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Sonic Boom |OT| Sonic 2014

The patch/DLC helps LW a lot. It looks and runs great, but there's something about the way Sonic jumps that feels awful

I agree. To the unfortunately bad 3DS version's credit, I think Sonic's jumping and parkour is much better and not as harsh and momentum breaking as his Wii U jumping.

Also on the DLC, I really enjoyed the Zelda one. It was short but sweet.
 
Yeah, it feels awful to control Sonic in that game. The 3DS game, from a different developer, feels a lot better.
Yeah, combining the 2 games (visuals/levels of the wii U version and jumping from the 3ds one) could've resulted in something neat.
I agree. To the unfortunately bad 3DS version's credit, I think Sonic's jumping and parkour is much better and not as harsh and momentum breaking as his Wii U jumping.

Also on the DLC, I really enjoyed the Zelda one. It was short but sweet.
Yeah, the parkour and jumps (combined with the homing attack) feel much better in the 3ds one.
The Nintendo DLC stages are functionally useful for improving the game too. Get lives from the Yoshi one and flikies from the Zelda one
 
As someone who just got through that area, that's a bit of a lie with a bad timed screenshot. It still looks a fair bit like that trailer, but without as smooth a framerate.

cVj5in5.jpg
.

Here's a screen I took during that area. Different location.

Dude that looks like a foggy obscured mess.

It looks like a giant mesch of hideous grey.
 
So SomeCallMeJohnny added his reviews for both games. Pretty accurate review.

Johnny vs. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric & Shattered …: http://youtu.be/L_bv-ptn8LM

If the true purpose of Sonic Boom was to make people appreciate Sonic Unleashed's combat a bit more, it's fucking working.

Also I've seen very few Shattered Crystal reviews. GameXplain seemed rather positive about it, but I still think it looks a little too bland.
 
I saw Giant Bomb play it, and Jeff and Dan were mocking it badly in a funny way. I was laughing the whole time at their reactions to the voice acting, such as, "launch pad!" I have no desire to play this. It's especially average for a Sonic game.

I wonder if the game title was chosen because of the Street fighter move.
 
I saw Giant Bomb play it, and Jeff and Dan were mocking it badly in a funny way. I was laughing the whole time at their reactions to the voice acting, such as, "launch pad!" I have no desire to play this. It's especially average for a Sonic game.

It hardly is a Sonic game. I even like bits of 06' and I refuse to play this mess. It's a bummer that it makes people think the Sonic cycle has returned when nobody thought this was going to be good in the first place.
 
So...I finally worked up my courage, and purchased Sonic off the ESHOP.

Make that Sonic Lost World. For months, I've been wanting to try it out...that Yoshi Story DLC especially...but couldn't bring myself to do it with the mixed-reception. But honestly, seeing Sonic Boom, I thought, well, it could be worse. About to play it right now...kind of nervous, haha. Hope I enjoy it a decent amount.

So, yeah, like I thought, Sonic Team's plan for Sonic Boom was to make their own games look more attractive, and for me, it worked.

Hope you enjoy it. While it's not a masterpiece, it hit a lot of the right notes for me. The jumping can get a little tasking but is pretty much remedied with the finesse style double jump. Oh, and don't endlessly hold the run button unless you're working on a speed run. Use it sparingly (long stretches or areas you know well) and for parkour, tap/hold the button after you've jumped.

Back on topic, I watched the GB quick look for RoL and got really bummed. It all just seems so, I don't know, soulless? There are glimmers of something buried underneath the veneer of crap, but it looks like it needed quite a bit more time. Feel pretty bad for BRB as they seemed pretty ambitious but man... :/

Thinking about grabbing Shattered Crystal in a few weeks but with Captain Toad and Xrd coming out soon, it may have to wait until the new year.
 
So, uhmn...

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=41479#p41479
Kurisu/Chris Senn said:
I can confirm that as of June this year, I no longer worked for BRB, but I did not willfully choose to leave. I did all that I could, crunching the moment I joined the company, averaging 5am to 7pm daily and was dedicated to the end. I cannot comment more at this time.

To my understanding, that's Chris Senn, the Team Leader behind Sonic X-treme that worked himself sick (along with others) trying to finish a game where the rug was constantly being pulled out under them.

Now, working as "Lead Level Designer" according to Wikipedia, he was removed from the project and company five or six months before release of a clearly-unfinished game that was pushed out the door.

That's apparently twice-burned now by Sega. (Maybe BRB technically, but it depends on who was behind the decision.)
 
