Do people still think Sonic Adventure's a good game?

[shdowhunt60]

Do people still call S3&K a good game?

You would be amazed.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/20/where-did-sonic-go-wrong?page=2

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Is it ok that I actually like this game more then super mario 64, or do I have a seriouse problem?

I certainly don't think so. I find myself having waaaaaaaay more fun with Sonic Adventure. 

[Nepenthe]

You would be amazed.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/20/where-did-sonic-go-wrong?page=2

I don't consider IGN people anymore.

[JezMM]

but this is a different argument than the one people are inherently making when they say "Why can't they play like Sonic?" which is that, well, everyone should just play like Sonic and any kind of character or goal differentiation is unacceptable.

I think when people say "why can't they play like Sonic?" what they really mean is "why can't they be as fun as Sonic?" or possibly "why did they bother to make these other gameplay styles when Sonic is so much more fun to play?", "why did they take sonic's gameplay and put this extra garbage on top of it?" etc.

(The answer is of course because creating content for Sonic is hard on both time and technological budgets, but yeah).

Edited August 14, 2015 by JezMM

[shdowhunt60]

I don't consider IGN people anymore.

Their criticisms legitimately make me wonder if they even played the damn game in the first place. Sonic 3's level design is fine, in fact it's the best in the series. The only black spots in it are from Carnival Night and Sandopolis Act 2. I've had more issues with Sonic 2's and CD's respective level design.

That's actually the vibes I'm getting when people talk about how radically different the playstyles are in Sonic Adventure. They seriously do not play so different from Sonic himself. Aside from Big himself of course, but that's rather obvious. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

And you're still doing fast paced platforming in almost every gameplay style in Sonic Adventure. So no, you really don't have a point. You're not radically switching genres, and you're not playing entirely different games. The most radical departure, aside from Big, is Treasure Hunting. Which still has you going fast and platforming.

No, we're not. And I just explained to you how it wasn't fast paced platforming, reiterated by Diogenes, so now you're just ignoring the point which still stands.

Edited August 14, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[shdowhunt60]

No, we're not. And I just explained to you how it wasn't fast paced platforming, reiterated by Diogenes, so now you're just ignoring the point which still stands.

Bullcrap it isn't. It's just fast-paced platforming you don't like.

[Tornado]

I've personally found that a lot of people, and I mean a lot, misremember how Sonic Adventure did multiple gameplay styles with how Adventure 2 did multiple gameplay styles.

Or how about in Mario Sunshine, with the Blooper Surfing? Or how about any time when you use a powerup to solve a puzzle?

Why is it that doing this stuff is OK in ANY OTHER FRANCHISE except for Sonic, huh? Why is Sonic this special magical exception to this?

A lot of people simply did not like FLUDD even when Sunshine was new, and time has not been kind to how hard the game leaned on it compared to just doing Mario game shit.

And if we're allowed to "backpedal" (lololololol), let's go back to Spyro 3. You have to look a bit harder (I suspect because the game itself was so much more technically competent than Adventure and has a lot more nostalgia for it because it was the last Insomniac game) but the exact same problem people hold up for Adventure is not particularly uncommon to target Year of the Dragon for. Adventure is a good whipping boy, but it was well deserved and Adventure 2 cemented it when it both regressed in how it was structured and happened to be substantially more popular than the original ever was.

[Blacklightning]

Bullcrap it isn't. It's just fast-paced platforming you don't like.

I honestly don't know what's worse here - that you actually see any merit in playstyles people at large really hate or that you honest to god believe Amy and Big move fast in any sense of the word. Play either of them side by side with Sonic or Tails's gameplay and then try saying that with a straight face - it's not hard to see there is a ridiculously huge difference between the two. Hell, in Big's case it's barely even platforming - besides a small exception in Ice Cap most of it's largely flat ground and pools of water.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Bullcrap it isn't. It's just fast-paced platforming you don't like.

So now you're resorting to strawmanning on top of ignoring the point.

That's not how you get people to see your point of view.

