Sonic Generations: PSN/XBL Demo

[KrazyBean]

Did you play the XBLA Demo of Generations? Noticed any improvments from Classic Sonic?

Also was it easier to turn Sonic with the Boost than it was in Unleashed? And in terms of slow-speed steering and Jump,did it felt closer to Colors than Unleashed?

The only improvements I noticed for Classic Sonic compared to the XBLA version are better graphics and tighter controls...everything else was about the same. I don't think that they are going to fix the rolling physics.

Modern Sonic feels much tighter compared to Unleashed. I didn't experience any delay when I pushed a button to do an action. Also, yes it is much, much easier to control Sonic when turning to a corner whilst boosting...one thing I realized is that when turning in Colours, Sonic doesn't turn in an arc like Unleashed/Generations but he leans to a direction instead. As for slow-speed situations, he is still a bit slippery but not nearly at the level of how slippery he was in Unleashed. As for jumping, it feels more like an upgraded Unleashed.

Hope this helps

When moving Modern Sonic, does he feel tighter than in Unleashed and/or Colours?

Yes. When turning he turns in an arc like in Unleashed. His jumping feels like an upgraded Unleashed.

The thing is that I can't really tell you how he feels, you have to experience if for yourself since your expectations are different from mine (like a 3DS, I can't explain how the 3D effect feels). That is why I'm hoping SEGA will release a Modern Sonic demo.

Edited June 25, 2011 by KrazyBean14

[Kuzu]

Thanks to a friend of mine for bringing his PS3 over, I was able to play the demo.

ITs...meh, Classic Sonic is definitely heavier than before, so it takes getting used to, the spin dash is definitely more overpowered than it was before, overall it was good, better than Sonic 4, just not quite perfect. I ran into a glitch however on one of the slopes, where he was stalled similar to the glitch found in the City Escape demo at Gamespot.

[Xenos]

I played the demo, instantly noticing that Classic Sonic felt a bit...stiff. It did take some getting used to, but after messing around with it, I was feeling alright with it. His jump is another story though, I've done multiple playthroughs, but something that never changes is how troublesome it can be to chain together enemy hops. The one that comes to mind first is the first one near the beginning of the stage. His jump is a bit weighty too, making me miss platforms sometimes. The spindash is as most people put it, way to overpowered. At full charge it launches you like the boost, only a lot more difficult to control where you're going. But if you don't spam it and use it in good places it is actually pretty helpful. I've found use for it in some places.

Overall it's looking good to me, with a few tweaks and quick fixes I'll be satisfied.

(And, first post! )

[DaBatGuy]

Got a new PS3 and finally got to play this demo. I liked it, it wasn't perfect but still a huge improvement over S4:E1. My only complaints are with the rolling, jumping, and spindash. Rolling doesn't work downhill without holding forward and uncurls too easily. Jumping is too heavy and stiff, it almost makes me long for S4's homing attack to compensate for it(blasphemy, I know) and the spindash has no speed control. It's either a tiny tap to tumble a few inches or hold for any amount of time to go from 0 to plaid instantly with nothing in between.

[Patticus]

I kinda got the feeling that instead of this game being a "skateboard" experience; getting given a great plaything and a playground within which to play with it in, Sonic Generations feels more like a "rollercoaster" experience - meaning that instead of doing what the hell you want within the confines of the world, you're forced to do what Sonic Team wants you to do.

It's a slightly irksome feeling. It'd be nice if Sonic felt free and flexible enough to pull this off again:

[Preston]

I kinda got the feeling that instead of this game being a "skateboard" experience; getting given a great plaything and a playground within which to play with it in, Sonic Generations feels more like a "rollercoaster" experience - meaning that instead of doing what the hell you want within the confines of the world, you're forced to do what Sonic Team wants you to do.

That's kind of been the case with Sonic games since they became "rollercoaster" experiences. I think since Sonic Advance 2. It's nothing new, but I would prefer a "skateboard" experience too. I think "skatepark" would be a more fitting term.

[Djawed]

So yesterday I was at a friend having some good times getting all wasted and doing some singstar for the lulz, I finally ended up remembering about the demo (kinda late I know).

Downloading and starting it, my first impressions after playing it are.

