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Some games will have a level that fully encapsulates the essence of itself. Kingdom Valley is Sonic 06: Ambitious and the potential is able to be seen, but is absolutely gutted by the unfinished nature of the game, through both mechanics failing and lack of editing levels . There was no reason that this thing wasn't two levels - spitting them into Kingdom Valley and Ancient Ruins would have been easy enough to figure out had they had testers to complain about fatigue. Reuse the "cut" assets as a separate area to aim for a couple tight 5 minute levels from the loose 15 they were published with. I honestly think if it had been Sonic 08 or even 07, this could have been a solid game with a likably dumb story.
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Nov 19, 2021 05:08
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No, I disagree. Sonic 06 is a step back from SA2 and even Heroes, with a hubworld that doesn't fit, a story that makes little sense no matter if you look at the big picture or small details, frustrating, cryptic and mandatory combat and gameplay that overall flows really awkwardly into itself. Some of those bug could have been polished in an extra year, but without more resources we would have only gotten a better polished experience. And this is something we're seeing in this LP - Simon has a really realy understated advantage over the original in the form of almost non-existant loading times. After a while of watching you get used to it because they seem "normal" for a game of it's age, but it's still a 1/3 of what it originally was. Or more! Sonic 06 is a poor execution of a flawed concept and a better execution wouldn't help. Hell it maintains it's black sheep status due to it's poor execution, which in the long run, turns it into "endearing" instead of just "this is bad why did they make this".
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Nov 19, 2021 08:09
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PurpleXVI posted:Interesting thoughts on what exactly makes a good Sonic game. Tenebrais posted:I think the thing with Sonic games - at least the original 2D ones - were made for speedrunners before speedrunning was really a thing. All the mechanics are built around keeping your momentum (especially in the first game, where you didn't even have a spindash to get you quickly up to speed if you stopped), but of course to achieve that you need to already be familiar with the levels and have figured out your best line and mastered it to try and get through as quickly and as flashily as possible. And until you get that good, there are frequent sections where you're just propelled automatically through chains of loops and springs so you can get that good flashy feeling, often taking you through the Megadrive-era equivalent of big open vistas to marvel at. Of course, there's a big wrench in that idea called Marble Zone. A fun enough level on its own, nice aesthetic, wonderful music (one of my all-time favs among Sonic tracks, and you know how stiff the competition is), but deeply hated because it's this loooong marathon of deliberate platforming where the game betrays its own central conceit of mastery = fast. Also that one jump in the third Act, arrggggh. (and Labyrinth is even worse) In the sequel, you immediately see how they rectified that, with only the lowest path of Chemical Plant being The Slow Water One, and most of the first Act being just an extravagant automated process just blasting Sonic through pipes and loops and sine wave tubing. That's one second level you won't mind replaying over and over! 3+K lean extremely hard into the spectacle already - tons of level gimmicks that are variations on "you get flung around really fast; look at this, isn't it awesome?", generally the levels themselves are just flashier, more extreme. There's always something crazy happening. As you follow the series, you can definitely see how they keep struggling with the balance between speed, spectacle and platforming. It's probably at its most awkward in Heroes, where they literally give you three distinct playstyles to switch between. pointlessone posted:Some games will have a level that fully encapsulates the essence of itself. Kingdom Valley is Sonic 06: Ambitious and the potential is able to be seen, but is absolutely gutted by the unfinished nature of the game, through both mechanics failing and lack of editing levels . There was no reason that this thing wasn't two levels - spitting them into Kingdom Valley and Ancient Ruins would have been easy enough to figure out had they had testers to complain about fatigue. Reuse the "cut" assets as a separate area to aim for a couple tight 5 minute levels from the loose 15 they were published with. Anyway, we sadly still have one level to go, which is a wet fart in presentation and gameplay and has nothing of previous climaxes despite being "the Eggman base" template. You could cut Sonic's Aquatic Base entirely and lose jackshit. quote:I honestly think if it had been Sonic 08 or even 07, this could have been a solid game with a likably dumb story. Kikas posted:No, I disagree. Sonic 06 is a step back from SA2 and even Heroes, with a hubworld that doesn't fit, a story that makes little sense no matter if you look at the big picture or small details, frustrating, cryptic and mandatory combat and gameplay that overall flows really awkwardly into itself. Some of those bug could have been polished in an extra year, but without more resources we would have only gotten a better polished experience. And this is something we're seeing in this LP - Simon has a really realy understated advantage over the original in the form of almost non-existant loading times. After a while of watching you get used to it because they seem "normal" for a game of it's age, but it's still a 1/3 of what it originally was. Or more! In 06, you have the Silver outlier, but you can just not play his story apart from the cameo appearances. Sonic and Shadow are both as normal gameplay as you get, even the Elise and "vehicle" stages (the latter of which are almost all optional). Yeah, 06's structure is deeply flawed and it should honestly just have a level select, no hubs - it just waters down the gameplay. SA2 got that right. But we just don't know what extra development time would have been able to make of the pieces that are already there. They could easily have added a full map with a "next story trigger here" dot on it. We know that there was a better engine in existence for a bit, with smoother animations, better air control, and so on - all little things that would honestly improve the flow between platforming, setpieces and combat significantly. As is, you always have to stop and reorient yourself for a bit because there's just no way to properly chain actions, but that could have easily been fixed as the demo builds showed. But yeah, the loading is THE big one, which is already making the game seem almost playable  .
Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 16:31
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Kikas posted:No, I disagree. Sonic 06 is a step back from SA2 and even Heroes, with a hubworld that doesn't fit, a story that makes little sense no matter if you look at the big picture or small details, frustrating, cryptic and mandatory combat and gameplay that overall flows really awkwardly into itself. Some of those bug could have been polished in an extra year, but without more resources we would have only gotten a better polished experience. And this is something we're seeing in this LP - Simon has a really realy understated advantage over the original in the form of almost non-existant loading times. After a while of watching you get used to it because they seem "normal" for a game of it's age, but it's still a 1/3 of what it originally was. Or more! The load times almost certainly would have been fixed with another year of devtime - there's no real necessity to load the entire map over again for everything. It's exactly the sort of thing that's an easy hack to quickly implement during dev so you can see your levels and test them
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Nov 19, 2021 16:57
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 S-Rank Closing this out real quick (at least until I do hard mode, natch)
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Nov 22, 2021 21:24
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 To Aquatic Base This is gonna result in a severe anticlimax, but let's be honest here...
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Nov 24, 2021 21:12
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Holy moley, I don't think I've seen those sky or shrinky dink gems before, lmao. Suppose I never would have had enough rings to actually buy them back when I played the game myself Also forgot to come and say that your Kingdom Valley s-rank looked really good and apart from a couple of obvious bits of Sonic 06 jank bleeding through was a real "lamenting what the game could've been" showcase
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Nov 24, 2021 22:19
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Wait, aren't all and any three things placed in a triangle? Sky gem and purple gem are amazing, I'm glad little sprinkles of creativity like that are left in the game.
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Nov 25, 2021 12:00
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Kikas posted:Wait, aren't all and any three things placed in a triangle? You can have three things placed in something other than a triangle! There's a straight line and...that's about it.
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Nov 25, 2021 12:39
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If Sonic reads the words "isosceles" or "equidistant" his head immediately explodesJoJosSiwaAdventure posted:Holy moley, I don't think I've seen those sky or shrinky dink gems before, lmao. Suppose I never would have had enough rings to actually buy them back when I played the game myself
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Nov 25, 2021 14:07
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well that's a casual 23 gig of Aquatic Base recordings and I missed two Silver Medals, but I wanted to do a fast run anyway to that works out  the biggest hurdle is cleared, though: just finishing the drat thing without dying. EDIT: up to 33 GB, now I have all the footage I need. I still don't really know what I think of this level. Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Nov 25, 2021 |
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Nov 25, 2021 21:06
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There is no think, only ORB
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Nov 26, 2021 03:46
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Nov 27, 2021 20:48
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I've seen that wizard before, but never noticed the guy cowering in the corner.