So, uhmn...

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=41479#p41479


To my understanding, that's Chris Senn, the Team Leader behind Sonic X-treme that worked himself sick (along with others) trying to finish a game where the rug was constantly being pulled out under them.

Now, working as "Lead Level Designer" according to Wikipedia, he was removed from the project and company five or six months before release of a clearly-unfinished game that was pushed out the door.

That's apparently twice-burned now by Sega. (Maybe BRB technically, but it depends on who was behind the decision.)
Uhh, wow.
 
So, uhmn...

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=41479#p41479


To my understanding, that's Chris Senn, the Team Leader behind Sonic X-treme that worked himself sick (along with others) trying to finish a game where the rug was constantly being pulled out under them.

Now, working as "Lead Level Designer" according to Wikipedia, he was removed from the project and company five or six months before release of a clearly-unfinished game that was pushed out the door.

That's apparently twice-burned now by Sega. (Maybe BRB technically, but it depends on who was behind the decision.)

Was that the guy who was told he was terminally ill from a doctor?

In any case, holy shit.
 
So, uhmn...

http://www.senntient.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=41479#p41479


To my understanding, that's Chris Senn, the Team Leader behind Sonic X-treme that worked himself sick (along with others) trying to finish a game where the rug was constantly being pulled out under them.

Now, working as "Lead Level Designer" according to Wikipedia, he was removed from the project and company five or six months before release of a clearly-unfinished game that was pushed out the door.

That's apparently twice-burned now by Sega. (Maybe BRB technically, but it depends on who was behind the decision.)

Damn. This game wasn't rushed out, it had the fucking rug pulled from under it. This is sad.
 
IIRC Chris Senn wasn't the lead level designer, he was the level implementor.

Still, it's pretty clear some shit went down.
 
Today's Game Grumps episode of Sonic Boom features a six minute segment where their editor analyses the horrible animation on the cutscenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Jb3A0HLe4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

It's funny, cause these are cheats and techniques used across all CG animation to achieve the proper shot you want (characters warping all over the set, illogical geography and placement). This is somewhat worsened when different animators get different shots in the same sequence, leading to continuity problems (Amy losing her hammer in one shot and holding it again in the next).

I'm assuming that incongruities between shot timing and layout led to that jumpy placement, which seems common place in many games, especially in realtime cutscenes ( I know these are prerecorded, but they were probably captured in real time off a PC). Anyway, this is stuff a good editor would have snipped out. Clearly he just lazily compiled recorded footage and rendered out without trimming excess frames at the start/end. This is made readily apparent by the flashes of black.

Interesting nonetheless. With a sharp eye, you can catch similar weirdness in many other games.
 
So I know the game uses in-engine cutscenes at times, so I wouldn't fault it for tiny little glitches, characters zipping around suddenly, etc. But for it to be pre-rendered and still have those issues? In the intro of the game they must have watched a countless number of times? That is pretty bad.

I wonder if the intro used to be real-time, but they were having massive timing problems and just had to record it so it would reliably run.
 
It's funny, cause these are cheats and techniques used across all CG animation to achieve the proper shot you want (characters warping all over the set, illogical geography and placement). This is somewhat worsened when different animators get different shots in the same sequence, leading to continuity problems (Amy losing her hammer in one shot and holding it again in the next).]

I think if it was just warping around the set for each shot then who cares, but characters still being moved into position a frame or two after the shot changed and the particles reacting to character's previous locations in the scene give a real sloppy vibe to the whole affair.
 
The cutscenes got downgraded from e3, but they are prerendered...how do you downgrade a prerendered cutscene?

I guess if they have to render it again to fix something or fit in different voices/sounds.

Sonic 06 had big variation in pre-rendered cutscenes. Just look at the intro scenes where they show Sonic running while carrying Elise before she is captured and look at how much lower quality the shading on Sonic is. Later they change to in engine models so there are like three different models shown of Sonic :P
 
I wouldn't be surprised if this game only existed as a Sonic game within a year of it's release.

After all, Sonic Boom was announced as a TV show last year, and it wasn't until February of this year that the games were announced. Obviously levels of this game existed for years now since the CryEngine reveal, but something so shoddy and dilapidated as this game couldn't have been released like this unless a significant part of the game was a last minute gig. The game plays nothing like a Sonic game outside of the Subway Surfer segments, which could have also been added at the last minute before reveal due to how rough and broken they are.
 
