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 Alternative boxart courtesy of petrol blue Welcome to the world of Sonic Boom, a new spin-off franchise off of, well, Sonic the Hedgehog. This right here, Rise of Lyric, is part of that new franchise, and is probably the low point of the whole thing. I feel confident in calling this game the next "universally despised" Sonic game since Sonic 2006, as it has been panned by almost everyone who's played it. The 3DS game that released alongside it on November 11th, 2014 in North America, Shattered Crystal, was also bad, but we're not really here to give that game the spotlight (though we will be talking about it at times in the videos). Fun fact, these two games were released a mere 10 days before Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire AND Super Smash Bros for Wii U would hit store shelves in NA, and Lyric was already shaping up to be pretty bad from its gameplay presentation at E3 2014. While I can't say for certain if it was the case, I had a feeling these games would not end up doing well on release just because some of Nintendo's major cash cows were coming up around the same time. Wikipedia posted:Los Angeles based game studio Big Red Button developed the game under supervision by Sonic Team and long-time Sonic game designer Takashi Iizuka. The game was built on CryEngine and is centered on "combat and exploration". Sega outsourced the game to Western developers in order to increase the game's appeal in Western markets, culminating in a separate westernized Sonic franchise. The video game concept came after the television series plan. Big Red Button was chosen due to the studio's adventure game portfolio and leader, Bob Rafei of the Crash Bandicoot, Uncharted, and Jak and Daxter series. The game remains a separate continuity to the main series, and was originally not intended to be released in Japan. However, it was later revealed that the games would be released in Japan, under the name Sonic Toon. Sounds like a perfect recipe for a great game! What could possibly go wrong?  Wikipedia posted:On the first day of release, a glitch was discovered that allowed players to jump to infinite heights by pausing the game during Knuckles' jump, which can be used to bypass most of the game. Speedrunners managed to beat the game in under an hour using the glitch. ...Oh...  Yeah, the game is a broken mess, but not quite in the same way as Sonic 2006. The game looks ugly for the Wii U, suffers from pop-in, loses frames from the most innocent of tasks, and has a load of technical problems about it, but it's definitely more "functional" than Sonic 2006. Unfortunately, this means there aren't quite as many side-splittingly hilarious glitches to find and mess around with, aside from Knuckles' moonjump. Add to that a very dull and unsatisfying combat system, spice in a plot that does not try to set the scene to explain what's even going on and get worse from there, maybe throw in a few gameplay gimmicks that range from "pointless" to "kinda fun at times", and you've got one hell of a game, here. There's also one other tiny complaint that this game has that Sonic 2006 is lacking. THE CHARACTERS NEVER SHUT UP. Every time you pick up anything or execute any action, the characters will start talking about whatever it is that triggered it. Sometimes they'll do it in rapid enough succession that they'll cut themselves off to start a new line, or they'll comment on the same thing multiple times. Sometimes they'll even comment on something completely unrelated! Tails is easily the worst of the bunch, because he's written to use big words and complicated sentences when he could have just said "breakable wall!" and got his point across a lot faster. The end result is a game that solidly fails in almost every category, and now has the reputation of being one of the worst games of 2014. The LP
Spoiler Policy: Spoiler tag any plot stuff or gameplay stuff that hasn't happened or been discussed in the actual videos yet. All other forms of Sonic Boom are completely fair game. I have no plans, capability, or desire to cover Shattered Crystal, and the TV series and comics are fairly removed from Rise of Lyric's plot as far as I'm aware, so go hog wild with that if you want. Videos Episode 1: Knuckles Needs Help Episode 2: The Most Rude World Episode 3: Gamepad Shenanigans Episode 4: A Loose Definition of "Puzzle" Episode 5: THEY DO EXIST Episode 6: I Hate Time Travel Episode 7: Two Hours Episode 8: New Patch, New Problems Episode 9: Why is Knuckles Driving? Episode 10: Alaskan Drill Worm Episode 11: Shiny Objects Episode 12: Rocky Road Episode 13: No Direction, No Hint, No Hope Episode 14: Button of Robot Obedience Episode 15: Speed Sections and Boss Fights Do Not Mix Episode 16: It Couldn't Possibly Get Worse, Right? Episode 17: Nothing Surprises Me Anymore Episode 18: Scrambled Egg Episode 19: I Miss Sky Sanctuary Episode 20: The True Villain Finale: What Is Your Deal?! ParTwo fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 07:46