Edited August 14, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[shdowhunt60]

I honestly don't know what's worse here - that you actually see any merit in playstyles people at large really hate or that you honest to god believe Amy and Big move fast in any sense of the word. Play either of them side by side with Sonic or Tails's gameplay and then try saying that with a straight face - it's not hard to see there is a ridiculously huge difference between the two. Hell, in Big's case it's barely even platforming - besides a small exception in Ice Cap most of it's largely flat ground and pools of water.

Amy's lack of acceleration is a parameter that can be adjusted easily. And I certainly fail to see how it is such a fantastic detriment to the game like people act like it is.

I've personally found that a lot of people, and I mean a lot, misremember how Sonic Adventure did multiple gameplay styles with how Adventure 2 did multiple gameplay styles.

A lot of people simply did not like FLUDD even when Sunshine was new, and time has not been kind to how hard the game leaned on it compared to just doing Mario game shit.

And if we're allowed to "backpedal" (lololololol), let's go back to Spyro 3. You have to look a bit harder (I suspect because the game itself was so much more technically competent than Adventure and has a lot more nostalgia for it because it was the last Insomniac game) but the exact same problem people hold up for Adventure is not particularly uncommon to target Year of the Dragon for. Adventure is a good whipping boy, but it was well deserved and Adventure 2 cemented it when it both regressed in how it was structured and happened to be substantially more popular than the original ever was.

I see a lot of talk about "taking away" from Spyro himself, and nothing else of value here. I never played Spyro, so I can't comment. All I can do is infer from my experiences with genres such as First Person Shooters having vehicles, Mario having ball puzzles, and wonder why is it that other characters, which again I must reiterate are not that different from Sonic himself, cannot work.

[Tornado]

I see a lot of talk about "taking away" from Spyro himself, and nothing else of value here.

And here I thought Diesel was still temp banned.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Amy's lack of acceleration is a parameter that can be adjusted easily.

And the fact that it hasn't been adjusted in SA 1 is the reason why it isn't fast-paced platforming, and why it makes no sense to call it such.

Edited August 14, 2015 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[Blacklightning]

Amy's lack of acceleration is a parameter that can be adjusted easily. And I certainly fail to see how it is such a fantastic detriment to the game like people act like it is.

Nice try, but you did say "It's just fast paced platforming" verbatim. So either it's fast paced or it's not - you don't get to move the goalposts like that just because you can't stand by them. As to why it's a problem? I'm not sure why I even have to explain this. People play Sonic games because of the emphasis they have on speed and flow. If anyone wanted to play a platforming game for any other reason they'd play another platforming game.

[Diogenes]

Amy's lack of acceleration is a parameter that can be adjusted easily.

Even if it was, it wouldn't make Amy's gameplay feel anything like a Sonic game.

As much as I feel it was the wrong direction to take, I do give them some credit for focusing on their goal with Amy's gameplay. In the sense that, basically everything about it is designed to create the complete opposite feelings of playing as Sonic. Sonic is fast, Amy is slow. Sonic runs towards his goals, Amy simply tries to escape. Sonic is a whirling ball of death destroying everything he touches, Amy has a hammer that roots her in place and is ultimately ineffective against her antagonist. Sonic does triple loop-de-loops and gets chased by a whale, Amy turns levers and solves colored block puzzles. Sonic's gameplay is all action and adrenaline and being the cool dude with the 'tude, Amy's gameplay is all about being the normal person caught up in an extraordinary situation and using her wits to win.

What this all boils down to, is that you can't just add a dash of "goes fast" and have it fit in alongside Sonic's gameplay. Amy's gameplay was designed to be, in many ways, anti-Sonic, and that doesn't go away just by making her faster. And most people aren't going to be terribly interested in playing the opposite of what they bought a game for.

[shdowhunt60]

And here I thought Diesel was still temp banned.

 As if. Diesel took every attempt he could to say Adventure was, and always was, a bad game, and changed his arguments at every corner. I've held the same stance as I have since the beginning: the playable characters do not play that differently from Sonic himself. If you're not going to listen to me, then at least stop ignoring Penthe and listen to her.

