• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sonic the Hedgehog Community Thread |OT3 & Knuckles|

T

TrueBlue

Member
Tizoc said:
Alright gang, lay it on me:
What're you critique of Iizuka? How has he 'fallen from grace' or so to speak?
Click to expand...

I think his race is run honestly.

I mean he seems like a pretty chill guy who genuinely likes the fandom. But seeing the same mismanagement mistakes post-Generations that bogged down the series until 2006 is pretty disheartening.

Under his helm ST never seem to take the right lessons from previous games. In general the franchise seems unfocused and lacking in confidence - and this is typified in Forces.

Mania is more than likely a reprieve, and if Ilzuka had any impact in making that happen, he deserves credit.

That being said, you could argue that Mania having to be developed as it is stands as the most damning indictment of the series under his stewardship.

So yeah, I don't think a change up top would go amiss.
 
P

Psxphile

Member
Shadow Hog said:
Hot Coldman claimed responsibility for making the official thread ("|OT|") in Gaming Discussion covering the game when it launches in a little over three weeks, and he'd indicated to me/others in our LINE chat what the subtitle he was gonna use is.
Click to expand...

I'm... still not following.
 
W

Waddle Dee

Member
Tizoc said:
Alright gang, lay it on me:
What're you critique of Iizuka? How has he 'fallen from grace' or so to speak?
Click to expand...

He's a nice guy that plays along with the fandom well so it's hard to hate him but I do think it's about time he stepped down. I've got no clue who should take his place but hopefully it'd be someone with a clearer vision for the franchise.
 
P

Professor Beef

Banned
BlackJace said:
So you can sign off on the Chao genocide? I don't think so b
Click to expand...
Barack-Obama-Saying-It-is-Law.gif
 
B

BlazeHedgehog

Member
Tizoc said:
Alright gang, lay it on me:
What're you critique of Iizuka? How has he 'fallen from grace' or so to speak?
Click to expand...

That would imply that he had grace, I guess.

I like the original Sonic Adventure, and I even sort of like Sonic Adventure 2, even though I am hyper-critical of them. I'm mainly hyper critical of them because they have MASSIVE rough edges and in the case of the original Sonic Adventure feel absolutely prehistoric next to modern 3D games in ways that even PS1 and N64 games don't always mirror.

Under Iizuka's rule, we got games that seemed to excel in swimming up stream. He made a career out of basically doing the opposite of what everybody was asking for, at least as far as the criticisms I was hearing in my neck of the woods go. Too many characters stealing Sonic's spotlight? Clearly that just means we need to keep adding more.

He dove head first in to the absolutely laughable Shadow the Hedgehog. Either for budget reasons or something else, Takashi Iizuka was the heart and soul of that game. It's not just a producer or even a director credit -- Iizuka is listed as scenario writer, level designer, AND game designer. And I've said it before, but for all the four letter words people have for Sonic 06, Shadow is in every way a worse game. And apparently it seems to have been Iizuka's baby.

After Shadow the Hedgehog, Iizuka seemed to need a break from hedgehogs. Conveniently, Yuji Naka resigned right around this time, finally opening the door for Sonic Team to do a sequel to NiGHTS: Into Dreams (Naka-san was historically against such a project). Every bad habit Sonic Team developed with Sonic the Hedgehog was then brought to NiGHTS -- the "Journey of Dreams" stretches its thin content almost to the breaking point, completely misunderstands the intent of the original game, and adds the worst, most unnecessary and cringe-worthy storyline.

The original NiGHTS was elegant and complex, I'd say it has more in common with games like Braid or Journey (if filtered through a 90's Sega Arcade lens) and Journey of Dreams is basically NiGHTS' version of Sonic 06. It is a clumsy, ugly, unpolished game.

