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Honestly, v bold of Sega to release a 60$ music album with a free videogame included. Fun Sonic Facts! Work on the 'Sonic the Hedgehog' project began in earnest early 2005 and it didn’t take more than two months before SEGA demanded the team have a closed door presentation ready for the press at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) that year. Since the game was pre-alpha, combined with the complex nature of the Havok physics engine and the fact that no one on the team had any experience working in HD, there was no feasible way to have a gameplay demo ready for E3. SEGA higher-ups wouldn't budge, so the team did the smart thing and put together a quick tech demo showcasing the visual style and general tone they were going for with the title. In the video, which surfaced online shortly after E3, Sonic runs through a thick forest, leaping out over a large green field before entering a small temple-ish structure which would later be reused in the final game. In here, depending on which presentation you saw that day, Sonic would either look around in first person mode, or SEGA would demonstrate the footage being real time by tossing out boxes of rings into the room. This would also later be reused in the final game for Tails' attack, for reasons unknown. After the first person section, various far-more-humanoid-than-usual robots drop in and Sonic leaps onto them before outrunning their fire and bouncing out of the temple onto a large grass field. Then, in flies a newly redesigned Egg Carrier. It drops in several more robots that gun down Sonic in a weirdly brutal sequence before Sonic leaps up from the ground, turns into Super Sonic and rams into the crowd of robots, ending the demo. It was a powerful demonstration and honestly worked out quite well. The general buzz in May 2005 was very positive, and the demo is often still brought up as an example of what a modern Sonic game could be like. So after a successful E3 it was time to get back to work. The team now had a set standard to aim for and it was clear they would have to present live gameplay sooner rather than later, as Sonic's 15th anniversary was looming on the horizon. This is also where it was decided that the game was going to launch on three separate platforms, Xbox 360 (the original target), with two ports to the PS3... and the Wii. Whose specs the team hadn't actually seen yet but merrily assumed would be on par with the PS3's. Heavy Sigh fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Sep 15, 2021 |
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Sep 15, 2021 18:07
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Heavy Sigh posted:Honestly, v bold of Sega to release a 60$ music album with a free videogame included. Tails attacking with dummy ring bombs has precedent - it's his attack if both Sonic and Knuckles are unavailable to throw in Heroes.
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Sep 15, 2021 20:12
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I just wanna chime in and say I'm enjoying this LP so far! It's nice to see a Sonic 06 run that isn't entirely bitter and actually has some understanding of WHY some things suck and HOW to mitigate the suck. That emulator glitch on the beach was also pretty funny.
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Sep 15, 2021 21:02
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Heavy Sigh posted:Honestly, v bold of Sega to release a 60$ music album with a free videogame included. Yeah from what I know about the development of Sonic 06, most of the blame can be laid squarely on SEGA's absolute insane expectations, terrible management and siphoning developers off to work on the Wii Sonic games and refusing to replace them despite HD game development being a lot more complex than previous gaming generations. It's... franky a miracle the game is even beatable in its current state.
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Sep 15, 2021 22:23
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Kikas posted:The train one? That one is the worst in the game for a lot of reasons. Hell, I'd say Radical Train is one of the worst levels period, but that's not by design, it just exemplifies so many bad things about the controls. Yeah, I think it was Radical Train. Pokecapn didnt really do editing, so it was a video and a half of him constantly loving up that section it ruled
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Sep 16, 2021 00:10
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 Egg-Cerberus I used to hate this boss because it feels extremely inconsistent. Once I realized how it works, I upgraded it to "it's just bad, but I can do it at least". It's still somewhere in the soggy middle of bosses in this game because honestly, they all suck. Even knowing the method, it's still pretty inconsistent because they did manage to program a passable "wrangle a wild animal" simulator, which I hope I don't have to tell you feels like rear end to control. But don't let my griping distract you, apart from some hilarity I of course had to leave in, the video is clean and you might think it's just fine! Music Egg-Cerberus & Egg-Genesis
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Sep 16, 2021 20:26
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Heavy Sigh posted:This is also where it was decided that the game was going to launch on three separate platforms, Xbox 360 (the original target), with two ports to the PS3...
