[sandwichbars]

I was just reading the 'Sonic and the Worst Fandom Ever' blog when I came across little tidbit about Sonic Heroes that aroused a shitload of curiosity deep within me:

Quote

...The problem occurred when Sony decided to interfere. According to legend, Sonic Heroes was originally going to be on Gamecube and XBox only. However, Sony told SEGA the same thing they had told Capcom numerous times: “Release this on Playstation 2 or you'll never be allowed to release games on a Sony brand console ever again”. The PS2 was the dominant console that generation and being prevented from releasing titles on it could doom a company. However, SEGA was terrible at programming for the PS2. They had even produced a number of Dreamcast titles in the past that flat-out could not be done on PS2. But now, SEGA had to take a title they had already partially finished and move it from it's own proprietary engine to something that could easily be ported to all three consoles: Renderware. This sudden engine shift probably put them far behind schedule and messed up any chance to really polish the game as much as it needed to be. This caused SEGA to produce yet another sub-Adventure title.

According to this article, Heroes is a mess and we all have Sony to blame. What's even more interesting is that they were using a different, most-likely stable engine before all of that shenanigans took place. Could it have been a heavily-tweaked Adventure engine? Who knows? But what really gets my gears turning is that somewhere... hidden deep within Sega's vaults full of unseen Sonic protos/POCs is a playable version of said theoretical prototype... anyways please fill me in with any info I'm not aware of; I really want to know all about this.

This post has been edited by sandwichbars: 05 October 2011 - 08:05 AM

[Blivsey]

...heheh. I've heard of that blog. I've also heard that they are particularly volatile.

Personally, I don't hate Renderware; it could've used much tweaking, and it definitely isn't superior to the Adventure engine, but I didn't dislike it.

Also, I'm gonna say Heroes is my first and favorite 3D Sonic title, and I definitely wouldn't call it a mess; it's just different from what we were used to at the time. As soon as I get a chance to play it again, I'm gonna record a certain glitch I found years ago that I have yet to see documented.

[sandwichbars]

Don't get me wrong, Heroes is what got me into the whole Sonic fandom. Sure, it's... patchy in areas, but I was just recapping the quote when I called it a mess. And I'm looking forward to this glitch you speak of. Seems fairly interesting the way you said it.

[Elektro-Omega]

I hated the PS2 Sonic Heroes. Literally only because if you pressed the leader switch buttons (Triangle and possible Circle (It's been a while since I played)) too quickly it would double change. I never played the Xbox or Gamecube versions but it looked like it remedied this slightly.

It's definately intriguing that they (apparently) made a swift switch to Renderware from their proprietary engine. What I'm more curious about is how different is PS2 dev when compared to Gamecube or Xbox. I mean, if they were planning a Gamecube and Xbox release with the proprietary engine and then had to hastily move to Renderware, was it because of the limitations of the PS2? or because the PS2 had a completely different architecture?

Also, if I remember correctly, Shadow the hedgehog was built on the Sonic Heroes engine. Does this mean if the proprietary engine had been used we could have ended up with a fairly different Shadow the Hedgehog game?

Edit: I think what I'm mainly interested in is why. Why did they use Renderware for the PS2? Why could the dreamcast titles not be done? what about the PS2 makes it unworkable with the proprietary engine?

This post has been edited by Elektro-Omega: 05 October 2011 - 08:54 AM

[Blivsey]

sandwichbars, on 05 October 2011 - 08:32 AM, said:

Don't get me wrong, Heroes is what got me into the whole Sonic fandom. Sure, it's... patchy in areas, but I was just recapping the quote when I called it a mess. And I'm looking forward to this glitch you speak of. Seems fairly interesting the way you said it.

Yeah, could've read into your post a little better. And I'm only posting when I can produce evidence.

[Black Squirrel]

They say the Japanese video game industry struggles with game prodution.

In the west, the model is based on PCs. Rather than out-right replacing hardware it is merely updated, and there is a big focus on the intense world of first person shooters, whose code is also constantly updated rather than completely replaced. John Carmack says there's code from Quake III in Rage, and there's a ten year gap between the two. There won't be any Sonic Adventure 2 code in Sonic Generations. You get people like Epic who create Unreal, then license out their engine to other developers allowing them to make games far quicker.

