Metal Harbor and The Joys of a Prison Break 

"I spend my Life trying to A Rank WHILE ALSO REACHING THE TOP OF THE MISSILE!" I swear, they only Put that there so we make our selfs suffer

well, metal harbor is also the easiest stage which you can get all the rings available. If you manage to do that, you'll guarantee an A rank :)

@@lks19 I think the most consistent way to get an A Rank is to just make sure to destroy one or two of the planes after the Light Speed Shoes platform. That and getting to the top of the missile, which with a couple of spindash jumps isn't too difficult.

I just got A-rank yesterday, I’m trying to get A on all Sonic & Shadow levels first, and this one definitely gave me the most trouble l

@@765craven4 Yeah, so long as you don't die, you make sure to grab the gold bettle, you lightdash wherever possible, and you take the more difficult route at the missile, you're basically guaranteed an A-rank. I'd say it's actually one of the levels you can most easily consistently get an A-rank on. Though I remember back in the day for the original Dreamcast release, I spent ages trying to figure out how to A-rank it, it felt impossible to get more than a B, because I originally didn't realise about the more difficult route at the missile. When I discovered that it was a revelation though which made the whole thing click.

Wait...that implies he has been to prison

@@GamingWarlord64 DO DO DO DO DO DOOO DA DOOO DA DO DA DO DA DIII DAAA!!!!!

Thats gotta be a top 3 Sonic video essay opening line ever lol

He has to be able to roll around at the speed of sound...

bruh who ruined the 420 likes

You called?

He's been into Sonic Adventure 2 since at least two years ago, with the first video in this series (before it was even a series lol) being "City Escape is Peak Sonic Game Design". Though the way he talks about this game makes me think that he must have enjoyed this game as a younger ZoomZike, but I might just be assuming. I have been looving these deep dive analytical videos on SA2 levels. Though hat might be obvious to tell, from my profile pic lol

People who memed and mock this game are just jealous.

Can confirm, PB&Jeff did this very thing in their attempted playthrough of Sonic Adventure 2. It is probably the most annoying thing ever, listening to people complain about something that really wasn't intended to be difficult or challenging if they just put a little more thought into it. But then again, their primary talent is for entertainment, not necessarily to be good at video games. There could also be something of a Let's Play curse, where it's just more difficult to concentrate on gameplay while trying to be entertaining. Also also, they could be hamming it up specifically because their audience would enjoy that kind of joke. Or rather, they're playing into the stereotype for some easy laughs, perhaps even subconsciously; like they've only heard of this game being "bad", so they automatically attribute every issue they have to just the game being "bad, without giving it another thought

Next video title: Real Prison Had No Rocket Launch

"Mission Street wasn't so fun in real life."

I mean, I assume they are even more insane, considering one has to straight up dash out of the country to not get caught again.

So the cirminal would need to hold a handle of a missle skateboard underwater and then escape

generations version of this stage looks good.

He's just standing there....menacingly

Cosmic Wall is often touted as the best mech stage!

It took me forever to A rank that stage so I must be biased against it lol, either way, I much prefer Hidden Base as a mech stage

It was a coverup to prevent the public of shadows existence

@@rankrodent2772 so they lockup sonic for shadow's crimes

@@megarotom1590 any means necessary to cover up shadows existence

Thank you! You too!

Yup. It did surprise me that it wasn't mentioned.

NO CAPES

Do you remember Thunderhead?

this is the most wholesome gosh darn sentence I've ever heard

Bullseye.

They should recruit fans to help them design the modern games like they dod with the classic games.

@@backtothefutureman1 The guys who made Mania weren't helping Sonic Team design things, they made Mania and designed it themselves. Christian Whitehead pitched it and kind of recruited himself into there. It took him years of rapport building and port making to get into that industry. Sega do not go out of their way to get fan devs. I think that was a very special case. Also I don't know anyone who would be an expert at designing 3D Sonic levels on the same scale as Christian Whitehead is at designing the classic gameplay. If Sonic Team just had a reasonable amount of staff hired with competent experience the new games production wouldn't be a problem, but Sega is notoriously awful to work for and all the good devs and designers jumped ship long ago. So what we're left with is the inexperienced handful of people who threw together stuff like Forces and burned 90% of their 4 year development time on a lighting engine that looks worse than a 2008 game. Sega are also incredibly cheap and are constantly consumed with their popularity chasing gimmick schemes involving the Sonic brand that they usually end up shooting themselves in the foot with. So unless Sega finally stands up and gets it together and just tries to make a genuinely solid 3D Sonic game again we wont get quality games like SA2 for a very long time if not never again. The team that made SA2 were hot shit, and they're long gone.

@@Squishito I know they were not helping Sonic Team but Sonic Team should recruit fans to help make the games.

Sonic Adventure 2 had only 2 level designers, Takashi IIzuka and Eitaro Toyoda, although IIzuka made most of the level design according to the wiki.

