__________________ Sonic Adventure 2 \********************************* / by Matt the Yak v.1.3 * WALKTHROUGH \ yakmir@yahoo.com * ___________/-------------\************************** |+ SA2:Battle!| \-------------/ *********************** WARNING: THIS WALKTHROUGH CONTAINS SERIOUSLY LARGE SPOILERS, INCLUDING DESCRIPTIONS OF MOST CUTSCENES. INCLUDING THE FINAL ENDING. THIS WALKTHROUGH IS MY WORK ENTIRELY, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. IT'S GOING TO STAY THAT WAY. COPY BITS WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL NOT BE A HAPPY BUNNY. THE WORDS "COPYRIGHT" AND "LEGAL ACTION" ARE INVOLVED. DON'T THINK THE STRANGE PHRASING AT ALL LESSENS THE MEANING OF THE WORDS. *ahem* To put it in a formal and legally binding manner, this walkthrough is (c) Matt Newman 2002. This walkthrough will always be available for download from www.gamefaqs.com, www.neoseeker.com, and from my own website, Sonic Vegemite (http://come.to/sonicV) SV is a fairly damn large hoaxing page, containg fake screenshots created by over 30 Sonic fans across the Net. I'm always taking submissions as well, so come on in and take a look. Amongst SV's other features: - The home of the Sonic hoax series and Fan Game known only as "When Tails Gets Bored!" - What Cheeses Me Off: complain to me about stuff! I may even reply! - Many original pieces of MIDI music for your perusal! - The twisted fangaming creations of Matt the Yak! - Dreamcast reviews, as frequently as I can be bothered! - Big links page and almost-dead message board! come.to/SonicV - for many of your Sonic needs! You know you want to! *********************** *********************** 0. CONTENTS *********************** 1. Introduction/Versions 2. Characters and Plot 1 Plot Synopsis 2 Moves and Items 3 Power Ups 3. Play The Game Already! 1 Hero Story 2 Dark Story 3 Last Story 4. One Player Modes (non-Story) 5. Two Player Modes 6. Those Darn Emblems 7. Your Chao And You 8. Sonic Adventure 2: Battle 1 Two Player Battle 2 Chao Gardens 3 New Emblem List 4 Other Little Things 9. Miscellaneous Stuff 1 Big Sightings 2 Secret Costumes 3 Secret Characters 4 Green Hill 5 Other Alleged Cheats 10. Thankyou And Goodnight --------------- *********************** 1 INTRODUCTION/VERSIONS *********************** The late Eighties. Nintendo dominates the console war with the 8-bit NES, a machine not even arcade master Sega's debut console, the Master System, can touch. And then Sega announce a 16-bit machine. Nintendo rubbish the idea, but Sega release the Mega Drive, aka Genesis, in 1989, which promptly sells its butt off. In late 1990, Nintendo announce the Super NES, which will be a competitor to the MD. Early 1991. Sega's tech team get a look at SNES chipsets. The SNES appears to be able to beat the living heck out of the MD in most areas. Except for one. Speed. Naturally, Sega programmers form a team to build a game devoted entirely to speed. The rest is history. And it's history that started 10 years to the month before Sonic Team release Sonic Adventure 2 for the blue guy's 10th Anniversary. Mid July, 2001. In a house in Australia, I finally manage to finish Cannon's Core. I decide to do a walkthrough of it, which will soon expand to be a full SA2 walkthrough. ---- 01/06/2002 v.1.3 (That's 1 June, not 6 January... ^_^ ) The rest of section 8 added. Minor bugs also fixed. Slight delay caused by the purchase of Super Smash Brothers Melee. Name of walkthrough changed to Sonic Adventure 2 + SA2:Battle Walkthrough. 28/05/2002 v.1.2 Now includes sections 8.1 and 8.3, "SA2B 2P Battle" and "SA2B Emblem List". Some fixes. 26/05/2002 v.1.1 Now with beginnings of a Sonic Adventure 2 Battle section. 28/11/2001 v.1 Dark Side walkthrough complete, some minor errors fixed, a few credits added. And the blatant commercial for my webpage up above there that you probably skipped. 27/11/2001 v.0.7 Dark Side now covers up to and including the Knuckles fight. Also added a large section on moves, powerups and items. 10/11/2001 v.0.55 Added in Section 5: Two Player Modes. Also updated the Dark Side walkthrough to cover Route 280. 08/10/2001 v.0.50 After a short delay (again), Dark Side players can get upto and including White Jungle and Shadow's fight with Sonic directly afterwards. Also, rejoice in a brand new Chao section (section 7) 24/09/2001 v.0.43 Yeah, it's been a while. Now the Dark Side walkthorugh goes up to and including Egg Quarters. 27/08/2001 v.0.41 After a bit of a break, I start the Dark Side walkthrough up to and including Dry Lagoon. 12/08/2001 v.0.4 The Hero walkthrough is completed. 11/08/2001 v.0.35 On a day off from university work, I add section 4 "One-Player Modes", section 6 "Those Darn Emblems", and complete the Hero Guide up to and including Eternal Engine. 01/08/2001 v.0.25 I add in up to and including Route 101, and add section 8, "Miscellaneous Stuff". 30/07/2001 v.0.20 I edit some previous bits and add Prison Lane and Metal Harbor. 29/07/2001 v.0.15 I add in City Escape and Wild Canyon. 18/07/2001 v.0.11 I add in BioLizard and FinalHazard, and start Hero Side, on a break from University. 16/07/2001 v.0.1 Rather than be forced to sit through garbage like "Big Brother", I complete the introduction, character/plot section, and walkthrough of Cannon's Core. *********************** 2 CHARACTERS/PLOT *********************** *********************** 2.1 PLOT SYNOPSIS *********************** Robotnik, aka Eggman, and friends would like to take over and/or destroy the planet. Sonic and friends would really rather they didn't. It all begins when DR. IVO "EGGMAN" ROBOTNIK does some research into family history. Seems his late grandfather, PROFESSOR GERALD ROBOTNIK, came up with the "ultimate life form", termed Project:Shadow. Blasting his way through a military base, he meets one SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG. Presumably this would be Gerald's creation. Shadow certainly remembers that, and being raised by Eggman's cousin MARIA ROBOTNIK. Shadow's more than a little upset at the world, mainly because they took offense to Gerald's Space Colony ARK. And decided to conduct a military operation resulting in Maria's death. Shadow has a plan to get his revenge, Eggman would like a go at the ARK's deadly Eclipse Cannon, and they both need some Chaos Emeralds... Shortly afterwards, the G.U.N. military force take a disliking to SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. Something about a hedgehog stealing Chaos Emeralds. Sonic is captured, escapes, meets Shadow, realises what is going on, and is captured again. AMY ROSE sneaks onto Prison Island and bumps into both Eggman and MILES "TAILS" PROWER while trying to get him out. Sonic and Tails make the connection between Eggman and Shadow, and when Eggman makes his move, they follow... KNUCKLES THE ECHIDNA, world-famous treasure hunter, has problems of his own. Being the Guardian of the Master Emerald, he is less than delighted when ROUGE THE BAT, another world-famous treasure hunter, takes a shine to his big green gem. He's even less thrilled when Eggman takes an interest as well, being forced to shatter the thing to keep it safe. Now both Knuckles and Rouge are vying for Emerald shards. Rouge is happy to side with Eggman if it means she gets the shards. Or so it would appear... but if she's on Eggman's side, who's she talking to on her wrist-watch communicator? Knuckles, of course, is now firmly on Sonic's side. So when the Eggman's plan is unfurled, he's ready to help stop it. So long as he can find all his Master Emerald shards along the way. *********************** 2.2 MOVES AND ITEMS *********************** _______________ EVERYONE \ _______________/ Move - Analog Stick. The harder you press, the faster you move. Jump - A Button. Sonic and Shadow Spin Jump, which harms enemies. The others just jump. Action Window - Y Button. The Y Button cycles through any of various actions you could perform in a given spot. Once you have chosen an action, perform it using B button. Actions include: Whistle - find a small pipe and whistle to rescue a hidden animal. You can also call a Chao in the Chao Garden. Pick Up/Throw - you can pick up a suitable item and throw it. Pet - in the Chao Gardem, you can pat a Chao. Other, character-specific actions may appear automatically in the Action Window should you be able to do them. See below for those actions. --- MYSTIC MELODY: Once you have this, you can play the Mystic Melody. Mystic Melody - B Button near an Ancient Ruin. The Mystic Melody activates a change in the level. It could be extra platforms, or even a spring. Sometimes it's just extra rings. In any case, you will need to play it in the 3rd Mission of each stage to rescue the lost Chao. Each character has their own. They can only use their own Mystic Melody pickup. LOCATION: SONIC Final Rush (Hero 16) SHADOW Final Chase (Dark 14) TAILS Hidden Base (Hero 10 - need Bazooka) EGGMAN Sand Ocean (Dark 3 - need Jet Engine) KNUCKLES Wild Canyon (Hero 2 - need Shovel Claw) ROUGE Dry Lagoon (Dark 2 - need Pick Nails) _______________ _______________ SONIC \ SHADOW \ the_Hedgehog___/ the_Hedgehog___/ Somersault - B button. Somersault under narrow gaps or break boxes. Can also be used as an attack. Homing Attack - A button in a jump. Your character will home in on the nearest enemy. The jump will continue after you destroy the enemy, so you can push A again for another Homing Attack. This move can be chained for as long as you can hit enemies. If no enemies are in range, this becomes the Jump Dash. --- LIGHT SHOES/AIR SHOES: Sonic's Light Shoes and Shadow's Air Shoes enable the Light Dash. LOCATION: SONIC Metal Harbor (Hero 4) SHADOW White Jungle (Dark 9) Enables: Light Dash - B near rings. Your character will zoom through a line of rings. Be warned that you must be very close to the rings, and facing the start of the line, or it will not work. ANCIENT LIGHT: The Ancient Light enables the Light Speed Attack. LOCATION: SONIC Green Forest (Hero 5) SHADOW Sky Rail (Dark 11) Enables: Light Speed Attack - Hold B until fully charged, move near enemies and release B. You can tell when you are fully charged when the character shouts "Ready!" and they stop spinning. You will remain fully charged for as long as you hold B - you can move around and jump whilst fully charged. Release B to attack all enemies within range FLAME RING: The Flame Ring allows Sonic and Shadow to break Steel Containers with their Somersault. LOCATION: SONIC Crazy Gadget (Hero 15) SHADOW Radical Highway (Dark 4 - need Air Shoes) BOUNCE BRACELET: Sonic-only. This allows Sonic to perform the Bounce Attack. LOCATION: SONIC Pyramid Cave (Hero 11) Enables: Bounce Attack - B in air. Sonic will fall to the ground and bounce like a ball, higher than the original jump. This can be repeated for higher and higher bounces. It also destroys enemies and boxes. MAGIC GLOVES: Sonic-only. These allow Sonic's Magic Hands attack. LOCATION: SONIC City Escape (Hero 1 - need Bounce Bracelet and Flame Ring) Enables: Magic Hands - Tap Y near an enemy until "Magic Hands" appears in the Action Window, then B. The enemy will be sucked into a glass ball in between Sonic's hands. This enemy can then be thrown at another enemy. _______________ _______________ TAILS \ EGGMAN \ Miles_Prower___/ Ivo_Robotnik___/ Volkan Cannon - B button. Each tap of B will fire one round from your cannon. Can destroy enemies and boxes, but must be aimed precisely. Lock-On - hold B button and move Analog Pad. The targeting laser will be moved with the Analog Pad, locking on to any enemy it touches. Fire Homing Missiles - release B button after Lock-On. The more enemies you lock-on to and destroy, the higher the point bonus. Propellor Punch/Punch - B near enemy. Punch an enemy when in close to damage/destroy them. --- BAZOOKA/LARGE CANNON: These will make your Volkan Cannon work on Steel boxes. LOCATION: TAILS Eternal Engine (Hero 13) EGGMAN Weapons Bed (Dark 7) LASER BLASTER: The Laser Blaster makes your Homing Missiles fire faster. LOCATION: TAILS Prison Lane (Hero 3 - need Bazooka) EGGMAN Iron Gate (Dark 1 - need Large Cannon) BOOSTER/JET ENGINE: These enable your character to Hover. LOCATION: TAILS Mission Street (Hero 7) EGGMAN Lost Colony (Dark 6) Enables: Hovering - hold A in air. Your character will sink slowly through the air, and you can control the fall much more. PROTECTION ARMOR: Eggman-only. Gives Eggman more Health. LOCATION: EGGMAN Cosmic Wall (Dark 13) _______________ _______________ KNUCKLES \ ROUGE \ the_Echidna____/ the_Bat________/ Glide - hold A Button in air. You will glide through the air, you can move with the Analog Pad. Hit your enemy with your fists - nowhere else on your body - to attack them. Glide into a wall to cling onto it. Climbing - Analog Pad on a wall. Jump or Glide into a wall to attach yourself to it. You can then move over it with the Analog Pad. Push A to jump off it. Punch/Kick - B Button. An attack, that will destroy enemies and boxes. Tap B three times for a Jump Punch/Jump Kick. Tap B three times while running for a Sliding Punch/Sliding Kick. Drill Claw/Drill Drive - B button in air. Your character will plummet directly downward with fists or feet ready to atack from above. Spiral Upper/Screw Kick - Turn Analog Stick in a full circle and press B. An uppercut attack that can also break boxes. (It will also unlock safes, but more on that in the walkthrough itself). Swim - Knuckles and Rouge can swim underwater. Control them using the Analog Pad. Hold B to dive down quickly - hold A to rise up quickly. --- HAMMER GLOVES/IRON BOOTS: Enable Knuckles or Rouge to break Steel boxes. LOCATION: KNUCKLES Death Chamber (Hero 12) ROUGE Mad Space (Dark 12) SHOVEL CLAW/PICK NAILS: These items let you Dig. LOCATION: KNUCKLES Pumpkin Hill (Hero 6) ROUGE Egg Quarters (Dark 5) Enables: Digging - B Button in mid-air to Drill Claw/Drill Drive (will Dig automatically on hitting the ground), or tap Y Button until "Dig" appears in Action Window and press B. Dig into the ground or wall to search for a treasure - possibly an Emerald Shard, but can also be a powerup, or a skull, or nothing at all. SUNGLASSES/TREASURE SCOPE: These items enable the Sunglasses move. LOCATION: KNUCKLES Meteor Herd (Hero 14 - need Hammer Gloves) ROUGE Security Hall (Dark 8 - need Mystic Melody and Iron Boots) Enables: Sunglasses: Tap Y Button until "Sunglasses" appears in action window and press B. Wearing these, you can see previously hidden items like springs or Hint Computers. Jump to take them off. [sa2b] Rouge now has "Treasure Scope" appear in her action window. AIR NECKLACE: Knuckles-only. Gives Knuckles infinite air while underwater. Will come in handy in Last Story. LOCATION: KNUCKLES Aquatic Mine (Hero 8) *********************** 2.3 POWERUPS *********************** 5/10/20 RINGS - Adds that many Rings to your total. SHIELD - Protects your character from one hit. MAGNETIC SHIELD - Attracts rings like a magnet. Also works as a Sheild. EXTRA LIFE - Well, duh, an extra life. Also available by collecting 100 Rings, and if you needed me to tell you that, you really will need a walkthrough. SPEED BOOTS - Give you a burst of speed. INVINCIBILITY - For a short time, you cannot be harmed by an enemy or obstacle. You can still fall off the level or drown, though. HEALTH - Return Tails or Eggman to full health. BOMB - Destroys all enemies on screen. You can find these powerups in Item Boxes throughout the game, but you will also receive some of them for passing a Checkpoint with a certain number of Rings in hand: More than 20 Rings - 5 Ring More than 40 - 10 Ring More than 60 - 20 Ring More than 80 - Speed Shoes More than 90 - Shield or Magnetic Shield ************************ 3 PLAY THE GAME ALREADY! ************************ Once you have completed a particular story, choosing it from the Story Select menu will bring up a Scene Select option. For this reason I am including Scene names from this menu, so you can see what you'll be up to. The Scene names do not feature in any way in the stories themselves, so you can ignore them if you wish. Scene names will always be in [ square brackets ]. Remember, this walkthrough was originally specific for Sonic Adventure 2 Dreamcast. Anything that applies only to SA2: Battle, the Gamecube port, is noted next to an [sa2b] sign. *********************** 3.1 HERO STORY *********************** [ THE BEGINNING ] 13:07 - ABOVE THE CAPITAL CITY It all begins so simply. A military plane passes over the capital city, ferrying a captured hedgehog to Prison Island. It happens to be Sonic. He'd rather not go, so he leaves, taking the opportunity to criticize the in-flight services. Grabbing a propellor, he skyboards down to the city... __________________ 1st Stage \ -Sonic / -Escape the military pursuit! CITY ESCAPE \ -"Pursuit" isn't really that great a word... __________________/ There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this stage that a couple of lives won't sort out the very first time you play. Once you've learnt where the big black gaps are, and of the surprising touchiness of the Homing Attack, you'll be right as rain. Interesting points: * You start in a street-boarding stage thats looks for all the world like it could have come from Crazy Taxi or Jet Set Radio. This area should present no problem, but there are three stunt ramps you can do tricks off for points by pushing A. The first one is on the left, then the others are in the centre of the road. Most incovenient for traffic. * You'll then land. Again, there should be no real problems, apart from to watch out for Homing Attacks near the few bottomless pits in the level. This early on, there are always easier ways around. If you've got the Flame Ring from later on in the game, you can come back here and open up all those steel (light grey) boxes. They basically give you a couple of shortcuts. If you have the Bounce Bracelet as well, a set of four steel boxes in the floor late in the level can be bounced on to reveal a passage to the near-useless Magic Hands powerup. * Finally, you'll be chased downhill by a rather large semi-trailer. This section is incisively titled "DANGER - Chased by Semi!". Keep running forwards, that's all. The chase will deposit you in sight of the Goal Ring. ---- BOSS F-6t BIGFOOT You what? Not exactly complicated. Avoid the BigFoot's bullets while it's in the air (do this via a sneaky tactic we call "running to the side") then avoid its rockets on the ground (by going faster than they do). Then Homing Attack it. Repeat to fade. ---- Sonic is about to celebrate that memorable victory, when he spots a black hedgehog. Obviously this is who GUN are really after. Shadow (for it is he) shows off his Chaos Control ability and leaves, just in time for GUN's backup to arrive and recapture Sonic... [ ENTER KNUCKLES ] 11:08 - IN A DESERT AREA What of Knuckles? At the moment, a girl called Rouge has decided she wants his Master Emerald, and for that matter all the world's gems. Knuckles, as Guardian of the Master Emerald, disagrees. This spat is really raging when the Eggman himself, Dr. Ivo Robotnik, appears and decides to take the Emerald for himself. In desperation, Knuckles shatters the Master Emerald... now he's gotta collect Emerald shards all over again... __________________ 2nd Stage \ -Knuckles / -Collect three pieces of the Master Emerald! WILD CANYON \ -Not really a big area to search over... __________________/ Wild Canyon is a fairly small and easy area to start you off on Knuckles' levels. Believe me, they'll get much bigger. The level consists of a few areas: *Underground. Where you start, and a fairly small area. If there's an Emerald in this room, you'll probably register it on radar from anywhere else in the room. Unless it's up really high. A giant wind column in the centre of the room leads you to... *The Wind Dance Hall. From here, you can get to all three other areas. There's one to each side, and a small grate will lead you back to the Underground. *The other two areas (the Sphinx Head area and the Lonely Statue area) are located directly opposite each other on either side of the Wind Dance Hall. They're not a problem, as they're so small that radar will tick at least green if there's one anywhere in the area. Knuckles' Mystic Melody pickup (required for 3rd Missions) is in the statue area. Once you have the Shovel Claw, dig