Hey, welcome back! Immediately after the first level, we cut to Knuckles The Echidna in the middle of bickering with new character Rouge The Bat.
If (for whatever reason) you don’t know what Knuckles’ deal is, basically he’s trying to protect the Master Emerald which powers his island or something. It is very powerful and that is why it is so important, okay.
Rouge The Bat is trying to get the Master Emerald because Jewel Thief is her side gig, her main thing being Actual Government Agent which is a career path that will probably intrude on that illegal thing she’s doing right now.
Anyways Knuckles is bragging about how the Master Emerald is really cool and strong and can blow up the moon so that’s why Rouge can’t have it, but then the Dr. Eggman swoops right in and steals it for himself because he’s a micropenis and nobody likes him.
What an asshole! Fuck off.
STAGE 02: [WILD CANYON]
Before we start: Knuckles has this thing in SA2, in that all his levels have a rap song for their soundtrack. Youtube comments will try to sway you, claiming that “Rap = CRap” but it’s the opinion of Very Cool People (like you and me) that Knuckles has the best songs in the game.
His levels, not so much.
Starting off, Knuckles can do a couple of things that Sonic cannot that can be put to great use exploring the abandoned poopdomes Knuckles’ levels put him in.
He’s got some combos to hit things as opposed to Sonic’s homing attack.
Lastly, he has a throw, a technique we will utilize to dispose of this little shit right in front of his own kind.
Knuckles gets some more tricks later in the game through the upgrade system, wherein any character can find little trinkets throughout their levels to help you with your Sonic Adventure. Sometimes they put stuff in earlier levels so you can go back and see, and that is something I think is both clever and short-sighted of Sonic Team.
See these metal boxes? My Disney-ass gloves will do absolutely nothing to them, which means that I will have to go get an upgrade three levels down the line for said gloves so they can be slightly above nothing. THEN I have to come back to the boxes to see what they’ve decided to hide. I’m certain that these hold absolutely nothing of value but even still Sonic Team doesn’t let you have that nothing. Not without some legwork, at least.
Really, exclusive metal box access is pretty much all you’re ever rewarded with, in terms of replay value. Most upgrades end up more relevant to the level you find them in (snorkels to progress in the underwater level you find them in) then they are as an incentive to go back and explore past levels.
It is all very subjective and silly!
Hey while I was whining we beat the level. Go team.
Oh shit I forgot is Metal Harbour up next? Hell yea this is gonna be great, I can make fun of Sonic’s levels for 7 more paragraphs alri —
STAGE 03: [PRISON LANE]
So I could capture a GIF of Tails’ lipsyncing being the worst thing ever, but during his intro cutscene he says something that I find way more interesting:
The more I play Sonic, the more I understand why there are so many weird surrealist projects involving his person. Let me break this down:
Sonic is literally on the run from the military because Shadow is commuting terrorist acts in American cities. G.U.N. mistakes Sonic for Shadow and then they arrest him, literally in the middle of flying him to Prison Island so he can rot in a cell until Sonic escapes and the game starts proper.
I NEED you to understand that Sonic The Hedgehog is in the middle of a terrorist conspiracy and why that is such a wild concept for a video game. Please internalize that as we go through the rest of this story. It is completely mind-boggling.
Anyways, Tails is trying to bust his man out of jail when he sees Amy Rose and Eggman in the middle of some The Fugitive shit, and he flies in to stop them because to be honest Sonic can wait for one second.
MEET YOUR BOSS: EGGMAN
Just like Lonnie and Donnie, Eggman goes down without much trouble.
Look I know it reflects poorly on me that I keep making images for the bosses and then talk about them for like two sentences, I get that. But Sonic Adventure 2 has some of the shittiest bosses in videogames.
If you’re fighting the average (speaking in quantity, not quality) boss in a video game, they’ll usually has a unique visual indicator and then do an attack, which leaves them open for one hit. Do that 3 times and then you get your Piece of Heart or Toad or whatever.
With Sonic Adventure 2, most of those steps get mixed together and shrunken down in the wash. You can hit Eggman at any time but he can also hit you, and his AI is also total ass. I can only compare it to when you invite a distant two year old relative to play a video game with you and both of you know you’re not trying to kick his ass but by god it is happening.
Anyways Tails beats Eggman like a fucking Taiko Drum and we start the level.
So the first thing you notice when starting Prison Lane is that you’ve somehow put yourself in a cell with three enemies because you are Tails and Tails is a gibbering oaf, so you are also the oaf.
So shoot these guys and let’s get moving. When I say that, I really mean it more as a plea to the game than to you.
Tails pilots his mech like it’s a robotic blast of piss in the wind. The ramp-up from Starting To Move to Now We’re Moving changes everytime you hit the control stick, and Donnie slides in with his camera work to make sure you get fucked up.
Prison Lane as a level is nothing to write about, really. There’s a lot of jumping,
Some running,
Later in the level, a combination of the two.
But hey! We’ve beaten it anyways. And look, no bosses!
Next week: we take a classroom vote on some very key issues.