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Nov 27, 2021 22:33
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that's tails Aquatic Base editing finished, just gotta comment over it. Gonna be another 28 min affair hell yeah
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Nov 27, 2021 22:35
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my first export failed which is cool because these take 8-9 hours so to tide you over have a gif of how I wish the level would play https://i.imgur.com/bN1ne2D.mp4 (first 10 seconds)
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Nov 29, 2021 15:55
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 Aquatic Base What a boring affair. Sonic's story is a whole-rear end anticlimax, and this one is the level part of it. On paper, it sounds fine: you're infiltrating Eggman's base, so there's just tons and tons of robots to smash through, but it's also an old Soleanna laboratory, so there's weird sciency stuff that's not Eggman's to both serve as an additional obstacle but also help you against him if used creatively. However, the execution here is botched in a way that I can't even blame on 06 being unfinished; after all, there's a lot of unique content in the level, this is clearly not stitched together as a last-ditch effort to make something halfway playable like Flame Core was. They put a lot of effort into this, and the outcome is mediocre at best. The biggest issue is the sheer length. While Kingdom Valley was also a marathon of a level, it had an absolute banger of a first Act, insane variety with Silver, the mach speed (for better or worse) and a constant switch between platforming and combat. Aquatic Base is almost all combat, and the bits of platforming are not a welcome reprieve as much as nightmare-inducing jankfests that kill you seemingly out of spite more often than not. Then there's the amigo sections which do blend platforming and combat, with the slight issue that Tails is complete garbage at precise combat, and Knuckles is terrible at both combat and platforming. What's left are literal corridors with seemingly random enemies in them. This is a poo poo level overall, sorry to say and to end on that note...for now, of course. Things I like about this level: - blasting down the corridors with maximum efficiency rules - perfect playground for all your gems - abuse them heavily for a good time - as bad as the amigos are, having a full team doing stuff is kind fun - the room you go up as Tails to hit a switch after a circuit and then revisit as Sonic is a cool idea - the two whole rainbow ring shortcuts are sweet - sometimes the combat clicks and you get to do awesome stuff just obliterating robits Things I dislike about this level: - Amigo gameplay in general, but specifically Knuckles can suck my anus, that was a perfectly valid recording ruined because that dickhead wanted to suicide - why is Sonic following Tails and constantly dying, like it's so bizarre I didn't even comment on it??? - sure, we needed a repeat of every combat room, it gives the level ~symmetry~ - the big ball is heinous garbage on any level and should have been deleted immediately no matter how long it took to program the curved reflection - that one loop that always kills you - the music is uninspiring at best and a maximally unfitting dirge at worst Things I used to hate but learned to deal: - I can do the big ball consistently now, both legit and with the purple gem; the secret to the latter by the way is that momentum is conserved into its infinite jump, so don't try to do it from a standstill - I'm way better at platforming now, including the iffy moving platforming segment. It's fine now - Tails in general, used to snipe much more often and actually try to kill most of those guys, just skip em it's not worth it - I'm much better at combat too now, making the kill rooms boring instead of harrowing but can't win them all eh Music Act 1: Level 1 Act 2: Level 2
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Nov 30, 2021 16:40
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Fun Sonic Facts! On November 14th 2006, Sonic 2006 hit store shelves in North America and almost instantly garnered the infamous reputation of being one of the worst games a high profile publisher like SEGA ever put out. Criticism was savage, both from journalists and customers, but none of it really mattered as the game sold 870,000 units in its first six months, far short of SEGA projections. The damage was done, and there was nothing the dev team could do as SEGA had no intention of allocating resources to patch a complete disaster into even a partial disaster. While the PS3 version was given one more month of development, that was just to get the game running on the temperamental PS3 hardware, so the only major difference between the two versions was a slightly increased framerate (and it was actually worse in some areas, to boot). Everything about the game's development history does not excuse what SEGA decided to ship, but it at least explains it. From SEGA upper management expecting a moon shot from a team with far too few resources for their first HD project, to the team themselves pitching a game far too complex to pull off in the allotted time, to Ogawa splitting the team and abandoning them to make a completely separate Sonic game, to Naka taking another chunk of developers as he jumped ship halfway through development, to SEGA executives caring more about profiting off their promotional deal with Microsoft than producing a quality title, there’s not really anything one single person could have done to save this game. The final product was built from whatever the team could glue together in order to make a game that was just barely completeable, as the stages are rife with asset reuse, make no sense at all in the overall plot, and lack even vague connections to the world they are meant to be part of. The plot they are meant to serve itself is no better, with characters saying little of worth and accomplishing less, what plot beats exist are buried under interminable amounts of filler, set to animation that tries to sell a relationship where one half looks and moves like a dead-eyed, possessed mascot suit. In all honesty, Sonic 2006 is not a game that was made, it’s a game that was salvaged.
