Catallena

interestingly the most profound look we ever got into Eggman I believe was in Sonic X although we don't really get to see why he's evil we understand what kind of evil he is: grim and disilliusoned.

Sonic Spinball is probably my greatest guilty pleasure ever it's very clunky as a pinball game but it has a lot of personality and clever stages unlike that other pinball game no one cares about it'd make a fantastic mobile game nowadays come to think of it sonic probably should have a match three that's not SEGA Heroes (even moreso now that SEGA Heroes has been discontinued)

the biggest problem with egg pawns is that they're not part of the stages ecosystem so they don't contribute to the feeling of each level and that's a bit boring

we're in the boost/modern equivalent of the 95-98 period in the classic era where every game either is or feels like a spin off

once again i was not the one making the argument that megaman isn't like that so why are you telling that to me. i was just showing that it's something that happens, and i don't mind it. you think you are replying to me but really you are not. so what would be the measure of whether it works or not? i stated my reason to say it works in a previous, very heartfelt post you choose to ignore. that is my point of view. sonic advance 3, and basically most sonic games, work as games because of those reasons, and sadly since sonic's influence on what good game design is has fallen out of favor so that's why we keep having discussions like these when no one would question that years ago. you're the one making up strawmen just so you have something to point your anger towards, and quite frankly it makes me both creeped out and uncomfortable. you know the funny thing about it in relation to the next section of your post is that i might as well say, "that's the level telling you what it's about" but you'd come up with something to say it isn't, and it'd be yet another case of someone being creative about subjective thresholds of something that make them acceptable. when similar arguments were made about sonic 3 you went ahead and talked about how no they aren't but it comes down to the same principle. people who diss the old games say these exact,.very exact same things you're saying about sonic advance 3. "oh it's too fast how am i supposed to stop" "oh my god there's a speed booster and i don't really need it because i'm looking for somerhing else but let me use it anyway just so i can have something to complain about". like you said stop going fast in what's obviously a slow section, or rather a slow facet of the same level because you're looking for something else now. but yeah even if you do, you can restart it, or you can finish the level you're at to get lives or whatever and keep playing some other time. it's not a big deal. you talk like it hurt you physically or took an insane amount of time but it dosn't, it's bite-sized and yes a bit of trial and error but again there's nothing wrong with that because you can and should try something new whenever you go at it again. and to me that's enough, that's fun. yeah you know i was going to report you right here because at no point did i make a comment so virulent towards you but then i saw that you are the staff so that really makes me uncomfortable. please stop doing this why would you get so worked up that i like something you don't like and for apparently the same reasons you like something you like

well tell that to the boy who thinks megaman isn't cheap or whatever then not to me because as i said i don't mind traps like these and you are all having a hard time convincing me i should it very much is though because the whole game is very chill about its own exploration aspects what with the zone maps and the team switching on the fly all so you can explore if and whenever and however you want (remember it's also a portable game which might affect your experience) so at this point if you think it's counter intuitive then it's your intuition that is wrong and like i said that's fine too because we come to the game expecting differnt things just don't spout holier than thou bullshit as if intuition was somehow objective and unified all across the player spectrum. you said as much when defending sonic 3 and i agree with those points so don't be hypocritical

...why? it's there, it exists and it's a sonic game. don't you have to look around for rings if you're short on them for the special stage even in sonic 1? don't you have to backtrack? don't you have to be on the lookout for giant rings in sonic 3 and use specific abilities to reach them sometimes even if it's not absolutely obligatory? i could agree that in these other games you don't have to do all of the exploration to get what exploration offers (you only need maybe 10 out of some 30 giant rings in the game, or 50 rings out of maybe 150 rings on the stage), but to say that exploration is antithetical to sonic sounds just plain wrong. you talk like what you said about patterns or surroundings made up some sort of cohesive argument about the series which it doesn't and then again if it did it'd be already undone by even the slightest mishap like the one i showed and that you never cared to acknowledge because "oh it's a one-time thing" well i thought there shouldn't be one-time things especially ones as deliberate as that in a game so well rounded like you claim megaman to be. i understood what you're saying you're just not acknowledging how is the best way to play the game out of your free will and just so that you can keep complaining. if you approached sonic advance 3 as a game in which you have to constantly tweak your tools and strategies you'd surely get more fun out of it, instead of choosing partners out of (not saying it's your case just as an example and in fact a fair one, it's not wrong) choosing your favorite pair like it's an expression of your personality. and you know what that's fine because as i said the line between challenging and bullshit is not clear contrary to what you said. there's things you're willing to put up with and there's things you're not willing to put up with. you play your way because you want something out of the game which for many reasons including your relationship with the series sonic advance 3 just doesn't deliver. just don't bring any of this clear line crap because it's not true

how can the chaos emerald system be counter intuitive to how the levels are designed if they are the reason to how they are designed the way they are. you can even try as many times as you like with whichever teams you like. the characters are tools to achieve these kinds of goals and if you're not comfortable using a certain set of partners maybe switch them out? there's no hindrance whatsoever in doing so and this is the way the game makes a very unique feeling that the characters are a group of friends helping each other out the best way they can. something that no other game has achieved. it's about that also i'm not sure how i'm supposed to take my time and take things slow when there are fading platforms specifically designed to kill me if i don't know beforehand what's going to happen but ok

i don't get it. does sonic advance 3 strap your fingers to the buttons you're not supposed to press at any given time and slowly injects poison into your blood vessels unless you force yourself to die or something. i can use this argument, "it's your own fault if you do whatever it is that makes you die", to justify whatever i want in any game. sounds like i'm not the one cherrypicking because i for one don't mind traps like these

is that right because it looks like which games are challenging and which games are bullshit hard, it's all very arbitrary and by the way personal. is something like mushihimesama bullshit hard or what

see there are a lot of purposes to games being unfair in situations like that. for instance a game being deliberately hard and uinforgiving means not one person can spend the whole night playing only one game so that other people can play too, a principle that arcades share as well. that and there is the fact like someone else said that the games are meant to stratify players heavily so as to make gaining a prize really special not to one person but to the game as a whole because the games are being played within a broader context. it's so innocuous and yet here you are throwing a fit like cultural festivals at schools should be illegal or something lol it's abundantly clear that "rules of game design" are bound to the context in which games are being played because after all videogames did not invent games or the act of playing so it's stupid to try and frame a game through falsely objective criteria disregarding social aspects of playing that game. this applies all things considered to complaining about sonic for being "trial and error" when the legacy of sonic was more or less discontinued and that also happened to most sega games. the framework is based on what's influential today and sonic isn't that influential

and yet no one seems to care much why would that be

yes they are all practices that may or may not be useful for a certain audience within a certain context take a shooting range at a fair or a festival for example the shooting range is made to be unfair but in that particular context that would be good game design sinc ethe game was not made to be beaten but rather to be dumb fun for which you gain small prizes and exchange tickets so you can buy food it's all really a lot more trivial than high and mighty game design gurus who actually have nothing important to say (like anyone who makes these "sonic was always bad" videos or matthewmatosis or, god help me, extra credits) liketo make it seem