After that disaster, Iizuka laid low for many years. Japanese corporate politics say you are never fired, you are merely punished for poor performance. Exiled to obscure projects until you toil long enough in the salt mines of game development to stage a comeback. Perhaps that happened to Takashi Iizuka, or perhaps he merely took time off to recharge his batteries, or maybe it was even a little bit of both.

Journey of Dreams was 2007, and while Iizuka was in exile, we got Sonic Unleashed.

Iizuka started taking the spotlight right around the Sonic 4 "Project Needlemouse" shitstorm started swirling up. It really felt like he was trying to be the Japanese face of that game, and, well, I don't really need to say much more than that, given what a turd Episode 1 was.

Eventually, Takashi Iizuka simply was "back." He never had a formal coming back party, he just became the go-to Sonic Team representative starting from Sonic Generations onward. Perhaps others can fill in these blanks, but I seem to remember him saying some particularly outlandish things about Sonic Generations as well, specifically about Classic Sonic, but I don't remember the exact quotes, I just remember thinking "Jeeze, I don't think this guy gets it."

What I DO remember is Iizuka saying that Sonic Generations was "closing the book" (or whatever) on that type of Sonic game (boost) and that Sonic Team would be doing something fresh and original for the next Sonic.

We ended up getting Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric from that. Yeah. Great.

Which paints Sonic Forces as Sonic Team in retreat. They're re-opening that book and doubling back to what people liked. On one hand, hey! That's something Sonic Team's never done before, and I'll welcome a smarter Sonic Team that's sticking to what works. On the other hand, Sonic Forces feels incredibly uninspired, at least from the Modern Sonic and Classic Sonic sides of things. Nothing about what they've shown looks like it was made by anyone willing to push any limits whatsoever -- instead it's just bland, safe, reheated Sonic Generations leftovers. Which is... not so welcome (but not unwelcome? maybe? it's complicated).

I've heard many people say he is the nicest guy, and for that I am sorry for being harsh and critical of him, but I'm not buying the developer, I'm buying the developer's product.
 
S

Supaidaman

Member
Sonic Team as a whole doesn't really seem to know what they're going to do with Sonic after all. There's no reason for Classic Sonic to exist in Forces for instance.
 
S

Solid SOAP

Member
Forces comes across to me as tryhard on almost all levels. They want to keep the goodwill they had from Colors and Generations, but they insist on adding gimmicks and shoving in dialogue from friends as you play. That, coupled with what looks to be a weird and tonally inconsistent story, will likely make for a very bizarre and inconsistent experience.

It's too bad, if they simply made a game with all modern stages ala Colors, it'd likely be good and worth buying, even with a weird story.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
Also instead of an MC like the one already in Forces, they could've had you customize an Egg Robo/E-series bot or even Emeral.
 
C

CrimsonCrescendo

Banned
Sonic Forces feels like a game they seriously didn't want to make but for lack of a better option, made anyway. Everything is uninspired, the level design looks very perfunctory and forgets the lessons learned from Unleashed/Colors/Generations, and the music is probably the worst I've heard in a Sonic game in a long damn time.


Tizoc said:
Alright gang, lay it on me:
What're you critique of Iizuka? How has he 'fallen from grace' or so to speak?
Click to expand...

Blaze already pretty much summed up the situation so I'll just say: when you have Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 4 to your name, there ain't much grace to lose. Before that he was director on Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, both of which aged like spoiled milk and 2 has some utterly baffling design decisions (one gem at a time on the radar, Mad Space in general, and so on). The best project he was involved with was Sonic 3 and he was a Senior Level Designer. He's never been a strong director or producer (based off Sonic 4 and Sonic Lost World) and has always seemed to be one of the root causes of Sonic's worst excesses.

One more thing: Everyone can have a bad game to their name as director, no one is going to bat a thousand. Shinji Mikami has PN03 to his director credit but he also has Resident Evil, REmake, Resident Evil 4, Dino Crisis, God Hand, and Vanquish to his name as well. The Best Iizuka ever did was "okay for the time" games like the Adventure games and Heroes but at his worst he gives off a Shadow the Hedgehog.
 
