Kuzu

I really don't like coming off like a contrarian every time I talk to you, but I think I'm among the few that doesn't think Crash 4 works (this is speaking from someone who has found some enjoyment out of even some of the most hated Crash games). It's a tedium of busywork and input overflow. It reminds me of my issues with Unleashed and later parts of SA2 trying to drive in too many abilities and button commands that clutter the control and don't let you get 'in the zone' enough times, sometimes there is a point streamlining the whole thing is more fun. It's also why the Wisp gameplay wears thin quick too, especially in cases like pre-patch Lost Worlds where they don't map it out well.

One thing I like about early Sonic after all is the breezier gameplay, easy to pick up and play, even if it is challenging at times, it tends not to interfere with the simplicity of it all.

You need to keep in mind that Crash 4 is a sequel to Crash 3 primarily, so it needed to do SOMETHING to differentiate itself from that game. Wrath of Cortex played too similarly to Crash 3, and was considered vastly worse for it. 

On that end, I honestly liked how Crash 4 did things; it added enough new things to keep the game fresh, but still kept the game familiar to people who played prior Crash games. 

Wrath of Cortex is the exact reason you can't just rehash the same gameplay and expect it to go well, diminishing returns. You need to change it up once in a while. Now whether those changes are good or not is up to the individual, but I really didn't have an issue with Crash 4 and I'm sure many people didn't either. 

And even if I did have a major problem with the game, I'm sure as hell more tolerant of them than I am with the many problems that plague Sonic games whenever they attempt this. 

Yeah but there's a point you still need to let the core game breathe within all those new ideas. Some of them sound good on paper (like the new characters and mask abilities) but the way they are implemented is just tediously unversatile and unforgiving. It doesn't feel like the gameplay has been expanded, more put on a very tight regiment through them where you play these perfectly OR ELSE, the same complaint that came with Warped and WOC's vehicle gimmicks.

Hell Crash 4 just feels like a mass flanderization of everything the developers THINK makes the series work, gameplay, puzzle excess, story, characters, difficulty, everything feels dumbed down to one tedious note that never changes from the very start. Even the Radical games, for all of their atrocious liberties, had some better ideas of how to expand Crash and give it new life. It looks even worse in Toys For Bob's case because they at least had a better base idea but used it all in the most unentertaining way possible.

I'm just glad that holding onto something & grinding are separate in most Sonic games, because trying to get the timing down to switch rails while also going up or above the rail to destroy boxes in Crash 4 is brutal...

@E-122-Psi I don't know what else to say lol. I loved Crash 4, and many others did too.  I never felt any of the things that you are feeling and even the people I spoke to about the game claimed that there's very little actually wrong with the game. So I honestly have no idea what is it that you want.

When something is too samey, you accuse of it being stale. When something changes too much, you accuse it of changing too much. 

It honestly feels like you can't be satisfied with something unless it goes against what the majority likes or it's catered to your specific tastes. I'm not trying to be hostile here, but thats honestly what it feels like when I read some of your stuff. I wanna believe you when you say you aren't being a contrarian, but that's what it honestly feels like when I speak with you. 

Absolutely beautiful.

Are there any areas to explore and find Pokémon in hard to reach areas? Or is it just straight Dynamax battles?

Yea, there's way more to do than just Dynamax battles. Like I said, the main quest is essentially a Legendary Pokemon hunt. Outside of the opening, you don't have to do Dynamax battles.

Same is true for Isle of Armor, although the main quest is a bit more story driven but for the most part, you can do whatever you want and explore.

Yeah, Crown Tundra gives you 3 different sidequest pages (plus one that Sonia gives you if you happen to run into her) that hint at what you need to do and then leaves you to it.

SwSh burnt me so much that I won't give them their money for the DLC, but I guess this is nice to hear.

Like I said, it does not make up for all of the shit that happened. BUT it is a step in the right direction at least.

An easy af main game and more difficult DLC.

