Sonic games you WANT to love/like

[Uroxilis]

let me talk about the Rivals series and its fast paced racing battling galore. when i first picked it up in 2006 i loved it. I loved the Idea, i loved the characters and the idea of unlocking diffrent outfits. but as time grew on and on. it just got so repetitive and boring. the game got even more annoying in the 2nd sequel. what with the random button presses to get to higher paths and such. i feel like it was another poorly excecuted game. considering it came out beside 06 i guess thats explains that. but still, i do love the gameplay, charactesrs and level designs 

[Rexeljet]

I'd probably have to say Knuckles' Chaotix. I like the game, but when I think about it, it really should have been one of the best games in the series- it's a successor to the classic trilogy, but more colourful like! With 25 acts and 5 playable characters! I don't even mind the tag team mechanic, but whenever I play it I always seem to lose interest early on. I blame the lack of variety, I mean come on- five zones with five acts each? There's the day/night cycle which is all wonderful and everything, but when each zone has five whole acts you need more than just that to keep things fresh. 

I'm also not a huge fan of the random level order. On one hand it means that every playthrough is different but on the other hand it ruins the sense of progression and makes it feel like you're just running around in circles (I do appreciate the lack of a life counter and a game over system, however)

Also, Amazing Arena is worse than Wacky Workbench and needs to die. 

Other than that I really like this game. It's an interesting spin on the classic gameplay style, with some of the finest aesthetics to grace the franchise, a soundtrack that is always upbeat but varied at the same time, and most importantly, Charmy doesn't talk! But I can't help but feel that it could have been so much more.

[Mr Loopone]

There are a few Sonic games that I would love to like (or like to love):

Firstly is Sonic 3/Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I know people might be thinking eh? "It is the perfect Sonic game, the best of the classic games, etc" Well playing through last year to beat the first half from struggling for literally years still doesn't have the same warm feeling that I get from playing Sonic 1, 2, CD (or Triple Trouble). Gameplay wise, it is great since it pretty much the same feeling as the previous games just with the extra ability to fly as Tails as well as the new power ups (and for 3&K Knuckles being great to play with his glide and his wall climb). The soundtrack is pretty great while different from 1 and 2 has a catch MJ style touch for 3 and a more traditional Knuckles part. So you would think having great gameplay and soundtrack would make me like it? Well...

Now the problems that don't make me like it. Firstly are the level designs seem to be a bit more mixed, some are a bit like 1 and 2 however some are maze like going back and forth on a different plane repeat until about 7 minutes where you finally made it to the end of the Act. Marble Garden Zone is where usually I stop playing because it is long, very maze like and gets boring quick despite the good song playing. For years due to boredom never passed the zone. When I played it last year, I forced myself to pass the zone to get to Carnival Night and later Ice Cap to actually enjoy a stage for once. Sandopolis Act 2 is the same for Sonic & Knuckles to the point where I have to look at a map to prevent lost time in its maze like structure due to having to make a jump at certain spots to prevent loops. Not the Sonic style loops, more like if you keep missing jumps in the beginning of Labyrinth Zone Act 3 and the ground is much shorter to land the jump. Didn't find those fun to play.

Also regarding the instructions isn't completely clear on the gimmicks. Luckily I read advice before regarding the barrels on Carnival Night Act 2 (not just THAT ONE but you can use it for a few others in the stage) otherwise I would have been stuck due to that there is no indication that you press up and down in a pattern. The instructions even warn the game is buggy and glitchy (as Robotnik's speed traps). How many games actually warn and admit to people that there are bugs and glitches in the game? Not many that's for sure but it was good of Sega to admit them unlike many companies out there.