Live and learn and city escape and green forest are famous examples (Metal harbor too)

I'm expecting White Jungle next, then either Pyramid Cave or Sky Rail. I also expect the White Jungle video to acknowledge how the Stage ends early in 2P yet interestingly leaves 1P Exclusive parts of the level intact with no real way to access them without cheating.

The adventure engine is truly a magical one isn’t it.

Would that be That's The Way I Like It 1 or 2?

@@NiGHTcapD #1.

@@Sean_Bird I like it that way too.

Yeah, the competition Is super brutal. From White Jungle, To Pyramid Cave to Radical Highway to Literally every knuckles stage, yeah it's SUPER brutal

Ah yes, the sneaky single ring right after the half loopty loop. I remember finding that one day and was like YOOOO I found a secret!

I remember that ring existing but I also got A-rank first time without it.

Wait how are you supposed to skip that massive U-shaped lightspeed dash section in Crazy Gadget

@@JP-hk6xw It's hell to try but if you hold the camera steady by pressing down both triggers it's definitely possible. I made a video on it years ago, and I know of several low-score runs you can find that pull it off too

@@AustinOnSugar could you link the video?

For me, I always wondered about the rings you can see as the missile launches.

Yeah there's a spring there in multiplayer/

I have been wondering that as well & I expect Iron Gate to be the 1st Shooting Stage covered as it is the 1st Dark Stage. Next Video will likely be White Jungle as Shadow is playing through that at the same time Sonic is in Metal Harbor.

It is.

This is why I love this guy.

@@leaonidasgames4277 ehhh some of the mech and treasure hunting levels are mediocre like Death Chamber and Mission Street

@@theminecraft2516 You basically said my favorite Treasure Hunt and Mech level lol (Actually Hidden Base is no.1, but Mission Street isn't too far), I think Mad Space and Cosmic Wall are worse.

It’s refreshing to not hear someone jump on the bandwagon and rant over a 20 year old game

I'm expecting to get White Jungle, Sky Rail, & Pyramid Cave next week & then Crazy Gadget, Final Rush, & Final Chase the week after that unless something unexpected happens like a review of Iron Gate or Wild Canyon.

Consider the following: In SA1 we saw that regular ammunation didn't do anything to Chaos 0, but Sonic's homing attack did. That tells us that Sonic's strength (or at least that of his rolling jump) goes beyond even military-grade equipment, without going out of their way to spell it out for us.

considering what sonic and shadow have done it makes sense that military equipment is nothing to them

You missed the green forest review

@@KingMagenta already watched the green forest review, its the one that introduced me to this channel! i've been going through the back catalog.

Well you don't have long to wait, White Jungle, Sky Rail, & Pyramid Cave should probably be coming out soon. I'm hoping Pyramid Cave & Crazy Gadget videos go into how the stages are exclusive for 1 Player. I also have hopes Sky Rail's video mentions that at 1 point it was going to be a Sonic Stage & how treasure hunters can dig up item boxes there for some reason. Do you think we'll ever get a video for the 2P Level 1 Stages that focuses almost entirely on the awesome stage that aesthetically looks like nothing else in the game known as Grind Race? The thing about Level 1 Stages in 2P is that 1 of each is based on a Hero Stage, while the other is based on a Dark Stage. Pool Quest = Aquatic Mine, Planet Quest = Mad Space, Pyramid Race = Hidden Base, Deck Race = Weapon's Bed, Downtown Race is based on the 1st Part of City Escape. Grind Race however is likely based on a scrapped Shadow Stage that may have ended up being replaced by Sky Rail.

Kentucky Fried Pheonix!?

You probably mashed the A button too fast, you first need to wait until the robot fully appears for the homing attack to lock-on,

I hated that ring, the amount of times I finish this level missing one ring and always giving the question where it is...

It really isn't, the A rank time limit is so comically generous that if you have no idea there's a ring hidden there, the ring capsule on the rocket platform leading to the giant missile will give you your 100th ring with 15 seconds to spare still. I know this cause I'm playing SA2 for the first time and outright did this last night and was disappointed by how lenient the timer is despite how tight mission 1's A rank was.

I believe that all times in Battle were made a bit easier

@@chackbro1 This made me curious so I went to see what the differences between SA2 and SA2B A rank requirements are, and funny enough it's the opposite; in Cosmic Wall SA2B almost straight up doubled the score required in missions 1, 4, and 5 making the stage way harder. They also for some reason made the time limit for Final Rush's mission 3 15 seconds stricter (which is bullshit in its own right because the rail leading to the chao is bugged and unusable requiring a clever workaround under greater time pressure). Absolutely no other changes though weirdly enough between versions, even though there's a *lot* of mission 2 and 3 times that are so lenient they could have reduced the time limit by 30+ seconds and the A rank would still be too easy.