Sonic Adventure 2 (Dreamcast)

Sonic Adventure 2
Developer: Sonic Team USA Publisher: Sega Platform: Dreamcast Released in JP: June 23, 2001 Released in US: June 19, 2001 Released in EU: June 23, 2001 This game has unused areas. This game has unused modes / minigames. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused models. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has anti-piracy features. This game has hidden bonus content. 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.

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

Unused Models

Shadow Afterimage Model

When Sonic performs the Light Dash, an afterimage model can be seen for the duration of the technique. This isn't the case for Shadow, but he does have the appropriate model stored within TERIOSMDL.PRS, along with the rest of his model data.

UnusedLog.sa2mdl

An untextured log found in Green Forest.

TESTWOOD.sa2mdl

Another unused log found in Green Forest.

BOX_BREAKOLD.sa2mdl

An unused broken version of the treasure chest found in Wild Canyon.

Skybox_Old.sa2mdl

A more primitive version of the skybox seen in Grind Race.

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)

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. c 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.

(Source: Sonic Retro.)

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)

Bonus Content

If the game disc is inserted into a PC, a set of wallpapers can be found:

• 

  WALLP_CHAO

• 

  WALLP_SHADOW

• 

  WALLP_SONIC

BIBLIOGR.TXT is a short history of Sonic games up until the game's release.

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

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.

(Source: Dreamcast-talk)

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.

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