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Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice


Radiant Hero Ike

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The thing is that the previous handheld to use mainly pre-renders used the same cutscenes as it's console counterpart, leading to a story 99% identical to its console counterpart (with the exception of the fates of the Deadly Six). These are all-new.

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Man, I wanna have more interest in this game than "oh alright, I might actually try this" but the level design from what's been show looks just as blocky as the best parts of Shattered Crystal and it looks like the controls are still a bit too floaty for a Sonic game judging from how characters slowly ascend and descend. There was also something I disliked about how SC handled running; I think the characters kept running after letting go of the circle pad as long as the run button was still held. My brother let me trade the game in after like a month of owning it so I don't remember much other than frusteration, but I do have some form of hope for Fire and Ice being a passable generic platformer at its worst, like S4E1 (in my opinion; I know its like a garbage flash game to most people)

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I just don't see how we as Sonic fans, or anyone really, are supposed to be excited about Fire and Ice, the level design is bland and uninspired, I just watched the new stream and I really want to get into it but I really can't. It's blocky, floaty, has no variation whatsoever in the platforming sections, it's full of very long automated sections (that are supposed to be the FAST part of the game) and that's it. After the 30€ mistake that was Shattered Crystals I don't think this one is even worth a shot.

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41 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

I just don't see how we as Sonic fans, or anyone really, are supposed to be excited about Fire and Ice, the level design is bland and uninspired, I just watched the new stream and I really want to get into it but I really can't. It's blocky, floaty, has no variation whatsoever in the platforming sections, it's full of very long automated sections (that are supposed to be the FAST part of the game) and that's it. After the 30€ mistake that was Shattered Crystals I don't think this one is even worth a shot.

New stream? Could you point me to that? I wasn't aware the game was streamed.

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36 minutes ago, pppp said:

New stream? Could you point me to that? I wasn't aware the game was streamed.

Think they were talking about the 25th anniversary stream, which showed some brief footage of Fire and Ice.

Have to agree, though, that the game only looks marginally better than Shattered Crystal, but it's hard to deny that I'm just a little bit curious.  Suffice it to say, though, I won't be pre-ordering the game or buying it at full price.  Will probably look for it used on Amazon if it comes down to a reasonable price anytime soon, but that's far as I plan to go with it.

I wonder if we can expect a demo anytime soon?

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37 minutes ago, pppp said:

New stream? Could you point me to that? I wasn't aware the game was streamed.

Sure!

It was streamed in Japan a couple of days ago, it has no subtitles at the moment and the gameplay is very slow since they were explaining game mechanics. I suggest putting the video on 2x speed. I think this ice level was shown before?

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19 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Sure!

It was streamed in Japan a couple of days ago, it has no subtitles at the moment and the gameplay is very slow since they were explaining game mechanics. I suggest putting the video on 2x speed. I think this ice level was shown before?

Sigh, why did SEGA even bother greenlighting this? With Mania and Project 2017 on the horizon no one aside from hardcore fans is gonna give a rat's ass about this game, it looks just as boring as Shattered Crystal, though without the padding. Yes I get that the Boom cartoon is sucessful, but if more Boom cutscenes is what they want they can just watch via Youtube.

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It has been disputed before that the only reason this game is still being released is because they signed a contract with Sanzaru and thus have to fulfill their end of the bargain.  Making a sequel to the lowest-selling game in the franchise's history is a pretty stupid marketing decision, even for Sega, so it is the most plausible explanation next to the more obvious one (that Sega just doesn't have any marketing sense at all).  Given how little fanfare the game has received up until very recently, though, I don't think they're expecting dramatically increased sales figures.  But if, indeed, it is a case of contractual obligation, then I commend their attitude of "If we're going to be forced to do it, we might as well at least put some effort into it."  Not much effort, but at least make it playable, I mean.

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28 minutes ago, Tara said:

"If we're going to be forced to do it, we might as well at least put some effort into it."  Not much effort, but at least make it playable, I mean.

Even then it really makes no sense, since they've had the sales figure for longer than a year, they could've canned the gameplay style and maybe given us something different and better by now.

And I agree on the Mania/Project 2017 statement. Even the general public looks hooked on Mania, and nobody really cares for Boom, not the fans, not the GP.

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47 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Even then it really makes no sense, since they've had the sales figure for longer than a year, they could've canned the gameplay style and maybe given us something different and better by now.

And I agree on the Mania/Project 2017 statement. Even the general public looks hooked on Mania, and nobody really cares for Boom, not the fans, not the GP.

I guess so, but provided that Mania and Project 2017 have been in development for quite some time now, they probably figured they'd just cut their losses and provide a "passable" game that is relatively easier to make and probably saves money on developing new assets, so they could quickly use it as a throwaway promotion for season 2 of the TV series and then focus their attention on these two games.