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Characters Sonic The Hedgehog: Way past cool. The events of this game are all his fault and ONLY his fault. At least, as far as everyone else but him is concerned. He's slowed down a bit so he doesn't just leave his "friends" in the dust while exploring wherever we are. I'd call him the second best character for combat for his homing attack. Miles "Tails" Prower: Is it made of metal and runs on electricity? Tails knows everything about it. No exceptions. Even alien tech he should have never encountered before he can reverse engineer into an energy lasso. He probably owns multiple thesauruses, given his fondness for big and complicated words. He's also the most broken combat character in the game solely for being a ranged specialist with an automated combo machine. He's tied with Amy for being the best at general platforming, being better at traveling far distances than high heights. Amy Rose: Surprisingly not just here to be a creepy stalker. She's become quite acrobatic and is a bona-fide archaeologist, and this...wherever we are happens to have a lot of dusty old poo poo that's right up her alley. She still has her giant hammer, not that it makes her any more effective in combat. In fact, I think she's the worst at combat, though still certainly passable, since combat is only tedious in this game, not hard. Also, she has the most unsettling facial animations and a triple jump, making her the best at getting to higher ledges. Knuckles The Echidna: Traded in several of his Intelligence points for extra Strength and Constitution in this universe and then missed leg day. Notably he's also grown actual fingers. Despite easily slotting into the "Dumb Muscle" archetype, I'd say he's only a little better than Amy for combat. His platforming skills are also the least interesting, since he doesn't really put his strength to use in puzzles, just his usual ability to climb poo poo. Cliff: "Not cool, Sonic." He's an archaeologist and is on exposition duty. He didn't know he was missin'. Q.N.C./"Quincy": A robot that exists to guide you around sometimes. He was created by Lyric, and gained free will by the time this game rolled around. He doesn't like Lyric. I'm completely convinced he's secretly evil all along. MAIA: An old robot created by Lyric that decided he was an awful boss or something. Enabled Time Travel for this story. Has a smartass subroutine. Dr. Robotnik/"Eggman": A vaguely egg shaped man hellbent on taking over the world with robots. He has a better sense of humor than Lyric and is more capable of banter. He soon becomes one of Lyric's henchmen. Temporarily, but still. Lyric: A cyborg snake hellbent on taking over the world with ro-wait, are we talking about Lyric or Eggman? He's the main antagonist and has unfinished business with Sonic. Must've been finished by the time both video games were up, because he's yet to make an appearance in the TV show despite that this game and Shattered Crystal happen before the show. He got sick from loving with the Crystals and only failed to die due to his cyborg suit; no medicine the Ancients had could cure him. Now he's got a vendetta against all organic life and wants to destroy and rebuild the world in a robotic image. Metal Sonic: A robot version of Sonic made by Eggman. Hates doors. Shadow The Hedgehog: A palette swap of Sonic of unknown origin. Angry, hates friendship and teamwork, and is completely irrelevant to anything that's going on in the plot.Other Stuff Perhaps the best moment of the whole game. (Thanks PoptartsNinja!) petrol blue provides a visual summary of the game's dialogue. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Mar 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 07:47
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I was actually completely unaware of the patch. When we first put the game into my Wii U, the game just started loading immediately, so I think our first recording session is unpatched. Not entirely sure on that, but if we actually were playing on the patched version, it really didn't do enough. Still, I guess they tried? Too bad the damage was already done. e: It definitely was unpatched, because the patch came out AFTER we did our first recording session. I haven't patched the game yet, so I guess I'll need to decide whether or not to continue playing the game with it or not. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Jan 20, 2015 |
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Jan 20, 2015 16:20
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It's certainly not an inherently bad direction, but I'm not entirely convinced it was handled the best in this particular game. I will admit the character interactions are probably the most enjoyable thing about the game, and Sonic was already kinda headed in this less serious and more whimsical direction anyway if Colors through Lost World's writing is any indication. We might end up being a little harsh at times just because it's still surrounded by everything else about the game we take issue with, but even if the game manages to get a few chuckles out of me here and there, remember that I'm still getting reminders every few seconds about how awesome rings are. I'll probably find some time to sit down and watch an episode or two of the TV show to see if I'd enjoy that, at least. From what little I've seen of that, I think I'd like it a lot more than either of the games.