I had fun. Unconsiously I was playing the oldschool way without the spamdash and I gotta say it felt pretty great. The thing however is, the game has a lot of minor issues that became more apparent the more I played the game. The overpowered spindash (after 2 revs allready), the scripted ramps are the worst. There is this spring that brings you up a ramp and takes total controll away. I was like hey let me jump from the wallside and hit the buzzer from there but no input worked.

The classic gameplay has so much potential. The game feels so close, but yet so far away from it's goal. It's like all these little quircks could be fixed within an eye blink but because they use such a different method to program the physics, I don't think it is goign to happen sadly. I very much doubt it.

The game looks beautiful. Very cartoony which I FUCKING LOVE. THe visuals look astonishing. I played the game straightly after some L.A. noire and of course it can't compete with that. But the bright colors and amazing fantastical environment just make you gaze in surprise when paying attention.

So I left this part for last. After I played the game I told my friend to try it out himself. He was like naw this is not my sorta thing. I was like no go ahead try it out just once.

He started playing around with the controls and found out the spamdash. When he did you guys can all kind of guess what happened. The game became to look like a spamdashfest. The best thing of all is that he stopped pressing the d-pad for a long time which I didn't even know untill he fell down the corkscrew(mobius strip thing or whatever). It wasn't just stupid, but it also looked stupid and really overpowered. I wonder what their design phylosify behind it was because at the moment I think speedruns are gonna look lame and require a little effort to thought in how to use the terrain the best and tactifully stop and spindash at the right time only on flat surfaces like in the old days. I seriously don't get what it's doing there... He had a very empty look in his face while playing. I mean yeah he was just pressing one button most of the time. We were wasted so we started laughing at one point where i'd be like, is that all you're going to do? Then he'd do it again and laugh. Probably because it's so silly

One last gripe which wasn't all that apparent in such an easy first stage was the ringloss. I liked how they made the level design. It seems t hat you really gotta pay attention to not get hit but at the same time are not cheap. This game is really not designed for the ringloss system it got now like in sonic unleashed. I mean in sonic unleashed the possibility of having no rings would be almost zero even if you would get hit countles times because of the rediculous amount of ring placed. Here in generations it just begs for the allringloss to support the way it's designed with few ring placement.

I've pointed these things out before and I don't know what everyone's stance is on these point but to myself it's confirmed that I was right from just analyzing the footages. These new mechanics feel like they're making an allready easy game even more easy. As if they're trying to casualize the classic experience. I didn't expect however to have the fun i'd have with it but they have so much to fix in my opinion. It would be such a waste if they didn't

Edited June 26, 2011 by Jaouad

[RidersDX]

I played it and you know what, I had fun! I always forget how much I do enjoy my 2D Sonic platformers, especially when they resemble the classics more. Yes, the Spin Dash is spammy, but I personally had fun spamming the fuck out of it just like I did in Sonic Adventure. The jump is a little heavy so it was hard to make some jumps I wanted to make. But other then that, I actually am very satisfied surprisingly. I didn't go play it with high expectations, but I gotta say I'm very happy and am going to pre-order this game asap!

[Scar]

From SOS:

Modern Sonic is vastly superior to Unleashed in every way, with regards to controls.

The Spindash-drift is literally perfect in everyway. Smooth and tight, it just feels right. A significant improvement over Unleasheds heavily abusable drift. I'm not sure if you can abuse it in the same way you could Unleashed, never tried it.

Low speed controls are also much improved. Acceleration is a little slower, just enough so that it isn't too slow, but enough so that you don't slide around like a wet soap bar on an iceskating rink. The increased friction when running is great.

Also, the jump. I swear to god the jumping is better than Classics' jumping. Its a lot more controllable. Its still fairly tight and a little heavy, but its struck the perfect balance imo. Also boosting-jumping is a lot of fun (similar to spindash-jumping in the classics), you can really get a lot of air from it.

Edited June 26, 2011 by Scar

[Patticus]

That's kind of been the case with Sonic games since they became "rollercoaster" experiences. I think since Sonic Advance 2. It's nothing new, but I would prefer a "skateboard" experience too. I think "skatepark" would be a more fitting term.

[Scar]

That's partly why most Sonic games in that period have been critical flops: The dumbed-down "press forwards to win" ideology of the last decade. It's a bit depressing to, upon playing this, realize that Sonic Team still hasn't got over that. Just because Sonic is fast, doesn't mean he should always be running forward.