through the Egyptian-looking painting far above the statue's head. ------ [ RESCUING SONIC ] 11:56 - PRISON ISLAND Tails is upset. He's so upset he appears to have taken to talking to himself. Well, there's no-one else around except for the camera, at any rate. Anyway. Tails can't believe Sonic would rob the bank, or any of that other stuff, so he arrives at Prison Island determined to bust Sonic out. He arrives in time to see Eggman menacing Amy... BOSS DR. EGGMAN Pretty damn easy. Infact just shoot at him whenever he comes anywhere near. Lock-on and shoot when he's further away. Keep moving and chances are he won't even touch you. Shoot him enough and he's toast. ------ That formality over with, Tails talks with Amy. For one thing, he'd like to know what the hell she's doing here. Turns out she's here for the same reason Tails is: to bust out Sonic. So you'd best get on with it then... __________________ 3rd Stage \ -Tails / -Get to the centre of the base! PRISON LANE \ -Again, not complicated... __________________/ Again an intoductory-type level, this time to Tails' brand of lock-on shooting. Like E-102 from the first game, hold B to target enemies and release it to fire: unlike E-102, push B to shoot a small machine gun. Also, you have a life bar - collecting rings replenishes it if you get hurt. There are a few holes in the floor to jump over and a couple of little puzzles to solve, but nothing special. Interesting bits include: *Prison doors will only open once you have taken out all - that is ALL - the nearbly enemies. There are a two times you may get really stuck with this. You'll have missed a bad guy. The first time, you're being viewed from side-on. Walk back along the passageway and you'll see the missing robot. The second time, you're in a room with two elevators. Take the right elevator and aim towards the screen to find the badguy. *There're a lot of advantages in this level to having powerups. One of the Chao boxes in particular requires the Jet Booster. If you have the Bazooka from a later level, then look around in the room containing the Goal Ring for some steel boxes. Shoot them out and a passage will be revealed to the Laser Blaster. ----- [ PRISON ISLAND ESCAPE ] Tails has cleared the way, but it's Amy who makes the break. She has something Tails doesn't... namely, a GUN security access card she must've swiped from somewhere. Sonic is fuming, mostly about Shadow. Amy says she saw Shadow and will tell Sonic all about it if he marries her (!). Sonic doesn't plan on marrying anyone, least of all Amy, but Amy lets him out of his cell anyway. And tells him where Shadow is. Without so much as a thankyou, and with Amy following and calling him a brat, Sonic runs off to continue the chase... __________________ 4th Stage \ -Sonic / -Escape Prison Island! METAL HARBOR \ -Now we're getting somewhere... __________________/ A slightly more complex level. A lot of Sonic's skills will be required to pass it, but it can be fun once you get used to it. There are bits you shouldn't take _too_ fast, is all. *For the first time in the game, you'll come to a bit where you're required to Homing Attack a bunch of bad guys in succession to make it across a gap. If you tap A Button regularly you shouldn't have a problem. *For the first time also, you'll be required to find a Level Up Item to progress. It's the Light Shoes and it's available where there's a long line of rings going forward, and it looks like there's no place to go. Ride the nearby Lift Hook up to a platform with the Light Shoes. Now, go back down, stand directly in front of the rings and press B to Light Dash through all the rings and arrive on the next platform. This will happen a few times in the level. *Certain walls must be Somersaulted under (press B button near them). Most of the time there's a Lift Hook right nearby, so do catch them as opposed to running off the edge of the platform to your doom. You may even get points if you can Somersault directly onto the Lift Hook. *You'll eventually come to a yellow walkway on a rocket launching pad. You'll be told at this point that you have 15 seconds to the launch. Obviously, you wouldn't want to be on the launchpad when the thing takes off, so the rocket is the place to be. Fortunately, you should have no problem making it to the handhold on the rocket in time. If you're more adventurous, there's a higher handhold that is much harder to get to but will achieve you 1500 points no matter how much time is left on the countdown. Whichever handhold you eventually get to, what follows is a short but fun waterski session. Try and pick up rings and 1Ups while waterskiing, but the controls are touchy. Finally it's a short run to the Goal Ring. ----- [ FACE OFF WITH SHADOW ] Escaping the prison area, Sonic lands in the jungle. Unfortunately he lands in the jungle exactly where Shadow happens to be. Neither is happy to see the other. After some heated words, including each calling the other a "fake", it finally comes to blows... BOSS SHADOW Not overly difficult, although he can be a little touchy. The thing to do is to make sure not to fall off the edge of the platform. Ergo, be extremely careful if you plan on attacking him while he's standing near a fence. If he jumps, he will follow it up with a Homing Attack so jump to negate it. When he's standing still Somersault into him, or try to Homing Attack him. Spin Dashing can also help though it's a little risky on this small space. He takes but three hits to go down. ----- Shadow's down but not out. He'd come back for more, but gets a message from Eggman politely reminding him that Prison Island is set to blow up, and he'd do well to get off it. This is news to Sonic. Shadow scarpers, and Sonic decides that's the better option as well... __________________ 5th Stage \ -Sonic / -Escape Prison Island in 8 minutes! GREEN FOREST \ -Oh, no, _only_ 8 minutes... ^_^ __________________/ You'd have to be fairly bad at this game _not_ to make 8 minutes. Just don't wander around looking at the scenery and you will make the time limit, I promise you. *Sonic lands on a large pipe-shaped branch. Probably half of a hollow dead tree trunk. These are dotted throughout the level, the secret is to keep yourself fairly fast and fairly straight. The first one leads to a Spring. These branches sometimes have a Grind Rail on the lower side if you're feeling really confident. *There's lots of Spring bouncing and continuous Homing Attacks necessary in this level, but they're not bad. Remember, to chain the Homing Attack, push A while you're in the air after your previous Homing Attack. Don't leave it too long or you'll fall down past your target. Obviously. *The other unique thing in this level is the vines scattered around. You'll always be sprung onto a vine. All you shold do is hold straight forward and admire the pretty scenery as it swooshes past. *The Ancient Light upgrade is available somewhere in this stage. (Near 3 GUN robots , some Speed Pads, and a Check Point.) Seeing as you've got 8 minutes, and it's not necessary to get it to finish the stage, I'd leave it 'til one of the untimed missions on this Stage that you can get to from Stage Select. *The rest of the level is fairly simple, assuming you make all the Homing Attack bits and can jump up the small platforms. The bit at the end is weird, it involves falling platforms like in Sky Deck from Sonic Adventure. If you're quick enough you'll be able to make it across the top, but if you're not there is a Spring at the lower level that you can get to from the last couple of collapsing platforms. Either way, you'll then arrive at the Goal Ring. ----- [ GHOST MOUNTAIN ] Prison Island now proceeds to blow up. It's a good thing Sonic, Tails and Amy have managed to get off it then, thanks to Tails' Cyclone mech being re-transformed into the Tornado 2 plane. 17:30 MOUNTAINOUS AREA Knux arrives at... __________________ 6th Stage \ -Knuckles / -Find 3 Master Emerald pieces! PUMPKIN HILL \ -Oooh, it's all spooky... __________________/ Pumpkin Hill is a rather larger area than the one's you've got used to in Knux's first two missions. Never fear. Don't let it get to you, you're just gonna creep; Down to Pumpkin Hill, you've gotta find your lost piece... *You know that it's here, you sense it in your feet. The Radar will be a big help in this level. *Hint computers help muchos here too. Especially that the second one usually gives a mountain location, or tells you if it's not on one of the mountains... *Right in front of you when you start is the Level Up Item, Shovel Claw. This enables you to dig, which may be necessary for you to complete the level. And is certainly necessary for you to complete later levels. *Pumpkin Mountain. Identifiable by the pumpkins hanging around, Pumpkin mountain is still a very big area. There'll be a lot of wall-climbing involved. The top of Pumpkin Mountain, by the way, contains the Ancient Ruin that will lead you to the lost Chao in 3rd Mission once you have the Mystic Melody. *Church Mountain. Notable for the large church on top. There are many ghosts hanging around the graveyard. Also a large mountain with lots of wall-climbing required to get from place to place. *Ghost Train Mountain. The turntable mountain has, unsurprising, a turn table on it, for the Ghost train that chugs around the place. Various switches make the train go various ways. It could be helpful occasionally, especially if you want to dig somewhere without getting run over... *If the emerald shards aren't there, they'll probably be on one of the large Pumpkin Face rock towers. Get to the top of one of the mountains and glide around till radar beeps at you. ----- [ WORLD DOMINATION ] DAY X 18:00 The capital city's giant TV news screen has flickered on. On it is Eggman, who is announcing his intention to take over the world and begin the Empire of Eggman. He stands against a backdrop of scrolling words that proclaim him to be a genius. He soon shows something slightly more interesting than himself on the screen: the giant Space Station ARK reopens and reveals itself to the world. The giant Eclipse Cannon fires. The Eclipse Cannon's beam zooms over the heads of the bystanders, and reduces a large part of the moon to shattered rubble. The demonstration over, the shellshocked people are left with a 24-hour countdown on the big screen and Eggman's evil laughter... Sonic, Tails and Amy are watching this with interest. Sonic _knew_ that Eggman and Shadow were up to something (thanks to his meeting with Shadow in the forest). Proved right, the three of them conclude that Eggman must be stopped. Unfortunately for them, GUN turns up just at that moment... __________________ 7th Stage \ -Tails / -Escape the pursuing military! MISSION STREET \ -But don't run too fast, or they just might hit you... __________________/ GUN have a rather large contigent out against Tails in this level, including bombers who have been somewhat trained in accuracy since Metal Harbour... * At the start, go along the road and through the tunnel taking care to avoid GUN robots that drop from the sky. And bombs launched onto the road. * You'll also have to deal with areas where the road is damaged or destroyed. The first time you play, you'll come to a long area of road that falls down to a lower street level (as opposed to some bits of road that fall down to infinite nothingness and death). You'll have to go down with it. Later on there'll be another street in front of you and a right arrow sign. Go left. Here is the Jet Booster Level Up Item that enables you to hover. Now you can hover over large areas of destroyed road. You'll need it to finish the level. * Shortly afterwards, there'll be a shadow ahead. Omochao will advise not to land on the shadow. It's a falling trap, which injures you. You can either take the hit, try and dash under it, or break the boxes on the metal pillars to your right and get around it that way. From here, walk up the road blasting robots and pillars. * The rest of the level is just more of the same. Occasionally cages may bar your way. As with all other characters, you can destroy cages with the nearby missiles that appear. Look around for them. Break pillars, destroy cages, kill robots, and don't fall, and you'll eventually make it to the Goal Ring. ----- [ AQUATIC MINE ] 20:21 MOUNTAINOUS AREA __________________ 8th Stage \ -Knuckles / -Find 3 pieces of the Master Emerald! AQUATIC MINE \ -And make sure you're at the right water level! __________________/ Knuckles, oblivious to Eggman etc., is still searching for Master Emerald shards. The new feature introduced in this stage is the changing Water Level switches. The mine has three levels, 1, 2 and 3. The water can be set to each of the three levels. The Level 1 and 2 switches are on Level 1, next to each other. The Level 3 switch is in the top room. *To get to the top room, set the water level to Level 1. Then jump on the large centre platform, climb the central pillar and jump onto the Lift Hook. You'll arrive in the top room, which contains the Level 3 Water switch, a Mystic ruin, and occassionally an Emerald Shard as well. It also has at least one Hint Computer. *The others are typically either in the center of the room on Level 3, or in one of the passages accessible from each level. The Hint Computers can be of great use here, sometimes more use even than the radar. *The Air Necklace is in this level. To get it, set the water level to Level 3. Then jump down the hole behind the "Caution! Ghosts" sign. If there is no red spring, you went down the wrong hole (that one leads to the Ghost room, where there are sometimes Emerald shards). When you've gone down the right hole, you'll find a water passage. Go through it (it's a long passage, so be quick or you'll suffocate) to get the Air Necklace. You can now breathe underwater. It's not necessary to find it to finish the stage, but it can be VERY handy later on. ----- [ WHERE'S EGGMAN? ] 09:03 - IN THE CAPITAL CITY Sonic is lamenting the amount of cops around. He, Tails and Amy plan their next move when Knuckles pops his head up. Lost in the mines, he has somehow managed to get from the mountains all the way to the city... Their next task is to find Eggman. If only they could find out where he was transmitting from. Knowing that the Eggman has been communicating increasingly threatening messages to the President, Tails decides to follow the president's limo and analyse Eggman's messages... __________________ 9th Stage \ -Tails / -Chase the President's limo! ROUTE 101 \ -It's Kart time! __________________/ Fun. Tails' ever-versatile Cyclone mech now becomes a car, which Tails must drive to meet two checkpoints and then the limo in the time limit. Thankfully, Tails' kart stage is not over difficult. In fact it's quite fun. * Only tips you should need: release A then press it again while turning for a sharper turn... * There're ballons scattered around the track. They have rings. Every time you collect 20 rings, you can push Y to Boost, and go faster for a few seconds... * There are two kart stages in the game: this and Rouge's Route 280 in Dark Side. Finish one of the two kart stages to unlock Kart Race in one player mode. Finish both to unlock 2P Kart Race. You should have no trouble catching up to the Prez. ----- [ EGGMAN'S HIDDEN BASE ] The Presidential limo isn't a happy place right now. An aide fills in the President on the situation (and does a surprisingly good imitation of a Sky newsreader), as he atempts to negotiate with Eggman. Suddenly, they're interrupted by Sonic and Tails, who tell Robotnik where he can stick his Eclipse Cannon. (Well, not quite, but they say 'no'.) Tails traces Eggman's message to the Space Colony ARK, and they set off to somehow get there... 13:04 - DESERT AREA Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy have arrived in front of a complex of pyramids. Knuckles says he saw Rouge and Eggman enter the big one. Sonic bets they'll be able to get into the colony somehow from there. Time to move in, but first, time for Tails to find the entrance... __________________ 10th Stage \ -Tails / -Find the entrance to the Hidden Base! HIDDEN BASE \ -And don't fall into the quicksand! __________________/ Most of Hidden Base is actually straightforward, although it doesn't look it. Basically if you can get good at Hovering and accurate at landing, you should be able to finish this level fairly easily... * Dynamite Packs are your friends. Shooting them is a funny way to show it, but, if you shoot out Dynamite packs they will explode, usually causing the next platform to fall and opening the way ahead. * Falling in quicksand kills you. Just like falling into a huge endless black chasm does in the other levels. * In most cases, your next move is fairly obvious. Only in some cases is it not. The first of these is when you must hover between a collection of square pillars over quicksand. The rest of he level is to the left. To the right is a penguin for you to pick up. * There are doors scattered around for you to shoot. They all have Egyptian-style Eggman drawings (either a face or a sphinx design). If you look stuck, look for a door to shoot. * In some places, you'll be lifted up on a Lift Hook and come to a greenish area. There's lots of Kikis (Robotnik's bomb-throwing monkey Badniks) around. So if you've a mind to collect animals or you're just not good at dodging, shoot 'em all out before you jump off the hook. * Keep up with the hovering and shooting. Eventually you will once again tag the Goal Ring. ----- Tails has found the entrance, the next step is to, well, enter it. Leave it to Sonic... __________________ 11th Stage \ -Sonic / -Infiltrate Eggman's hidden base! PYRAMID CAVE \ -Like sands through the hourglass... __________________/ As you can imagine, being inside Eggman's pyramid, it's his forces annoying you throughout the level as opposed to GUN's. Neither of course, are as annoying as the hourglasses through the level... * You'll start by running down a long tunnel. Then you'll come upon an Hourglass. Jump on it to flip it, and run through the door ahead before it closes. Fairly simple... for now. * The next point of interest comprises a couple of Swing Bars. Remember, jump off when your shoes are blurring red. They're much quicker than running down below, and much less Badnik-inclusive... * Shortly ahead is Sonic's next Level Up Item, the Bounce Bracelet. Use your new Bounce Attack (B in mid-air) to deal with the E-1000 robots up ahead (welcome back, E-102!) and continue. Flip the next Hourglass and quickly deal with the next E-1000, bounce up and slip under the door. *Next is a locked door. Get the Gate Key stone from directly in front and drop it on the dais to continue. Shortly afterwards you'll come to another Gate. The Gate Key is down the path to your right. Carry it back, avoiding the robots. *Continue through the stage. Any place you don't think you can reach, you now can with the Bounce Attack. Any time you touch an Hourglass, Light Dash through Rings, Spin Dash uphill, and run as if Sony themselves were trying to catch and blatantly over-commercialise you. Somersault under nearly-closed doors, Indiana Jones-style. All you'd need would be the hat. Anyway. Keep going thusly and you'll reach the Goal Ring. ----- So everyone's in. What now? Turns out Tails has a plan. He intends to fool Eggman with a fake Chaos Emerald. Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy are impressed to say the least. But they're not entirely in. They need to unlock the final door to the base. Sonic dispatches Knuckles to find the keys, much to the echidna's protests.... __________________ 12th Stage \ -Knuckles / -Find the three Gate Keys! DEATH CHAMBER \ -Don't be scared of the name! __________________/ _Death_ Chamber? You what? Pumpkin Hill was bigger and scarier. There's a lot of E-1000s, Kikis, and ghosts around, but it's not that tough if you can see in colour... * The rooms are colour-coded, into Green, Red, and Blue. There's also the Pyramid Core, which is unsurprisingly in the middle. Given there's maps around, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding your way about the place. * The Gate Keys aren't usually that hard either. They're usually a little out of the way, though. Check side rooms and remember to break crates. And dig. A lot. * There's tons of those Egyptian wall paintings around. As ever, dig through the middle of the coloured oval and you might find a new room. There may actually be Emeralds hidden therein now. * Hourglasses work the same way as in Pyramid Cave. But you may have to look around for the door. * The Hammer Gloves, which enable you to break steel containers, are in this level. Look for a side room in the passage connecting the red area and the Pyramid Core. The Hammer Gloves will assist greatly in finding the three Gate Keys. ----- Knuckles' tribulations aren't over yet. No sooner has the acquired the Gate Keys than up appears a very large ghost. Presumably he's upset about Knuckles making such a mockery of the name of the stage he just beat. He'd like very much to make that name - Death Chamber - a bit more truthful... BOSS KING BOOM BOO The King of Ghosts is on a quest for revenge, probably against whoever it was named him "King Boom Boo". But he'll settle for Knuckles. He starts by chasing you around the central pillar. Being a ghost, his touch hurts you. Run away from him around the circular pillar, but if you get out of sight, he'll come at you from the other side. So either stay with him or get good with changing directions. Eventually he'll stop and throw fireballs at you. These also hurt. Keep running. He may go back to chasing you at this point. Finally he'll grow tired of this, and breathe a large wall of flame. You'll be able to tell this by the long-drawn-out and frankly unpleasant noise he makes. Keep running away from him, and eventually you'll find a small ghost and an Hourglass. Kill the small ghost. He'll drop the Hourglass and the sun will come flooding in, weakening the King. He'll hide underground. Find his shadow and Dig into it. He'll run around panicking in the painful sunlight. Chase him down and smack him one. Repeat this three more times - the second and third times he'll hide in the wall, and the last time he'll stick near the edge. Four hits and Ghost-boy is thin air. ----- [ SHUTTLE BLAST-OFF ] But wait, as they say in the classics, there's still more. Eggman's discovered the heroes' presence in the base and he's unhappy. So much so, infact, that he calls up yet another boss to deal with the pesky intruders... BOSS EGG GOLEM Sonic's turn. That's cause for confidence - the Egg Golem is big, and I mean BIG, but nothin' that the blue one can't handle. The Egg Golem's attacks all involve his gigantic rocky hands. First of all, he'll slam a fist onto the walkway where he expects Sonic to be, and then the other fist a short distance away. He hits with such force that the piece of walkway he hits sinks slightly. His other attack is to sweep his hands along the circular walkway. Both of these attacks are fairly easily avoided if you spot them coming. What Sonic should be doing is running around behind him, where several platforms jut out of the Golem's back. When he's not moving, make your way up said platforms to his head, which you should Homing Attack to land a hit. After a few hits, he'll slam both fists down at once, and attempt to headbutt you. Rest assured a headbutt from a several-ton rock monster would hurt. Avoid it by jumping down into the quicksand, which Sonic can escape by Homing Attacking repeatedly (and extremely quickly.) Homing Attack your way onto a pulley to get back to the walkway. Find the platforms on his back and continue as before. After a few hits the Golem will go down. [sa2b] This boss can be made much tougher by the touchiness of the A button on some Cube controllers. Holding down the A button for a half-second or so seems to slightly reduce the risk of Homing Attacking where you didn't mean to. When jumping up the Golem's platforms, facing in the direction of the Golem until you're certain your jump is just a jump appears to help too. ----- [ SPACE COLONY "ARK" ] With the Golem out of the way, Sonic and crew decide it's time to head spacewards. They do this by stealing Eggman's Space Shuttle... SPACE COLONY ARK - CANNON COUNTDOWN 2 HOURS 11 MINUTES ...which Knuckles promptly stops in mid-space after learning that all his precious Emerald shards have escaped from the cargo hold. It's up to Tails now to penetrate the ARK's interior... __________________ 13th Stage \ -Tails / -Destroy the Colony power generator! ETERNAL ENGINE \ -Preferably without destroying the rest of the colony... __________________/ Omochao himself points out the most important point of this stage... the dynamite packs are no-go areas this time around. They're strategically placed so that blowing one up will open a hole in the colony, which if you get near could suck you out into howling, platformless space. This means you may be actually force to _not_ shoot things for once. Ah well, you'll learn to live with it... * Tails is faced with a bunch of enemies at this point. There are GUN robots left over from the military takeover of ARK a long time ago, and there are decidedly nastier things we'll get to later... * It's fairly simple up till you reach a room where bombs are being dropped from above. Jump on the right Spring to get catapulted to a Pulley. From there, shoot the bomb-dropping 'bot and continue. * You'll come to a door that doesn't slide open for you. Take the door to your left. DON'T shoot the boxes, walk around and hit the switch. This opens the other door. * Soon you'll get to a ledge with three platforms floating below. Drop off the edge and land on the big platform that's hidden under the ledge. Fire the Missile waiting there to blow up the cages blocking your way. Take the platforms across to the other side and continue on. * Shortly you'll come across a new baddie. It looks like Chaos from Sonic Adventure 1, and that's because it's Eggman's closest possible re-design. Say hello to Artifical Chaos. Actually, don't. Just target it and then constantly shoot it with your Vulkan Cannon (hammer B repeatedly) to kill it. (Getting close to it and hitting it with your Propellor Punch works too) * From here, it's all a matter or careful targeting. If you blow up any bits of walkway, be sure you're not standing on them and can Hover over the gaps you've made. Keep going along the top and eventually you'll come across the Bazooka, which lets you tak out steel containers. Make sure to not blast out dynamite packs indoors, avoid red lasers and grab pulleys. After blasting out the Generator, which entails targeting and firing lots of times quickly, you'll find the Goal Ring. ----- [ LAST PIECES OF THE MASTER EMERALD ] INSIDE SPACE COLONY "ARK" - CANNON COUNTDOWN 45 MINUTES Sonic is about to place the fake Emerald in the cannon's control centre when his communication with Tails is disrupted. It's Eggman, telling him to get to the research laboratory. And quickly. Tails manages "Amy is-- " before being cut off. Sonic doesn't hear the rest, but he can guess. So much for the plan, then. SPACE COLONY "ARK" EXTERIOR - CANNON COUNTDOWN 1 HOUR 26 MINUTES But meanwhile... __________________ 14th Stage \ -Knuckles / -Find the three pieces of the Master Emerald! METEOR HERD \ -Maybe you should've brought an umbrella... __________________/ Well. The level is called "Meteor Herd" and can anyone guess why? That's right. Meteorites are falling. Omochao informs you: "If you get hit, it'll hurt!" Well duh. Anyway. You've once again got 3 Emerald shards to find... * The floor is not a friendly place. Not only are you under bombardment from Meteorites, but you also probably won't find any Emerald shards. The one shard I'm aware of on the ground is under the weight trap. (Actually, there is at least one more: on top of the "drilling tower", the small tower on the ground next to the big pipe with a 20Ring on it. But you can't climb onto the top, so you'll have to come down from above anyway.) *Unsurprisingly, that leaves up in the air as the likely place for Emerald shards to be. The major landmarks in the level are the "inverted blue tower" - that's the big, obvious blue thing right up the top - and the many platforms scattered around. Hint Computers, my friends. *On the ground is a large tower. It has platforms inside of it. One of these has a rocket to get to the upper areas of the level. *Knuckles' Sunglasses are on this level. To get them, go to ground level and look around the base of the central tower. Find the Meteorech (big, blue rock) that's sitting on a small, red-edged platform in front of a small door with a minus sign on it. Punch the Meteorech directly into the path of the door. It'll be destroyed, revealing a steel crate. Punch it (you did find the Hammer Gloves in Death Chamber, right?) and push the switch under it. This opens up a hole in the floor of the tower above. Climb the tower, and drop down into the hole. The lowest platform down here contains the Sunglasses. Use the glasses (press Y until "Sunglasses" appears, then B) to find a Spring to get you back to the level proper. *If all else fails, climb up high and then glide around... ----- Well, well. Who should rock up now but Rouge. And guess what? She's still after Emerald shards. What a surprise. Do you think you can ever get rid of her? BOSS ROUGE Rouge engages you in the central tower of Meteor Herd. Assuming you've familiarised your own moves by now, you should be able to deal with her ones, as they're exactly the same. Well, mostly. You both start off on the ground. Glide around until you're directly above her head, then Drill Claw (press B in mid-air). This is how you should attack her. It's no use just punching from ground level - she'll only defend herself. Even when you're blown into the air, land on a beam, then glide around till you find the one she's on. Again, glide over her and Drill Claw. After a couple of hits of this she'll get mad. You can tell this, 'cos the camera zooms in on her face. She proceeds to shout "Here I come!", which is quite sporting, as it gives you the chance to get out of the way. Be gliding by the time the camera comes back, 'cos she'll target the Black Wave attack for where you just were. Keep up the gliding and Drill Clawing, alternating between the ground and the beams, and you'll eventually get her. ----- [ SONIC IN TROUBLE ] Yes, you just beat the heck out of Rouge, but it was a hard fight. Both Knux and Rouge are exhausted as they face each other on the beam they're standing on. Rouge once more re-iterates that, yes, she wants the Emeralds, but doesn't get much further before falling from the beam. Closing her eyes, she prepares for the worst - but Knuckles is there first, saving her life. As he pull her back onto the beam, they gaze at each other... No. Rouge and Knux aren't like that, they're tough and independent. Well, they think so, anyway. Rouge accuses Knuckles of just wanting to hold her hand, while Knux covers by saying he was saving the Master Emerald. Neither of them are fooling anyone. Rouge returns the Emerald shards to Knuckles. She covers by saying they stink of echidna. But again, she's fooling nobody. Knuckles reforms the Master Emerald and runs off with it. Rouge leaves too, but before she does, she smiles. Just a little. "ARK" INTERIOR - CANNON COUNTDOWN 41 MINUTES __________________ 15th Stage \ -Sonic / -Hurry and find Eggman! CRAZY GADGET \ -Maybe take some seasickness tablets with you... __________________/ Meanwhile, Sonic's in a bit of trouble. Eggman has Amy, and if Sonic doesn't turn up in the ARK research lab fairly sharply, Amy's life is going to become very eventful and extremely short. The problem is... remember Death Egg Zone from Sonic & Knuckles? Imagine what they might've done with that in 3D? Yeah. That's what Sonic's going to have to put up with. * Gravity switches adorn this stage. Not just ones that make the ceiling into the floor, either. At points, you'll find yourself walking on what you thought was the left or right wall. It gets weird. * There's also a bunch of Artificial Chaos hanging around. Thankfully, these aren't the Guard type ones, they keep their head accessible to a Homing Attack at all times. You've just gotta make sure you avoid _their_ attacks... * The first real problem comes when you're faced with three gravity switches. Unless you've got extremely good aim, the one pointing downwards will lead you to certain death. The right-pointing switch is the way to go. Run down what was until recently the wall and Light Dash onto the Grind Rail. * When you land, you'll meet Artificial Chaos P-100, who splits off into lots of watery Cells. Ignore them and go for the head to destroy it. * A little while afterwards, you'll come to a group of four Spark Beetles followed by a line of rings. Homing Attack across the beetles, and after you've hit the last one, PUSH FORWARD and then B just as you come to the line of Rings. You'll Light Dash out of trouble. (Getting this wrong means Bounce Attacking to your doom. So don't.) * The Flame Ring that lets you break steel crates is in this stage. After the next Checkpoint, you'll come to a Gravity Switch. Push it. Now don't push the next one yet, but backtrack to one of the Springs in the corner. The Flame Ring is behind you. * After the next green pit, you'll come to a seemingly unexitable room. Break the steel container in the middle of the room and take the Spring. Go carefully forwards and Light Dash. * Keep going through the stage. Eventually Eggman's purpose becomes clear. Confident that you'll confuse yourself to death, he's locked you in what I'd like to call the Multicolour Gravity Maze. It looks like it's constructed of various giant Lego bricks. You'll be fine if you remember you're not Knuckles or Rouge and you can't climb walls. Here's the deal: ** Flick the Gravity Switch and land on the purple box. ** Flick the Gravity Switch and land on the green box. Bounce Attack up the green wall to the next Switch, flick it and land on the yellow box. ** Run up the yellow box and jump the gap between the yellow and blue boxes. You can Homing Attack the Beetle robot if you think it'll help you make the gap. At any rate, run along the blue box, flick the Gravity Switch and land on the yellow box at normal gravity. ** Flick the next Gravity Switch and hit the Spring. Land on top of the yellow box. Hit the next Spring and crouch to make it along the Grind Rail to the green box. ** Hit the Spring and land on the purple box. Light Dash along the Rings to the blue box. Hit the Gravity Switch and land on the purple box for the last time. ** Run along and hit the normal Switch (you know, the round, white one) at the end of the purple box. You MUST hit this Switch to activate the missile that will open the way to the Goal Ring. Once you've hit this switch, hit the Gravity Switch behind it. Land on the red box. ** The red box is T-shaped, and has two Switches. The switch to camera left leads to the lost Chao (in 3rd Mission). The one camera forwards lead to the final platform. Flick that one and land on the grey platform. Hit the button on the missile to destroy the energy field. And run to the Goal Ring. ----- ARK RESEARCH LABORATORY - CANNON COUNTDOWN 33 MINUTES Sonic has arrived at the research lab. Eggman, levelling a gun at Amy, orders Sonic to hand over the Chaos Emerald he has and back off. Sonic plans on handing over the fake Emerald, but Eggman's not fooled. He locks Sonic in a capsule and sportingly gives Sonic the chance to say his goodbyes to Amy and to tell Tails he's counting on him, before he is shot off into space. Even now, Sonic has a plan to escape. But, can he do it... ? Unawares of any plan, Tails and Amy look on in horror as Sonic's capsule explodes. Eggman tells Tails he'll let them go in exchange for the real Emerald. Tails is stunned. Sonic is -- was -- counting on him. He can't let Sonic down! BOSS EGGMAN Fire like crazy. Rapid-fire with the Cannon is most likely to hit Eggman. Targeting him occasionally with homing missiles works too, if he's close. But watch yourself. Annoy the mad scientist enough and he'll shout out a warning. It's time to jump and Hover away from the front of the Egg Walker, out of his line of fire. Then he'll either let out Rockets, which you should keep moving to avoid, or the Power Laser, which you should be able to run away from provided you were fairly far away (and running around him). Hit him enough and he'll disbelievingly give up. [ LAST CHANCE ] OUTSIDE SPACE COLONY "ARK" - CANNON COUNTDOWN 21 MINUTES 7 SECONDS Knuckles is recovering from his Rouge battle in a docking bay when he senses a strange energy. When he turns around, who does he see but Sonic. Sonic's very faint and very weak. Exerting all his effort, he's managed to escape back to the ARK using Shadow's Chaos Control move. But there's no time to recover. Sonic's gotta stop the mad doctor. He plans on doing this by throwing the fake Emerald into the heart of the Eclipse Cannon itself... __________________ 16th Stage \ -Sonic / -Hurry and find the point of the cannon! FINAL RUSH \ -Hope you're good at grinding... __________________/ The Hero Side's final stage is a pure test of your Grinding skills and your reflexes. It's hard to get lost in this stage, as most of the time what looks like mazes of Grind Rails will all take you to the same place. A few basic points is all that can be offered: * Your reflexes will determine whether you finish this level. There are lots of short Rails you must jump off, lots of small platforms to jump between. * By far the most important skill for this level is grinding up vertical Grind Rails. Stand a liitle away, aim yourself directly - DIRECTLY - at the Rail and Homing Attack onto it. If you miss you could well be Homing Attacking to your death, so the aiming bit is very important. If you don't make it up, jump off onto a platform and try again. * There's a bit where you must grind up a long vertical rail. Hit the speed pads nearby and immediately crouch once on the Rail to make it to the Spring at the top. * You'll come to a bit with three different holes to fall down. Take the blue hole, it leads to a Grind Rail. The red hole provides a Magnetic Shield. * When jumping off a Rail onto another one, just keep yourself facing straight forward. Don't shift left or right, or you may not make the next Rail. * This really is all the advice I can offer. Just keep going and eventually you will make it to the Goal Ring. ----- ECLIPSE CANNON - CANNON COUNTDOWN 5 MINUTES 44 SECONDS Time's rapidly running out. Sonic needs to stop the Eclipse Cannon. But Shadow disagrees. The two hedgehogs strike up a conversation. Only one of them will be alive to end it. _______________ FINAL BOSS \ SHADOW_________/ Shadow's very angry. More so than last time. As you chase each other round an infinte strip of walkway, he's going to try very hard to make you dead. The way to stop him is as follows: * Your danger comes from the walkway as well as the hedgehog. Stay on a section of walkway too long and it'll collapse, taking you with it unless you can jump off the falling section and continue the battle. If you stick close to Shadow, he'll Homing Attack you. Jump to negate this. * At first, you should be able to Homing Attack into him for a cheap hit or two. After a time though, he'll wise up and bounce off your attacks. Once he's doing this there's two ways you can take it: *Get a fair way behind. Shadow will stop and shout "Time to put this to rest!" As this point, take action to avoid the upcoming Chaos Spear he hurltes your way. Somersault works best, but a jump and Homing Attack can work too. He'll be off-guard for a couple of seconds, which is your chance to smack in one as quickly as you know how. You've only got a very short time before he resumes running. [sa2b] Just running at full tilt can also help you avoid the Chaos Spear. Sometimes. Assuming you're lucky enough not to suddenly brake for no apparent reason, which happens annoyingly frequently. *Get a fair way AHEAD. Shadow will use the Chaos Control to warp back in front of you. While he's doing this, charge up a Spin Dash, and hit him as he appears. This doesn't work as frequently as the other method, though. At any rate, once you've hit the guy six times, he'll slump to the ground, protesting that he's the Ultimate Life. Sonic replies, "Game Over, Shadow!". For so it is. ----- CANNON COUNTDOWN 1 MINUTE 33 SECONDS Eggman has snuck out with the last Emerald. However, Tails and Amy are too sunk in misery over Sonic's