This model... doesn't really exist in Japan. The Japanese build a proprietary engine for almost every game, and many big Japanese companies actually hire translators just to translate the Unreal Engine documentation, solely because there is no Japanese alternative (though I hear Konami's building one?).

At a time were Sega were making heavy losses, it makes absolutely no sense to keep developing engines which will only be used once or twice, especially if the aims weren't to make something cutting edge (Sonic Heroes is no Doom 3).


No, the design of a game should take into account time and engine restraints. Sonic Heroes' flaws are mostly design faults - the decision to have three characters on screen at once, the awkward parts in the story such as reviving dead Shadow etc..

[Kail]

Sonic Heroes could've been a good game if these following notes were taken into account:

-The team mechanic was terrible and slowed down classic Sonic gameplay by making me stop to think if I needed Tails or Knuckles at this specific time. Usually this came up during a speedy part of a level, not a regular puzzle part of the level.
-Hearing poorly done voice over clips THROUGHOUT THE LEVEL that doesn't move the story along. I'm a loner by nature, I do most of everything alone, when I'm grocery shopping I'm not having a conversation with my Fly and Power teammates.
-Terrible models. They honestly made the characters look like bad plastic action figures. I'm not playing LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog, I wanted an actual Sonic game.
-Having to replay each level in a DIFFERENT way four times. I didn't like it the first time, WHY would I like it the other 3 times? That's right. I won't.
-Terrible story with next to no character development or character interactions that keep me invested enough to WANT to play the game. Maybe if the gameplay was astounding I wouldn't care, but since it wasn't I never bothered to finish Sonic Heroes, and I've tried.

Overall, it was a terrible gaming experience, the only thing that would've made the game better is if you literally got to see a semi-decent resolution .MPG of Iizuka literally dropping trou and shitting on Yuji Naka, copies of the original games, and a Sonic doll. It would've been worth the $50 I paid in January 2004 to have been able to see a japanese man defecate over everything I ever loved as a child rather than have to live through it.

As a matter of fact, I probably would've rather hearing that Iizuka went crazy and kidnapped Natali Holloway while on a routine child abduction trip to Aruba than be forced to play another mid-2000's Sonic the Hedgehog game designed by that man.

Call me old fashioned, but I was always a student of the thought that a crazy man is better suited killin' harmless innocents than designing video games, he probably would've gotten murder right his first try, as for games he has yet to wow me with a game. Maybe Generations will clear that up.

[Felik]

/My opinion is an indisputable fact mode on/
Sonic Heroes is a great game. It was a lengthy Sonic experience (save for bosses and some cheap deaths though) that is not crowded by "gimmicky" mechanics. It looks great, it sounds great and it is really enjoyable. I doubt that using a different engine could make it any better.
/My opinion is an indisputable fact mode off/
In all seriousness it is at least a descent game with pretty visuals, lovely music and actually sonic gameplay. Wanna play a really bad game? Go play Shadow the hedgehog.

This post has been edited by Felik: 05 October 2011 - 09:47 AM

[SteelBrush]

Heroes wasn't that bad, it just wasn't that good either, it was mostly incredibly average. What really let the game down was it's level design and it's broken gimmicks. It was just linear paths in the sky surrounded by death pits with mechanics that simply didn't work.

Another issue is that the levels looked bland and empty as fuck. I played the GCN version and the levels in SA2B were filled with more visual variety. Iizuka states in an interview that he wanted all versions of the game to be the same on all platforms, fair enough but would it really of done any damage to add some extra foliage and other details to the GCN and Xbox versions.

It would be very interesting to see the original proto but I seriously doubt that it would have become a better game, the same flawed design issues still would have been present.

[Andlabs]

Is there any other source for this Sony claim? Also asking on the Capcom side.

Also I liked Sonic Heroes, though I had the GameCube version. It and Advance 2 are the most recent Sonic games I've seriously played (send me newer consoles and I'll play the more recent games), though I started the iPhone version of Sonic 4 Episode 1 recently (had bought it a while ago but eh; so far my only complaint is not enough is shown on screen at once for instance during the homing onto swing vines section; eh).

