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Sonic the Hedgehog Community Thread |OT3 & Knuckles|

my body wasn't ready for that MGR comic edit
The tree was the icing on the cake.

Yeah, I'm getting Azran Legacy when it comes out. Is it better than the Layton games post-3?
Better than 4 & 5, almost on par with 3 which I'm sure we all know is the true gold standard.
There's a small switchup to the standard formula of progression for most of the game giving you some choice and smaller self contained "mysteries", some are better than others but at any rate it leads to a nice variety of locales.

Boooo. But I think I might start doing that from now on. For the past two years, I didn't explicitly name people I'd discussed games/soundtracks with because I used to repost my lists elsewhere. Since I don't do that anymore, I decided to do that. Going by the feedback I got, people seemed to really like being mentioned in my text, so I'll continue doing that.

I basically read every post in those threads, so I'd like to provide feedback to some users in some way.
Name drops, cheap pops.
 

Noi

Member
da top 10. Not all of them have written text cause I don't have much to say about them other than they're good.

10. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

JC's writeup for this game is still the most accurate I've ever read. Thinking about how much worse this game could have been is one of the main reasons I like it as much as I do. I have my issues with the game, such as the game being generally too easy, the dungeons being rather one-track in design and the mini-games not being particularly great, but it's a good package overall and actually a very good showcase for 60FPS in video games. So smooth.

EP3jFoA.jpg

Link, please never take up baseball as a hobby ever again.

9. Corpse Party: Book of Shadows

I'm not a fan of horror games. By that I mean that I spook easily and generally avoid them as a result. It's a good thing that while Corpse Party is a horror game by definition, it doesn't rely on spook scares but instead on placing the player in uncomfortable and unnerving situations, coupled together with one of the best uses of Binaural audio recording in video games. Book of Shadows promised more spooks in the same vein as the first game and it definitely delivered.

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Spoilers: Everyone dies.

8. Dynasty Warriors 8

7. The Last of Us

6. Tearaway

5. Dragon's Crown

Dragon's Crown is a good video game. The action is great and the boobs are good.

average day in dragon's crown

4. Guacamelee!

3. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

It's kind of amazing how this series flip flops in quality so much. AC3 was my dissapointment of the year in 2013, but AC4 is almost franchise-redeeming for me. I'd like to say that Ubisoft learned it's lesson from that game, but knowing how yearly franchises work, it might have all just been a fluke. A happy fluke, in any case.

Now watch Ubisoft drive AC5 into the ground next year.

2. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

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1. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

This is the game that I had to take a break/stop playing to type all this. I'm pretty sure that by now my playtime in Eorzea eclipses the time I've spent playing every other game in this list combined. I know MMOs are designed to be addictive just by their nature, but I really do have a lot of fun playing A Realm Reborn. It's proof to me that at least some people working at Square Enix are still competent, to the point where I genuinely don't mind paying a sub to keep playing as long as the quality content keeps coming.

Average day in Eorzea:
finalfantasy14cmjjp.png

touch booty

pose heroically

save the world again

help batshit insane investigators

beat up this guy for the 500th time

be spooky

welpdokd7.png

wonder what other players are on

are you happy now schala
 

Sciz

Member
SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #113

Song: Ice Paradise Act 2
Game: Sonic Advance 2
Composer: Tatsuyuki Maeda, Yutaka Minobe, or Teruhiko Nakagawa

This would be one of the better Advance tracks anyway. It's chipper and wintry, and makes much better use of the Advance 1 and 2 sample set than most of its brethren. The harmonica gets all the attention while the bass and bells fill out the harmony and the drums drown out the organ. But where every other track leaves it at that and carries on with life, Ice Paradise Act 2 hits the loop point and doesn't stop. The key shifts, the electric piano comes out of nowhere, and it spends the next minute straight freestyling like a jazz band suddenly broke into the cartridge. The rest of the music's slacking by comparison.
 
I'm still not sure what to make of Layton vs. AA. I've heard it's kind of underwhelming, like they put two games into one package but didn't mesh them very well together.

The Ace Attorney half of the soundtrack, as well, seems kinda meh; from what I've heard, it's either verbatim orchestral remixes of the first game's themes (and it doesn't do a very good job of differentiating between "Moderato" and "Allegro"), or original compositions that veer way too closely to the first game's themes to really stand out.

