Touhou 6, 7, and 8 are all fantastic games. I'm not really into the doujin scene apart from the music remixes (and for most the music tracks I actually think they are better in the games). Touhou 6 is pretty brutal (they are all very difficult of course) but I think they are well balanced in difficulty on the whole. You can use continues and start with many lives. I think Touhou 7 is probably the most balanced one. Most accessible too. But I think it's worth playing 6, 7, and 8 in order, because I think it does very cool things with the characters and it is best represented in gameplay: who becomes playable in subsequent entries and who you fight as bosses.
I don't see why. The way they fire at you is very reminiscent of that franchise and not the more obvious visual homages Spoiler Galaga or Aesteroids I noticed those too but the general feeling of the levels was closer to that franchise than the others.
I know Sonic Team isn't as big as it used to be, but I'm not sure why the game is still so janky. The easiest thing to do is to blame Sega for not giving them the right amount of time or budget (even though they delayed the game by a whole year), but I think some blame has to fall on the actual developers. Like Sonic sometimes freaks out when all you're doing is just running forward.
I've hated the way that Sonic controls after jumping in every game starting with with Colours, until Frontiers. Now in Frontiers it still isn't perfect and it still requires you to double jump to get full-range, but for free first time since Unleashed I feel like I can actually control Sonic after committing to a jump. If you're boosting in the air, then yeah your jump control is still fucked. But otherwise Sonic finally has some degree of air control and it made 3D platforming actually possible again. I'd compare it to Unleashed. It's workable for all the 3D platforming the game exists you to do, but could still be a lot tighter.
Honestly I want someone to take the green hill zone assets and create a open zone area by combining/rearranging the map from Utopia, Green Hill Paradise and Speed Simulator. To be clear, I did not and do not want Sega to make a green hill open zone for an official product… but it would be a fun mod
I meant Spoiler Ikaruga. The game with black and white color swapping and absorbing shots to fill a super attack.
Yeah. Spoiler It's clearly imitating Ikaruga but there are still clear parallels you can draw to Touhou, intentional or not. You swap between light and dark shots in Touhou 8 and some of the bullet patterns are exactly the same as those in Touhou 7. I understand a generic trope but makes it similar enough to be reminded of the series.
Sonic Team would do well to focus on the positive and not to dwell on the negative. I'm only a few hours into the third island, but can already tell that this is one of the fastest and coolest games that I've played in a long time. But there were a couple of things that almost ruined it for me. For example, when I'm like, "Oh, that would be a good place to use the Drop Dash!", but it just won't work, or how Sonic Team don't seem to get the hang of Ian's writing yet... As I've already said, I'm really enjoying the freedom the game gives you. Ares Island was perfect in that regard. Sonic Frontiers features an insane amount of ideas and quality of life elements and I'm loving it so far. Don't know how they want to top that without alienating what people like about it.
Spoiler Ikaruga released a full 3 years before Touhou 8. If your introduction to the mechanic came from the latter, that's cool. But the former was actually released on Sega hardware, by a company that had a close relationship with Sega at the time. It's more likely to be a reference to the former than the latter.
Oh whoops, I've never played that so I wouldn't know. I think it's a rather obscure reference and that's cool I just don't feel bad for not catching it.
If I had a nickel for every time The Jimquisition was hard on a Sonic game that everybody else seemed to like, I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice. Also, yeah the pinball is naff but it's still not the nadir of shitty pinball in this franchise. Cough heroes Cough.
Is it really pinball in Heroes though? I'd say that's just more like navigating a giant pinball table as a level set piece than actually playing pinball.
I'm not doubting that was the reference at all! Just that I can understand why people made that connection in their heads. I certainly did! I will ask though... Spoiler To those more familiar with shoot em ups and bullet hells, is the uncurling bullet attack (from right of screen to left) a traditional bullet pattern?
I can't recall the specific thing your referring to but generally it isn't anything I haven't already seen elsewhere.
Spoiler I think I know what you mean simply by the description. The one that looks like it's "unfolding" with a bunch of slow bullets to a bunch of fast ones? CAVE has games that do that kind of thing all the time. To the point that I take it for granted and can't actually remember which ones specifically. I'm sure it's in Esp Ra. De. and Ketsui, for example. I kind-of recommend the former (though the best version of that now requires a Japanese Switch account). The latter's the kind of game you have to want to be a super player to have the kind of patience for if I'm being honest, and especially with an audience that prefers platformers like Sonic. That's a bit of the problem with a lot of CAVE's works overall, though. It's really preaching to a choir.
I think it's time for me to pull the trigger. While some of you here are being understandably critical about this game (*cough*laura*cough*), what's fascinating to me is that the general gaming public seems to 'really' like this game, even despite the flaws. The reactions I'm reading from the general gamer public love the core gameplay to the point that they're willing to tolerate so-so execution on other details. And the early sales numbers seem to be backing it up. This is not flawless, but to the general audience it's now one of the "good ones". I've waited long enough. I didn't pre-order it. I didn't buy it day 1. I've waited for reports on glitches and read about them, knowing what to expect. Sonic Team did fix some complaints I had about Origins in patches, so they're not as much on my sh*tlist now. I'm ignoring reviews (positive or negative) and going entirely off of consumer vibes/general consensus and player feedback. It sounds like this is worth my 60$, if for no other reason than playing with the superb OST at 60FPS and gameplay sounds fun. Sales sound like they will be very good for this title, much better than Forces. Despite all our Blue Blur has been through, people still want to root for him too. And it appears that I can safely count on the mod community to once again save this game down the line if patches don't.
Yeah, Sonic fans are incredibly mixed on it, but there's a reason why it's Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam right now: it's unique, it does what it sets out to do, and there's nothing like it in the gaming market right now besides everyone and their mother saying BotW knockoff. There hasn't been a new, proper Sonic game in five years, and most of the platformer market, even indie, is inundated with Crash's traditional revival, Mario knockoffs, and shooters like Ratchet & Clank. I think the only game out there I can think of trying to do Sonic's own thing is Spark the Electric Jester 3, and that's not getting anywhere near the attention it deserves. Sonic has a market and appeal that Sega has completely failed to capitalize on, but Frontiers hit at a prime time thanks to the movies and broadened attention to show that there's still a market and there's still appeal, and now there's success in it if they can learn to strike while the iron's hot. And, y'know, not fudge it up.
It’s worth it for sure. Though it’s rough around the edges, it’s basically “Sonic CD intro: the game” in the sense that you get to run around big open areas as Sonic doing crazy shit.
Tried the game on my Steam Deck. It runs like shit even with all the suggested community tweaks. How could STeam do this to me...Forces ran flawlessly.
Expect the reviews for Sonic Frontiers to go lower now that Donkey released a video playing bad on purpose and making it look worse than it was.
