459 replies to this topic

[Voyant]

you need to realise as long sonicteam doesn't achieve to implement a sort of "pinball physics" into the 3d games. curvy surfaces won't have any effect.

I disagree. Show me a segment of platforming in unleashed that is not just "square platforming" or whatever you like to call it. Maybe I just forgot

As long sega don't decide to make similar controls to the pinball physics, I don't see much changing. The controls are just not made for them.

I actually agree with this as well XD...although there are slopes in unleashed though. ( go back and play a few levels). Is there mometum in Unleashed style? yes there is...its just not the way it displayed in the classics. Unleashed style does infact work well in 3D though and I feel that if Sonic Colors was our first game instead of the adventures the fansbase would be pretty content since its the closest thing we had since the Sonic 3&K.

[Carbo]

Sonic Unleashed was only "BOOST BOOST BHOOSTHE ZOMG!!!1111" when you had learned the ins and outs of every level and maxxed out your ring energy bar. I mean are we playing the same game? Because Unleashed has me ducking under gaps, avoiding spikes, jumping on platforms, homing attacking enemies with the right timing, avoiding eggman-springs, staying out of bottomless pits, avoiding fire traps, spinning spike-balls, timing my homing attacks on springs which turn upside-down to reveal spikes, timing my movement to avoid swinging blades, quickstepping in actual challenging areas where I can slow down or stop when I want to...

It was BOOST BOOST BOOST when you learned the levels. When you didn't, it was BOOST BOO-FUCK A FUCKING PIT STOP BREAKING MY FLOW WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT.

For a game that relied on going faster than a speeding bullet, it knew how to break the flow it had in many ways. Sonic Unleashed becomes a better game once you get the sense of the level after having already played it. With Colors you can pretty much grasp the entire feel once you jump in, and more than often you don't need to memorize or get the feel of an entire level by multiple playthroughs to still have a solid go-through.

[Voyant]

It was BOOST BOOST BOOST when you learned the levels. When you didn't, it was BOOST BOO-FUCK A FUCKING PIT STOP BREAKING MY FLOW WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT.

For a game that relied on going faster than a speeding bullet, it knew how to break the flow it had in many ways. Sonic Unleashed becomes a better game once you get the sense of the level after having already played it. With Colors you can pretty much grasp the entire feel once you jump in, and more than often you don't need to memorize or get the feel of an entire level by multiple playthroughs to still have a solid go-through.

Meh..I kinda sort see what your saying...but there is a easy solution in Unleashed...don't boost?

That's the game fault though in someways for not warning the player beforehand...I think you should be able to traverse through the levels without boost...but the levels should still work with boost (and be able to get to better areas with it in some aspects). Colors is a great game, but the boost didn't feel like a element in the game...it felt more like an "effect" and I didn't like that.

I think that a good way to solve this issue as well is for the boost route and the platforming routes in game should be optional (or a punishment in a sense for not boosting well), but still provide the platforming parts reasoning to be there like finding red rings and such; instead if boost and stop...platforming...and go.

Then everyone is happy.

Edited by Voyant, 21 November 2010 - 01:08 AM.

[Carbo]

Really, that's something I feel Colors could have had going if it expanded upon its 3D sections above anything else. Because really, playing Unleashed without using the boost is so ridiculously vapid when the levels are as stretched out as they are, and the game already encourages you to boost the shit out of Sonic the minute you get into a big 3D section since it throws a plethora of rings at you and not only that but your boost acts like a magnet for it. Hell in some places, you pretty much have to boost. Colors balances the use of the boost perfectly. It'd been kind of great to see that work out in a 3D environment, even though I'm still not exactly sold on the idea that the Unleashed engine and style would work properly in an open 3D environment, not unless its heavily tweaked.

[Codes in Trance]

Unleashed was more like parkour but fast. Colours is more like... well, Mario but fast.

I think Colors should have been that Mario and Sonic crossover. But thats just me lol.