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I still find it hard to believe that the Boom games are truly the worst selling games in the series' history, it's definitely the the worst selling games that we know but truly the lowest?

I'm sure there's more people who bought Rise of Lyric/Shattered Crystal than people who bought Pocket Adventure, Labyrinth, Sonic's Schoolhouse and all those other obscure games.

And I guess I should reiterate myself again when it comes to why I even bothered to pre-order this game (even though I shouldn't really need to feel bad to pre-order it, it's my money I do what I want with it and I want that DVD dammit). It's true that it doesn't look like it improved the pretty mediocre level design from Shattered Crystal, only the fact it's more streamlined and doesn't take like 7 minutes to beat it. Though I do see some improvements in the controls with Sonic atleast, nothing major but it's noticeable; his Air Dashes don't have buffer period to it and he just does it instantaneously. Maybe if Sanzaru made a third game, they can change up the level design to make it more enjoyable, possibly if people are very vocal about it. 

There's a lot more content to it and the collectibles unlock some behind he scenes stuff about the cartoon from some people, I think Austin Keys mentioned it one time.

So Fire & ice is going to appeal to the fans of the cartoon so it's going to be expected that other people would feel alienated by it but I guess Sanzaru could try to make it more appealing outside of the Boom crowd if SEGA gave them the ok to make another one. 

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4 minutes ago, Kabalni said:

I'm sure there's more people who bought Rise of Lyric/Shattered Crystal than people who bought Pocket Adventure, Labyrinth, Sonic's Schoolhouse and all those other obscure games.

While I see your point, I feel like those are pretty moot comparisons.  I mean, I'm sure more people own a Wii U than Mario's Early Years: Pre School Fun, but that doesn't make the Wii U's failure to sale any less of a travesty, nor do I think they're relevant compared to the classics, the Adventures, and subsequent main series games (or indeed, the majority of the more highly publicized spin-offs, such as Secret Rings and Black Knight.)

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I mean, there's no doubt that the Boom games are the worst-selling MAJOR Sonic games but people just say they're the worst selling Sonic games ever. That's where I take issue with.

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I mean, that's fine, but all of those games (with the exception of Labyrinth, maybe) faded into obscurity outside the core fanbase very shortly after they were released.  It's pretty much fair game to exclude them whenever we talk about the series as a whole.

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But does that make it fair to say that the Boom games sold the worst out of every Sonic game out there? I don't think so, just because people don't know the more obscure games doesn't really mean that pretending those games sold more than atleast 640K copies to justify that RoL/SC is where the series really tanked in sales. I don't know, it's a minor thing but I still find it troublesome to say the least.

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While I can't say I'm excited for Fire & Ice, I am interested in it and I think it looks like a fun, solid platformer. Nothing mind-blowing, but not every game in a major franchise has to be, or can be expected to be.

I'm not buying it day one as things stand, because after Summer of Sonic, I will have to start building up my money again, and there's new amiibo and a new Kingdom Hearts title that I want to purchase by the end of the year. So Fire & Ice may have to wait. But I will hopefully get a chance to play it at Summer of Sonic and have a more informed opinion then.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/29/2016 at 9:57 AM, Tara said:

It has been disputed before that the only reason this game is still being released is because they signed a contract with Sanzaru and thus have to fulfill their end of the bargain.  Making a sequel to the lowest-selling game in the franchise's history is a pretty stupid marketing decision, even for Sega, so it is the most plausible explanation next to the more obvious one (that Sega just doesn't have any marketing sense at all).  Given how little fanfare the game has received up until very recently, though, I don't think they're expecting dramatically increased sales figures.  But if, indeed, it is a case of contractual obligation, then I commend their attitude of "If we're going to be forced to do it, we might as well at least put some effort into it."  Not much effort, but at least make it playable, I mean.

Ehh, its not that crazy at all

They don't seem like they are stopping sonic boom

They have a cartoon coming out, with a second season, that they are also packaging with the game

And the last two games were so garbage, to suggest that this game would sell just as bad means you know exactly the factors that caused it to stop selling. You don't , we don't , and i'm sure sega doesn't and all we have to go in is " the games were garbage " because the cartoon seems to just fine. I mean I think that's garbage , but at least its functional as a cartoon. But you get me. 

It makes a lot of sense actually, especially if you consider they aren't going to stop making sonic boom games. 

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So after trying out Sonic Mania, I played Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice at Summer of Sonic.

The queue was fairly short when I got there so I didn't have to wait long to play it (about 15-25 minutes), but I saw it get much bigger at various points throughout the day.