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Nov 30, 2021 19:33
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YT's autogenerated thumbnails for this video were extremely good btw 
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Nov 30, 2021 23:12
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I don't think Eggman is the sharpest tack... I mean, he still hasn't noticed his DANGER alert is upside down!   Sorry, DaNGer
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Dec 1, 2021 09:48
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lol there's a lot of amazing dumb details in these cutscenes. Too bad I'm not watching them
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Dec 1, 2021 10:21
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I can usually tell what's going on or what's going wrong with some of these glitches, but what the hell was happening in the big orb room when Sonic was just bouncing off nothing?
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Dec 1, 2021 12:35
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PurpleXVI posted:I can usually tell what's going on or what's going wrong with some of these glitches, but what the hell was happening in the big orb room when Sonic was just bouncing off nothing? By the way, I think I have worn my avatar for long enough. If someone recommends - or even better, makes - me one from this game, I'd be up for changing it! Maybe wait for one more video, though, the final cutscenes have a lot of amazing poo poo in them.
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Dec 1, 2021 12:39
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Simply Simon posted:You mean when I activate the purple gem's infinite jump? But wait, though, doesn't that mean any level where Sonic can get up high enough, he can just skip over everything by infinity-jumping? Unless there are some sort of limits on it?
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Dec 1, 2021 12:41
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PurpleXVI posted:But wait, though, doesn't that mean any level where Sonic can get up high enough, he can just skip over everything by infinity-jumping? Unless there are some sort of limits on it?
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Dec 1, 2021 12:44
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Simply Simon posted:
I don't have the means to make it myself but I figure a short gif of a cool sequence in Kingdom Valley would be appropriate, since we're trying to be positive with this game and all.
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Dec 1, 2021 19:05
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ParTwo posted:I don't have the means to make it myself but I figure a short gif of a cool sequence in Kingdom Valley would be appropriate, since we're trying to be positive with this game and all. I'm not good enough to make Simon an avatar either, but your idea sounds cool. That said, your avatar is amazing, holy poo poo. Is it based on some kind of game?
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Dec 1, 2021 19:54
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Torrannor posted:
From Hamtaro Rainbow Rescue, I grabbed it when someone did an LP on the forum some time ago.
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Dec 2, 2021 00:32
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 Egg-Wyvern  Ending and Credits Quintessential 3D Sonic boss in many ways Enjoy the wrap-up of a story that many scholars claim definitely happened Music Egg-Wyvern SWEET SWEET SWEET/SWEET DREAMS ('06 AKON Mix) His World (Theme of Sonic) I'm gonna be completely honest here: that sweet sweet dreams song is one of the most heinous pieces of music I have ever been tortured with. Not that His World is good, mind Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Dec 5, 2021 |
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Dec 3, 2021 18:41
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Fun Sonic Facts! In a 2007 interview, the original director of Sonic 2006, Yojiro Ogawa, famously stated “The reason why we probably ended up with what we see today, involves a lot of reasons. One is that we did want to launch the title around Christmas, and we had the PS3 launch coming up, but we had to develop for Microsoft’s 360 at the same time and the team had an awful lot of pressure on them. It was very hard for the team to try and see how we were going to come out with both versions together with just the one team. It was a big challenge.” This was a rather diplomatic viewpoint that Shun Nakamura shared as well, seen in his final update on Sonic 2006‘s development blog; “Development on a next-generation machine was very difficult, with us with a lot of difficult aspects of things we didn’t understand. Understanding the variety of new technology, understanding the new hardware, handling the enormous amount of information and handling the new technology, these were all aspects that far surpassed both my expectations and experience.” However, these two interviews vastly downplay the biggest problem Sonic Team was facing at the time, something that would have honestly sank the Sonic series 'rebirth' even if none of the development issues had occurred. Apathy. But why were they feeling this way? Thankfully, a blog posted by one Ben Andac, a “Game Evaluator” and “Admissions and Recruitment Executive” for both Sega Europe and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (the blog itself is now long deleted, though preserved on the Internet Archive), gave a rather interesting