[Djawed]

I actually agree with this as well XD...although there are slopes in unleashed though. ( go back and play a few levels). Is there mometum in Unleashed style? yes there is...its just not the way it displayed in the classics. Unleashed style does infact work well in 3D though and I feel that if Sonic Colors was our first game instead of the adventures the fansbase would be pretty content since its the closest thing we had since the Sonic 3&K.

It's obvious that sonic colors is not perfect and that it can be so much better. The thing is however that most of us are not judging this game in what it could be, but what it is. And as it is it's a great experience. The controls may not be perfect, but everything is well executed. Some things in colors are done so well that things like controls are not really noticable. Besides, the controls aren't that bad if you ask me.

It's that we know better (since the classics happened) that we will always feel that there is something missing as long the games don't function like the classics when 2d gameplay with lots of platforming comes into place. Sonic colors has obviously been inspired a lot by them. You can see that from the level design, to the story and sonic simulator.

The unleashed mechanics will indeed never be able to do that. I am crossing my finger for a miracle next year .

And to be honest, theres enough about sonic colors that seperates it from mario. I don't see the similarity apart from some stolen(borrowed) idea's. The sweet mountain boss made me feel a bit awkward at the beginning

Edited by Jaouad, 21 November 2010 - 01:50 AM.

[Saint Nathan]

Unleashed can suck a dick. Tried playing it again today. Couldn't do it, I was terribly bored almost immediately.

Colors literally made me dislike Unleashed because it's not like Colors. Nice going SEGA.

[Azure Yakuzu]

Unleashed can suck a dick. Tried playing it again today. Couldn't do it, I was terribly bored almost immediately.

Colors literally made me dislike Unleashed because it's not like Colors. Nice going SEGA.

This is flamebait if I've ever seen it.

[PC the Hedgehog]

I remember when Unleashed first came out. Fans clamored how the day stages were absolutely fantastic and exactly what they wanted in 3D Sonic. Now here we are with Sonic Colors released and many of those fans are now saying how much they hate the Sonic Unleashed day stages.

Come to think of it, I recall similar retroactive hate for Sonic Heroes. Fans adored the game when it first came out, even eagerly hoping for a sequel. Now it's widely regarded as one of the worst 3D Sonic games, bar Shadow and '06.

And don't get me started on the retroactive hate for the Adventure games.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if when the next 3D Sonic game comes out and Sonic Team (hopefully) irons out the "bugs" from Colors, people will clamor about how Colors suddenly sucks and the new game is amazing.

An interesting fandom, this one.

[Saint Nathan]

This is flamebait if I've ever seen it.

I'm sorry that I actually don't like Unleashed as much any more. Whether anyone else does I don't really care about. I don't like it too much any more. I liked it when it was out, yeah, but Colors beats it on everything, and it feels like a huge step back.

[Emmett L. Brown]

I'm sorry that I actually don't like Unleashed as much any more. Whether anyone else does I don't really care about. I don't like it too much any more. I liked it when it was out, yeah, but Colors beats it on everything, and it feels like a huge step back.

I think the encouragement to engage in wanton acts of oral sex was the flame bait part, rather than the dislike of the old game. That's just me, though.


I seem to recall an article back in October, hang on let me find a link. There we go: Sonic Colors meant to appeal to Mario fans

Good choice on Sega's part, if you ask me.

[DistantJ]

