I completely agree with Wong, as far as Sonic Heroes goes... that is the main thing that bothered me. It could have been an interesting puzzle game, but it was completely ruined, because they wanted to 'expand' the playability to younger, less capable players.
The way I see it though is, the audience they were trying to expand to, wouldn't be able to play it anyway, because the game just felt way to glitchy and bugged out, for anyone who didn't know what they were doing, to play through, and not die every couple of minutes.
sonic rivals for psp is the most frustrating game i have ever played. the graphics are FUCKING IMPRESSIVE for a psp game and make me come in my pants but there are parts in the game missing (HORRIBLE BUGS) so that you and the CPU just can’t beat a race. You just can’t pass a looping because there’s a “speeder” missing and other stuff and there is nothing you can do about it. How frustrating is that?
I have dealt with bugs before in games but they always disappeared or there was a way around but this game is bloody 2d and there is no way around and the bug always appears.
The new sonic game for Wii looks VERY GREAT and enjoyable though and I am really looking forward it. I always liked Sonic more than Mario the engine of Sonic 2 is also way more complex than the engine of that Mario game for SNES.
Just try to code a Mario game and then a Sonic game in MMF
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with recycling characters. It's a marketing thing foremost of course, but it also carries a shittonne of references and motifs you can add to otherwise unrelated games. I don't like sport games as a rule, but I'm not adverse to the occasional MARIO SPORT THING because I know it's likely to be a light party game, possibly with a bit of humour, and Peach looks tasty in shorts.
Anyone that has tried an xmas compo here knows how difficult it can be to add pointless xmassy stuff all over the place, but anyone that has started a sequel to one of their own games will know how fun it can be to reuse motifs.
No matter what, it still comes down to quality. Mario doesn't really have a personality, so it doesn't ruin him if he appears in a crappy game. On the other hand, Sega invested a lot in Sonic's attitude, as part of their campaign to make him so much 'cooler' than Mario. If he's fucked up in one game (or other medium, even), it can sour an important part of what makes him marketable.
Wooooong: did you miss the part where he claimed Sega doesn't exist anymore? And it's not like he hasn't demonstrated more than once how fucking retarded he is.
Wow, i missed that comment too. That is a pretty ignorant statement.
I think the story is something like,
They were losing too much money so they had to stop manufacuring the dreamcast and start concentrating on games (and probably downsizing or whatever term you use for sacking/firing lots of people)
So there is no need for every sonic game to be a killer app anymmore because it's just a game rather than a console seller.
I think basically they saw the path the competition was taking and didn't want to have to follow suit to stay competetive (ffs, anyone that hasn't lost a few billion over the last couple of years is already more profitable than microsoft's console division). In addition to the third party games (which is split into a bunch of subsidiaries mostly) they also own arcades, theme parks, movie and merchandise licenses, and probably a bunch of japanese love hotels.
Sonic 2 (Mega Drive) was brilliant. Got chuffed off my face when I bought it from EB for £7.99 back in the 90s. There was just something terribly average about Sonic 1 and Mario 1, but Mario 3 and Sonic 2 were just killer. Soon as them games hit the Wii virtual console I'll probably never need buy another VC game again. Loved them games way before they were nostalgic.
I sorta like Sonic Advance 1. It felt very close to the original Mega Drive series.
Sonic Advance 2 was crap. They really messed up on that one. Music World? pah.
Sonic Advance 3... Haven't played much of this yet but I think it's certainly better than SA2.
Sonic Rush? No thanks. I keep going back to it but I put it back down after a minute. They pissed up Sonics inertia which makes it feel less Sonic-y, terrible music and dull level design. Tails puts the nail in the coffin though, him screaming "YES!" whenever you land on a zone on the map is irritating. And why the hell is a Sonic game going on about "a rip in the space time continuum". It's bloody Sonic for Christs sake!
*agrees with him ending soon. what a waste of a good character.
Personally, I think Sonic still has some life in him, but what Sega really needs to start doing, is take a year or so, and just sit down and make an extremely good 3D engine, focus on ALL of the problems in all the 3D games, and just work on a really stable, fun, nearly bugless engine. When they do that, they can start to apply that engine onto newer games. As fun as SA and SA2 are, the movement engine just sucks compared to the 2D games.
The game play in the original games, involved running through loops, up slopes, leaping over spikes, hitting springs, enemies, etc. All through a large chain reaction that never truly left the player out of control. If they fell somewhere, they'd fall to another part of the level, and continue playing. If they came to a loop, they could run up it, and if they didn't have the speed, they'd fall off. They wouldn't get trapped into a mini-cinematic where the camera goes into fancy angles, and forces control into the computers buggy hands.
All of this stuff was taken away from the game, when it was put into 3D, because they didn't spend enough time to sit back and actually put it in. They were more focused on taking advantage of loops, and making it feel like a huge movie, when that is NOT why Sonic was a great game.
Yeah, Sonic, out of ALL games, is my favorite "classic" (Can it be called a classic?) game. And to this day, is my favorite game character.
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