10 Facts About Sonic Adventure 2

Sonic Adventure 2 was released on June 18 2001 in North America and June 23 2001 in Japan. Along with Sonic Adventure, also on the SEGA Dreamcast these two series of games still remain some of the most beloved in the Sonic franchise. To celebrate 25 years of Sonic and 15 years from the game’s release here are 10 facts you may or may not have known about the game !

10. Sonic’s Shoes

In original trailers and clips on the Sonic Adventure 2 International Demo Disc, Sonic was seen wearing his original shoes with the white striped line in the middle. It wasn’t until sometime later that SEGA would find a partnership with Soap Shoes (Who was founded in 1997), a real life Shoe Grinding product to help them advertise their business and also give Sonic his famous Grinding ability (Which was first introduced in Sonic Adventure 2!) and is still used in Sonic games to this day, even without his Soap Shoes. Today, Soap Shoes were succumbed to Legal Vulnerabilities and went into re-administration twice. Now, the company is known as Heeling Sports Limited.

09. Game Setting

Although Sonic Adventure 2 is a fictional game, the game’s hub worlds and story is loosely based on San Fransisco, which was the Sonic Team headquarters at the time. The first level, City Escape is completely recognizable and even features the famous trams (Which you can knock over), and levels like Kart Racing and Radical Highway are set on the Golden Gate Bridge.  Jungle Levels are loosely based off Yosemite National Park.

08. Nintendo Port

In 2002, after the sad death of the SEGA Dreamcast, Sonic Adventure 2 was re-released on the Nintendo Gamecube as Sonic Adventure 2 : Battle. It was the first Sonic game to be ported on a Nintendo console, and like the original version, was a complete success. It featured new story elements, an updated chao garden, and best of all, new introduced multiplayer modes. It also had a option to connect to the Game Boy Advance through GBA Link cable so you can transfer Chao through Sonic Advance. It also had different Opening Titles than the original game.

07. Demo Version Differences

A special demo was packaged with Phantasy Star Online also for the SEGA Dreamcast and featured many significant differences before the final game was released. One notable difference is the game’s logo, which was silver instead of bright and colourful, and did not feature Shadow’s red lines underneath the Hedgehog spikes. Sonic wears his original shoes  and some cutscene voices are also different. When Sonic escapes from the helicopter at the beginning of the game one of the pilots says “What the hell!?” which was originally replaced with “What in the world?!”

06. Unused Story Elements

According to Sonic Wikia, one unused story element for the game was for the player to choose the outcome of the character’s story. For example, Iizuka once talked about the idea of Sonic being trapped in a submarine and the player would choose two story outcome options; make Sonic open the hatch to get out safely or escape from outside of the water (even when Sonic can’t swim). Though the idea of this story would be scrapped it would later be introduced to choose Character story outcomes in the 2005 pre-sequel Shadow the Hedgehog (Excluding submarines!)

05. Shadow’s Original Name

Before the game was released Shadow’s original name was planned to be “Terios” which means “Reflection of”. It was later changed to Shadow.

04. New Characters for the Sonic Series

Four new Characters were introduced for the Sonic series in this game, who are still used today, being Shadow the Hedgehog and Rouge the Bat, including Professor Gerald Robotnik (Robotnik’s Grandfather) and his daughter, Maria. This is also the first Sonic game where you can play as Dr. Eggman.

03. Legacy

Sonic Adventure 2 remains one of the best selling Sonic the Hedgehog games to date. According to the site VGChartz, as of June 2013,  it remains number 10 in a list of 10 with 2.6 million copies sold.

Source: VGChartz

02. Special Character Costumes

In the SEGA Dreamcast version, If you manage to get all A Ranks for each character’s level, you will unlock unique costumes for each character in Multiplayer Mode.

01. Big the Cat Cameo Appearances

Although frustratingly Big the Cat was not a playable Character in this game he does make many amusing cameo appearances in most stages where he can be seen, either hanging off awkward rails on high edges or getting run over by the G.U.N truck in City Escape.  In Sonic Adventure 2 Battle’s Multiplayer Mode, what could have been his character was replaced with a Dark Chao instead. Ouch!