P

Piers

Member
BlazeHedgehog said:
He dove head first in to the absolutely laughable Shadow the Hedgehog. Either for budget reasons or something else, Takashi Iizuka was the heart and soul of that game. It's not just a producer or even a director credit -- Iizuka is listed as scenario writer, level designer, AND game designer. And I've said it before, but for all the four letter words people have for Sonic 06, Shadow is in every way a worse game. And apparently it seems to have been Iizuka's baby.
Click to expand...

Might be wrong, but wasn't Shadow a result of listening to fan demand — which ended up being...well, Shadow having his own game?
In fact, in hindsight, I almost recall there may have been a survey before that game was announced asking which character people want a game for.

I mention this because I think some people get the idea that Shadow the Hedgehog was entirely Sonic Team's pet project.
 
T

TrueBlue

Member
Piers said:
Might be wrong, but wasn't Shadow a result of listening to fan demand — which ended up being…well, Shadow having his own game?
In fact, in hindsight, I almost recall there may have been a survey before that game was announced asking which character people want a game for.

I mention this because I think some people get the idea that Shadow the Hedgehog was entirely Sonic Team's pet project.
Click to expand...

I think so, but I'm not entirely sure.

Even if that is the case, surely the best cause of action would have been: "Okay, Shadow is popular. Why don't we have some refined and improved levels fron Adventure/Heroes and apply a darker aesthetic to fit the character?"

Instead we got guns, vehicles, crappy platforming and controls, a hillariously awful story, equally hillarious VA, swearing and a morality system that led to some truly horrific missions - such as the ARK flashback - and story endings.

People wanted a Shadow game. They didn't want a Shadow game with all that + Eggman being murdered at the end.

Just an utterly baffling game on every level.
 
C

CrimsonCrescendo

Banned
From the outset Shadow the Hedgehog was misguided. Shadow was definitely a more edgy version of Sonic, but his solo game took this to ridiculous levels. The intro showed an alien invasion, Shadow massacring soldiers, and a beaten sonic collapsing in front of Shadow holding a gun. They got Powerman 5000 to make a song with the lyrics "Heaven can't save us, Hell is a joke". The main menu has gun sound effects and gun shots. You terror bomb a city in one of the missions. You shoot down Air Force One. As mentioned, Shadow straight up kills Eggman in a couple of endings. In one ending Shadow decides to try to conquer the entire universe after deciding to "Destroy this damn planet". The entire thing is so hilariously middle school edge.

This doesn't even mention how horrible the level design is, how bad the game feels to play, how nonsensical the story is, or anything else.

People wanted a Shadow game. What they got was a crap-fest.


This was SA 2 Shadow:

sa2b_shadow_ad.jpg



This is StH Shadow:

Shadow-The-Hedgehog-Background-Download-Free.jpg
 
M

Mr. Smiley

Member
At best, the arguments I'd see of the two is that '06 is laughably bad while Shadow is painfully, repetitively bad.

Haven't replayed either in years, personally.
 
W

Waddle Dee

Member
Supaidaman said:
Sonic Team as a whole doesn't really seem to know what they're going to do with Sonic after all. There's no reason for Classic Sonic to exist in Forces for instance.
Click to expand...

Chances are that Sonic Forces (at least the designing phase of it), was in development before Sonic Mania became a thing. By the time the Mania deal was made, the probably felt like they couldn't backtrack and remove Classic Sonic from what they planned Sonic Forces to be.

Classic Sonic is unneeded though. From the very little we've seen of him in Forces, he doesn't look improved from Generations. While Classic Sonic in Generations played just fine for the levels that he was put into, he wasn't anywhere close to being a proper 1 to 1 with the Genesis games and now with Mania coming out I don't think Classic Sonic's implementation in Forces will be seen as positively when it comes out.

TrueBlue said:
I think so, but I'm not entirely sure.

