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Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)
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| Sonic Adventure 2 |
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Developer: Sonic Team USA
 This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article This game has a bugs page |
Sonic Adventure 2 is the sequel to Sonic Adventure, as well as the last Sonic game for a Sega console. There are three types of levels: Sonic/Shadow stages, which are similar to Sonic's stages in the first game, Tails/Eggman stages, in which you platform and shoot everything in sight, and Knuckles/Rouge levels, where you hunt for three treasures. It was re-released for the GameCube as Sonic Adventure 2: Battle.
Contents
Sub-Pages
| Prototype Info |
| Prerelease Info |
| Bugs |
Resources
 | Unused Stages |
 | Unused Objects |
 | Unused Audio Just like the previous game, there are some unused lines that were not given translations. Also, lots more Omochao. |
 | Unused Graphics |
 | Cutscenes |
 | Chao World Kindergarten rooms, Online features and a load of unused text! |
 | World Ranking System |
Debug Features
Debug Menu
There is a debug menu in all versions of the game which is accessible by replacing ADVERTISE.PRS with TITLE.PRS.
For the GameCube version, replace advertiseD.rel with titleD.rel or use the NTSC-US Action Replay code:
7V85-EB5E-T1K7W G1HQ-DBYC-PVZAY 3NV3-R6FU-ZPNDA
In the PC version, you can use a memory editor to go to 434687 and change CC 76 8B 00 to 98 8F 8B 00. The code to display the menu items on-screen was removed in the PC version, but it still functions.
The menu has the following options to choose from:
- GAME:1P ONLY - Play a level with one player.
- GAME:2P 3POINTS MATCH - Play a level with two players until one player wins three times.
- GAME:2P 1POINT MATCH - Play a level with two players.
- TEST:EVENT - View cutscenes.
- DEMO:1P ONLY - Record a demo with one player. Press Start to end the recording.
- DEMO:2P - Record a demo with two players. Press Start to end the recording.
- DEMO:LOOK PREVIOUS TAKEN ONE - Replay the previously recorded demo.
- PLAY:FROM HERO - Play the story mode on the Hero Story.
- PLAY:FROM DARK - Play the story mode on the Dark Story.
- PLAY:FROM LAST - Play the story mode on the Last Story.
The GAME and DEMO options will ask you to choose a character or character set and a level. The list of levels includes all that character's normal stages, Chao World (misspelled as CHAO WARLD) and the test levels (BASIC TEST, SONIC TEST or KNUCKLES TEST), which do not exist and crash if you try to select them.
The Event Test not only lists all the events and allows you to view them, you can also stop cutscenes with the B button, and speed them up or slow them down with the shoulder buttons, even making them run in reverse.
The debug menu uses an older demo cycle which has both a different character order and stages for Eggman, Knuckles and Shadow. As previously mentioned, these stages have reserved cameras for demo playback that are never normally seen due to the changes:
| Debug Cycle | Regular Cycle |
|---|---|
| Sonic (City Escape) | Sonic (City Escape) |
| Eggman (Iron Gate) | Eggman (Sand Ocean) |
| Rouge (Dry Lagoon) | Knuckles (Wild Canyon) |
| Tails (Prison Lane) | Shadow (Radical Highway) |
| Knuckles (Pumpkin Hill) | Tails (Prison Lane) |
| Shadow (Sky Rail) | Rouge (Dry Lagoon) |
Leftovers
The Trial, Preview and May 7 prototypes all contained an extensive Debug Mode that could be accessed by enabling certain flags. In the final version, this mode has been entirely removed with the exception of a few leftover features:
Free Movement
Sonic Adventure 2 includes the same free movement mode from the previous game that lets the player move a character anywhere on the map.
The controls are as follows:
Analog Stick = Move
Analog Stick + X = Move Up/Down
A = Exit Free Movement mode.
B = Go to the current character's start position.
During development all characters were able to enter this mode, but in the final game this mode no longer exists for the treasure hunting characters (Knuckles, Rouge, Chaos and Tikal). It can be seen by setting their Action ID to 58.
Board in Metal Harbor
In the trial, a flag can be enabled that allows Sonic to gain access to a board by pressing Y on the second controller. This flag is enabled by default in the final game, but its functionality has been removed almost entirely with Metal Harbor being the only level in the game that the feature will still work in. This was fixed in the GameCube release.
Collision Display
While it can't be seen in-game normally, the only remaining part of the debug display left in the game is a mode that when activated will highlight any geometry the character is currently colliding with. This mode is still present in future releases.
Unused Text
Early Level and Boss List
Located in TEXT_E.prs is an early level and boss list, missing several stages present in the final game and featuring some interesting boss names.
BASIC TEST KNUCKLES TEST SONIC TEST GREEN FOREST WHITE JUNGLE PUMPKIN HILL SKY RAIL AQUATIC MINE SECURITY HALL PRISON LANE METAL HARBOR IRON GATE WEAPONS BED CITY ESCAPE RADICAL HIGHWAY WEAPONS BED 2P WILD CANYON MISSION STREET DRY LAGOON SONIC VS SHADOW TAILS VS EGGMAN SAND OCEAN CRAZY GADGET HIDDEN BASE ETERNAL ENGINE DEATH CHAMBER EGG QUARTERS LOST COLONY PYRAMID CAVE TAILS VS EGGMAN return NO NAME BIG FOOT HOT SHOT FRYING DOG King Boom Boo GOLEM(an assumed name) THE BIOHAZARD(an assumed name) CART EXTRA GAME:CART CHAO GARDEN
Cannon's Core Hint Files
Knuckles and Rouge have hint files for Cannon's Core, but their contents appear to be exact copies of Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon's Japanese hints.