fate to notice. That is, until Tails hears Sonic's voice on his communicator. As Tails looks out the window, he sees the giant Cannon fall victim to quite a large explosion. It's not going to fire any time soon. Sonic has saved the day and the planet. And more importantly, lived to tell the tale. Fade to credits. Cue Sonic's theme song. The last credit rolls off the screen. A trailer appears - there's a whole side to the story yet to be completed, even if you've already done the Dark Story... And an emblem appears. You have now completed the Hero Story of Sonic Adventure 2. *********************** 3.2 DARK STORY *********************** [ THE BEGINNING ] 21:02 - PRISON ISLAND: INSIDE THE BASE This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill! There's an intruder inside the G.U.N. base on Prison Island. The GUN force is mobilised. Of course, Eggman (for it is he) thinks the break-in has been all too easy thus far. Now to find the top secret project his grandfather was working on before GUN, afraid, shut it down. And if even the military is scared of it, Eggman reckons it's gotta be worth a look... __________________ 1st Stage \ -Eggman / -Get to the centre of the base! IRON GATE \ -You'd expect more from a major military force... __________________/ Hmm. Top-security, eh? Well, probably for mere people, but the almighty Dr. Eggman isn't going to be put out of action by any damn robot. He's designed more sophisticated things in his sleep. So let's go... * If you've not been doing Hero Side, this is your introduction to shooting. Remember, hold B and move around to target things. Let go of B and you'll fire Homing Missiles at everything you locked on to. Just pushing B shoots your Cannon: it blows apart crates and bad guys, but it's much less accurate. * No security door's gonna stop you, either. Target the four red locks on the door and blow 'em away to get through. *Just keep going, through doors, a large ramp-lift or two, etc., till you've broken the Level 5 Security Door. The GUN PA system will announce Emergency Defense Mode, which consists of more robots. When you get to a platform with a missile on it, just keep walking. A set of Emergency Security Doors will slam in your face. Now, walk back t the platform and target the antenna on the computer console next to the missile. The missile will go haywire, blasting through all the doors in your way. Now just saunter through to the Goal Ring. ---- Hmm. Eggman always thought a 'top secret weapon' would be bigger than that. But it's just a computer console. Ah well... his research indicates that he should enter the password 'Maria', then insert a Chaos Emerald into the console. So he does. Suddenly, something rises out of the floor... that looks like Sonic! Is he already wise to Eggman's plan? Maybe not. The hedgehog in front of Eggman announces himself as "Shadow", adding that he is the Ultimate Life Form. He'll grant Eggman one wish. Eggman would like some proof. So Shadow summons an easy kill, er, guard robot... BOSS B-3x HOT SHOT The Hot Shot is almost exactly like the Big Foot robot in Hero Side. It makes some flying passes with its machine gun blazing, then it lands and shoots 'homing' missiles. Avoid the gun and missiles, then when it stops firing Homing Attack it one on the cockpit. Now comes the new part. It'll stop and bring up a red targeting sight. This will fire a much better homing beam at you so it's your business to not be in the targeting sight. Duh. As before, wait for it to shooting its homing rockets and belt it one. Repeat to fade. --- [ ENTER ROUGE ] OK, so Eggman is convinced. Now he wants his wish. But Shadow's not interested. He says the two of them will need more Chaos Emeralds first. When Eggman's got some, he says, Shadow will be waiting on the Space Colony ARK. Then he leaves. 11:08 - IN A DESERT AREA Ain't it always the way? All you want is all the world's gems. Then some stupid echidna gets all upset about you stealing 'his' Emerald. Surely he should know that it's a gem, and therefore belongs to you, Rouge the Bat, by definition? Sigh. This argument is raging when Eggman breaks it up by stealing it himself. Rouge has never met Eggman before. Her musing is interrupted when Knuckles attacks the Emerald, splitting it into tiny pieces. How dare he damage HER Emerald! Ah well, she'll just have to go and collect the pieces... __________________ 2nd Stage \ -Rouge / -Find three pieces of the Master Emerald! DRY LAGOON \ -And maybe take a swim, too! __________________/ Again, not a huge level. Rouge's intro level has a few areas to search through, but nothing really major. Dry lagoon is split up into a few areas: * The Small Oasis. This is where you start. Your first move should be to smack the two robots to your right and free the turtle they hold captive. The turtle will shuffle over to the central pool, and will take you to the Huge Oasis and back anytime you want for the rest of the level. There's also usually an Emerald shard or two in the Small Oasis: if you can't find one on the ground try the ledge around the top. * The Huge Oasis. There's very frequently an Emerald shard quite near where the turtle brings you into the area. There's also two canyon areas (like in Knuckles' Wild Canyon): these are the Three Head Wall and the Statue. Underwater in the Huge Oasis is also a swimming turtle that will take you through the water current underneath the island in the lagoon. * The Small Oasis also holds Rouge's Mystic Melody item. There is an alcove in the wall to the right of your starting position. In said alcove is a mural to dig through, with the Mystic Melody in the room behind. * For the lost Chao (3rd Mission) ,you'll need the Pick Nails from Egg Quarters and the Iron Boots from Mad Space. Go to the ledge at the top of the Small Oasis and find the area with a lot of Containers (crates), four of which are Steel ones, pushed against a wall. Break the steel crates and dig through the mural behind them. * If at any point you can't find the next shard, hop on the turtle and go to the other oasis. The radar may well pick something up. Eventually you'll get all three shards. ---- [ HIDDEN BASE AGAIN! ] 20:22 DESERT AREA Eggman's feeling pretty secure. Those idiots'll never find his secret base inside the pyramid. Of course, before he can get in himself he'll have to blast out his own security devices... __________________ 3rd Stage \ -Eggman / -Return to the Hidden Base! SAND OCEAN \ -If the base is so well hidden, why all the robots? __________________/ Still not exactly a big or difficult level. Although, it is easier to fall off the edge than on any level you've encountered so far. Things to watch out for: * Moving platforms. This is the first stage you've come across that really uses moving platforms to much effect. Miss one and you get sucked into the sinking sand. The key is to be very careful. If you try to blitz ahead at the speed of sound in this level, you will die. * Turning platforms don't help much either. As with moving platforms, remember to jump at where the platform _will be_ by the time you get there, not at where it is now. They move quite fast for an early level. There's a turning platform at the start, followed by moving ones. * Another good reason not to go over-fast is the enemies. GUN enemies in particular just love to drop out of the sky and shoot at you. * If the way looks blocked at any time, you probably need to shoot out some nearby dynamite packs. A pillar will topple, or a platform will fall down, that will allow you to continue forwards. * The Jet Engine, allowing you to hover, is a big help on this level. (You'll get it in a later level). When you find it, not only will you be able to hover for more accurate jumps, but you'll be able to find the Mystic Melody Level Up. From the turning platform at the start, hover to the platforms on the left. *Really there's not much more help that can be given here. Just be careful and eventually you'll hit a Speed Pad to fly over a big gap. Then it's just walking and blasting all the way to the Goal Ring. ---- [ SHADOW'S PAST ] Eggman arrives inside his base just in time to see a news broadcast. A disturbance in the capital city is being covered by someone who was surely at least a finalist in the All-Time Worst British Accent Attempt Competition. Seems the military have bailed up Sonic for robbing a bank, stealing - you guessed it - a Chaos Emerald. Eggman, however, knows better, correctly surmising that it's all Shadow's doing. For indeed, as we arrive at the scene, we see Shadow musing on top of a bridge. He smiles at the patheticness of the GUN's "might", but the smile is wiped off his face as he suffers a flashback to his forced parting from one Maria. Yes, the same one from Eggman's computer password. As we ponder the mystery of it all, Shadow vows revenge... __________________ 4th Stage \ -Shadow / -Break through the besieging military! RADICAL HIGHWAY \ -I wouldn't like to be driving along that bridge... __________________/ Now we're getting somewhere. Starting with a big grind and then a spring bounce, Radical Highway just keeps getting better. * It's just a simple run to begin with, but make sure you dodge the bombs being lobbed at you. * If you have the Air Shoes from a later stage, you can find the Flame Ring Level Up Item after the first pulley. Bounce up the springs, turn left, and somersault under the spinning drum to find the path to it. The rest of the level, however, is to the right after those springs. * Take the next pulley up, then the rocket. Keep running along, bounce down the series of springs. Shortly afterwards, try and hit the orange Ramp in the middle of the road - it's a slight shortcut. Don't worry, should you miss a variety of springs and pillars are available to get you up to the next bit. Now get to the rocket, and push forward as you let go of it to make sure you get over the gap. * From here, run around the loop-de-loops. After this, again try for the orange Ramps to get you onto the higher path for this bit. There's a huge gap ahead, but don't worry, you won't fall. Air will support you as you make your way along. Once you've made it through the spinning drums and onto the next platform though, gravity returns as normal. * Once across the bridge, only a few enemies and pillars will disturb your progress to the Goal Ring. ---- [ INFILTRATE HIDDEN BASE ] Quite near where Shadow has just cut a swathe through GUN's forces, another hedgehog has also been at work. In fact, Shadow now finds himself resting on a robot that has just been destroyed - and not by him. It is infact Sonic. But Shadow's not to know this. As Sonic furiously puts two and two together re: his being wanted by the military, Shadow takes the opportunity to show off the Chaos Control. Then he disappears, leaving Sonic to be captured by a serious set of weaponry. 22:18 - PYRAMID Remeber we said those idiots would never find the Hidden Base? Well, one idiot has. Infact, all she needs to get into the central part of the Base is the three Egg Keys... As Rouge finishes reporting the above (minus the "idiot" part, obviously) into her communicator, we ponder: exactly who is she speaking to on that communicator, anyway? __________________ 5th Stage \ -Rouge / -Find the three Gate Keys! EGG QUARTERS \ -And watch out for the beetles! __________________/ Enemies are really the only hassle in this level. The layout is rather small, and all is clearly labelled. In particular the Scarab robot that patrols the level can get annoying, especially as its shots are unavoidable. Hide in shadows or out of the way to escape its targeting sweeps. Also present are E-1000 robots. Look familiar? They should be. Everyone knew E-102 was the best robot in Sonic Adventure 1. Eggman apparently recognised this in his new designs. Anyway. The small, labelled areas, in clockwise order: * The Egg Snake Chamber. It's green, and has a snake statue. Hence the name. * The Egg Fish Chamber. Blue, and has a fish statue. Also a small pool with a switch at the bottom, for use in the metal room behind the fish statue. * The Egg Scorpion Chamber. Red. Scorpion statue. You know the drill. * The Snake Altar. Also red. Big room in the middle, lots of pillars surroundin a big wide platform. There're usually Kikis occupying the tops of some pillars. All the keys are in or near one of these places. If you can't see one , but it's flashing red, it's probably in the air above you. There's a few rooms off each chamber than can be accessed by smashing boxes. Fairly soon you should have all the keys. ---- [ GATHERING OF THE DARK ] So having gained entry to the pyrmaid's control room, Rouge glances around interestedly before noticing Eggman's space transporter in the centre of the room. Luckily, it's not password-protected. Rouge mutters about the ARK and her mission (to find out Eggman's doings), then sets the transporter and heads off... 22:41 ARK Of course, Rouge isn't the only one that's been using the transporter... Eggman is busily navigating around the ARK trying to find his way to the command centre... __________________ 6th Stage \ -Eggman / -Get to the ARK command centre! LOST COLONY \ -Doesn't anyone ever pay the electricity bill here? __________________/ Getting more interesting now, but this level still shouldn't be _that_ much of a problem. Beginning with your introduction to doors (i.e. blow up all the dynamite packs on the door to open it), it continues thusly... * As normal, it starts simply enough. Stomp through various corridors blowing things up on your way. Continue until you reach a pulley, which you should grab. There are lasers crisscrossing the floor below, which the pulley will deftly avoid. The floor also has a 10-ring behind you. * Walk along the next corridor, then blow up the crates in the corner of the room beyond to reveal a switch which will let you continue. Continue through the next corridor, and meet the green floor. Looks pretty unpleasant, ne? So it should - it hurts you. This is a very dark room, as well. Howeverm there's tons of enemies around for you to increase your score. Take out the one just in front of you first. This will give you time to target everything else in the room for a stupidly large bonus. When you've shot your fill, take the small platform on the left to continue. * After the next corridor, you'll get to a large dark room. There's the occasional bad guy and a few boxes. Now the way out is above you, but to get up there you'll need to find crates you can jump up. Head left. On turning the corner you'll find some boxes to hop up. Pick up the Jet Engine here. It will enable you to hover by holding A in the air. Now turn around, and hover around the corner to your left. Set off the Missile here and then hover through the gap in front of you. (A shortcut for that bit: If you got the Large Cannon from Weapons Bed, you'll be able to use the crates to the right as you come in. You'll see an unbreakable crate, and behind it, two more on top of a steel crate. Blast the Steel Crate and hop up to the platforms above, then turn around and hover around the corner to your right, to the one with the missile.) * Another corridor, then jump and shoot out the bad guy, then hop up to the platform on your right, then onto the next platform. Hover across the big gap. Then more corridors, to a room where you should shoot out all the boxes to reach a switch. Then more running through corridors and jumping over gaps outside. *Eventually you'll reach a platform that locks you in when you jump on it. It'll take you on a trip upwards, during which you can aim all around and should do so, in fact, to make some more additions to your score. * One obstacle left... after the next corridor, the platform comes to an abrupt end. There's a ledge below, so hover onto it. On this ledge is a missile, psh it to destroy the cages ahead. Open the door by targeting the Dynamite Packs, then toddle up the corridor to the *phew* Goal Ring. ---- [ GET CHAOS EMERALD ] Eggman arrives in the Control Centre. As promised, Shadow is waiting, and he reveals a big secret... the Eclipse Cannon, a weapon capable of levelling an entire planet. But it neads... you guessed it... Chaos Emeralds to operate. Eggman is busily planning world conquest when a voice interrupts... "You think it'll be that easy?" It is the bat girl herself, Rouge. Seizing the advantage, Rouge hammers out a deal... she'll provide the remaining Chaos Emeralds if she gets to chase Master Emerald shards at Eggman's expense... but of course, she's thinking of more advantages than just that... 11:13 PRISON ISLAND Eggman would rather not be back on Prison Island if he could at all avoid it. But Rouge is sure this is where the other Chaos Emeralds are. And she won't be argued with, so they'll just have to push on. The plan is: Eggman will create a diversion, allowing Rouge to sneak into the Security Hall where she says the Emeralds are locked. Meanwhile, Shadow will set a bomb that will take out the entire island, giving the other two ample time to get off the island first. ON with the show... __________________ 7th Stage \ -Eggman / -Rush into the military base! WEAPONS BED \ -Fight some half-serious military, at that! __________________/ If there was ever a greater opportunity for free points-scoring, please point it out. Because on the deck of the aircraft carrier you're on are neat rows of inert, non-moving robots just crying out to be blown up. * Move along the carrier deck in your ever-explosive way. Near the end of the deck there's a set of steel doors at screen left. Blow them up: inside one of them is the Large Cannon Level Up item. You need this to finish the level. Now you can shoot out Steel Crates. Do so, then continue. * Travel your merry way along the platforms. Watch out, because you'll start being ambushed by Hawk-series robots, so tread carefully. This infact goes for most of the level, including the next aircraft carrier and a bunch more platforms that you'll have to hover between. Remember as you journey on to walk around the sides of spinning spiky balls, shooting the enemies that perch there as you go. * On the third aircraft carrier there is a pulley. If you'd like to be surrounded by four Hawk robots, take it. Otherwise, no harm will be done if you skirt safely underneath. From here it's really no trouble to the Goal Ring. ---- Eggman meets up with Shadow on the deck of yet another carrier. A happy planning meeting is broken up when Shadow is treacherously hugged from behind... Amy, mistaking her hedgehogs (seemingly thinking that Sonic has had a serious hair job), is extremely pleased to see what turns out to be a less-than-pleased Shadow. Eggman's fairly pleased though. It gives him a chance to be generally menacing. But no sooner has he swung into threaten mode than when Tails rocks up, and he's even less pleased than Shadow... BOSS TAILS Can you hammer the "B" button? Can you move around? Can you shoot off the occasional Homing Attack? Chances are you'll put paid to fox-boy without even being touched. --- Meanwhile, Shadow's departed to plant the bomb, and the communication between him and Eggman fills Rouge's communicator as she breaks into the Security Hall. Unfortunately for Rouge, this self same communication gives her exactly five minutes in which to find the three Emeralds inside the Security Hall... __________________ 8th Stage \ -Rouge / -Find the three Chaos Emeralds in 5 minutes! SECURITY HALL \ -Better shift yourself. __________________/ Umm... ouch. For a 1st Mission, 5 minutes is a tough ask. You may be at this one for a while, so listen up... * For this level - FORGET points. Look at every Hint Computer you can find. * Just to make it even more evil, the emeralds can be just about anywhere in this level. If you're stuck, hover round awhile and look out for your radar. * Areas Emeralds could be: ** The inside walls, or the ground beneath them. Particularly tucked in behind a box, or inside a Badnik. ** The outer walls, split into A Block, B Block, and C Block. They're also colour-coded: Red is the bottom level, Yellow is the middle, and Blue level is up top. ** The second floor: There are switches up here that unlock the safes. But you won't need them, and later I'll explain why. Should you want to unlock the safes, or own a Gamecube (in which case you don't have a choice: