Realism in the Sonic games

[Phos]

Humans fitting next to Sonic is more than a matter of some kind of sliding scale of realistic vs. cartoony. You also have to consider other aspects, such as the level of detail (How large/distinct something has to be before they depict it), shading style, and several other aspects that I don't know enough about to explain coherently.

The reason I singled out the Xbox avatars as looking like they could fit the style (with some tweaking, mind you) is that they look a lot like how I imagine Robotnik would look if he were deflated.

SuperStingray: Yes.

[stublu]

My problem wasn't the realism, the characters were okay (except chip), but what I hated was the fact you HAD to talk to the people... It was so boring. The pointless side missions made the game harder but not more fun and I gave up because I couldn't find the next day time stages...

The Sonic Stages were brilliant. I like Sonic Cartoon and think Sonic is perfect for that world, and yet the day time stages were brilliant in Unleashed.

The Werehog, however, sucked. How can you hold those 2 next to each other? They are entirely separate games, and most people, when you create 2 storylines in a book, will love one and hate the other, and this is pretty much the same. It's not 50 / 50 either... Sonic Stages can be 5 minutes, Werehog is like 15 minutes.. I know they meant physically.

But seriously. The Werehog environments, since we're talking environments, weren't even that good. The clock Tower had a nice view but they stuffed it up by making me walk down the clock face - the amount of time I fell off the hands of the clock because of the crappy camera... Didn't make it any more fun, just stupid.

So if they remade it with realistic Sonic day time levels, I'd be happy. But I would LOVE to see Mobius back too. The realism works but... There's so much more imagination and possibility involved when creating a new universe. That's the best part about creating cartoon worlds - or maybe not necessarily cartoony, but worlds not based on earth. It could be a realistic Mobius.

[SuperStingray]

I don't really see how the day levels were any more like classic Sonic than the Werehog levels. In all honesty, I felt Unleashed was a great game overall, but a terrible Sonic game. The day stages were a blast to run through, but it feels like more of a racer than a Sonic title. Yet the Werehog stages involved more platforming and exploration, but brawling and medal hunting broke up the pace. I feel the main problem with Unleashed is not the Werehog stages, it's that it doesn't know what kind of game it wants to be. It adopts a lot of the elements from the classic Sonic games, but it splits them into two entirely different forms of gameplay and twists them. It's like asking for chocolate milk, but getting plain milk and a chocolate bar instead.

But I really didn't see much of a difference in environments between the two. At all. In fact, there were certain elements that the Werehog had the advantage of. With regular Sonic, you can blast through the stage and really feel how the speed changes everything. Like the panoramic views or seeing the trees blur by in Adabat. But with the Werehog, it's easier to appreciate the environment alone. Like the aurora borealis in Holoska or the view of nighttime in Spagonia on the clocktower.

But that's just me.

My problem wasn't the realism, the characters were okay (except chip), but what I hated was the fact you HAD to talk to the people... It was so boring. The pointless side missions made the game harder but not more fun and I gave up because I couldn't find the next day time stages...

You don't HAVE to do side missions. That's why they're called side missions. And you don't even have to talk to people all that much in the main game.

The Werehog, however, sucked. How can you hold those 2 next to each other? They are entirely separate games, and most people, when you create 2 storylines in a book, will love one and hate the other, and this is pretty much the same. It's not 50 / 50 either... Sonic Stages can be 5 minutes, Werehog is like 15 minutes.. I know they meant physically.

Why do people always say this? Sonic stages are on average 3-5 minutes while the Werehog stages are like 5-7. (With the exception of Shamar Night (about 3 or 4) and Holoska Night (about 8 or 10)) And there's more day stages than night stages anyway. Unless your playing the WiiS2 version, in which case I withdraw that as I know almost nothing about it. Edited April 18, 2009 by SuperStingray

[Thirsty Pocket]

Why?

People keep saying Eggman doesn't count whenever they talk about humans in the Sonic franchise. Whether it's their appearance, their role in the plot, etc., they have this mentality that Eggman is somehow not human. And it's a mentality I'll never understand- The man is clearly human, and the most prominent one in the series. It stands to reason that he's relevant to human discussion because of that.

Blame the cartoons and comics.

