Sonic Adventure 2 v.s. Sonic Heroes - Round 4: Hype/Marketing

[Faseeh]

Heroes is more Sonic-y and I like that. Adventure 2 is just too bland for me.

 

I mean, I get it, real world but even our world is a bit more entertaining. Also if we go by art style, the upgrades would count and so would Rouge, and while I still don't like plastic Sonic or metal clothed Rouge, I prefer them to upgrades everywhere Sonic and Rouge meant for weird reasons.

 

 

Also, Felix. It's EGG Fleet. You wrote Sky Fleet. >.<

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Our real world doesn't have space colonies...thought I should mention that since they make up the next half of the game.

[Faseeh]

And those parts were the most good and vibrant looking? Yeah, even then those were bland.

 

They seriously tried to be edgy there ya know.

[Nepenthe]

There's nothing really bland about the Space Colony levels. Creepy hallways not rendered dead by a few lights and alarms, weird mini planets with different aesthetics and themes framed by the blue and purple metallic structures of the outside of the colony, and yellow rails with decorative neon lights suspended above a great shot of Earth. They're not bland just because they don't look like what a drunk pony leaves behind.

[Soniman]

Sonic Heroes shouts at you and is too colorful eh? No coherence and whatnot? Well I don't really get this complaint.

 

You can call SA2 subdued, I call it bland and unimaginative. Stages like Wild Canyon, Sand Ocean, Pyramid Cave, Sky Rail, Aquatic Mine, Death Chamber and Egg Quarters is just a endless mesh of brown visuals and grey enemies that don't stick out at all, most of the enemies are uncharacteristic G.U.N Mechs which feel like they belong in a different game, and you only find Badniks in the desert stages. Sonic Heroes and it's poppy art visuals remind me of stuff you would see in Oshima's old Sonic compositions.

 

 

I guess some don't see it but this is how I see it, and I think the Frog Forest, Egg Fleet, and Rail Canyon levels are pretty damn scaled back visually in the context of the game, the only time where I feel the color was all over the place and "in your face" was appropriately the Casino levels where the neon lights and flashing colors where very pervasive. Also, while Sonic Heroes may not have a large list of Badniks, they at least decide to make them come in different colors and compositions.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Soniman

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

You can call SA2 subdued, I call it bland and unimaginative. Stages like Wild Canyon, Sand Ocean, Pyramid Cave, Sky Rail, Aquatic Mine, Death Chamber and Egg Quarters is just a endless mesh of brown visuals and grey enemies that don't stick out at all

Okay, so what about stages like City Escape, White Jungle, Mad Space, Meteor Herd, Mission Street, Metal Harbor, Dry Lagoon, and Final Rush? You're just picking all the brown stages and neglecting the colorful ones yourself.

And those parts were the most good and vibrant looking? Yeah, even then those were bland.

Yes, they were vibrant. Just because they don't blind you and throw a whole bunch of colors at you doesn't mean they're bland.

They seriously tried to be edgy there ya know.

Yeah, being edgy was kinda the whole freaking point, in case you didn't realize that.

Edited April 29, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[Nepenthe]

Those pictures are more appealing than what Heroes has on display, working in just primarily a few colors and simple shapes without a whole bunch of unnecessary, slapdash texture and lighting further complicating what are already busy scenes due to the number of existing objects. This is forgetting that these kinds of scenes with neon color are some of the most difficult to pull off in 3D in the first place.

 

Heroes on the other hand doesn't give a fuck- throwing plastic and metallic textures on brightly-colored characters existing in matte, somewhat less-colored backgrounds, duplicate structures where some possess real textures and others will possess wacky ones(?), no real regard for interesting or pleasing color balance in the stages that desperately need it the most, and a lack of good lighting.

 

The game does not look like Oshima's art just because "omg color." It looks like Sonic 4; slapdash, cheap, and unappealing. Unleashed and even Colors- which you know am completely apathetic towards on nearly all fronts- actually know what to do with bright colors and still come off as competent.

 

Also, what of the enemies? They're not special at all. I got tired of looking at Generic Egg Pawn/Generic Big Egg Pawn/Generic Flying Thing/Generic Precursor-to-Sonic-06 Mech thing.

[Tornado]

I'm gonna argue that just because Adventure 2 was much more subdued doesn't mean it was more cohesive. I'd just argue that it makes some of the details stick out even more garishly.

 

Why is the GUN truck 40 feet wide? Why does GUN use Russian attack helicopters? How do some of these levels exist as architecture if they are supposed to be real? The answer was probably because "that's cool, so whatever;" and Heroes just ignored that and painted everything pastel colored instead of worrying about pretending it could be happening half the time, and it was a lot nicer for it.