NvMIaY9.jpg 

Before I say anything, I would like to note that I haven't played through Shattered Crystal. However, I do own the e-shop demo for it and have some spare plays on it, so I made a point of playing through the first level of that before the event (I did it on my plane ride over to London on Friday morning). My general opinion on that side-scrolling gameplay from the demo is that the game feels fine mechanically, but it has a few things I didn't like and the levels do drag on since you don't always know what is the "right way" to go. Often, you'll go somewhere, thinking it's a higher, faster route like in a Classic Sonic game, only to find it leads to a collectible, and then you have to loop back around to where you were. It's not the most satisfying way to design a Sonic level.

Fire & Ice is definitely a big improvement on the formula, in my opinion. For one, I played through the level in Fire & Ice's demo with only Sonic, while I would often have to switch to someone else in Shattered Crystal. I can't even recall if you could switch characters in the demo I played since I never had to attempt to. I also completed the level in about 4-5 minutes, and that was with me doing some exploring and testing out the controls at the beginning of the level (I completed Studioplolis Zone in Mania in a similar time frame). The levels are laid out more like a traditional 2D Sonic level, it's actually comparable to the Classics in that sense, with higher routes generally being faster but also having more collectibles. The only notable difference is that especially fast sections with loops and the like are still relegated to being mostly automated and you don't really get to use slopes to your advantage in any way. However, I don't consider that inherently bad, since this is not supposed to be a Classic Sonic style game (that's what Mania is for). It could also just be that this particular level was a simplified one.

I did find secrets and such hidden in small corners, but when I did, they were literally just in a single room with not much in the way. It was like finding a Special Ring in S3&K. I found a locked door, but couldn't get in. Either that was a demo restriction, or you have to find a key somewhere in the level, or maybe even in a different level.

Also, in Shattered Crystal, one thing that bothers me is when you do Sonic's Air Dash move down and into the ground, he gets stuck in a recoil animation for a couple of seconds, which breaks the flow. In Fire & Ice, he will instead bounce off the ground as if he hit something with the Homing Attack, so he can still move around, or even perform an actual Homing Attack. Or you can Air Dash again. This makes the move a lot more satisfying IMO.

I couldn't listen to the music though, as there were no headphones and well, there was so much else going on.

Overall, I enjoyed what I played (just the one level, so I can't comment on the tube levels and such). I might consider getting the game if I have the money.

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^I'm confident that Fire & Ice will be a well-made (as in, not glitchy) and enjoyaple platform game, the problems only come if we try to compare it to a Classic game, which doesn't make too much sense as the Sonic Boom sub-franchise has been well-established to be a different thing with its own style and feel.

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11 minutes ago, Ajavalo said:

^I'm confident that Fire & Ice will be a well-made (as in, not glitchy) and enjoyaple platform game, the problems only come if we try to compare it to a Classic game, which doesn't make too much sense as the Sonic Boom sub-franchise has been well-established to be a different thing with its own style and feel.

I don't really mean to say they are the same thing. There were just a couple of things here that reminded me a bit of the Classic games, like how higher routes are the faster ones with most of the secrets too, or how a lot of the secrets are now hidden in a way more reminiscent of how S3&K's Special Rings were hidden (i.e in small hidden rooms rather than expansive pathways that drag out and make you loop back around). Keep in mind, I played this within an hour of playing Mania, a new Classic style game, so it's not like I'm saying this out of nowhere.

Sonic Boom definitely has it's own feel, but I definitely think they took some queues from past Sonic games with Fire & Ice, probably due in large part to the past two games being so harshly criticised by Sonic fans.

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Yes, what I meant to say is that being different to the classic games shouldn't be enough of a reason to say this game will be bad, as lots of fans do. You said the same thing in your post, and I was highlighting it.

I agree that they're taking cues from the classics, and it's a good thing, of course.

 

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I guess I probably should have just used the term "traditional Sonic game", since that level design mentality has applied to more than the Classics.

But yeah, I am confident the final game will be a fun one. I hope the reputation of previous Boom games doesn't hold this game back too much. It's still admittedly the least interesting of the three upcoming games to me, but that's because I'm not part of it's primary target audience. The fact it still looks fun to me despite that though, is a good sign.

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I just noticed something-

Dfekt's design changed! If you look at the promo art when the game was announced in 2015, his arms and fingers were connected, his legs were really small and his head had a slightly different design.

Fast forward to the recent trailer and now he's got legs and feet, (though he's still short) his head had a minor redesign, and his arms and fingers look a lot like Peridots limb enhancers..

The screw on his head changed sides as well!

EDIT: For comparison's sake

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latest?cb=20160722105025

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