see below) the red one is on the ground to your left, the blue one (but you will never need that: the blue safes are already unlocked) to your right, and the yellow switch is on the raised platform above, at the back. Anyway, there's also the occasional Emerald up here, nestled amongst bad guys and laser beams. * Finally, the Ancient Ruin on C Block, Red Level will take you to the Treasure Scope Level Up Item. You'll need the Iron Boots from Mad Space (level 12) first though. For cryin out loud don't try and get it during 1st mission. * Now, here's why there's no need for them switches: remember your Screw Kick move? You know, the one you do by moving the Analog Pad in a circle then pressing B. Screw Kick any safe and it'll open, locked or not. That could... ahem... "safe" you loads of time *gets pelted by rotten fruit*... in your search for the three Emeralds. [sa2b] The Screw Kick glitch only works in the Dreamcast Sonic Adventure 2. Gamecube devotees will have to actually unlock the safes. Sorry. ---- Rouge isn't out of the woods yet, as her theft has been noticed... yet another GUN robot has come by to investigate... BOSS R-1/A FLYING DOG Yet another of those Big Foot/Hot Shot kinda mech thingies, the Flying Dog is unique in that it is constantly airborne. Aside from that, its attacks are exactly the same at the Hot Shot that Shadow destroyed earlier. Where this fight is different is how you hit the damn thing. Rouge should put her wall-climbing ability to good use here. Clinging to the top of a wall, you can safely ignore the machine-gunning phase. When it fires Homing Missiles, glide across to the other wall, then glide off that wall. When you're directly over the cockpit, Drill Drive (press B) down onto it. Apart from the Homing Beam which it'll start using shortly (which you can easily avoid), the same tactic will earn you the next three hits. For the final hit, it'll stop using the Homing Missiles, meaning you'll have to Drill Drive onto the cockpit from overhead as it's charging up the Homing Beam. End of. --- [ FACE OFF WITH SONIC ] Shadow has reached the conclusion that Rouge is pretty useless. Rouge is reporting in with the "small problem" that she's locked in the Security Hall, complete with the Chaos Emeralds... Now Shadow needs those Emeralds, but it takes a Maria flashback or two to convince him to go back for Rouge as well... __________________ 9th Stage \ -Shadow / -Cut through the White Jungle in 10 minutes! WHITE JUNGLE \ -"Oh yeah, hurry through the unexploded"... __________________/ Oh, please. Ten minutes? You should be able to walk it in that time. What obstacles there are are relatively easily avoided. * Start by running down the halfpipe, where you'll be sprung onto a rope swing. Admire the scenery as you swoosh past, then continue. When you land, run on and you'll have the choice of grabbing a vine or somersaulting under a wooden fence. Beyond that fence lies another vine which gives you a decent shortcut. * Keep on running, full tilt. Avoid or kill baddies as you go. You'll come to a bungee cord, and then more running. Shortly afterwards you'll be heading upwards, and have a choice between a vine and a half-loop. Take the vine, there's an Invincibility nearby. * Keep on running, take another rope swing. When you land there'll be a line of rings in front of you can't take. Smash the wooden crate in front of you: beneath lies the Air Shoes. Now use the Light Dash (push B in front of the rings) to continue. Keep on runnin'. * One more rope swing. Now you're a few short Bungee cords away from the Goal Ring. ---- Shadow's penetrated the jungle but _still_ can't get to the Security Hall, the reason being that that blue hedgehog is in the way. Shadow would prefer him out of the way. BOSS SONIC Sonic can be a little touchy, but you really would expect more of him. As long as you make sure not to fall off the edge of the platform, you should be fine. If he's near a fence, you should be very careful. If he jumps, he will follow it up with a Homing Attack so jump to negate it. Smack him with a Somersault when he's standing still. Spin Dashing can also help though it's a little risky on this small space. After three hits Sonic will be out of your way, at least temporarily. --- [ THE EGGMAN EMPIRE ] Shadow's finally got a clear run to the Security Hall. Pity there's one minute left before the island blows up. Even super-fast Shadow takes 54 seconds to get to Rouge from the jungle, so once he gets there there's only one thing to do... "Chaos Control!" Shads uses his technique for the second time in the story to hustle Rouge and, more importantly, the three Chaos Emeralds outta there. ARK We catch Shadow in the middle of a flashback to 50 years ago, where he and Maria are pondering what life is like on Earth. Shadow only knows that Gerald is working to help the folks on the planet, and that's what he - and they - are doing on the ARK. Back in the present, Shadow's memories of Maria are interrupted when Rouge walks up to him, commenting that it was "unlike him" to rescue her like that. Shadow covers up by saying he was saving the Emeralds. But, of course, Rouge believes not a word of it. The conversation would go further, but Eggman comes in saying it's time for a demonstration. Rouge protests that they only have six of the seven Emeralds, but Shadow, recovering, announces that's more than enough for the demonstration. Time for Eggman to hit the airwaves. [ LAST CHAOS EMERALD ] DAY X - 18:00 Eggman is on the air, and announcing the start of the Eggman Empire. To back up this claim, he blows up the rock surrounding the ARK, and the deadly space station is exposed to the world. The rest of the world is suitably shocked, but it takes the firing of the Eclipse Cannon and the destruction of part of the moon to really get people listening... The world is left with a 24-hour countdown and Eggman's maniacal laughter... ...however, back on the ARK, Eggman has to stop laughing when he gets exactly zero surrender messages from the world's governments. He's furious, a mood not helped when Shadow confirms they'll definitely need Emerald #7 to actually fire the Eclipse Cannon again. Angry, he turns on Rouge, demanding she find the last Emerald. She produces a newspaper clipping showing that Tails was given the last Emerald after his work saving the city of Station Square from a previous Eggman plot to blow it up (see Sonic Adventure 1). So Rouge's next move is obvious: find the fox! __________________ 10th Stage \ -Rouge / -Chase the Tornado! ROUTE 280 \ -Rouge's turn to go Karting! __________________/ Route 280 is a mildly harder version of Tails' Route 101 stage. (Boy, would I not like to work for the Roads Department in _this_ town). Still, you shouldn't have _that_ much trouble dealing with it, not with the following tips: * As with Tails, Rouge's Batmobile (sorry, but the joke was staring me straight in the face) can handle sharper corners by releasing A and then pushing it again as you turn. * Remember to pick up Rings. You're not going to get hit, but every 20 Rings you pick up earn you a Boost. Boost by pressing Y if you've got one. * The extra challenge in this Karting stage comes from the holes in the road and guardrails. Guess what? You don't want to fall through holes. * You do, however, want to pick up Balloons, as they provide more Rings. * Finish either this or Route 101 to unlock the 1P Kart Race mode. Finish both for the 2P Kart Race mode. ---- Rouge has found Tails, and they appear to be heading Eggman-wards. AS they pass over Shadow's position, it becomes time for him to continue the chase... __________________ 11th Stage \ -Shadow / -Chase the Tornado! SKY RAIL \ -Sky Rail... hmm... grinding, perhaps? __________________/ If you're not good at grinding, um... now would be the time to get good. And quickly. * You start on one of two Grind Rails. If you hadn't figured it out, you can skip from one to the other by pushing A+Right (or A+Left.) But only if you're not crouching. You can practice your rail transfer skills by trying for all twelve rings. * If you push A while near the end of a rail, and you're grinding fast enough, you'll do a trick jump. You can get big points this way. * After you land, continue on, and ride the Propellor Pad up by repeatedly Homing Attacking it. You'll get to a rocket. You can take it to skip a small bit. Hit the checkpoint. * There's a Level Up Item nearby. From the checkpoint, turn around and walk towards the bottom of screen until you fall onto a platform. The next bit can be difficult. Ride the Propellor Pad up. At the top, Homing Attack the Spark Beetle (you'll have to time this very carefully - you need to be at the peak of your jump when you attack and the Spark Beetle also has to have it's electricity off), then Homing Attack more beetles in series until you land on a platform with the Ancient Light on it. Grab it if you want - it's not necessary to finish the level - but you may need it later on. Anyway, make your way back to the checkpoint and continue. * Grind down another rail, transferring if you want all the ring monitors. Hop up the ledges using the Propellor Pads, ignoring the enemy fire. There's a pair of short Grind Rails on one of the ledges: ignore them, and jump to the next ledge. * Grind down the next Rails, and go up the next set of ledges like before. The next Rails have a break in the middle. Don't touch the Analog Pad - you'll lant on the next Rail without incident if you don't move. Keep grinding, and from the next platforms it's a fairly simple run and grind to the Goal Ring. ---- [ HIDDEN BASE INTERCEPT ] Shadow reports in that the good guys are heading right for Eggman's base. Eggman isn't worried though, telling Shadow he'll be sure to give them all a very warm welcome... 14:58 - IN THE PYRAMID Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy have penetrated to the inside of the Hidden Base. While they celebrate, Eggman arrives. Telling them there's no escape, he summons the guardian of the Base... the Egg Golem! Sonic is daunted by it's size, but fights nevertheless. With a Karate-style yell, he takes out the control chip on the Golem's head, sending it insane. Eggman is not happy, but the Golem is less happy, and now it'll attack anyone nearby... BOSS EGG GOLEM If you've played this as Sonic, you know what to expect - his moves haven't changed. How you fight back has changed though. For one thing, Eggman's heavy mech can't escape from the quicksand below the platform - so if you're going to jump off, be very careful where you land. The Golem seems to have no weak points, but keep avoiding its hands and shooting it with the Volkan Cannon (just keep tapping B - don't use your Lock-On Missiles), and weak points will be revealed. A panel will fall off, revealing targets inside. Now use your Lock-On Missiles to cause some big damage. Repeat this twice more and he's no more problem. ---- [ FACE OFF WITH KNUCKLES ] While Eggman was distrated by the Golem, Sonic and company escaped, hopping onto Eggman's own Space Shuttle and taking off for the ARK. Isn't it always the way? He'll have to warn the ARK... ARK CENTRAL CONTROL - CANNON COUNTDOWN 2 HOURS 11 MINUTES Rouge, safely on the ARK now, is taking Eggman's call of warning. She promises the doctor she'll deal with them herself - if he tells her the central computer's password. For a guy with 300 IQ, he's sure tricked easily. Accessing the central computer, Rouge goes to work - downloading all the computer's files on Project:Shadow. There's even a picture of the "ultimate life form" provided - and it's not a hedgehog. Rouge is amazed - but is interrupted by a reading from the Master Emerald. Seems there's some shards nearby... __________________ 12th Stage \ -Rouge / -Find three pieces of the Master Emerald! MAD SPACE \ -Holy crap, this is big! __________________/ A big, BIG level. Fortunately, there's no time limit this time. But still plenty of places to go. * Complicating things slightly is the Hint Computers acting up. The first hint for each Emerald shard is spelt backwards, and the next two are lying, in cunning, foolproof ways like "The lowest place" when it means the highest place, and "It's not on a platform on the inverted blue tower" when it is on a platform on the inverted blue tower. Hope you can deal ;) ... * The inverted blue tower in question is the big blue thing up the top of the level, like on Meteor Herd. Emerald Shards are frequently on the tower or its surrounding platforms. (The one that talks about "under a black box" is as follows: find a platform on the blue tower that has red lights. There's a trail of black unbreakable boxes floating in space - the Emerald shard is under the last box.) * There are three planetoids in the level - hint boxes often refer to them. All three planets have their own gravity that you can get caught in. * The Capsule Planet - the long green one. Emerald Shards will normally be at one of the ends, if they're there. You can get off the Capsule Planet by walking to an end and jumping. * The Holy Planet - the one with the top missing. You may have to Dig to get emeralds, or one could even be on the train orbiting the planet. * The Spherical Planet - the smallest one. The Iron Boots can be found in the building here , they let you kick open steel boxes. *There are various other platforms dotted around the place that Emeralds could be on, including some at the very bottom of the level. Miss a jump on those ones and you'll die, but they may be a hiding place for some of the three Emerald Shards. ---- Rouge has many of the Emerald shards, but Knuckles has the rest. She needs to find him and take those shards... BOSS KNUCKLES An interesting fight. Knuckles uses almost the same moves as you, so avoid his Punches and start Gliding. Whenever he stops moving, Drill Drive onto his head. Even when you're both blown into the air, you should stick to the same tactic. He'll land on a beam, then stop. Drill Drive. After a while he'll get mad. Shouting "Now witness my power", he'll unleash a Thunder Arrow attack on you. You can glide while the camera's on his face, as infact you should - you have to, to avoid the attack. Keep Drill Driving him to finish him off. ---- [ EGGMAN'S PLAN ] Well, that fight exhausted the heck out of both Knux and Rouge, but they're not done yet. They both want all the pieces of that Master Emerald, remember. Rouge accuses Knuckles of 'attacking a lady'; Knuckles wonders what kind of 'lady' becomes a professional thief. As Rouge tries another argument, her feet slip... suddenly, she's falling down towards what wouldn't be a nice death. But Knuckles is there first, saving her life. They stare at each other as Knuckles helps Rouge up... but then break the stare. Rouge accuses Knuckles of 'just wanting to hold my hand', Knuckles says he was saving the Master Emerald shards, and neither of them fools anyone. Rouge sighs, then gives Knux the rest of the Master Emerald shards. Knuckles leaves, and Rouge does too, smiling slightly. PYRAMID - CANNON COUNTDOWN 58 MINUTES Eggman has other matters on his mind - he's detected readings from two separate Chaos Emeralds outside the ARK, even though he already knows he's got all but one of them. The fools - they're trying to trick him with a fake Emerald! Shadow goes to intercept him - but is stopped by Eggman; he thinks he's the one that should take care of this, not Shadow. Teleporting to ARK, he'll see what he can do about those good guys... __________________ 13th Stage \ -Eggman / -Get and confront the trespassers! COSMIC WALL \ -Try not to break into a sweat or anything... __________________/ This level is astonishingly easy, given how late in the story it comes. I had an A Rank the first time I played this. Anyway, a few pointers... * As Omochao points out, the gravity around this area is very weak. When you hover now, you won't just slow your fall like normal, you'll actually boost gently upwards. And you'll be hovering for 90% of this level, so get used to it. * Travel along, hovering from platform to platform when needs be. Lock-on and take out bad guys if you think they'll hurt you, although if you keep moving they probably won't. * After the second checkpoint, you'll have to hover from platfor to platform up a shaft, jump over the top and head down another shaft. On the way down there's a missile - fire it and you'll see the Protection Armor waiting to be picked up. * Jump on the cart after the next Checkpoint. It'll take you for a ride, which is better known as a "free shooting session". Take out anything and everything you can for absolute tons of points. Then jump up and down another shaft, take more walkways, go up and down one more shaft. * From here it's another free-shooting cart ride. Near the end you'll be chased by a really big...er, metal deelie. Just fire at it like crazy and eventually you'll be thrown off the cart into the Goal Ring. ---- ARK RESEARCH LABORATORY - CANNON COUNTDOWN 33 MINUTES Amy is loitering around the research lab, wondering why everyone always leaves a 'sweet, innocent girl' like her alone. Even as she says this, she's not alone any more. Eggman enters the lab, levelling a gun at her, telling her to call Sonic and Tails. When they arrive, he tells them to hand over the seventh Chaos Emerald and back off... slowly. Sonic laughs as he puts the fake Emerald on the ground, but he stops laughing when he's enclosed in a capsule! Firing Sonic off into space, Eggman announces he'll let Tails and Amy go if they give him the real seventh Emerald. But Tails is stunned - Sonic's gone, and he's counting on Tails to keep up the fight. Tails won't be subdued so easily... BOSS TAILS Tails is, to say the least, mildly annoyed at you for disposing of Sonic. While you're not about to start quaking in your metallic boots, you should be watching yourself. Rapid Volkan Cannon fire while circling around is a good bet to hit Tails, just remember not to get too close or you're easier to hit. After a while he'll get mad, and charge up a big weapon (you can tell he's doing this when he shouts "Charge!"), then he'll either fire off Homing Rockets, which you should run to avoid, or his Power Laser, which you'll have to run to the side to get away from. Try not to be too close at this point, as the Power Laser is very large and very fast. Just keep shooting at him, using the occasional Homing Missile when you can, and Tails will finally subdue. ---- [ MYSTERY OF SHADOW ] ARK - CANNON COUNTDOWN 21 MINUTES 7 SECONDS Shadow watches Sonic's capsule explode through a viewport, thinking Sonic to be a regular hedgehog after all. ARK CENTRAL CONTROL Rouge is delighted. Now that the other two are off fighting the good guys, she's alone in the central control room with six Chaos Emeralds all to herself - or so she thinks. Infact, Shadow has overheard her, and a confrontation ensues. The truth finally comes out - Rouge is a government spy sent to find the details of Project:Shadow. Rouge says, now that her job is done, she's going to take the Emeralds as payment and go home. Shadow calls her pathetic, but Rouge isn't shaken. Flourishing her printout about Research Project:Shadow, she tells him he's not the real "ultimate life form". Just what is he anyway? The conversation is interrupted when Eggman tells Shadow that someone's trying to stop the Eclipse Cannon, and he'd better stop them. Threatening Rouge to leave the Emeralds where they are, Shadow leaves... __________________ 14th Stage \ -Shadow / -Hurry to the Eclipse Cannon! FINAL CHASE \ -Watch the spinning pillar... __________________/ This is a very long level, starting with a long Grind. * Once you're off the rail, run along until you get to a green pillar. These things have their own gravity, and it's very important you get used to them: You'll be constantly spun around them, but you can control your movement by pushing up for forwards and down for backwards. To get from one to another, jump while you're facing it. It will suck you into it's own gravitational field if you get close enough. * Some pillars will have electric fences on them, but they are easy to get around. Get fairly close and wait until you're directly in front of the fence, then start moving as you are spun out of the fence's way. * Your next big problem will come from a group of vertical pillars. You can jump off them