Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric (Wii U)

[Phos]

No, it makes the game "underrated".

 

 

Because it was actually trying to be a Starfox game, and this game isn't trying to be Sonic.

 

 

Okay, let's talk about how insanely focused on platforming Paper Mario, or Thousand Year Door was. Or how obviously Portal was a game about crawling through vents and hitting shit with a crowbar.

 

 

And we are now at the point of arguing for the sake of arguing.

Underrated you say, but everything I've seen of Star Fox dinosaur whatever has made it look like a pretty terrible game, which i think also applies here.  So far I've seen some notably stilted combat that some people will think looks good because it has complex animations, some kind of really temple run sections that the game would probably be better off without, and some kind of energy whip because bland swinging mechanics aren't tired or anything.  

 

I also think it's amusing how they made up that gibberish language for the dinosaur people but then include words like palace and general when attached to proper nouns. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Looking back at the footage:

The speed level. I could be wrong here, but doesn't it kind of look as though they are set in the hub world? I can see beach areas that look explorable. Again. I could be wrong, but if this is the case....that's fucking awesome.

I do believe it's a version of this:

With all of the lightning removed, probably because it's a dev build.

[JezMM]

It's a spinoff because the overall package of the game is a significant departure from the main series. Having significance in the main canon timeline doesn't mean anything. The Storybook series are still considered spinoffs despite Generations having a scene that features Sonic acknowledging the events of Secret Rings at one point.

 

Again with the spectrum thing... if you skip Shadow the Hedgehog, you skip a massive chunk of the world's story.  If you skip Secret Rings, a minor reference later on will go over your head.  That's a big difference.  Everything about Shadow the Hedgehog was made, promoted and released in the style of a main series game, literally the only difference is that Sonic isn't the main character.  Yes, it was of a darker style, but so was 2006 and even SA2 compared to Colours or Lost World.  The general production values and style though was of that of a main series game.

 

 

...I was gonna circle this round and bring it back to how this is relevant to Boom but I lost my train of thought.

Edited June 3, 2014 by JezMM

[Tani Coyote]

It's a safe bet this will be US-first, yes.

...though after Lost World was delayed two weeks for absolutely no logical reason, I'm not sure.

Looking over the video, I note the water has two variations: blue and murky. In Sony platformers, this generally indicates their safety. Murky water is usually where something is going to come and eat you, while clear water is generally swimmable.

Murky water is also usually beyond the boundary and unreachable, while clear water is swimmable up to a certain point, after which something will come up from the deep and devour you.

[-Ace-]

Looking back at the footage:

The speed level. I could be wrong here, but doesn't it kind of look as though they are set in the hub world? I can see beach areas that look explorable. Again. I could be wrong, but if this is the case....that's fucking awesome.

 

I wouldn't be surprised, most of the Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank games had areas you could see out in the distance and these areas were all able to be explored.

[Naysu]

It's a safe bet this will be US-first, yes.

...though after Lost World was delayed two weeks for absolutely no logical reason, I'm not sure.

Looking over the video, I note the water has two variations: blue and murky. In Sony platformers, this generally indicates their safety. Murky water is usually where something is going to come and eat you, while clear water is generally swimmable.

Murky water is also usually beyond the boundary and unreachable, while clear water is swimmable up to a certain point, after which something will come up from the deep and devour you.

Now that you mention it, I wonder if you will be able to explore underwater in this game. The 3DS version had some underwater sections as tails with a sub, and Knuckles was (I think) the only character that could swim accross water in Sonic advance 3 (not that any current game would make reference to that... ha)

it would give an opportunity to play as someone other than Sonic for a while. (FINALLY)

[Kuzu]

So I'm just going to ignore all of this back and forth shit and post my own thoughts, that sounds good.

 

 

 

Anyway, the game looks...ok, but as with most things Sonic related that get released, its not really doing anything to wow me. No I don't empathize with anyone here who thinks the game is shit because its "not Sonic enough", but I  also don't think the game itself is particularly interesting at the moment either. The combat looks interesting enough, but I hope its divided up by actually interesting level gimmicks and not a retread of how the Werehog did it(i.e. Beat up enemies, do a puzzle, beat up more enemies, do another puzzle, etc. etc.) and additionally I hope there are different types of combinations with the combat that we can use. If these are former Jak and Daxter developers, I want them to show it more.

 

 

But as it is now, its just....ok. I'll be honest, I'm a bit more interested in the narrative and writing than the actual game itself. The gameplay at least looks competent enough, but I wanna see how these guys handle the cast and their interactions compared to Sonic Team. The cast seem mostly based on their modern incarnations(i.e. Sonic's a lot more cocky, Knuckles is a bit slower, etc.), so I can at least be familiar with them. 

 

 

 

So yea, my impressions are more or less the same; curious, but not really intrigued. I really think its the marketing too, if they really want people to be impressed, they're going to have to show a lot more than some generic beat'em up sections to get my attention; show off some combination moves, what we're in for as far as plot is concerned. The PR just seems too tame honestly.

[Irish David]

Having seen a lot of posts, I will be approaching this with caution, I think if they iron out the bugs it might actually be pretty gd but will have to wait and see. I have seen the vids and screenshots and I have seen a few posts from reviewers but from the previews so far are most people generally positive (NOM UK Mag seemed to love it) or going down the lines of "this is going to be horrible"

[Tani Coyote]

Now that you mention it, I wonder if you will be able to explore underwater in this game. The 3DS version had some underwater sections as tails with a sub, and Knuckles was (I think) the only character that could swim accross water in Sonic advance 3 (not that any current game would make reference to that... ha)

it would give an opportunity to play as someone other than Sonic for a while. (FINALLY)

It's very possible. I'd like to ditch the "X can't swim" thing. I always preferred to think Sonic can swim, he just doesn't like water since he can't move fast in it. As for older games... well, I think it was really just because it was more practical to have him sink to the bottom than actually swim.

