SA2 got here yesterday! Knock Knock, It's Knuckles! Posted by That guy with the hat on June 27, 2001 Man this is great! Harder than SA1 to boot! Sometimes the difficulty comes mainly from annoyance(*Cough* Mad Space *COUGH!*) but for the most part it's just cool hard! I had heard that people didn't much enjoy the Knuckles/Rouge levels, but I don't know, I like them. Maybe it's an acquired taste(unlike lawn flamingoes). Pumpkin hill was just as embarrasing as I expected though, and I was ashamed to have to do battle with anything named "King Boom Boo". He wasn't too hard anyway. I was kind of surprised by some of the music. I wonder why they added lyrics to City Escape since the demo came out? I guess they hadn't recorded the lyrics yet. But I like those lyrics! The Knuckles level music is well... umm... well see I've never really liked rap or hip hop... at all. But that isn't what bothered me about it. See I'm guessing that most of the music in the game is relatively short and is relooped over and over, but you don't really notice it since it doesn't have any lyrics that you would notice the 2nd/3rd/4th/etc. cycles through the song. With the knuckles music, though, you REALLY notice how short and repetitive the music is and with levels as huge as those, it can really grate. But I won't fuss so much about that triviality... not when I have 3 others to get out of the way. The camera. Need I say more? No I don't. And also, the chao may have been cute before, but not sickeningly cute. NOW the whole business is so saccharinny that it's almost revolting. Last gripe, what is with the character animation in the movie sequences? They move around WAAAAAY too much. It looks weird. There is an entire scene in the final story(I won't tell what it's about... yes I HAVE already gotten to the Final Story) that is pretty much martyred by Amy's overanimated self(is she drunk in this scene or what?). At any rate, that's all I have to say about the game that I don't like. Everything else is great minus Mad Space. There's some music I really like, like the theme of Eggman. It's short, but nice! The Story Begins With who's gonna' win, something something something The man from ARK, The Genius at heart, something something, I am the Eggman! That's what I am. I am the Eggman! Got the master plan! ...ahem...well it goes something like that. Anyway those level up items have me searching high and low(especially with Knuckles). The manual hints that all characters can find the mystic melody and I found it and put it to use with Shadow. Mystic Melody is the only one I still need with Knux. I already found with Knuckles: Shovel Claw-required Hammer Gloves-required Air Necklace-not rquired but REALLY useful! Sunglasses-not required, but they look slick!(they are his Sonic Anime shades I think. I'm serious about the sunglasses!) I think I know what stage the melody is in too! That's also the only one I need for Sonic. With Sonic I found: Light Shoes-required Ancient Light-not required, but nice. Bounce Bracelet-required. Ah the good old water shield attack! Fire Ring-Not required, but useful. Magic Hand-Not required and just plain un-sonicy. I have like only 2 or 3 with Shadow. Gotta' look harder! Now that I'm done boring you to tears with some mumbo jumbo about how many level up items I have, I'll be off! ......King Boom Boo...?! WHO'S IDEA?! WHO'S?! ------ King Boom Boo... Posted by Junitrice it took a few minutes to get a hang of killing him...but...King Boom Boo looks like a cheep rip off a Slimer from Ghost Busters...and King Boo...from Mario! AHHH!! >< o_o actualy I like Lady Boo from Paper Mario...but enough witht that...it's just my two cents! ------ ------ SA2: Plus and Minus (Spoilers......this is a no-go) Posted by Emerald Echidna on June 27, 2001 + Graphics have enhanced. + The characters don't have to just stand around when they talk. + Sound has improved too. It's very atmospheric + Loading time is faster. + Levels are quite new -The music still drowns out the talking -The dialogue is still a tad weak(But it has improved yet) -Sega evidentually never does pay attention to Archie and gives something between Rogue and Knux....:P icky -(I could be mistaken)But I didn't see a nifty introduction display thing........ aaaaaaaaaw.... I only got as far as the level with Tails and Robotnik.... I'll be back with more reviews soon --- eheh...... I mean "ANTI-spoilers" it is not to be read ^_^' eheh --- Posted by Astal : + Graphics have enhanced. : + The characters don't have to just stand around when they talk. I dunno, this kinda bugged me. While I'm glad they don't make those wierd faces any more, I just don't like how they throw thier hands around the way they do. : + Sound has improved too. It's very atmospheric Totally. I especially liked City Escape's song. Lyrics are cheesy but it gives you sort of a adrenoline rush while surfing down the streets. ^-^ : + Loading time is faster. : + Levels are quite new Except I missed the traditional tropical first level. Oh well, I'll let it slide this time. : -The music still drowns out the talking Y'know, what you can do to help this (to an extent) is change the sound output from Mono to Stereo. But still, some of the dialouge gets a little hard to hear (it's just not as bad). : -The dialogue is still a tad weak(But it has improved yet) Yeah, while still cheesy, dialouge has a bit more style (as well as some of the character's voices) : -Sega evidentually never does pay attention to Archie and gives something between Rogue and Knux....:P icky Nyeh, what are ya gonna do, eh? : -(I could be mistaken)But I didn't see a nifty introduction display thing........ aaaaaaaaaw.... (ala Donkey from Shrek) Ohhhhhhhhh, THAT was a big no-no on Sonic Team's part! No spiffy opening with the rock music theme playing! Man, what were they thinkin'! ^-^ : I only got as far as the level with Tails and Robotnik.... I'll be back with more reviews soon Well, enjoy. :-D -Astal ------ I went and warped my mind with more game-play^^(Further SA2 review) Posted by Emerald Echidna on June 28, 2001 Kanie no here and it's one boring day....what's a girl to do..... went back to the game, played till past midnight...... and okay... I got another review. The Sonic crew part: I only got to that mine thing with Knux..... Not bad, but the rap music is abnoxious >< seriously, Kanie..... me knows whatcha meant by that. But anyway... wow....Knuckles swiming? How would Archie pull that off? :) Not a hard thing to think about ole Guardian Locke'll teach him how to swim :) yeah. The Darkside Part: This has to be the hardest level.... though it's a small area, it's pretty hard to find 3 emeralds within five minutes >< I'll get passed that someday. Overall, the levels are still cool. Most of the music is great, and WOOOO!! I think below Knux, my favorite character is Shadow. Hey, he may be a villain, but so was Mecha and he was adored too :). I think you might want to take a REAL close look at one of the statues of a stage of Rouges'. The face has a resemblance to Big the Cat :S. My most favorite level is Radical Highway.....what a ride...oh and that forest one with Sonic..... if ya don't know what I mean, you will when ya get to those levels... And...... I thought they'd pronouce "Chao" as "K.O"... weird..... Anyway, I miss the fun way to travel to stages by walking around the grounds...... :(.... oh well. ------ ------ SA2 - Extra Stuff in Review Posted by Ian Potto on July 04, 2001 Okay, HUGE spoilerage here. But the way I've got it figured, you'd have to keep off all the Sonic sites on the net to keep from knowing any of this by now, but I digress... NEW LEVEL Green Hill Zone - Green Hill is indeed an exact copy of the first act of the first zone of the first Sonic game. Yet, Sonic Team brought it to full 3-D life. All the old sound effects are there, from Sonic's jump going "dwoip!" to the badniks "pomf!"ing when destroyed. If you go full-speed through the level, though, you made find it a bit difficult. The running spaces are relatively narrow, and it's real easy to go flying off into the abyss. Still, it's great fun for us old timers to play. NEW COSTUMES - in 2-Player vs. Only Sonic - Sonic gets dressed as a HUmas from Phantasy Star Online. It's nice to see all in the in-jokes from PSO, since PSO had a healthy number of Sonic in-jokes. Wanna know what I'm talking about? Reply to this post. I'm just talking about the costumes this time around. Anyway, while some say it's ugly, I think it looks pretty