City Escape


 * To see the stage remake in Sonic Generations, click here.

City Escape is the first stage of the hero story in Sonic Adventure 2 and is playable with Sonic. This stage takes place on the streets of the capital city of the United Federations, Central City. This can be proven by the fact that the cutscene before the stage says, "Above the capital city," and G.U.N. soldiers in Shadow the Hedgehog mention Central City as being the capital. It also has a two-player battle mode.

History
The game begins with Sonic escaping from a G.U.N. helicopter, and now he must flee from the military organization's pursuit. He is accused of stealing the Chaos Emerald that Shadow stole from a national bank.

Stage Layout
City Escape has regular gameplay, as well as a brief boarding section in the beginning. The stage starts out with Sonic riding down hills using a flap he ripped off from a G.U.N helicopter similar to Extreme Gear. When Sonic gets off the flap, he is introduced to Omochao, a guide that helps you throughout the levels. Then after fighting many enemies, and going down rails, Sonic is chased by a G.U.N truck, chasing him to the end of the level until it crashes into a brick overpass, as Sonic gets to the goal ring.

Downtown Race
Downtown Race is a 2-player stage in Sonic Adventure 2. Downtown Race is City Escape covered in snow. No enemies appear, though the usual cars are still there. There are also walls blocking the path. The Downtown Race is a race through City Escape on boards.

Upgrade
The upgrade in this stage is the Magic Hands, found shortly after running down the side of a building. Sonic must already possess both the Bounce Bracelet and the Flame Ring to access it. You must find some silver crates (at least four), and use the bounce attack, then get it. When used, an enemy in close range to Sonic will be captured in a small ball, effectively destroying it. The ball can then be thrown at other enemies to destroy them.

Trivia

 * The stage is based off of the city of San Francisco, California. The reason it looks much that way is because Sonic Adventure 2 is the first game that was developed by the US branch of Sonic Team. Since the newly established division was so influenced by their headquarters in San Francisco, the level designers, Takashi Iizuka and Eitaro Toyoda, decided to make some of the levels as references to well known locations in San Francisco. The other levels based off of San Francisco are: Mission Street (Mission Street is an actual street in the city), Radical Highway, Route 101, and Route 280 (the latter three were all based off of the Golden Gate Bridge).
 * This is the first stage in any Sonic game to have fully audible lyrics throughout the entire theme.  In comparison, Speed Highway from Sonic Adventure was the first stage in a Sonic game to have lyrics; however, they aren't very audible, and are few and far between.
 * The lyrics make a reference to Live and Learn with "Trust your feelings, got to live and learn!"
 * In the truck chasing section, Big can be seen running along the right side of the last stretch of road before the truck crashes. He panics and then gets run over by the truck. This only occurs in the Dreamcast version.
 * When Sonic is being chased by the truck, it is most likely a reference to the movie Duel (1971), Steven Speilbergs first film where the protagonist is being chased by a menacing semi truck.
 * This also happens in the Xbox live Arcade re-release.
 * It is possible to reach the lost Chao in the third mission of this level without the use of the Mystic Melody by using Spin Dash tricks to roll up the face of the building in which the Chao is located.
 * In the cutscene before the level when Sonic escapes from the helicopter, the pilot identifies himself in military terminology as Sigma-Alpha 2, which translates from Greek as "SA2," the game's initials, despite real military phonetic alphabets (IE: NATO Phonetic Alphabet) do not feature Sigma to signify the letter 'S' as rather it would be Sierra-Alpha 2.
 * In the Dreamcast version of the cutscene mentioned above, Sonic's model has his original shoes when he escapes from the helicopter, but when he jumps off of the helicopter's wing, he is somehow wearing his Soap shoes. In the game, Sonic wears Soap shoes in order to promote the product and the new extreme sport, freestyle grinding, that the shoes were made for. In City Escape, as well as Radical Highway, there were also many billboards, blimps, and benches that advertised the shoes.
 * However, all these advertisements were taken down and were replaced with Sonic Team ADs in the XBLA/PSN release likely due to licensing issues, Sonic still however wears soap shoes.
 * The ads below advertise a few objects from the Sonic universe, such as rings.
 * City Escape is a playable stage in the Dreamcast Era of Sonic Generations as a remake.
 * In the original Dreamcast version, if Sonic was going slow enough going into the truck chase part, when the truck jumps the street, Sonic must walk back-up the sloping street which forces the truck back up and then it crashes allowing you to continue the level at your own pace.
 * When Sonic gets to the Goal Ring, he is still in the city, so he hasn't really "escaped."
 * The G.U.N Helicopter in the opening cutscene appears to be based off the Russian Mil Mi-24.
 * The beginning of the stage features Sonic stakeboarding on one of the pieces of the helicopter is similar to how Sonic skated in Ice Cap Zone (both the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic Adventure versions).
 * City Escape is Sonic's only stage to have background music with lyrics.
 * During the level, the player can knock out several parked cars while running, sometimes even knocking down moving cars. According to the bonus video for the HD Version, this gameplay element was added in by the developers in response to frequently getting parking citations from the LAPD during the game's development.

Video
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