"Adventure 2" has the health system found in many other "Sonic" games. The player collects rings scattered throughout the levels; being hit by an enemy while holding rings causes the player to drop them all, while being hit without rings causes them to lose a life. Tails and Eggman have health bars, which are slowly refilled by collecting rings. Dying with no lives results in a game over screen. The characters can obtain permanent upgrades that grant them new abilities; for example, one allows Sonic and Shadow to dash along a sequential trail of rings to reach distant platforms, while another lets Knuckles and Rouge attack powerfully enough to break certain containers.