look at the feelings of internal SEGA employees. "Sonic Team, for all their past accomplishments (long past one should emphasize), are not the development force they once were. They no longer represent that name and ideal they so desperately cling onto now. While other great SEGA studios - UGA, Hitmaker, Smilebit, Overworks, Rosso - became dissolved and re-structured into new R&D departments (or in UGA's case became part of Sonic Team); Sonic Team managed to keep its name (at least externally for marketing reasons) and position thanks to the efforts (and in no small part the massive ego) of Yuji Naka. But this move was what trapped the team in a Sonic-filled purgatory, and ultimately led to Naka's departure in 2006. Instead of using the re-structuring for good Sonic Team became complacent slaves of their earlier successes. Their primary goal now is purely business driven: to please the managing directors with good ROIs; this is not so abnormal - it is a business after all - but they leave little room for creativity and originality in their particular brand of working practices. So here we are. Clearly the blame does not lay squarely at Naka and Sonic Team's door - the direction of Sega (or rather Sammy) as a corporation; the narrow-minded short-term annual business-plan practices and development processes (i.e. tight development schedule) that demand yearly churning out of Sonic products all play a major part in potentially damaging any chances NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams has of being a good game." What Mr. Andac said here is true in many respects, as ever since Sega had restructured itself in 2004 (after Sammy had bought mass amounts of stock from CSK, fusing itself and SEGA into the conglomerate Sega Sammy Holdings) to re-integrate external development teams like Smilebit and AM2 back under the umbrella of the main Sega offices, Sonic Team was kept external, in what could be termed a 'development sweatshop' to milk the brand in a manner not unlike an assembly-line. Sega of Japan had intended NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams as a brief rest from the never-ending onslaught of Sonic game after Sonic game. In Ben’s own words: “There’s no doubt that Sonic Team have lost their quality touch. They are worse than talentless: they are without passion. Bored, weary, closed-minded and out of touch with any sense of what makes games good anymore.” Simply put, after making so many games in barbaric conditions, under life-sapping scheduling, and without even the chance to make something new, Sonic Team is tired of Sonic. Fun Boss Facts! It is possible to finish the battle in less than a minute with the Sky Gem. Throw it just before grabbing the Egg-Wyvern's antenna, and the camera will zoom in on Sonic and get locked there as the robot flies offscreen. After some time spent staring at nothing, Egg Wyvern will get too far away and despawn, so the results screen will appear and function properly. A more convoluted way lets you use the antenna to fling yourself straight up and hit an invisible trigger to end the fight immediately.
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Dec 3, 2021 18:47
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If you hadn't heard it before, yes, that is what it sounds like. That's a remix of the ending theme from Sonic 2.
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Dec 3, 2021 19:51
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Sweet Sweet Dreams link just goes to His World. I demand you share the majesty of composition that is Sweet Dreams with the world.
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Dec 4, 2021 08:01
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Sweet Dreams (Akon Mix) to me is like the trash can is to a racoon. i eat that garbage right up
JoJosSiwaAdventure fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Dec 4, 2021 |
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Dec 4, 2021 08:09
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Simon wanted me to join the forum personally and post my thoughts on Sonic's story here, so why not? I'm Anthony Looyen on the Youtube videos, so I've been posting a bit already. So, Sonic's story. I'll take up the task of talking about it, largely because it is part of the gameplay. Part of the vitriol Sonic 06 accrued was directly a result of a story so bad that even if it hadn't written itself out of existence, SEGA would almost certainly try to have you forget about it. And they did. Beyond the 'mandatory' references in Sonic Generations, the Sonic series has largely left references to this game on the cutting room floor, which is rather significant given how often the series likes to contain little nods to previous entries. And Sonic’s place in this story is practically nonexistent. Of all the characters, he spends the least amount of time interacting with the main villain. He sees Mephiles all of one time before going right back to fighting Eggman and saving Elise. It’s telling that Shadow gains valuable insight into various aspects of his story while stuck in the future, all while Sonic barely acts on the knowledge he gains there until endgame. Even having some semblance of an idea where Silver comes from and why he’s hunting him down, he never takes an opportunity to try to talk Silver down and just sort of awkwardly teams up with him near the end with little to no fanfare. This means the core component of the story is as repetitive as a person’s experience first playing as Sonic. While homing attacking a brute towards a slow death, Sonic is