Sooo...

Is anybody here actually playing the game? This is a bizarre OT; Most people are just sort of talking about the train wreck of a launch as more details trickle in, but not many actual impressions from people actually playing it, lol.

I'm currently at the midpoint I believe, Bygone Island? Where apparently the game starts breaking even more? I was dumped here and have no fucking clue what to do. There's just nothing. I've found sub missions by accident, but gone in a million circles trying to find the next thing for actual progression.
 
Sooo...

Is anybody here actually playing the game? This is a bizarre OT; Most people are just sort of talking about the train wreck of a launch as more details trickle in, but not many actual impressions from people actually playing it, lol.

I'm currently at the midpoint I believe, Bygone Island? Where apparently the game starts breaking even more? I was dumped here and have no fucking clue what to do. There's just nothing. I've found sub missions by accident, but gone in a million circles trying to find the next thing for actual progression.
I beat the game. Not sure what people mean by it breaks half way, it's the same glitch game all through out. Go to the village , there's a few exits there leading to where you need to go. Check the map, there are usually objectives written there (and marked on the map with at "!"
 
I wish I had more time to play RoL, but my rookie wants to see the game unfold, and scheduling kinda sucks ATM.

Both of us have enjoyed it up into other point I've last played, so we'll see what happens.
 
It really is no secret around here I'm sure that this game hasn't looked great from day one. Whether it's technically reasons, or things like what idiot on the dev team thought it was a good idea to limit rings to 100, and then put so darn many in the environment. Even with all the complaints I see about this game though...for some reason, I still wanna play it, and I keep starring at it on the eshop.
 
It really is no secret around here I'm sure that this game hasn't looked great from day one. Whether it's technically reasons, or things like what idiot on the dev team thought it was a good idea to limit rings to 100, and then put so darn many in the environment. Even with all the complaints I see about this game though...for some reason, I still wanna play it, and I keep starring at it on the eshop.

Same for me. Actually I really enjoyed the 3DS demo and even the first episodes of the TV show. I like the footage shown in trailers so far and even now that it's clear that the game is somewhat broken I want to experience some good, old N64/PS2-like platforming. That's exactly what the game currently is looking to me (beside glitches etc. :P)
 
A bit of a spoiler concerning some (missing?) plot elements:
Seems like a ton of plot is missing. There's the whole "there's no I in team, Sonic" thing that never really went anywhere, and most importantly is the whole time travel thing.
You go back in time once and Lyric only sees you for like 1 minute but there's still a lot of Sonic and Tails carvings on the wall and Statues. "1000 years and you're still predictable" and Lyric being able to "dodge his spin attack" means that they have to have met a lot more in earlier drafts of the game. They also keep mentioning that the village is under attack, but there's not cutscene to establish that nor enemies actually inside the village.
QNC was seemingly supposed to be with the supporting cast a lot more. "how do you keep popping out of nowhere?" is something Sonic says the second time they see QNC. He was Lyric's henchman at one point, but that's never expanded upon either.
There's a bunch of other things that are just dropped like Shadow's back story, why are they in the island, among other things. As a game whose purpose is to be a prequel establishing the world in the cartoon, it does an awful job at that among other things.
There's also missing gameplay content like the much touted hub world
0.jpg

to the chao garden and some character named Percy that Amy keeps talking about.
All that combined with the Reveal-> e3->launch downgrades has me wondering just what happened here? Was there a mass exodus from the studio? Did Ill Fonic really step in to finish the game? It's all very strange
edit: this is Percy (Perci)
B25Oi6vCYAAhj4w.jpg

Seems like she was playable at one point but scrapped.
IIRC, she's a descendant of a race meant to protect the island or something. She's made into an NPC that just gives you a side quest to activate beacons.
(thanks Wonder Tamaki!)
 
A bit of a spoiler concerning some (missing?) plot elements:
Seems like a ton of plot is missing. There's the whole "there's no I in team, Sonic" thing that never really went anywhere, and most importantly is the whole time travel thing.
You go back in time once and Lyric only sees you for like 1 minute but there's still a lot of Sonic and Tails carvings on the wall and Statues. "1000 years and you're still predictable" and Lyric being able to "dodge his spin attack" means that they have to have met a lot more in earlier drafts of the game. They also keep mentioning that the village is under attack, but there's not cutscene to establish that nor enemies actually inside the village.
QNC was seemingly supposed to be with the supporting cast a lot more. "how do you keep popping out of nowhere?" is something Sonic says the second time they see QNC. He was Lyric's henchman at one point, but that's never expanded upon either.
There's a bunch of other things that are just dropped like Shadow's back story, why are they in the island, among other things. As a game whose purpose is to be a prequel establishing the world in the cartoon, it does an awful job at that among other things.
There's also missing gameplay content like the much touted hub world
0.jpg

to the chao garden and some character named Percy that Amy keeps talking about.
All that combined with the Reveal-> e3->launch downgrades has me wondering just what happened here? Was there a mass exodus from the studio? Did Ill Fonic really step in to finish the game? It's all very strange