That's the thing. I'm a Sonic fan before I'm a Mario fan. The Mario-esque parts of Colours are the parts which are actually playable, only they're not as varied or unique as Mario, they're those silly little rectangle platforms and nothing else. Then the loops and corkscrews and speed parts, the parts which make it inherently Sonic and just not any other platform game, are nearly all automated or completely empty. I would have forgiven the platforming being so bland and frustrating (seriously, that jump does not fit those platforms, and if you guys can forgive that jump then you should be able to forgive the jump in Sonic 4 too, I just don't think you want to) if the iconic Sonic (I'm a poet and I didn't know it!) sections were ones which I was properly involved in. I also felt that some of the temperamental nature of some of the pre-Unleashed games came back too, for example in asteroid coaster, the coasters dropped off without warning, you had to jump without pressing a direction otherwise you'd fall out and die for some reason, stuff like that, it's as if the game has you wanting to get the 3D bits out of the way to get to the next boring 2D bit. A "Sonic game for Mario fans" well, I want a Sonic game for me, a Sonic fan. If I wanted a game which plays like Mario, I would play Mario, because god knows the Mario-alike parts of Colours don't even come close to the actual Mario games. So what does it have over Mario? Some on-rails parts and some glorified cut-scenes (you tell me those running sections in Starlight Carnival are anything more than cut-scenes).

And what the heck is this about pinball physics now? Does Mario have pinball physics? So how come his levels aren't all just tiny little squares?

You wanna talk about platforming in Unleashed? I think you guys must only go back and play the first couple of levels or something because I can remember a tonne. You guys remember the rotating cylinders in Chun-Nan? Beat the crap out of a bunch of little squares side-on. What about the moving platforms and spike pits in Shamar? The tonnes of tricks and traps in Adabat? The clock tower in Spagonia? The game even goes out of its way to put little trip-ups to stop you from boosting like crap through the whole thing.

Anybody who does 'boost boost boost fall into a pit and die' in Unleashed wasn't playing it properly. If boosting sent you into a pit maybe you shouldn't have been boosting? Just a thought.

Edited by DistantJ, 21 November 2010 - 12:05 PM.

[Saint Nathan]

That's the thing. I'm a Sonic fan before I'm a Mario fan. The Mario-esque parts of Colours are the parts which are actually playable, only they're not as varied or unique as Mario, they're those silly little rectangle platforms and nothing else.

A good portion of Super Mario Galaxy 2 would heartily disagree. Any platforms (as in floating in the air things) are usually small bland squares or clouds.

Then the loops and corkscrews and speed parts, the parts which make it inherently Sonic and just not any other platform game, are nearly all automated or completely empty.

Yeah. Since like 3D Blast.

I would have forgiven the platforming being so bland and frustrating (seriously, that jump does not fit those platforms, and if you guys can forgive that jump then you should be able to forgive the jump in Sonic 4 too, I just don't think you want to)

I could write an essay on how much better Color's jump is compared to Sonic 4. It would involve a lot of talk about the lack of momentum in 4. You know, something that is unique to Sonic, like you apparently want?

if the iconic Sonic (I'm a poet and I didn't know it!) sections were ones which I was properly involved in.

You're totally in control for the platforming, most quickstep sections, and most of the game in general. if you didn't expect loops to be automated you've been in a hole since S3&K.

I also felt that some of the temperamental nature of some of the pre-Unleashed games came back too, for example in asteroid coaster, the coasters dropped off without warning,

Actually they do give you the flashing bottomless pit symbol a while before the reach the end.

you had to jump without pressing a direction otherwise you'd fall out and die for some reason,

"for some reason"

Yeah, you should be able to jump AWAY from something, and still stay on it.

it's as if the game has you wanting to get the 3D bits out of the way to get to the next boring 2D bit. A "Sonic game for Mario fans" well, I want a Sonic game for me, a Sonic fan.

I'm not sure where everyone is getting that. It was made to attract the demographic MSatOG brought in, and that was accomplished with the atmosphere and other things, I can't think of a time when they said "we're making this like a mario game".

If I wanted a game which plays like Mario, I would play Mario, because god knows the Mario-alike parts of Colours don't even come close to the actual Mario games.

What ones? I mean really, jumping on things and general platforming dosen't make it a Mario game. Colors still involves a lot of running and a lot of speed.

So what does it have over Mario? Some on-rails parts and some glorified cut-scenes (you tell me those running sections in Starlight Carnival are anything more than cut-scenes).

You mean like, three levels of Starlight Carnival, one level of Planet Wisp, and Terminal Velocity Act 2?