[gokaiblue16]

I personally run into very few bugs with Sonic Adventure. Are the controls not very tight? Yes. Are the graphics and animations silly? Yes. Is the world vast, glorious, and filled with so many things to interact with? Absolutely. This is what truly separates Sonic Adventure from the bad Sonic games that may have these same problems. 

[LindseyWalker]

People call it genre roulette for a reason, the alternate characters in Sonic Adventure play very little like Sonic, so much so that it's like playing a different game. Sure, they all play like Sonic in handling, but that's only because it's the same game and running off the same engine. I hate to use Big as an example so I'll use Gamma instead. What the heck does mech shooting have to do with Sonic? Imagine if someone threw Mech Shooting in Mario or Rayman and made it 1/6th of the game. Yeah.

And it isn't just because the genre roulette is so opposed to Sonic, the concepts are dreadful and they are executed even more poorly. Running really slowly and trying to dodge Zero (who can't really be dealt with in any real way or he'll go invincible)? Sounds horrendous. Searching every inch of floor and wall really slowly and meticulously to find Emerald Shards? Count me out. This is a big problem, especially when it contributes so much to the game.

Hey, I like Sonic's gameplay from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, I think it's awesome. Hell, I would like to see a Sonic game come out that has all it's gameplay focused on Sonic's gameplay in Sonic Adventure. Sonic Generations did it with Unleashed, they scrapped the Werehog, and it worked wonders. 

Honestly, I think the reason a lot of fans try to defend the genre roulette in Sonic Adventure is because they are upset over the recent decline of Sonic's friends. I am too! I love Tails and he hasn't been properly playable in a mainline title since Sonic Adventure (I refuse to count Sonic Boom). If Sonic's friends ever do make a valiant return I sure as hell don't want to see a return of Knuckles hunting Emerald Shards or Tails throwing dummy rings like he somehow ended up doing. Bring them back to the drawing board please and bring them back to Sonic's gameplay, they deserve better than this.

[Tornado]

 

 As if. Diesel took every attempt he could to say Adventure was, and always was, a bad game, and changed his arguments at every corner. I've held the same stance as I have since the beginning: the playable characters do not play that differently from Sonic himself. If you're not going to listen to me, then at least stop ignoring Penthe and listen to her.

Who said I was ignoring Nepenthe? Who said I even disagreed with Nepenthe? In fact, one would probably be able to assume that when I say "a lot of people misremember how Sonic Adventure did multiple gameplay styles with how Adventure 2 did multiple gameplay styles" that I was agreeing that the arguments against Adventure's genre roulette being so far removed from the Sonic gameplay are being overblown; because by and large they weren't anywhere near as different as those of the games in the series that did the same thing that followed. That isn't even to say that I think deviating from the Sonic gameplay is inherently a problem, since Adventure 2 did it dramatically more than the original and I greatly prefer it anyway.

Diesel did more than just renege on arguments when they became untenable and constantly beg the question. He also transparently blew off things when they weren't convenient for him to acknowledge:

I see a lot of talk about "taking away" from Spyro himself, and nothing else of value here.

And resorted to strawman when more multifaceted arguments weren't to his liking to go against:

So, wait, you're telling me that games can't have different objectives?

...

Oh my God.

And ignored context when it helped his argument to do so.

 

 

 

My issue is with your repeated insistence that the Sonic series is the only one that gets raked over the coals when it deviates largely from the base gameplay people expect, and people simply turn a blind eye when other franchises do the same thing. That not only ignores the reality of how people also felt when contemporary-ish games (be it Sunshine's FLUDD puzzles, or Spyro 3's own genre roulette silliness) to much newer games (like the Ratchet and Clank 2 spaceship levels/races and the Sly 2 genre shifts) have done crazy game variation just for the sake of it; but it also assumes that Sonic gets picked on unfairly for it which requires you to ignore that that a full half of the Adventure gameplay styles just weren't very good at all in a game that already has design problems; and how Sonic Team spent the next decade dabbling in the gameplay shift shit whereas most of the contemporaries to the Sonic franchise tried it for a game or two at most before bowing to criticism on the matter and refocusing on the base gameplay.

