|
Episode 12: Rocky Road Perhaps the worst NPC interaction in the game right here. Also they're terrifying. 
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2015 19:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 17:29 |
|
|
Holy crap that was dissapointing. Usually in a 3D sonic game when an enemy airship shows up it's like a dramatic moment as it was in the adventure series hell even Sonic 06 treated the enemy airship as a dramatic moment. Here it just comes in silently without even making a flying noise that game airships tend to do, drops off enemies in an arena and then just as silently as it came it leaves and it's leaving could be missed if the player wasn't looking. Then you have the cave which makes it really obvious that the game is saving processing power by completely removing shadow mapping. In case you were wondering, The cave is supposed to be fairly darkened and not look like it's out in the open sun. You can see bits of that in the cutscenes when the game decides to turn on shadow mapping for those.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2015 21:42
|
|
|
14:40 Uh, Tails, swimming in rocks is one of the things you can't do  Otherwise good lord this level. Its design is inconsistent as gently caress. Only Sonic and Tails can get across except there are Knuckle sections so he was expected to be there. The NPC AI apparently just shuts off in co-op outside of a fight since the characters won't even use the enerbeam. Lyric's ship - the only time he's ever seen or shown as really having one so I don't how the gently caress anyone knew it was his - just waltzes in with no music change or even an attempt at importance beyond 'oh hey more baddies'. The internal area, as mentioned, was clearly meant to rely on shadows for ambience and they turned it the hell off. Outside is some kind of decrepit rust town except only two people live there so why is there an arena? And the crystal is obtained after just another bout of grunts, when the game seems like it should have established a notion of going through boss fights or something. Oh, and of course, the ridiculous lack of proper controls on the audio flags means the characters are just shouting random crap to sound like they're having 'fun', probably to twist the knife.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 00:39
|
|
|
Know what, I can't hold onto this video any more. Disclaimer: If you are interested in seeing actual progress being made, do not watch this video. If you want to see the both of us hopelessly lost as the game is falling to pieces and is being strictly unhelpful in the way of direction, well I'm sorry but you're beyond help. Episode 13: No Direction, No Hint, No Hope 
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 05:45
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:Otherwise good lord this level. Its design is inconsistent as gently caress. Only Sonic and Tails can get across except there are Knuckle sections so he was expected to be there. The NPC AI apparently just shuts off in co-op outside of a fight since the characters won't even use the enerbeam. Lyric's ship - the only time he's ever seen or shown as really having one so I don't how the gently caress anyone knew it was his - just waltzes in with no music change or even an attempt at importance beyond 'oh hey more baddies'. The internal area, as mentioned, was clearly meant to rely on shadows for ambience and they turned it the hell off.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 07:50
|
|
|
This game just seemed boring and grating when I first saw clips of it but co-op really brings out the garbage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 09:47
|
|
|
Oh god I actually winced when you guys managed to get a glimpse of the passage around a quarter of the way in. Its so unintuitive in terms of what you're meant to follow, and the map is useless since it appears to only show floor textures, rather than say, the great big wall in your way. Like, it'd be bad enough on its own, as an almost flat entrance perpendicular to your approach, but the scaffolding makes you think you only go that way if you're also going up as well. Its as if they deliberately designed it to waste people's time betwee- oh.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 14:37
|
|
|
^Oh, yeah, rewatching it myself made me feel a pain in my chest. We could have avoided all this but I was completely convinced that the scaffolding was built alongside a solid wall at the time. Not helping was the fact that for some reason the navigation arrow turned off.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:Its also from here on out that even my rather sad efforts to try and understand the design decisions and potential ideas involved just start to break down. Actually, I can see ideas that would have been fun, but only if we don't even play the game. You have four Sonic characters with different abilities and you can switch between them more or less at will. We have a lighthearted story and the characters engage in lighthearted banter between each other. This sound like a really great idea for a sonic game to me. However, none of the design decision does in any meaningful way take advantage of those ideas.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2015 18:06
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:Oh god I actually winced when you guys managed to get a glimpse of the passage around a quarter of the way in. Its so unintuitive in terms of what you're meant to follow, and the map is useless since it appears to only show floor textures, rather than say, the great big wall in your way. Did they even have enough technology to do camera flythroughs? Even one of those would be enough to give you a path from a place to a place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 19:10
|
|
|
The show it well enough that they can do mini-cutscenes to pan the camera on something, so that might've been an idea. But that would still just highlight how unintuitive it is - the only way to reasonably lead you to it is to outright show it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 19:41
|
|
|
Episode 14: Button of Robot Obedience Ran out of steam for a little bit there. Back to more bad video game. (It's not entirely done processing by the time of this post)
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2015 19:27
|
|
|
So how big is the fine Metal Sonic has to pay? I mean he did destroy the village entrance so it should probably be hefty.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2015 20:07
|
|
|
You know, lots of this game seems to be just ideas badly implemented. Like, you can somewhat see what they were going for, it's not that hard to see how it could've been done well but it wasn't...and then you have this boat section. Who the hell thought that a large segment of absolutely nothing was a good idea?