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Jan 20, 2015 18:22
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I was thinking of linking that myself, thanks for saving me the trouble. Sonic Unleashed's werehog segments had only one major issue for me: dragging on a bit too long. I still managed to enjoy the combat in that game to a degree since you had more options and combos aside from "mash Y for combos, use X for special attacks." This game's combat is notably worse. Though, yes, instead of watching that past the frame-by-frame in the intro, how about a second video from me so we can actually see what co-op does to this game. Really the main reason I'm having this video up so soon after posting the first is because I really want to show what happens at the end of this video. Episode 2: The Most Rude World This is also where we hit one of my first major complaints on the plot: Tails, Knuckles, and Amy just start completely making GBS threads on Sonic for trying to get his supposed friends out of harm's way. There was Metal Sonic, Eggman not far behind, and roughly 100 or so robots about to come down at them all at once, and Sonic can open a door to a potentially safer place, but hesitates twice because Amy's getting bad vibes about it, then believes the 4 of them can take a small army with their general fighting in the mix. While it turns out she's right about the fact that it's a bad place, nobody had ANY ACTUAL WAY OF KNOWING that Lyric was there, nor that they would break the seal on him by trying to leave. Somehow, Sonic's actions and intent have him pegged by EVERYONE to be the SOLE cause of the main villain getting unleashed upon the world, despite the fact that he couldn't have possibly gotten completely through the ruins without the aid of all of his companions. Also, the yelling at Sonic about being trapped doesn't happen until AFTER all the platforming bits happen. Really, the whole cutscene rubs me the wrong way, and they're going to spend another few cutscenes giving Sonic the evil eye after it.
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Jan 20, 2015 20:37
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^I'll try to take that and any future criticisms into consideration for the next recording session. We wound up recording almost 2 and a half hours of footage for the first session, so it'll be a few videos before we can really apply it, but I'll keep it in mind. Our stopping point was the end of the first time traveling segment, so after that I'll see if we can't smooth things out.
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Jan 20, 2015 22:56
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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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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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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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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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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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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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^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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Let me tell you, I forgot just how much is wrong with the gameplay of this video. I remembered the big thing that happens within the first five minutes, but uh...I'm going to put a little warning that you might want to be careful around the 11:30 mark in the video if you easily get motion sickness. Episode 7: Two Hours This here marks the end of the first recording session. I'm going to aim to get the second one done tomorrow.
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Feb 8, 2015 08:41
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(Un?)Fortunately, we might not be getting as many of these broken moments from this point forward, since I discovered that the patch auto-downloaded onto my Wii U at some point. I don't expect the game to be redeemed by it, but things will become a bit more tolerable, since one of the big things they fixed was the navigation arrows. At the very least our sense of direction will improve!
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Feb 8, 2015 17:41
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Chaltab posted:It's an interesting compare and contrast situation. 2006 is more outright broken. The glitches are constant, some mechanics like the Machspeed levels outright do not work. It also has the entire Princess Elise subplot, which is just outright laughable. It feels like Sonic characters intruded into a JRPG world. But both the gonzo story and the constant glitches are kind of hilarious in their own right, while the gameplay itself is a case of huge ambition cut short to meet a deadline. There's a lot of variety in the gameplay, but the shoddy controls and bugs make success or failure a crapshoot. It's more or less for this exact reason that I personally feel Sonic 06 has the dubious honor of being more enjoyable to go through than Sonic Boom. For me, the key is having fun. The fun I'm having playing Sonic Boom is being able to riff on the game with a friend; if I were playing single player, I would have lasted maybe half an hour before switching to another game because of how boring the gameplay is. Sonic 06 managed to keep my attention throughout the whole game by being less functional and getting more laughs out of me due to absurd story and even more absurd glitches. Hell, as was mentioned in the first video, I even managed to rope Steven and two or three other friends into playing Sonic 06 from start to finish. Sonic 06 was an experience I would be okay with repeating. In contrast, Sonic Boom is getting wiped from my Wii U in its entirety as soon as I'm done with the LP. I already know I will have no desire to play the game a second time with or without a co-op partner.
