New Sonic Game: Sonic Generations

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 15:36

Teaser Trailer

Gameplay Trailer #1

Extended Gameplay Video

Paramultart · Post by **Paramultart** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 18:10

Great to see classic Sonic back, but I would much rather see a permanent revert to the original design, rather than a novelty addition to some 20th anniversary crap.

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 19:23

Yeah, I don't think Sega will want to revert him back, since they went through all of this trouble to change him. Plus they refused to make a black-eyed Sonic for Sonic 4.

The problem I have with the new design is that his head looks too big for his more slender legs and stomach, but do I like his new shoes and the green eyes. Whereas I like his running stance and chubby posture better from the old design.

So I kinda wish they would do a combination between old and new designs. Sorta like he was in the first Sonic Adventure.

Scarlet · Post by **Scarlet** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:45

Paramultart wrote:Great to see classic Sonic back, but I would much rather see a permanent revert to the original design, rather than a novelty addition to some 20th anniversary crap.

^ THIS.

I like sonic and knuckles 3, or what it was called. I can't imagine anything replacing that. It was one of my favourite games.

StupidBunny · Post by **StupidBunny** » Wed Apr 27, 2011 6:04

This isn't relevant to the Sonic game being discussed, or really that much at all since Sonic 4 has actually come out, but it's funny and I'm reminded of it so I'll post it anyway

http://www.destructoid.com/why-sonic-th ... 6221.phtml

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 12:57

It's definitely relevant; Sonic games that look good are always a horrible disappointment, with only a few exceptions over the last ten years (to make the bitter disappointment fresh each time).
Of course, if it IS good, I'll be happy to eat my words.

Post by **tulip** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 14:42

hilarious link, StupidBunny.

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Thu Apr 28, 2011 17:05

I think the link StupidBunny posted was more of a parody on what the Sonic fandom was going through when Sonic 4 was released; Sonic's green eyes and the fact that it was episodic were the most well-known complaints made about the game-- before it even came out.

Now of course there were legitimate complaints after the game was released-- like the physics not being like the classic games it claimed to be patterned after, but people from Sega have said that they improved the physics for Classic Sonic in Sonic Gen, so we'll see.

RoboBlue wrote:It's definitely relevant; Sonic games that look good are always a horrible disappointment, with only a few exceptions over the last ten years (to make the bitter disappointment fresh each time).
Of course, if it IS good, I'll be happy to eat my words.

I can't argue my case if you've had personal experience with the games and been disappointed, but I would say that the truly bad Sonic game in recent years was the one released in 2006, just called Sonic the Hedgehog (nicknamed Sonic 06). Up until then, the major Sonic games either got fairly good or really good reviews on their native consoles, Such as Sonic Adventure 1, 2 or Sonic Heroes. All of the major games after Sonic 06 have been gradually getting better reviews, especially Sonic Colors.

I have completed Sonic Adventure 1, 2 and Heroes all of the way through, and I've completed all of the classic Sonic games (1,2,3 & Knuckles, CD). I've also played a few levels of Unleashed (most of the daytime stages), Sonic 06 and Secret Rings. Having played Sonic 06, I can say that it was the only one of those major Sonic games to have broken controls and unstable gameplay. It deserved the failing grades from reviewers. I have not played another Sonic game that was that bad.

People may not always agree with Sega's game design decisions. But I think it would be hard to say that any of the other modern Sonic titles have been broken or truly bad games.

DHeadshot · Post by **DHeadshot** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 17:55

I challenge someone to make a Sonic-style Keen mod!

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Fri Apr 29, 2011 20:40

Lava89 wrote:I can't argue my case if you've had personal experience with the games and been disappointed, but I would say that the truly bad Sonic game in recent years was the one released in 2006, just called Sonic the Hedgehog (nicknamed Sonic 06). Up until then, the major Sonic games either got fairly good or really good reviews on their native consoles, Such as Sonic Adventure 1, 2 or Sonic Heroes. All of the major games after Sonic 06 have been gradually getting better reviews, especially Sonic Colors.

I have completed Sonic Adventure 1, 2 and Heroes all of the way through, and I've completed all of the classic Sonic games (1,2,3 & Knuckles, CD). I've also played a few levels of Unleashed (most of the daytime stages), Sonic 06 and Secret Rings. Having played Sonic 06, I can say that it was the only one of those major Sonic games to have broken controls and unstable gameplay. It deserved the failing grades from reviewers. I have not played another Sonic game that was that bad.

People may not always agree with Sega's game design decisions. But I think it would be hard to say that any of the other modern Sonic titles have been broken or truly bad games.