Sounds like an improvement over the main game. I watched a full, blind playthrough of IoA a while ago and thought it looked like crap... I'll check out the CT eventually.

If official Blaze art exists assume I've seen it already

I literally posted a status update showing that

it's so pretty tho!!

I am finding going back is hard. I recently rewatched SA2 and there were so many cringeworthy moments I didn’t remember. I still love SA2, but I obviously had emerald colored glasses back in the day, and saw only glory. 

The fallout if the Shadow Video Game. Perhaps in yime they will make him more prominate again. 

Just make the platforming interesting and we'll call it a day. 

well one of the strengths of the genesis games is that missing a jump would often just drop you to a different route rather than killing you. sonic's made for speed and flow rather than careful precision platforming so having tiered paths softens failure and gives players something to aim for in a replay.

also i think having multiple routes helps give levels a longer replay lifespan. linear levels play basically the same the first time, second time, 10th time, etc (besides your skill of course). but with multiple paths the choices you make and different successes/failures give you different versions of the level. it's combinatorial; if you combine what would've been Linear Level A and Linear Level B into one level, you don't get just those two levels in one map, you also get "the first half of A and the second half of B", "the first half of B and the second half of A", "the first third of A, the second third of B, and the last third of A", and so on. considering sonic games are usually pretty short or very padded out, it's worth trying to keep the main content fresh for longer.

Imo Crash 4 doesn't really disprove the potential open ended Sonic can have, but it definitely proves how far the linear level design and world design can go from what it currently is. I don't even play Crash and it looks amazing, I mean holy shit. It feels like everything Sonic Adventure was doing with it's camera angles and world design, but even more robust.

@Diogenes That's' true, and I do agree. But it also depends on the content of those alternate paths too. If Path B doesn't offer much different from Path A, then they are functionally the same. 

The genesis games generally split this up by having the higher paths be much less treacherous than the lower paths, but in general, every path in the level was pretty much a line to the finish. 

I feel like where 3D Sonic falters a bit is that it's level design is much more horizontal, which does necessitate it being more linear to accomodate for how fast Sonic moves. The faster Sonic moves, the less controllable he is so you need level design that lets you dictate where Sonic goes while maintaining control. 

I honestly wonder how more vertical level design would work to for that same feeling; in 2D, losing control and falling into a pit will just put you in a slower path as opposed to the 3D games where losing control and falling off the level is a death by bottomless pit. 

The subject of open-ended level design vs linearity has always been one rooted in preference (across a lot of game series really). Both can be done extremly well and I'm happy there are more examples of this now versus back when it was a big point of contention in the Gens days.

It's all about what a player wants out of a level. For some, they like to explore and find new things. For others, they just like to improve their skills and find the best route; of which they'll rarely ever deviate from it as if the level was linear to begin with. I know that I'm personally in the later category as, even with the classics, once I find that optimal route to get through the level faster I ain't going for those other paths.

TEAM Dark.. sigh. I liked it in SA2, but afterwards it seems out of place. 

It's about time, man. Let her shine!

I will gladly sacrifice Team Dark if it means Rouge gets to do her own thing. It's not like Shadow doesn't already get tons of focus anyway. 

Rogue is probably the best bet for a female lead. Amy is more of a supporting character, and Sally is not likely to be adapted in future games due to her be unknown in the games. 

Rouge as a thief could be interesting. More of a self-centered antihero a la Wario than an ideologically-driven hero or villain. 

The government spy angle is fun too, but since they've shied away from GUN a lot over the past decade, really playing up the "glamorous jewel thief" part of her character could be a fun way to have an antagonistic character who isn't on the "global threat" level like Eggman is.

Well his ancestors not Knuckles himself. 

How is knuckles a war criminal

Dude killed 80% of his army with a plan he thought up in two minutes. 

Because he don't chuckle

kuzu, what knuckles did is not a war crime

fire wispons are a war crime

The Ugandan Knuckles meme is a war crime.

