[TheKazeblade]

DigitalDuck, on 26 April 2015 - 11:59 AM, said:

Dude, on 26 April 2015 - 10:30 AM, said:

Of course you'd just mock instead of rebutting. Let's see you argue against it.

My simplest argument against it is that there have been good Sonic games.

But even the good ones have significant indications of being rushed. Honestly, despite the Werehog being a stupid idea, it was also the last game to have two gameplay styles that felt it had significant time put into it. There were tons of side missions given by NPCs, additional acts for each zone, and the Werehog's combat was surprisingly (and probably unnecessarily) in-depth. After that, barring the Story Book games, Sonic Team had a solid framework to utilize for future entries, so they could pump them out in less time; plus the fact they had two teams working separately to keep the pace. But despite marginally improving aspects of Unleashed's daytime stages, both Colors and Generations showed a significant lack of refinement within its own mechanics. Colors I can understand because they had to either scale down elements of 360/PS3 Unleashed, or upscale aspects of UnWiished, neither of which would probably be easy. But Generations, despite being the most mechanically sound from a gameplay perspective, also feels significantly rushed because of the sparse story, small level selection and huge amount of recycled content taking up probably over half of the overall game. Plus, despite it being the one Sonic game begging for DLC was left significantly sparse, offering only pre-order Casino Night zone pinball. For some reason, though, Sonic Team left it and moved on. I think the Unleashed mod made by the Retro members here has far more passion and effort put into it than Sonic Team would, but nonetheless, it shouldn't have been up to fans to do. It just seems like a no-brainer for Sega to make extra money for a fairly straight-forward process with a bigger team as they have.

Sega may not be swimming in resources, but they certainly have enough to offer Sonic Team to do more than they have. I can't see there being any other reason for it besides management choices.

[Yeow]

TheKazeblade, on 26 April 2015 - 03:35 PM, said:

But even the good ones have significant indications of being rushed. Honestly, despite the Werehog being a stupid idea, it was also the last game to have two gameplay styles that felt it had significant time put into it. There were tons of side missions given by NPCs, additional acts for each zone, and the Werehog's combat was surprisingly (and probably unnecessarily) in-depth. After that, barring the Story Book games, Sonic Team had a solid framework to utilize for future entries, so they could pump them out in less time; plus the fact they had two teams working separately to keep the pace. But despite marginally improving aspects of Unleashed's daytime stages, both Colors and Generations showed a significant lack of refinement within its own mechanics. Colors I can understand because they had to either scale down elements of 360/PS3 Unleashed, or upscale aspects of UnWiished, neither of which would probably be easy. But Generations, despite being the most mechanically sound from a gameplay perspective, also feels significantly rushed because of the sparse story, small level selection and huge amount of recycled content taking up probably over half of the overall game. Plus, despite it being the one Sonic game begging for DLC was left significantly sparse, offering only pre-order Casino Night zone pinball. For some reason, though, Sonic Team left it and moved on. I think the Unleashed mod made by the Retro members here has far more passion and effort put into it than Sonic Team would, but nonetheless, it shouldn't have been up to fans to do. It just seems like a no-brainer for Sega to make extra money for a fairly straight-forward process with a bigger team as they have.

Sega may not be swimming in resources, but they certainly have enough to offer Sonic Team to do more than they have. I can't see there being any other reason for it besides management choices.

I think the interesting thing about this bit is how it applies to outsourced Sonic games. Tasking Bioware --a developer known for their critically acclaimed RPG titles-- to make a Sonic RPG gave us Sonic Chronicles (which while critics considered good has a decidedly negative reception with the fanbase from what I've seen). Sanzaru Games, while not having as good as a quality track record as Bioware, had their recent work of decent titles under their belt, with their work on Sony remasters and Sly 4; so to get from them the likes of Shattered Crystal is surprising. While Hudson Soft's Mario Party games are by large notable for having the formula quickly stagnate after the first few titles or so, almost all of them were still better received than their tenure with Sonic through Sonic Shuffle. Even Dimps' Sonic games have been steadily declining in critical reception, notably when they stopped making original handheld titles. And this doesn't even get into STI's development hell of Sonic X-treme, regardless on whether the game would had been good enough it finished development and saw release is up for debate.

I'm not saying that Sega is wholly responsible for how those games turned out, and indeed other factors (may) have played a hand on the development of said titles in all three cases; but its just some food for thought.

This post has been edited by Yeow: 27 April 2015 - 06:12 AM

[Kiddo Cabbusses]

DigitalDuck, on 26 April 2015 - 11:59 AM, said:

My simplest argument against it is that there have been good Sonic games.

And the simplest rebuttal is the old saying "A broken clock is correct twice a day."

To see just how apt this phrase is, let's think back to the console Sonic games (Not counting non-action or other out-of-genre spinoff games like Riders, Olympic Games or All-Star Racing) released in the past 10 or so years.
Shadow
Sonic 2006
Secret Rings
Unleashed
Black Knight
Sonic 4 Episode 1
Colors*
Sonic 4 Episode 2
Generations*
Lost World
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
(2015 game incoming)

Note of of these, only two of the games are generally considered to be in the "good" range, rather than the "interesting but flawed" range, the "mediocre" range, or the "just plain bad" range. The 2015 Sonic console release needs to be good in order for me to think that saying is not completely apt.

So what would that saying mean in the context of this discussion? Basically, it's perfectly possible for Sega to have fluked out and made actual legit good Sonic games without understanding why it worked or how to capitalize on it. This is especially apparent seeing Lost World after Generations - the most critically acclaimed Sonic game in years is followed by one of the most "experimental" ones, instead of following up on a formula that was finally close to perfection. MANY notables over the history of the medium of video games were "good accidents" in some manner, and to go over a huge summary of them would take too long for this write-up. Point is, just because modern Sega made a few good Sonic games, doesn't mean they know HOW to make a few good Sonic games. For me to believe that Sega knows what works with Sonic, they need to make a pattern of good Sonic games.