JezMM

Chamomile #184

He isn't no, he appears as a non-playable guest Assist Trophy character as he was in all previous Smash Bros games featuring Sonic.

I tend to recommend the Master System version of Sonic 2 over the Game Gear one because it doesn't have the changes to the boss fights that make the first one in particular so terribly punishing. While the Master System version is missing the Good Ending music, the "Bad" ending music is a way nicer song anyway lol. I'd also recommend the Master System version of Sonic 1 because I feel the level design changes were less interesting than the Master System original, (the final boss becomes too easy in direct comparison to Sonic 2 lol) but that one is kinda subjective and I don't think there's any major loss in playing GG first and then trying out MS for an increased challenge later. Other than personal preference though, my only concern for a newcomer would be that having the wider view might mess them up during boss fights, where it's easy for a veteran to remember the sides of the boss arena are blocked off due to the way they lock the screen. So if a newcomer is reading this thread and considering trying them out on Game Gear but with the wider view uh... yeah, remember that. The boss screens are locked in to a 4:3 view originally lol.

This is the only one here I'd take issue with really. Every other game on this list, you could take your advice on the version to play - even unofficial ones, and be able to say "Yeah, I've played [Sonic Game]". The Unleashed Project is a marvel, but it's also just a novelty and not in any way a reasonable alternative to playing the official game if the official game is what you want to play. Most Unleashed fans, even those who simply put up with the Werehog, would agree that it's a game that provides a certain experience that is greater than the sum of it's parts. That experience isn't for everyone, and I'd heartily recommend someone play the Unleashed Project AFTER they've tried the official game if they come to the conclusion for themselves that they like the daytime gameplay to some degree but nothing else and cannot bear any more of the game's other content but would like to try out the remainder of the stages. That's the point where I would recommend the Unleashed Project to someone who initially wanted to play Sonic Unleashed. Just to re-iterate, this is purely in the context of "I've never played Sonic Unleashed and I want to see what it's like". If someone hasn't played Unleashed, but isn't particularly interested in trying the full experience, but they hear the main levels are fun, by all means I'd point them towards the Unleashed Project. But the Unleashed Project doesn't replace the original game in the same way the other fan-made recommendations on this list do. For any people who are curious, my understanding is that Xbox One and the Xbox Series X/S both support backwards compatibility with many 360 games using either the original disc or buying them digitally off of the Microsoft store, and Unleashed is among them.

Chamomile #182

Absolutely, but it's important that developers don't allow their punishments to outweigh their rewards, and I think Flying Battery's gauntlet (as well as the fallout of making you do an entire zone over if you get a game over on the act 2 boss generally) is definitely a case of that. If anything, I feel the ideal here is that it COULD encourage developers to make trickier games. The Mario franchise really seems to have upped it's difficulty level recently by making sure that all mandatory challenges have a safeguard for those who just cannot get through a certain course, be it via the super guide of New Super Mario Bros, Super Leaf of 3D Land, or Luigi's assistance in Super Mario Maker 2's Story Mode. Heck, if they did want to leave the "classic" difficulty as the standard mode of play, all they'd need is a prompt upon the player's first Game Over to advise them towards the more casual mode if they prefer. I'm sure most hardcore fans will either never see that prompt, or it'll be an encouragement to prove their worth by sticking to the default mode. Meanwhile, the level designers can provide a slightly more punishing experience, safe in the knowledge that if a more lightweight player loses their motivation, they'll have infinite tries at each hazard. Heck, Lost World did actually have a feature where you could skip to the next checkpoint if you died enough times (though they did do a bad job of communicating what it does and putting it in easy-to-avoid locations sometimes lol. I've never beaten that damn second pinball table in Frozen Factory legit because the skip capsule is put right in your way). So yeah, when I say I want these features, I also feel like developers should use it as an opportunity to create even more challenging content for the other end of the spectrum. There's no clear visual communication on when you'll rebound off of it and when you'll jump straight through it, it's possible to be insta-killed by the spikes due to them not being indented into the walls, and his shooting attack pattern is pretty fast and well-aimed for something from the first half of the game. Getting yourself into position for the next set of spikes while avoiding his attacks can be pretty tricky, and since the windows of opportunity are so small, it can be really frustrating to get hit and miss an opportunity to attack him, or to struggle to get yourself set up perfectly and then when you go to hit him it doesn't knock him all the way into the spikes or you just pass straight through. It's all together really fiddley, even though it's a good boss in concept. I think if I had to tweak it, I would've made it so he doesn't start shooting projectiles until halfway through the fight, so you have some time to get to grips with the fairly loose, physics-based mechanics before the pressure is put on. And the intensity of those projectiles could have been toned down a bit all the same. Additionally, I'd have made it so the bumper is sticking out of a base behind it that it retracts down into and dims whenever it's not possible to hit him.

