Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

Sonic: What went wrong

185 posts in this topic

Posted (edited)

Mario, Zelda and Metroid all successfully breached the 3d threshhold, so why didn't sonic? Adventure was deceny. Adventure 2 was better. Then it waa just one after the other worse and worse. I've heard colors and generations are pretty good, so its nice to hear things are on an upswing. What do you guys think lead sonic to crash and burn like it did.

Edited by Necropolis (see edit history)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

Character Roster over-inflation, Sonic's selling point is his own brand recognition rather than the quality of his games (Mario releases games that are quality regardless of brand recognition, by comparison; think about Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy I&II).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

I'm guessing it was just hard to find a way to find a way to have a character go insanely fast without the camera fucking up. That's one of the most common complaints I hear with Sonic games. I think they found their perfect format with the Sonic Unleashed day stages though.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

The real answer other than yeah, Sonic gets by more on trivial aspects like character design [for some reason], is probably that they became distracted with what kind of series Sonic is supposed to be. I normally wouldn't say that a series' games "aren't what [series] is about", but hear me out; I'm not saying that they weren't sticking to their traditions, but rather, they're not sticking to a purpose at all.

 

Sonic's original main purpose at first was to make games that had a lot of fast-paced forward action. This was impressive at the time because loading levels fast enough to keep up with fast forward movement was something developers couldn't really do with their limited hardware. They made a solid first game and built upon it in each of the sequels, and it they were all about fast-paced platforming, with the occasional sidekick or two. Fast forward a bit, and Adventure did some good stuff with it, and Adventure 2 did away with the hub world, had fast-paced action and slower-paced levels so as to not burn you out, and a pretty solid narrative. The camera never had any problems to my memory. Both games translated Sonic into the 3D realm pretty well; the Homing Attack was a great idea, since the added third dimension made it difficult to just plain jump onto enemies. Then they came out with Sonic Heroes.

 

I had just gotten over my however-many-hours spent in SA2B when I picked up Heroes thinking it would be just as awesome, if not more. The team mechanic somewhat intrigued me, and the narrative, in concept, was actually pretty sweet: a bunch of heroes, all on different but related paths, collide and intersect to eventually take down the villain that's trying to destroy the world, all the while revealing the backstories of each character and learning more about them.

 

There are things that bothered me at first. SA2/B was originally made for the Dreamcast, which I think had a little less graphical power than the Gamecube, so all the characters' shading remained reserved for the most part, relying more on textures than effects, and the prerendered cut scenes weren't all that mind boggling, but it was all consistent. Heroes' character models had this ugly sheen on them at all times. This is more just me rambling but this was my first impression that Heroes is where the decline really happened, so I'll get back to the main point.

 

Anyway, they had this idea that they would put all three completely differing characters together, and each team had a different character that suited the same purpose. This really wrecked the gameplay because of how monotonous it made everything. In some parts, you would have breakneck speed going on, and you'd be on a roll, and then suddenly you'd have to stop to pointlessly punch down a wall, or beat up a bunch of enemies, or fly up a thing. Switching wasn't very fluid at all, and there wasn't a distinct camera setting for the different characters.

 

Sonic always has to look ahead of him, so the camera doesn't have much to do. Knuckles has to be able to turn around easily, and Tails needs a more overhead view because of how he flies. But it was always stuck on the setting they gave to Sonic. I've always hated using Knuckles in any game past SA2/B, because he's also not very fluid at all, since you're required to punch enemies rather than fly into them with your fists out. On the ground, all his punches make you lurch forward and then stop suddenly, so punching someone, then pivoting to punch another someone, in conjunction with the poor camera, was awful. Just generally hard and annoying to do.

 

Tails was eh, alright, but it was just another pointless break in pace to take him out. Even Sonic and his alternatives fell victim to this, though, especially with the tornado attack thing. It's pretty much an attack that forces you to watch Sonic spin around in a painfully slow attack meant for paralyzing enemies or something.

 

The game also wasn't tested very heavily, so the camera would catch on things, which was definitely a problem. The game overall wasn't that bad, but it was a big step down from SA2/B. The decline started when their design started becoming distracted. They had a solid concept to build around, but they weren't skilled enough to make it all work together, or maybe the concept wasn't very solid at all.

 

So we get to Shadow the Hedgehog. More bad design choices. The narrative was a broken mess, (a laughable one at that) that completely ignores all of what happened in Sonic Heroes, centering around a disjointed, nonsensical (sometimes surreal) and painfully edgy story, layered over a game whose level design and design choices were just awful. The game was not about going fast, but maybe they could make that okay? Obviously not: it was sometimes about platforming, but it was mostly an easter egg hunt utilizing these horrible teleportation pads used to revisit previous parts of the map, and gunplay. The fast sections were largely on-the-rail and not exciting. The guns, due to the poor design of the game, were absolutely useless except in places the game forced you to use them. They were clunky, forced, and pointless, as you can still use the Homing Attack, which was actually faster and easier. They also recycled musical themes from SA2/B and had the most awful and stupid multiplayer in recent memory.

 

Then we reach Sonic '06, and they still have no idea what makes a good game. More stupid design choices, like the mach speed segments that had you running all the time, allowing you to get damaged by the environment. I won't rag on this game too much because it's been done enough, and it was supposedly rushed for a holiday release, but so many aspects of it were just butchered abominations mimicking what used to be a decent franchise.

