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Bad things about Good Sonic games


Rey Skywalker-Ren

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Bad Things About Sonic Games I Like: Sonic the Hedgehog...it has a speed cap, I don't like it. You can avoid this by letting go of Directional-pad, but I don't really like doing that.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2...it has an aerial speed cap, I don't like it. Until I found out you could avoid this by letting go of directional-pad, this ruined a lot of jumps...could've been shortcuts.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 3&Knuckles...Has a slope issue. Randomly will stop you from rolling up a slope, this is only annoying. It seems to be random no matter the speed at which you approach the slope. Problem can be averted by not rolling...running

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Sonic CD is a great game and yet there are some bad things. 

I actually think the level design is excellent for the most past with a few minor exceptions, like the god-awful first act of Wacky Workbench (seriously who the fuck decided to put 12 pillars throughout the act killing all momentum-let alone the bouncy floor), the clever yet not well implemented Pinball table boss act3 in Collision Chaos and acts 1&2 of CC are kind of clunky. I think Palmtree Panic, Tidal Tempest, Quartz Quadrant, Stardust Speedway and Metallic Madness all have excellent design. It's just a shame a few poorly designed acts give the whole game an overall bad reputation of "clunky/clusterfuck level design" when that's actually far from the truth. 

What I don't like about CD and this is to do with the original Mega/SEGA CD version, is how Sonic feels, controls and moves. He feels very different to Sonic 2. The speed-cap feels more akin to Sonic 1's. The charge-up physics and very poor collision detection is a far more hampering experience than the actual level design. You may not get the same kind of left-to-tight (hold right to win) fluency like with Sonic 2&3, but Sonic CD is just as much about going fast and in a far more creative fashion in order to traverse the levels and to achieve time-travel, which is why collision detection is so important. If I'm travelling through a tube/passage trying to build up enough speed to time travel, the last thing I want is to suddenly stop-dead due to shoddy collision detection, but this is what happens a lot in the original version.

The charge-up spindash is weird. The screen pulls back as you charge up (which is helpful) and it's takes maybe a second longer than in Sonic 2 before you can release it. At the same time the charge-up spindash/super peel-out - unlike in Sonic 2&3 - immediately releases at full speed, which is useful if you want to time travel, but not if you want to do a small spindash and reach a small gap, because Sonic is travelling too fast.

The air-cap and ground speed-cap is also a problem. If you are trying to time travel, as soon as you land on the ground the speed-cap kicks in and you immediately lose all momentum and won't be able to time travel. If you release the spindash and then jump (whilst moving to the right for example), if you then press the right button; instead of helping Sonic move forward (like it does in Sonic 2&3) it actually slows Sonic's movement to a cruel, almost akin to Sonic 4 Ep1 physics. However, when jumping from a spindash if you don't press the directional button then you will continue to move at full speed. Kind of the opposite to Sonic 2&3 physics.

These fundamental issues with the design of the physics hamper CD more than any of the other classics. If Yuji Naka had worked on CD then the physics would never have had these problems. Thankfully, Taxman worked his magic in 2011, added the alternative Sonic 2 styled physics but also made big improvements to the Sonic CD original style charge-up physics.

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7 hours ago, BenderTheBatman said:

What I don't like about CD and this is to do with the original Mega/SEGA CD version, is how Sonic feels, controls and moves. He feels very different to Sonic 2. The speed-cap feels more akin to Sonic 1's. The charge-up physics and very poor collision detection is a far more hampering experience than the actual level design. You may not get the same kind of left-to-tight (hold right to win) fluency like with Sonic 2&3, but Sonic CD is just as much about going fast and in a far more creative fashion in order to traverse the levels and to achieve time-travel, which is why collision detection is so important. If I'm travelling through a tube/passage trying to build up enough speed to time travel, the last thing I want is to suddenly stop-dead due to shoddy collision detection, but this is what happens a lot in the original version.

 

After playing it myself to completion just yesterday I noticed the Sonic 1 speed cap too, Sonic's sprite in this game is also pretty much lifted from the first Sonic game so the engine or whatever it was called in those days might have been based on Sonic 1's.

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It's believed (though I don't think it's ever been confirmed) that Sonic CD was in the works before Sonic 2 and may have even been titled Sonic 2 if more progress hadn't been made in what actually became Sonic 2.  That would explain the more restrictive controls, the Spin Dash that had yet to be perfected at the time, and the use of Sonic 1 assets.  I didn't mind the way Sonic controlled in CD, again Spin Dash aside, because I actually prefer Sonic 1 to Sonic 2, and Sonic CD just feels like another game based on Sonic 1, which isn't by any means bad to me.  But I still prefer Sonic 2 to CD due to the overall level design and I felt like it was thematically more interesting.