cool. Shadow - Now, I'm not too well versed in PSO, but I'm pretty sure Shadow is wearing a HUmas suit too, just in the black-style, whereas Sonic has it in the orange-style. Very cool looking on the evil dude. Knuckles - Knuckles gets an interesting change of clothes. First, he gets the white markings of the "Inca-Echidnas" of SA1. In addition, he gets a black leather jacket, black leather jeans, black shoes, and black knuckle-claws. A little freaky looking, but cool at the same time. Rouge - Whoo-boy. You thought she was a little risque looking before? Mm-mm. She's clad in what could be called a black, leather one-piece bathing suit, with black leather hood/mask to boot. Her gloves and boots turn black too. And we also learn that she doesn't have any white fur on her legs....ahem! Tails - Like Green Hill Zone, Tails' costume change ranks high on the nostalgia-o-meter. Instead of the blue of the Tornado 2, the Cyclone reds the red and yellow markings of the original Tornado. Dr. Eggman - This one fell short of anything really cool. The Eggman gets some half-hearted camoflauge color markings on his Egg Typhoon. Not too awesome, but ah well. SECRET CHARACTERS - Only in 2-Player vs. Mode Amy Rose (formerly Sonic) - Of all the secret characters, why did Amy Rose have to be the only one to get a voice? I really wouldn't have minded never hearing her voice again. But I digress. Aside from having to listen to her on occasion, Amy in the 2P race has to be the first time I highly enjoyed playing her. No slow-mo. No lacking jumping skills. No hammer with the damn hearts. No, we've got a speedy, homing-attack, grinding Amy Rose. Now she's worth playing. Metal Sonic (formerly Shadow) - Every SegaSonic or Sonic Gamer's dream come true. There's no cool distorted Sonic voice, unfortunately, but everything else is pure Metal goodness. Metal glides and changes direction just like he should, and grinds and home-attacks with the best of them. If he's controlled by the first player, you get even more of a cool intro to the race with his eyes dramatically lighting up. Tikal (formerly Knuckles) - I always stuck my brother with playing Tikal (I'll explain why inna sec), but she still looked cool. Her intro into the hunting game is her kneeling in prayer. I hate she didn't have a voice, but them's the brakes. Chaos 0 (formerly Rouge) - While I stuck my bro with the wise, kindly daughter of Pachamac, I played the God of Destruction. Even when it uses all of Rouge's poses, it still looks cool. And, yes, Chaos and Tikal glide, dig, punch, and climb. Is that cool or what? Chao (formerly Tails) - This is the funniest thing in the world. You play as a chao in a chao-mech. I'll try to paint the image for you: Images a chao. Now remove its torso and attach its arms and legs to its head. Still with me? Good. Now, give this chao a sleepy-eyed look. Then there's a semi-transparent band just around where its head comes into a point. You can see the Chao at the controls in there. Yes, it is great fun. And the close-quarters weapon is Omachao, fired at the end of a pole. Big (formerly Dr. Eggman) - Imagine Dr. Eggman in his mech. Now take him out and put Big in. Is that not hillarious or what? The close-quarters weapon is Froggy, popping out by his Chaos tail. (maybe that's why 2P Chaos didn't have it when you play as it...) Of all the new chars, I think my brother and I had the most fun with Big vs. Chao. With no voices to intro the fight, I would add them in. The chao would coo incoherently, and then Big (in his deep, nasal voice) would say something like "Duh, Froggy?" or "Ah! Don't hurt me!" This usually set my brother laughing, and I'd kill his chao. But when he would get on a winning streak, in the same Big voice, I would intro the fight with "I will eat your spleen from your writhing corpse." This, too, made him laugh very hard. A sick image? Yes. But imagine Big saying it. Ah well, that's my 2 cents. Enjoy. ------ Actually, Shadow is a HUcast, not HUmar. I just unlocked it an hour or so ago... Posted by That guy with the hat He looks really boss in his red HUcast outfit too. That Chao mech is surprisingly close to what I thought it would look like. Meanwhile, it would seem Big is really trying to "own" the competition. ------