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Going to take this time to mention that I don't quite trust the hotel internet I'm currently under to upload anything within a reasonable timeframe, so my next update will probably come around Tuesday. RE: the show, judging solely from the thread, I might want to watch a few episodes. Probably will do that before I can round up Steve for another recording session.
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Jan 24, 2015 02:45
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This game looks like a good idea, bad execution case. I like that they aren't being very serious about dialogs. Unless you're a great writer, simplicity is the way to go. Heck, often it's the way to go even if you are a great writer. However, it seems like the writer of this game isn't capable of handling even simple dialogs. In particular, the humor is plain boring. Either be funny or don't, never try to be funny. I also like that the characters have similar movements and differs by having different abilities rather than differing in a fundamental level. This allows all characters to be used in most places and makes it possible for you to choose who to use rather than every single area having to have a designated character. So far the game dragged out on the tutorial, but I'll withhold judgment until I see more of how having access to all four characters works out.
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Jan 24, 2015 14:25
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Crystalgate posted:This game looks like a good idea, bad execution case. You'll be interested to try and pick out the background aesthetic, dialogue, and themes then, since there's a lot of stuff that, by the way its indicated, should mean something for the game, but don't. Honestly, for Rise of Lyric at least, I'd say there are two main possibilities. Either: A) The design of the game as a whole was overly ambitious, resulting in a lot of compromises, defaults, and most things just not being properly paced or polished. B) The conceptual design team were ambitious, but when their ideas and such were handed over to be made into the actual game, or grafted onto whatever system the company had put together, things did not translate well.
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Jan 24, 2015 17:21
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What I mentioned is not exactly ambitious. Keeping the writing simple is obviously less ambitious than a complicated plot with deep and serious characters. Likewise, characters who mostly have the same movements is less ambitious than say Sonic Adventure 2 which has characters that functions entirely different. If what you say is true, then this game tried to be far more ambitious and the simplicity I approved of is accidental rather than intentional.
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Jan 24, 2015 23:54
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Crystalgate posted:What I mentioned is not exactly ambitious. Keeping the writing simple is obviously less ambitious than a complicated plot with deep and serious characters. Likewise, characters who mostly have the same movements is less ambitious than say Sonic Adventure 2 which has characters that functions entirely different. Oh, when I say 'ambitious' I mean more in terms of the overall game - narrative, world scale, stuff it tried to 'reinvent' from the franchise. Trying to streamline the characters into 'variants' off a single base actually does make sense gameplay wise - I mean, just look at 3D World - and having more apparent archetypes can help in writing the characters bouncing off each other. Sorry, probably getting rather ahead of myself in discussing why it is the game just fails so much, even without the glitches and horrid framerate. I'm probably bitter because I tried to remain mildly hopeful about the game (and even being generous can mostly just say its mediocre), and well, it made a liar out of me.
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Jan 25, 2015 00:24
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New video! Episode 3: Gamepad Shenanigans I don't really have much to say about this episode, other than the fact that the game seems to handle the gamepad in...funny ways in co-op. Also, I've turned the second post into a "characters" post. So far I've only added the main protagonists, but I'll add more to it later on. Edit: "Later" was immediately after finishing this post, as it turns out. I think I got every named character that's bothered to give us the time of day thus far. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 19:00
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Here we go. I don't think its really spoilers to say that the crystals are the game's equivalent of the chaos emeralds, being coloured coded gemstone macguffins of immense power, but their presence in the game is... an oddity. See, there were a couple of interviews where they basically said the chaos emeralds weren't part of the setting, or rather, weren't part of the game. Now, it could be they were just being coy in the hopes of whatever sequel was a glimmer in their eyes, but part of me also suspects it might be part of how in general they seem to have defaulted back to a 'safe' story because oh look, they're not working with some strange new macguffin, but basically the one everyone knows and can broadly accept.
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Jan 28, 2015 21:56
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Knuckles just had his greatest moment in the good show this lovely game is based on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1dtqyTRAI
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Jan 28, 2015 22:52
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I legitimately enjoy the Sonic Boom show because it has gems like that.
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Jan 28, 2015 23:23
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MonsterEnvy posted:Knuckles just had his greatest moment in the good show this lovely game is based on. Even better, one of the writers joked on twitter that this was them making the pause glitch canon.
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Jan 29, 2015 00:05
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That is true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFe6kEE5upo
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Jan 29, 2015 00:08
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MonsterEnvy posted:Knuckles just had his greatest moment in the good show this lovely game is based on.  Not sure which version of that ending clip I enjoy more but this is pretty fantastic.