I'm still gonna get it whenever it comes out, of course. It's more Ace Attorney, and hey, maybe the writing's better than the soundtrack is. That's typically the real star of the series, anyway.
 

OMG Aero

Member
I'm still not sure what to make of Layton vs. AA. I've heard it's kind of underwhelming, like they put two games into one package but didn't mesh them very well together.

The Ace Attorney half of the soundtrack, as well, seems kinda meh; from what I've heard, it's either verbatim orchestral remixes of the first game's themes (and it doesn't do a very good job of differentiating between "Moderato" and "Allegro"), or original compositions that veer way too closely to the first game's themes to really stand out.

I'm still gonna get it whenever it comes out, of course. It's more Ace Attorney, and hey, maybe the writing's better than the soundtrack is. That's typically the real star of the series, anyway.
The thing that's bumming me out about Layton vs Wright is that we're getting it after AA5 whereas in Japan it came out like a year before.
As a result the Phoenix Wright model looks dramatically worse in the vs game.
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FSLink

Banned
Professor Layton games are just hard to finish for some reason about 2/3s through the game.

The ending to miracle mask was fantastic though.

I still need to finish Miracle Mask, but I was kind of burned out after beating 3 and 4 right before it came out.
 

Sciz

Member
SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #114

Song: Gonna Have a Party v1 / v2
Show: Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)
Composer: Michael Tavera

Everyone knows Fastest Thing Alive, SatAM's theme song. Much less commonly known is that it was the winner from a selection of songs written for the role by composer Michael Tavera. A fan got in contact with him some years ago trying to get a hold of clean copies of the score, but what he got back was a bunch of unused demo music like this, as Tavera didn't have backups of anything else left. I'd say we came out ahead.

Version 1 is a synthier, 80s take on the tune, while version 2 takes it in a surf rock direction. Not too hard to see why neither one made the cut, though; even if the show was lighter in tone earlier in production, it comes off too much like the Hardy Boys cartoon theme song.
 

Razzer

Member
SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #114

Song: Gonna Have a Party v1 / v2
Show: Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)
Composer: Michael Tavera

Huh, I never heard of this. Both pretty cool though. The lyrics are even more cheesy than the actual theme, though the talk of 'zones' makes me think it might have been more similar to the games originally? Fun tunes.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
If you've PM'd me and I haven't gotten back to you yet, just know that I will eventually. I'm just drowning in spreadsheets and recovering from... whatever the hell I had on the weekend because I don't even know what that was.

Wow, I didn't even know someone ripped SatAM's soundtrack somewhere. That's interesting to hear. I wonder if there are any other gems on the soundtrack (or even AoStH, for that matter).

The thing that's bumming me out about Layton vs Wright is that we're getting it after AA5 whereas in Japan it came out like a year before.
As a result the Phoenix Wright model looks dramatically worse in the vs game.
z8qvt9Q.jpg
V0FHUn4.jpg
I heard that Layton v Wright isn't really that great in terms of its story. Someone told me that they were kind of happy they could play L v W first because it made them appreciate the models in AA5 more than they already did.

Oh well. Coming from Level-5, that's a little disappointing to hear since that's basically what they excel at. Seeing terms highlighted in red really makes it feel like a VN, though. I didn't ask if you had to highlight every term that's in red to keep it in an archive anywhere. It didn't strike me that the game would even do that.

Also, buttnik pls.

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Also, because this has been brought up to me in private from a few people, I have considered the following: The OP says that no shitty fanart (ie: the calibre that you would post in the Awesome Fan Art thread) is allowed.

With that said, because I know some people would love to share their artwork/sprite art in here and other art that they find really cool (but not unsavoury; under any circumstances do not post unsavoury art in here; use your judgement wisely) I've decided to loosen the restriction on posting art/gifs in here for a few days as a trial period.

Exercise your judgement wisely. Do not post anything stupid in here that you know will ruffle some feathers. This is not a free-for-all. If the feedback for the next few days is negative, then I'll curb this back and try again next month. If it's positive, I wouldn't mind seeing art in here from time to time. There is cool Sonic art and gifs out there. you just need to find it. I wouldn't mind seeing art in here from other series because this does feel like a congregation of fans from other series as well. This is basically the platformer thread, so you are certainly welcome to link to art from other series. Just don't go overboard because you all know exactly what happened last time.