People don't hate vehicles in Halo or Borderlands 2 or the original Red Faction or Battlefield because the vehicles controlled well and (to different extents for some of those games over others) complemented the gameplay and/or game structure. People rolled their eyes when Duke Nukem Forever had a monster truck because the extended driving sequence in that game basically amounted to padding copied from better games. Hell, how many first and third person shooters do you want to bring up that had widely criticized, obviously tacked-on stealth gameplay that would randomly pop up a few times in the game and show how limited the game engine was when you weren't shooting people in the face? How many reviews of GTA IV should be brought up that tore into the confusing and contradictory relationship system that the game punished you for not dropping everything to take care of? How many reviews of the Driver games between 2 and San Francisco need to be quoted showing that the on foot shooting stuff was a poor fit for the series in the first place, nevermind how poorly it was almost always done?

 

Then you have to consider that people don't extend even that level of benefit of the doubt towards something like an entire character who revolves around fishing in a Sonic game because you're fucking fishing in a Sonic game. Even on a conceptual level, why shouldn't that be treated as a punchline to a joke just like the later Shadow the Hedgehog gameplay was; and why should that be compared to flying planes in an war-themed FPS?

[Celestia]

I think the main reason I would never ever remove Big, even if I had the power to do so, is because of something that just had to be a joke on Sonic Team's part. It's an amazing punchline not only for Big's story, but arguably the game as a whole.

I'm not very familiar with behind the scenes information on Sonic Adventure so I can't say for sure, but just...look at this. I swear, it's like they looked at this water creature they made to play a big role in the game, and then specifically created a character whose whole thing is fishing just so they could have a "boss fight" where the objective is to fish something out of that water monster (which, I feel I should point out, is a fairly serious threat everywhere else in the game). Someone in that dev team had to have giggled about this at least a little.

Seriously though, I do like the idea of a hypothetical SA remake completely revamping Big's stages to be focused on platforming. As nice as that would be though, if they changed Big's "fight" with Chaos 6 in any way (well, okay, maybe adding in some actually strategy to it, since you can potentially beat it in seconds, but the basic concept is just too perfect), I would be extremely disappointed and only buy 45 copies instead of 50.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Celestia

[Kuzu]

It kinda amazes me that we've reached the point where we're now split between want and hate for genre roulette. 

 

I dunno...I'm kind of apathetic really, I just really didn't like how most of the extra cast played; I don't necessarily want them removed, but I wouldn't really lose any sleep over it if they were.

[Blacklightning]

Seriously though, I do like the idea of a hypothetical SA remake completely revamping Big's stages to be focused on platforming. As nice as that would be though, if they changed Big's "fight" with Chaos 6 in any way (well, okay, maybe adding in some actually strategy to it, since you can potentially beat it in seconds, but the basic concept is just too perfect), I would be extremely disappointed and only buy 45 copies instead of 50.

If it were up to me, I'd just move Big's boss over to Chaos 4 instead. You know, the one that has actual water.

At least that way the way you manipulate your lure would then come into play, and consequently, it would utilize actual skills you'd already developed over the course of the game instead of casting at circles and praying the RNG is merciful enough to actually count it as a hit. Of course if it were up to me I wouldn't make Big a prolonged fucking fishing minigame to start with, but as long as we're offering compromises...

[Diogenes]

Big should've had to fish up Perfect Chaos before Super Sonic could hit him.

[PKGaming]

The GG playthrough of SA1 was becoming okay for a bit, but now that he's on Knuckles, it's gone back to being unbearable.... I don't think Knuckles is anyone's favorite play style in Adventure, but Arin is just constantly whining about issues that're his own fault and complaining about every tiny little insignificant thing. I know some people find people getting mad, salty, or whatever entertaining, but I don't...

Also, I've been away for a while. So if we're on a totally different topic, I apologize.

Edited August 18, 2015 by PKGaming

[Hoppimike]

Personally I love it and don't think it's aged particularly badly. I guess I do always bear in mind the development of the game though - hurried out for the DC launch, before SA2 redefined everything, etc.

So yeah the framerate is a bit choppy and yeah it's a bit buggy. But I still think it's a gorgeous game if you're willing to cut it a bit of slack