Placeholder Messages
Each stage contains a number of Japanese placeholder strings. The first message always occupies the default message slot and displays if an Omochao or other text source is created via hacking without a valid message ID. These are the only messages in the game that use colors.
| Japanese | Translation |
|---|---|
| むふふぅ（解説：テキストがないデアル） | Muhuhuu (Explanation: There is no text) |
| むふふぅ（解説：テキストがないじぇ） | Muhuhuu (Explanation: There's no text) |
| 吹いています（未対応） | Whistling (Unsupported) |
| 吹けません（メッセージもありません） | Can't whistle (No message) |
| いちどだけです（メッセージもありません） | Only once (No message) |
| 「死」（メッセージ設定が範囲外なのだ） | "Death" (Message setting is out of range) |
Regional Differences
The SEGA logo is slightly different in the Japanese version of the game. It's lighter (as it's usually the case although not always) and a few pixels higher than the one used in other versions.
| Japanese | International |
|---|---|
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Anti-Piracy
The game runs a disc check to make sure it is being run from an official GD-ROM rather than a copied disc. If this check fails, Eggman will fall through the floor when he starts his section of Cannon's Core, although the level can still be completed by navigating to the end. This cannot happen on emulators, even when using a pirate copy.
Disc Content
If the game disc is inserted into a PC, a set of wallpapers can be found:
WALLP_CHAO
WALLP_SHADOW
WALLP_SONIC
As well as a short history of Sonic games up until the game's release:
BIBLIOGR.TXT:
SERIES TITLE: SONIC the Hedgehog ,1991 SONIC the Hedgehog 2 ,1992 SONIC the Hedgehog 3 ,1994 SONIC and KNUCKLES ,1994 SONIC JAM ,1997 SONIC Adventure (for Japan) ,1998 SONIC Adventure ,1999 SONIC Adventure International,1999 SONIC Adventure 2 The Trial ,2000
Sonic's Classic Shoes
It's well known at this point that Sonic's shoes were changed to Soap Shoes late in development, however the majority of SA2 was done at that point, so there's a bunch of leftovers.
The Hero Story intro has Sonic wearing his classic shoes until he jumps onto the wing, the shuttle launch scene in the Dark Story still shows them (likely due to it being a prerendered cinematic), and one of the screenshots in the credits shows his classic shoes. All three of these were fixed in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, but all of the game's artwork still depicted him in his classic shoes prior to the 2012 Port.
Famously, Sonic Adventure 2: The Trial uses his classic shoes.
Present in all of Sonic's cutscene texture files (E###TEXTURE.PRS) are textures for the shoes, the original Light Speed shoe upgrade, and a number of blank files. Of note is that these textures feature red soles, as opposed to the gray soles seen in The Trial and early screenshots.
The Trial's textures can be found in the scene where Sonic & Shadow turn super.
Shoes
Light Speed Dash Upgrade
Intro (Scene moved to SA2:Preview)
Missing Cannon Core Tracks
In Sonic Adventure 2, each character is represented with a specific musical genre for their theme songs and levels. Sonic's are high-energy rock, grunge rock with a focus on bass and vocals for Shadow, energetic rock/synthesizers for Tails, industrial metal for Eggman, hip-hop and rap for Knuckles, and fusion jazz for Rouge. The final level Cannon's Core implies that it would emphasize this all the more so, if not for two skipped files that follow the game's internal C_CORE_X.ADX music file naming scheme.
| Actual | Inferred | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| File Name | Character | File Name | Character |
| C_CORE_1.ADX | Tails and Eggman | C_CORE_1.ADX | Tails |
| C_CORE_2.ADX | Rouge and Knuckles | C_CORE_2.ADX | Eggman |
| — | — | C_CORE_3.ADX | Rouge |
| — | — | C_CORE_4.ADX | Knuckles |
| C_CORE_5.ADX | Sonic | C_CORE_5.ADX | Sonic |
| C_CORE_6.ADX | Water Slide segment | C_CORE_6.ADX | Water Slide segment |
In a filename-skipping situation similarly found in another certain Sonic game, the file order omits two slots in the directory for unknown reasons. If we follow the aforementioned genre scheme, with the segment order and the character featured, we can infer that each segment had a unique individual track for each character (and by proxy, the corresponding represented genre for them). The industrial-theme track "C_CORE_2.ADX" would suit Eggman more than Rouge and Knuckles, for one.
- Pages missing developer references
- Games developed by Sonic Team USA
- Pages missing publisher references
- Games published by Sega
- Dreamcast games
- Pages missing date references
- Games released in 2001
- Games with unused areas
- Games with unused game types
- Games with unused graphics
- Games with unused music
- Games with unused sounds
- Games with unused text
- Games with debugging functions
- Games with regional differences
- Games with anti-piracy methods
- Games with hidden bonus content
- Sonic the Hedgehog series
Cleanup > Pages missing date references
Cleanup > Pages missing developer references
Cleanup > Pages missing publisher references
Games > Games by content > Games with anti-piracy methods
Games > Games by content > Games with debugging functions
Games > Games by content > Games with hidden bonus content
Games > Games by content > Games with regional differences
Games > Games by content > Games with unused areas
Games > Games by content > Games with unused game types
Games > Games by content > Games with unused graphics
Games > Games by content > Games with unused music
Games > Games by content > Games with unused sounds
Games > Games by content > Games with unused text
Games > Games by developer > Games developed by Sega > Games developed by Sega Studio USA > Games developed by Sonic Team USA
Games > Games by platform > Dreamcast games
Games > Games by publisher > Games published by Sega
Games > Games by release date > Games released in 2001
Games > Games by series > Sonic the Hedgehog series