And I would also like people to consider putting pics that are really big in quotes. I can enlarge it if I click on it in Firefox. I'm sure others can do the same. Don't take up space real estate if it isn't required. Resize pics with abload or paint or whatever before you post them if you want to, and just link to the full-sized resource.

Example: Resize picture with Abload like I usually do, then post the image with [/ img][/ url]. Really easy.

So... Good luck. We'll see how it goes until the weekend. If I get a few complaints about it and other people agree (because I like to treat this thread like a democracy), we're going back to barely posting art in here for a month.

[B]With that said, I'd like to know what other people think about loosening the unwritten fanart policy in this thread before we get into that.[/B] If no one likes this idea at all in the first place, we won't bother doing it. I realize that to some this is basically opening a can of worms, but I think the people who post in this thread have good judgement.
 

Sciz

Member
Wow, I didn't even know someone ripped SatAM's soundtrack somewhere. That's interesting to hear. I wonder if there are any other gems on the soundtrack

Ripped isn't really the word for it, although I don't doubt people have done that as well. There's three other unused theme songs that I'll get to over time, and a few pieces of BGM that I won't.

With that said, I'd like to know what other people think about loosening the unwritten fanart policy in this thread before we get into that. If no one likes this idea at all in the first place, we won't bother doing it. I realize that to some this is basically opening a can of worms, but I think the people who post in this thread have good judgement.

It can be handled well. The PonyGAF thread is basically nothing but respectable fanart despite how much deplorable content that fanbase generates, and I'd expect interested SonicGAFfers to have similar common sense.



SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #115

Song: Azure Lake
Game: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Composer: Uncertain; Sega staff

Sonic 3's 2P mode is probably the series' earliest example of the music wildly outstripping the quality of the content. The sound team put their hearts into these high-energy, competitive pieces, and then the mode itself was boring and repetitive and everyone just wanted Sonic 2's back.

That said, Azure Lake might be the weakest one of the bunch. They had a great idea for an intro, but the melody just comes and goes and never has been able to get its hooks in me. The organ's good, but that lead? Eh.
 
I'm feeling kind of down. A lot of mandatory expenses are piling up back to back:

  • Dryer wasn't drying, something I knew from within the first few weeks of getting my condo. Fortunately, my father footed that bill as a Christmas present. Buuut...
  • Shortly thereafter, my washer started to stop in the middle of loads, filled with cold, smelly soap water, until I reached in, pulled out a soaking-wet article being washed, and closed the lid again. Fed up with it doing this four times in a row in as many days, two of which were on the same damn load (the latter attempt being down one article of clothing), I went out and replaced the washer, a ~$550 expense. I should be getting a $50 rebate from my electric company, if I fill out the paperwork, for purchasing an energy-saving washer.
  • ~$650 to State Farm for car and condo insurance. Unavoidable.
  • My car has been displaying the check engine and IMA lights off and on for a while now. I need to find a dealer and get that all sorted out; I tried droping it off at a gas station whose owner I've done similar car-fixing business with before, but he said that the issue is one that only a Honda dealer can actually fix. I have no idea what that's going to cost me. At least the car drives okay for the time being....
  • And now the most recent issue: my hard drive is no longer spinning, and a lot of the data on there was not backed up. Micro Center is gonna see if they can do a data recovery, but this means I'm either out possibly $1700 ($700 of which is a safety deposit), or I'm out all of the data that was on there, permanently, without warning (if they can't recover it, the deposit is refunded).

    That's not even considering that, either way, the hard drive has to be replaced, and I clearly need to get external hard drives that are actually large enough to do weekly backups on (1TB internal can't be backed up on a pair of 120GB and 640GB externals; it's too big).
  • All that on top of your usual power, phone/Internet/TV, cell phone bills and food expenses.
I know I still have it better than some others I know; I keep seeing people on Twitter complaining about how much their parents have been giving them shit, which is something I'm fortunate to never have had issues with (I mean, my mother does have temper problems, but they haven't been directed toward me in a while). Nevertheless, good Lord is this all piling up way too quickly.