Sadly though, aside from a few moments where you get to jump higher or drop lower to get onto different paths, 90% of everything you do in this game feels pre-determined. Classic Sonic games just didn't do that. Every ramp, bend and spring feels so horribly scripted if you're not pressing the direction you were designed to go... Ramps will launch you to the exact same place no matter how hard you press left and right to nudge the chubby blue fella, and you can rarely bounce diagonally off an upwards spring, shooting you straight up like you're in an invisible tube.

I get the sad feeling a large percentage people that played the MegaDrive games back in the 1990s didn't notice the freedom they actually had, and don't miss it now that it's gone.

I haven't played classic yet, so I can't comment but yeah this kind of control is a must in 2D. Some of the scripted segments look like they've been put in there as a quick-fix, to some of the control issues with classic Sonic. Those S-tubes wouldn't work normally due to C.Sonic's additional rolling friction, so they needed to automate it so that it actually worked. I mean they even got rid of uncurling.....

Still, if we assert these flaws enough to the SEGA community team, they might actually fix it. Changing the control nuances and rolling issues won't have a decernable effect on the game, because level design looks distinctly classic in its approach.

Also proper controls would mean no need for automated segments.

I certainly do hope they fix it, but at the same time, its not going to ruin the game completely. Cmon Sonic Team, just get it right, we know you can.

[Patticus]

Oh, clearly it won't ruin the game completely. I acknowledge that, and also that it was fun to play despite my initial niggles and the more considered thoughts on the last page, and I am not saying that it's going to be a bad game. The problem, as far as I see it anyway, is that while the original MegaDrive titles were seemingly endlessly re-playable (I know I've hit up the MD games hundreds of times), this game won't be, pretty well can't be, all thanks to the scripting at work here.

If the scripting is there to hide poor gameplay mechanics or poor level design, then Sonic Team needs to buck up its ideas and recruit top talent, but if this game succeeds and the fans are content, they won't, because they will see no need to, and we will be content with second rate Sonic games believing that they are in fact first rate. That saddens me.

[ChikaBoing]

That's partly why most Sonic games in that period have been critical flops: The dumbed-down "press forwards to win" ideology of the last decade.

Oh no, that's certainly not the case. The Critics don't know how the Classics played. For them Rush is like the Genesis games.

Or at least no critic has yet pointed out that Generations feels even a tad different from the Classics.

If the scripting is there to hide poor gameplay mechanics or poor level design, then Sonic Team needs to buck up its ideas and recruit top talent, but if this game succeeds and the fans are content, they won't, because they will see no need to, and we will be content with second rate Sonic games believing that they are in fact first rate. That saddens me.

I don't see poor design...everything scripted could easily be changed to be more momentum based, cause like Scar said it's Classic in it's approach.

If anything why it's scripted is cause of Sonic Teams arbritary way of thinking the last decade. Something along maybe the lines of making it feel similar to Modern Stages with little details such as little scripted "thrill" segments,having both of them duck with B etc.

Edited June 26, 2011 by ChikaBoing

[Autosaver]

I didn't think MOST of the ramps were scripted, but they were. I was in the cave section right before the rock with the two springs. I jumped right at the moment where the U was and blasted up in the air. I'm pretty sure this was due to the fact the air launch was scripted and I executed it somehow. A bit disappointing.

The end with the corkscrew strip was really cheap. It was easy to die if you kept pressing spin. They should of made a higher path with the corkscrew or a lower path so you wouldn't fall into a bottomless pit. Sonic 4 didn't even do that in its first level.

[Blue Blood]

I didn't think MOST of the ramps were scripted, but they were. I was in the cave section right before the rock with the two springs. I jumped right at the moment where the U was and blasted up in the air. I'm pretty sure this was due to the fact the air launch was scripted and I executed it somehow. A bit disappointing.

[pppp]

Oh, clearly it won't ruin the game completely. I acknowledge that, and also that it was fun to play despite my initial niggles and the more considered thoughts on the last page, and I am not saying that it's going to be a bad game. The problem, as far as I see it anyway, is that while the original MegaDrive titles were seemingly endlessly re-playable (I know I've hit up the MD games hundreds of times), this game won't be, pretty well can't be, all thanks to the scripting at work here.