while you're being spun, but sometimes it's best to be safe by riding to the very top of the pillar. Either way, Homing Attack the Artificial Chaos and then Homing Attack again to get to the next pillar. After the fifth such pillar you'll see a platform with two Speed Pads on it; that way lies the rest of the level. If you ride this pillar to the top though, you can Homing Attack onto the pillar with the Electric Fence and ride it up to spring to the Mystic Melody pickup. After you're back on solid platforms, you might be sprung up to a very short purple Grind Rail; jump off it or you'll miss the Checkpoint. Tag the Checkpoint and continue down the next Grind Rail. * Hit the Spring and take the next couple of Grind Rails before jumping to the Platform. You'll see four vertical green pillars on each side; pick a side and jump on the top of the pillars, it's much faster than spinning on them. Keep going, through the checkpoint, turn the corner and jump across the next set of pillars onto the walkway. Take the Grind Rail here. * The next point of interest is the platform with two Grind Rails leading off it. Don't worry - they both go to the same place. The one on the right makes for an easier journey though; take it, bounce off the Spring at the end and jump across the next Pillars. Run along, hit the Speed Pads and grind up the Rail. Keep going. * Now there's just a proliferation of pillars to navigate, heading every which way. I find it easier to navigate if you stick towards the left of the group of pillars, but that's just me. Yo u may find the right side easier. The last pillar has a Lift Hook on it; grab it to continue the level. * Spin to the top of the next pillar and hit the Spring. Run along the walkway, take the Rocket, and run down the next pillar. Jump off onto the platform with the spring - you're still spinning on the pillar though so time it carefully. From there, just spring to the Goal Ring. ---- [ THE LAST BATTLE ] ECLIPSE CANNON - CANNON COUNTDOWN 5 MINUTES 44 SECONDS Shadow arrives to investigate the cause of the disturbance - and it's that blue hedgehog! He begins walking alongside and talking to him. The walk rapidly becomes a run... Shadow still doesn't know how Sonic survived his little space voyage, but it's clear he can't allow him to remain alive any longer... _______________ FINAL BOSS \ SONIC__________/ Sonic thinks it's time to finish this, right here, right now. And oh boy, is he going to try. So watch yourself as the two of you race around the infinite walkway... * Don't stay on one section of walkway for too long - it'll collapse, taking you with it unless your quick enough to get onto the next section of walkway. Also, if you stick too close to Sonic he'll attack you with a Homing Attack. Jump to knock him away. * At first, Sonic won't be paying enough attention. You should take the opportunity to get one or two easy hits in with the Homing Attack. * After a couple of hits, he'll wise up, and counter your attacks with a Spin Jump. From here, you have two options: * Let Sonic run out ahead of you. (Without standing on a section of walkway long enough for it to collapse, of course - keep running, but fairly slowly.) When he's a fair way ahead he'll stop, shouting "I'm not done with you yet!" keep running towards him as he shouts, and clear out of the way of the resulting Sonic Wind attack by somersaulting. (sometimes a Homing attack or a Spin Dash, or even just running forwards at full tilt will work too, although rarely.) You have a couple of seconds to catch up to him and smack him one. * A slightly more complicated method, (that can still work quite well), is to streak ahead of Sonic. He'll stop and shout "I'll use _your_... CHAOS CONTROL!" Charge up a Spin Dash and smack into Sonic as he appears in front of you. * Whichever of these two methods you use to hit the blue speedster, after a total of six hits he'll be down for the count. Shadow announces that he _is_ the ultimate life form. And the game is ended. ---- ARK CENTRAL CONTROL - CANNON COUNTDOWN 40 SECONDS With 40 seconds to go, Eggman finally places the seventh Chaos Emerald into its place on the Eclipse Cannon. Now he knows that he has succeeded, and it is time to begin the Empire of Eggman... but while his mad laughter echoes around the central control room, what's that large red "DANGER" error message that Eggman hasn't yet noticed on one of the computer screens? Could it be... that the Eclipse Cannon is malfunctioning... ? Ponder this as Shadow's theme song plays through the credits. Keep pondering it as you receive your ending Emblem and watch the trailer that appears. It'll either be for the Hero Story, if you haven't yet done that, or for something else entirely... You've now finished the Dark Story of Sonic Adventure 2. *********************** 3.3 LAST STORY *********************** So now you've finished both sides of Sonic Adventure 2 - but there's a lot of loose ends. What's actually going to happen when the cannon counts down to zero? Why did Professor Gerald go bad anyway? And will the good guys and the bad guys ever have a final confrontation? Get to the Story Select menu - now in between the Hero and Dark stories will appear a large question mark representing the Last Story... time to wrap up this whole thing once and for all... [ THE BEGINNING ] CANNON COUNTDOWN 40 SECONDS We pick up where the Dark ending left off. The Eclipse Cannon appears not to be firing. Eggman assumes it's a technical fault. We know, of course, that Sonic just blew it up. Actually, it's not even that, as Eggman learns when a recorded message from Professor Gerald pops up. As he planned, the attempt to activate the Eclipse Cannon has caused the energy of the Chaos Emeralds to overload the whole damn system, sending ARK on a crash course towards Earth. Meanwhile, Sonic and Knuckles have chanced upon Rouge in the lab. Knuckles would like to argue the theory of Master Emerald ownership once more, but Rouge isn't interested. Her boss has told her of the "death dive" predicament, just in time for the recorded message from Gerald to be replayed live on every screen on the ARK and on Earth. Gerald gleefully reveals that the world now has just under 28 minutes to live. People are understandably a little terrified, as we see from scenes of round-the-world panic. Back on the ARK, Amy and Tails have now joined the others at the lab, followed shortly by Eggman. While he announces that he should've thought of a giant-falling-space-station-type scheme a long time ago, even Eggman would rather it didn't explode, what with him on it and all. To this end, he supplies Gerald's last diary entry on disc. It plays out extraordinarily dramatically, as genius Gerald gradually goes mad. Descent into madness made visual, they agree something must be done. Rouge decides that the Master Emerald could stop the power of the Chaos Emeralds, and Eggman, Sonic and the others realise they must team up to stop the core going critical and avert the big crash... [ THE LAST MISSION ] __________________ Final Stage \ -Tails, Eggman, Rouge, Knuckles, Sonic / -Get to the Cannon's Core! CANNON'S CORE \ -Lots of variety in this level. __________________/ Before you even attempt this level, go to Stage Select and get a whole mess of extra lives. You may well need them. -TAILS The level begins with you as Tails in his mech, the object as explained by Eggman is to fight your way to the first Security Door and blast hell out of it. This part's not so hard, really. No window explosions to think about like in Eternal Engine, so you can go back to blasting all you want ^_^ The only bits really worth mentioning are: *Hit the Time Stop switches to temporarily disable the red lasers. *The Artificial Chaos (blobby aliens with arms who bounce away your shots) can be killed during Time Stop or when they go to attack you. Lock on to them while you're out of attack range, then move in and let 'em have it when they go to attack. *There's a big hover jump to be made after the first Time Stop switch. The security door opens on a few platforms, one of them moving, then the endless chasm of space. You can hover onto the moving platform from the ledge. If you're quick enough, you'll be able to make it during the Time Stop, so it won't be moving. At any rate, from the moving platform, take out the three missile robots, then hover down the wall in front of you. There's a locked door. While you're in front of the door, take out the two dynamite packs on it, then hover through. *In the last room, hit the Time Stop switch, get onto one of the side platforms, then hit it again while the moving platform in the middle is at the centre of its path. Jump onto that then shoot out the door. -EGGMAN Eggman's is much the same, except harder. His job is to shoot out the second security door. * Most of the early part is like Tails' area. After Eggman takes the up elevator, the next room contains two Artificial Chaos who can hit you with their arms from anywhere in the room. A good way to deal with them I've found is to lock on to them before they can attack you the first time, then charge in between the two of them. Now turn round and blast 'em down when they try to attack you. * The second part of the level changes totally. You'll see a small platform in front of you that looks as though it leads to a door. It doesn't, the platform collapses. The door's a dead end anyway, but it contains a Chao box. Once the platform collapses, hover down the tunnel avoiding the red lasers and Artificial Chaos. Make sure to hit one of the numerous Time Stop switches near the bottom. At the bottom there's one of them green electric floors harmful to the touch. So hover over to the platform you see, which would be moving incredibly quickly if not for that Time Stop switch you hit. * The next bit has a lot of moving boxes. Lock on to the next Time Stop switch and fire so the switch activates just as the box to your right that goes upwards, is just under halfway out of the floor. Hover onto it, then onto the next upwards-heading box, then a big hover jump onto one of the boxes in the next room down. The rest of the room is a set of fairly simple hover jumps, so long as you remember to head for the upwards-travelling box in the far left corner of the room. Ride it up to the final room, which you should tackle like you did Tails' room. -ROUGE For a change, Rouge doesn't have to find three objects. For another change, she doesn't have to open a security door. She has to drain the liquid from the rooms surrounding the Cannon's Core. There's a huge switch right in front of you to do this, but it's not going to be that easy. That said, this is a fairly short stage. It can be tough at times, though. * Start by climbing the shortest of the four cylindrical pillars. Then glide diagonally across to the next shortest, then across to the next shortest, and finally to the tallest pillar. * You may notice some red laser bars you can't get through. Don't worry about that, Knux will deal with that later. * Climb that to the top and hit the Time Stop switch, then fall down and glide through the bottom of the waterfall to the open room. * This next room has electric green flooring. It hurts you. Glide across to the far wall and move near to the Time Stop switch under the opening in the wall. When there isn't a moving block in the opening, hit the Time Stop switch, run through to the next room and kick (push B three times) the blobby-arm-alien on the raised platform in the centre. Hit the switch that was under him. This opens the capsule with the big switch back in the main room. * Now you've got to make your way back. This is hard, although there's an Invinciblility to the left in the switch room that will help. Go back to the green-floored room and notice the spring on the other side of the room. You've got to hit the Time Stop switch when there isn't a moving block above the spring, then quickly glide across to the platform and jump on the spring, taking care not to hit the floor. Land in the walkway and quickly run through the waterfall before the Time Stop runs out. You'll now be back in the main room and can hit the huge switch at your leisure. This will flood the room you're standing in. -KNUCKLES Knux has to find the switch to unlock the final security door. Knux plays in the same area Rouge was just in, which is now flooded. So aquatic skill is very important. You need full control of Knux's B button-dive and A button-upsurge. You'll also need Knux's Hammer Gloves pickup. The Air Necklace will prove very useful too if you can find it in Aquatic Mine, as you'll be able to breathe underwater and won't have to go for air bubbles all the time. Not only will you be able to take things that much more slowly and carefully, you'll also have no reason to go too near the electric green floor. * The security door is in front of you. Behind you is an Artificial Chaos and some red laser bars. Underwater is where Rouge's bit was. There's an extra life where Rouge pushed the huge button. * Face the red-laser bar area behind you. Now dive down and in the water to your right you should find the tallest pillar from before, complete with Time Stop switch. Hit the switch, quickly come back up to the surface and get past the single Artificial Chaos and the now-inactive red laser bars. Drill through the metal boxes below you, you'll hit a spring and be bounced up to a walkway. Hit the switch there. This opens those red laser bars Rouge was unable to open earlier. (It's underwater now, directly above where Rouge had to run through the waterfall). * (Remember, from now on, if you have the Air Necklace, you can disregard all references to air bubbles you read from now on.) * Resurface. Then dive down and swim through the area you just opened. Grab an air bubble. You may need it by now. Hit the switch on the raised centre platform. Try not to get hit 'cos you'll need rings for the next bit unless you're VERY good. Or have the Air Necklace. * Grab an air bubble, now VERY QUICKLY hit the Time Stop switch on the other side of the room (above where you came in), now VERY QUICKLY swin through the waterway before the Time Stop runs out. You're in a room with electric green roof, walls and floor. You may well be running out of air by now so dodge the maze of red lasers and head to the lower left corner of this next room where to get an air bubble. Now unfortunately you stop swimming when you grab an air bubble so BEFORE you hit the floor, VERY QUICKLY press A to push yourself upwards. Now quickly hit the Time Stop in the middle of the floor, and AS QUICKLY AS IS HUMANLY POSSIBLE swim through the tunnel and hit the NEXT Time Stop switch around the corner, now EVEN MORE QUICKLY THAN THAT swim through the rest of this walkway (as the Time Stop you just hit lasts about a microsecond. x.X) Should you fail any of this, you'll be back in the electric green room. * Once you've got through the walkways, you'll be running out of air again. Luckily this room has a proper floor so swim over to the nearest air bubble in the room. Then hit the huge switch in the middle in the room. And that's it. Knux's bit is *phew* over. -SONIC Now all the doors are open, it's Sonic's job to get into the core itself. Surprisingly easy after Knux's bit. There's only a few bits to be wary of, most of it is a fairly standard run. * The area I'll call the "Current Room". This consists of a floor filled with constantly moving water, and a gate you have to somersault under. When you reach the gate, Bounce Attack onto the top of it. There's a Time Stop switch that will let you somersault under the gate easily. * The room with two Shield Robots on a platform and an Artificial Chaos hanging over a bottomless pit. There's a locked door nearby, and that's where you're supposed to go. It opens when the three baddies are dead. Homing Attack the two Shield Robots once they've started to charge up their guns. (Or somersault into them anytime.) Then Homing Attack the Artificial Chaos, but once you've hit him IMMEDIATELY press Down on the Analog Pad and Homing Attack to get back to the platform the Shield Robots were standing on. Now go through the door that is now open. * The very, very end. Once Eggman has communicated his "last hope" message to you, you'll be on a series of downward slides. Repeatedly Homing Attack your way up the first one, 'cos going down it spells death. Make your way from slide to slide, and when you've got to the long curvy slide that was obviously stolen from Lost World in the original SA, it's just a gentle slide to the Goal Ring. ------------ [ THE ULTIMATE BATTLE ] ARK/EARTH IMPACT 19 MINUTES 50 SECONDS Amy feels left out. Well, she's the only one not trying to stop ARK from slamming into the planet. Actually, she's wrong. Shadow doesn't like the planet much, so in his opinion it's all going to plan. Amy tries to convince him otherwise, but in the end it's something about her that reminds him of the promise he *actually* made to Maria that sways Shadow into helping. ARK/EARTH IMPACT 15 MINUTES Sonic is at the Cannon's Core, and would like to shut it down. Unfortunately Professor Gerald's message plays again and the Cannon's Core hatches out what was truly the Ultimate Life Form prototype, and it disagrees. And it's nasty. Real nasty. Just then, Shadow arrives at the core. He tells Sonic to go stop the power of the Chaos Emeralds while he deals with the creature... __________________ Boss \ -Shadow / -Beat the BioLizard THE BIOLIZARD \ -The prototype of the Ultimate Life Form. __________________/ The BioLizard is a bit of a tank. The very touch of its skin will hurt you, if you're not jumping. In addition, it stands in a large pool from which run two fast-flowing water channels, both of which will carry you to your death. It's only weakpoint is a large red life-support dome on its back, which you will only get certain chances to attack. He takes six hits. Anyway, the boss runs as follows: * It begins by chasing you with whatever's closest out of its mouth or its tail (heads or tails, as my brother put it). Treat this bit like a faster version of King Boom Boo. I.E., if you get too far away from the head, the viewpoint will swing and the tail will come at you in the opposite direction. So keep an even distance from whichever part of the BioLizard is chasing you, and remember to jump over the water channels. Eventually, it'll stop, exhausted, and swing its head round to reveal a life-support tube up which you can grind. Near the top, Homing Attack onto the red dome. That's hit one. *Then it goes back to chasing you. Eventually it'll stop again, but this time it'll shoot out blue energy balls at you. They come at two heights - the lower ones should be jumped over, and the higher ones should be someraulted under. Should you get hurt, BioLizard sportingly stops its attacks for long enough for you to pick up one of the rings you just lost. Remember again to stay out of the water channels. Eventually it'll be exhausted again and reveal the life-support tube. Grind up it again and hit it once more for hit two. This whole phase is repeated again for hit three. * Now it's angry. He chases you again, then shoots blue energy balls again, and then begins his next phase: he summons up lots of pink bio-energy bubbles which will shoot at you one at a time. It's very tricky, and often comes down to dumb luck, but you have to quickly Homing Attack your way one-by-one up the pink bubbles and then Homing Attack again onto the red dome. It's not fun. That's hit four. Do the whole thing again for hit five. Should you get hurt and fall back to ground level, forget about doing it this time round. Just grab a ring or two - two at most - and keep moving with a view to be not hit by the pink bubbles. Then the phase will start again and you can have another crack. (A hint from my brother "Dags" who suggests charging up a Light Attack at this point.) * The final hit is not as hard as you'd think. You're blown up in the air among more pink bubbles. Should you get hit, you wont have a chance to pick up another ring until you land, so if you are hit just move outside the blobs and avoid. Should this happen to you, you'll eventually land, where you can pick up another ring and have to dodge more blue energy balls before being blown into the air again. Avoiding won't beat it though. To