Even if that is the case, surely the best cause of action would have been: "Okay, Shadow is popular. Why don't we have some refined and improved levels fron Adventure/Heroes and apply a darker aesthetic to fit the character?"

Instead we got guns, vehicles, crappy platforming and controls, a hillariously awful story, equally hillarious VA, swearing and a morality system that led to some truly horrific missions - such as the ARK flashback - and story endings.

People wanted a Shadow game. They didn't want a Shadow game with all that + Eggman being murdered at the end.

Just an utterly baffling game on every level.
Click to expand...

Yep. Considering how popular Shadow was at the time (hell, he's still immensely popular!) it was a no-brainer to give him his own game. The problems came with all the edgy follow-the-leader design decisions Sonic Team implemented into that game. I still can get some fun out of Shadow the Hedgehog, but that game is a mess of ideas regardless and I don't blame anyone for hating it. It was a bad concept, poorly executed.

At least it gave us this amazing line...

maxresdefault.jpg
Click to expand...

Mr. Smiley said:
At best, the arguments I'd see of the two is that '06 is laughably bad while Shadow is painfully, repetitively bad.

Haven't replayed either in years, personally.
Click to expand...

I'm a sick fuck who enjoyed both to a modest degree when they came out, and I can still get some enjoyment out of them, but only when playing certain sections.

When it comes to Shadow, I can enjoy playing most levels as long as I'm playing the Normal mission (get to the Goal) or some of the less tedious optional missions.

With Sonic 06, I have to be playing as Sonic, Shadow, or Blaze and even then it's a level-by-level basis.

Sonic 06 is a much larger game than Shadow (despite Shadow having more unique levels) so there's a lot more trash you have to swim though. All of Silver's Story, outside of Blaze's one level, is absolute shit, and anything involving the Town Stages is a chore at best.
 
T

TheOGB

Banned
The thing with Shadow is that it seemed like a game where Sonic Team were finally able to try out some ideas they'd had on the backburner for a while, and all of them were terrible
 
W

Waddle Dee

Member
TheOGB said:
The thing with Shadow is that it seemed like a game where Sonic Team were finally able to try out some ideas they'd had on the backburner for a while, and all of them were terrible
Click to expand...

You mean the multiple endings (Sonic Adventure 2, I believe) and having a character like Sonic with firearms (SA1)? Most of the other ideas in Shadow felt like Sonic Team were just looking at what was popular in the Western market around that time.
 
R

Rlan

Member
TheOGB said:
The thing with Shadow is that it seemed like a game where Sonic Team were finally able to try out some ideas they'd had on the backburner for a while, and all of them were terrible
Click to expand...

This is kind of Lost World too. Lost World just feels like a mishmash of half ideas that didn't result in a good game. A parkour system that doesn't work, a Zone system that doesn't make a lick of sense (Desert Ruins involves a Desert, Forest & Candy level), a crappy level requirement system where you need to play some circus minigame, and what feels like a list of shitty leftover wisp powers.

I still feel Colors is still the best game they've made in the last 10 years. It kept things simple, focused on a few mechanics and made them really fun. Unleashed's Werehog levels were boring and long, and Generations almost had it, but at the end still had a few more crappy bits (Final Boss, Vector fight) than Colors.
 
W

Waddle Dee

Member
Rlan said:
This is kind of Lost World too. Lost World just feels like a mishmash of half ideas that didn't result in a good game. A parkour system that doesn't work, a Zone system that doesn't make a lick of sense (Desert Ruins involves a Desert, Forest & Candy level), a crappy level requirement system where you need to play some circus minigame, and what feels like a list of shitty leftover wisp powers.

I still feel Colors is still the best game they've made in the last 10 years. It kept things simple, focused on a few mechanics and made them really fun. Unleashed's Werehog levels were boring and long, and Generations almost had it, but at the end still had a few more crappy bits (Final Boss, Vector fight) than Colors.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's no secret that Lost World was experimental to a fault.

