QUOTE (0r4ng3 @ Jul 17 2010, 11:10 PM)
Giving SOA to Sonic right now would bring more problems then solve them. SOA right now, is nothing, and has no power whatsoever to do anything about it. Hiring more people is out of the question, as if complete outliers would have a clear grasp of what the series is, or better, what the classic fans think the series should return to. Moving the team there would solve nothing either, as Sonic Team USA had what, two decent games, that are nothing of what Sonic 4 should be? The series coming to the west won't magically fix anything, programmers with a clue will. Sonic 2 and 3 & Knuckles were great because of the people behind it, not because they were made in US soil. This conversation sounds like every game reviewer that thinks 2D = good, 3D = bad for Sonic. One thing has nothing to do with other.
Yes. SoJ are money-minded. No questions there.
However, simply shoving Sonic 4 down to the US won't help. SoA was all but liquidated in favor of SEGA West/Europe.
Yuji Naka formed Sonic Team USA, partly to penetrate the western audience more, and partly because it gave him more freedom as a programmer and developer.
Yuji Naka then left a few years after Sonic Team USA was merged with Sonic Team Japan.
I assume this is because of lack of freedom. Naka himself said he left, because he was so high up the food chain, that he was no longer allowed a direct hand in the programming.
SoJ's lack of concern was a problem.
It is still a problem, but with the formation of SEGA West, things may change. I honestly hope SoJ just hand over the Hedgehog to the people who are, and give them a very large budget.
initially it won't produce such a high profit, because of scepticism from gamers and high production values, but eventually, after you've once again established that Sonic is once again amoung the Gods of platforming, you'll start printing money as fast as Nintendo. Not only because unknowing parents buy the game, but because gamers in general will buy the games because they will be worth their time.
However, Sonic 4 shouldn't receive such massive budgets nor attention.
What SEGA need to do is form a "Retro Studios" Knock-off; something like "Classic Team". They can either do this by hiring new blood, either from Uni's or diverting staff from other divisions of Sonic Team. Or they could just get Prope to handle said games, seeing as SEGA owns a part of it (that way Naka can actually program, and he'll enjoy it more).
I still maintain 3D games deserve more attention, because Sonic
needs to be good in 3D. He's already good in 2D, even his worst 2D games are better than some of the 3D ones and can't even be called "bad".
QUOTE
Everything I've seen of it makes it look like a bad game. It's ugly with enemy placement that ranges from poor to dire and relies too much on a small selection of set pieces. It sounds like I'm describing some kind of crappy NES game here.
No its bad to
you (read: Online Communities). The badnik placements are not as good as Sonic 3 and Knuckles. Why is it, that if something isn't as good as S3K, it isn't good at all?
The aesthetics are debatable, a lot of people think it looks good. It doesn't look or sound like a "Crappy NES game" at all, that's just being hyperbollic.
A lot of others, professionals, gamers in general, it looks good. To a lot of people at E3, it was great to play.
Are these people stupid or ignorant? No. Not at all. They just haven't been playing the classics enough to appreciate some of its less obvious positives (badnik placements, level transitions), and they haven't looked into Sonic 4 enough to notice its less obvious flaws (Physics engine: you can't see it, but you can "feel" it, but they're rushing to the end too fast to notice or care).
Yes, its not as good as the classics, but it is not. I repeat NOT a bad game. Is it good enough to be Sonic 4? Maybe not, but it can stand in good stead as a Solid standalone title.
This post has been edited by Scartillery: 17 July 2010 - 05:43 PM
