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Sonic Unleashed - What is it now after four years?


Dr. Homem

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I think the Werehog was to Sonic what guns were to Shadow - a way to badass-ify him.

Making him fuzzy is not exactly the most straightforward way to badass-ify a character.

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Making him fuzzy is not exactly the most straightforward way to badass-ify a character.

 

Obviously not, otherwise it wouldn't have had so much backlash.

 

 

 

It really wouldn't, and the only reason people say that is because it's Knuckles. If it wasn't fun to play as the werehog with all those enemies and their lifebars being tedious to kill, swapping him out for Knuckles while keeping those enemies and lifebars isn't gonna make it any better.

 

I agree that the main issue was the enemies; however, I hated how slow and clunky he was as well. With Knuckles, gliding and wall climbing would be more fun than hanging on ledges and moving like Mr. Fantastic.

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I agree that the main issue was the enemies; however, I hated how slow and clunky he was as well. With Knuckles, gliding and wall climbing would be more fun than hanging on ledges and moving like Mr. Fantastic.

Why? I'll agree that the werehog as executed is kind of slow and clunky, but there's no reason the concept couldn't be done better, and be a fast, fluid, and fun way to get around.

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Well it's just maybe because Unleashed didn't quite get to me. And I am absolutely not saying '06 is a good game. Oh god no. It's got countless flaws and all we already know. But still Unleashed is a game I couldn't get past. I didn't like the new characters, the story, setting, idea... I had recently played the Zelda game in which Link did the same thing as Sonic does in unleashed so I found it a not so original idea. I could tell you about what I think about Sonic '06 but that's another thing.

.....You see something similar to this in one game, and it's not so original....?

Why? I'll agree that the werehog as executed is kind of slow and clunky, but there's no reason the concept couldn't be done better, and be a fast, fluid, and fun way to get around.

Exactly. I'd say if the Werehog as a whole was handled better, people would probably wouldn't hate it so much.

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And then you'll run into a second problem with swapping the werehog with Knuckles: Level Design. Simply put, gliding and wall climbing would break the way the whole half of the game was designed in the first place because Knuckles would be allowed to reach places with such ease that everything else about the level design would be pointless and unengaging to travel through.

 

While this isn't me trying to praise the nighttime stages, it should be noted that Knuckles' gliding and wall climbing would allow him to climb to the top of the highest structure in the game and glide all the way to the end with no obstacles, essentially bypassing everything the level would require him to do and making it even easier that the "boost-2-win" gameplay people associate with Modern Sonic, which isn't going to do it any wonders.

 

For you to have Knuckles playable in the game at all, you need to redesign EVERYTHING about the nighttime levels to fit him. Because the way they were for the Werehog will not work for Knuckles the same way.

Not to mention that if Knuckles was implemented over the Werehog without any major changes to gameplay, there would still be heavy backlash over the fact that Knuckles has a completely different (even if it's somewhat appropriate for him) gameplay style to Sonic, thus would have only reinforced the idiotic belief that "FRIENDS ARE EVIL! EXTERMINATE = SUCCESS FOR SONIC" mentality that was floating around at the time.

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WAS floating around at the time? I think it should be STILL floating around.

Edited by Santa Attaxx
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WAS floating around at the time? I think it should be STILL floating around.

Removing his friends is not the answer. The answer is making them better to play as.

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Removing his friends is not the answer. The answer is making them better to play as.

We know that. We're just saying that the mentality that "removing Sonic's friends will save the franchise" is still flying around even today, and that it is an idiotic belief that won't solve any of the long term problems Sonic has right now.

Edited by Malpercio
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I never quite get the Knuckles instead of Werehog arguement.

 

 

Imagine the Werehog at his most interesting, one of the moments where you chain together a load of swingy poles and hopping from ledge to ledge in quick succession, chaining together move after move to parkour his way across a gap.

 

Imagine Knuckles just gliding across an open space, maybe dodging a few enemies here and there that are floating in the sky, then climbing up a flat wall, maybe avoiding some other enemies residing on said wall.

 

 

Neither are properly "Sonic", but I know which one feels more engaging, "cool" and "Sonic" to me.

Edited by JezMM
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All this talk about how Knuckles could've been in place of the Werehog, and I'm still puzzled over how Shadow would've played like had he been put there.

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All this talk about how Knuckles could've been in place of the Werehog, and I'm still puzzled over how Shadow would've played like had he been put there.

Probably a carbon copy of Sonic.