If the scripting is there to hide poor gameplay mechanics or poor level design, then Sonic Team needs to buck up its ideas and recruit top talent, but if this game succeeds and the fans are content, they won't, because they will see no need to, and we will be content with second rate Sonic games believing that they are in fact first rate. That saddens me.

Edited June 26, 2011 by pppp

[turbojet]

You're talking as if the classics never had scripted events.I'll list them:

-The tubes in Chemical plant.You're stuck just waiting for Sonic to finish getting through them

-The elevators in Launch Base.

-Those yellow flying rings in Death Egg(S&K).Even as a kid i always hated them.I remember there's one that takes like a whole 20 seconds to finish(or at least it feels that long).

-Those spheres in Oil Ocean.You're going from sphere to sphere and can't do anything till it's over

-Those spiders that grab you and take you to the other side of something in Flying Battery.Why couldn't we have a spring or something?

-Snowboarding in Ice Cap Zone.Yes you can jump,but come on,it doesn't really make any difference.

The Sonic Games have always had scripted events.

Come on people take your nostalgia glasses off.The classics are great games,but they're far from flawless.

[KrazyBean]

From SOS:

Modern Sonic is vastly superior to Unleashed in every way, with regards to controls.

The Spindash-drift is literally perfect in everyway. Smooth and tight, it just feels right. A significant improvement over Unleasheds heavily abusable drift. I'm not sure if you can abuse it in the same way you could Unleashed, never tried it.

Low speed controls are also much improved. Acceleration is a little slower, just enough so that it isn't too slow, but enough so that you don't slide around like a wet soap bar on an iceskating rink. The increased friction when running is great.

Also, the jump. I swear to god the jumping is better than Classics' jumping. Its a lot more controllable. Its still fairly tight and a little heavy, but its struck the perfect balance imo. Also boosting-jumping is a lot of fun (similar to spindash-jumping in the classics), you can really get a lot of air from it.

[pppp]

To be fair, most of those were part of the gimmick of the stage.

Edited June 26, 2011 by pppp

[Scar]

Oh, clearly it won't ruin the game completely. I acknowledge that, and also that it was fun to play despite my initial niggles and the more considered thoughts on the last page, and I am not saying that it's going to be a bad game. The problem, as far as I see it anyway, is that while the original MegaDrive titles were seemingly endlessly re-playable (I know I've hit up the MD games hundreds of times), this game won't be, pretty well can't be, all thanks to the scripting at work here.

If the scripting is there to hide poor gameplay mechanics or poor level design, then Sonic Team needs to buck up its ideas and recruit top talent, but if this game succeeds and the fans are content, they won't, because they will see no need to, and we will be content with second rate Sonic games believing that they are in fact first rate. That saddens me.

[KrazyBean]

WOW I wish I could try it. If only the stupid rabid fanbase would let the Sonic Team of today work only on what they do best (Modern Sonic Gameplay) maybe it would be even better

I hope after Generations the fans will allow Sonic Team to leave the classic gameplay behind and move on to the future.

As the end of "Meet the Robinsons" says: "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

Edited June 26, 2011 by KrazyBean14

[pppp]

Mate, you just asked for a death wish! You know how crazy Classic only Sonic fans can get...OH SNAP *puts up flame shield*

I personally think the only way Sonic Team can ever make something equal or better than the classics is to try to perfect their current formula,like the Old Sonic Team perfected theirs throughout Sonic 1-3.It would be equal/better than the classics,but for different reasons.Allow me to show a perfect example:

Zelda Ocarina of Time is the best Zelda game not because it emulated the "massively open to exploration" formula of the original Zelda on the NES perfectly,but because it told an epic story,it had a fun and inventive combat system, and had a huge replay value.

Edited June 26, 2011 by pppp

[Diogenes]

Zelda Ocarina of Time is the best Zelda game not because it emulated the "massively open to exploration" formula of the original Zelda on the NES perfectly,but because it told an epic story,it had a fun and inventive combat system, and had a huge replay value.

[Scar]

You mean Majora's Mask is the best Zelda game (in part) because of the massive exploration potential.

Edited June 26, 2011 by Scar

[pppp]

You mean Majora's Mask is the best Zelda game (in part) because of the massive exploration potential.

Edited June 26, 2011 by pppp