going through the motions of rescuing Elise only to lose her again, and the game even has to repeat Eggman’s motivation to Elise - twice - because the writers probably assumed the player forgot. All the stories in this game are dragged down for one reason or other, and the definite reason for Sonic’s is that the writers just didn’t care about what Sonic could bring to the table. He’s not even the main character; Elise is. Sonic announces as much when he first appears. He has no special reason for saving Elise, he’s just basically doing it because Eggman’s being a prick. Were this a better game with a better story, the focus on Elise as the main character for Sonic’s story would be a strong point in its favor - as a newcomer to the franchise, she has the best chance to establish herself and her character motivations to the player, and there’s actually some degree of depth to her. But Sonic just isn’t the sort of series known for massive character studies, especially when it’s one of the games that focuses on multiple different ‘teams.’ I’m not saying Sonic can’t have deep characters or an interesting story, but the kind of character Elise is going for just doesn’t mesh with the rest of the Sonic mythos. Suddenly we’re introduced to political intrigue and familial obligation in a series where the most recent deep character study had to do with personal factors in a character’s growth; Tails idolizing Sonic but learning to become independent. Elise doesn’t have time to grow in the limited time she has in the spotlight, hence we have no way to care for her, and the best thing SEGA can do to make her important is have her desire a frankly disgusting relationship with Sonic, which needs no explanation for why it just doesn’t work. Even going beyond the bestiality, the idea of Sonic having a genuine love interest doesn’t fit with the core framework of the series, where Sonic was established as the anti-Mario who went on adventures because he wanted to and because he wanted to protect his friends from an industrialist, not because he was trying to protect the princess he loved. As a result, when Elise gives herself to Eggman, what the writers intended was to have players sympathize with Elise for having to make a tough decision to protect her people, an option foisted upon her because she was born into the nobility. Instead, we just have players rightfully groaning again about how they have to rescue Elise again. Any and all drama falls flat when it’s the same tired story beat. If that weren’t bad enough, Sonic’s friends are utterly squandered in comparison to Silver and Shadow’s. They are immediately forgotten as soon as they’re introduced, and any implication they can involve themselves in the story to help out is quickly stamped out as soon as Dusty Desert ends. When Sonic is first introduced to Tails, a lot is made about how Tails will be instrumental in chasing Eggman down...just before he fails to do so and Sonic instead needs to follow a different lead to get to Eggman. Once Tails sets himself up as a distraction, that’s his last major contribution to the plot, beyond outlining the ‘’’’’time limit‘’’’’ Sonic has in saving Elise...while they’re in the future...trying to find a way to freely travel through time. Huh? Knuckles has it even worse. He exists to get Sonic to White Acropolis and snark once at Rouge as if out of obligation, and that’s completely it. No better proof is there to how little Knuckles and Tails matter and the writers don’t care than their absolute inconsistency in appearances. Tails suddenly just meets up with Sonic and Knuckles in New City, and the trio travel to the future together. Once they get back, Sonic makes a big stink about saving Elise at Radical Train...and suddenly Knuckles and Tails are gone with absolutely no fanfare or explanation. They could clearly follow Sonic and keep up with him at White Acropolis - what makes Radical Train different? They don’t get the chance to protect Sonic from the murderous marjuna-leaf chasing him down. They’re just gone from the plot. They don’t show up to help out before Tropical Jungle, either - Tails is just unceremoniously dumped into Soleanna after Tropical Jungle to go to Wave Ocean for no reason. Even Eggman complains about the story wasting his time at that point! In fact, if I recall correctly, after ‘If you don’t like it, you can stay here’ is uttered by Knuckles at Rouge, he doesn’t get a single line following that exchange for the rest of the entirety of the story, barring some stock stuff he could say in transitions. That’s a massive missed opportunity, too, because one fun thing Sonic Heroes had was the constant banter between the party members. Even Sonic’s placement in the story is downright nonsensical at points. Following Tropical Jungle, he just nopes off and leaves Elise to get kidnapped while Tails goes through Wave Ocean, before appearing after the stage is complete to suddenly go on a religious quest to gain access to Kingdom Valley while Eggman is progressively getting away. Is now really the time? What’s seriously stopping Sonic from hitching a ride with Tails, who is literally right up at the top of the tower already? Why isn’t the Tornado brought up at all? Failing to catch up to the Egg Carrier is just some weird running theme Sonic’s story has, because there’s nothing of substance otherwise because Sonic does nothing for himself otherwise. With Shadow and Silver we’re given clear motivations for them to act and do things. When Elise is no longer in the story, Sonic’s one focus is ‘save Elise,’ to the utter detraction of him having a