Sonic Adventure 2: Battle is the Gamecube port of Sonic Team's Dreamcast title, Sonic Adventure 2. It was an enhanced port which included more characters for the 2-Player mode, and some added features like Chao Karate mode for the Chao Garden.

The gameplay of Sonic Adventure 2 depends on the level, and which character is being played. The original game introduced the characters Rouge the Bat and Shadow the Hedgehog, the latter of which became one of the most popular characters in the series.

Sonic and Shadow have speed-based levels, featuring platforming and fast gameplay focussed on reaching the goal as quickly as possible. Tails and Eggman both travel around in mechanical walkers which can lock-on to and shoot at enemies throughout their levels. Knuckles and Rouge are treasure hunters, and their levels are more open-ended, allowing the player to explore in order to find the pieces of the Master Emerald.

Why do I like SA2:B so much?

When I was a child in the 2000s, my family could only buy second hand games from carboot sales for very cheap, never anything new or from a preowned game shop. At some point, my dad brought home a GameCube, which I had never heard of before, but I fell in love with it and the few games I had for it straight away. One of the games I had was Sonic Mega Collection, which had a trailer for Sonic Adventure 2: Battle included, I remember rewatching that trailer over and over again, the graphics looked amazing, the gameplay looked so fun, and the Chao Garden really sold the idea to me. A new game shop opened near us, and my dad found out that his collection of Game & Watches he had bought from bootsales were actually worth quite a bit of money, and he decided to sell them for store credit. Suddenly, we had all of this store credit, and my dad let me pick out a game for Christmas from the store! So I could actually choose one myself! I IMMEDIATELY went to a second hand copy of SA2:B, and eagerly awaited to get it for Christmas that year.

Now whenever I boot up Sonic Adventure 2, I remember that feeling of finally playing it on Christmas day, it never gets old.