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SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 4 or AGAINST |OT| of Huelen in Green-Eyed Heaven
- Thread starter WillyFive
- Start date
Mama Robotnik
Member
RobbieNick said:
When Guybrush Threepwood transitioned from silent character to perfectly voiced character, it proved to me that it can be done properly. If the developer is competent.
That aside, Sonic shouldn't speak. He's an annoying little shitbag dickhead wankshaft when he does. Look at Sonic Adventure's obnoxious "I was on a snooze cruise"; "This is happening", and all the games after. They want a blue hedgehog with attitude? They can achieve this with silence, not speech.
Of course, it doesn't help that the voice-acting is as dreadful as the dialogue. (Though "Eggman" wasn't bad in Sonic Adventure, but nothing NOTHING compared to the great Long John Baldry).
I'll certainly credit Sonic 4 for removing the atrocious voice acting and pointless dialogue that even plagued the GBA and DS games, absolutely completely a positive small step there.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Mama Robotnik said:
Guybrush starred in games that inherently rely on dialog. Without clever writing, all those games would be is a series of puzzles - kind of like Myst, except even Myst couldn't escape the opportunity to hire actors and have digitized video of a storyline of some kind. Thus, giving Guybrush a voice made sense, because it added a greater depth to things like comedic timing, etc.
The problem with Samus, Mario, Sonic is that these characters did not rely on story to begin with and had basically zero dialog in them. (Though Metroid is sort of weird about this; it did rely on story, but it told its story primarily through gameplay-interactive environmental cues)
Sonic Adventure went deep in to trying to translate Sonic from just "a level-by-level platformer" in to a living, breathing world with an intricate, inter-connected storyline. Takashi Iizuka, who birthed Sonic Adventure, has outright stated that he believes greater depth in storyline makes gameplay better. One could argue that Super Mario Sunshine did something similar, though Sunshine and to a certain degree Galaxy dodged a bullet by primarily having other characters talk in place of Mario - in some cases inventing new characters specifically for this purpose (Roselina, FLUDD).
These are characters that never really needed voices before, and most of the reasoning behind giving these characters voices is never anything more noble than "We want you to put down the controller for a couple minutes between levels while we pretend this is a movie instead of a videogame".
For what it's worth, Iizuka did recently say that the Sonic & Mario Olympic games taught him that his "deep, intricate" storylines are getting in the way of portraying Sonic as a character who just likes to have fun.
Mama Robotnik
Member
Sega1991 said:
I'd still maintain that the way they did this, painstakingly finding the perfect voice actor to follow on from two silent masterpieces, set the standard.
Sega1991 said:
Iizuka's a madman, we've certainly heard enough to prove that. There's nothing wrong with expanding a world. But this idiot with his it-was-Earth-all-along story needs to stop. Humans everywhere as humanised animals just walk around them, and the government trying to hunt down Sonic in SA2 instead of Robotnik, the fucker who tried to conquer the world a billion times already. Its all so fucking insultingly stupid.
If he wanted to expand the world from the little information glimpsed from the games and instruction manuals, the UK's Sonic the Comic did an amazing job of this, quite mature for a very-much young-market comic. But I digress, as such story expansion is not needed in the first place. The Mario franchise has proved that.
Sega1991 said:
You are so spot on.
Sega1991 said:
He's learned the lesson far too late, and should be exiled to a green-hill island somewhere, where he can never comit a crime against gaming again.
I mean, really, what kind of maniac interprets the world of Sonic 3 and Knuckles as the world depicted in Sonic Adventure!?
Anth0ny said:Other M was bad, but Brawl had it right
I might have a chance to play this over the 5-day weekend, so for the 2 people that may care
(Me and Myself, but not I)
I'll post impressions. And maybe I'll say something stupid so everyone else can have a laugh
Mama Robotnik
Member
Not a fan of the game, but in a way I quite like this (FAN MADE) idea for Sonic 4 Episode 2 promotional poster/cover. Its delightfully retro.
I never realised how utterly evil Robotnik looks on the original Sonic 2 cover. I mean, he's not pissing about there.
I never realised how utterly evil Robotnik looks on the original Sonic 2 cover. I mean, he's not pissing about there.
Mama Robotnik
Member
Edit - double post, sorry
Mama Robotnik
Member
Willy105 said:
Oh wow, I didn't notice that!