character in this story, let alone having character quirks. The only thing Sonic really ever does outside of gameplay is give terrible life advice to Elise, which once again only exists to reinforce Elise’s character in a series where the type of character she is needs a ton of work to matter. Only Blaze has ever really done a good job with that sort of thing, and that was largely because she had an entire half of a game to explore her character and motivations. This retrospective doesn’t even get into the glaring inconsistencies (why the Egg Carrier blows up, why that seriously threatens Eggman and Elise’s life when they could just leave via Eggman’s fancy flying orb which we know he brought with him, why Eggman imperils Elise when he needs her for his plan to work by stuffing her in an exploding train, etc) because that would be way too much to analyze, but I guess I should bring up that beyond Eggman helping out slightly for the final story, not even he has a reason to end up being here. He gets all of one chaos emerald and plans to grab a second before his plans go up in smoke and flames, so the Solaris Prototype is never really brought up again as anything other than a cheap plot device that sends Sonic through time. In summation, the Sonic story’s worst sin is easily one of apathy. If the developers cared about showing off Sonic’s gameplay to sell the game, they absolutely didn’t give a drat about Sonic’s story to keep the players interested. Once again, the only hedgehog who matters is Shadow, with Silver getting a small bone in dealing with his own special antagonist. No love was put into this, so no love will be derived from it. Woo, long post, I know, but I wanted to get some final thoughts out there, at least! GloriousGoldenSun fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Dec 6, 2021 |
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Dec 4, 2021 09:41
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Hey hey, they gave the story plenty of thought. You see, sonic adventure had a big water monster. So sonic '06 has a big fire monster. And then the next game can have a big earth monster!!!
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Dec 4, 2021 09:55
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Tunicate posted:Hey hey, they gave the story plenty of thought. OH NO IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. I guess Sonic's the big wind monster, then. Time Eater is Time and the Phantom Ruby is Mirage. The Hyper-Go-On black hole warped Space. #SonicIsLegendOfHeroesConfirmed
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Dec 4, 2021 10:24
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Being a robot, Metal Overlord is the big electricity monster
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Dec 4, 2021 10:43
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JoJosSiwaAdventure posted:Being a robot, Metal Overlord is the big electricity monster That shot giant icicles for some reason. It was a huge dragon, so maybe it's less 'Legend of Heroes' and more 'Pokemon,' with Metal Overlord as Kyurem-Black.
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Dec 4, 2021 22:39
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GloriousGoldenSun posted:Simon wanted me to join the forum personally and post my thoughts on Sonic's story here, so why not?  Your thoughts are very appreciated, and you have summed up the issues with the story much better than I could - or would care for, honestly. I'll put this post into the OP in lieu of talking about the story myself, another win for Discendo Vox posted:Sweet Sweet Dreams link just goes to His World. I demand you share the majesty of composition that is Sweet Dreams with the world. Dabir posted:If you hadn't heard it before, yes, that is what it sounds like. That's a remix of the ending theme from Sonic 2. Enjoying the elemental endboss idea. Actually though, 06 has a light-elemental as the true final boss. And a dark-elemental one as another antagonist. It's just going hog wild with those elements!
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Dec 5, 2021 19:46
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Simply Simon posted:Oh wow, welcome! I'd have been fine with reposting your comment here myself - but of course it's great to have you here! Hope you didn't feel pressured into spending the It's a small price to pay to get to look behind the curtain, so to speak. I'll continue commenting on Youtube as well because I enjoy sharing the glitches I come across / learned about when first playing the game, but I'll also post here, as well. Plus, it helps to give an account of a first-timer's experience, especially because I remember a lot of my first time vividly. I was the sort of kid who really played around with the game and did downright weird stuff. A few of the glitches I've talked about are things I've seen in other LPs, speedruns, or through looking through wikis, but I'd say a good half of them are things I figured out when I played the game and experimented. There's one I'm thinking of with Silver right now that I don't think has been documented, which is a shame, because it fits in with his overall 'theme' for glitches being 'make him as powerful in gameplay as he is in cutscenes.' Want him to fly? There's a glitch for that. Want him to move fast? Glitch for that. Shoot energy orbs? Man, I wish, it would make him more fun to play, but there's...sort of...a glitch for that.
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Dec 5, 2021 20:01
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