That was optional though. A good chunk of the Sonic Simulator levels aren't much fun either. I would say that, as a whole, Sonic Colors is the most consistently great Sonic game released since S3&K but I think Sonic Generations had much higher highs and most of it's lows were relegated to the option missions. At the end of the day, both were great games and it's a shame the franchise as been in a rut since then.
 
R

Rlan

Member
Waddle Dee said:
That was optional though. A good chunk of the Sonic Simulator levels aren't much fun either. I would say that, as a whole, Sonic Colors is the most consistently great Sonic game released since S3&K but I think Sonic Generations had much higher highs and most of it's lows were relegated to the option missions. At the end of the day, both were great games and it's a shame the franchise as been in a rut since then.
Click to expand...

The Sonic Simulator levels didn't need to be there at all. That's 21 stages that could have easily been cut to polish up the rest of the game just a bit more.
 
S

Supaidaman

Member
I'm really curious as to what route Sonic Team will try to take Sonic after Forces. Even if the game sells, Mania will certainly have much better reviews.


Colors 2.0? Adventure 3? Heroes 2? Some other weird experiment? Firing Iizuka?
 
C

CrimsonCrescendo

Banned
Village said:
I can make many arguments that not rushing 06 wouldn't have fixed 06
Click to expand...

Yeah, Sonic 06 would have been less broken had it had more time, but it still wouldn't have been anywhere in the ballpark of "good". In fact, they actually cut out extra stuff that would have made the game more annoying. They wanted more hub areas, more side missions, more vehicles, more cutscenes of that god awful story, etc. The design of Sonic 06 is just rotten to the very core.
 
V

Village

Member
Folks think giving sonic team time fixes the problem, it can help. But there is an ideological problem with the folks in charge that gets us to point b, time and time again.

And unfortunately forces looks like itis going to be the period on that statement. You can give sonic team time, its not going to fix the problem , sonic team is the problem. Or rather has horrible problems

A lack of confidence in ideas
And a lack of understanding what any part of their fanbase wants out of anything. Or to put it simply, It seems like they don't understand why... anyone likes any sonic thing. And that's horrifying. They understand people like , but they can't ascertain why, so they use things poorly.
And unwillingness or inability to learn from these things

Those things combine into a horrifying cocktail that Sega has been serving us since ShtH.

Time don't fix those problems, replacing people fixes those probelms
 
C

CrimsonCrescendo

Banned
Yeah, if Sonic Team were putting out flawed but fundamentally sound games, that'd be one thing. Games like Darksiders 2, Metal Gear Rising, Resonance of Fate, etc. are these kinds of games. Some have too low of a budget, some are too padded as per corporate mandate, others just have some flawed execution but the fundamentals are all sound and still damn fun to play. That's not what Sonic Team puts out. They put out a Sherry/Jake RE 6 campaign which is just full of terrible ideas. They put out Mighty No. 9's, which completely miss why we loved the older games. And when they do put out a good game like Colors or Generations, they are unable to carry through with the mechanics and when they come back later, seem to forget what made them work. Time doesn't help these issues. As long as the people who were in charge of StH, 06, Night Unleashed, and Lost World still call the shots, I don't see much changing.
 
W

Waddle Dee

Member
It would really help if Sonic Team took some notes from Nintendo (or any other modern platforming developer, honestly) and focused on just getting Sonic's controls and core mechanics right before moving on to other aspect.

Make sure Sonic is responsive and satisfying to control. Make the jumping feel natural and then later design the levels with exact measurements in mind. If it's a game that uses the Boost Formula, try to improve the controls when boosting so that levels can be less linear and offer more diversity in their mechanics.

I feel like Sonic Colors and Generations were the closest we ever got to Sonic Team actually spending time focusing on how their game played and going for a "less is more" approach. If Forces ends up being lackluster, then hopefully they take things slower and more cautiously next time. They shouldn't start designing an actual Sonic game again until they spend some time figuring out how their next game should play.

