Please convince me that "Sonic World" is great, because I don't think it is!

[Ming Ming Hatsune]

My friend actually plays Sonic World. I gave it a go, but I don't know if it's the keyboard controls or the physics just plain suck but I had a difficult time playing the game. My friend gave me a tip, always use a fly character or a have a fly character in your team. That made the game much easier because you can avoid the hard platforming.

Sonic World is a good fangame, I'll have to give it that. The levels are quite interesting and there hasn't been a comparable game since...'06? But I'll give it a zero out of 10 if Sega/Sonic Team ever does something like this. And I'm an Adventure fangirl. It just feels broken and unfair, especially if you are using a non-fly character.

Sonic Utopia, I don't understand why people like this? It's an open-world Sonic game I get that, but when I want to just get to goal post I'll get lost easily. There is no sense of "You must go that way" to finish the stage. I don't want to spend 20 minutes on a stage on my first run. I don't mind spending 20 minutes on a stage, after I finished the game and I want to do more exploration and finding unlockables.

[Sean]

I honestly, legitimately cannot stand playing any Sonic fanworks that don't have 1:1 physics to the originals. That's primarily why I can't get into Before/After the Sequel and why I even had some issues with Sonic Time Twisted. Sure, the latter definitely boasted some pretty decent physics, but I kept noticing things that were slightly off compared to how I expect Sonic would move or react in the originals and Mania, and it gradually brought down the experience for me to the point where I never finished any of the above-mentioned games.

They're not bad or anything, I can appreciate the effort that goes into them. But I'm a crazed stickler for classic Sonic physics and can't bring myself to settle for anything less. That's basically why Taxman's Retro Sonic demo was one of the earliest 2D Sonic games to catch my attention at all.

 

EDIT: what the fuck I thought this topic was referring to Sonic Worlds. I never heard of this fangame before and the only 3D Sonic fangame I think is good (and will ever be good) is SRB2.

[Tara]

2 hours ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

Sonic Utopia, I don't understand why people like this? It's an open-world Sonic game I get that, but when I want to just get to goal post I'll get lost easily. There is no sense of "You must go that way" to finish the stage. I don't want to spend 20 minutes on a stage on my first run. I don't mind spending 20 minutes on a stage, after I finished the game and I want to do more exploration and finding unlockables.

Utopia is more of a proof of concept for the physics, which is what people are praising it for.  Not so much level design.

[Mors]

quantity over quality

I mean, they even attempted to add every single Sonic zone to the game, but when they realized they couldn't do it they dropped it and some other fans picked it up. I wish I was joking.

Not to mention the game having around 40 playable characters and 24 menu themes that look awful in a funny way (except for like, 3 of them).

[Indigo Rush]

On 9/8/2017 at 5:35 AM, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

Sonic Utopia, I don't understand why people like this? It's an open-world Sonic game I get that, but when I want to just get to goal post I'll get lost easily. There is no sense of "You must go that way" to finish the stage. I don't want to spend 20 minutes on a stage on my first run. I don't mind spending 20 minutes on a stage, after I finished the game and I want to do more exploration and finding unlockables.

Sonic Utopia is a proof of concept for the physics engine and the open nature of the level design is there to give you a large playground to test them in. I don't understand how everyone keeps overlooking that fact; the dev team behind it have made it clear, many members on SSMB have made it clear, it's abundantly clear that this is a tech demo. People like it because it effectively and, arguably successfully, translates Classic Sonic controls and mechanics into a 3D space. That's about it, really. And it feels better than most of Sonic Team's efforts, so that's why it's gotten such a great reception.

Anyway, Sonic World (the 3D fangame, not the Genesis-physics fangame engine) is really, really bad. Like, hilariously bad. The devs care far more for shoving in content than fine-tuning the physics and controls; as for the level design, it's the Adventure and Boost games taken to their logical extreme - scripted sequences back to back with no agency, broken controls and an emphasis on style over substance.

[Blue Blood]

Re Utopia: The level design of the demo is supposed to subtly guide the player in the right direction - paths and ramps all lead the the same general direction, shadows point towards the goal, sunflowers and other objects all face the player as you approach them in the right direction etc etc. Thus is all with the idea of not resorting top immersion-breaking hand-holding like arrows and whatnot. If you don't go out of your way to turn around and completely change direction, you won't get lost. However, the level is too wide to be easily navigated when you do stray from a path. But as everyone else has said, it's a PoC designed to showcase the capabilities of the engine and how that can play into creative level design, rather than an example of the best level design that can be made. Maybe it was a bit of a mistake to showcase such a level without an example of something more focused, but it's hardly bad (except the underwater sections which are actually totally incomplete). The subtle ways that it shows the player the path would work very well if the openness of the landscape was dialled back.

Re Sonic World: Never heard of it, looked it up on YouTube, never plan on playing it. Looks bad.

[avidsonicfan1991]

Now Ozcrash is completely acting like a complete douche. Look at the comments section to this! Is THIS the biggest reason to avoid Sonic World?! Because the creator is an asshole?! 

UPDATE: The video I was originally linking to is not up anymore because Ozcrash removed it.

EDIT: I think Ozcrash is the Phil Fish of 2017!!!