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Sep 16, 2021 21:05
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DMorbid posted:As far as I know, the PS3 was the main development platform, although in the west the 360 port was marketed more prominently. Actually, that isn't true. Sonic 06 was originally revealed in a press-only demonstration at E3 in 2005, running on the newly announced Xbox 360. There's actually a video of it on youtube, leaked via ancient flip phone video, showing numerous Sega tech demos running on early 360 hardware, including Chrome Hounds, Afterburner Climax, Virtua Fighter 5, House of the Dead 4, and Sonic 06. You can hear the presenter talking about how some of the games are Xbox 360 exclusives. As far as my research could turn up, Sonic 06 was originally developed on the Xbox 360, as Sonic Team was struggling with the PS3. This struggle was endemic for a lot of developers, to the point where the PS3 was usually the lead platform just because it was much easier to port from PS3 to 360, thanks to the overcomplicated architecture of Sony’s console and its limited RAM. However, the 360 was so much easier to work with that most developers tried to do it the hard way, especially early in the HD Era since it often took way less effort to get an Xbox 360 build up and running well.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:04
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Still catching up, but I'm enjoying this, Simon! Sonic 06 is such a pillar of bad games that you rarely see anyone go in-depth on how it works and what's in it, or to dig in deep and try to 'understand' it. There's been some discussion about bad Sonic games and where 06 ranks, and I'll maintain that I had far less fun playing Heroes than I did this. Part of that may be that 06 controls like a broken version of Adventure 1+2, which I grew up on so I could adapt to it, and Heroes controls like getting thrown off a bridge. Also: the best thing about that gap you need Antigravity to slide through? Once you've bought the upgrade and the invisible wall despawns, you can just run under it. It's not even low enough to require the slide. This game is art. With a capital F.
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Sep 16, 2021 22:15
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Heavy Sigh posted:Actually, that isn't true.  (I'd just watched his What Happened episode on Sonic '06 maybe an hour before that post)The 360 being the lead platform because its hardware architecture wasn't designed by a madman does make a lot of sense.
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Sep 17, 2021 10:28
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Ah you've hit it, the forbidden speedrun technique. Missed Homing Attack, I think, is exclusive to 06. Didn't know it could happen in Egg Cerberus tho, I've only seen it on Wave Ocean, Flame Core and Aquatic Base. I mean it does actually have it's use there.
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Sep 17, 2021 10:35
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By the way, I've increased voice and game audio significantly again for the Egg-C video, is it okay now?DMorbid posted:I can't believe Matt McMuscles lied to me like that! I've seen that "history of" clip rec'd by YT, is it good? ThornBrain posted:Still catching up, but I'm enjoying this, Simon! Sonic 06 is such a pillar of bad games that you rarely see anyone go in-depth on how it works and what's in it, or to dig in deep and try to 'understand' it. a) I was playing it at the time b) raocow was playing it at the time and you can definitely have too much Heroes in your life. I've played Heroes last of almost all 3D Sonics because people kept saying it was just so drat bad, and found it to be...okay? Maybe all the negative word of mouth made me expect something irredeemable. I think the controls are fine, if a bit stiff and often clunky. Like with 06 and Shadow, if you understand the game's language, you can learn to play it just fine. It helps that I knew all those other 3D Sonic controls by the point I reached Heroes, and therefore knew how to adapt to janky engines. Kikas posted:Ah you've hit it, the forbidden speedrun technique. Missed Homing Attack, I think, is exclusive to 06. Didn't know it could happen in Egg Cerberus tho, I've only seen it on Wave Ocean, Flame Core and Aquatic Base. I mean it does actually have it's use there. Anthony Looyen has offered a wonderful explanation on what happened at the end of the Egg-C video, and I'm happy to share it here for anyone who (understandably) doesn't read YT comments: quote:I shouldn't be surprised Simon found a pattern to this after he found two patterns for Dive Man. Egg Cerberus has always been that 'meh' boss fight I never cared about, so getting to see someone actually figure out a legitimate strategy for it is rather interesting!