 

They would again make mistakes in Sonic and the Secret Rings, which made another bad design choice; make the whole game a mach speed segment from Sonic '06. I admit it's interesting in concept, but the game was ONLY this. All the time running forward. It got really monotonous, and there weren't any different gameplay segments to keep it interesting or to give me a break. The soundtrack got old really fast, and the world it was set in was really oddly bleak and uninhabited, so it gave me a really uncomfortable feel most of the time. When a game that tests your reflexes becomes monotonous, it becomes really hard to play it at all.

 

I don't really need to get into the other Sonic games. The other big ones being Sonic Unleashed and Sonic and the Black Knight, but I haven't played Black Knight. My point is really just that they made a game with really horrible design decisions that ended up being poorly executed, in games that were rushed out the door, for people who for some reason, still buy them. Sonic '06 was a platinum family hit? Like, what is that.

 

So really it's our fault.

 

But double really it's their fault for not picking a concept, sticking with it, and putting enough thought and effort into it to make it work. The whole game doesn't need to be about one thing (especially not to extremes like Secret Rings), but design choices should be uncluttered and fluid as possible.

Arachne and なべ like this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

I like to read this thread's title not as "Sonic" and then a question regarding him asking "what went wrong?"

I like to read it as "sonic" and then "what went wrong" as its definition

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

yeah...

 

Good thing Generations (and supposedly Colors) was really good.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

It's always fun to read Saha's walls when they are about light hearted stuff such as vidya games. Keep it up, you computer person you. :>

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

Generations is really good. I'll vouch for it. Haven't played Colors but watched a speed run of it. Looks like a lot of fun.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)

To be fair, the release date for Sonic 06 got mixed up with some other game and, as a result, was shipped out like 6 months before it was supposed to.

 

EDIT: Here's what wikipedia has to say:

After its debut, the game's development team faced serious problems, starting with the resignation of Yuji Naka as the head of Sonic Team. When presented with development kits for theNintendo Wii, it was decided that Sonic the Hedgehog's staff would be split in two, with Shun Nakamura finishing the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog for Xbox 360 and PS3, while Yojiro Ogawawould use the other half of Sonic Team to begin work on Sonic and the Secret Rings for the new Nintendo platform. What was originally an ambitious undertaking now became a race against time to meet the game's deadline with only half of a development team. In this time, Sonic Team reportedly ignored Quality Assurance Tester bug reports. Many of the criticisms of the game stem from these reasons in what can only be described as an unfortunate series of events.[8]

Edited by DR SHRUBBERY! (see edit history)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

A lot of the remake stages in generations make me nostalge

To be fair, the release date for Sonic 06 got mixed up with some other game and, as a result, was shipped out like 6 months before it was supposed to.

So did that other game get an extra six months to get polished?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

In my opinion, having played both games, Shadow the Hedgehog was actually slightly worse than Sonic '06, despite the higher QA standards. They've been slipping up for awhile now, no matter how you look at it.

Treemotan likes this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)

I think the primary issue is that SEGA's been riding Sonic's image for too long and depended solely on how iconic the series was. Essentially, like most cut+paste shooters out there, regardless of how terrible the game was it would still print money simply because it was a Sonic title. Then, as Sonic's popularity finally started going downward thanks to infamy generated by crappy releases in the series, they finally realized they needed to do something.

 

I think the upward climb actually started with Unleashed, seeing as although many of the design choices were poor and the Werehog just puppying stupid, the speed sgments were really solid, in my opinion, and definitely were a step in the right direction. 

 

Sonic Team decided to pay attention for once and were like, "I think we're onto something here." Then, they refined it with Colors which ended up being a fantastic game, and then finally released Generations which pretty much is exactly what 3D Sonic should've been from the very beginning.

 

Also, I agree with Saha's previous statement. Sonic 06 at least had some semblance of a story, shoddy as it was. Shadow The Hedgehog was just a jumbled up mess with its head up its own anus.

Edited by Treemotan (see edit history)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted (edited)

Shadow the hedgehog has its share of critics, but it was one of the most inovative games in the series.

 

It was also the first game in the franchise where a Sonic character got to swear. It was an important first step in allowing the Sonic developers to express there creativity with less restrictions, something that had been plaguing the team for years. The Sonic team has gotten a lot of flack for putting out mediocre games, but the truth is that the Sonic team was an incredibly talented and dedicated group of individuals who have had all their best ideas vetoed by the suits upstairs because they involved mature themes.

 

Shadow changed all that.

 

The team finally got the okay to use the word "Damn." It was clear from the get go that the correct use of this word would be pivotal to the success of the game. The team walked a thin line: they had to make sure that they didn't use the word enough to make it sound overused and laughable, but they still had to use it enough to make it clear that Shadow was a badass that should not be f ucked with. It was an incredibly difficult challenge, but as you can see, the devs really stepped up and pushed out a product that did its protaganist justice:

 

 

 

When I played the game, I couldn't put the controller down. I stayed up all night to finish all the different storylines. After I was done, I had only one word would that could describe my thoughts:

"Damn."

Edited by Brodongo (see edit history)
Arachne and pheonix561 like this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

In my opinion, having played both games, Shadow the Hedgehog was actually slightly worse than Sonic '06, despite the higher QA standards. They've been slipping up for awhile now, no matter how you look at it.

Shadow was definately silly in how edgy it was trying to be, but it was at least, playable. You could just be standing around in 06 and fall through the ground. Thats it. A decent story doesn't do you much good if the game is too glitchy to beat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

I'll tell you one thing, if anything good came out of Sonic 06, it's the Game Grumps playthrough of it

Treemotan and SilverAlchemic like this

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.