That’s not what a war criminal means. That just makes him an incompetent leader.

the echidna tribe was an allegory for american imperialism ngl

Also like, while I'm sure it'd be good regardless, if this is because everyone liked original Spider-Verse so much, can they like... notice that the reason for that was how it was the most creatively animated film of the decade

Because people want to see all 3 live action Peter Parker’s on the big screen. Spider-Verse is different because it wasn’t about Peter it was about anybody can be Spider-Man.

The animated Spider Verse sequel is still being made, right? We'd literally be getting two counteracting Spider Verse continuities

there isn't really anything wrong with zomom

Do you see nothing wrong with a character's entire personality being "lol, I'm fat and stupid" ?

With the D6, they simply wanted nothing more than a group of character-types. Not actual characters. They were ok to them because they didn't actually think about them.

Gotta keep that simple af approach to narrative chugging along.

yea, see THAT I get. 

What I don't get is how do you make something so offensive without actually thinking about it. It's like 

Its like Zeena is written by someone who has never actually interacted with a real female and based their personality on what they see in cartoons. 

Not being actual characters is why they're the only Sonic game characters I don't like. Everyone's cool but not them

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Do you see nothing wrong with a character's entire personality being "lol, I'm fat and stupid" ?

not really. it certainly doesn't make for a deep or compelling character, but he's not meant to be. he's a monster with a personality, gluttony made flesh

Alright then. 

Zomom would of been better if he was just anti Big the Cat. Instead of being nice and compassionate he’s just mean and selfish. And only do whatever bidding if it benefits him

Shame i don't read comics, Rouge is my favorite character

And stay off the IDW topic.

With the episodic format the series has taken up a reboot seems kind of pointless to me. Even if something went wrong with the stories or characters last time it's just not the type of series to dwell on it. We're garunteed a clean slate next time so we can always just do better. 

For a lot of people point is to retread previously established lore for the sake of cleaning up some clunky storytelling and characterization. These games take years to come out though so I'm not interested in just about ten years worth of retellings that are just about as likely to get things wrong as they are to fix anything. I crave new characters and content. I don't really want to revisit emerald hill and city escape again. 
 

My feelings on that are kind of weird; while it's probably better in the long-term for the series to be more episodic, the fact remains is that it DID establish some form of continuity, regardless of how it ultimately turned out. And the thing about continuity is that you can't just tell people one day that it doesn't matter and just expect them to go along with it. 

When you establish a continuity, the expectation is that you should be consistent with it until either the story arc reaches its conclusion or the series ends. And naturally, people are going to expect the events of said story to remain in continuity.

This is why there's so much controversy; because yea, it's easy to just say "this is how the series now, deal with it" but its like...its not that simple lol.  I wish it was, but it's not...

So yea, if they ARE going to continue down the current path, then they are going to have to address some of the discrepancies otherwise the controversy is just never going to end. That's why if you just wipe the slate clean, nobody has anything else to complain about because it's basically a fresh start. 

burn it all down

How edgy

I wouldn't mind them bringing old plot points back up in a future game, since there's still room for a lot of new material even if they go that route. They can do a lot of fixing retroactively if they really want. 

I just don't think it's worth dwelling on. A lot of the Problem Children are pushing 15 years old at this point. 

I don't see the point since the series isn't some broken mess beyond repair and just requires the people who run it to actually care about it just a little.

To be honest, I just want a reason to care about this series again; it honestly does feel like the creators just have no idea what to do anymore and just going through the motions of making games. 

Like, you can argue the series has been that way since 1998, but shit, at least the series TRIED to do something new. It didn't always work, but it was something. 

Now it's just like....everything is so damn phoned in. So like...who is actually satisfied with how the series is as a video game series right now? Even people who jump into the series nowadays don't think it's anything special, let alone the older fans who have long since become jaded. 

I don't think we need a reboot or just retread Sonic Adventure until the end of the time. But for fuck's sake, can SOMEONE actually give a damn about this series for once? I've never seen a series as iconic as this one be treated with such apathy.