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Sep 17, 2021 10:40
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DMorbid posted:I can't believe Matt McMuscles lied to me like that! Thing is, he's not entirely wrong in saying the PS3 port was the main version, because as development of 06 trudged on, it ended up that, despite being a port, it sucked up enough development resources that it essentially became the main version.
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Sep 17, 2021 15:57
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Dabir posted:Tails attacking with dummy ring bombs has precedent - it's his attack if both Sonic and Knuckles are unavailable to throw in Heroes. Of course, in Heroes they had the good idea to make the fake rings much darker in color so you could tell them apart, which they did not do here. It's me, I'm the Heroes defender. No track in this game is half as good as Mystic Mansion 
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Sep 17, 2021 16:57
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Procrastine posted:Of course, in Heroes they had the good idea to make the fake rings much darker in color so you could tell them apart, which they did not do here. Same, I love Heroes (although it's certainly not a good game) and the sheer hatred towards it feels really weird to me. It's not that awful.
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Sep 17, 2021 17:51
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It had a lot riding on it as the first big Third Party Sonic game and it was riding in the shadow of SA(B)2. It was kinda hosed from the off, unfortunately. That it had some very lousy voice direction only made matters worse.
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Sep 17, 2021 18:24
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Considering that Heroes had one level designer drop out extremely early and put all the design work on the shoulders of a singular other one, who iirc almost killed himself working on the game, makes it imho all the more impressive that there's some pretty fun and entertaining sequences in a sea of mediocrity and copy-paste Hats off to that guy imo
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Sep 17, 2021 19:26
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Simply Simon posted:Considering that Heroes had one level designer drop out extremely early and put all the design work on the shoulders of a singular other one, who iirc almost killed himself working on the game, makes it imho all the more impressive that there's some pretty fun and entertaining sequences in a sea of mediocrity and copy-paste That was Heroes' Director, Takashi Iizuka himself actually! The other level designer dropped out for health reasons, which is rather ironic considering that it forced so much additional work onto Iizuka that he was unable to sleep or eat properly for about three months, to the point that he lost 22 pounds, and in his own mind, was on the verge of dying before the game shipped. To this day, Iizuka still thinks of Heroes as the most stressful part of his career. Heavy Sigh fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Sep 17, 2021 |
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Sep 17, 2021 20:08
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Sep 18, 2021 21:59
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 Dusty Desert This level rules. There's so much stuff to find: various extremely different paths you can take, cool exploration for Silver Medals, awesome homing attack chains, insane shortcuts... It's an excellent second level, mostly let down by having to carry Elise - which is mostly an aesthetic problem, because she currently only prevents you from using moves you'd never use anyway (Spindash, kick). It's way worse later, when she prevents the Bounce and all the super broken gems. The other issue it has is "being in Sonic 2006", because all that awesome poo poo I pull off in the video? Yeah a first-timer is never going to be able to do that without a clear understanding of what's possible despite the engine being as it is, and what its strict limitations are. Things I like about this level: - shortcuts, shortcuts, shortcuts - exploration is extremely rewarding - if you go the right way, Elise is more like a safety cushion than a required mechanic for progress - the game never demands that you sit on a platform surrounded by sand, waiting for the meter to recharge (that's Silver design lol) - if you don't like a segment, there's like three ways to avoid it - combat is mostly optional but if you choose to do it, it's either cool (sliding through a bunch of enemies, woo) or quickly dealt with - cinematic as hell, especially in the shortcuts - no loading screen mid-level! Things I dislike about this level: - the wallrunning segment is godawful, as they all are. This one stands out because you can't see poo poo in advance and its borders are very loosely defined. I have never ever reached the end to get the ring trail - you can get turned around a lot at the beginning section and wonder if you're missing a Medal or progress - some of the shortcuts plain don't work - the platforms that come out of the wall are hilarious in how useless they are as an obstacle, but they're only tolerable because you can skip them in about three different ways AND you can obsolete them by going on the side. They'd be torture if mandatory Things I used to hate but I learned how to deal: - finding my way: it's relatively clear to me now where you go (somewhat to the front left of the starting direction), but for the first few times, it's easy to get lost - that terrible too-low camera after climbing the final wall of the spiral - generally how to aim you homing attacks, how to deal with the Big Boy robots, this level profits a LOT from engine experience Music Act 1: Quicksand No loading screen means no Act change. Silver plays only the second Act! Only Shadow plays both. Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Nov 1, 2021 |