It may have not been in there in the first place, and just written poorly

for example for shadow, the producer mentioned months ago on a sega forum that they are going to fully address shadow later, going into his back story. So shadow was litterally thrown in because he was popular. And the implication in the 3ds version is that he will team up with you... or the reverse, later.
 
Same for me. Actually I really enjoyed the 3DS demo and even the first episodes of the TV show. I like the footage shown in trailers so far and even now that it's clear that the game is somewhat broken I want to experience some good, old N64/PS2-like platforming. That's exactly what the game currently is looking to me (beside glitches etc. :P)

If thats all you want there are much better options. This game isnt a collectathon despite its big pointless hubs, and if thats what you want might I suggest waiting for A Hat in Time. If you just want a 3D platformer thats not Mario on the Wii U, theres two Pac Man games that are much better than Sonic Boom.

I wouldn't be surprised if this game only existed as a Sonic game within a year of it's release.

The leaked concept art already disproves this. The unused chao and eggman redesigns from the game artists are dated 2012.
 
So I'm playing Shattered Crystal...

B26HZaBCEAAZAtv.jpg


You need to collect extra stuff to unlocking new levels, like how in Unleashed you had to collect medals to progress.
 
How is impeding your progress by making the player replay previous levels not a bad thing? The only purpose of doing this is to make it so getting to the game's ending takes longer.
Because the game is like only 2 hours if you do not backtrack.
Seriously...
 
Mario 64 and Galaxy did this.
Not to speak for TimmiT, but I think the difference is in a 3D Mario the stars are handed out for different objectives. Theyre usually treated the way a goalpost would. Get to the end of the trail, win a race, defeat a boss etc.While you may retread the same ground (less so in Galaxy than 64) youre not exactly replaying the same level in the same manner you would replay a standard 2d platformer stage. When the game asks for stars its basically saying "This one is more difficult prove to me you can handle it by showing proof of completed levels"

Sonic Unleashed and Shattered Crystal dont ask that, they ask "Show me how profiecient you are at scouring the stages for junk"
 
Mario 64 and Galaxy did this.

Mario 64 and Galaxy tend to have different paths and routes for stars within the planets or worlds. Also, Mario 64 came out in 1996, and even with its limited memory options still managed to pull off having a diverse experience in each world you visited per-star.

Surely your argument cannot be serious.
 
Not to speak for TimmiT, but I think the difference is in a 3D Mario the stars are handed out for different objectives. Theyre usually treated the way a goalpost would. Get to the end of the trail, win a race, defeat a boss etc.While you may retread the same ground (less so in Galaxy than 64) youre not exactly replaying the same level in the same manner you would replay a standard 2d platformer stage. When the game asks for stars its basically saying "This one is more difficult prove to me you can handle it by showing proof of completed levels"

Sonic Unleashed and Shattered Crystal dont ask that, they ask "Show me how profiecient you are at scouring the stages for junk"

I understand that, of course the execution of the concept is key here. His post seemed to dismiss the practice altogether when some of the best platformers of our time have done it well. However, I'd go as far as saying Mario platformers could stand to improve the system by letting you nab multiple stars in one go, instead of making you replay the stage with a 25% difference. I appreciate that Unleashed at least let me grab as many medals as I could find. If you know to look for them it's better, which Unleashed didn't really communicate well, thus leading to a lot of frustration.
 
I understand that, of course the execution of the concept is key here. His post seemed to dismiss the practice altogether when some of the best platformers of our time have done it well. However, I'd go as far as saying Mario platformers could stand to improve the system by letting you nab multiple stars in one go, instead of making you replay the stage with a 25% difference. I appreciate that Unleashed at least let me grab as many medals as I could find. If you know to look for them it's better, which Unleashed didn't really communicate well, thus leading to a lot of frustration.