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Jan 29, 2015 01:10
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New video, and almost the whole thing is gameplay. Episode 4: A Loose Definition of "Puzzle"  I'm aware of that skip around the 16:50 mark, I really couldn't do anything to fix it because that's where the raw footage split into a second file.
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Jan 31, 2015 18:05
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Now that I've seen more of this game, my earlier "good idea, bad execution" hypothesis was definitely wrong. My new hypothesis; everything about this game is sloppy. The combat looks like crap. It seems shallow and boring. So far I've seen the options of moving close to an enemy and hit the attack button or grabbing them with the beam. However, from what I can see, it's more a case of "just do whatever" than "use you moves smartly". The writing is bad. There's more "hey, pressing the yellow switch opened the yellow door" than actual characterization and when there is characterization, it's usually crude or bare-bone. The writing seems focused on getting the game events across to the player rather than the personalities of the characters. Then there's the platforming. Here the game looks poorly thought trough from the start. Amy has her triple jump and Knuckles has his wall climbing. This lets Knuckles get the most vertical height when there's a climbable wall and Amy when there's not. Tails used to be able to fly, but that would let him reach any place that Amy could, so instead he gets a glide. That used to be one of Knuckles moves, but guess what, now it's not! Then Sonic gets the exiting ability to gain the most vertical height when there's a ramp in front of a wall. Ever thought you'd use Sonic's Spindash in a situation where you don't have to, but where it's just fun and/or convenient to use? Nope, there's no such thing. You have four characters with different abilities, but either the different abilities are useless or a specific character is mandated. There's never (or very rarely) a question of which character you want to use, if you can use all four characters, then it doesn't matter who you use.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:15
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Funny thing: If you look through the bit where Amy is briefly going solo, the game's framerate seems to handle a lot better. Maybe the squad system (and the game's need to otherwise teleport the group together in most circumstances) puts a strange amount of stress on the system, particularly in running segments. Which if so, their not so big a deal selling point may literally be hurting the game. Also of note (and adding to the evidence of scrapped and reworked ideas), Sonic and Tails falling through the trap door may come from a scene in the first trailer where everybody falls together, which then leads off into some secret chamber (that, or the moment is the original opening). I wouldn't be surprised if it comes from around this point though, based on footage also in the trailer, showing that the general section of the game was definitely, in some form, in the earlier build. But god, those 'puzzle' floors. I don't even get how they count. You just follow the path, no consequence whatsoever for hitting the wrong button by mistake - so they may as well not exist. The platforming, such that it is, at least has room for the player to fail and thus understand how to do things 'right'. But nowhere, nowhere in this game can you screw up these puzzles. They really just exist to draw out the player's time - that, or they were meant to be true puzzles, but they ran short of time, and decided to go with the cheapest method that still used them.
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Jan 31, 2015 23:59
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I suppose those snakes do something that only the characters notice. Still feels weird to see Slinky Amy. The cutscenes seem to reset the game to single player mode since objects have shadows, and then the game proceeds to restore coop and dial back features.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:20
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I don't understand why they needed to rush a sonic game. The last time they did it they ended up with Sonic '06. And when they did it with this one they ended up with a game that a lot of people compare to '06 in terms of playability and bugginess. You would think that they would have seen this coming when they decided to rush a game for a "holiday release" just like before.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:18
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You don't understand. You gotta go fast.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:34
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nendymion posted:I don't understand why they needed to rush a sonic game. The minds of men cannot comprehend the imperceptible machinations of SEGA's publishing practices. Only once you have sacrificed your weak human reasoning and logic, only once you have understood the truth, only then will you know. Only then will you see.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:50
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I'm not entirely sure if we should blame Sega for this one, considering it wasn't made by them at all. Let's put the blame where it belongs. Big Red Button, what the hell made you think this is a good game, worth selling?
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Feb 2, 2015 04:54
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Blaze Dragon posted:I'm not entirely sure if we should blame Sega for this one, considering it wasn't made by them at all. SEGA didn't make it, but they are the publisher. I think they're ones who decide when the game is actually released, and they have a history of rushing games. Big Red Button is certainly to blame for the game not being fun, though.
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Feb 2, 2015 04:59
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Either you first decide what content your game is going to have and allow enough time to finish that game or you first decide when the game will be released and only implement the content you have time for. If you, say, ask for a game which would take one and a half year to make, but only allow a year of development time, then you have a poor grasp on reality. Granted, you can always make a mistake, but this game seem underdeveloped from it's very core. Anyway, I agree that Big Red Button carries a lot of the blame. A lot of the problems don't seem explainable by a rushed development.
