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Sonic the Hedgehog Community Thread: Green Hills and Laughing Iizukas
- Thread starter Professor Beef
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Just beat Unleashed.
My god, I just realized I never ran into Wentos. Actually it looks like there are a few NPCs I've never seen. Huh, I thought I was pretty good about exploring the hubs. Though I never did get the TV or whatever, and some other itmes...
Random late edit but I just remembered how much I love Sonic Rush Adventure's soundtrack.
My god, I just realized I never ran into Wentos. Actually it looks like there are a few NPCs I've never seen. Huh, I thought I was pretty good about exploring the hubs. Though I never did get the TV or whatever, and some other itmes...
Random late edit but I just remembered how much I love Sonic Rush Adventure's soundtrack.
If I didn't have to go to sleep and work in the morning I would have had a song for every word in that sentence
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
Well, a portion of the Sonic fanbase aren't strangers to that fanfic-grade nonsense given that they likely produce it. The comic in the 100s become such a bore to read and had a bunch of storylines that I just didn't care about so I stopped reading it apart from issues every now and then until recently when the comics got not so bad.
And I feel bad for not getting into Sonic Universe earlier. It's good stuff. I'm in the middle of issue 40 and it's really good. I think it's a good thing that I read 236 before starting this one. :lol
I thought we agreed last year that Shadow was the Poochie of Sonic and prevented Sonic and Tails from getting to the Mean Bean Factory.
Dear My Friend is one of my guilty pleasure video game theme songs. Come at me.
What'd you think of Unleashed overall? Or, what'd you think of the last bit when you had to alternate between characters to beat up the final boss?
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
Im glad I came into this thread and saw the SA2 stuff..
Mihael Mello Keehl
Banned
please..colors/generations while they are good they are a bit on rails.
Oh man, thanks for reminding me! Overall I thought Rush Adventure was pretty good anyway. Rush had more style, but Rush Adventure was more fun to play for me. I wish they put more of Rush's levels as hidden islands, though. Discovering Leaf Storm Act 1 was awesome.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
They're also sans mediocre shooter portions and naff emerald hunting bits.
The emerald hunting in Sonic Adventure 2 really killed the game for me.
I'm fine with rails as long as the gameplay is fast and action packed with lots of eye candy.
Whenever the sound team breaks out the piano, and that's even including Senoue, they tend to put out some of their best work. Speak With Your Heart was the ending theme Colors needed and Generations couldn't have gone out on any other note, but I kinda miss the more somber themes they were putting together in the mid-00s. I'd love to hear someone put together a proper rendition of the Sonic Battle and Advance 3 end credits.
None of the other 3D Sonic games are exactly hallmarks of branching and open level design. Pretty sure those two have less actual rails in them on average than the rest, too, SA1 excluded.
Lord British
Member
Sonic Adventure 2 is one of the worst games I feel inexplicable nostalgia for. There are a handful of wonderful moments completely lost under a sea of awful cutscenes and terrible Tails/Knuckles stages.
Will buy day one.
Will buy day one.
sonic adventure 2 is why i stopped playing 3D sonic games until colors.
While Colours 3D sections were either too brief or automated, the same can't be said about Generation. Most SA2 Sonic/Shadow stages were more linear than alot of the 3D sections in Generations.
Saying that, for some reason I still want to see and play a PC version of SA2...
I feel the same about Dear My Friend, and unlike Speak With Your Heart, it doesn't piss me off at the last second.
Final-ish thoughts later.
Oh yeah, hearing some music in this thread after not playing it in ages made me really miss and appreciate Rush Adventure. You're right about the style, but it certainly was an Adventure.
Yes, yes!
Sonic Adventure 2 introduced rails.
But seriously, I'm having more and more trouble understanding the "on-rails" thing. If it means you have to keep moving forward in levels and can't go back, I suppose that sucks, but I feel like there's a better term for that.
Hot Coldman
Banned
They're close enough. Sonic Unleashed onwards just stripped back 3D movement.
While the controls allowed for easier exploration in SA2, the level design in SA2 was just as linear if not more linear than Unleashed.
You know, it just may be. Certainly seems that way from being on the SEGA Forum + other Sonic communities sites.
i don't understand this analogy.
Because you hate SA2 and love FFVII
Which part of it?
BlazeHedgehog
Member
I am steadfast in my assumption that people who say SA2 is the best Sonic game only think that because they beat the game 11 years ago and have only gone back to replay their favorite parts.
Once they play Aquatic Mine without having the snorkel they'll remember how frustrating and stupid parts of that game were.
Once they play Aquatic Mine without having the snorkel they'll remember how frustrating and stupid parts of that game were.
It's how fans view the games. There's a group who swears up and down its the best game in the series and wishes all future titles would take a page from it.
There's another group who thinks its overrated trash and wishes fans would just shut up about it.
The smallest group just believes it's an average game.
Chao Breeding / Chocobo Breeding
A bit edgier for the series
The
Both have tons of minigames and side content
You know, I still remember the first time I played that level very sharply. It did provide challenge, but by the time I got the end I was just surprised I was almost practically done with the game the first day I got it.