So yeah, my computer is out of commission for a good while. I'll probably still show up during business hours, since I'd be using my work laptop then, but beyond that... well, I suppose it's time to finally play those Wii U games I got for Christmas. Or perhaps finish off Xenoblade. I do wish my cell phone could play YouTube videos still, though.

Seeing terms highlighted in red really makes it feel like a VN, though. I didn't ask if you had to highlight every term that's in red to keep it in an archive anywhere. It didn't strike me that the game would even do that.
Isn't highlighting certain words in certain colors typical for an Ace Attorney game? I'd be more surprised if they weren't highlighted.
 
I have no problems with fanart being posted from the regulars since we would all now better. I just worry about a hypothetical new member coming in and posting some bullshit.
 

Sciz

Member
That's not even considering that, either way, the hard drive has to be replaced, and I clearly need to get external hard drives that are actually large enough to do weekly backups on (1TB internal can't be backed up on a pair of 120GB and 640GB externals; it's too big).

Sounds like it'll be a while before the cash is available, but do yourself a favor and pick up a small, dedicated OS drive in addition to whatever storage drives you get.
 

FSLink

Banned
I know I still have it better than some others I know; I keep seeing people on Twitter complaining about how much their parents have been giving them shit, which is something I'm fortunate to never have had issues with (I mean, my mother does have temper problems, but they haven't been directed toward me in a while). Nevertheless, good Lord is this all piling up way too quickly.
Hey, stress is stress, sucks for all of us. Yeah I agree with Sciz, and maybe look into digital backup as well if you aren't already for at least the important stuff. I always keep a physical backup and a backup on the cloud just in case my house burns down or something crazy.

I've actually been really stressed out with work myself lately, but working out or beating up people in Pokemon, SF4 or Marvel helps get my mind off of it, haha.

Isn't highlighting certain words in certain colors typical for an Ace Attorney game? I'd be more surprised if they weren't highlighted.
Usually accompanied by a sound effect too. :p
 
SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #113

Song: Ice Paradise Act 2
Game: Sonic Advance 2
Composer: Tatsuyuki Maeda, Yutaka Minobe, or Teruhiko Nakagawa
Jumping back to this one quickly because I feared the worst because GBA but was pleasantly surprised, still hindered by the GBA of course so they should really get onto a remix for this at some point.
Which they wont.

Professor Layton games are just hard to finish for some reason about 2/3s through the game.

The ending to miracle mask was fantastic though.
You should be compelled onwards by the power of the traditional Layton twist of nonsensical hilarity.
Miracle Mask's ending had one thing that really bugged me,
While I can't recall exactly what happened I can't help but feel Randall kind of gets away with all his shenanigans because "misunderstandings, lol", didn't he like try to bury a whole town and its people under sand with very flimsy justification or something? still gets a happy ending

With that said, I'd like to know what other people think about loosening the unwritten fanart policy in this thread before we get into that. If no one likes this idea at all in the first place, we won't bother doing it. I realize that to some this is basically opening a can of worms, but I think the people who post in this thread have good judgement.
I was under the impression that acceptable fanart, comics and the like was always allowed to be posted in the thread.
I've always figured the posters in this thread have good judgement on that sort of thing, maybe there was always the fear of derails into "awesome" fanart sometimes seen on gaming side but that comes typically from posters that wouldn't be taking part in this thread or with thread content that practically leads into it in the first place. Maybe I'm missing something here like extra context because I don't see this as a change to the existing rules.
Granted people might have been wanting to post images more often but were perhaps deterred due to potentially prickly reactions from a few? well regardless it doesn't really change things from my point of view.

It can be handled well. The PonyGAF thread is basically nothing but respectable fanart despite how much deplorable content that fanbase generates, and I'd expect interested SonicGAFfers to have similar common sense.
Also this.

I have no problems with fanart being posted from the regulars since we would all now better. I just worry about a hypothetical new member coming in and posting some bullshit.
Really though this could happen any time anyway and I know we could count on you to snitch for great justice.
 

Razzer

Member
v1eAiGQ.gif



I've been trying to use this for weeks, GODDAMNIT!

I literally saw this for the first time yesterday in an off-topic thread. It was a weird 5 minutes.

Edit: As for Song of the day, it's no chrome gadget but still good all the same. If they never remix it they may reference it like endless mine in city escape classic. It keeps the tempo going at a lovely pace. Simple yet satisfying.
 
