventure 2 is an artistic masterpiece in our day and age in which worshiping vapor waves and David Lynch is no longer surreal enough for our taste buds.
Some backstory. Sonic Adventure 2 was made by Sonic Team USA, a team of Japanese developers located in San Francisco to learn about American culture and try to make a Sonic game that would ideally appeal to the American demographic. After they completed the game, it was sent back to Japan to be edited and quality checked, and then shipped back to the USA to be localized again. That’s right. This game was made by Japanese men in the United States, shipped back to Japan to be translated and edited into Japanese, then once more back to the USA to be translated back into English. In other words, this game has the Earthbound effect where it’s a game that fully captures a Japanese person’s take on American culture in the form of a game.
That could possibly explain the game’s edgier tone, but yet absolute insane plot which features a globetrotting adventure in the first half of the game, while the later portions of the game take place on a laboratory in space. All this leading up to a final showdown against a mutant space-lizard with a space station shoved up its ass. This, in combination with a truly unique and cheesy soundtrack, the best photorealistic backgrounds the Dreamcast could process, charming dialogue with many audio errors, and a plot that is memorizing in the sense that it is so bizarre, and you have the workings of a game that is so unique and surreal, nothing even pales in comparison to it.
That’s not even going into the gameplay which ranges from excellent in the speed levels to downright annoying in the 3rd person shooter stages. They’re all pretty entertaining though and reward speed running and score with a ranking system. There are also 5 challenges per level to add some replayability.
Then there’s the Chao Garden. The Chao Garden is its own aesthetic. Not only is it a really solid virtual pet game, but it’s also an acid trip. Raising blue angel babies by feeding them animals to get them to the ultimate goal being Heaven or Hell while running through a space portal to bring them to a Kindergarten sounds bonkers. But that’s what happens in the Chao Garden.
Sonic Adventure 2 is an artistic masterpiece. You’ll never get another game like it. It will forever stand out as a completely unique experience that cannot be reproduced or improved upon. Really because there is no way to make it better. Like all Sonic games to come, and all Sonic games before it, it’s a flaming pile of garbage. Only this flaming pile of garbage is in a golden bin and the flames are shooting out fireworks with Comic Sans subtitles. God Bless you Sonic the Hedgehog. You beautiful marketing dumpster fire.
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