I mean I like Sonic Adventure 1 more, but with as much time as I've poured into Sonic Adventure 2 as well, I just don't think that's the case for me. (especially since replaying Sonic Adventure 1 didn't change it's position on my top 5 list.)
A bit edgier for the series
The
main bad guy ends up not being who it originally was.
Zack/Shadow both die and are similar to main character
Both have their own "Faker" related thing
You know, I still remember the first time I played that level very sharply. It did provide challenge, but by the time I got the end I was just surprised I was almost practically done with the game the first day I got it.
I mean I like Sonic Adventure 1 more, but with as much time as I've poured into Sonic Adventure 2 as well, I just don't think that's the case for me. (especially since replaying Sonic Adventure 1 didn't change it's position on my top 5 list.)
FF7 was amazing during it's first act while in the city. The rest of the game is standard Final Fantasy.
is that supposed to be an insult?
Diablohead
Member
weaksauce confirmed
I have honestly done the reverse and loved the game more over time then hated it, knuckles was a dick back at release and so was the shooting levels but now I like them, I play SA2 without thinking about this is a sonic game I must only play sonic!11!1 it helps a lot.
FF6 isn't relevant in the analogy. It can't be argued that FF7 is the most "popular" game in the series.
Is it the best? That's subjective.
SA2 can sort of be argued as the most "popular" game in the series.
Is it the best? Also subjective.
i don't see how this can be argued at all. outside of pockets of fans on forums, you don't hear about SA2 a ton.
Oh come on dude, why is it that it is widely refered to as "the last great sonic game"? (see FF7)
Why do people want a sequel/remake to it so much? (see FF7)
You can't deny that SA2 hit SOMETHING with fans. This is not the first time this has been argued.
a very vocal minority. same as MGS4 hate, GTAIV hate, etc etc.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
I take it you've moved onto the superior FFIX or FFV?
I think the song is very sweet, well-composed, and has very good mixing. When Senoue takes away the layers and layers of instrumentation that he tends to use (and sometimes thus makes a theme that sounds a little messy), it sounds rather elegant, sweet, and charming.
I don't get the FFVII/SA2 analogy much, since when I started off with FF (though I started with FFI, so...), FFIV was the one that probably got a lot of people into the series since it had an engaging narrative. A bad narrative in hindsight, but a story nonetheless. FFVI probably got a lot more people in, but I didn't play that game until much later.BlackJace said:
FFVII just ended up attracting a lot of people to the genre due to its cinematic nature. I'd imagine that Sonic might've been more popular prior to SA2.
I don't know if I've seen a lot of people proclaim that SA2 is the best game in the series, but I don't frequent Sonic fora or discussions very much outside of GAF. I do see that people think the Adventure games are the best 3D games so the two Adventure games combined would fit in more with the analogy.
I don't think I hear people talk about SA2 very often. SA1, yes. SA1 + SA2, yes. SA2 alone, though? Not much.
Shadow Hog
Member
I wouldn't say smallest. Just least-vocal.
I can't say as I recall minding much of SA2. The shooting and hunting segments were certainly done better in SA1 (smaller, faster character for the former, smaller stages and no being forced to collect the emeralds in order for the latter), but they never struck me as out-and-out awful. Likewise, the game seemed a fair bit less buggy than SA1 (although any given Bethesda game is less buggy than SA1), which I appreciated.
The camera was shit, though. Took me a while to realize, but once you've tried Super Mario Sunshine's or Wind Waker's cameras, there's no going back. Also wasn't a fan of the introduction of the ranking system from NiGHTS and Burning Rangers to the Sonic series. I never did feel devoted enough to the game to get all As. Also didn't help that my save randomly vanished - like, it was still on the VMU, but the game didn't display it amongst the list of savegames (it was slot 1; the first slot shown was slot 2). I think the second time this bullshit happened was when I just gave up. I think it had something to do with the filename for Sega Rally 2's save, since it happened shortly after giving that game a go; I dunno.
Frankly, I think the thing that sticks out the most as something I didn't particularly care for was the sudden dark turn in the story. I mean, Sonic under arrest and imprisoned by the (outright blind) government. A doppleganger with more internal angst than several badly-written Square Enix protagonists rolled into one. Eggman blowing up the entire prison facility Sonic was interned at, killing god-knows-how-many innocents (if off-screen). Eggman then blowing up half the moon (as a demonstration), completely and irrevocably screwing up the Earth's ecosystems and climates (well, if such a thing really happened, anyway), and then threatening to do so to an entire country. Eggman capturing Sonic in a bold assumption (it'd have been hilarious if Sonic actually was giving up the real emerald, and Eggman still accused him of trickery) and then effectively killing him (well, he escapes, of course, but it's not like anyone watching the capsule go down would've known that detail). Then a third party tries to perform a colony drop to kabosh the entire planet in revenge for the government killing his daughter when they shut down his experiments (not even getting into the whole "alien" angle Shadow the Hedgehog later introduced)?