I can't say that they've mostly been truly bad games, but almost none of them can be considered great. I grew up with a Game Gear and a Genesis, and many of the best games for both systems were Sonic games. Sonic was essentially crack for Sega fans, and every time I see a new Sonic trailer, the old feeling starts to come back. The instant that happens, something slams the door on the adrenaline rush I was about to have, and a voice in the back of my head reminds me that "Sonic will never be nearly as good again, they're lying to you." That voice reminds me that Sonic Adventure, although it was a great game, never captured the pure awesome rush of the old 2D sonic games.

Here's a rundown of my reaction to every game since Sonic Adventure: Sonic Adventure 2 fell well within average territory, and the Sonic Advance series, although good, were too short and easy to be considered "great" games in my opinion. I haven't played Sonic Heroes (although it doesn't look bad), and Sonic Rush was a good game, but I hadn't played a really great Sonic game since Sonic Adventure. Shadow the Hedgehog was terrible, Sonic Rush Adventure had a tedious side-quest system that forced you to do busy work to unlock the stages, Secret Rings absolutely did not live up to the hype, and you've already mentioned Sonic 2006. It's probably worth nothing that I got fairly excited for the Sonic RPG, and was disappointed by that too. Then the trailers for Sonic Unleashed came out, and I purposely did not expect much. To my surprise, the first level (a demo I downloaded from psn) was a lot of fun, so I bought the game and stopped playing about fifteen minutes through the first werehog stage. Why must I work through the tedious stages to earn the right to play the fun stages? I wasted sixty bucks, wasn't the work I put in to earn that money in real life enough?

I haven't bought any Sonic games since then (although I may buy Sonic Colors now that it's only 20 dollars, it looks like it may be alright), and I haven't seen Sonic do anything new or special for a long time. Worse, I feel that every single Sonic game since Sonic Adventure has been held down by the stale and damaged universe that Sega taps into for every Sonic game.
Sorry for the tl;dr quality of this post, but I wanted to explain the unique reaction I have to new sonic trailers (which are deceptively awesome) and explain how a game can technically be good while still being a horrible disappointment that stings fans like an old war wound.

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 0:13

Ahh ok. This makes alot of sense. I'd rather have a tl:dr that was a real reaction than many people I see on gaming websites (and are paid journalists no less) who criticize Sonic purely based on hype. And yeah I agree that Sonic Adventure 1 was probably the best modern Sonic game....in my opinion, it was the true Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

While I think Sonic Unleashed and Colors definitely have picked up the slack that Sonic 06 cut out for them and are probably really good games, I kinda wished they'd go back to more of the gameplay that Sonic Adventure 1 established where you have to build up speed on your own or using the spin-dash...not by "spam dashing".

About SA2: While I think Sonic's and Shadow's stages were definitely fun in SA2, I think they were overshadowed by the other gameplay types and most of all, they made you play as other characters. Whereas at least with SA1, even if you detested Big the Cat, you didn't have to play him, unless you wanted to finish the entire game. Plus SA2 kind of betrayed staples of the Sonic series by abolishing elements such as freeing the animal capsules, fighting Robotnik's badniks only (not the government) and replacing the spin dash with the lame "somersault".

So while I don't think SA2 is a broken or bad game, I think its style choices definitely were a fault of the game, especially since those changes were contagious to the rest of the games to come. If they had only stayed within the context of SA2 (such as Shadow), it would've been fine, instead SA2, while a good game, set too many trends that Sega has never gotten over.

One thing I have to hand to Sonic Heroes, is that its levels reminded me so much of the classic Sonic levels. Just compare Frog Forest to Mushroom Hill on YouTube...or even Grand Metropolis to Chemical Plant Zone. They also brought back the special stages and breaking levels up into "acts". Its a shame you had to play three characters at once. If they had you play any of characters by themselves, it could've been one of the best 3D Sonic games.

Post by **tulip** » Sat Apr 30, 2011 10:46

DHeadshot wrote:I challenge someone to make a Sonic-style Keen mod!

I wonder what happended to the one that was announced a while ago

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Thu May 26, 2011 20:57

It seems that Mega64 agrees with me about Sonic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI6Agm1-kY.

Toothpick · Post by **Toothpick** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 20:26

Did anyone see the new E3 footage of City Escape? Here's the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw5XVVs1C-U

It's a remake of Sonic Adventure 2's City Escape, both with classic and modern gameplay.

RoboBlue · Post by **RoboBlue** » Sat Jun 11, 2011 8:48

That looks great, but where's the awesome music?
What they replaced it with is pretty bland. :/