The only parts of the game that have a significant amount of any of that?

And what the heck is this about pinball physics now? Does Mario have pinball physics? So how come his levels aren't all just tiny little squares?

... What? I don't even understand this.

Also no, Mario dosen't have pinball physics, obviously.

Anybody who does 'boost boost boost fall into a pit and die' in Unleashed wasn't playing it properly. If boosting sent you into a pit maybe you shouldn't have been boosting? Just a thought.

The only point on here that I can agree with.

EDIT:

You wanna talk about platforming in Unleashed? I think you guys must only go back and play the first couple of levels or something because I can remember a tonne. You guys remember the rotating cylinders in Chun-Nan? Beat the crap out of a bunch of little squares side-on. What about the moving platforms and spike pits in Shamar? The tonnes of tricks and traps in Adabat? The clock tower in Spagonia? The game even goes out of its way to put little trip-ups to stop you from boosting like crap through the whole thing.

The moving platforms in Shamar were little square platforms in the sky.

The clock tower in Spagonia takes a total of five seconds.

Adabat was a bunch of square platforms in the sky (literally giant ones) and the traps were pretty much "crushing wall fire fire fire crushing wall!"

The rotating things in Chun Nan were cool but they pop up like twice.

So, two of the things you mentioned are small in terms of the rest of the level, and the other two are comprised of exactly what you say you dislike.

Edited by Galaxy Man, 21 November 2010 - 12:26 PM.

[Emmett L. Brown]

You guys remember the rotating cylinders in Chun-Nan?

*flashback to overshooting or falling short of those cylinders over a dozen times, forcing level restarts*

*shudder*

Say whatever you want about Colors, at least they don't sadistically reset your score to zero with every life lost. I still want to meet the guy who decided that all Sonic games from Adventure 2 onward should have that feature. Needless to say, I would punch him in the face.

Edited by Grumpy Old Guy, 21 November 2010 - 12:21 PM.

[DistantJ]

Galaxy Man, I don't think you've read the rest of the thread. The pinball physics things was something somebody mentioned all along (saying there couldn't be different shaped platforms without pinball physics etc) and there was also a link to an article where SEGA talked about how Sonic Colours is for Mario fans.

[SiLeNtDo0m]

I still don't get why people like Unleashed better. Even if you do prefer Unleashed's day levels to Colours' levels, you can't just dismiss the Werehog, which took up about 50% of the game (even more in the Wii version).

The Werehog is utter trash looking back at it now (on all the systems). On the 360/PS3, the levels are overly long, pointlessly relentless (if you die, you start miles back a lot of the time), have really REALLY pointless puzzle sections whilst the Wii/PS2 version is just really uninspired and lacks variety. Not to mention all the Werehog levels in all the versions have poor level design and bland enemies that are almost all killed in the same way.

Not to mention that the 360 and PS3 versions had those pointless hub worlds and that stupid as hell Sun/Moon medal progression system, whilst the Wii version had those pointless menus and puzzle games (though the puzzles were optional).

Colours doesn't have any of this sort of crap. The only thing you need to do to "complete" the main story of the game is to play through all the acts in each of the zones. You are not forced to do anything apart from this. You do not need to collect the Red Rings, you do not need to play the Game World levels and you do not need to do the EGG Shuttle.

Not to mention the engine itself exceeds that of Unleashed (all versions). If you were to put the kind of precise platforming that was in Colours in Unleashed you would fail a lot of the time (and there would actually be MORE complaints about cheap deaths). There were very few points in Colours that I regarded as cheap anyways, but there were plenty of points in Unleashed where I felt the deaths were cheap simply because of the fact that I had not memorised a section of the level.

I honestly think that some people need to start looking at Unleashed as the overall package, rather than just focusing on the day levels of Unleashed and comparing them to Colours and saying those are better.

