Unbalanced difficulty, story, gameplay etc. in the Sonic series.

[Yoko/葉子]

 

Something that I feel is a crucial ingredient to any game, balance. Here, you can discuss where you think the difficulty spikes were too hard, too much or too little focus was put on a supporting character or how some characters are barely used in the games where they are playable, etc.

 

I will start off by saying that I felt Unleashed did not use enough time on the story to make you want to learn more about Chip, as you found out suddenly in once scene who he is. Did not flow too well.

 

Continuing with story, 06 was too confusing, as if it had made allusions to explain plot holes, they were too vague for anyone to understand. I think that simply having time travel and alternate timelines made the logic of the world in there make no sense, thus an imbalance. Theoretically, with all those alternate time frames, Mephiles could have been complete from the start if he just found himself with emeralds in one and killed Sonic in another. But no, he acts dumb and waits till Elise is rescued in one timeline.

[Kuzu]

Knuckles & Amy are pointless in Lost World, why are they there.

[Vertekins]

I still wish that Colours balanced it's tones and wasn't predominantly fixated on 'humor'. I couldn't take the plot seriously when it didn't take the fact it was supposed to be telling a story seriously and went overboard with 'comedic' shenanigans.

 

I find Sonic's sideways-shunting in '06 terrible and that point still factors prominently in my many reasons for despising that game. SONIC The Hedgehog? Uh, no. More like "Shadow the Hedgehog 2" amirite? You know, considering the pretentious serious tone, fundamental narrative problems and Sonic being treated like an ineffectual bitch like... that other game?

 

I like SatSR but Jesus, it probably has the steepest learning curve of any Sonic game I've ever played and the seriously questionable controls and game design i.e Effectively having to play for more manageable controls is a huge damper on what I consider to be an interesting game.

[Dr. Mechano]

Knuckles & Amy are pointless in Lost World, why are they there.

I disagree.

 

Knuckles and Amy are in Lost World to put a

face on Sonic's homeworld. Merely seeing Sonic's world become desolate and ruined wouldn't be nearly as effective as seeing a couple of Sonic's friends experiencing this apocalyptic scenario firsthand. They were put in the game for one minor (but important) purpose, and that was to personalize the destruction of Sonic's world, and to make Sonic (and the player) more invested in saving it.

[Kuzu]

I disagree.

 

Knuckles and Amy are in Lost World to put a

face on Sonic's homeworld. Merely seeing Sonic's world become desolate and ruined wouldn't be nearly as effective as seeing a couple of Sonic's friends experiencing this apocalyptic scenario firsthand. They were put in the game for one minor (but important) purpose, and that was to personalize the destruction of Sonic's world, and to make Sonic (and the player) more invested in saving it.

 

That's all well and good for Sonic, but I'm talking about Knuckles & Amy themselves; they don't do anything to affect the plot. And that irks me.

[Yoko/葉子]

The HD version of Eggmanland in Unleashed was too long for being the final level of a platformer, even people who have played for a year will have trouble clearing the hot dog missions.

[Scott]

The HD version of Eggmanland in Unleashed was too long for being the final level of a platformer, even people who have played for a year will have trouble clearing the hot dog missions.

 

When I was a kid, I used to have trouble on Sonic 2 with Chemical Plant and beyond. The key to success? Memorise.

 

The same could be said for Eggmanland. The level is indeed very long but it's my favorite level in the game for many things: Length, atmosphere, music and more so, difficulty. It's a level I felt that separated the casual players to the dedicated ones, the people who wanted to see the end eventually got it. After many attempts I failed the Hotdog missions for the level but after a lot of memorising, I got them all done in a few hours

[MegasonicZX]

When I was a kid, I used to have trouble on Sonic 2 with Chemical Plant and beyond. The key to success? Memorise.

 

The same could be said for Eggmanland. The level is indeed very long but it's my favorite level in the game for many things: Length, atmosphere, music and more so, difficulty. It's a level I felt that separated the casual players to the dedicated ones, the people who wanted to see the end eventually got it. After many attempts I failed the Hotdog missions for the level but after a lot of memorising, I got them all done in a few hours

Yeah, I like it when games kind of give you a little incentive to keep trying and eventually getting better at an other wise hard level (with some cheap deaths here and there but I don't mind it much personally) its kind of how platinum games encourage you to get better at their games unless you want your butt to get handed to you and the satisfaction you get from overcoming the hurdles.