[Tara]

Let's not allow this topic to devolve into a "let's all hate this person topic."  Criticizing their fan game is perfectly fine, but what they do with their personal lives on their personal YouTube accounts is not anyone's concern.

[avidsonicfan1991]

1 hour ago, Tara said:

Let's not allow this topic to devolve into a "let's all hate this person topic."  Criticizing their fan game is perfectly fine, but what they do with their personal lives on their personal YouTube accounts is not anyone's concern.

But even though I really don't want to, but now the biggest reason why I now want to is because he takes all criticism and sends it off as an attack!

Seriously, though, in case I do, I need you to give me some reasons why I should give any or a combination of these fangames another go (Yes, I have played Sonic Utopia and Green Hill Paradise and loved them despite them being incomplete): "Sonic Universe", "Sonic Robo Blast 2", and "Sonic the Hedgehog 3D"!

If you think none of them are any good, then should I just join the camp that gives all official Sonic Games excessively high expectations?!

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Why are we the ones that are supposed to convince you to like games? If the game doesn't do that, it's on the game. Don't come crying here when you don't enjoy something, and definitely don't try to get other people to defend something just for the sake of argument, especially trash like Sonic World.

And what's with the melodramatic tone? Do you have a quota on exclamation-points-per-post that you have to meet or something?

[Clewis]

20 hours ago, avidsonicfan1991 said:

If you think none of them are any good, then should I just join the camp that gives all official Sonic Games excessively high expectations?!

The sad part is that at this point a lot of us in that "camp" don't have very high expectations for Sonic games anyway.

And no, most Sonic fan games aren't that great, even the better ones you've listed have noticeable flaws. SRB2, for instance, is an okay experience, but at the same time provides a really good example as to why Sonic should have a homing move when traversing a 3D space (purposefully attacking enemies is pointless and just awkwardly slows down the pace of the game).

But at the end of the day it's just a fan game, so it's really not that big of a deal. Especially not one worth being "convinced" about. Also Sonic World sucks.

[Tara]

I'm honestly kind of confused by the "fan games being terrible means people have high expectations for official titles" sentiment.  Because I er... I don't get the correlation between those two clauses.  Fan content is notoriously awful to the point where we have social outlets dedicated specifically to making fun of it.  This is true of any IP of any medium.  The sentiment that most fan games are awful has no bearing on my opinion towards the main series games.

[avidsonicfan1991]

I just wanted there to be a Sonic Fan Game that I absolutely love....... 

And worst of all, I haven't even played much of the official 3D Sonic games yet. I only played their beginnings because I wanted to test them out.......... T_T

Now, I don't hate those games, but it's been YEARS since I first bought them.....

EDIT: On second thought, I actually did play the majority of Secret Rings and Unleashed but never fully beat them.

[avidsonicfan1991]

.....Then am I NOT a Sonic fan for not playing the official games much.............?

I just need somebody to help me out and justify my state as a Sonic fan, even though I never played much of the 3D games.....

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

Not gonna lie, this completely unprompted and unnecessary quest for some kind of strange "validation" from other people for such strange reasons doesn't make sense to me.

But if you really need validation that you're a Sonic fan, here goes: You like Sonic. You're a Sonic fan. The end.

If it helps, I still haven't played a lot of the 3D games, haven't finished a lot of the games, and when I was young I played fan games more than the official ones because they were easier and plentiful.

[rosedust]

uhmmm it's just a game made by a couple of not professional ppl. did y'all expect a fullblown amazing game or sth? i've played it and i was shocked with how much i enjoyed it. you don't have to like it but i feel like it should be respected because of how much work was put into it. people have the right to be critical but it's really not that deep? 

[Celestia]

On one hand: I'm not a fan of the controls and a good deal of the level design. A lot of playable characters is a neat idea but I dislike that everyone is sorted into some overarching movesets instead of everyone having at least one unique ability of some kind. Even worse, while the game was always kinda clunky, I can forgive to a certain extent if the game is still clearly in development...the issue being that it doesn't seem like they've been smoothing it out at all, in fact I swear it feels even more broken than versions I played a couple years ago or so. Also this is a nitpick but while I don't mind voice clips for performing moves, having 'em for practically everything you do is uh...a bit much. Like it feels weird playing as, say, Gamma and hearing voice clips not only every time you fire at enemies but while jumping too.

On the other hand: You can play as the GUN Commander and that's sincerely (and hopefully intentionally) hilarious.

[Korke]

I think you guys are missing the point a bit.

The biggest weakness of Sonic World is the level design indeed, but do remember that they don't even make the levels at all. IIRC the only ones are the now-ancient Re-Seaside Hill, Re-Ocean Wave and Re-Final Rush. No wonder why they are the most polished out of them, although still linear. (ironically not as linear as Sonic Forces)....

All other stages were made by many other different people, which is why you can see the huge difference along design and visuals between each stage.

I think they should invest a little bit in level creation, but not themselves creating - make that crafting more accessible because dealing with binvox/raw 3d modeling for the stage is a pain in the ass.

Shoving characters is easy, they only need to get a model and repeat the animation patterns, that's why we have a insane number...