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I love Generations, even most of Planet Wisp (Rooftop Run Classic is actually my least favourite level in the game) but the Time Eater really is awful, and just a poor way to end the game as a whole. Everyone knows about this by now though. Sonic CD's final boss is similar kinds of underwhelming, I believe FTA in the HellfireComms playthrough many moons ago said that it was like you "caught Eggman on the toilet" or something and he wasn't prepared for Sonic. It's a lot of waiting around and it's not really fun. While I prefer the US soundtrack overall, it barely even has a final boss theme, which makes it even more unexciting. At least the Japanese one had an interesting unique theme that feels a little more climactic.

 

I love Rush Adventure a lot, but sometimes the sailing pads the game out too much. That said, I enjoy it so it's not awful, and the first waterbike at least plays like the Rush games (boost, tricks). I also don't like how the first boss is basically luck based in whether you'll S rank it or not. If you get a bad pattern, you're not getting the S rank as it's got to be under 1:30. Still, I like Rush Adventure a lot more than Rush 1, which is a good game that I'm not terribly fond of (bland levels, levels being too long, waiting around kind of bosses, poor characterisation for Knuckles and Amy, cheap deaths).

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Bad things about good Sonic games, huh?

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Sonic Generations came to my mind first so I am going to go with that. Not too many things to complain about as I didn't have any problems with the gameplay really.

Blown Opportunities of All Kinds

Sonic Generations had plenty of opportunities to joke about or simply make references to many aspects in 20 years of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise and blew it.

For a game meant to represent 2 decades of the iconic Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, it sure did sell itself short as far as content goes having only 9 levels part of the game for Classic and Modern Sonic to play through through their gaming perspectives. The fun playing the game seemed to be over in a "Sonic Second" leaving very much to be desired. 

Considering that only 9 out of many iconic levels were represented, Sonic Generations was begging for additional content via DLC. So many possibilities among the many memorable and exciting Sonic levels that we blasted through...Yet all we got was a Casino Night Zone Pinball level. I would happily shelled out some money to experience that and I am not the only one. Such a shame. 

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Then there was the lack of character interaction. I have a high esteem and liking for Sonic's friends, and seeing Sonic not interacting and talking to his friends amid several opportunities throughout the game-including his birthday party-just irritates me to no end. With the ending in Sonic Generations, this was the last chance in the game for Sonic to actually talk to and interact with them. Once again, the opportunity for Sonic to do so was blown off. Aside from Tails, Sonic didn't really talk and interact with them in the beginning of the game, after he rescued each of them and now at the end of the game only giving silent looks and/or gestures. We pretty much went through the whole game without Sonic saying a single word to any of his friends aside from Tails bar a few general sentences. I would of loved to see Sonic actually celebrate with his friends, as this was the perfect opportunity to have Sonic actually interact with them, and this not being taken advantage of throughout the game, especially in the ending, really disappointed me. All part of a lackluster story that was very shallow.

Final Boss Fight

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The Time Eater boss fight was BAD. In addition to it not being fun or interesting, I think that it was absolutely ridiculous that Sonic's friends stood around doing nothing but watching and running their mouths as cheerleaders during the final boss fight. After what the Time Eater did to each of them by trapping them in White Space, you would think that they would want to help take down the thing responsible for doing that to them. Even when both Classic and Modern Sonic got smashed by the Time Eater that had them out cold temporarily, one would think Sonic's friends would try to fight the Time Eater in their behalf or at least try to help them as opposed to standing there running their mouths endlessly. Pretty much all of them can fight and it would of been really nice to have seen everyone work together to fight the Time Eater-especially since they all had legit reasons for fighting it in the first place. The potential to see a huge joint effort to defeat this boss in various ways with the different skills and abilities of each the characters-which could of made it a very interesting final boss fight as well as fun-never happened. Such a shame really as it ended up being an underwhelming affair as well as an annoying one.

