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Sonic the Hedgehog Community Thread: Green Hills and Laughing Iizukas

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E

Emitan

Member
Green Scar said:
On Chao: I like them, but they don't really belong in Sonic. Although the idea of having something to do with the woodland animals you rescue from robots was neat, the Chao themselves are a bit too abstract for the usual designs of Sonic games. Did they ever let on that the Chao were originally going to be in another game, but ended up in Sonic? I always felt that was the case.

On Knuckles replacing the Werehog: the Adventure games did a good job of creating a solid 3D Knuckles, the problem being his levels were garbage. So yeah, if they make it faster and make it less about punching dudes, then replacing the Werehog with Knuckles would be a thing I'm interested in.

But if they ever make Knuckles playable again, that doesn't mean I want everyone else playable too. I fear before they'd even consider Knuckles as a playable character, they'd have you be playing as Tails too, which, well, no.
Click to expand...

There's a specific reason why my Sonic Adventure 3 idea didn't have Tails. Including Tails was what got us Sonic Adventure 2.
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
Billychu said:
There's a specific reason why my Sonic Adventure 3 idea didn't have Tails. Including Tails was what got us Sonic Adventure 2.
Click to expand...

The mech stuff wasn't as bad as the SA/S06 Tails levels. The flying was all kinds of wonky in those, at least SA2's Tails/Robotnik levels were just 'hold fire and move forward'. Except for when platforming was involved, I suppose, that was painful. But playable Tails is a no-go whichever you prefer- last good Tails bit was in Sonic CD '11, and before that was probably Sonic Advance.
 
E

Emitan

Member
Green Scar said:
The mech stuff wasn't as bad as the SA/S06 Tails levels. The flying was all kinds of wonky in those, at least SA2's Tails/Robotnik levels were just 'hold fire and move forward'. Except for when platforming was involved, I suppose, that was painful. But playable Tails is a no-go whichever you prefer- last good Tails bit was in Sonic CD '11, and before that was probably Sonic Advance.
Click to expand...

I meant instead of the choice and consequence system and the 3 moralities, we got the Hero/Dark split.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
A Tails that controlled roughly like his Tails Adventure incarnation could be pretty ace, personally. I mean, I know 2K6 tried for that, but it got several things wrong:

  • Fake ring boxes? Why? That just adds visual clutter, especially when you lose your actual rings and can't tell which ones you can grab and which ones were fake. Stick with bombs, guys. It's not like you can just walk into a store and buy the stereotypical black ball kind, anyway, so you can't argue it's to prevent kids mimicking the game...
  • Aiming in first-person, always. Again, why? And if this is the case, why does the aim have to reset every time, which is frustrating as hell when you miss, since it removes your point of reference?
  • Tails' flying needs to be more consistent. You can fly up, until you suddenly hit an arbitrary height limit, at which point WHOOPS you can't go any higher. Also, he turns on a friggin' dime, which is nigh uncontrollable; I think his momentum when flying is one thing SRB2 got down pat, where once you're in mid-air your acceleration cuts down significantly.
Even then, I'm not sure how well it'd translate, but I wouldn't mind seeing a more focused attempt than the trash we got in 2K6.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
And really, that's just because it was based on Doom Legacy, which based said jumping code on Quake (I would assume), which got it down pat so well that many games also adopt that method of having a separate "in-air" acceleration value as opposed to the "on-ground" one. (And I'm sure the same method has even earlier origins than that, honestly... Castlevania is basically the same concept, with an in-air acceleration value of "nil".)
 
C

ColtraineGF

Member
Professor Beef said:
You guys will always be my diamonds in the sky. Of course, living in the city makes it hard to see the sky...
Click to expand...
I know you may think that nothing fills this hole inside your heart, but don't worry, you'll find the meaning you searched for so long. Because when there's nothing left to lose, you win...
 
S

Sciz

Member
These posts have messed with my head; I'm sick of all this punning, give me prose instead.

Green Scar said:
On Chao: I like them, but they don't really belong in Sonic. Although the idea of having something to do with the woodland animals you rescue from robots was neat, the Chao themselves are a bit too abstract for the usual designs of Sonic games. Did they ever let on that the Chao were originally going to be in another game, but ended up in Sonic? I always felt that was the case.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the designers who spent the better part of five years iterating on A-Life from NiGHTS onward would've liked to make one, but I don't think they've ever said the idea was intended for anything bigger.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
I will say that I find Chao astoundingly adorable and honestly love their inclusion in the series.

I will also say that I absolutely abhor raising them and trying to race them, and being locked out of 100% completion as such. That racing minigame just did not click with me in any capacity. (DC versions, if it matters.)
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
The game does save your progress on a zone-by-zone basis, y'know.

Or if you're playing multiplayer, MAP MAP07 in the console (or MAP10 if you must skip it entirely). You're welcome!
 
E

Emitan

Member
Shadow Hog said:
The game does save your progress on a zone-by-zone basis, y'know.

Or if you're playing multiplayer, MAP MAP07 in the console (or MAP10 if you must skip it entirely). You're welcome!
Click to expand...

We did. We skipped to Castle Robotnik, but the lag on my end became too much.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
I believe we've tidied up CEZ to be less laggy overall in 2.1, but don't hold me to that.