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I watched Night of the Werehog recently, and it really makes me wish we got something similar to it for Colors or Generations. Night of the Werehog and the Bonus cutscenes are fuckin' awesome, hope we see more stuff like this in the future =P

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I watched Night of the Werehog recently, and it really makes me wish we got something similar to it for Colors or Generations. Night of the Werehog and the Bonus cutscenes are fuckin' awesome, hope we see more stuff like this in the future =P

That costs a lot of money. I'd rather all the money go towards the actual games, and CG cutscenes on the game discs take up memory space anyway. I recently also watched Night of the Werehog and was surprised by how amazing the animation is, yet I still think it was a waste to set up a cg animation studio to make shorts like those.

This is one of those things where I really completely agree with Miyamoto (not about story). But how making elaborate cutscenes like that are a waste. And that cutscenes should be handled with the ingame models and engine since we're in the era where in game graphics look impressive enough.

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That costs a lot of money. I'd rather all the money go towards the actual games, and CG cutscenes on the game discs take up memory space anyway. I recently also watched Night of the Werehog and was surprised by how amazing the animation is, yet I still think it was a waste to set up a cg animation studio to make shorts like those.

This is one of those things where I really completely agree with Miyamoto (not about story). But how making elaborate cutscenes like that are a waste. And that cutscenes should be handled with the ingame models and engine since we're in the era where in game graphics look impressive enough.

While that is true, nothing can match the opening of Unleashed. Nothing.

I liked Night of the Werehog. It was one of the signs that really showed that SEGA were serious with Unleashed. So much money, and love went behind that project. Whilst its probably not feasible to have a big budget CG short made for every game, a CG opening I think isn't a bad thing. Doesn't have to be epic like Unleashed, because not every story is going to start in the same way, but still its a nice thing to have.

 

Also, thing about animation studios is that they can do work for other companies for other projects and bring in a little extra $$$, which otherwise wouldn't be obtained. Doing things like NotW, just demonstrates to potential customers how talented the animators are.

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But it's still a waste of resources. Zelda or Mario never need those kind of things. People including me were wondering why those CG clips in the Sonic Generations trailers weren't in the actual game. Now I know. That was actually smart of them using as much space on the disc as possible for the actual game.  Mario Kart Wii did something similar with a CG promo for commercials. Except instead of having an internal CG studio, they just got a few nintendo employees to make it.
Does Sega VE studio do outside works? I thought they were in house.
Edited by lounge
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But it's still a waste of resources. Zelda or Mario never need those kind of things. People including me were wondering why those CG clips in the Sonic Generations trailers weren't in the actual game. Now I know. That was actually smart of them using as much space on the disc as possible for the actual game.

Except... Sonic Generations did use CG cut-scenes. The attract video, story opening, pre-final boss scene, and final boss cut-scene were all video files, as was the credits montage. Even if they use in-game graphics (aside from the attract video), doesn't change the fact that they were pre-recorded.

Still not as much as Unleashed had, but... well Unleashed had way more content than Generations did overall anyway so that arguement kinda falls flat too.

Also even in-games that do use pre-recorded cut-scenes, video cut-scenes can have their uses. They can allow for complex special effects or staging with a large amount of characters that would be too much effort to render in-game for a one time thing. They can allow for instantaneous scene transitions in a game without instant loading without having to contain both scenes in one map file. Or, while this is more a thing for PC games, they can use video cut-scenes to guarantee that important plot points play out exactly as intended, so those on slower computers don't miss out (this was a genuine problem in Generations actually, even though the game runs fine on lowest settings for me, all the in-engine cut-scenes still run out of time with the soundtrack, voices included).

So... yeah. Plus the more we move into the age of digital distribution the less disc space is going to matter, let's be honest.

(Also btw, both Mario and Zelda have used pre-recorded video files in their games, though to my knowledge Zelda has only ever used it for title screen demo montages, and Skyward Sword's credits sequence (which hilariously was mood-breakingly awful due to it's terrible low quality and frame-rate).

Edited by JezMM
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I hate what Sonic Rush and Sonic Unleashed have done to Sonic. Now I was never the biggest fan of Modern Sonic (even the Dreamcast games) but I could tolerate the aspects I didn't like and still have fun because there were still elements of the classic games such as rolling. Now console Sonic has become an easy almost racing type game thanks to Unleashed. It gets old having your thumb on X/Square for 90% of a level. I don't care that you boost slightly less in Generations, it's still too easy and not what Sonic is about at all. You should have to earn your speed so it doesn't become stale. You earn way too much boost energy from just a couple of rings. Sliding is pointless since you have the boost, and even if you didn't it's slow as shit even down hill. Now I'm not the best programmer in the world but I've already topped both Dimps and Sonic Team with my own Sonic engine, which I created in 1 month. I'm not gloating, I consider myself to be a fairly slow witted teen, but if I can outdo them then something's seriously wrong. I still buy the new Sonic games because I love Sonic, but I'm really getting tired of this formula. There's a reason Sonic games don't sell as good nowadays, even the ones with no friends. It's the gameplay. The classics simply had better gameplay. I will be in tears of joy if the next game has no boost, and the sloped terrain actually has a purpose, instead of "wow look how fast Sonic can scale walls and do loops when I hold a button down!".