do that, find a route that will get you not hit by pink bubbles, then go straight in to the centre, quickly, and attack the dome to polish the damn lizard off. --------------- [ REMAINING HOPE ] At this point, Sonic and Knuckles have made it past Lizard-features to the exact copy of the Master Emerald Shrine from back on Angel Island that resides in the core. If there's anywhere they're going to stop the Chaos Emerald's power, this is it, as Knux realises while reciting Tikal's rhyme from the ancient Echidna past. (y'know, the one from Sonic Adventure that begins, "The servers are the seven Chaos...") The Master Emerald works away, the Chaos Emeralds come loose from the cannon workings, and BioLizard is warped outside the ship. Unfortunately, BioLizard is the prototype for the ultimate life form. It has the power to merge with the ship, keeping it on its death dive even at the possible cost of its own life. Sonic and Shadow know what to do. Knux doesn't appear to. The two hedgehogs aren't going to have a chance in normal form, so they harness the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds once more, and Super Sonic and Super Shadow take flight to save Earth once and for all... __________________ FINAL BOSS \ -Super Sonic, Super Shadow / -Beat THE FINALHAZARD and save the planet THE FINALHAZARD \ -The prototype of the Ultimate Life Form, again! __________________/ A final boss is never going to be easy. At some points THE FINALHAZARD appears easier than The BioLizard which came before, but don't be fooled. This can get tough, especially as you've got only five minutes before ARK and everything nearby enters the atmosphere and gets quite dead. And crispy. In terms of gameplay, it's a lot like Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure or The Doomsday Zone in Sonic & Knuckles. As with any Super Sonic experience, you'll start with fifty rings and gradually tick down. When you're down to none, you go back to normal, and, as normal Sonic and Shadow seem inexplicably unable to fly through space, you'll die. Getting hit doesn't lose you rings, you'll just tumble backwards through space for a few seconds while your rings keep ticking down... The extra variable is you can tag-team swap between Super Sonic and Super Shadow by flying past the FINALHAZARD and over the other side. However, who you swap to will have fifty rings, MINUS the number of rings the other guy had at the changeover. (IE, if Super Sonic had 7 rings when you handed over, you'll get control of Super Shadow with 43. If Super Sonic had 36 rings when you swapped, Super Shadow'll have only 14). So if you're running out of rings with a character, fly past lizard-features to switch to the other one with nearly a full amount. * For once Omochao won't be around to bother you. If you die, or if time seems to be running out, the others will radio you from the ARK with hints or telling you to hurry the heck up. * Control the two Super characters thusly: A goes up, B goes down. Both increase your forward speed as well. * I'm not sure, but I think Shadow's rings tick down marginally faster. That could be just me. * The big lizard has now plumped for homing bubbles in a slightly more tasteful red. It'll have nine to begin with. Dodge these (actually, ignore them) and hit the big, painful red swelling on its body. Having done this, you'll swap to the other character with a full set of fifty rings. * Next it shoots a laser at you. Dodge it and hit the swelling again. Again, the character you swap to will have 50 rings. * Now it tries the laser _followed by_ a whole mess of red bubbles. You know the drill by now. Hit him for hit three, repeat the process for hit four. * Now he's angry. He goes in for _two_ much faster lasers now, followed by a whole grid of the damned red bubbles. To make matters worse, you'll start with only 40 rings, not 50. Etc. etc. red swelling, blah blah, hit five. *For the final hit he goes nuts, using the two lasers _and_ the grid of red bubbles, all at once. And you've only got 40 rings as well. Ouch. Somehow dodge all of this lot, swapping if needed, to hit him one last time. -------------- The FinalHazard is dead. But the ARK is _still_ heading towards the Earth, and if you took as long as I did it's already beginning to burn up on re-entry. How else to stop it than with... "CHAOS CONTROL!" Sonic and Shadow shoot off a double Chaos Control powerful enough to warp the entire ARK to elsewhere over the planet, where it hangs quite still. The world is saved, rejoice. But that last effort was just too much for Shadow, even in Super form. Totally out of energy, he falls slowly into the atmosphere, where he disappears amid a moving soundtrack to an equally moving and beautiful "ting!" and a pink flare. Back on the ARK, the others wait as Sonic returns. Rouge anxiously asks, "Where's Shadow?" but gets only a sad head-shake from Sonic. Rouge and Sonic discuss Shadow. Tails and Eggman, of all people, discuss Professor Gerald, and how they all united. Rouge announces to Knux her retirement from the treasure-hunting business. And the credits roll on through all of this. The ARK floats above the Earth, and the scene fades to black, and the credits roll on. A new day brings new adventure. But for now... Rest easy, heroes. And Shadow's picture appears over the Earth. Enjoy your ending Emblem and remember him. You have now completed Sonic Adventure 2. ************************ 4 ONE PLAYER MODES ************************ STAGE SELECT An attractive map of the game world, from which, surprisingly, you can select what stage to play. You'll have the choice of any level you've finished in Story mode above. You'll also be able to access Chao World with whatever characters you've got to it with in Story mode. It is from here you'll access the other missions in the game (see "Those Darn Emblems" below). You unlock missions by completing the one before. I.E. when you complete the 2nd mission "Get 100 Rings", you'll get to choose the 3rd mission "Find the Lost Chao". It is also from here that you'll reap the benefits of having all 180 emblems... KART RACE Once you've beaten either Tails' Route 101 or Rouge's Route 280, this mode appears in the 1P Menu. There're three courses to beat, with the possibility of more should Sega release them on the Net. The karts are controlled using A to accelerate and B to brake. But don't use the brake - powerslide instead. Release A and and push it again as you turn to get a much sharper turn. Powerslide can rescue you from many walls. Also, everytime you get 20 rings you can boost by pushing Y. For now, you've got: *BEGINNER An easy course. Not too many sharp turns to make, and lots of rings to pick up. A fast driver like Sonic is your best bet. *STANDARD Harder than before, and your opponents are all darn good drivers. Learn the course, learn the Powerslide, and pick somebody with grip like Knuckles. *EXPERT As the name suggests, one for the better kart racers. Again, Knux is probably your best bet with his good grip and acceleration. Any one with high speed like Sonic will probably smack into the walls. BOSS The Boss Mode opens when you complete the equivalent Story mode. Completing Last Story gets you the All Bosses Mode. Deal with all the bosses in succession. ************************ 5 TWO PLAYER MODES ************************ SA2 has five kinds of two-player fun, selectable from three options in the 2P Menu: ACTION This is the real meat of the two player mode. After you pick your sides (one of you has to be the Hero Side, the other the Dark Side) you'll get three kinds of game to play: Remember Rings give you Special Attacks. 20, then 40, then 60. If you get 80 rings, you'll loop back to the 20 ring attack. 100 rings nets you the 40 ring attack, and so on. Press B to use a Special Attack. -RACE: SONIC v. SHADOW Yup. The two speedsters race each other to the end of either Sky Rail, Green Forest or Radical Highway. Your best bet is to just learn the level layout, avoid the enemies and grab every Ring and Item Box in sight. Why Rings? Because you'll earn Special Attacks at certain amounts of Rings. 20 Rings - Speed Up: A quick burst of speed to get you going. 40 Rings - Sonic Wind (Sonic)/ Chaos Spear (Shadow): An unavoidable attack that will knock all the rings from your enemy. 60 Rings - Time Stop (Sonic)/ Chaos Control (Shadow): Stop time for your enemy for 10 seconds. -SHOOTING: TAILS v. EGGMAN The two of you attempt to shoot each other. The first one to have their energy bar reduced to zero loses. Run around, avoid your enemy, don't fall off the edges, and again find every ring you can from these smaller levels. You'll battle over small sections of Mission Street, Sand Ocean, and Weapons Bed. 20 Rings - Laser Missile: A group of small laser beams fly towards your enemy. 40 Rings - Rocket Launcher: A bunch of homing rockets to torment the other guy with. 60 Rings - Power Laser: A huge, really big laser. -HUNTING: KNUCKLES vs. ROUGE There's three Emerald Shards hidden around each of the levels; Wild Canyon, Pumpkin Hill and Meteor Herd. Both of you are competing for the same three Shards, so obviously, first to two shards wins the round. Again, these are redone 1P levels, so learn the layout. 20 Rings - Hammer Punch (Knuckles)/ Hip Drop (Rouge): Doesn't hurt your opponent, but will floor them for a moment. Also knocks an opponent off a wall. 40 Rings - Thunder Arrow (Knuckles)/ Black Wave (Rouge): This one does hurt your opponent. It also dizzies them for a few seconds. Use it to catch up on someone who's close to an Emerald. 60 Rings - Power Flash (Knuckles)/ Charm Ray (Rouge): Stops time for your opponent for 10 seconds. KART RACE Exactly like the 1P Kart Race mode, only... uh... in split-screen two-player. The two of you can choose any character you want for this mode though. Go to the Beginner, Standard or Expert track, or any track you downloaded off the Internet. CHAO RACE Up to 8 people can race their Chao against each other. Each of you has a specific trigger button to urge on your Chao. Other than that, it's a normal Chao Race (see section 7: Your Chao And You). [sa2b]This covers the Dreamcast Sonic Adventure 2 2P VERSUS mode. For descriptions of Gamecube's SA2B 2P BATTLE mode, see section 8. ************************ 6 THOSE DARN EMBLEMS ************************ There are 180 Emblems to collect in Sonic Adventure 2, as opposed to 130 in the first Sonic Adventure. The Emblems are split up as follows: MISSIONS - 155 EMBLEMS Obviously skill in the stages themselves is going to be the most important factor. Duh. Each of the game's 31 stages has 5 missions. You get an emblem for each one. 31 x 5 = 155. The missions are typically as follows: 1st Mission - easy. Just finish the stage in Story mode to get this 'un. See section 3 "PLAY THE GAME ALREADY!" for help on this. 2nd Mission: Get 100 Rings! - What it sounds like. The level will loop until you've acquired 100 rings. There are no Emerald shards for Knux or Rouge, and the others will find Back rings instead of Goal rings. The keyword in this mission is caution. Pickup every ring you can, watch all the time for badguys and try to find shields wherever possible. In Knuckles/Rouge levels, you'll often find extra rings using the Sunglasses or Treasure Scope if you have them. Back rings can be handy too... especially seeing as how they put all the rings back on the field... 3rd Mission: Find the lost Chao! - A Chao is hidden somewhere in the level. I unfortunately don't have a list of Chao locations. But look for an Ancient Ruin in each stage (the small, squarish brown stone ruin with pretty blue patterns) Play the Mystic Melody next to it to open up a path. This will typically take you either to the lost Chao or to a Level Up Item. Sometimes, the game gets clever and does both. For example, in Rouge's Security Hall level, you must use the Mystic Melody on the yellow floor of the vault to get to the Treasure Scope. This then activates Rouge's "Sunglasses" B button-option, which you must then use in the top room to locate a hidden spring which will bounce you to the Chao. Neat. 4th Mission: Get to the Goal Ring in x minutes x seconds - These can be tricky, especially as you're without Check Points to restart from. The key then, is speed with caution. IE go as fast as you can without going so fast that you overshoot platforms, run smack into enemies etc. Where the Spin Dash was your friend is Sonic Adventure 1 for this sort of thing, Sonic and Shadow rely on the Homing Attack for this mission. Homing Attack through corners, onto roofs, and from high places to extend your jump. Tails and Eggman would to well to find their respective hovering upgrades. Knux and Rouge should look at every Hint Computer they come across. 5th Mission: Clear Hard Mode - Okay, you've got the game angry now. The levels weren't at their most fiendish when you cleared them in Story mode, but now some nasty re-decorating has gone down. There are gaps where there weren't before. There are enemies that are tougher than before. There are Emerald shards placed tantalizingly close and yet within giant wind tunnels. These levels are out to get you. And they're your last obstacle for the stage. ENDINGS - 3 EMBLEMS From Story mode. You'll get an emblem for each Story you complete. I.E. 1 for Hero, 1 for Dark and 1 for Last Story. You have to wait till the credits have finished rolling to get it though. BOSS MODE - 3 EMBLEMS Get an Emblem for completing each Boss Mode - Hero, Dark, and All. See "Play The Game Already" for boss hints. CHAO RACE - 10 EMBLEMS Complete the various Chao Races for this lot. You'll get 2 in the course of finishing all the Beginner Races. The other 8 come for later ones. See "Your Chao And You" [sa2b] There are now only 5 Chao Race emblems: one each for Beginner, Jewel, Hero, Dark, and Challenge. 4 of the other 5 emblems are now devoted to Chao Karate: one each for Beginner, Standard, Expert, and Super (which opens once you've beaten the other three). Where did the other emblem go? More on that later. KART RACE - 3 EMBLEMS Each of the three original tracks in Kart Race mode (Beginner, Standard, and Expert) offer up an Emblem each. ALL A RANK - 6 EMBLEMS At the completion of each mission, you'll be awarded a ranking based on score (in 1st/4th/5th Missions) or time (in 2nd/3rd Missions, and in all Missions on Tails' Route 101 and Rouge's Route 280). These rate from A (the best) to E (go buy a guidebook, bub). If you can get all A's on a character's Missions, you'll get an Emblem. There's one for each character. [sa2b] There's now 7 All A Rank emblems: scary as it is, the seventh is for getting All A Rank on Cannon's Core. A very nasty thing to spring on you. Probably the last Emblems you'll get. ************************ 7 YOUR CHAO AND YOU ************************ --Getting There-- Chao! Chao! Chaaaaaaaaaaaao! Wait, that was Sonic Adventure 1... Well. In case you hadn't noticed, Chao are cute little A-Life creatures that hang around Chao World. To access Chao World, you'll need to pick up the Chao Key from any action stage. The Key will be found inside a Chao Box (a light blue crate with a Chao head on it). There are three Chao Boxes per stage, they contain the following: 1st box: Chao Key 2nd box: A bunch of animals 3rd box: A "special" animal Now. Once you've found a Chao key and finished the stage, you'll warp to Chao World. You can also get to Chao World through Stage Select, using any character you already got to Chao World with using a Chao Key. --Places to Go-- Anyway. You'll arrive in the Chao World Lobby. From here, you can go to any of the following: CHAO GARDEN: Where you begin your Chao-raising adventures. Also the only way to get to the Chao Stadium for races. [sa2b] The Chao Stadium now also covers Chao Karate. HERO GARDEN: Once you've raised a Hero Chao (see below), you'll find a set of stairs heading upwards from the Lobby. Said stairs lead to the Hero Garden, a wonderful, beautiful place for Hero Chao and regular Chao to stay. Dark Chao hate it up there though. DARK GARDEN: Raise a Dark Chao to open the wonders of the Dark Garden, accessible from a set of stairs heading down from the Lobby. The Dark Garden is an evil, spooky area, where the water is blood-red, the skies are black and gloomy, and everything is generally evil-looking. Dark Chao love it here, and even regular Chao can hack it. Hero Chao, however, won't have anything to do with the place. CHAO KINDERGARTEN: In this hallowed house of learning, you can teach a Chao a new trick at the Classroom, or you can take him to the Chao Doctor for a quick analysis of his health. Should this fantastic walkthrough not be enough for you, you can get some basic Chao help from the Principal's Office. [sa2b] Now the Kindergarten also contains the Black Market, from which you can spend rings gathered in the 1P Game on new Chao Eggs, fruits, seeds, and various humorous Chao head coverings. THere's also the Fortune Teller, who doesn't tell fortunes. --People to See-- Chao all start out the same - as an egg, which you hatch by shaking it in your hands. Then as a light blue, vaguely good-natured baby. How they grow up depends on what you do to them and who with. In addition, you can evolve them into a particular specialty Chao. But more on that later. First of all, Hero and Dark Chao. To get a Hero Chao, you start with a normal one and raise it almost exclusively with the Hero Side characters (Sonic, Tails and Knux). Treat it kindly and give it lots of stuff. If the Dark Side characters have anything to do with the Chao, make sure they're nasty to it. Better yet, keep them away from the Chao altogether. Eventually, it'll turn white and evolve into a Hero Chao. A Dark Chao is the same with the Sides reversed: Make sure Dark Side characters (Shadow, Eggman, Rouge) treat the Chao well, and keep it away from Hero Side characters. It'll go black and become a Dark Chao. For a regular Chao, just make sure to use both Hero and Dark Side characters to raise the Chao. If you notice it going Heroish, raise it with Dark Side peeps for a while. If you're disturbed by some Dark tendencies, put some Hero characters on the case. Anyway. You'll also note the animals and glowing tubes (they're called Chaos Drives) you pick up in the action stages come in various colour groups - these represent various kinds of Chao ability: Yellow - Swimming . Purple - Flying . Green - Running . Red - Power (helps in climbing) Other attributes: Stamina. Chao get this by eating nuts from the trees in the Garden. It helps them run without getting tired. Intelligence. Useful in later races in particular. The "Smart Fruit" (winnable from Chao Adventure 2, the VMU minigame) will help here. Luck. Get it in the VMU minigame. Again, helpful in later races. [sa2b] Obviously, the Cube is not compatible with Dreamcast VMU memory cards, and the Memory Card 59 is not blessed with a screen or buttons with which to play minigames. Intelligence and Luck appear now to be hidden stats, while the minigame is now accessible by purchasing a GameBoy Advance, a copy of Sonic Advance, and a GameCube-GBA Link Cable. Giving an animal or Chaos Drive of a certain Colour Group to a Chao will increase its ability in that particular area. Giving a Chao lots of things from one Color group will evolve it into that kind of Chao: Swimming Chao: Yellow with green markings, long spine at back of head. Flying Chao: Purple. Two curly spines at back of head, kinda like NiGHTS. Running Chao: Starts green with blue markings, goes dark blue. Has Sonic spikes. Power Chao: Goes from orange to red . Knux-type dreadlocks. How to raise each Chao: SWIMMING Give lots of Yellow Group animals (Penguin, Seal, Otter) and Chaos drives. Also use Raccoon, Kraken and Dragon Special animals. Stay away from Condor, Boar, Tiger and Gorilla. Dry Lagoon's a good spot to find Yellow Group animals, as is Metal Harbor. FLYING Give Purple Group things (Peacock, Parrot, Condor). Also Bat and Phoenix. Avoid Seal, Otter, Cheetah, Boar, Bear, Tiger, and Gorilla. Try Sand Ocean or Mad Space. RUNNING Green Group. (Rabbit, Cheetah, Boar). Also Sheep, Skeleton Dog, Unicorn. Avoid any Purple Group animals. Look around City Escape, Radical Highway, Mission Street. POWER Red Group. (Bear, Tiger, Gorilla). Also Sheep, Kraken, Dragon. No Penguin, Otter, Rabbit or Peacock. Death Chamber's a good place to look. --Things To Do-- RAISE CHAO: They can just be pets if you want. BREED CHAO: One of the signs of living things is that they can make more things. If a Chao has flowers growing around it, bring another Chao to it. They'll do a brief dance, and a new egg will pop up between the two of them. RACE CHAO: Put them in races! You can't control them, but you can egg them on by pushing L/R Triggers. This uses up a wodge of Stamina, though (which they also use up naturally just by running). [sa2b] Push A button to egg your Chao on. The races available: Beginner Race: Race a bunch of babies through three difficulty levels. A course for each discipline: running, swimming, flying, climbing(power). 