And one final bad thing about Sonic Generations that I would like to mention:

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No Big being present among Sonic's friends. That's quite an omission there and a BAD one at that IMO :( 

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Oh boy, its time to rant about some stuff in the games I absolutely love.
Sonic Adventure:
They had so many really interesting opportunities in the story department. They could've explained a lot more about Chaos' and Knuckles' Backstory. And Big was totally unnecessary, I am pretty much sure that everything after Knuckles was just filler, I kinda like Gamma's story though. It was interesting in its own right.
Sonic Adventure 2:
This is a really minor thing, but every time I try to speedrun Final Rush, gravity always fucks up and gives me a hard time when I try to skip some areas. 
There is also another problem: Like Sonic Adventure it didn't really explain its story that well. How did Gerald know about Chaos? Why does he have the Master Emerald Shrine in the ARK? I think this could've been explained much better.
Its just my opinion, but for me it doesn't make any sense. Doesn't stop my enjoyment of the game though.

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Sonic Generations is one of my favorite Sonic games ever made, but I can't stand the final boss (Time Eater). It took me so long to beat him the first time.

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1 hour ago, nikfan said:

 How did Gerald know about Chaos? Why does he have the Master Emerald Shrine in the ARK?

This isn't directly stated, but there are archeologists all over the Mystic Ruins in SA1, indicating that the legend of Chaos may not be uncommon knowledge in the Sonic universe.  It wouldn't surprise me if Gerald found out about Chaos through that.  As for the Master Emerald shrine on the ARK, Sonic explains that he (probably) made the Master Emerald in the ARK to harnass the full power of the Chaos Emeralds.  How this plays a factor in the Emeralds' ability to work is beyond me, though.

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7 minutes ago, Tara said:

This isn't directly stated, but there are archeologists all over the Mystic Ruins in SA1, indicating that the legend of Chaos may not be uncommon knowledge in the Sonic universe.  It wouldn't surprise me if Gerald found out about Chaos through that.

Well, we don't have exact conformation that they are there for the Chaos legend. For all we know they are just exploring a new area that was not explored yet. Mystic Ruins are as the title suggests Mystic Ruins, of course archeologists will be there, they are interested in that stuff.

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2 minutes ago, nikfan said:

Well, we don't have exact conformation that they are there for the Chaos legend. For all we know they are just exploring a new area that was not explored yet. Mystic Ruins are as the title suggests Mystic Ruins, of course archeologists will be there, they are interested in that stuff.

Well, yeah.  That's what I'm saying.  The fact that the Mystic Ruins are well known enough to have archeologists swarming the place in the first place indicates that there is documentation of the discoveries made there.  That still doesn't mean that we know if those archeologists are aware of the Chaos legend itself, which I never stated was decisively the case as much as saying it's a possibility.  Rather the archeologists were actually there for the express purpose of the Chaos legend or not does not have anything to do with rather or not it was known about.

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1 minute ago, Tara said:

Well, yeah.  That's what I'm saying.  The fact that the Mystic Ruins are well known enough to have archeologists swarming the place in the first place indicates that there is documentation of the discoveries made there.  That still doesn't mean that we know if those archeologists are aware of the Chaos legend itself, which I never stated was decisively the case as much as saying it's a possibility.  Rather the archeologists were actually there for the express purpose of the Chaos legend or not does not have anything to do with rather or not it was known about.

I see your point and to be honest it is a really interesting thing to think about. But, as it stands, the game didn't really explain that which is a shame.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Slicers, just Slicers, Particularly in Metropolis Zone in Sonic 2, the king of dick-ish enemy placement and design, especially that one at the top of the screw elevator thing, its stupidly hard to dodge, I suppose they aren't that bad In Sonic CD's Collision Chaos but the fact that they are there make me paranoid, especially when i'm trying to get the time stones. Just Hate these Things, The Devil in Badnick form.

Slicer_sprite.png

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Sonic Adventure: The really, really shitty camera and cringeworthy acting

Generations: The length

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I love Unleashed HD but I hate how the Tornado sections are basically just QTE spam.  I have a bit of fondness just for the fact that the sections are there to begin with, because it brings me a bit of SA1 nostalgia, but still it controlled a little more like SA1 or better yet an actually respectable plane-fighting game.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sonic 3 and Knuckles had quite a few drab zones for me. Marble garden being the first real zone I just can't stand what so ever, the zone music itself feels likes it's trying to put the player to sleep. The zones also contain frustrating gimmicks which do nothing but leech my time and partially my soul. The previous zone Carnival Night can drag a a bit in the second act, but all its faults are excused because it's a Carnival level, I just can't critique any video game's carnival level!

Sandpolis zone can go fly a kite too, it's obligatory desert level irritates me more than actual sand getting in my underwear! Oh and that zipline! Anytime I accidentally grab that pesky zip line I stick the A button down and go work on my garden(one of which is certainly not marble) until sonic has finally descended.

Shadow the hedgehog even the greatest sonic game in the entire cosmos has its faults. One frame of Shadows animation looks a little off key, it really bugs me.