 

I do really love the atmosphere of Unleashed though, and the soundtrack is great!

Edited by ClassicPinball
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I doubt anyone but (hardcore) fans really care about the overuse of boost.

 

They don't; people love Colors and Generations.

 

Regardless, the issue of Sonic's sales isn't some Disneyfied dichotomy where reinstating rolling will make everything okay. Sonic doesn't sell as much anymore because he has a reputation, he's a non-Mario platformer in an age where non-Mario platformers aren't that competitive anymore, and he doesn't have the luxury of a home console to bundle with. It doesn't really matter on this particular front how much you improve the gameplay because there's simply lower demand in general. As an extreme example, it's like trying to turn 10 million sales off a realistic submarine sim.

Edited by Nepenthe
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They don't; people love Colors and Generations.

 

Regardless, the issue of Sonic's sales isn't some Disneyfied dichotomy where reinstating rolling will make everything okay. Sonic doesn't sell as much anymore because he has a reputation, he's a non-Mario platformer in an age where non-Mario platformers aren't that competitive anymore, and he doesn't have the luxury of a home console to bundle with. It doesn't really matter on this particular front how much you improve the gameplay because there's simply lower demand in general. As an extreme example, it's like trying to turn 10 million sales off a realistic submarine sub.

 

It also doesn't help that SEGA's marketing skills seem to have jumped the shark.

 

But this is offtopic, so for relevant statement about the topic:

 

I love Sonic Unleashed, and I intend to put up a Sonic Unleashed review in Misc. Works... whenever I actually finish it -_-;;.

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I like how the credits in this game were pictures of Sonic and Chip on their journey instead of just gameplay screenshots.

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I doubt anyone but (hardcore) fans really care about the overuse of boost.

Well considering it broke 2 million units and stunned some critics on it's success after they panned the game, I think that says something. Although, to be fair, I was using VGcharts at the time, so take that as you will...

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Sonic Rush makes the boost work because the level design is still based on rolling physics, slopes and curves like the genesis games.

 

this doesn't work very well for the "flat" level design of the recent 3D games though, Sonic Colors worked better because it managed the boost in a different way than Unleashed.

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Except... Sonic Generations did use CG cut-scenes. The attract video, story opening, pre-final boss scene, and final boss cut-scene were all video files, as was the credits montage. Even if they use in-game graphics (aside from the attract video), doesn't change the fact that they were pre-recorded.

Unleashed had way more content than Generations did overall anyway so that arguement kinda falls flat too.

Also even in-games that do use pre-recorded cut-scenes, video cut-scenes can have their uses. They can allow for complex special effects or staging with a large amount of characters that would be too much effort to render in-game for a one time thing. They can allow for instantaneous scene transitions in a game without instant loading without having to contain both scenes in one map file. Or, while this is more a thing for PC games, they can use video cut-scenes to guarantee that important plot points play out exactly as intended, so those on slower computers don't miss out (this was a genuine problem in Generations actually, even though the game runs fine on lowest settings for me, all the in-engine cut-scenes still run out of time with the soundtrack, voices included).

So... yeah. Plus the more we move into the age of digital distribution the less disc space is going to matter, let's be honest.

(Also btw, both Mario and Zelda have used pre-recorded video files in their games, though to my knowledge Zelda has only ever used it for title screen demo montages, and Skyward Sword's credits sequence (which hilariously was mood-breakingly awful due to it's terrible low quality and frame-rate).

I wasn't talking about pre-recorded in game video files. If they're pre-recorded and in-game that's fine as long as they're not massive in size. CG cutscenes like the Unleashed opening look so far beyond the game graphics that they no doubt take up a lot of space and I just don't feel that's necessary for a video game.

 

Maybe Unleashed seems like it has more content because of the extra padding, hubs, CG movies and longer werehog stages. Generations is more streamlined and right to the point with progression so maybe that's why it seems Unleashed has more. By not focusing on all that stuff from Unleashed they were able to make a much better feeling game.

 

And moving into the digital distribution age you're right about disc space not mattering as much, but I still stand that elaborate CG cutscenes are a waste of money especially with in game graphics advancing so much.

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