[Saint Nathan]

Galaxy Man, I don't think you've read the rest of the thread. The pinball physics things was something somebody mentioned all along (saying there couldn't be different shaped platforms without pinball physics etc)

That dosen't make what you said make any more sense. I'm really trying to figure out what you mean.

and there was also a link to an article where SEGA talked about how Sonic Colours is for Mario fans.

Yes, I know. It says nothing of the sort that the platforming is for Mario fans. I think another interview says that the wisps and level themes are supposed to do that, not the platforming.

The platforming is more like classic Sonic than it is Mario. I'm really not seeing where it's like Mario at all except for the whole, you know, jumping on shit.

Also Iizuka simply says stupid things.

ANOTHER EDIT:

Within the same interview, Iizuka essentially says that bringing in the Wisps helped allow more fleshed out platforming.

Edited by Galaxy Man, 21 November 2010 - 12:36 PM.

[PC the Hedgehog]

While I'll admit Sonic Unleashed does feature a great deal of BOOSTBOOSTBOOST segments, I'd like to respectfully showcase this little platforming gem from the game:



Now THAT is how I feel the platforming in Colors should have been. The platforms are wide enough to jump on without going incredibly slow for fear of overstepping. The level flows, going from one platform to the other without having to slow to a crawl. And best of all, the camera isn't zoomed ridiculously far out and you can easily see where your character is at.

I really look forward to the next game from the Unleashed HD team, because in my humble opinion, I think they have much better level designers than the Storybook team.

[DistantJ]

Nice post, PC. I agree with you - while even that level isn't the best in my opinion (it's still just using the same kind of platform over and over, but as you say, they're platforms with space to land and a bit more freedom to navigate), you can do platforming without it having to be super slow, super zoomed out (this wouldn't be as bad on HD consoles anyway) and super repetitive.

I honestly think that some people need to start looking at Unleashed as the overall package, rather than just focusing on the day levels of Unleashed and comparing them to Colours and saying those are better.

This is a problem I have with the 'internet generation', the people who are so used to reviews and analysis - everybody has to judge everything as a sum of it's parts - is the Werehog more of a hinderance to the game than Colours' slow platforming? Probably. But then the Werehog as good as disappears when you've beaten it and want to replay levels, becuase you do it your own way. I don't remember ever finding the Werehog any worse than the treasure hunting and mechs in SA2 (and the length of a Werehog level is about the same as a treasure hunting level and a mech level together) so...

But what I mean is, do we have to judge everything by balancing out the good and the bad, as a sum of it's parts? Surely it should just be about how much fun we got out of it before and we get out of it now. Throwing out the bad stuff doesn't make the good stuff better, I think the levels in Colours are a pale, cheap shadow of the daytime levels in Unleashed, and saying 'You don't have to do the Werehog' isn't going to make me forget that, since I don't even have to repeat the Werehog levels on my replays anyway. I got more fun and thrills out of Unleashed, whether it had the Werehog or not. Colours may be a more solid game, not ruined with any stupid ideas, but that doesn't have any effect on how little I enjoyed it, the levels and controls were just not to my liking at all, didn't feel like Sonic and didn't even feel like a good platformer for 2010.

I barely wanted to replay any Colours levels - a lot of the levels with fun fast sections would end with awkward bottomless pit platforming and stuff, or block-puzzles with that spikes wisp and things... Or have an awkward zoomed-out platform bit in the middle of it...

[Carbo]

But what I mean is, do we have to judge everything by balancing out the good and the bad, as a sum of it's parts?

Why the fuck not? If a game is half shit and half good do you think its okay to just ignore the shit parts when looking at it as an overal package?

I don't want to wade through an abysmaly bad section to get to the good parts of a game. That tears down the fun for me. Unleashed as a complete package is above-mediocre. Obviously its something most people tend to not look at considering replayability tends to mostly ignore these stages, and I admit, I did that for the longest part too. Hell I forgot about the Werehog actually. Comparing elements is really good with the two games but the entire game itself? I consider that a no-contest.

Edited by Carbo, 21 November 2010 - 04:23 PM.