[Jolt_TH]

I'm gonna argue that just because Adventure 2 was much more subdued doesn't mean it was more cohesive. I'd just argue that it makes some of the details stick out even more garishly. Why is the GUN truck 40 feet wide? Why does GUN use Russian attack helicopters? How do some of these levels exist as architecture if they are supposed to be real? The answer was probably because "that's cool, so whatever;" and Heroes just ignored that and painted everything pastel colored, and it was a lot nicer for it.

I'd probably say it was more that they wanted to go more realistic, but not totally Sonic in the real world realistic (06) and therefore still keep some of Sonic's Key elements, like loops and such, there are only 3 levels I can think of that use a loop where it doesn't fit in the REAL world...but SEGA managed to make it fit, none of them really feel out of place, I mean I don't hear people complaining about loops in Empire city with Unleashed's realistic settings, but that's because it fits in nicely with the level.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I highly doubt they wanted to go realisitic since the aesthetics and visuals were no different from SA1's visuals in terms of realism.

 

The fact that they were going for more of a sci-fi thriller than realism in itself speaks other volumes as well.

Edited April 29, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[Jolt_TH]

Still though, I stand by my point that it fits if they have managed to make it seem natural. In Ocean Palace I bet whoever built it would have no use for those three way loops, but Sonic Team interstates them in a way that felt natural and not out if place.

[Nepenthe]

I've got no issue with architectural oddities, because having impossible or improbable places and vehicles is a staple. I'm arguing that things like color and texture are not balanced all that well within the stages themselves, leading to the game looking gaudy. We can have floating casinos. I'd just rather floating casinos not look as if Lisa Frank decided to get into plastic-making.

[Tornado]

I've been in a Vegas casino, and if they could figure out how to make them float I would think I was trapped in the game.

 

 

 

Ergo, Heroes is more realistic than Adventure 2. u cant handle dis logik

[Soniman]

Those pictures are more appealing than what Heroes has on display, working in just primarily a few colors and simple shapes without a whole bunch of unnecessary, slapdash texture and lighting further complicating what are already busy scenes due to the number of existing objects. This is forgetting that these kinds of scenes with neon color are some of the most difficult to pull off in 3D in the first place.

 

And yet Casino Park and Bingo Highway did it relatively okay.  

 

The game does not look like Oshima's art just because "omg color." It looks like Sonic 4; slapdash, cheap, and unappealing. Unleashed and even Colors- which you know am completely apathetic towards on nearly all fronts- actually know what to do with bright colors and still come off as competent.

 

Sonic 4 looks like garbage because it tried to emulate the classic style aesthetic in HD and failed utterly, Sonic Heroes looks fine because it established a style on it's own with no previous influence, hardly cheap and unappealing, it's vibrant and cartoony imo, which is why I use Oshima as an example. That said, Sonic Colors looks better, maybe even Unleashed, but really I don't consider Heroes as slapdash and cheap a la Sonic 4, not by a stretch. I wish I could explain this better but I can't, so ill just agree to disagree here. 

 

 

Also, what of the enemies? They're not special at all. I got tired of looking at Generic Egg Pawn/Generic Big Egg Pawn/Generic Flying Thing/Generic Precursor-to-Sonic-06 Mech thing.

 

I didn't say they were that special, but again, when you compare it to SA2 which uses the most grey gerneric robot designs imaginable (the TRUE precursors to what 06 would offer) it's still a vast improvement, at least the Egg-Bots have a consistent theme (in the face area which resemble Eggman's face).

 

Okay, so what about stages like City Escape, White Jungle, Mad Space, Meteor Herd, Mission Street, Metal Harbor, and Final Rush? You're just picking all the brown stages and neglecting the colorful ones yourself.

 

Ignoring the Ark Levels because I gave them credit in the original post, City Escape and ESPECIALLY Metal Harbor are not what I call colorful, though in CE's case it's not an outright bad thing, there's a lot of nice greenery and fun little ads and billboards that spice it up. Mission Street looks great and is probably my favorite level visually though.

[Jolt_TH]

Well yeah, look at casinopolis, that was a colourful level but the colours were carefully selected and placed, blues and blacks that compliment each other with a few brighter yellows and reds thrown in cautiously, pinks mixed with deep reds and browns. Bingo Highway did a better job of this, being a mostly blue stage, whereas Casino Park is just too bright!casinos use dark colours to compliment the brighter ones, but in that level every surface is a bright neon colour, there can be such a thing as too saturated. Thing is a lot of the other levels also have colours that are far too vibrant with not enough deeper colours to match them, look at Egg Fleet, lovely bright battle ships, but they are on such a bright blue background with bright white clouds! I'm not saying that it should have been in a dark stage like Final fortress but just tone down the brightness and saturation a tad!