PeakPointMatrix
Member
Doesn't Eggman's HUMAN existence alone provide evidence of a human world? And wasn't Sonic originally going to have a human girlfriend? Station Square seems perfectly reasonable. For the record, I grew up on the Genesis titles and didn't bat an eye at the world and story of Sonic Adventure. Ate that shit up as a kid. Good times.Mama Robotnik said:
Catalix
And on the sixth day the LORD David Bowie created man and woman in His image. And he saw that it was good. On the seventh day the LORD created videogames so that He might take the bloody day off for once.
I'm guessing the US art department tried to interpret Robotnik's "empty black eyes" from his game spite alone. I'm positive they had no idea those were supposed to be sunglasses. :lol
Erroneous, but delightfully creepy.
Erroneous, but delightfully creepy.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
DR2K said:
Honestly, they are. Obviously not as shitty as someone like Big the Cat, but still.. Sonic games never needed more characters than Sonic and Robotnik (and Metal Sonic/Silver Sonic), really. And no more story than 'Robotnik fucks up your shit, free the animals and smash his robots', please.
PeakPointMatrix
Member
You have to be joking. Tails, Sonic's sidekick? It's Tails! He built the Tornado. Looks up to Sonic. Sonic 2. It's goddamn freaking Tails.Combichristoffersen said:
I think it should stop at Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Robotnik, and Metal Sonic. New characters added after that either didn't offer anything new or their gameplay sucked. I'd also accept Amy depending on how she is used. She was like a hard mode in Sonic Advance 1.SwiftSketcher said:
Segata Sanshiro
Member
IMO, it should be Sonic, Tails, Robotnik, and Metal Sonic. Knuckles is the idiot that opened the floodgates for the shitty friends. Sonic's the hero, Tails is the sidekick, Robotnik is the evil mastermind, Metal Sonic is the evil rival. Knuckles is just a plus one.RagnarokX said:
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
I agree 100 percent. Once Knuckles entered the picture, Sonic was no longer clearly superior.
VGChampion
Member
Combichristoffersen said:
I'd rather Tails and Knuckles over Metal / Silver Sonic. I love those two characters.
SleepyJohn11
Member
Plus Knuckles back then wasn't even much of a friend of Sonic. My memories of him in old Sonic games is mostly when he fucked shot up for Sonic. Other characters aren't really necessary though.SwiftSketcher said:
BlazeHedgehog
Member
SwiftSketcher said:
Dr. Eggman's existence does not mean much because it's nothing anybody really thought about. It didn't matter. I mean, when you think about it, there's some very "human structure" elements visible in levels. The cityscape in Starlight Zone, Casino Night Zone, Carnival Night Zone... It doesn't make much sense that Eggman built entire cities just for himself. But it was not important to depict a world full of people.
As for Sonic having a human girlfriend, sometimes bad ideas get scrapped because they are bad ideas. According to the Gametap Sonic Retrospective they did a few years ago, Sonic's girlfriend was dropped along with a number of other concepts when they brought an American marketing team onboard to refine the character and "soften him up" a bit.
Eh, Mario was adding weird friends left and right as well at the time, it was the thing to do. We saw Princess Daisy, Wario, Tatanga (I guess?) and the like. Heck Donkey Kong Country went more bananas (ha!) with it than Sonic did.
Thing was Nintendo had the sense to stop at a point, while Sega didn't. They've made some pretty great characters recently (Blaze, Marine) and some shockingly awful ones (Chip, Werehog, Silver). If they could just stop mentioning the worst ones and keep it to a casual few, and leave the others has just side story elements instead of playable stuff, I'd be fine with it.
If they had a game where they had to travel to the Angel Island and chat with Knuckles, I'd be fine with it. Same with the Chaotix -- if they needed help with clues or something and were just kept to cutscenes, I'd be fine with it. As long as the playable characters were kept to a minimum and didn't fuck up the gameplay, I'd be okay!
Thing was Nintendo had the sense to stop at a point, while Sega didn't. They've made some pretty great characters recently (Blaze, Marine) and some shockingly awful ones (Chip, Werehog, Silver). If they could just stop mentioning the worst ones and keep it to a casual few, and leave the others has just side story elements instead of playable stuff, I'd be fine with it.
If they had a game where they had to travel to the Angel Island and chat with Knuckles, I'd be fine with it. Same with the Chaotix -- if they needed help with clues or something and were just kept to cutscenes, I'd be fine with it. As long as the playable characters were kept to a minimum and didn't fuck up the gameplay, I'd be okay!
