Sonic Adventure 2/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Base Breaker: Shadow. The base was broken further when he was revealed to have survived his Heroic Sacrifice in Sonic Heroes and even further when he got his own self-titled game.
    • Him suriviving isn't all that far-fetched, since he survived basically the same thing in his backstory. Still, it rather cheapens the scene and the intended message.
      • Also, he was still in his Super form by the time he fell to the Earth, so it naturally would serve as a shield against orbital reentry.
  • Best Level Ever: City Escape. Come on, boarding down the roads, grinding on rails, outrunning a giant truck... Of course, Sega knows.
  • Contested Sequel: Some don't like the level progression structure in comparison to the original, since the player is forced to cycle between multiple styles in the same story instead of choosing a playstyle along with the story. Some do like it as a way to streamline the story compared to the slower-paced Sonic Adventure.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome - It's a Sonic game, people.
  • Demonic Spiders: Arguably, the Artificial Chaos. They have very fast attacks, only their head is vulnerable, and a few can reproduce or hide in their bodies to be invulnerable.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse - Rouge the Bat also considering she has more fan art than almost every other Sonic character in existance. It kind of helps that she's a Memetic Sex Goddess.
    • Despite being a Base Breaker, Shadow's popularity in this one game was so large he was made alive for the next game, Sonic Heroes, for the sake of becoming a playable character.
  • Evil Is Cool: All of the antagonists: Eggman, Shadow, and Rouge. Especially the former two, who have a nice presentation in their screen time.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Rouge the Bat helped Eggman and Shadow with their plans for world domination and is on the dark side, so she counts for this.
    • Might be a little bit a of a subversion as she wasn't really evil and only joined them due to the fact she was doing her job as an undercover agent and intended to take all the Chaos Emeralds from them until Shadow stopped her when he found out her true intentions.
  • Freud Was Right: Many fans have noted that Rouge's car is shaped rather... peculiarly.
  • Fridge Brilliance: In the "Dark Side" ending it's shown that unbeknownst to Eggman, the laser has overloaded as he tried to fire it with the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds, which is what the Cannon's power was source was intended to be - Whilst it's possible Gerald Robotnik underestimated the power of the Emeralds, in the "Hero Side" ending, Sonic manages to prevent the ARK's cannon from firing, potentially causing the resulting overload that occurs in the "Dark Side" ending. This makes even more sense when one remembers that in the "Hero Side" ending, there is a moment when you see Eggman's hand reaching for the Chaos Emerald. When Amy and Tails look out the window, and we have a clear view of the entire room, Eggman is gone, presumably having taken the Emerald to the cannon's core. Cue "Dark Side" ending.
    • The Last Story ending has a subtle reason for why Shadow powers down from his Super form & Sonic doesn't - You start the preceding boss battle with Sonic, and each successful hit switches the other Hedgehog in, whilst the one who is not being used collects some rings to stay powered up, and it's a six hit boss. Whilst travelling past the boss leads to the characters switching out again, Shadow is meant to be the one to get the last hit.
    • In later Sonic games it is shown that Shadow survived falling to Earth from space. At the beginning of Sonic Unleashed, Sonic proceeds to do the exact same thing.
      • Shadow's survival makes complete sense when you realize he was still Super Shadow when he fell. After all, this isn't the first time a hedgehog has fallen from space. It's practically a Shout-Out to Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
    • In the final level Cannon Core, you first see a shrine that Tails has to play his song to activate. At first, it appears to do nothing, until you realize that after you do this, a door is opened in the next segment where Eggman takes over and there is a shrine inside of it where you play Eggman's song. After this, in the next area, Rouge has a door opened where there is another shrine where she plays her song, and that will make it so in the next area which is Knuckles part, another door opens in his area with another shrine where you play his song. When you've done that and go to the next area, Sonic will eventually see a trail of rings which lead him to an area that has the lost chao. Why did you have to do all of that to accomplish the mission? Well think about it, the whole final story is about everyone putting aside their differences and working together, which is the same way you rescue the chao through teamwork.
      • One problem in this statement: Tails has no shrine in his section of Cannon's Core. The first shrine appears in Eggman's section, right above the giant shaft with the lasers.
    • The title of Eggman's theme song "E.G.G.M.A.N." is strange, since Eggman isn't an acronym for anything. However, the way it's written does invoke the way the game's Boss Subtitles appear one letter at a time. You can almost hear the typewriter sound effect.
  • Fridge Horror - Biolizard has gills on his neck approximately half Shadow's height, and several gills on either side of his body more than twice Shadow's height. He also has air vents at the base of his neck, not to mention the numerous pipes connecting him to his life-support system. Yet despite all this, he still has to hyperventilate. It's no wonder that he's the prototype.
    • In the first level, as Sonic is skating on the plate of metal down the road, the player can run into and destroy cars, some of which are moving. So does that mean Sonic is carelessly killing innocent people?
    • When the Colony Drop begins, Professor Gerald's ultimatum is in the form of a video file. He's standing in front of what appears to be his cell on Prison Island. At the end, once he's finished his speech, someone off-camera asks him if he has anything more to say. When Gerald replies that he does not, that person barkes out a "Ready!" to some other people off-screen. It takes a few minutes to realize this, but this appears to be Gerald's last words before he faces a firing squad.
  • Guide Dang It - The hidden Secretary and Maria menu themes.