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Feb 9, 2015 00:49
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The patch didn't make anything better.  Episode 8: New Patch, New Problems
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Feb 9, 2015 18:07
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Today, I'd like to pose to you all a simple question. Episode 9: Why is Knuckles Driving?
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Feb 11, 2015 20:24
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You know, if you didn't, I probably would have. ManlyGrunting posted:The really sad thing is that I could have sworn that a Sonic game had done the casual dialogue thing better, and I realized it was loving Sonic Heroes. I actually liked Heroes for the most part, though Team Chaotix could gently caress off for all I cared, because SOME MISSIONS were incredibly infuriating with them. We got "What I'm Made Of" out of it and I liked the whole direction the gameplay took. Again, discounting Chaotix. ...You know, now that I think about it, you could probably argue that Sonic Heroes is a "more competent" Rise of Lyric. I've started to draw a few more parallels and in almost every category Sonic Heroes beats out Rise of Lyric. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 08:38
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Episode 10: Alaskan Drill Worm I have no witty commentary for this video. There's a boss fight in it, I guess.
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Feb 13, 2015 22:38
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Episode 11: Shiny Objects We finally meet Sticks here! She's completely inconsequential to everything!
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Feb 15, 2015 18:44
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Episode 12: Rocky Road Perhaps the worst NPC interaction in the game right here. Also they're terrifying. 
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Feb 18, 2015 19:06
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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 
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Feb 19, 2015 05:45
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^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.
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Feb 19, 2015 17:54
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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)
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Feb 27, 2015 19:27
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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 |
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Mar 13, 2015 00:12
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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?
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Mar 13, 2015 21:38
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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.
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Mar 14, 2015 07:38
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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.
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Mar 15, 2015 07:05
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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.
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Mar 16, 2015 19:07
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Episode 18: Scrambled Egg Video isn't quite done processing at time of post. Time for a climactic battle with Eggman!
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Mar 18, 2015 19:55
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I love it. Re: the fight, honestly it just shows that the team really only had three ideas for boss battles. There's this type, where you enerbeam stuff at it until it falls over, so you can beat it up. This is every boss except Metal Sonic (A boss in a Speed section) and Shadow (really an all out brawl more than anything else). Combined with the fact that it's so difficult to die in this game, I honestly barely register these bosses as boss fights anymore at this point. ParTwo fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Mar 19, 2015 |
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Mar 19, 2015 03:58
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Episode 19: I Miss Sky Sanctuary We answer one question, but raise so many others...
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Mar 20, 2015 17:33
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This is it, our final battle, split into two videos for length. With this, we can put Rise of Lyric to rest. Fun fact: Youtube is offering to fix the first of these two videos because it's "shaky." Episode 20: The True Villain Finale: What Is Your Deal?! I don't really have any other plans for this thread, so I guess we can wind down with some final thoughts. Sonic Boom is not a game I can recommend to anyone. The gameplay was incredibly repetitive on all fronts, the voice cast may have done a decent job voicing their lines but the characters spouted these lines to an extent that's beyond excessive, the plot was a bit disjointed, and even in terms of how broken the game is, Sonic 06 beats it out for having much more humorous glitches and exploits to play around with. The co-op functionality would have been more interesting if it wasn't adding a ton more problems on top of what was already a broken game, and the multiplayer modes are not an improvement at all from the story mode. I'd actually call the multiplayer even worse than the story mode in terms of gameplay. As a series, Sonic Boom will probably begin and end with Lyric, Shattered Crystal, and the TV series. If it is allowed to continue existing, I would hope that future games would learn from the mistakes of Lyric and Crystal, but maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. As for me, I'm not so sure what I might tackle next. Regardless of what it is, it's going to be a lot more fun for me to work with than this game, which I never wish to touch again. Thanks for watching, everyone.
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Mar 22, 2015 23:26
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