sonic adventure 2 and the power of the vibe

It was only a matter of time before I outed myself as a Sonic fan in this outlet. It will definitely not be the last time I do so (to the real heads: expect a Gamma video in the not-so-distant future), but since I’ve been extensively revisiting the blue blur’s backlog recently I wanted to fire off a quick piece about one of his greatest strengths: his vibe.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Sonic franchise in its entirety subsists largely off of vibes alone. Even those with cursory knowledge of his history know that the quality of his mainline titles have been extraordinarily inconsistent since the early 2000s, and public opinion on even the early 3D games from the turn of the century has soured significantly. One such early 3D game is Sonic Adventure 2 - and it’s the one I’ve been playing the most recently.

It’s difficult to start explaining why exactly I’ve been playing Adventure 2 so much, largely because it’s frankly kind of shit. The Adventure games are (in)famous for having a large cast of playable characters outside of Sonic himself, and they broadly fall into three gameplay styles:

1. “Speed” characters, like Sonic and Shadow. This gameplay type, full of high-speed platforming and action set pieces, most resembles what people think of when they think of a Sonic game.
2. ”Treasure Hunter” characters, like Knuckles and Rouge. Their gameplay revolves around scavenger hunts for various kinds of items in an open, non-linear stage.
3. ”Shooting Gallery” characters, like Tails and Eggman. Their gameplay usually involves some piloting kind of giant mech or robot and blowing things up with bullets and rockets.

This ambitious approach typically falls apart when it collides with the limitations of either Sonic Team’s seemingly eternal inability to properly staff projects (Adventure 2 was developed with only around a dozen people) or the limitations of early 3D graphics and camera technology. The original Adventure had its fair share of issues in regards to its non-speed characters, but the Sonic levels could generally be relied upon to be consistent - if janky - fun. The same is not true of Adventure 2.

A screenshot of Pyramid Cave, a Sonic level from Sonic Adventure 2.

Adventure 2 is very much a game held together by fishing twine. It wants to have the wacky physics-based gameplay of the 90’s 2D games, but the technology to do that in 3D simply was not there in 2001. As such, the game relies on taking away your control and putting you on an automated rollercoaster whenever it wants you to do something cool. Even just running through a loop - one of the most iconic Sonic Things™️ since the original’s release in 1991 - is straight up not possible without the aid of a series of automated treadmills that rob you of your control of the character. Not only that, but the treadmills often don’t even work to begin with. Frequently the game will give you back control of Sonic or Shadow but not reset the orientation of the camera before it does, leading to moments where you’re sent careening off a cliff to your death for the crime of holding forward. The game is extremely glitchy, the sound mixing is legit some of the worst in any game ever, and the motion-captured cutscene animation looks absurd. I should hate this game. It sucks.

If Steam’s to be believed, I’ve put two dozen hours into it in the last two weeks.

”Why?” I hear you (or perhaps the voices in my head) asking. The easy answer is nostalgia - and if we were talking about the original Adventure, I would wholeheartedly agree. However, even though I had it, I didn’t really play Adventure 2 that much as a child. I didn’t even beat the game until I was around seventeen, which is a good seven years after I completed the original. Compared to the other flagship titles in the series like Sonic 3 & Knuckles or even Sonic Generations, I’ve devoted a pretty small amount of my Sonic playtime to Adventure 2. The actual reason I’m soft on Adventure 2 has to do with the one thing that Sonic has consistently excelled at since 1991 - the vibe.

To demonstrate: listen to this track, which plays in the level that I was bitching about two paragraphs ago:

It is just hard to be mad about falling to my death when a track this good is playing in the background. Adventure 2’s soundtrack is consistently stellar - stellar enough to stand out in a franchise that is specifically known for its incredible music. It’s not just the music, though - the entire game’s quaint 2000s aesthetic, its weird, psychedelic larger-than-life landscapes, and the unbelievable corniness of its melodramatic plot all serve to cover for its shortcomings.

A screenshot of one of Sonic Adventure 2’s cutscenes. In this scene, Sonic and Tails - currently fugitives on the run from the U.S. military - have broken into the President’s limo to hack his computer. In a later game, it is revealed that the President keeps a picture of Sonic on his desk, in much the same way one would keep the photo of a spouse or family member.

Adventure 2 is simply too earnest, too groovy, and too unapologetically committed to its aesthetic vision to hate on with any real malice. The set pieces that work really do work, the rapidly shifting gameplay styles keep you on your toes, and it has a pet raising mini-game with such an immense level of depth and complexity that it makes Pokémon look amateur by comparison. It’s raw camp distilled into video game form.

And though Adventure 2’s immaculate vibes are definitely covering for a lack of substance, I think that it is representative of the same immaculate vibes that has kept the Sonic franchise afloat even in the lean times. Even the absolute worst Sonic games will leave you with some of the (unintentionally) funniest dialogue put to screen, at least a few genuine moments of brilliance, and a soundtrack so good that you could probably convince a normal person to jam to it unironically (if you don’t tell them where it’s from). I love Mario as much as the next guy, but Mario’s never broken out of a police helicopter, ripped off a piece of it to use as a skateboard, and then proceeded to do sick kickflips all over the streets of San Francisco.

That’s the kind of swag that can hypnotize generations of children into making furry OCs. Maybe if Mario could put in some of that elbow grease, we wouldn’t have a shortage of plumbers.