    • Also the platforms to learn each character's song and the locations of the Ancient Shrines and their individual effects in the levels.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The phrase "weapons of mass destruction" already seems a bit out of place in a kid's game but it feels quite different in light of how frequently that phrase was used in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: remember the introductory movie of the game? Shadow and Sonic did face each other, but never in Radical Highway... until the Nintendo 3DS version of Sonic Generations. Especially noteworthy considering the beginning of the very same boss battle has a different Shout-Out in the home console version, in that the intro movie is referenced by Sonic and Shadow's Mirrored Confrontation Shot; however, the battle itself takes place outside the Space Colony ARK.
  • Just Here for Godzilla: A large number of fans only buy the game for the Chao.
  • Memetic Mutation - "We all did it together!"
  • Memetic Sex Goddess: Rouge the Bat, although this is a given considering her appearance.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Depending on how you view it, G.U.N. crossed the line when they slaughtered innocent people in the ARK and had the public view it as a benevolent act for the chance to get rid of Shadow. The harshest blow was when a soldier shot Maria (an ill, 10-year-old girl), right in front of Shadow's eyes, thus stirred Shadow's hatred towards humanity and Gerald's insanity. The worst is that, unlike many villains in the series, they never had any comeuppance for their actions. The closest they get to one was the main cast busting up their robots, and those cases were due to self-defense.
    • Not that it gives Gerald ANY excuse to cross it himself by condemning mankind to certain death by dropping the ARK onto earth as penance for G.U.N's atrocities.
  • Narm - You just can't have a Sonic game without this trope. Some specific examples include:

Tails: (talking to himself, practically monotonous) What's Amy doing here? Doesn't matter! I have to help Amy because she is in danger!
Amy: (again, practically monotonous) Hurry, I know Eggman's up to no good again.

  • Narm Charm - The rap songs that play during Knuckles' stages combine this with Crowning Music of Awesome.
    • The same goes for the City Escape theme, which has become ingrained into Sonic fans' minds in spite of (or thanks to) its utterly ridiculous lyrics and cheesy instrumentation.
  • Newbie Boom: For many people, this game was their introduction to the Sonic the Hedgehog series proper.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The Biolizard. If it wasn't creepy enough already, look closely. It doesn't have eyes.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Hunting and driving levels. Especially Rouge's driving level and any of the later hunting stages.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: "Don't condemn all of humanity just because of what one group did, no matter how horrible; blame only the people who have actually done wrong, instead of dragging innocents into your suffering."
  • That One Boss - The penultimate boss Biolizard is noted for being much harder than the final boss. Justifed in that it's the same creature, only fused with a giant space colony and without its life support system.
    • It is also pretty hard to fight with a cannon stuck up your ass.
    • Admittedly, given that his weak spots spawn randomly and you have a strict (but unseen) five minute time limit, Finalhazard can be a pain to fight at times.
    • Egg Golem with Eggman is pretty annoying too, and it doesn't help that unlike Sonic who can jump out of the quicksand if he falls in, the much heavier Dr. Eggman will instantly sink and cost you a life. Not to mention that, unlike Sonic, who is smaller, faster, and can take multiple hits (as long as you pick up your rings), Eggman is bigger, slower, and has a limited health bar as well. Also the Golem is malfunctioning after Sonic defeats it, so Dr. Eggman has to deal with it being considerably faster and more erratic with its attacks and movements.
    • For some, pretty much any time where you're faced with an opposing main character (except Tails and Eggman, who are relatively easy). Almost every attack you use against them will be cancelled out due to them using the same attack you're using and have them clash with yours, nullifying any damage either character should take, whilst you have to find a way to defeat them in a complex manner than how you are used to fighting typical bosses.
  • That One Level - The missions in both driving stages where you cannot so much as tap the wall. Timed missions have also resulted in frustration (Green Forest and White Jungle get a free pass for being Sonic/Shadow stages and more lenient with the time limit, at least in the first mission).
    • Also the driving missions where you can't hit any other cars, mainly because it almost seems like the cars are trying to specifically hit you in those missions.
    • Security Hall and Mad Space is this for the treasure hunting levels due to the sheer size of the world and bad clues given. It's a shame as Mad Space has a proto-Super Mario Galaxy look to it.
      • Those levels tend to be Scappy Levels for many players. Especially Security Hall with its time limit in addition to its size and poor clues.
    • For Sonic there's always Crazy Gadget, due to the maze-like ending of it where it's one wrong move and buh-bye gravity, falling to earth.
    • And of course there's the final level, particularly Knuckles' section of it where you have to swim quickly to hit switches while freezing time, on top of worrying about finding air bubbles so Knuckles can breathe. And Sonic's section has a Guide Dang It moment in which the level comes to a screeching halt, with one of those water-based enemies hovering over a Bottomless Pit with a dead-end behind it (apparently you're supposed to hit it with a homing attack and quickly bounce back so another door previously hidden from view opens, but if it hits you first you're dead).
      • Although Knuckles' section of Cannon Core is considerably easier with his re-breather device from Aquatic Mine. Despite being somewhat of a Guide Dang It to find, it makes life a lot easier there.
  • Uncanny Valley - The human characters (sans Eggman) look a little... off.
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids? - Oh, so much. Shadow, the "real" central character of the game, is on a quest to destroy humanity because the government as is his creator Gerald Robotnik, which is made horrifying by his speech. Somehow, it got an "E" rating.
  • The Woobie: Maria, so very much.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds - Gerald becomes somewhat sympathetic once you realize how he lost everything important to him. To see how far Gerald fell, just watch the cutscene in Shadow the Hedgehog where he instructs Shadow (via old video footage) to use the Eclipse Cannon for the good of humanity by destroying the Black Comet. All it took was the death of Maria for Gerald to go insane and completely alter his motives.
    • Shadow the Hedgehog also counts for this to a certain degree. The reason he's attempting to destroy humanity? Because he thought that his promise to Maria was for revenge.
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