Worst sonic Move/Gimmick ever

[Mr Useful]

Exactly. We want the spindash back.

I don't get why the spindash in gone in Generations 3d, it plays more like colors DS than unleashed anyways and that game had a spindash. I thought the DS games were safe from having their spindashes taken away.

[Dandp]

The Somersault in the adventure games and the advance games.

 

One simple word : Why?

Edited May 8, 2013 by Dandp

[Willsy]

Caliburn. Oh god why?! Why couldn't Caliburn be a talking horse or something, why the hell does Sonic need a sword? Why the hell would he need a horse? Why the hell is Sonic blue? So many questions! No but seriously, giving Sonic a sword is like that time when they gave Shadow a gun...and we all know how that turned out....

Edited May 13, 2013 by Wil348

[Splash the Otter]

Caliburn. Oh god why?! Why couldn't Caliburn be a talking horse or something, why the hell does Sonic need a sword? Why the hell would he need a horse? Why the hell is Sonic blue? So many questions! No but seriously, giving Sonic a sword is like that time when they gave Shadow a gun...and we all know how that turned out....

I actually liked the idea of Sonic using a sword. I just wish it could have been better integrated with Sonic's agility.

[Blacklightning]

The only thing that drags it down as a gimmick in SatBK is its choice of controls. They were clearly designed with buttons in mind, and had the game actually used buttons instead of painfully generic waggle it would have been perfectly fine on its own. Conversely, using some directional sensitivity ala Red Steel could've benefitted the game anyway if they insisted on using motion controls regardless. By that point once you strip away predefined attacks and let Sonic attack more or less the same way regardless of context it'd stand up pretty damn good.

 

Frankly I'm bloody annoyed that it gets scapegoated at all simply on the basis of "Shadow using weapons is bad, therefore Sonic using weapons is bad regardless of context" at all. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the factors behind both games, because they ultimately aren't even remotely comparable. Sonic used a sword in SatBK because the entire story it's based on revolves around a fucking legendary sword, and all of Sonic's abilities are melee-based anyway so it works hand-in-hand with what he's already capable of. Shadow uses a gun in ShTH explicitly to appeal to CoD and Halo kiddies who don't know any better, and contradicts pretty much the entirety of his existing abilities in an attempt to bend over backwards for them.

[Faseeh]

Ya know, despite all the hate the spinkick in Unleashed gets I still like it, I mean it actually could sometimes help to spinkick when you are doing some speed glitch? Yeaah, and I thought it looked cool.

 

I hate the slide, somersault and bounce attack though, I really found no use to them. The slide is so un-Sonic-y and the somersault is just easily replacable. The bounce attack... eh it could be fun to bounce around but I don't exactly have any sort of liking for it.

 

Oh the crawl is the best move. It looks awesome, I mean have you guys ever played Windmill Isle just by crawling it's actually fun. It's useless yeah, but it doesn't hurt.

[battletoad]

Magic hands were verrrrry questionable.  I always hated the figure 8 peel out as a kid in sonic cd, but its actually kinda cool.

[Endy]

The somersault in SA2. This so easily could have been replaced by the spindash, and its so useless other than where you need it I wonder why they even bothered implementing it.

[Diogenes]

Y'know, I don't entirely hate the somersault. While you could replace it with a proper roll or even SA's spamdash without really losing anything, it's not entirely useless. Sometimes you just wanna cut through an enemy at ground level, and sometimes the spindash takes a fraction of a second too long to start up (granted, because of the somersault) and might launch you too quickly to be safe in some areas. Plus it kills those shielded GUN robots without having to wait for them to lower their guard, which is kind of underused but it does come up a couple of times.

 

No one's ever going to call it a great move, but I don't think it deserves to be called the worst.

[Kuzu]

I like the bounce attack. It gives Sonic a lot of air when used from high altitude which made it pretty rad.

[Milo]

The worst Sonic move ever I'd have to say would be the rolling combo from S4E2. It's basically a co-op boost that's an even more overpowered than the standard boost, with it's lack of a gauge mechanic so that it can't be endlessly spammed, invincibility to spikes, and being able to roll up walls with ease. It contradicts the Genesis Sonic gameplay even more than the boost does-even the boost at least had some limitations, whereas with good precision and/or timing you could use the rolling attack to clear most if not all of most levels in the game. Just look at how it makes a total mockery of the original Sonic CD battle in Sonic and Tails's homage "rematch" battle with Metal Sonic in DEm2 Act 1.

[Place]

Let's talk about Heroes' Rocket Accel.

Actually, let's not, because there is no point in time where you ever have to use it in gameplay. Also, having to prepare the attack is time-consuming in the heat of the game. So even if you did find a place to use it, it would have probably been faster to just keep running as the speed character. 

 

Also I'm going to defend Magic Hands by saying that it is fucking awesome that you can contain an enemy in a tiny ball to then use as a weapon against other enemies. 

TASTE THE BLOOD OF YOUR PEOPLE
Impractical, but still fucking awesome.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Place

[-blank-]

Let's talk about Heroes' Rocket Accel.