I dunno. Knuckles at least brought something to the table. He was slower and couldn't jump as high as Sonic and Tails, but he could glide, climb, and break walls Sonic and Tails couldn't break. Most of his levels have unique areas only he can access. He wasn't boring to play as like Big and Gamma.Segata Sanshiro said:
Big One said:
They tend to keep to one game though, or at least stick to the RPGs, like Cackletta and Fawful. They're not trying to shove every single fucking character into every single game like Sonic did. Sonic Heroes had 12 "playable" characters, Shadow The Hedgehog had each of those 11 other characters following you around at some point.
Despite a lot of characters in M&L games, you still play as just Mario and Luigi. Paper Mario games had other characters, but you're not seeing Goombella pop up in every game thereafter
Segata Sanshiro
Member
So make (another) Knuckles game. He's completely extraneous to the Sonic gameplay.RagnarokX said:
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Yeah, it was. Probably because they stuck to their guns on that idiotic tether idea.RagnarokX said:
Diablohead
Member
I was able to play this again for a few hours while babysitting so I decided to go for the chaos emeralds, they are so badly designed and the bumpers are so random that on stage 6 I think I was launched into a goal gate about 2 seconds into the stage :lol I only managed to do them because I abused the start button to pause and restart now and again.
It is obvious that Dimps never played sonic 1, the special stages in the original game all feel fair and you have much more control over sonic, plus no time limit which get's in the way of fun way too much.
Mad gear act 3 is the worst level in the game because it feels like it was pulled directly from sonic advance 2, it has a fast closing wall, areas where you need to memorise jumps otherwise you will die and cheap deaths all around, it was really frustrating to do in time attack since there was no lamp posts, worst stage ever.
And my thought on super sonic have to be that he breaks the game even more, holding forward after a spring will launch you out of a spring sequence into a pit and he makes the whole air inertia 10 times worse, seriously.
For now on every sonic game made by Dimps it's an instant pass from me, can't stand their shit sonic work.
It is obvious that Dimps never played sonic 1, the special stages in the original game all feel fair and you have much more control over sonic, plus no time limit which get's in the way of fun way too much.
Mad gear act 3 is the worst level in the game because it feels like it was pulled directly from sonic advance 2, it has a fast closing wall, areas where you need to memorise jumps otherwise you will die and cheap deaths all around, it was really frustrating to do in time attack since there was no lamp posts, worst stage ever.
And my thought on super sonic have to be that he breaks the game even more, holding forward after a spring will launch you out of a spring sequence into a pit and he makes the whole air inertia 10 times worse, seriously.
For now on every sonic game made by Dimps it's an instant pass from me, can't stand their shit sonic work.
Yeah, the special stages are madness. Totally infuriating and random. Worst part of the game for me, without a doubt. I cannot clear the last special stage. I'm either cautious and run out of time or I move too quickly and random bumpers send me into an end point. What's worse is that I mistakenly cleared the other special stages on easy levels so now it takes more time to get back to the seventh special stage. I've mastered Mad Gear Act 1 as a result, so I can retry pretty easily, but it's still irritating. The weird "table shake" that occurs when you "jump" during these stages is just silly.
Still really like the rest of the game, though. While still very Dimps, I think it's the best Sonic game they yet made. I just replayed portions of Sonic Rush and was surprised at how much worse the level design is. Rush feels very sparse and limited in comparison. The controls and feel of Sonic in Rush are nothing like Sonic 4 either. Sonic 4 really doesn't play like other Dimps games.
Still really like the rest of the game, though. While still very Dimps, I think it's the best Sonic game they yet made. I just replayed portions of Sonic Rush and was surprised at how much worse the level design is. Rush feels very sparse and limited in comparison. The controls and feel of Sonic in Rush are nothing like Sonic 4 either. Sonic 4 really doesn't play like other Dimps games.
Yeesh, that game is so terrible. It looks great, but man, the level design is absolutely terrible. It's just not fun to play.
Nah that idea was at least neat and quirky. The problem was they never really did anything with it making navigating a chore and all of the levels were pretty much the same fucking thing with a different splash of paint.Segata Sanshiro said:
(Chaotix still has the best special stages out of any Sonic game)
Dr Frasier Crane
Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
This.