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2015 20:47
|
|
|
Well at least it was somewhat neat to see the consequences of sonic's inability to complete that random turtles quest from way back when. By the way the way that particular quest ended was that you talk to the science turtle and learn that the bottle he was using was marked as poison berry and not boisen berry. Tails would ask the turtle something along the lines of "Are you sure that doesn't read Poison?". The turtle would take a second look at the label and realize his mistake. Thus rectifying a mistake that has since cursed his family. Although I will be surprised if those bramble bushes show up again considering how this game seems to forget about almost everything else. Another question that is brought up is how the heck is Enerbeam running all this crap when it was developed by tails in the first part of the game when he screwed with the shackles? If he didn't invent it then why aren't there more people being seen using it considering that it's integrated into practically everything. This game is Utter crap when it comes to world building.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2015 22:15
|
|
|
I think that this time, instead of mentioning what's bad about this game, I mention what I hoped this game would be. I wanted a simple story, it's main purpose is to give the player context to the action and make her/him feel that the fighting and platforming is for a good reason. This is a bit more complicated that "here's the bad guy and here's the reason you have to stop him" since the game needs to give you reasons for every single area, but it's still fairly simple. I wanted characterization, the characters personalities bounces off each other and so on. Nothing complicated and no character development is needed. Most important though, I hoped that while the characters have different abilities, it would work more like the Sonic Advance series where all characters (or two person permutations of them) could handle any stage even though they had different abilities. You use the character you want to use rather than the one you have to use. I don't mind a few sections where a certain character is mandated, but I'd rather that is an exception and not the rule.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2015 14:56
|
|
|
nendymion posted:Well at least it was somewhat neat to see the consequences of sonic's inability to complete that random turtles quest from way back when. By the way the way that particular quest ended was that you talk to the science turtle and learn that the bottle he was using was marked as poison berry and not boisen berry. Tails would ask the turtle something along the lines of "Are you sure that doesn't read Poison?". The turtle would take a second look at the label and realize his mistake. Thus rectifying a mistake that has since cursed his family. Although I will be surprised if those bramble bushes show up again considering how this game seems to forget about almost everything else. I've never actually seen that sidequest not done so far, so this was mildly interesting to see. Its pretty basic as time travel changes go, and it makes me wonder if it was another in a long list of likely concepts for the game that never got developed beyond one gimmick. nendymion posted:Another question that is brought up is how the heck is Enerbeam running all this crap when it was developed by tails in the first part of the game when he screwed with the shackles? If he didn't invent it then why aren't there more people being seen using it considering that it's integrated into practically everything. That... is something I've not questioned before. It'd be arguably okay in just the ancients related stuff, since the basic technology clearly existed (though what it was used for, I dunno), but its integrated into a lot of the present stuff where it doesn't even make sense. Like, okay, the boat at least vaguely resembles how you start a cheap motorboat. But why the hell did Chip's digging equipment have that stuff installed? Crystalgate posted:Unfortunate hope Given how it was supposed to be the prequel in a 'new, story-driven' universe, a minimal hope would have been establishing the status quo of the setting, rather than just... dropping you in when its internally and externally inconsistent on how that setting or its story works. At this point, this gif does a better job at summing up what this delivers: 
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2015 15:55
|
|
|
This game has the best use of shadows than it did Shadow.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2015 17:42
|
|
|
He's still in this game. When he does show up you'll wonder why he was even here though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
nendymion posted:He's still in this game. When he does show up you'll wonder why he was even here though. Although I protest that this game's use of shadows is any better than its use of Shadow. I mean did you see the drat 5FPS Egg Carrier shadow or the 2FPS Metal Sonic shadow?
|
|
#
?