Actually, let's not, because there is no point in time where you ever have to use it in gameplay.

 

 

Actually, I remember a single instance in Egg Fleet where you had to use it.

 

Other than that, yeah, it's useless.

[t0ms0nic]

Actually, I remember a single instance in Egg Fleet where you had to use it.

 

Other than that, yeah, it's useless.

 

As a matter of fact, you had to use it twice; both on conveyor belts that stopped even the Speed characters from running up them ever so slowly. The second time even has one of those sleek robots that fires huge beams in front of it, which I'm pretty sure you had to deal with unless you quickly used the Rocket Accel.

 

The absolute worst part about using the move is with Team Rose or Team Chaotix, where Amy would just suddenly use her hammer spin and stall on the spot, or Espio would use his Shuriken but at least still go forward ever so slightly. At least Sonic and Shadow only had the Rocket Accel itself on that same action, but it was still picky as hell about when it wants to actually launch you forward properly.

 

 

I'd say the Light Ring Dash was probably the worst move. On account of Sonic Team thinking it would be a good idea to make the Electric Shield a regularly found item in Sonic Adventure that would never conflict with their awesome idea for making Sonic traverse a trail of closely-placed rings that were especially near bottomless pits. Then rather than tossing out that dumb move and experimenting with the rest of the shields and maybe inventing even more types(?), they kept both the move and the shields for a time, then just tossed the shields out completely! Where's the fairness in that?

[Diogenes]

As a matter of fact, you had to use it twice; both on conveyor belts that stopped even the Speed characters from running up them ever so slowly. The second time even has one of those sleek robots that fires huge beams in front of it, which I'm pretty sure you had to deal with unless you quickly used the Rocket Accel.

You didn't actually have to use it there. Just run forward, or maybe spam the homing attack (it's been a while). Gets you through just fine.

At least Sonic and Shadow only had the Rocket Accel itself on that same action, but it was still picky as hell about when it wants to actually launch you forward properly.

Actually they had a slide kick sort of thing.

[Celestia]

There wasn't much of a difference between the Rocket Accel and the somersault/slide thing, really. In fact, IIRC, the slide kick was even worse control wise, but it's been a while for me too so I'm not entirely sure.

 

Where's Soniman when ya need him >:V

[t0ms0nic]

Actually they had a slide kick sort of thing.

 

It still had quite a bit of a forward push though, at the very least being doing a better push than Espio. It wasn't much worse than doing the actual Rocket Accel, so it's not too bad in their case... if still pretty damn annoying, but it gets the job done at least.

 

Saying this after playing Heroes the other night as Team Sonic, so I'm at least somewhat sure about this. Don't have the game close-by to quickly double check.

Edited May 14, 2013 by t0ms0nic

[Xtremer Sadiqachu]

Would you hate me if I said I actually liked Sonic Labyrinth??.......That's what I thought.

 

I really dislike the Tails/Eggman levels in Sonic Adventure 2. They're so tedious. The Knuckles/Rouge levels....eh, ok I guess, but the music is the best part

 

Don't even get me STARTED on those fishing levels in SADX. One of the reasons I never finished that game is because I never play the Big levels. Why? BECAUSE I F*CKING HATE THEM! DON'T MERGE MY SONIC WITH SEGA BASS FISHING!!

 

The Super-Peelout....well I kind of like it. It's faster than a SpinDash, but you usually find yourself pressing down to spin after you used it. I will say that in the Game Gear games, the Peelout does actual damage, but is about the same speed as a normal Spindash.

 

Oh, and I've never played Black Knight

 

The Somersault in the adventure games and the advance games.

 

One simple word : Why?

 

to get more air in Adventure, and to attack in Advance

Edited May 14, 2013 by XtremerSadiq

[Goldenlink64]

 

The Rocket Accel can be a pretty useful move for gaining speed fast like the Spindash used to in the Adventures, it just takes practice figuring out how to get it to work. It requires weird timing on when to press and hold B, but if you can get it to work, Heroes becomes a lot more fun to play (or well, for Team Sonic or Dark at least, Amy's hammer attack screws everything up and makes it annoyingly harder to perform).

[KHCast]

I feel like picking a worst overshadows how terrible pretty much all of them are. How was it that they managed to screw up all of the time for ten years now? Adventure's extra characters were one thing (most of them ended up being fun in spite of not really working), but they added the light speed dash which served to be nothing more than a "blue key" puzzle, except for the time I used it to skip part of Ice Cap. Didn't save any time, but it was easier to do than the normal way. It also introduced the homing attack, but didn't make me hate it yet.

Does the 90's swooshiness introduced just late enough to be passe rather than irrelevant count?

Then Adventure 2 managed to make alternate gameplay modes that previously ranged from unoffensive to pretty fun and make them terrible, introduced the heavily scripted/set pieced gameplay that won't fucking go away, introduced grinding which basically served to make replaying levels even more same-y, and a bunch of stupid moves no one cares about or outright hate, changed the light dash from a blue key into "rails but more fiddly", and added the bounce bracelet because we can't have a Sonic game without a blue key puzzle that also lets the player break the game (Want an A rank in metal harbor? Just use the bounce bracelet to extend your combos and bounce your way to victory).