They tried so hard to pound it into people's heads that Dr. Robotnik was not human, but in fact, a robot or a cyborg or something like that. Do they forget about Snively though?

[Diogenes]

To be honest I never really got that sense. Well, cyborg, sure, at least for SatAM-styled Robotnik, but even then he's still a human, just one with a few modifications. And I can't think of anything in AoStH that implied he wasn't just flesh and blubber.

[Thirsty Pocket]

What about the coal black eyes and red iris?

[Diogenes]

Strange, probably evil, but not proof of not being human. More just a cartoon thing than anything. And even if they're robot eyes, like I said, cyborgs are just humans with upgrades.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

My problem wasn't the realism, the characters were okay (except chip), but what I hated was the fact you HAD to talk to the people... It was so boring.

...

Okay, I really don't mean to shoot someones nuts off when I say this, but why in the hell are there people draging that bullshit out just to rip on Unleashed? It's like people willingly go up to the people to talk to them and then complain when they don't have anything useful to say about the whole game when that was the freaking point in the first place. They're just there to BE there, the population serving to fill the game with more life than one with just a forest with absolutely nothing but a superfast hedgehog and robots, and they're not that essential to get from one level to the next.

Now I can understand how getting to the second Apotos level could fool someone into asking folks after the cutscenes on whether anyone knew about Chip. Hell, when Sonic said in the scene "Let's ask around and see if anyone knows about you" that makes the player do just that, and it's strange that they never really needed to do so in the first place.

After that point however, majority of the talking to the people is done by choice. There are only TWO points in the game where you have to talk to anyone, and aside from that you're doing it on your own part.

Seriously, enough with that junk...

[ovarloard]

...

Okay, I really don't mean to shoot someones nuts off when I say this, but why in the hell are there people draging that bullshit out just to rip on Unleashed? It's like people willingly go up to the people to talk to them and then complain when they don't have anything useful to say about the whole game when that was the freaking point in the first place. They're just there to BE there, the population serving to fill the game with more life than one with just a forest with absolutely nothing but a superfast hedgehog and robots, and they're not that essential to get from one level to the next.

This may apply to the PS360 version, but in the Wii version I felt the talking was pointless. Since the hubs were text-based, there was no need for people to fill it up. They tell you where to go, and most often the person you talk to has nothing useful to say. It's not like in the 360 version where you have almost absolute freedom; to walk around and talk to anyone you choose.

[Diogenes]

Yeah, the hubs in the Wii/PS2 version are worse than no hubs at all, and I'm the kind of person who generally wouldn't mind having hubs. It's just choosing random options from a menu, skipping through all the text, until you find who you need to find. Then you skip their text, go find whoever you need to find next...

[ovarloard]

Yeah, the hubs in the Wii/PS2 version are worse than no hubs at all, and I'm the kind of person who generally wouldn't mind having hubs. It's just choosing random options from a menu, skipping through all the text, until you find who you need to find. Then you skip their text, go find whoever you need to find next...

It takes forever to actually get to playing the levels after exploring the hubs, when still progressing through the story mode.

Somehow, the critics thought this was actually an improvement over the hubs in the 360 version.

[JezMM]

I also found it kind of annoying that they chose some of the ugliest humans in the game to thinly populate the WiiS2 version's hubs. Hell, you can't even talk to the ice-cream guy, and due to lack of exorcism missions, there's never even any closure on the poor guy after his second cut-scene. =(

At least the WiiS2 version got the Gaia Gates, but the fact they had the time to design so many mini-levels to go in them shows they could have spent that time making real hubs, even if they were different looking from the 360 ones. I guess the Gaia Gates do just use existing objects from the levels though... hubs would require a lot of extra character modelling...

But yeah, I agree with above posters. Human talking gets too much hate. You only ever HAVE to talk to them twice (Trying to learn that the Professor was taken to Mazuri, and trying to learn that there's a temple in Mazuri), and you only get optional hints from them THRICE (Learning to go to the Entrance Stage, Finding the University, Finding Pickle's New Lab).

That's why they highlighted the entrance stage with such a huge floating icon... so you can find it easily and head straight there if you want to.

Edited April 18, 2009 by JezMM