...
...yeah, um, what happened to running around through cheery hillsides to stop a really goofy, chubby antagonist with a mustache from turning little animals into robots in his grandiose attempts for world conquest? This is about as far from that as you can get.
Of course, Heroes then boomeranged back to that, but like an inexperienced driver on an icy road, oversteered and went to complete banality instead. Then we went back to grimdark for Shadow, and then we went at ludicrous speed to stupid with 2K6. Unleashed's, Colors's and Generations's plots may have been generic, but they were a helluva lot better written than any of this dreck.
I take it you've moved onto the superior FFIX or FFV?
those two games take up 2/3 spots of my favorite FF games. you know what the third is. ;p
Shadow Hog
Member
Mystic Quest, obviously
From my experience with those who don't play Sonic games, normally it's Sonic Adventure 2 that they've played. Sonic Adventure 1 actually seems to be less popular than it's sequel.
Every time I tend to bring up conversations about Adventure 1, it's always Adventure 2 that got someone into series, or they just haven't played a Sonic game since that one. I think Sonic Adventure 2 is popular(as a Sonic game) with those not really into Sonic games.
I think the vibe it has on it attracted it to a broader audience. Especially with characters like Shadow and Rouge, and the fact that you can play as the "bad side".
-edit-
If we're talking favorite FFs, FF1 is my favorite.
Every time I tend to bring up conversations about Adventure 1, it's always Adventure 2 that got someone into series, or they just haven't played a Sonic game since that one. I think Sonic Adventure 2 is popular(as a Sonic game) with those not really into Sonic games.
I think the vibe it has on it attracted it to a broader audience. Especially with characters like Shadow and Rouge, and the fact that you can play as the "bad side".
-edit-
If we're talking favorite FFs, FF1 is my favorite.
Haha we think alike, man. I dunno it just seems like everyone I talk to about the series brings up SA2 as their entry point/favorite. Which is oddly the same scenario people bring up when discussing FF7. That is the crux of my argument, really.
FF4 is my personal favorite, btw.
Dark Schala
Eloquent Princess
My favourite FF is I don't know what my favourite FF is.
I love laughing at (huge plot spoilers in these because I make fun of them) Final Fantasy IV.
Let me reiterate how happy I was when you said you liked FFIX.
I guess that's why Unleashed, Colours, and Generations come off as quite refreshing in that regard (especially the latter two). It'd been a while since we had a happy-go-lucky, non-invasive plot like those ones.
I really like Mystic Quest, actually. No one in that game's world gives a crap about anything going on, so the dialogue is amazing as a result. And the music kicks ass. No one can dispute how awesome Ryuji Sasai is. The Rudra no Hihou soundtrack is amazing because of him.
I love laughing at (huge plot spoilers in these because I make fun of them) Final Fantasy IV.
Yessss, Someone's been enlightened.
Let me reiterate how happy I was when you said you liked FFIX.
Yeah, I don't really come to Sonic for grimdark stuff. Like, SA2's plot was interesting for the time because they did something significantly different for the series in general. But then they went off the deep end with 2006 and Shadow.Shadow Hog said:
I guess that's why Unleashed, Colours, and Generations come off as quite refreshing in that regard (especially the latter two). It'd been a while since we had a happy-go-lucky, non-invasive plot like those ones.
It's obvious that these days they're trying to make Sonic like he was in the cartoons as most people knew him. After what SEGA has done with "serious" after Sonic Adventure 2, I honestly prefer it this way.
It's also not just that, the storyline makes absolutely no sense so I'd rather it be this cartoon easy going, cheesy jokes style.
It's also not just that, the storyline makes absolutely no sense so I'd rather it be this cartoon easy going, cheesy jokes style.
That one's easy. FF7 was the debut of the franchise on a different company's system, which brought it to the attention of a ton of people previously unfamiliar with it. Similarly, most of the people who wax nostalgic for SA2, when pressed for details, will say that it was SA2:B.
There is some truth to that.
Nocturnowl
Member
No doubt in my mind that SA2 Battle was either the introduction or reintroduction to sonic for many people including myself in fact (that is the reintroduction).
One of my friends still loves it to this day fuelled by what must purely be nostalgia, it's kind of ridiculous, I mean the man got tattoos of a Dark Chao and SA2 Knuckles but has no desire to play any of the recent sonic games, he just always asks me if there is a Chao Garden which he seems to base his decision off. Madness I tell you.
One of my friends still loves it to this day fuelled by what must purely be nostalgia, it's kind of ridiculous, I mean the man got tattoos of a Dark Chao and SA2 Knuckles but has no desire to play any of the recent sonic games, he just always asks me if there is a Chao Garden which he seems to base his decision off. Madness I tell you.
Link1110
Member
I went back to Sonic Colors for ds lately, and even though sying anything good about Dimps pains me greatly (Tales fan) I thi k I like this version better than the Wii version. I felt that the Wii's 2d segments weren't that great, but the too few 3d sections shined, but the ds version just feels more like a great 2d sonic game.
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