I also felt the graphics have actually decreased in quality compared to 1 and 2 due to being more grainy and gritty. Now I know why that style was chosen due to US TVs mainly having composite to get a trick into thinking that the system has more colour but on PAL systems/RGB/emulation, it doesn't look as nice with the spots. Not as bad as say some of the American made Mega Drive games though. Some still look nice like Ice Cap as well as the bonus stages and there are a few that try to balance between the gritty and the saturated look but Marble Garden and parts of Launch Base don't look nice by Sonic standards. Gaudy yellow! Seems the Sonic & Knuckles side mostly (except Sandopolis 1 I believe?) improve the graphics though so somewhere in development, they knew it was a bit of a mistake and tried to correct it by changing the style slightly to not as gritty.

Plus the instashield seems in many cases not useful in the time, unless you get lucky and use it before a spike/enemy/boss. I think if the game wasn't rushed and tweaked Sonic 3 a bit more (just a little bit, make Marble Garden more fun to play mainly) it would be more enjoyable for me but I can understand why people love the game.

Sonic Heroes is another that I want to like but sadly ended up putting me off the series (Rush series excluded) until Sonic Generations. It is bright, it is colourful, it has a decent soundtrack (admittedly the theme songs are cheesy), the stage themes themselves seem appealing and from an outside perspective more to my tastes than Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. They weren't bad, they were decent actually just wanted better and something like a 3D take of the older games with a new spin. The reviews at the time were good, the game got magazine ads that were actually sort of good. Why don't I like it? One word. Buggy. The game just didn't feel stable enough when I played it. First things first, was it a used PS2 copy? No, it was a brand new Gamecube copy that I got from 2004 (am aware of the PS2 version isn't very good and the Xbox version that I also have is close to the GC one). There were various times in the game where I thought that I made the jump/attack but ended up dying. Like how sometimes Sonic launches his light speed attack instead of his jump towards a enemy and then launches towards a pit. Another example is Ocean Palace or any level that has them where you are running on an angle platform and ended up falling out. Switching between rails was another problem. I also played the special stage and that had various problems so only managed to do it once, maybe twice. Tried it both 50hz and 60hz, both had the same problems. Plus the camera didn't help. Relating to that were the controls, switching between characters can be a bit clumsy and caused stages to stop-start as in speed with Sonic, oh I have to be Tails now due to a high wall so switch to Tails to fly, now I have to punch as Knuckles then switching back to Sonic? The later stages in the game got a bit bad at this as well as the bosses. I know the point of the game was team gameplay but pressing the wrong button by accident can mean death.

Also the story while liking the tone just wasn't handled very well and wasn't as linked as it could have been. It actually put me off Amy Rose since it made her out as a stalker to Sonic. Voice acting was hit and miss, some was okay while others could have done a better job. I like Shadow's Englishy voice thoughout in the game though and prefered it to his Sonic Adventure 2 voice.

It wasn't super awful enough to stop playing where I beaten the game with two of the teams (Team Sonic and Rose, from when I was 15 I believe) but I wish it could have been a lot better. When you was a teenager and noticed these problems straight away (compared to many games where I really did enjoy playing the games), it isn't a good sign.

[Green Eyes]

Sonic Heroes: I love the idea of team-based gameplay, having access to all the different move sets at once, going down different paths that depend on the character you have. I also really like the idea from a writing perspective, three characters going on an adventure together? Sounds like an opportunity to see characters bounce off each other. Message about teamwork? Yeah give me that Brot3 goodness.

A lot of the moves are clunky and don't get used(rocket excel, I'm looking at you), movesets between characters are too samey, the writing is contrived and it leads to some real awkwardness; characters fighting over nothing, Amy is creepy, telling rather than showing, TEAMWIrK YEA.

 

[BradAric]

I have two answers to this:

Sonic Chronicles
Wow, what a great story, and the ability to play as so many different characters is wonderful! The idea of a Sonic RPG is appealing, the art style is wonderful, and I feel they did a lot right. Even the soundtrack could be cool if it was on a higher quality system (the battle theme sucks...but imagining a real guitar makes it about 10 times better, as one example). 

But man...the battle system is terrible. I would prefer even quick time events to all the touch screen garbage, and honestly I'd mostly prefer neither, more like a traditional RPG. I know they really wanted to bring a sense of speed into a turn based game, but holy crap...