That reminds me, the ranking system is a pointless gimmick. A "*-rank" based on what? I give it an F. In Generations, you basically get an S if you don't die, and in colors you get an S for drilling around in a circle for half an hour.

Heroes was made of this sort of stuff, Crush 40 told me so.

Wait, this whole Crush 40 thing, counts, right? Seems pretty gimmicky to me.

Then they made Shadow the Hedgehog which was nothing but what these sorts of things.

06 was basically Adventure 2 only with more stuff that didn't work.

Unleashed brought us a move for making sharper turns and for moving sideways. No word on if they understand what an analog stick is for.

Thinking about it, the worse gimmick really is sort of a metagimmick, the focus on speed at the expense of everything else, and to add insult to injury they didn't make the games that much faster. Heck, they didn't make them faster at all until Unleashed that that's really just on average.

Wait, does using the Hedgehog Engine even though they turn off Fresnels and specularity (and probably a bunch I haven't been able to pick out) count? That seems like it really should.

Sorry that I'm replying to a old post, but I just really wanted to reply to this. Some of the stuff here just sounds like you're trying to find things to hate. Crush 40? The Hedgehog Engine? Not sure what you mean by "90's swooshness."

 

The Ranking system I don't see how it's pointless either. I mean, sure Generations and 06 are examples of pretty pointless really super easy or just broken ones, but a lot of the ranking systems feel like they are okay where they are. Colors felt like a pretty balanced rank system. Not too easy or hard. Anyway, Rank systems create goals, and replay value,challenge. Yeah there's potential to make them better(like perhaps rewarding the player with Bonuses for S ranking a entire Act maybe? then enticing you to play the stages and get better at them), but I wouldn't say as a whole it's just plain pointless and shouldn't be in the series. 

[Place]

 

The Rocket Accel can be a pretty useful move for gaining speed fast like the Spindash used to in the Adventures, it just takes practice figuring out how to get it to work. It requires weird timing on when to press and hold B, but if you can get it to work, Heroes becomes a lot more fun to play (or well, for Team Sonic or Dark at least, Amy's hammer attack screws everything up and makes it annoyingly harder to perform).

Sure, but that doesn't make it any more precise. it seems like Rocket Accel is only REALLY useful if you're going up or down a slope of some kind. And Heroes DOES have a lot of those, but more often than not I just forget it exists.

 

 

 

You didn't actually have to use it there. Just run forward, or maybe spam the homing attack (it's been a while). Gets you through just fine.

Actually they had a slide kick sort of thing.

Been a while for me too, but I think I got through that in Fly formation somehow.

[MegasonicZX]

Probably the worst move in sonic for me was, actually I can't really think of any cause after getting them down its really easy to use them and they are pretty useful for runs through the game, I guess maybe the light attack in adventure's one and two since they weren't very useful.

[Scar]

 

The Rocket Accel can be a pretty useful move for gaining speed fast like the Spindash used to in the Adventures, it just takes practice figuring out how to get it to work. It requires weird timing on when to press and hold B, but if you can get it to work, Heroes becomes a lot more fun to play (or well, for Team Sonic or Dark at least, Amy's hammer attack screws everything up and makes it annoyingly harder to perform).

 

This video reminds of how fun Heroes looks to play. Shame about when you pick up the controller though....

Heroes had potential when it came to the speed character stuff, given that it could reach pretty high speeds for a game that isn't in the Boost Trilogy. However, the ridiculously feather-light, overly sensitive controls, coupled with spastic acceleration and soap-bar-on-ice movement hampered it. It was way too easy to lose control of a speed character.

If they tweaked that engine, maybe bring in hints of Generations' engine, and made it so, one careless twitch of the analogue stick didn't send you careening off in a tangential direction, it could be actually fun to play.

 

Anyway, worst gimmick. Oh there are lots. 

Swords. Not the idea, but the horrible on-rails, execution.

Secret Rings itself was a pretty horrible gimmick.

Guns. Need I say more? Really not suitable for the franchise.

Everything other than Sonic (Shadow) in SA1 and SA2 was completely garbage, and shouldn't have ever existed. 

 

Maybe I'm kinda getting tired of the boost.....I still kinda like it, but I would like to see what it'd be like if the Boost was reduced to a power-up or a reward for being a complete and utter badass at the game.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Scar

[Diogenes]

Everything other than Sonic (Shadow) in SA1 and SA2 was completely garbage, and shouldn't have ever existed.

Tails and Amy in SA weren't too bad.

[Autosaver]

Apparently it was Yojiro Ogawa's. In fact I remember him stating at one point that the controls were specifically adapted to work with the Wiimote or some similar bullshit.

That's not what he's talking about.

 

Basically the control are really bad from the start. You move very awkwardly and it ends up being a mess. You have to get to the second or third zone before you actually start unlocking smoother controls. It's really stupid.

 

Personally, I thought the Magic Bracelet in SA2 was the worst gimmick. I barely used it and it was beyond pointless.