Knuckles was a douche. People that like Knuckles are the same kind of people that like Shadow.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Knuckles deserved a game before Shadow.Segata Sanshiro said:
Chaotix doesn't count because it was shit.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Just played the demo and goddamn this games physics are off as hell. I didn't think it'd be this bad. x:
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Hey Robotnik, Bono wants his glasses back.
I dunno I really like how they look but I'll admit Im weird and love super polygonal flatshaded Early CG like the Money For Nothing video.dark10x said:
I'll also admit that the last time I played Chaotix was via emulation so maybe its worse on an actual 32X but I thought it ran pretty well. The way it controlled was far better than Sonic 2's and CD's special stages to boot.
EDIT- actually not far better than Sonic 2, but I still stand on them controlling better than Sonic CD.
Not to derail this wonderful conversation, but:
But that's basis it on a criteria outside of the game itself. It might be less reasonable, from that perspective, but having to make a relatively simple adjustment isn't really a big deal. It would be a legitimate problem if the game was inconsistent in how it treated that rule beyond introducing the rule itself without informing the player (which it does and is a problem) but the games own internal logic is consistent with 'hold the direction you want to go".
As for should or shouldn't have to adjust to, I can see where you're coming from, I just think that it's such a monstrously subjective element that it competes with people complaining about what they 'deserve' when it comes to a video game.
The section of Casino Street where referencing the old level design is a problem would be where you are dropped deep into a pit and it's inferred that you should roll to get out. The reason that section is more of a problem is it's a one time occurrence of the solution is poorly communicated even by the games own internal logic. Sure the flippers work slightly differently, but they're functionally compatible with how it worked in prior Sonic games and in practice easy to understand.
Just like the 'hold the direction you want to go when having hit a spring' I think the 'the game encounters problems when they try to meld Genesis level design (for the most part they don't, honestly) with Rush physics' is also overblown.
The better way of phrasing it is, 'the game does not play how I want to play it (which is the way my memory knows how to play a different game)'. Even in the one instance of real confusion in Casino Street, the game 'wants' you to play it like Sonic 4, it's just bad about communicating how in that instance (even when looked at in a vacuum).
Sonic 4 isn't designed for you to play it exactly like the classics, that can be a failure to your eye, but to each their own.
Hey, fair enough. Personally I don't feel like the Team behind this game phoned it in, even though I do feel like they could have done things better. I can appreciate a lot of the work that went into the art side, as well as things they did with the level design, made around the mechanics they put in (I'm not talking about the uncurl forcing you to homing attack bridges of enemies, obviously).
Sega1991 said:
But that's basis it on a criteria outside of the game itself. It might be less reasonable, from that perspective, but having to make a relatively simple adjustment isn't really a big deal. It would be a legitimate problem if the game was inconsistent in how it treated that rule beyond introducing the rule itself without informing the player (which it does and is a problem) but the games own internal logic is consistent with 'hold the direction you want to go".
As for should or shouldn't have to adjust to, I can see where you're coming from, I just think that it's such a monstrously subjective element that it competes with people complaining about what they 'deserve' when it comes to a video game.
The section of Casino Street where referencing the old level design is a problem would be where you are dropped deep into a pit and it's inferred that you should roll to get out. The reason that section is more of a problem is it's a one time occurrence of the solution is poorly communicated even by the games own internal logic. Sure the flippers work slightly differently, but they're functionally compatible with how it worked in prior Sonic games and in practice easy to understand.
Just like the 'hold the direction you want to go when having hit a spring' I think the 'the game encounters problems when they try to meld Genesis level design (for the most part they don't, honestly) with Rush physics' is also overblown.
The better way of phrasing it is, 'the game does not play how I want to play it (which is the way my memory knows how to play a different game)'. Even in the one instance of real confusion in Casino Street, the game 'wants' you to play it like Sonic 4, it's just bad about communicating how in that instance (even when looked at in a vacuum).
Sonic 4 isn't designed for you to play it exactly like the classics, that can be a failure to your eye, but to each their own.
Hey, fair enough. Personally I don't feel like the Team behind this game phoned it in, even though I do feel like they could have done things better. I can appreciate a lot of the work that went into the art side, as well as things they did with the level design, made around the mechanics they put in (I'm not talking about the uncurl forcing you to homing attack bridges of enemies, obviously).