2 emblems to be had. Jewel Race: These're for the big time. There's five difficulty levels in each race: running, swimming, flying and climbing. Once you've won at least difficulty 1 of all the above, two more courses appear: overall and intelligence. Six emblems. Challenge Race: nine progressively tougher challenges. Challenge 1 is against Gold and Silver Chao from SA1. It just gets weirder from there. Two more emblems. Hero Race: four progressively tougher races. Hero and Normal Chao can travel to the Dark Side's peersonal racetrack to race a bunch of Dark Chao. Another emblem. Dark Race: as above, but your Dark (and normal) Chao journey upwards to take on the Hero Chao. One more emblem. Party Race: race your own Chao against each other, or against someone else's Chao. [sa2b] There's also Chao Karate, but more on that later, in Section 8. WALK CHAO: use the VMU Machine in any Garden to take them for an adventure in your memory card. It's in the memory card your Chao will earn seeds to plant in the Garden. [sa2b] As expressed above, you now need a Game Boy Advance and Sonic Advance to take your Chao for a walk, transporting it to Sonic Advance's Tiny Chao Garden. Seeds can now be bought from the Black Market in Chao Kindergarten. PLANT TREES: win the Watering Can and Spade toys in the Beginner Races, and win a Seed by successfully completing a quest in Chao Adventure 2 VMU, and you can plant a seed in the Garden. These seeds will grow into new trees, making new kinds of fruit available for your Chao to eat... [sa2b] I just _said_. Seeds are purchasable from the Black Market. ENJOY! ************************ 8 SA2: BATTLE ************************ Well, well, well. Who'd've thunk it? Sonic comes to GameCube. Now Sega's third-party-hood is the profit of Nintendo owners world-wide... and you've given me a whole new chapter to write for this walkthrough thingy. Oyaoya ^_^; Anyway. It's not just a direct port, either, meaning I actually have to find some content to put in the section. But first of all, just to clear the Sega-Nintendo theories air... Sega is third-party. Their various different in-house teams are producing for all three of the current consoles between them. Sega has not been "bought out" by Nintendo. Sega is co-operating with Nintendo, so far in terms of co-producing an arcade board, and Sega have been given the F-Zero Gamecube franchise. Sega is also producing a Microsoft-compatible arcade board. Sega is third-party. This means, once and for all, say it with me: "SONIC IS NOT IN MELEE." Those of you still rabidly hanging on Sonic being in Melee, please take the point now. Thankyou. Anyway, what's new for SA2B? ************************ 8.1 TWO PLAYER BATTLE ************************ SA2B's 2P section is vastly improved upon the original, as you can tell if you: a) played it yourself, and b) played 2P for Dreamcast, or read the 2P Versus section of this walkthrough -BATTLE The nine stages in SA2's two-player mode is now thirty. The six characters are now twelve. Instead of being forced to be a certain side, you can now pick any of the four characters for each game against each other. (i.e Amy vs. Sonic, etc.) All the six "new" characters have changed stats from when they were hidden characters in SA2. (see Section 9.) Details follow. (the details of the original six 2P characters appear to be unchanged from the Dreamcast version. See Section 5 for them.) _______________ _______________ AMY \ METAL SONIC \ Amy_Rose_______/ _______________/ You know who Amy is, she's been present throughout the story. (This is of course assuming you played the story.) In two-player, Amy keeps much the same personality: while she's constantly getting left behind, she can pester people continously until she's back in the hunt. And what _that_ means is that Amy runs slowly, but only needs 10 rings to trigger each special attack. 10 Rings: Speed Up - Amy, unsurprisingly, runs faster. 20 Rings: Storming Heart - exactly the same as Sonic or Shadow's 40-Ring attack. 30 Rings: Amy Flash - no, not what you're thinking. Amy stops time for 20 seconds. Metal Sonic may need some introduction for those of you who have spent some time away from the Sonic series. In 1993, Sonic starred in "Sonic CD" for the ill-fated Sega CD system. Metal Sonic was Eggman's seriously nasty robot in said game. Amongst the various evils of Metal was to kidnap a certain young hedgehog girl who admires Sonic. (Yes, that's right... the young Amy.) Metal also starred in the seriously cool Sonic Anime movie. Metal has always been the silent but seriously deadly cool character, and therefore has no special moves. He wouldn't _need_ special moves. Instead, hold down the B button and you will be provided with the Black Shield. Which isn't black. Go figure. Whatever colour, it makes him invincible to attack when it's on. And he can jump really high. When playing against Amy, do not let her near any rings whatsoever. Against Metal, forget the 40-ring attack (20 for Amy) and concentrate on your 60 (30) -ring move. _______________ _______________ CHAO \ DARK CHAO \ Walker_________/ Walker_________/ Don't laugh. Tails has kitted up one of those ever-adorable Chao with a serious mech thingy. Not to be outdone, Eggman has provided one for a Dark Chao. (In the Dreamcast version, Big the Cat filled in for Eggman: see section 9.1). The principal difference between the two is that the Chao Walker is quick but relatively weak in attack, also while the Dark Chao is stronger but slower. Neh. Both have exactly the same type of attack, except Dark Chao's is slightly stronger and Chao's require less rings. They correspond to Tails and Eggman's three special moves. Chao | Dark Chao | Tails/Eggman move 15 Rings: Booming Missile | 20 Rings: Crazy Rush | Homing Missiles 30 Rings: Rumble Launcher | 40 Rings: Hell Bomber | Rocket Launcher 45 Rings: Zap Laser | 60 Rings: Dark Finish | Laser Blaster _______________ _______________ TIKAL \ CHAOS \ the_Echidna____/ Zero___________/ Both of these characters come from Sonic Adventure 1, and from the ancient past of the Echidna people. Chaos 0 is the base form of Chaos, the water creature that was the guardian of the Master Emerald Shrine and the cute Chao creatures that lived around it. (That's where they came from...) Tikal is the daughter of the chief of the Echidna tribe, a peaceful priestess-in-training who has taken an interest in the Chao and Shrine. Unfortunately, Tikal's father, Chief Pachacamac, takes a liking to the Emeralds and wants to capture the shrine. Upon the attempt, Chaos kills all the Echidna warriors and is transformed from peaceful guardian to enraged monster. In desperation, Tikal summons the Master Emerald's power, encasing herself and Chaos both within the Emerald itself. Much, much later, Eggman releases Chaos to serve him in his quest to rule the world, and unleashes the events of SA1. (He also unwittingly releases Tikal, who has while inside the Emerald transformed into a ball of light, hovering around and becoming SA1's hint system.) But back to SA2B. Tikal is fast. Almost running-character fast. If Tikal has a character flaw, it's not having an inbuilt sense for certain things: in SA2B Tikal's emerald radar has no green setting. She won't know she's near an Emerald until she's in yellow range. Chaos 0 is slow. But strong. And his punches have a longer range. (Hey, he's made of water: he's stretchy.) His attacks are slightly stronger too. The three attacks do the same thing as the equivalent moves by Knuckles or Rouge, and are called: 20 Rings: Wrath of Gaia (Tikal)/Chaos Impact(Chaos) 40 Rings: Heaven's Justice (Tikal)/Chaos Strike(Chaos) 60 Rings: Captive Light(Tikal)/Chaos Bind(Chaos) The Captive Light lasts for 30 seconds! ************************ 8.2 CHAO GARDENS ************************ So what's new in the wonderful world of Chao? Let's have a look. RAISING CHAO: THE STATS WINDOW Nowadays, on this new-fangled GameCube thingy, you pick up a Chao and pop! It's stats appear on screen ready for you to look at. When I were a lad, you had to transfer your Chao to your Dreamcast VMU and look at stats there. 'S so much easier now. Also new to Chao stats is the idea of Levels. Originally, you gave your Chao an animal or a Chaos Drive, and up went its stats directly, by a certain number of points. (Each chaos drive was worth 8 points in it's given stat category.) Now, Animals and Chaos Drives provide you with a few blocks of experience in a given stat (Chaos Drives will provide anywhere from 1-4 blocks of experience under the new system.). Every 10 blocks of experience provides a level raise, and a boost in that particular stat category by 15-30 points. How much certain animals and chaos drives affect you, and how many points you receive per level, are determined by your Chao's grades in each stat. You can find these out at the Chao Doctor. Grades can only be raised while your Chao is young and impressionable. The way to do this appears to be to simply give your Chao a lot of animals/chaos drives in a given area. CHAO KINDERGARTEN: CHAO DOCTOR The Chao doctor has studied since SA2, and can now provide you with a three-page report on your Chao's health, personality, and competition history. Quite a lot of it is totally unnecessary, but some important stuff: HEALTH: Has your Chao caught a disease? If so, the Doctor can cure him. AGE: 1 Chao year is about 3 to 5 hours of Chao Garden time. Remember, time stops in the Chao Gardens when you're not there. FAVOURITE FOOD: Which of the fruits of various shapes does your Chao eat? RANKING: Your Chao's Karate grade. You Chao begins as unranked. Ranking starts at 10 Kyu (white belt), and is upgraded as your Chao battles through the Chao Karate stages. For example, if you win Round 2 of the Beginner Tournament, you get raised to 9 Kyu. A full list follows. Matches Won | Ranking | Matches Won | Ranking ------------------------------------------------ Beginner R1 | 10 Kyu | Expert R1 | 1 Degree (black belt) Beginner R2 | 9 Kyu | Expert R2 | 2 Degree Beginner R3 | 8 Kyu | Expert R3 | 3 Degree Beginner SF | 7 Kyu | Expert SF | 4 Degree Beginner F | 6 Kyu | Expert F | 5 Degree Standard R1 | 5 Kyu | Super R1 | 6 Degree Standard R2 | 4 Kyu | Super R2 | 7 Degree Standard R3 | 3 Kyu | Super R3 | 8 Degree Standard SF | 2 Kyu | Super SF | 9 Degree Standard F | 1 Kyu | Super F | Grand Master CHAO KINDERGARTEN: FORTUNE TELLER The Fortune Teller doesn't actually tell fortunes. Insted, she'll call upon mystic powers to produce a "lucky" name for your Chao. You don't, of course, have to accept this name. If you reject a name, she'll ask if you want her to try again. If you tell her "no", she'll ask if you want to name it yourself. So, in a rounadbout way, this is where you name your Chao. CHAO KINDERGARTEN: BLACK MARKET The Black Market is where you use rings to buy stuff. Anytime you finish a level in Story or Stage Select mode, the amount of rings you had when you finished the level is added to your "Rings Collected:" total. It's these rings with which you may purchase things. Rarer and rarer things will become available as you acquire more Emblems. Types of things include: -EGGS Chao eggs of varying colours. These will hatch into Chao of the same color. Eventually, shiny eggs will become available. -FRUIT Buy fruit for your Chao to eat. Most fruits only increase Stamina, and are a "treat" for a Chao whos favourite food it is. Chao fruit are special and increase all your stats. Five Chao fruits can reliably improve all your Chao's stats by a level or two each, at a cost of just 1000 Rings. There's also fruit for a longer life, fruit to induce breeding, etc. -SEEDS Seeds grow into trees once planted by a Chao who has won the spade and watering-can from races. They come in the same varieties as the fruits. -ITEMS These are mostly humourous head coverings for your Chao. Can be safely ignored. -THEMES Apparently, collecting enough emblems will result in new menu screen themes on sale. Only ones I have yet heard of are the Amy and Omochao themes, so if you really want to have Omochao bleating at you from the menus, buy away... CHAO CAVE Running through the waterfall in the Chao Garden used to take you directly to the Chao Race Stadium. Now you'll go inside the Chao Cave, where you'll be asked to choose between the Raceing and... CHAO KARATE Much like the Chao Racing, in that you don't actually _control_ your Chao at all, you just encourage them. There are three tournaments initially displayed: Beginner, Standard, and Expert. A new tournament, Super, occurs when you've won the other three. At any rate, a Karate bout consists of two Chao attempting to punch, kick, and dodge each other. The Chao eventually will run out of "Zeal" and sit down for a rest: this is where you come in, hammering the A button to recover your Chao's Zeal and return him to his feet. A Chao loses when: - it runs out of health - it is knocked out of the ring - it has less health than the other Chao when time is up A tournament consists of five such bouts. You win an Emblem for winning each of the four Tournaments. ************************ 8.3 SA2B EMBLEM LIST ************************ As covered in section 4, but given in SA2B-exclusive table form here. 155 EMBLEMS -- Missions. 31*5 = 155. 7 EMBLEMS -- All A Ranks. 1 for each character and 1 for Cannon's Core. * 5 EMBLEMS -- Chao Racing. 1 each for Beginner, Jewel, Hero, Dark, Challenge. 4 EMBLEMS -- Chao Karate. 1 each for Beginner, Standard, Expert, Super. 3 EMBLEMS -- Kart Racing. 1 each for Beginner, Standard, Expert. 3 EMBLEMS -- Endings. 1 each for Hero, Dark, Last. 3 EMBLEMS -- Boss. 1 each for Hero, Dark, All. * There is only one Chao file per Memory Card 59, and therefore these five emblems, once collected, will be collected for *all* game files on your MC59. If you have won three Chao Racing emblems in one file, and your sister starts another file, all she has to do is finish any Chao Race and she will instantly gain those 3 emblems towards her 180 total. The Chao Karate emblems, for some unfathomable reason, do not work this way. Just thought I'd point this out. ************************ 8.4 OTHER LITTLE THINGS ************************ Here's a bunch of other little differences between SA2 and SA2B. - Minor graphical frippery, for example, the palm trees shading the level in City Escape. - The acting is improved in SA2B. Believe it or not. - The six character themes, rather than being downloadable off the Internet, are now available to choose right off the bat. - SA2 did not have the intro SA2B has. - Music is changed slightly, especially in the Chao Gardens. (The SA2B Chao Lobby music was the Dreamcast SA1 Race Entry music. The SA2B Chao Cave Music was in the Lobby of the Dreamcast version. The SA2B Chao Race Stadium music is new - the original music in the Dreamcast version was the tune that now plays in the Chao Transporter. Got all that?) ************************ 9 MISCELLANEOUS STUFF ************************ There's a bunch of other stuff that happens in SA2. Mainly to do with Emblems, but not always. ************************ 9.1 BIG SIGHTINGS ************************ Big the Cat (from Sonic Adventure) makes cameos in many stages. Here's some Big sightings. -City Escape (Sonic) Running down the right-hand footpath in the Truck Chase. -Pumpkin Hill (Knuckles) Behind one of the sets of bars around the Ghost Train Turntable. -Dry Lagoon (Rouge) Underwater in the Large Oasis (ie, not the one you start at) -Prison Lane (Tails) In a jail cell. -Radical Highway (Shadow) Hanging from the "got ring?" blimp. [sa2b] Big didn't make the trip to the GameCube. SA2B devotees will not find the sometimes-humorous cat appearances gracing their game. Although, rumor is if you tap A during various cutscenes, the portly pussycat will indeed appear... ************************ 9.2 SECRET COSTUMES ************************ To unlock the secret two-player costume for each character, simply (actually, it's not simple at all, but wht the heck) get ALL that character's mission Emblems. (i.e. Complete all five missions for each of that character's levels). Cannon's Core, despite having a Sonic face in it, is not counted towards Sonic's total. Anyhow, the hidden costumes are: SONIC gets a Phantasy Star Online costume. KNUCKLES and SHADOW do too, I believe. I will get back to you. TAILS switches from the Tornado 2/Cyclone mech (the blue one) to the original Tornado from Sonic Adventure (the red one). EGGMAN repaints his Egg Walker in Camouflage colours. ROUGE gets a new black costume. [sa2b] Whoops! Changed again. Now you'll get "improved" karts for each character by completing all missions. ************************ 9.3 SECRET CHARACTERS ************************ To unlock secret two-player characters, get all A's on a normal character's missions. Yeah. Lovely, isn't it. SONIC, when he has all A Emblems, exchanges his 2-player duties with AMY ROSE. Amy has all of Sonic's attacks (Except for the Light Dash), and does NOT have her own Hammer Attack from SA1. She's also the only Secret Character with a voice, but her dialogue is largely taken from the 1P Story anyway. SHADOW swaps with MECHA SONIC (the Sonic CD/Anime one, who really was the coolest one), who doesn't have the Light Dash either. TAILS moves out in favour of a CHAO, who has a special Chao Head-shaped mech. Don't laugh. Omochao takes the place of Tails' Propeller Punch. EGGMAN gives his Egg Walker over to BIG, who has Froggy helping him out in the form of a boxing glove. KNUCKLES brings in TIKAL (after all, who'd be more closely attuned to the Master Emerald than someone who spent aeons locked in it?). ROUGE counters by swapping with CHAOS 0. [sa2b] You guessed it.. they're all already here for selection in SA2B. Instead, All A Ranks will now result in Kart versions of these characters. ************************ 9.4 GREEN HILL ************************ On the Stage Select screen, you see that green-looking island that's seemingly there for no reason? Well, get all 180 Emblems. Go on, I'll give you a few minutes. Got them? Right. A new Sonic level opens up. Actually, it's not new at all, it's the oldest Sonic Zone there ever was... Green Hill Zone from all the way back in Sonic 1 (Mega Drive/Genesis 1991) gets the 3D treatment! Same music and everything! It's a short zone and Sonic-only, but you can rest easy in the knowledge that you've got all the emblems. [sa2b] Don't complain, Ninty devotees... it's _still_ better than the attempted "reward" for finding all the stars in that plumber's game on Nintendo 64. 100 lives? And what, pray tell, are you supposed to _do_ with these? ************************ 10THANKYOU AND GOODNIGHT ************************ I have a couple of thanks to point out. Firstly, to my little brother Dags, who finished quite a good deal of the game on our co-operative VMU file. All the effort that has gone into our file has between the his work at least as much as mine. [sa2b] We have separate MC59 files now. And we have about the same number of Emblems: he has 120 and I have 122. Secondly, to ChibiKitsune (ChibiKitsune2@aol.com), who pointed out to me that Amy was sans-Hammer Attack. Unfortunately, that same day we accessed Amy for the first time, so I could confirm this for myself :) Thanks anyway, ChibiKitsune... [sa2b] Of course, that was the Dreamcast Amy. In SA2B, we already know Amy has no Hammer Attack. So thankyou to everyone who reads this walkthrough, thanks to all my friends in the Sonic internet community who keep me from acting like a _total_ moron, and of course to Sonic Team for making the damn game in the first place. Sayonara, You the Walkthrough Reader.