[TheYellowFlash]

The dialogue in Heroes kind of depended on the team you played as, it's hard for me to completely judge it as just one big game because of how different each one was, and the feeling it wanted to give off.

 

Team Sonic tried to be too cool, felt like they picked those lines straight out of the corn field.

Team Rose had a sort of fitting dialogue. It was really girly, even for them though. It was ok to me.

Chaotix was pretty good, spot on. And Team Dark was pretty good too.

 

So Heroes isn't rreally as bad as people say it is to me, they usually generalize the whole game soley based on Team Sonic's writing. The others really weren't that bad. But SA2 was pretty good actually, both teams. It didn't try to hard to be cool, and that's what made it cool. So it was cool if you ask me. It really drew me in the moment of each cutscene.

 

So overall, SA2 wins.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

The dialogue in Heroes kind of depended on the team you played as, it's hard for me to completely judge it as just one big game because of how different each one was, and the feeling it wanted to give off.

 

Team Sonic tried to be too cool, felt like they picked those lines straight out of the corn field.

Team Rose had a sort of fitting dialogue. It was really girly, even for them though. It was ok to me.

Chaotix was pretty good, spot on. And Team Dark was pretty good too.

 

So Heroes isn't rreally as bad as people say it is to me, they usually generalize the whole game soley based on Team Sonic's writing. The others really weren't that bad. But SA2 was pretty good actually, both teams. It didn't try to hard to be cool, and that's what made it cool. So it was cool if you ask me. It really drew me in the moment of each cutscene.

 

So overall, SA2 wins.

We are on art design right now.

[TheOcelot]

I think Heroes suffered because Sonic Team used the RenderWare engine so that the game could be more easily ported to multiple platforms. The Renderware engine visually didn't look anywhere near as good as Sonic Adventure 2. Heroes use of colours gave a very plastic/bland kind of look and feel to the game. Nothing really stands out, nothing remotely memorable.

 

Whereas SA2 use of colours looks gorgeous on so many level. The stages are so richly detailed. Final Rush looked absolutely stunning. The colours really stand out, suits the often dark theme of the game.

 

So SA2 wins easily.

Edited April 29, 2013 by -Bender-

[TheYellowFlash]

We are on art design right now.

I was about to post something about that, but OP didn't say anything about it so I just stuck to that.

But Heroes is better. It feels a lot more open and less restrictive. SA2 feels too closed in and boxed. It's good by itself, but Heroes is just better in comparison.

[Nepenthe]

Focusing on this statement because I don't think I can further argue the other points without essentially getting into "agree to disagree" territory:
 

Sonic 4 looks like garbage because it tried to emulate the classic style aesthetic in HD and failed utterly, Sonic Heroes looks fine because it established a style on it's own with no previous influence, hardly cheap and unappealing

I find this to be bullshit. Sonic 4 looks like garbage because the inherent elements do not go together all that well. The weird shading on Sonic as well as the mishmash of environmental elements that either look like plastic or dark and realistic all composited together look ugly because it's just bad art, not because the bad art was attempting to emulate something and failed. It's just unappealing 3D sprite work. If Sonic 4 were the first game of the series and thus not able to ape anything beforehand, guess what; it'd still be ugly.

Similarly, to say Heroes is not pulling from classic Sonic iconography at all and actually has its own unique style is also bullshit. The highly varying, nonsensical level tropes, and attempted use of bright color and geometric patterning around the environment are blatant classic staples. Hell, people are now at the point of just calling Seaside Hill Green Hill 2.0 due to its proliferation in spin-off titles. Throw in three characters no one's seen since the classic era on top of it, and to say Heroes is wholly unique in the Sonic series is disingenuous to the max.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Ignoring the Ark Levels because I gave them credit in the original post, City Escape and ESPECIALLY Metal Harbor are not what I call colorful, though in CE's case it's not an outright bad thing, there's a lot of nice greenery and fun little ads and billboards that spice it up. Mission Street looks great and is probably my favorite level visually though.

Depends on what's defined as colorful? Because the way I see it, if it's because one or two colors are more dominant than the others somehow implies that it's not colorful, anyone could easily skew that against either game with levels like Hang Castle being mostly grey like that of Prison Lane, Rail Canyon being mostly brown like that of Pumpkin Hill, Final Fortress being mostly dark blue and grey similar to Metal Harbor, Frog Forest being mostly green like that of White Jungle and Green Forest, with levels like Casino Park, Grand Metropolis, and Seaside Hill (including their second acts) being Heroes' only exception. And this is before getting into level tropes.