Okay, given how down I've been feeling, I'm beginning to think watching the end of Return of the King was a bad idea. That scene at the harbor, man.

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Regiruler

Member
I have no problems with fanart being posted from the regulars since we would all now better. I just worry about a hypothetical new member coming in and posting some bullshit.

That or I just decide to go turbo and engulf the thread in chaos.
But I don't really browse the necessary channels to find anything worth posting, so that's not going to happen.

On a different note, after listening too Clockwork Tower, I need shovel knight yesterday.
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You should be compelled onwards by the power of the traditional Layton twist of nonsensical hilarity.
Miracle Mask's ending had one thing that really bugged me,
While I can't recall exactly what happened I can't help but feel Randall kind of gets away with all his shenanigans because "misunderstandings, lol", didn't he like try to bury a whole town and its people under sand with very flimsy justification or something? still gets a happy ending
Quite honestly,
the fact that all the miracles ended up fake made me worried that the ending would be an undramatic reveal with a scooby-do like wrap-up. Instead even after he's revealed, the finale becomes very, very real. What happens afterward is fine, because I like his character and happy endings. Besides, Descole (sort of) got what he wanted, so there's still the element of suspense and the touch of bitterness.
 

Tizoc

Member
FUCKING
FINALLY
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Took 3 weeks to get here, wtf Amazon UK.
Hope my pre-orders of Toukiden and Dangan Ronpa don't take too long >_< from Amazon.com
 

Pietepiet

Member
I decided to get Bravely a couple days ago as well, but a couple days before THAT I started on Crimson Shroud, so I should probably finish that first. Absolutely loving CS
 

Sciz

Member
My numbering got off by two thanks to losing entries in my archive file and forgetting about them when my system kept crashing. Terrible.


SonicGAF's Song of the Day - #118

Song: Dragon Dance
Game: Sonic Lost World
Composer: Tomoya Ohtani
Co-arrangement: Yutaka Minobe

Piccolo Flute: Takashi Asahi
Piano: Yutaka Minobe
Electric Bass: Akinori Yamada
Drums: Takashi Saito

You can draw parallels between a number of Lost World tracks and various Unleashed tracks, none of which Ohtani wrote. It could be simple coincidence, but I'm more inclined to believe that he either wanted to put his own spin on the concepts given the opportunity, or was pressed for time enough that he looked to his coworkers' past work for stylistic inspiration. In either case, this comes off like a lost act of Dragon Road, if it had been shuffled around to a position later in the game. I'm certainly not complaining, especially not if it means hearing Minobe rock out on the piano some more. It's also one of the precious few cases where Ohtani's percussion is slow enough that an actual human can keep up with it, a novelty in its own right.
 
Dragon Dance barely missed the cut in my SotY write up, easily a favourite from Lost World's soundtrack and cheap deaths not withstanding the stage it comes from is one of the better stages in the uneven back half, it's possibly the last "good" stage in the game, well until the boss battle turns up where the homing attacks inability to lock on effectively reaches its inevitable frustrating conclusion.
Oh yeah, the music, it fits the stage pretty well being part airy for the sky setting yet still has a forceful touch because mechanical dragons kind of warrant something not quite so relaxed.
 

Regiruler

Member
I actually really liked Sky Road zone as a whole, other than for some reason going with a "spooky floating ruins" thing for zone 4.

Yes, even the sidescrolling level.
 

ChamplooJones

Formerly Momotaro
I just found out that the GDC Vault has a pdf for pretty much every GameDev Mag issue. http://www.gdcvault.com/gdmag

So I was browsing through the mags because I love to read postmortems about certain games and I managed to find one for one of GAF's favorites, Jak muttafuckin' II. Y'all need to read some of the shit that's said in this article because it may make you mad.

http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/GD_Mag_Archives/Game.Developer.2004.01.pdf

Here's a small taste of what to expect:

The maturing videogame audience wanted more realistic themes and intense experiences, and platform games had the decidedly uncool stigma of G-movie kiddie fare. Naughty Dog decided that if we could make Jak II more mature, add a deeper emotional layer to the action, and increase the entertainment value of the entire experience, we could reignite interest in action platforming.

I love ND and all, but christ.
 
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