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 05 October 2011 - 10:31 AM

[Scarred Sun]

Andlabs, on 05 October 2011 - 10:28 AM, said:

Is there any other source for this Sony claim? Also asking on the Capcom side.

Also I liked Sonic Heroes, though I had the GameCube version. It and Advance 2 are the most recent Sonic games I've seriously played (send me newer consoles and I'll play the more recent games), though I started the iPhone version of Sonic 4 Episode 1 recently (had bought it a while ago but eh; so far my only complaint is not enough is shown on screen at once for instance during the homing onto swing vines section; eh).

Seconding a call for this, as this is an opinion-based piece and I could very easily drag counterexamples on a lot of things that were said. It's kind of useless, really. Yes sonic fans hurr durr we get it.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

I never had an issue with Sonic Heroes. The team thing didn't slow the game down at all- it took microseconds to realise what team member you needed, and half of the time it would switch for you. It was my second Sonic game (behind Advance 2) after being reintroduced to Sonic a couple of years down the line from the late nineties. The only problem with the game it that very occasionally you'll come across things that could have been paid more attention to, like the light-dash glitch in the Rail Canyon/Bullet Station zone where if you lightdash off the edge the character will then stop and do his ledge animation but then fall off anyway instead of following the rings. That said, issues like this occured with much more frequency in the two prequels.

It's the only 3D Sonic game (apart from the more recent Colours) that has really nailed the feel of a 2D Sonic game's environment in 3D. The scenery was gorgeous, vibrant, detailed and well textured, and the story wasn't as full on as the Adventures, but still had that awesome twist at the end where everything turned out to be Metal Sonic. Having been reintroduced to the series at this point (and I can imagine loads of people were at this time), I didn't realise it could have been Metal Sonic at all.

The characters all sounded how they should have, and hearing Sonic's proper voice for the first time felt right for me. Yeah, this game nailed it. It's still great to play today.

I even liked all the teams, they were involved, but didn't take the limelight away from it being a SONIC game, because of how everything felt. You would always want to go and play as Sonic in the end, being the preferable storyline with the best and most balanced objectives in the levels.

This post has been edited by SpeedStarTMQ: 05 October 2011 - 11:39 AM

[360]

Heroes was a pretty epic let down in the brief experience I had with it. It did some things very right like fantastical and colourful environments that echoed the Genesis games but the core mechanics of the gameplay made for a somewhat painful and underwhelming experience. I clocked around 120 hours in Sonic Adventure 2 and only ever played through Heroes once which I think speaks volumes. You could really tell that Sonic Team lost some heart in the transition from the Dreamcast onwards.

Also sorry but I just have to quote this (from the same article):

Quote

What you see right here is the worst of the Sonic fandom distilled into a single person. In this video, the fan complains because of Sonic's eye color. He then complains that, due to Sonic's eye color, that Sonic 4 is nothing more than a DS port of Sonic Rush (again, a spectacular title though it bears little to no resemblance to Sonic 4) and that the game is not enough like the old Genesis titles. Keep in mind, this is all based on about 6 seconds of gameplay footage. Best of all, like any truly insane Sonic fan, he then blames the children.

It's worth noting that the person in the video had tried to make his own Sonic fan movie, which also used a green eyed Sonic almost identical in design to the one in Sonic 4. His reasoning being that he didn't want to alienate newer fans and created a middle ground between the old and new Sonic designs. Why he is able to do this, but SEGA isn't is beyond me. Though I'm sure it has something to do with the number four being in the game's title.

Take a guess at who the author is referring to.

[Shadow Hog]

I almost guarantee you that despite the engine change, Heroes would still have been a let-down. I mean, I'm fairly certain Shadow was not hindered by such a required engine change, and it still sucked harder than a baby with a pacifier. The problem was largely with the team behind it, not the engine they were using.

[Kogen]

A poor idea mixed with shoddy developers means it would not have changed much. I would not blame Sony at all for Sonic Team USA's lack of talent, creativity, or even basic design skills. They were just as bad prior to Sonic Heroes with Sonic Adventure DX.