Maybe a reboot is what they need, a clean slate to worth with or just remember the shit that actually got people to give a damn to begin with. But this half-assed, phoned in shit they've been doing since 2013 ain't it. 

Fuck reboots. I can't think of a single one that I ever liked for a franchise I was already into.

I didn't say it was a good thing; just something that might actually motivate the creators. 

Whatever happens, it's going to be controversial, because the series is just too big to satisfy thirty years of fans. 

I'm not sure how a reboot specifically would be motivating. Sonic Forces should have made it clear that there isn't a whole lot they aren't allowed to do

I honestly have no idea what to infer from Sonic Forces` existence; that game confuses the fuck out of me. I legit cannot even begin to understand what the thought process was with that game, and what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall during development. 

Or maybe they should just... stop.

Set themselves free from churning out Sonic and let them make something else for a change. If they don't give a damn about what they make or have no idea what to do with anymore, why bother still making them? Having the moniker of "Sonic Team" has become a hindrance for what the creators might truly desire to make now, and chances are it ain't Sonic.

Call me an echo in the chamber, but this series requires being given to people who actually want it to evolve. Let "Sonic Team" have the right to not be known as merely "The People Who Make Sonic" and allow them to do what they really want. Allow them to make new concepts for games and go all in on them, not need to settle for the budget Sonic and Puyo Puyo over and over again. Yuji Naka's working his way up even if he's not making Sonic anymore, so if the rest of the people stuck with Sonic wanna be motivated again, they should do the same.

Giving Sonic new owners wouldn't be just to make the fans happy, it would make the old devs happy too.

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I honestly have no idea what to infer from Sonic Forces` existence; that game confuses the fuck out of me. I legit cannot even begin to understand what the thought process was with that game, and what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall during development. 

Sonic Forces is what happens when you glean a bunch of data from focus testing and put it in a blender thinking it will appeal to every single target without considering why they liked any of those things.

You remember the last time they gave Sonic to another developer do you?

New developers who know what they're doing.

I'd argue Brb knew what they were doing, but Sega was being executive as fuck and trying to dictate everything...and then forced them to develop on a consolet they weren't originally developing for...

In that case, it's clear that it wasn't entirely the other company's fault ROL (and the Sanzaru 3ds games) were the way it was. It was SEGA's idea to give Sonic a "western" reimagining in the first place, and much like 06 being the "eastern" reimaging of Sonic, they're intentions went to far from the beginning. 

Then you have SEGA giving Sonic to Paramont. That time they did not go and dictate the whole thing. Disaster seemed inevitable, the design look every bit as horrible as we imagined it, but you know what? Somehow, some way, they managed to fix it in a short period of time and the movie ended up not being as bad as we thought. Yes, still by no means perfect, but asides from making them fix the design sooner, I doubt that SEGA would done any favors had they'd been more controlling. And Rise of Lyric was gonna be mediocre either way, but had SEGA not put so many strict circumstances upon them, at least it would've been competent 

SEGA shouldn't try making everything so conditional when given Sonic to another company. When you're asked to make a Sonic game, just make a Sonic game. That's all it has to be. We know that some people from both BRB and Paramont do have above-average knowledge about the games and beyond, so if they wanted to make regular ol' Sonic, they certainly could've tried. SEGA looked in the right direction to seek out new blood to give the series a whirl, but their mind was in the wrong place.

if sega was willing to pick brb --a newly-formed studio without one proven game to their credit-- against nearly anybody else to make a 3D sonic platformer; sega might as well had hired any random person off the street to make the next sonic game. but what else do you expect when their goal wasn't actually making better games to improve the rep of the main series, just throw out a new version of sonic to appeal to new demographics.

so the threat of picking another studio to make sonic games rings pretty hollow to me, especially when we got mania from a collected crew of freelancers / indie devs instead of a full-fledged studio. sonic team's 30 years worth of games/decisions speaks for itself.

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and Forces doesn't even resemble the world established in Unleashed at all.

i mean that's every sonic game anyway

@Diogenes You're misunderstanding.