Believe it or not, one of the biggest offenders here was tons of water pools that were tagged to render the sides of the water block, when the layout of said water block would make that impossible. Set that to the "don't render sides" linedef special, add some one-sided linedefs to prevent rendering engine overflow, etc etc, and it tends to be a bit smoother... Granted, there's only so much we can do on the old, creaky Doom Legacy engine, but we try.

Oh, and I believe the water in the first room of DSZ1 doesn't raise anywhere near as high as it did in 2.0. Not sure what other changes were made, but you might appreciate that one. You'll still be submerged if you stay on the low path, though.
 
Q

qq more

Member
The destructible walls took a hit on the performance on the game. It's not a big deal since I can just skip that area. But I suspect its because the huge amount of breakable blocks.


The game overall has aged rather well but I'm not a big fan of Deep Sea's difficulty spike, it felt like something that belonged later in the game. Liking the new Castle Eggman though.


By the way, Shadow Hog. Is there any cool Single Player campaign custom map packs for recommendation? I have the urge to play some!
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Shadow Hog said:
I will say that I find Chao astoundingly adorable and honestly love their inclusion in the series.

I will also say that I absolutely abhor raising them and trying to race them, and being locked out of 100% completion as such. That racing minigame just did not click with me in any capacity. (DC versions, if it matters.)
Click to expand...
Chao raising itself is quite fun—there is a lot of potential to improve it, of course, but just raising unique types of Chao on PC and GC was and still is a worthy past-time. The real problem I see with it is how to make raising their stat levels high and quickly, enough to get past the initial down payment involved in starting up new Chao gardens and getting the necessary items and do-hickies required to raise effectively. And both the racing and karate mini-games lack complexity and interactivity. Racing is fine, and a well-prepared Chao can tackle most races quite easily, but Karate is just an elaborate way to screw up your thumbs. I have a million ideas for how to improve the raising system and many other things, but what the A-Life system really needs is its own separate game that can be updated and low-maintenance enough to have any commercial success. Forcefully tying the system into SA2 really pissed off a lot of players who would have otherwise been apathetic or enthusaistic about the system. Nonetheless, I want to see Chao raising back in tip-top shape. Impress me, Iizuka.
 
E

Emitan

Member
Yes, the worst part about Chao is that I need to play what's basically an entirely different video game to continue to advance in it. It NEEDS to be it's own game.

Maybe a F2P game with cosmetic items to purchase?
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
F2P (no buy-to-win items, though—real easy to overlook with Chao), SEN/XBLA/NiN/mobile devices, all sorts of neat online features and communication. Ultimately, there's simply too much for me to talk about with how much better Chao raising could be, and how big a potential revival of the A-Life system could be if marketed correctly and given good word of mouth. Chao is, after all, a more complex, more appealing Tamagotchi, with great accessibility and a lot of complexity.

A real shame it got forced on those who just wanted to get all the emblems in SA2. But Takashi Iizuka is in a good position to form a full Chao branch of the franchise and profit big time—the only thing that might get in the way is how old the technology is, and whether any of the old A-Life creators and workers are still around.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Professor Beef said:
Chao raising is basically for Digimon fans who don't want to admit they're Digimon fans.
Click to expand...
Implying that Chao designs are as overcomplicated and mecha-oriented as Digimon Designs. Nice shootin'.

It's Tamagotchi, silly-dilly. Digimon was just another way for Bandai to ride on the virtual-pet craze, and it came around the same time that the first A-Life system was put to the test in NiGHTs Into Dreams, back in '96. So I don't know if that's a good comparison at all.
 
T

TheOGB

Banned
All this talk about potential Chao Garden games makes me want to pitch that alongside Battle 2.

Or put it in Battle 2--oh god yes do this do this DO THIS

Anth0ny said:
My ideal Sonic Adventure 3 is the gameplay of the Sonic/Shadow stages in SA2, made into an entire game.

That means:

-No shitty friends. Tails can follow Sonic if he wants.
-No story.
-No hub world.
-No fucking gimmicks. No mach speed segments, no vehicles, no psychic powers.
Classic Sonic design :3
Click to expand...
Then you don't want Sonic Adventure 3. :p

Sciz said:
Well, that's not exactly true.
Click to expand...
what the tits man
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
All I remember from Sonic Battle was how cool it looked. Man was it cool to see dem polygons—shame about the shitty speakers on the GBA, though. Rouge also owned this crazy pinball nightclub arena, which still doesn't make sense whatsoever.
 
C

ColtraineGF

Member
I kept on starting and not finishing Sonic Battle. I keep telling myself I'll go back to it, because I liked the customization aspect. And the sprites, which were pretty cool on GBA.
 
F

ffdgh

Member
and yet again returned in sonic advance 3 XD
....tho that's probably why she was the last character to be unlocked in world 6.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Sonic Adventure 1's design was miles better than SA2. Red Mountain is probably the best-designed stage of any of the Adventure titles (SA1, 2, Heroes, 06).

The only level in SA2 that I really felt was decent for branching paths was Green Forest.
 
A

Azure Dream

Member
Saw a cute (so to speak) comic about Sonic CD '11:

GyCDf.png
Click to expand...

Decided to take out the link because there's some (non-Sonic) NSFW stuff there, unfortunately, but the artist is part of Studio Bombshell.
 
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