 

And what about the other examples I mentioned?

 

Dry Lagoon

 

White Jungle:

Why didn't you address those? I'm seeing loads of green here compared to the "brown and grey" you make it out to be. I'd go so far as to throw in blue as well with the color of the water and the skies being part of the background.

 

Or how about in addition to those, Radical Highway making use of the colors Red as the more eye catching color:

 

 

 

 

Dude, I will defend Heroes on its variety and how much it pops out at you, and I happen to disagree with Nepenthe on the front that Heroes looks like it just throws color around. But at the same time, I'm not going to let SA2 get hounded for being nothing but "Brown and Grey" when the both of us know full and well there's a lot more color to it than just those two.

Edited April 29, 2013 by ChaosSupremeSonîc

[Soniman]

Depends on what's defined as colorful? Because the way I see it, if it's because one or two colors are more dominant than the others somehow implies that it's not colorful, anyone could easily skew that against either game with levels like Hang Castle being mostly grey like that of Prison Lane, Rail Canyon being mostly brown like that of Pumpkin Hill, Final Fortress being mostly dark blue and grey similar to Metal Harbor, Frog Forest being mostly green like that of White Jungle and Green Forest, with levels like Casino Park, Grand Metropolis, and Seaside Hill (including their second acts) being Heroes' only exception. And this is before getting into level tropes.

 

And what about the other examples I mentioned?

 

Dry Lagoon

 

White Jungle:

Why didn't you address those? I'm seeing loads of green here compared to the "brown and grey" you make it out to be. I'd go so far as to throw in blue as well with the color of the water and the skies being part of the background.

 

Or how about in addition to those, Radical Highway making use of the colors Red as the more eye catching color:

 

 

 

 

Dude, I will defend Heroes on its variety and how much it pops out at you, and I happen to disagree with Nepenthe on the front that Heroes looks like it just throws color around. But at the same time, I'm not going to let SA2 get hounded for being nothing but "Brown and Grey" when the both of us know full and well there's a lot more color to it than just those two.

 

Radical Highway is in the same boat as Mission Street and I find also find it pretty appealing, with a cool night city asthetic with some pretty sweet lighting (kind of like Speed Highway in that sense). White Jungle and Green Forest are fine, they're nice looking enough (especially with them pollen effects). And Dry Lagoon is also a pretty nice looking level, much more appealing that its sister stage Wild Canyon. I guess it's a matter of how you see it, yeah Frog Forest can easily be compared with White Jungle/Green Forest, but FF just comes out looking a lot more brighter and.."vibrant"....I dunno, I just feel that it helps it stand out more, and that goes for most of Heroes' levels that can be seen as paralells to SA2's

 

I see your point, and maybe I just need to play it again to re-asses my views becauses whenever I think of SA2, bland levels like Secruity Hall and Sky Rail come to mind, which isn't fair to the game at all, but I still know that I would still prefer Heroes by the end of it.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Soniman

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Everyone knows how vibrant Heroes' levels are. The game in general is lighter and softer compared to the dark and edgy that was pulled off with SA2, which is why you see them a lot brighter than the latter game despite the parallels.

 

But as you already know, that's no excuse to pick out the "brown and grey" levels of one game and criticize it mostly on that basis aside from the Ark levels. I'd kick my own ass for doing it before I let someone else do it.

[JezMM]

I think SA2 fans such as myself may rely on imagination a fair bit.  Even something as simple as a world map screen gives such a sense of "place" to even barebones levels like Radical Highway and Mission Street.  They're just platforms above pits, like the stages in Heroes, but we see them as more thanks to their contextualisation.  Whereas Heroes of course is just a mapless, straight line of levels (hell, no explaination of how everyone even boards the Egg Fleet).

 

Obviously a world map as a concept is completely irrelevant to art design discussion directly speaking, was simply thinking about what it is that makes me care about SA2's levels and make them feel alive rather than dull, even the fairly dull ones such as the "Prison Island Interior" stages and Sky Rail etc.

[Faseeh]

Yeah, being edgy was kinda the whole freaking point, in case you didn't realize that.

 

I get that but I don't exactly like that whole feel for Sonic to be perfectly honest. *yes I know edgy works when it's done well so on so foth*

 

But it just doesn't hit a chord with me. I'd rather everything be edgy if ya give me edgy. The story, while a good attempt, is pretty laughable along with the dialogue so yeaah, I can't take the edgy well with this game. 

 

*i need to work on my points and debating skills badly*