Mar 5, 2015 03:47
|
|
|
Episode 15: Speed Sections and Boss Fights Do Not Mix A spectacular fight to the finish with Metal Sonic showcasing why the title of the video is the way it is! And then a sewer level!  (Not technically a sewer level but it gives off the feel of one)
ParTwo fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Mar 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 00:12
|
|
|
It's a giant island-wide waste treatment planet. It's basically a sewer. All the bad things about this game aside, I think the voice cast did a fine job with the script they were given. It's not their fault that the lines are stupid and repetitive.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 01:06
|
|
|
Chaltab posted:flarp&co have already gotten past that part, you don't need to spoiler it. He means even later. You'll see, and it will infuriate. But yeah, this section of the game. Metal Sonic's style of boss fight has been done better in the franchise, but its honestly the best of it you'll get from this game. Because at least you A) Actually get to do something other than run to the end and B) In a game that worked properly, he would actually have a decent range of abilities and various tells. But this is not a decent game, so instead he has too much health, the framerate causes response issues, and the scenery is so cluttered that you will hit something. Also that respawn glitch was unexpected and hilarious. Probably the biggest thing of note to me with the sewer treatment center is QNC, since the way the level treats it, the player is clearly supposed to know and at least be interested in this guy by this point. Possibly hung out with the group throughout the adventure (hence Sonic's remark on him getting everywhere when he's been nowhere up to this point) till he got axed for whatever reason. Why that happened, heck if I know. Maybe the game freaked out trying to have a fifth partner that nevertheless was also not playable (and didn't have the same basic animation).
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 02:02
|
|
|
Chaltab posted:I'm convinced there was a significant reshuffle late in the game's development. It would explain why the cutscenes are so janky and low quality even though they're pre-rendered and why the transitions between gameplay and cutscene are so abrupt and jarring. There's a ton of stuff to suggest that. Plot elements that were in the trailers are never even mentioned, the loving title of the game doesn't apply anymore (what is the Lost World? This generic place that is populated with people Sonic already knows? That doesn't sound very lost...), there are continuity gaps between cutscenes, and plot elements are resolved without ever being set up. It's a mess Astro Nut posted:And this is where you can basically confirm that the different teams behind the two games and and the show were not talking to each other, at all. Or even within themselves, in this case. It's part that and part that the game developers probably had to shift their design paradigm midway through development while also dealing with budgets being cut and team members being reorganized as Sega lost confidence in the project after its reveal was met with criticism. Augus fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 13, 2015 |
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 02:06
|
|
|
And with the final video of this recording session, the Words That Must Not Be Spoken were spoken. Episode 16: It Couldn't Possibly Get Worse, Right?