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Sep 20, 2021 22:16
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Fun Sonic Facts! So! At this point in development, summer has started, Naka has begun imagining a life outside SEGA, E3 is over, and the Tokyo Game Show is looming in September. Sonic Team, therefore, buckles down to get to work on something presentable. The skeleton of the story has begun to fit together and some early platforming levels have been whipped up to test the physics. While the team is fighting to get to grips with the new hardware and have pretty much had to recreate everything from previous 3D Sonic games from scratch, it’s something everyone expected, and was still surmountable by mere mortals. After all, they were only expecting to release Sonic 06 on PS3, Xbox 360, and...the Wii? Yes, it sounds rather silly, but it’s actually true. As development began, they assumed it would be easy to port a PlayStation 3 game over to Nintendo's Revolution, since the reverse had been perfectly doable back in the Gamecube days with Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. Once the team actually got their hands on the specs for the dev units however, things changed. VERY quickly, Ogawa, the director of the entire Sonic 2006 project, saw that getting a PS3 game running on the Wii would need his full attention, and decided to split the development team and take charge of the part responsible for porting the game to Nintendo’s system. In order to do this, the team focusing on core development for the actual launch platform was not only gutted further...It was left without a Director. Faced with such an idiotic decision by top staff, directorial duties were thrown onto Shun Nakamura, the only person available with even token directing experience. Now, he was faced with not only having to continue his old duties, but also to pick up Ogawa's pieces, wrangle a gutted team into throwing something together for TGS, and keep up steady communications with Ogawa's team, since they were still working on the same game and could thus share at least some notes and resources. ...At least until Ogawa decided that porting to Wii was completely impossible and that he would just make an entirely new game instead of just recombining the teams. One wonders why SEGA higher ups even let this happen in the first place, but it was likely due to both misunderstanding the new scope and required resources of HD development, as well as wanting Sonic plastered over everything possible for his grand 'rebirth', quality be damned.
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Sep 20, 2021 22:28
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Wait so what was the new game for the Wii? Secret Rings?
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Sep 21, 2021 09:12
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Yeah Secret Rings began life as the Wii port of 06 before they realized it wasn’t going to work.
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Sep 21, 2021 12:30
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Personally, I'm glad that they pulled manpower including the loving boss himself, to make a game literally nobody has ever spoken positively about, instead of realizing all of 06's potential
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Sep 21, 2021 12:39
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Simply Simon posted:Personally, I'm glad that they pulled manpower including the loving boss himself, to make a game literally nobody has ever spoken positively about, instead of realizing all of 06's potential Now I don't think that's a fair statement, Simply Simon. How can we accurately evaluate the quality of their investment if we're so dismissive? You need to find out that you can emulate it, put a few online sessions on with a buddy, and realize: hey, I'm actually good at this now. And it's actually kinda fun? And then do a 100% LP of it for us.
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Sep 22, 2021 00:21
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Simply Simon posted:Personally, I'm glad that they pulled manpower including the loving boss himself, to make a game literally nobody has ever spoken positively about, instead of realizing all of 06's potential So you don't count Crush 40 tribute band Squish 20 singing MAKE BELIEVE REBORN-ORN-orn-ornorn as a positive thing?
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Sep 22, 2021 00:41
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I can't see how Secret Rings could be fun even if you're good at it.
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Sep 22, 2021 00:52
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Hunh, Dusty Desert actually does have a lot more going on than I gave it credit for. The Elise-carrying gimmick makes it feel like more of an outlier than it actually is, and I think the fact it's fairly easy (outside of blind jumps into instant death planes) makes it easy to forget in contrast to some of the more infamous levels. Sonic 2006 is interesting to me. I'm hosed up enough that I consider Shadow the Hedgehog not even all that bad (and admirably, if perhaps in-advisably, ambitious), but '06 was broken enough I couldn't keep playing despite seeing a sliver of... not really 'potential' per se, but like, the lingering giblets of interesting game design and genuine inspiration that are still scattered here and there.