Finally found the time to sit down and go through this today. It reminds me in some ways of Sonic R in that the controls and physics are just one step above completely busted, but can be mastered to a degree that there's still some nominal fun to be had in time attacking. Beyond that it feels like a Rush level pack with some extra glitz and a ridiculous amount of propulsion gimmicks to make up for the lack of boost.
Nothing was quite so heartbreaking as trying to roll around a loop and coming to an abrupt stop two feet out.
Nothing was quite so heartbreaking as trying to roll around a loop and coming to an abrupt stop two feet out.
Just finished up getting all 200G on this game...
I definitely will not be playing this again anytime soon. It just doesn't have the replay value of the older (and even newer) titles. I have played the hell out of 1-3&K, as well as CD, Rush (1 only) and Unleashed. But this just doesn't do it for me. It was fun while it lasted, but after the flaws kept appearing it just started to kinda suck for me. A decent effort, but not really a proper successor to 3&K. I had more fun with Sonic Advance than I did with this. Lets hope Episode II doesn't
.
I definitely will not be playing this again anytime soon. It just doesn't have the replay value of the older (and even newer) titles. I have played the hell out of 1-3&K, as well as CD, Rush (1 only) and Unleashed. But this just doesn't do it for me. It was fun while it lasted, but after the flaws kept appearing it just started to kinda suck for me. A decent effort, but not really a proper successor to 3&K. I had more fun with Sonic Advance than I did with this. Lets hope Episode II doesn't
fuck up the memory of Sonic CD
I'm sure someone's already pointed this out, but I fired up Sonic Advance yesterday for the first time in absolute yonks, and I don't really get the Sonic Advance HD comments at all. SA plays more like the old momentum based originals and would probably fare better with those latent axe murderers on Youtube than Sonic 4 does.
It's weird to me in two ways. Firstly the one I mentioned; making SA HD comments seems weird, and secondly; with Dimps behind this, why wouldn't they just go for the physics they employed in the Advance games?
Hmm indeed.
And disclaimer I guess: Since I'm actually murdering people with axes instead of letting my pent up murderous rage fuel minute, frame by frame comparisons for youtube upload, I can't say just HOW similar SA and the originals' physics are. They do all of the letting-go-of-dpad stuff and allow you to build momentum from slopes and stuff though.
It's weird to me in two ways. Firstly the one I mentioned; making SA HD comments seems weird, and secondly; with Dimps behind this, why wouldn't they just go for the physics they employed in the Advance games?
Hmm indeed.
And disclaimer I guess: Since I'm actually murdering people with axes instead of letting my pent up murderous rage fuel minute, frame by frame comparisons for youtube upload, I can't say just HOW similar SA and the originals' physics are. They do all of the letting-go-of-dpad stuff and allow you to build momentum from slopes and stuff though.
Davey Cakes
Member
Finally got the chance to play the demo for this the other day.
Honestly, I actually enjoyed it, because it is 2D Sonic, which is inherently fun to me. That said, I'm left to question some design choices. For example, why Sonic stops if you don't keep holding down either direction. It just feels wrong.
Also, I'm not going to blast the game for the whole "uncurling" thing, but I'll agree that, for a 2D Sonic, uncurling after going of a ramp feels unnatural. Why should Sonic have to uncurl in order to use a homing attack when he could just stay rolled up into a ball, allowing him to bounce off of enemies that way? That would allow for more player control and less automation.
I'm definitely not going to pay 15 bucks for this game, but telling from the demo, it's not terrible. Something just feels off, that's all. And I'll agree with anyone who says that this game is not really much like Rush or Advance. It's sort of doing its own thing.
Honestly, I actually enjoyed it, because it is 2D Sonic, which is inherently fun to me. That said, I'm left to question some design choices. For example, why Sonic stops if you don't keep holding down either direction. It just feels wrong.
Also, I'm not going to blast the game for the whole "uncurling" thing, but I'll agree that, for a 2D Sonic, uncurling after going of a ramp feels unnatural. Why should Sonic have to uncurl in order to use a homing attack when he could just stay rolled up into a ball, allowing him to bounce off of enemies that way? That would allow for more player control and less automation.
I'm definitely not going to pay 15 bucks for this game, but telling from the demo, it's not terrible. Something just feels off, that's all. And I'll agree with anyone who says that this game is not really much like Rush or Advance. It's sort of doing its own thing.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Just stopped by to remind you all that Sonic 4 is shit, and that Sonic Fan Remix is so so so so much better.
That's all.
That's all.