Gotta love those awkward facial animations.
Though if you ask me, they put more effort into this than Sonic '06.Back on-topic though, I can definitely see why some don't like the Adventure games. Heck, even I'm starting to feel the same way as SomecallmeJohnny when it comes to replaying Adventure 2; it hasn't aged all that well (having already 100%'d the GameCube re-release notwithstanding).
I'm probably going say something that'll blow everybody's minds...
[spoiler]So far I'm actually indifferent about Big the Cat's gameplay. With all the bad things I've been hearing about his gameplay up until I got Sonic Adventure 1, I was expecting to outright loathe it, but I didn't feel hateful towards it. Don't get me wrong through, it definitely does not belong in a platforming game where speed is supposed to be a selling point, and there were some gameplay moments that were complete bullshit (e.g. the link magically breaking for no reason). However it didn't quite drove me into "[tornado fang] this! This is terrible!" territory unlike some games I've played. Maybe I had
way too much expectations to hate it, or Breath of Fire III/IV's fishing mini-game prepared me for this, or there's something wrong with me.[/spoiler]
I haven't gotten into Knuckle's part in Sonic Adventure 1 (though I'm about to since I just finished Gamma's story), but from what I've seen in SomecallmeJohnny's review of the Adventure games, but nerfing the radar is an ass-backwards thing to do and made Knuckles/Rouge's level more about memorization if you wanted to get A Ranks, especially with their final stages.
And yeah, there's potential in the Sonic Adventure 1's formula, but like you said, it needs to be refined. Also the 2 weeks I spent on raising a Chaos Chao in Sonic Adventure 2's Chao Garden was the best 2 weeks I ever poured down the drain.
Y'all should play Cloudbuilt and git gud.
Planning on it.