Meteor Herd

Meteor Herd is the 14th stage in the Hero story on Sonic Adventure 2. Knuckles is used to play this stage.

Speed Tips

Mission 1

This is a treasure-hunting stage. The general hunting tips apply. The best locations are:

Piece 3: "Middle of the rotating beacon" Turn right from the start, and go past the barrier. Near the outer wall of the level, you'll see four beacons. Naturally, just dig into the center of them.

Piece 2: "In front of a big door that never opens" There are actually two piece 2s that have this description. Once again go right, past the barrier, but this time you'll want to move toward the central tower rather than the outer edge. On the ground, in front of that wall, you'll see two spinning beacons, one at each end of the "door". In front of each of those beacons are a potential piece 2. Of course, you're going for a fast time, so you'll want the closer one.

Piece 1: "In front of a big door that never opens" ...And wouldn't you know, there's a piece 1 location with that clue as well! It's the same area as piece 2, except instead of digging, it'll just be free-standing in front of the door. The radar will start out blank, as with everything in Meteor Herd.

Record video: 0:17.84 by yoshifan

Mission 2

TODO

Best video: 0:46.70 by yoshifan

Mission 3

A version difference here allows Dreamcast players to take a faster shortcut than GameCube players can, amounting to about 8 seconds' difference.

Start by gliding straight to the spring. You can't make it all the way, so you'll have to climb up a bit; try to pull off the quick climb to save time. Take the spring up to the rocket; after the camera shifts on your rocket ride, turn 90 degrees left and glide to the next rocket.

When you get off, glide toward the screen a bit, and turn around so you stick to the front of the ARK's outgrowth rather than the side. Climb up and to the right, until you get near the top.

The sides of the vertical container that holds the Chao are made up of 2 polygons for some reason. On Dreamcast, there's a seam between the polygons that Knuckles can pass through, skipping the Mystic Shrine and the second vertical container. On GameCube you have to make the attack from the top, costing additional climbing time.

If you are fortunate enough to have the Dreamcast, keep climbing. Once the wall changes from slanted to vertical, look for the yellow oval on the right side. If you jump from the right half of that oval, and glide toward the container, you should pass through the seam and dive down to the Chao. Easy enough.

Record video: 0:27.50 by SadisticMystic

Mission 5

A version difference here gives a slight advantage (about 1 second) to Dreamcast players. On either system, the fastest path involves collecting all three pieces in the same life.

Run and glide to the right side of the tower. You can either glide straight there and deal with a short wall-climb, or go a bit out of your way and jump on the blue box to your right, then jump again and glide forward. Now to get piece 1, GameCube players have to aim the blue rock at a tough angle into the breakable wall. Dreamcast players can take advantage of the Spiral Upper's reaching power and just run next to the wall and use that move to snatch the piece through the wall.

After getting it, run back to the spring in front of the tower. Glide forward to the next spring, then dive down to a 3rd spring. Turn around as you bounce up from it, and glide to the big platform that's now in front of you. Climb up the side and grab the rocket.

Turn to the right here. There's no need to go up. Head past the first platform, dodging the tentacles of the Chaos enemy there. You want the second platform. Ideally you'll land on the corner and immediately jump and glide. To find the next piece, picture the side of the platform you just jumped from and follow a line sticking out from it. Once you find it, remember about how far away it is. You'll want to glide in a straight line to get to the piece.

Once you get the second piece, prepare for a journey of fun. Start a dive immediately. This definitely takes some getting used to, but find the last piece off to the side of the floating containers far below. Can you visualize how small the piece is, and how big a space you're diving into? It's tough, but your goal is to dive down and hit the piece at full speed without stopping. If you did it correctly, you can finally be relieved that it's done.

Record video: 0:38.40 by Psyknux