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Feb 2, 2015 06:00
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Crystalgate posted:Either you first decide what content your game is going to have and allow enough time to finish that game or you first decide when the game will be released and only implement the content you have time for. If you, say, ask for a game which would take one and a half year to make, but only allow a year of development time, then you have a poor grasp on reality. Granted, you can always make a mistake, but this game seem underdeveloped from it's very core. Huh, I never really thought of that. True enough, more time probably wouldn't made the content already in the better, just run smoother.
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Feb 2, 2015 06:07
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Waffleman_ posted:You don't understand. But you can't. You can't go fast. Roro posted:I legitimately enjoy the Sonic Boom show because it has gems like that. It's seems like the TV show and comic were the only decent things that came out of the Sonic Boom franchise.
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Feb 2, 2015 07:07
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In regards to development, the more unexplainable game to me is Shattered Crystal. Big Red Button doesn't have a lot of games under its belt; in fact, I'm having a hard time finding ANY other games BRB made. Shattered Crystal meanwhile was developed by loving Sanzaru Games, who were responsible for The Sly Collection (and Thieves in Time, complete with Vita ports for both!), Secret Agent Clank, and the Vita version of God of War Collection, among a few other games. I'm of the opinion that Shattered Crystal came MUCH closer to being decent than Rise of Lyric, but was plagued with a whole ton of minor problems that brought it down. The game is certainly more functional and more like a Sonic game than Lyric, but still not that great. I personally think Shattered Crystal could have been at least good if it was given more time, but it wasn't. Anyway, enough about that, have a new video, in which I couldn't pass up the chance to be a colossal dick in regards to where I placed the end point of the video. Sorrynotsorry.  Episode 5: THEY DO EXIST
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Feb 3, 2015 02:19
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Sonic: Your overconfidence is your weakness. Shadow: Your faith in your friends is yours!
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Feb 3, 2015 03:17
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I love Shadow in this game. He comes out of nowhere, we get absolutely no explanation of who he is or how he knows Sonic, his personality is defined entirely by the one cutscene he gets to talk in and it's extremely stereotypical and stupid... I didn't even like Shadow all that much in the actual canon and he's still much, much better than this. Yet, I love this Shadow, because he's so loving bad in every possible way that I can't help but laugh every time I see that cutscene. It's the pinnacle of bad writing.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:06
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I guess they wanted Tails to be more like Data.
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Feb 4, 2015 08:10
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So we've got Shadow, who we're about to have a boss fight with, and we've got Tails, who we've recently discovered is stupidly powerful compared to everyone else. Let's see what happens when they fight. Episode 6: I Hate Time Travel Hope you enjoyed Shadow's time here, I certainly did. Just as an FYI, I've only got one more video left before I've run out of footage. We've been REALLY trying to get together for another recording session, but time after time something keeps coming up and preventing us from getting under the same roof for a few hours. If there's a delay in updates after the next video, this is entirely the reason why. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 19:07
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The game hinted at time travel as soon as Lyric was freed. He accused Sonic of having imprisoned him and I immediately interpret that as time travel shenanigans. Tails seems like a typical example of an intelligent character written by someone who's not intelligent. They have a tendency to do everything except being intelligent. I also love how this game assumes the player can't figure anything out. Some games will give the player some time to figure things out and only tell the answer after some time has passed. This game instead immediately jumps the gun. I wonder if Sonic explaining his jokes is also a consequence of the designers not daring to give the players any credit or if it's just a failed attempt at humor.
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Feb 4, 2015 21:26
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A shame they don't go out of their way to tell you about the hub world. If they cut the number of scrap you need to pitch tents and houses, they wouldn't need to pad out every encounter in copied rooms.