I actually completely agree with Lijik. I don't really mind it that much in 3D Mario games or Banjo-Kazooie, because rather than just having to replay the level to collect some extra stuff, you need to do different objectives which bring you to different parts of the level or change the level design. It's why I compared it to the medal collecting in Sonic Unleashed rather than those games.

In Shattered Crystal, you need to go back to the stages to collect all of the blue prints or crystals in a level, which means entirely replaying it. And during the first two worlds, you don't have all of the characters yet, meaning that replaying the levels is mandatory for that part of the game at least. Also, you often can't backtrack through the levels, meaning that if you miss a blue print or crystal you'll have to restart the entire level to get it. Which wouldn't be so bad if the levels weren't so long.
 
Since the game is out in Europe since last Friday I've got both the Wii U and 3DS version.

My impression so far:
I can confirm the framerate dips especially in the running sections of the Wii U version. 3 hrs in the game I didn't encounter any glitches like falling through the surface or the like. The game itself IMHO is well made. It looks good and definitely way better than any PS2 title (ok, maybe except GoW ;)). I love the gameplay since it plays very well like all those good ol' 3D platformers. It has nice adventure elements and, of course, some highspeed Sonic elements. Sometimes they suffer from a low framerate, but I've experienced some portions of those which are running just fine (i.e. beginning of the first world). Combat is not very decend, but still fun. The story seems interesting so far and I love how Lyric has been designed. His voice (German synchronisation) is very deep and with a lot of bass. Sounds great and threatening. A nice-to-have feature is the link with the 3DS version, even though I fully understand that this upsets players with only the Wii U version, especially because the limit of 100 rings to collect while the environment is full of them was a very bad design decision. I also agree that the hub world is a bit empty and 'soulless' especially since there are so few NPCs.

Long story short while I agree with the complaints of the technical side (it definitely lacks of polish, but is in general far from worse), I do enjoy the rest of the game. It's a 7/10 for me so far. A solid action/adventure, nothing more, nothing less. Everyone who loves Super Mario 64, Jak & Daxter etc. and Sanic ;) of course should give this a chance. Impressions in EU/German Miiverse so far are very well, too.

3DS-Version: after playing the demo extensively and now round about 2hrs in the full game I quite don't get why ppl give so much hate against this version, too. We all can agree that it's not the next Super Mario 3D Land or DKC Returns 3D and yes, the party at Amy's House is a huge letdown, but the game so far is very entertaining. The visuals show a lot of attention to detail. Just have a look at the gorgeous world map, but the levels itself also look very nice. I can't agree with the most saying that they're boring. So far they're very well designed IMHO and I enjoy them really. So far as I can tell it's a well made platformer and also gets a 7/10 from me. Gameplay and visuals are rock solid and if you're a Sonic fan and can arrange yourself with the character design etc., then just give it a try. At least try the demo.

For both games I love the platforming/adventure character with all this stuff to collect. Reminds me of the good ol' days with SM64, Banjo, Jak etc. I agree that some ppl miss the 'heart' of Sonic which is highspeed platforming and that especially in the U-version these parts are not so well made. If you take the game as it is, a new way on looking at the Sonic universe as 3D action/adventure with Sonic elements, then it's fares very well.

Some ppl wondered why Sonic doesn't know Lyric in the 3DS version. As I said I'm not that far into both games right now, but it seems that there happened a bit of time traveling and Lyric knows Sonic after gotten awakened by him in the U version while Sonic can't remember Lyric, too. Also there is a nice comic included in the 3DS version which acts as a prequel to the 3DS version. It is said that Lyric was imprisoned for 1000 years so I suppose that this has something to do with the confusion between the plots of both versions and I think they're connected somehow.

I hope I won't get trashed by GAF now because I'm not fully agreeing with all of you guys. Just give it a try and don't be that harsh because both of them are really well made games. If you love Sonic and platforming/adventure elements, give it a try. Just make sure you're fully aware of the technical issues of the U version, but as I stated above, 3hrs in the only thing I've encountered were framerate dips during some, but by far not all running sections. I'm enjoying the TV show as well and one last thing I've wanted to tell you guys is, that this is clearly aimed at a young audience. I think this also explains why the overall level design and the story itself aren't that much challenging and outstanding. Kids should be able to enjoy and play both versions and when these games would be that much challenging in terms of combat and level design, Kids would lose focus on the game I suppose.

Uncle off for now, going to continue Sanic Boom and I gotta go fast :D
 
The game won't even start for me. It loads the startup screen, plays a jingle, and freezes.
 
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