If this sticks true to the Sony platformer roots, there will definitely be areas where you swim underwater. And areas that are open water, and going too far out results in you screaming with terror as a tentacle/robot/shark comes to one hit kill you and you try to swim back to shore.

[Milo]

Again with the spectrum thing... if you skip Shadow the Hedgehog, you skip a massive chunk of the world's story.  If you skip Secret Rings, a minor reference later on will go over your head.  That's a big difference.  Everything about Shadow the Hedgehog was made, promoted and released in the style of a main series game, literally the only difference is that Sonic isn't the main character.  Yes, it was of a darker style, but so was 2006 and even SA2 compared to Colours or Lost World.  The general production values and style though was of that of a main series game.

 

 

...I was gonna circle this round and bring it back to how this is relevant to Boom but I lost my train of thought.

 

The original point I was making was that Shadow was a spinoff that, like Boom, featured large departure from the series that was nonetheless widely criticized. This was in response to people defending Boom's gameplay being far removed from that seen in the main series on the grounds of it being a spinoff.

 

I was largely calling Shadow a spinoff for being departures from the main series, to which in response people brought up it's similarities to previous Sonic games and it's place in the timeline to disprove this notion. Was going to argue some more about whether Shadow is/can be considered a spinoff, but to avoid derailing the thread I'll instead stop here.

 

(Though I think it's worth mentioning that despite being stated that it's separate to the main continuity, Boom is also getting a hefty deal of promotion and -if the "$20 million budget" report, regardless whether it was for the game or the series overall, is anything to go by- production values in the same vein that Shadow was.)

[Linkabel]

This is probably going to get lost in the arguments that are going on, but it's pretty cool how they are implementing the gamepad and television for co-op mode. But do you guys think BRB considered making Sonic Boom a 4 player game as well?

 

I mean, I can't think of a clean way for making that happen especially after seeing the gameplay footage, but I was wondering if Frost or other developers had mentioned considering this before.

[E-van]

I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this yet but I just noticed that the quick step has returned.

[TheLaw34]

I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this yet but I just noticed that the quick step has returned.

I just wish I could drift in this game.

not that it would matter since everying is on lanes but human drifting looks so cool to me.

 

Also yes its been mentioned but never refered as the quick step. Its just been said that you can seitch lanes.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Yup, they said you had looser analog control or a quickstep-like control with the triggers. I'm guessing they aren't calling it the quickstep because it sounds stupid.

[Enesephus]

After seeing the new game footage again, I don't really think the characters move all that slowly. Slow for Sonic, sure, but not unbearably slowly; they seem to move about as fast as Jak or Ratchet did, which is fine with me. But I think I've seen a couple people saying they move slower than they would accept in any game, which was giving me the impression that the characters were moving at Sonic's jogging speed in Lost World (which would be unbearable for me), and that I just somehow didn't notice.

[Tani Coyote]

I just pray that Sonic and co. can acquire rocket boots like Ratchet, hoverboards like Jak, or something similar so they can go faster at the risk of more danger.

[sonfan1984]

I'm happy that chatter during gameplay has returned. I don't think we've had that since Black Knight. I missed that.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

I just pray that Sonic and co. can acquire rocket boots like Ratchet, hoverboards like Jak, or something similar so they can go faster at the risk of more danger.

Or you can just keep mashing the spindash button or something.

[Tani Coyote]

Or you can just keep mashing the spindash button or something.

That sounds tedious.

Having a powerup that can be turned on and off like the Sony mascots have sounds better.

[Komodin]

Okay, I'm a little late with this, but after having watched and rewatched those new gameplay videos for both this and Shattered Crystal, I can safely say that I... genuinely liked what I saw from them. I mean, this is quite different than the usual Sonic game with its focus on combat and gadgets, that's beyond reasonable doubt, but it's different in a way that honestly clicks with me. As far as I'm concerned, that I like it really matters to me more than anything. Sure, it probably says a lot about my personal tastes in games--I do like the Wii U version of Sonic Lost World a lot-- but hey, I like what I like. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

That sounds tedious.

Having a powerup that can be turned on and off like the Sony mascots have sounds better.

I was kinda joking.

 

 

But yeah, I agree. Even just a straight speed upgrade would be nice. Of course, I think just giving them above average speed in the first place is the right way to go, even if it doesn't bother me currently.

[MegasonicZX]

If anything, just having sonic adventure level speed would suffice really. Its a nice balance of speed and it doesn't go too fast that it would invalidate the dodge in anyway (specially since the acceleration takes a bit of time to kick off).

[Willsy]

One thing I'm curious about....is if you can attack your teammates or not. I'd love to kick Buffles as Sonic. What would be icing on the cake is if the teammate you're attacking reacts to it verbally rather than grunting.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

One thing I'm curious about....is if you can attack your teammates or not. I'd love to kick Buffles as Sonic. What would be icing on the cake is if the teammate you're attacking reacts to it verbally rather than grunting.

I do believe that a competitive multiplayer is in the game 

[TheLaw34]

It would be very strange for you to be able to go at top speed when a boss is chasing him or when he going through the hub but god forbid he go fast when you want him to. Nope you will need the rocket shoes to go that fast dummy.