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Feb 4, 2015 21:34
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Shadow, for me personally, is probably the biggest indicator of the story having 'defaulted' at some point to be something not that far removed from the franchise status quo, compared to something more off the beaten path. Metal Sonic, even if just there, still has an inherent explanation for why he's around - made by Eggman, which you can kinda gleam once you know that robots are kinda his thing. But where the hell is Shadow meant to come from in all this? The only way you'd have any inkling of his convoluted mess of a backstory is if you already played his games, which makes his presence rather at odds with the entire point of this spinoff franchise. Hell, even in terms of 'what he's doing in this game', there really is no point to him. He's there because he's Shadow the Hedgehog, and they must've hoped that would draw in his fans. Hell, I would actually bet that he was grafted onto whatever they already had just for the sake of giving him this glorified cameo. OTOH, you can see bits of this stage in the first trailer of the game, so the time travel aspect (or at least, an Ancients base) was probably around for a while in development. Not to mention the giant robot asset, which is clearly supposed to be a set piece of the stage, is one of the most re-used over the game so presumably they had to get this place set in stone before they proceeded to use it elsewhere. And yet its still so... unpolished as a level, whether its screwed up audio cues, absolutely  lasers, puzzles, and as some have discovered, entire walls that you can phase through. Not even like, you have to do something really innocuous and that you're not expected to (say, jumping on a chest to then get a height boost), but you can honest to god just walk up to the walls and go through. This is seemingly one of their oldest levels, and yet its as screwed up as any other part of the game. Yet being oddly fair to Lyric, I think the idea is meant to be more that he was working on the crystals for the Ancients to try and figure them out, only to then discover that they'd kinda neglected mentioning that the energies from them would, yeah, give him cancer. Add in the implication with all the statues that the Ancients were (meant to be) hedgehogs, which aren't exactly on the best terms with snakes, and you could make a case that he saw himself as being made expendable because of his race. Meanwhile, his technology saved him, and machines don't discriminate. So you have a villain who's seen the folly of organic life, and has decided that it is in need of replacing. Or I am giving the devs far too much credit and they wanted to take Eggman's own gimmick away from him. I dunno.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:14
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Lyric is just another villain talking up nanomachines.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:35
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You called it crystal cancer, but I think it might be suffering from gemorrhiods.
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Feb 4, 2015 23:50
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Scalding Coffee posted:Lyric is just another villain talking up nanomachines.  Couldn't resist.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:03
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VolticSurge posted:
There.
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Feb 5, 2015 01:15
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Astro Nut posted:Yet being oddly fair to Lyric, I think the idea is meant to be more that he was working on the crystals for the Ancients to try and figure them out, only to then discover that they'd kinda neglected mentioning that the energies from them would, yeah, give him cancer. Add in the implication with all the statues that the Ancients were (meant to be) hedgehogs, which aren't exactly on the best terms with snakes, and you could make a case that he saw himself as being made expendable because of his race. Meanwhile, his technology saved him, and machines don't discriminate. So you have a villain who's seen the folly of organic life, and has decided that it is in need of replacing. That isn't something either of us thought about, because the game didn't really give us any explanation on what Lyric was actually doing with the crystals before becoming terminally ill. We both just jumped to the conclusion that he was probably doing something evil with them, but it could have played out as you described. Then again, we won't know one way or the other because the game has been pretty minimalistic in terms of backstory, in general. We've had Cliff's bout of exposition, then this short spiel from Lyric. That's it. One or two more lines in relation to what he was doing with the crystals before getting sick could clarify the point on whether or not he was always evil. Regardless of all of that, however, and we still have the fact that he still feels...completely unnecessary. Honestly, in terms of what he actually does, I feel as if Eggman could have filled his role just fine without any of the time travel or talk of the Ancients. For some reason, we instead get Lyric, who also kind of feels...out of place, being intended to be a more serious and menacing villain in a game where literally every other character is written to try and get laughs out of the player. Except maybe Shadow, who is just  . I can't explain anything about him other than how shoehorned in he is.
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Feb 5, 2015 02:33
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You probably missed it by this point. but the turtle side-quest completion point was in the room with the conveyer belts just before the large light floor "Puzzle". It was on a ledge on the left wall that had a few rings on it to indicate you can go there. You would go up on the ledge and destroy a computer to reveal a door. Also nice to know that Lyric is essentially taking one of Dr. Eggmans schemes because I think he was the one who originally started replacing all organic life with robotic life at least in the genesis games.
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Feb 5, 2015 02:33
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^Yeah we did miss it. I'm not entirely certain if we CAN go back to that area, or if it's even worth going back for. I probably didn't bother checking it out because all I saw while passing through that room were rings, and rings are worthless. Might have briefly looked away from the screen or was drinking water at the time the cutscene was panning over it.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:24
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| # ? May 8, 2024 18:17 |
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Astro Nut posted:OTOH, you can see bits of this stage in the first trailer of the game, so the time travel aspect (or at least, an Ancients base) was probably around for a while in development. Not to mention the giant robot asset, which is clearly supposed to be a set piece of the stage, is one of the most re-used over the game so presumably they had to get this place set in stone before they proceeded to use it elsewhere. And yet its still so... unpolished as a level, whether its screwed up audio cues, absolutely
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Feb 5, 2015 09:11
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