Every Sonic game has a different setting, but you could justify it by saying that it just takes place in a different part of the planet.

Unleashed and Forces are the only two games that take place on an established global scale, and what is supposed to be the same planet.

It's still missing stuff, like not explaining what happened to Station Square or Soleanna during Unleashed.

We're kinda used to disappointment so....

endless suffering, like always

That's what we all thought for the writers before them. We thought we already hit the bottom of the barrel, and now we "learn to appertiate" them. The barrel is bottomless it seems.

I'll admit, what do we have left lose at this point?

after ten years of hamfisted sitcom jokes (and atrocious character derailment, depending on who you ask *side-eyes Tails*), i think i'm completely okay with risking a fresh team of writers if it means pontraff aren't called back to write/translate the next game.

we saw pontraff provide what was initially a solid breath of fresh air in colors; being laidback and poking fun at itself following the serious/convoluted stories of the previous games. only for their writing to quickly nosedive afterwards because they and Sega did not know to not quit while they were ahead, and they ran what they brought to the table into the ground. so i don't think most people are really swayed by the threat of replacement writers possibly being even worse.

(although based on what i've seen, several fans have been championing for ian flynn and/or shiro maekawa to be brought (back) to the writer's room)

I wasn't really impressed with them by the time the games launched, but I could see that SwSh had nice points to them with the characters and new Pokemon designs (I haven't played them still). Though getting around to finishing UltraMoon and getting more into breeding and battling I think I'd be interested in giving gen 8 a spin some time even if I feel it's lacking for the price tag.

Honestly, between enjoying the game and being hella nostalgic for Gen 4; I honestly wouldn't mind getting Gen 4 remakes now. 

I'm kinda half and half, but admittedly I finished a Platinum playthrough almost a year ago and ORAS sorta put a damper on remake hype for me. I'd still welcome it because I still really like that gen though and would love to see the Wild Area concept applied to Sinnoh's routes.

Does SEGA even possess the ability to understand things?

When you have a fanbase that's as vocal about their opinions that don't always align with each other as this one, that's honestly harder than it sounds. 

@Kuzu Oh I get that, but let's not pretend they are clean handed themselves. The fanbase's divide is no excuse for not re-releasing games we asked for like the Taxman ports.

That is a fairly reasonable complaint, I agree. 

It's funny how Sonic Team has on two occasions in the past decade said they want to be able to cater towards different demographics within Sonic, and they failed at doing so on both regards.

A Sonic game built from the template of Rush masquerading as a Genesis Sonic game vs. a Sonic game that, while more focused on powerup minigames and puzzle platforming, is clearly built off the back of the Boost gameplay and made no bones about what playstyle it actually was. 

A Sonic game that's an unabashed love letter towards the Genesis playstyle vs. a Boost Sonic game that's carved up into thirds of Boost gameplay, not-quite-Boost gameplay, and Genesis Sonic gameplay.

And on both occasions, a 2D Sonic game vs. a "3D" Sonic game that have far more 2D levels/2D sections than one would expect.

"I don't understand why our game wasn't as well-received as the other game" ~someone at Sega back in 2010 and 2017, and probably in 2021 as well

Nice! I've been watching his Sonic Adventure stuff lately, pretty good content.

Speak for yourself, games like the Genesis trilogy thrived because of it's gameplay. The characters and world were just the topping.

nah I think a lot of the games are fun 

@Polkadi~☆ Then how do you explain how the series is still relevant despite the gameplay being nowhere near the 2D games after the Genesis titles? Do you think any other franchise would be able to survive a Sonic 06 if the public just didn;t love Sonic. 

@Wraith Never said they weren't, but I have interacted with many people who do ultimately prefer the world and setting and treat the gameplay as an afterthought. 

Only explanation I can understand on why anyone would say Sonic 06 was an underrated gem that got overhated. 

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Only explanation I can understand on why anyone would say Sonic 06 was an underrated gem that got overhated. 

Anyone who unironically states this has not played the game, and is too young to have seen the impact it left on the franchise.