Edit: I got the Cook and Becker Sonic art book and while looking through the illustrations for the enemies in Sonic CD it dawned on me that... are all the badniks in that game based off of insects?! How did I never notice that?
 
N

NotLiquid

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Hi. Has anyone heard from Hero of Legend since June 3rd? He's had no activity on GAF or Twitter since that date (there's a tweet from an automatic thing where his YouTube account liked a video -- and the video was a commercial for a truck so probably some spam thing), no blog posts since a few weeks before, and a bunch of GAF posts the day before. I wanted to make sure he was alright. I thought some people here might talk to him outside GAF either having met him on GAF or knowing him from writing for the Sonic Stadium website.
Click to expand...

He's been hospitalized for the last couple of months but he's slowly getting better.
 
H

Hero of Legend

Member
Hey friends, it's good to be back. :) Yeah, I was in the hospital for nearly two months and just got back today, but I am getting support, so I should be fine. :)

Thank you all so much for thinking of me, that means so much.
 
S

Sami+

Member
Professor Beef said:
I would need to see the arguments towards Shadow being worse than 06. I'm not saying I don't believe it, it's just hard to fathom.
Click to expand...

Sonic 06 was like someone grabbing a monkey's paw and wishing for a new game like Sonic Adventure 1. It's hot trash, the story sucks, it's obviously super buggy, etc. But when you look at the level design and the mechanic themselves (at least in Sonic's case), as well as the structure of having "mach-speed" levels interspersed throughout the campaign for variety, there's the skeleton of a surprisingly ambitious game with good ideas in there. Like, REALLY deep in there and also you have to tilt your head and squint a bit, but it's there.

Shadow is like Sonic Team took the already bad Sonic Heroes and just made it worse on every conceivable level with literally zero design decisions that make any sense at all.

Edit - oh wow just read the posts right above mine, glad you're doing well Hero.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
I actually consider Sonic 06 a must play game.


For all the wrong reasons, of course, but you should really play it if you haven't. I guarantee you'll have a fun time.
 
S

Sami+

Member
Anth0ny said:
I actually consider Sonic 06 a must play game.


For all the wrong reasons, of course, but you should really play it if you haven't. I guarantee you'll have a fun time.
Click to expand...

Last time I played (YouTube LP, wanted to test new a setup), I tried REALLY hard to keep a positive and more analytical mindset towards it and honestly I had a surprisingly good time with Sonic's story. Obviously still not good but I was happy with how mediocre the experience was instead of outright horrible.

Silver is worse, but the game really falls apart with Shadow. I hated literally everything about Shadow and it totally burnt out all the good will I had previously to the point that I really wanted it over with by the end.
 
B

BlackJace

Member
Good to see you're recovering HoL!

And yeah, 06 is actually fun game if only to see the depths of the madness within.
Definitely a
Radical
train wreck you can't look away from.
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
sixteen-bit said:
tumblr_otpkdxbmJw1vjuh1lo1_1280.png
Click to expand...

Jak from Jak 2 and 3 should be on there
Replacing Shadow for one thing.

Real talk: I don't get the whole 'edge' thing when it comes to Shadow.
When I think Shadow, I think Kamen Rider, and my main exposure to him was in the Ian Flynn run of the comics where he was well written.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Sonic X Shadow Generations | Review Thread
Review 2 3
125
6K
Fat Frog replied
Sonic X Shadow Generations Collector’s Edition available for pre-order at LRG | PS5/PS4/XBS/XBO/Switch/PC
23
1K
ShirAhava replied
Sonic and Persona planes to take to the skies in AirAsia collaboration
News
14
675
nikos replied
Paramount + Knuckles first trailer revealed
News
13
2K
March Climber replied
Shadow the Hedgehog | Devious Intent (HyperBitHero)
Analysis
8
920
HyperBitHero replied
Top Bottom