Simple - I consider the lack of progression until success is achieved to be a reasonable expectation of a player. I consider repeating a minute or two of gameplay as punishment for failure to be a reasonable expectation of a player. I do not consider repeating 10+ minutes of gameplay as punishment for failure to be a reasonable expectation of a player. I don't know what that cut-off point is between the reasonable 1 minute and the unreasonable 10 minutes, suppose it depends on how fun the level is lol. Now, I will concede there is a reasonable argument to be made that during that repeated play, a less skilled player should show patience and try to gather more lives, try to get better at the game so they arrive at the obstacle that they can't overcome with more lives. But there's still sometimes the case that you can beat that 10 minutes flawlessly, but this one sticking point (Flying Battery 2's terrible boss, as an example) is doing you over every time, and spending 10 minutes repeating gameplay you've already proven you've overcome as "punishment" for having trouble on the last challenge is just not going to be fun for most people. And that most people on this forum are probably too good at Sonic to have any idea what that's actually like. One more related thought: I do think it's valid to say that it's okay if a Sonic game is just too hard to be welcoming for all skill levels. It's fair to say "I just don't care if everyone gets to enjoy Sonic, I want Sonic to be hard." Just don't go being a dick about it when someone says they don't enjoy a Sonic game you like because of it's difficulty (not that I'm at all suggesting anyone here is of course). But yeah, not all games have to be welcoming to all skill levels. Personally though, and the reason I'm making this argument for a more forgiving failure state system in Sonic games despite the fact that the current one never affects me at all, is that I think Sonic is enjoyable for more than it's gameplay. In fact, I'd say the fact that the franchise has survived so many absolute flops is a testament to that. I'm sure most people here have a Sonic game or two (or three, or all) where they put up with some real shitty gameplay stuff because they love the other elements of the game so much. I think an ideal Sonic game should provide a welcoming experience for all, with increased challenge being an optional element. To relate back to my previous story, I hate that Flying Battery blocked my wife from seeing the laid-back but thrilling gameplay of Stardust Speedway 2 and Mirage Saloon 2, or the beautiful aesthetic and music of Press Garden 2 and Lava Reef 2.

I feel the back-and-forth debate here is evidence that if they did want to add multiple actions, they should just have a controls setting menu. Having DD and IS on one button makes sense to me, but an option to seperate them onto different buttons for those who prefer it hurts no-one. I can see the logic behind allowing a shoulder button to be the secondary action input too, whether you choose to set the DD or the IS to it - it means you would never have to take your fingers off any input at any time.

Yeah, the thing with Echoes is that they aren't meant to be semi-clones, they're MEANT to be glorified alts - because otherwise they wouldn't exist at all. Having said that, it's for that reason I'm kinda surprised we didn't get a few more. I was certainly expecting more than 10 with how huge the roster is otherwise. It's especially weird having Chrom and Lucina being clones of Marth and Roy, who were already clones of each other to a degree. But I guess they were going with what characters people wanted without worrying about who they were cloning to do it.

My biggest beef with Mania is the amount of stuff that was done just because that's how the classics did it. Lives systems, save files that only start you from the zone, not the act, and yeah, the 10-minute time limit are all particular examples that are extremely unfortunate hurdles that stand in the way of many casual players finishing the entire game. By all means these things should have been as they were in a classic mode, but the default mode should've been more accomodating and up-to-date. I hate what they did with Blue Spheres. Blue Spheres takes far too long to complete for how frequently it can be accessed - having to actively avoid the sparklies on checkpoints because I don't want to play the bonus game just doesn't feel RIGHT. I wish they had come up with a new minigame that was as quick and painless as the gumball machine in Sonic 3, with rewards that are taken back into the level, with a mandatory end point thanks to a finite number of moves or a time limit like the Gumball Machine/Energy Sphere games had. Even the pinball machine from Encore Mode is a bit slow to earn bonuses on and too easy to keep a good loop going in which you never fall out unless you intentionally stop trying. But yeah, Blue Spheres just feels silly to me, it's pretty much an entirely seperate endeavour so I don't understand why it was implemented in a way where it constantly interrupts the main game. I could see that style working for a Sonic 1-esque access where you get the bonus game between acts, but not multiple times within acts. Beyond that I agree with most of the stuff in this thread. Wasn't too bothered by the bosses though, in fact I wish there was a boss rush mode for Time Attack.

Chamomile #181

Not gonna lie, seeing the care and love that went into Steve has dispelled some of that "doesn't feel like they fit into Smash" aura they gave off to me before. Absolutely wild character concept that I will never have the bother to learn to play, but amazing all the same.

I think his render is fine, though his inclusion in the mural is weird. Either the artist did an astounding job at painting him on-model or they really did just use his model for it. If it's the former situation, I wish the artist had been a little rougher-around-the-edges with him.

I'm not into Minecraft at all and I'm not gonna lie, it bugs me a little to have such an ugly and uncharismatic character shoving their way in. Minecraft feels more like the sort of property which would've been better represented as a stage - like, there's a reason we got a stage for Super Mario Maker and not Builder Mario or the pigeon as a new character. Having said that, I can appreciate that the vast majority of people care about playable characters far more than the environments in fighting games. If Minecraft was gonna get represented in Smash, most players would want to do Minecraft things, not just loosely interact with Minecraft things as stage elements. This is probably making far, far more people happy than disappointed due to how popular Minecraft is so it's cool, this one ain't for me - heck, Joker and B-K were the only ones that held pre-existing appeal for me out of the existing DLC fighters, and I don't even play as them. While this is the first one where it actively kind of bugs me and I feel like the character just somehow doesn't aesthetically "fit" in Smash, I'll get over it, and I know if I was a Minecraft fan, I wouldn't want it any other way than how they've done it. The music sounds good at least!