You guys are going to hate for this, but I did not enjoy "Sonic Adventure 2." The
ONLY fun levels in that whole game are the Sonic/Shadow stages. They did a great job bringing the fast-paced action of the Genesis games into a 3D world and almost every stage introduced a new concept; like the Lightspeed Dash returning from "SA1" or grinding on rails.
The mech shooting and emerald hunting levels, which
WERE fun in the first game, have been significantly butchered in "SA2". Tails/Eggman aren't nearly as fast as Gamma, the high pitched "
BEEEEEEEEEEEP" sound when locking onto enemies is annoying, precision platforming (even with the hover powerup) can be irritating at times, and mowing down enemies isn't nearly as satisfying as it was in "SA1". It was fun to zoom through a level as Gamma, shoot like 7 enemies and get a 30 second time bonus. I don't feel
ANYTHING when playing "SA2's" mech stages other a desire to shut the game off and play something else.
As for the emerald hunting stages, my grievanes with these in "SA2" are broken down into 3 categories: unnecessary spacious level designs that don't seem to be built around Knuckles/Rouge's abilities, gimped radar and hint systems. The
ONLY stage I liked was "Pumpkin Hill" (No, not the music. Not a huge fan of rap music.) because it's built around Knuckles' ability to glide as well as digging; kinda like Red Mountain in "SA1". But every level after that is just a disjointed mess that makes me question if the designers even played "SA1" before designing these. Plus, I think Knuckles moves a bit TOO fast for my liking and it doesn't feel conducive to his level design. The hint system in "SA2" is WAY more cryptic (especially in "Mad Space" where they REVERSE THE HINT MESSAGES!! Like... Do they just WANT me to hate this game?). In the first game, they were much easier to figure out and sometimes Tikal would literally point you in the direction at which an emerald shard was located. Because of this, the "SA1" stages never really took an absurdly long time to beat. But in the 2nd game, be prepared to spend a good twenty minutes looking for a shard because the hint system is fucking terrible now. To make matters worse, instead of the radar detecting all 3 shards like in the first game, it only detects ONE shard at a time. And the game wants you to find them in a specific order (for some ungodly reason). Because of this, there WILL be times where you find a shard but it's not the one game wants you to grab just yet (Brilliant design, Sonic Team!

).
The boss fights are a mixed bag. Some of them are fun to fight—like the pyramid golem and the final Sonic/Shadow boss on Space Colony ARK. But everything else ranges from tedious to just plain aggravating (looking at YOU, Tails/Eggman!).