Or they played it and didn't hate it

I mean, yes, that can happen. I may not understand how it can happen, but it can.

it's both, to varying extents regarding various games to various people

If nothing else, it speaks that this series has more to offer than just the gameplay. 

I have come to the enlightened conclusion that no video game has ever been fun. Anyone who believes video games are fun have been abused and lied to about what fun means. Vote Romney/Klobuchar 2024

The concept of Sonic has a lot of appeal. The games are responsible for establishing that concept in the first place though.

I believe I remember the JP version had some little things in the eyecatches to promote the game too but I haven't seen that episode since it came out years ago.

I mean this was a thing way back in 1995:

But I guess if you mean reintroducing them after nearly a decade, sure.

I'm obviously referring to their modern incarnations, yes.

That's pretty interesting and explains some strange decisions.

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Also it's well known that more male kid voices are done by females but Naka decided for the first time they wanted a real kid.

I had assumed they were trying to continue a tradition the American cartoons already had since Tails was voiced by a boy in Adventures and SatAM. But now it just sounds more like Naka had a lot of unrealistic demands with regards to the voice acting in English.

@Zaysho I just learned that they did the same in Japanese too lol; Tails had two other voice actors that were children in SA1, SHuffle, and SA2 before he got his current voice from Heroes onward. 

So yea, just a weird decision from Naka. 

Correction, Naka had unrealistic demands with regards to voice acting.

I find most of the current Sonic cast is good but don't have good material to work with. I think my only major disappointment is Knuckles currently, but for some reason it seems like every actor that's come after Green has basically been told to try to keep imitating Green instead of doing something new like Smith did for Sonic.

edit: I didn't mean "miscast" when I thought about it even if there's a couple I'd swap around, the casting itself doesn't bother me.

Sonic and everyone should go back to being silent characters.

Cause none of these talented actors deserve to be brought in for such filfth.

Tbf Sonic is just his Regular Show voice, and I love that voice so it doesn’t bother me all that much, but yeah, I think he could definitely be given more to worm with 

I wish Sega would start telling Knuckles VAs to imitate Dreier's take instead tbh

If there's one thing about this series we can all agree on, it that there is nothing wrong with the current actors, Sega's voice directors just suck.

@Ferno I can't really comment on anything else here, but totally agree with what you said about Dreier. He did the best Knuckles by far. All the others sounds like YuGi knock offs, which isn't surprisingly when they either are him or are impersonating him. Willingham was pretty great in Forces though, ngl. 

I thought he still sounded like he was trying to impersonate Dan green’s Knuckles voice a bit even in Forces

I never really appreciated what Roger could do until I started watching LEGO shows. The man runs the whole gamut on the two he's been in.

@Ferno @Blue Blood ya'll think Drier sounds closer to Knuckles JP VA? Maybe that's why Sega insists on that.

They never intended him to sound like Drier, just a speculation tho.

I don't know what any of the Japanese VAs sound like tbh

Its just speculation; because when people say they like Drier's take on Knuckles, it mostly refers to SA2.

Because in Heroes, it almost feels like a precursor to how Dan Green would voice him, which gave me the impression that they never intended for Knuckles to sound like how he did in thr Adventure games

That and how close his voice might be to the original audio.

And he does an awesome Brio.

As long as we keep chasing the trolls and idiots away it won't be that bad 

We need to start doing like Retro and not even let the stupidity in. 

I'd like that but hey you gotta convince the mods somehow.

Hey we fixed the Shadow problem... mostly.

Tbh, probably isn't the best idea to ban topics all together more than we have to simply because a few idiots can't control themselves.

I forgot that we banned topics

also no because I like Sally

I swear, any kind of talk of Sally and/or Freedom Fighters just brings the worst of everyone. Kinda why I was never really for that movement since its inception.

Nah it's just the dumb people

there are a lot of dumb people 

Sally fans aren't dumb, it's just the haters

I regret all of the years I spent being indifferent towards that character because her hatedom.