[Sparky]

Sonic told Knuckles to stay with Amy and guard the animals while he and Tails chase after  Eggman.

[Phos]

The Genesis Sonic games usually had fairly well balanced difficulty which was greatly facilitated by the way rings worked, one hit KOs were pretty rare.  Newer games kinda screwed this up by making pitfalls the biggest threat.  In the older games going down a hole usually left you somewhere instead of dead, it's as if the environment in the levels is the threat rather than any sort of antagonist.  

[Dejimon11]

Knuckles & Amy are pointless in Lost World, why are they there.

Fan service ofcourse

[KHCast]

Fan service ofcourse

Silly Deji, if we wanted fan service, Rouge would be in, with DoA jiggle physics.

[Dejimon11]

Silly Deji, if we wanted fan service, Rouge would be in, with DoA jiggle physics.

Well we have Zeena who is--yeah I'm going to stop right now

[iDEATH]

The difficulty spike in Sonic heroes was ridiculous, but it wasmore to do with later stages like Rail Canyon and the finalboss, being so broken and glitchy that they were almost unbeatable at times.

[MegasonicZX]

The difficulty spike in Sonic heroes was ridiculous, but it wasmore to do with later stages like Rail Canyon and the finalboss, being so broken and glitchy that they were almost unbeatable at times.

Really? Personally the only stage that was really that bad was lost jungle for me, that alligator chase was ridiculous until I figured out that you have to jump by the first swing in order to make it.

[JezMM]

The HD version of Eggmanland in Unleashed was too long for being the final level of a platformer, even people who have played for a year will have trouble clearing the hot dog missions.

 

Eggmanland is the only finale that has matched the epicness of Cannon's Core for me.  No other game has had such a satisfying descent to a final goal where you get to do the whole thing yourself from start to finish.  It was such a glorious journey unlike any other Sonic finale.

 

Making you do the hot dog mission three times was bullshit though.

Edited October 20, 2013 by JezMM

[Kuzu]

The only thing Eggmanland succeeded in doing was pissing me off to no end with its dickery. Its a nice level in concept, but it blows in terms of level design.

[Chaos Incarnate]

The Wisps in Sonic:Lost World  feel incredibly unbalanced in a story/gameplay relationship, as they were such an important aspect of the plot to Colors. But of course, they play no role in the plot whatsoever, and there's no explanation for their reappearance.

 

I like Sonic Adventure's structure of having a character exclusive story, but the phrase "gameplay-roulette" is 100 % true for the game. Big's fishing style and Knuckles' treasure hunting felt too inconsistent with Sonic, Tails, and Amy's platforming stages. Gamma is somewhere in the middle, but Hot Shelter definitely had the most platforming of any shooting stage in the game. It only got worse in Adventure 2, unfortunately.

Edited October 20, 2013 by Chaos Incarnate

[azoo]

To be honest, most of the games in this series are heavily unbalanced in one way or another. A game will have good gameplay but bad level design or progression, a good story but with a bad script, good concepts with bad execution, and a countless variation and/or combination from there (including, and especially, the opposites of each example).

 

Its rare whenever a game in this series does everything badly, and even rarer when a game does everything amazingly. No matter the situation, it is almost always some sort of mixed bag.

[Yoko/葉子]

The Wisps in Sonic:Lost World  feel incredibly unbalanced in a story/gameplay relationship, as they were such an important aspect of the plot to Colors. But of course, they play no role in the plot whatsoever, and there's no explanation for their reappearance.

 

I like Sonic Adventure's structure of having a character exclusive story, but the phrase "gameplay-roulette" is 100 % true for the game. Big's fishing style and Knuckles' treasure hunting felt too inconsistent with Sonic, Tails, and Amy's platforming stages. Gamma is somewhere in the middle, but Hot Shelter definitely had the most platforming of any shooting stage in the game. It only got worse in Adventure 2, unfortunately.

I agree, games that try to appeal to too many audiences don't work well usually.