 

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Sonic Generations. One of my favorite Sonic games ever made. It has good music, great gameplay, good graphics, and the level design is top notch. The only bad thing I could find in the game is its story. It's as barebones as it get and from just watching cutscenes, it feels it was just an excuse to have Classic Sonic in the game. The two hedgehogs just go from level to level, save one of their friends only for them to say one line and never show up again until the end where they just become a cheerleader squad during the Time Eater fight. The moments of Sonic and Tails reflecting on the levels was something nice and cool, but only done for TWO levels. For example, when Sonic exits out of Green Hill and saves Tails, he feels nostalgia towards the level as it's the place where his adventures begun and Tails doesn't recognize it since he appeared in Sonic 2. They do the same for Chemical Plant and the two reflect on the level itself with Tails noting about the water and how it makes him nervous. Generations was pretty much made for moments like this and having jokes that poke fun at the series' many elements where they can reference a bunch of things from the series' then 20 year history that fans will find themselves at home, but they instead didn't capitalize on the opportunity and it just feels like wasted potential just in terms of the story. The gameplay itself is fine and dandy, but the story could've used a bit more meat into it to make it worthwhile and really celebrate 20 years of Sonic The Hedgehog.

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All these Sonic Generations posts are reminding me how distracting I found the games rendition of Green Hill Zone's backdrop, way too much going on for my eyes. Other zones didn't have backdrops as convoluted as Green Hill thankfully. I'm not sure if I'm alone in this though, perhaps my eyes are just terrible in that respect.

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Sonic Generations:

My favorite Sonic game overall, but what were they thinking with the stage choices? Instead of going for the wacky variety that we love about the series, they chose absolute redundancy. Imagine how much more cohesive it would've been if they'd traded Sky Sanctuary for Ice Cap Zone (and imagine the remixed music!), Speed Highway for Emerald Coast, and Seaside Hill for Casino Park. Three levels, huge improvement. 

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Sonic Generations is one of my favorite Sonic games, but it really lacks in level variety. Most of the game just has city levels. True, a lot of Sonic's city stages are very iconic, but...eh. Also, Time Eater. : |

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Time Eater is probably the worst boss in a modern Sonic game, tbh - although I haven't tried to beat Dark Gaia in a while, that's at least functional. You just can't see shit on the screen during Time Eater. Hope you don't need rings, because they're hidden behind acres of effects and text boxes. 

Another bad thing about Generations - Lightspeed dash is weird in that game, I feel like I have to mash the Y button constantly because just tapping the button is no guarantee. Oh, and Planet Wisp, because I LOVE YOU STARLIGHT CARNIVAL.

 

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The Super Sonic themes. The themes aren't terrible, don't get me wrong. They're just not good enough to be heard over every other theme in the entire game. I want to hear Hydrocity Zone Act 2's theme, not some overglorified invincibility theme that loops every 10 seconds.

 

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Sonic 3 & Knuckles' Super Sonic theme is bad, though.  It's the most repetitive, and in-your-face jingle that just gives me a headache to listen to. XD

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Sonic 1- Bad pacing, but everyone knows this.

Sonic 2- The Special stages are iconic...but they really punish you for playing the game the intended way. You're supposed to play as Sonic & Tails in canon, but I refuse to ever do that unless I'm playing a No Emeralds run.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles- Paying for two games to get one. No Sonic 1&Knuckles functionality. Way too many speed traps designed to get you to slow down.

Sonic Adventure- The characters all play in small subsections of Sonic's levels, for the most part. What's the point of playing as Amy for just three levels? Running as Sonic was broken sometimes, like in Lost World or Speed Highway it was way too hard to stay on the main pathways and run straight. Fishing sucks.

SA2- They removed the ability to track all the emerald shards at the same time. Not enough Shadow levels. FinalHazard is a borderline unplayable mess, the physics are almost as bad as Perfect Dark Gaia.

Sonic Advance 2- The Boss fights. Ugh. Just...the Boss fights.

Heroes- The controls are...finicky. The Chaotix levels were boring. Amy was flanderized.

Unleashed- Night levels lasted too long. Werehog battle theme plays ALL THE TIME. The Hot Dog missions for Eggmanland made me want to kill myself.

Colors- Story? Who needs that?

Generations- Nostalgic References? Who needs them? No DLC. No Secret Rings, Sonic 3 standalone or Advance representation. The game only had two Crisis City remakes. I needed at least six more. And two more tornadoes.

Sonic Runners- No steam/console port. :(

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