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 21:38
|
|
|
While the game is very flawed in a lot of ways. I donno the "soak it all in scene" was kind of nice. It built a sweet scene between Sonic and Amy, though ultimately superfluous it kind of gave some more character to both of them.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 05:33
|
|
|
I think the problem with that scene is that it's impact is kinda diminished when everyplace you go everyone seems in awe of where they are at even if it's a simple cave and they don't stop the game to make you appreciate it. But yeah it's kind of a character moment. You can also see how Sonic is clearly uncomfortable staying still during that seen too.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 07:21
|
|
|
It's definitely one of the less offensive scenes in the game, yeah. I'll freely admit at that point we were burning right the hell out. Unfortunately, it suffers the same problems as many other "good" scenes in the game; they're few and far between, and they often do not amount to much, if anything at all. By the by, we finished the game tonight. As a matter of fact, there was less game left than I expected; I was expecting another 3 hours of raw footage but it wound up being only 2. We're in the home stretch, folks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 07:38
|
|
|
Yeah it's easy to see that this game burns you out pretty quickly. Nothing wrong with that, but you're right it's like small nuggets of niceness doesn't really redeem the game, but it's still kinda nice to see it every once in a while.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 15:05
|
|
|
The cutscenes sure like showing the character's corpses in brief instances.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 15:23
|
|
|
Augus posted:It's part that and part that the game developers probably had to shift their design paradigm midway through development while also dealing with budgets being cut and team members being reorganized as Sega lost confidence in the project after its reveal was met with criticism.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 16:46
|
|
|
Crystalgate posted:I suspect they lost confidence for a good reason. I don't see any ideas in this game that could have turned out great had they had more time. Sega had to pick their poison and I'm not sure the other one would have done them any better. Augus posted:There's a ton of stuff to suggest that. Plot elements that were in the trailers are never even mentioned, the loving title of the game doesn't apply anymore (what is the Lost World? This generic place that is populated with people Sonic already knows? That doesn't sound very lost...), there are continuity gaps between cutscenes, and plot elements are resolved without ever being set up. It's a mess
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
Chaltab posted:Exactly. The technical problems and chopped-up story help make the game terrible, but even with a good story and smooth performance, you're looking at a passable-at-best game because the gameplay never commits to doing anything well. ...You know, thinking about it, what does the enerbeam actually do that wasn't already part of the franchise, or could've just been dropped for something else to add depth to the other mechanics? I mean, the enerbeam switches are just that - switches, and the game already has the green buttons, in some cases putting them together for redundancy. Rails? Sonic's been grinding for years on his own two feet, so nothing added there. That leaves the lasso, and honestly? That's a glorified grab, and as the game has demonstrated, not particularly interesting to use, given it stops the action entirely whilst you awkwardly shuffle about to try and aim. Its a mechanic that the game really has to justify after the fact, rather than it having much merit on its own.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:Its a mechanic that the game really has to justify after the fact, rather than it having much merit on its own. Compare that to Sonic Generations: The Spin Dash (which only young Sonic has) is sometimes used to open specific gates, but it's also a more general all-purpose game mechanic. It's an attack, it lets Sonic go fast without having to build up speed running like in the classic 2D games. The Homing Attack (which only adult Sonic has) is also used in a much more organic way; enemies themselves are platforms, or things that make sense to exist in the world space like balloons. It's not used to gate segments off and say "Only older Sonic can go here" but it's integrated into every aspect of that Sonic's level design.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 04:24
|
|
|
Chaltab posted:Uh... This is Sonic Boom, not Sonic Lost World. Whoops, kinda got my wires crossed there a bit... But really, the reveal trailers all have the characters saying things like "What is this lost civilization?" and "this is paradise", and other stuff, and the whole concept behind the game was that Sonic and his friends are exploring a lost civilization. In the game? They explore some ruins, I guess, but this lost civilization is bowhere to be seen and the hub world is clearly populated by normal
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 06:58
|
|
|
I'm still getting over the fact that the way that they decided to make Amy "unique" was a triple jump and the ability to lock herself into 2D platforming segments in a normally 3D space that she can sometimes escape into. Her hammer is never used in any interesting ways, it's just a weapon for her to use to bash robots around.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 07:05
|
|
|
Astro Nut posted:...You know, thinking about it, what does the enerbeam actually do that wasn't already part of the franchise, or could've just been dropped for something else to add depth to the other mechanics?
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 11:49
|
|
|
Episode 17: Nothing Surprises Me Anymore It's at this point where I try to tell myself to not ask questions anymore. I don't think I ultimately succeed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 19:07
|
|
|
Wow, so any effort that this game might've had has now entirely disappeared. Nothing there made sense. Areas that don't connect to each other, characters getting randomly separated...it's like they forgot a part of the game between the speed section and the separated characters one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 17:29 |
|
|
This seems to be the point where Sega said "alright, change of plans; we rush this game for Christmas." This was also the point where you could skip to super fast by using the Knuckles jump glitch.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2015 06:01
|
|