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Sep 22, 2021 07:06
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as someone who has familiarized himself with this game, op, perhaps you and other Sonic 2006 experts itt could help me parse just what the hell the phrase “the winder of a shoemaker” even means I know each individual word but I do not get how they make any sense together  did something get mistranslated?
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Sep 22, 2021 09:55
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I haven't played Secret Rings, but I did play Black Knight and I've rarely experienced such a joyless game. I have no idea how you can squeeze fun from that stone. You go in a line and waggle. Sometimes you get stuck in a dumb way and have to back Sonic up like he's a moving truck. Always except him to start beeping. Stupid, stupid game. But yeah the theme song owns SatansOnion posted:as someone who has familiarized himself with this game, op, perhaps you and other Sonic 2006 experts itt could help me parse just what the hell the phrase “the winder of a shoemaker” even means  . Someone on another forum explained it: it's misspelled because it should be the wonder of a shoemaker, and it's also mistranslated because it should be more like "the wondrous shoemaker".
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Sep 22, 2021 10:39
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Those shortcuts are a surprise, but at the same time it also feels like most players would never find them.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:55
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This level has a decent layout but it kinda highlights one of the big problems with Sonic 06. Even when you're speeding through a stage and taking all the shortcuts, the game never feels fast-paced. When you're not hitting scripted elements like rainbow rings, boost pads, and spring, Sonic doesn't have many ways to build up speed and most actions kill your momentum. Every time you homing attack an enemy Sonic just hangs in the air and then lazily floats downwards. It's just a very sleepy game. Funny enough when playing through Project 06 this was actually one of my least favorite stages because it limits your mobility options by making you carry Elise and in P-06 your mobility options are actually good and fun.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:00
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PurpleXVI posted:Those shortcuts are a surprise, but at the same time it also feels like most players would never find them. Augus posted:This level has a decent layout but it kinda highlights one of the big problems with Sonic 06. Even when you're speeding through a stage and taking all the shortcuts, the game never feels fast-paced. When you're not hitting scripted elements like rainbow rings, boost pads, and spring, Sonic doesn't have many ways to build up speed and most actions kill your momentum. Every time you homing attack an enemy Sonic just hangs in the air and then lazily floats downwards. It's just a very sleepy game.
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Sep 22, 2021 19:02
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the storybook games are charming and delightful in just about every way other than actual gameplay. and as unfortunate as the gameplay is, I'm glad the devs never gave up on the idea of mach speed because they led to the 3d boost games
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Sep 22, 2021 20:05
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I've seen so many different people fail at Sonic '06 over the years, I may have a problem considering I'm now following yet another Sonic '06 LP. But well, I'm mostly here for interesting development facts this time, so it isn't like I'm seriously unwell or anything!!!
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Sep 23, 2021 10:55
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you will never see me fail Anyway I did a big recording session this evening, how did it go? Well it gave me food for thought. Preview from a rant on discord quote:Once again I'm amazed by Sonic 06's structure Silver fight will come first, though - soon. Just have to do the talkin', but not tonight - it's late.
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Sep 24, 2021 22:10
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Everyone posted:
 I suddenly feel like I'm in danger...Don't get me wrong, I don't think Secret Rings was amazing or anything, I just really enjoyed it at the time. I might not feel that way now, but I did at the time.
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Sep 25, 2021 23:27
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There's nothing wrong with liking a game, friend Update hopefully later today.
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Sep 26, 2021 06:51
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 Silver the Hedgehog This boss is a joke if you know what you're doing, but getting to that point is an arduous process that has been immortalized in many other Let's Plays. My failure showcase at the start is only scratching the surface of what can go wrong. Sorry for what feels like a 90% cutscene video. It features the cringe one where they are on the Windows XP background! Music Vs. Character This track is actually really good Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Sep 26, 2021 |
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Sep 26, 2021 11:30
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Sonic 06 is a piece of poo poo but I appreciate you taking time to understand its underlying mechanics. I say this as a person who played Left Alive and even liked it to some extent.
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Sep 26, 2021 15:53
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