Sonic Rivals
I think there's so much potential here for Sonic's return to 2D on a more powerful handheld (I still maintain Rush should have been on PSP instead of DS) but they killed it by making it more like Sonic 2's multiplayer mode. I don't want to race against another player, taking them down with the same 3 generic items over and over again. Rivals 2 is significantly better, but again I would rather not race another character on every damn stage.

[Kokoro]

Sonic Adventure 2. It's often considered one of the best 3D Sonic games, but I prefer a number of other 3D Sonic games. The Sonic and Shadows are fun enough, but the rest, not so much.

[Phos]

On July 14, 2016 at 3:38 PM, BradAric said:

I have two answers to this:

Sonic Chronicles
Wow, what a great story, and the ability to play as so many different characters is wonderful! The idea of a Sonic RPG is appealing, the art style is wonderful, and I feel they did a lot right. Even the soundtrack could be cool if it was on a higher quality system (the battle theme sucks...but imagining a real guitar makes it about 10 times better, as one example). 

But man...the battle system is terrible. I would prefer even quick time events to all the touch screen garbage, and honestly I'd mostly prefer neither, more like a traditional RPG. I know they really wanted to bring a sense of speed into a turn based game, but holy crap...

Sonic Rivals
I think there's so much potential here for Sonic's return to 2D on a more powerful handheld (I still maintain Rush should have been on PSP instead of DS) but they killed it by making it more like Sonic 2's multiplayer mode. I don't want to race against another player, taking them down with the same 3 generic items over and over again. Rivals 2 is significantly better, but again I would rather not race another character on every damn stage.

Sonic Chronicles might be the one non multiplayer only game I can't imagine being speed run, how would you make it any faster? Just take running from a battle, a staple in most JRPG speed runs, running in chronicles makes it take even longer. 

Rivals is a funny case, backbone originally wanted to make a normal platformer, but Izuka talked (or forced?) them into making that weird vs game. Not sure how much of value was lost, considering how wonky the physics were. 

I understand the basic sentiment of this thread, but for most games I don't enjoy, it's typically based on problems fairly intrinsic to the game. I did have this weird spell where I had myself convinced that I liked Unleashed, that's really weird to think back on now. 

Even so, I still have some examples kind of in the spirit of the thread:

I really wish the Sonic World thing from Sonic Jam was more of a game. Running on the final iteration of the technology that Yuji Naka had created for NiGHTS, it actually made the Saturn not look like the random glob of processors that it was. Maybe it still would have fallen apart and had Burning Ranger's frame rate if they actually made a whole game about it, but it seemed to have the potential. 

Random aside, because of the  bizarre was the Saturn handled 3D, and specifically "bow tie" quads, it was able to actually draw a perfectly smooth curve under certain very limited circumstances, but one of those just happened to be part of the curve of Sonic's... eye. Some of the versions of Sonic Xtreme used this.

I also wish I could at least stomach 3D blast enough to play more of the special stages, but you really have to tiptoe around those levels to keep rings, it's like steering a bar of soap around Kirby's Dream Course levels. 

[Alice Twilight]

Sonic Colours (Wii)

I tolerated it enough to finish it but it's not something I plan to revisit, there's just something extremely off about it when you come from Unleashed. I'm not really a fan of the level design in this game because it just feels like I'm playing Marble Zone in the 2-D sections with very few moments where I can go fast and platform at the same time, it's either one of the other and those levels with the blue wisps? Why?! Why slow me down even more to a crawl, what a useless wisp. The DS version on the other hand is one version I can play all the time, it's very fluid and Sonic doesn't feel stiff when he jumps either.

Sonic Lost World (PC)

Made a post about in the un/popular opinions thread

Would have posted about Sonic Colours in that thread but didn't really have much to say about it.

[Lord Raptor]

I want to like Sonic Colors I've heard everyone give it so much praise and i just can't bring myself to like it, I don't like much about it at all, the music, the stage design, those damn wisps, I do love Eggman in that game though, Probably one of my favs