Sonic Generations Megathread

Well that's what I'm hoping. However Unleashed and Colors, the "modern" games if you will, ditched the revamped S3K jingle in favor of some random orchestra stuff for no real reason.

 

And exactly what is it about that video we've just seen that is NOT Shamar with a new coat of paint?

It is mechanically identical. Just... with a greener, re-hashier backdrop.

EDIT:

"The entire point of Sonic 4 is to be a throwback, with Dr. Eggman revisiting his old creations to try and defeat Sonic as a direct homage to the old S1-2-3-K. Sonic 06 was utter tripe with what it did, Sonic 4 giving us a creative and mind blowing look at the most iconic level in the Sonic franchise.
Yes, this game rehashes levels. That's the entire point. If you're expecting anything different, you're going to be immensely disappointed."

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over how double standards you are.

 

I'd like to see some evidence for your claims as all you're saying is IT'S IDENTICAL TO SHAMAR, JUST GREENER. I'd like to see the part where pillars fall apart in Green Hill Zone.

 

And there's not sand all over the place either. This does not invalidate my analogy.

 

They're the game's respective theme songs.

Sand makes a big difference. Have you ever gotten damn sand stuck on you? Damn irritating. Grass is much less clingy. And softer. Most of the time.

 

I love how some folks are complaining about textures and such as if the game is 100% never-gonna-change finished. Because a couple of problems to neat-freaks in a preview will ruin the entire game.

The uncurl thing might be a bother, but other than that, what's been shown appears to be pretty good - appears to be. The whole picture hasn't been painted yet.

Funnily enough, from all the YouTube comments I've seen, there's 50 or so complaints about complainers for every one actual complaint.

 

Not sure why you guys are taking Frozen Nitrogen seriously.

Anyway, my reaction to the videos was the same as Tweaker's. The two different gameplay styles between C. Sonic and M. Sonic was a bit of a surprise to me because I fully expected both characters to play the same stages. Either way, I'm glad that they're different. :D

Also, I totally called it! M. Sonic will have Boosting and Homing Attack while C. Sonic will have Spin Dashing and Rolling!

 

HOLY CHRIST. Best news ever. I am in awe at how amazing this looks. Green Hill Zone looks like sex. This game looks almost too good. How could they fuck up for so long and then just come up with something fucking perfect out of the blue.

Classic, Dreamcast and Modern? It's like they're giving the child and the teenager in me everything I could have ever wanted. I am buying a 360 (again) for this game. If this has Ice Cap Zone in glorious 2D and 3D I will explode.

I'm buying this day one and tearing through it. The last time I was this excited was with Sonic 3 on the Megadrive and then Sonic Adventure 2 on the Dreamcast. This deserves a midnight launch. Sega redeemed.

TLDR: I'm with Tweaker and Hez. This is just fucking unbelievable.

 

I get what you're saying. Unleashed's levels struggled to feel unique, right? They could have slapped a Jungle Joyride paint-job on Skyscraper Scamper and ultimately there'd be very little to stop us calling it another JJ act. The exact same could apply to this rendition of GHZ. I'll bite, that is where Unleashed's level design problems lie. Gimmicks of any kind were far and few between and it was more or less the same thing with a different layout. There wasn't enough meat to make them different. The bones were there- icy paths in Cool Edge, those rotating discs in Dragon Road and the fountains in Rooftop Run -but there wasn't a lot of it at all, and what we were given was actually kind of basic. I won't complain if M.Sonic's gameplay is like that because I still enjoy Unleashed HD, but seeing more gimmicks and whatnot would certainly be a massive plus. It's just going to be hard for the devs to add them to this kind of gameplay without it being jarring (again, a flaw with the design of this kind of gameplay).

Still, I'm going to keep in mind the following:
1- We've only seen GHZ, the first level, so far. WI in Unleashed was also devoid of anything to make it stand out. Granted the other stages didn't have an awful lot, they were at least very different layout wise.
2- Unleashed's main daytime stages were fun regardless of the lack of variety.
3- The Classic gameplay is almost certainly going to be more varied. We get all that and the boost-fests that were in Unleashed.

 

Why Shamar, though? Why not Mazuri or Apotos?

Either way, Sonic Generations just looks way nicer. It feels way better than the promos for Sonic 4 did, and judging from the direct feed off the interview, there's way more living detail to look at in the 3D space as you're going by. That's a plus for me. But hey, if a promo makes you feel good about a game, then it's doing its job. At least the first trailer shows us some actual gameplay.

And no, I still haven't played HD Unleashed, so I don't have the same frame of reference as most of you guys, so I'll let the experts continue to deliberate on the matter.

 

Well. I confess to being pleasantly surprised at someone actually understanding my point rather than screaming "BAWWWWW GHZ" over and over and over again. Good show, Blood. Yes, that's very much what I am getting at.

There's nothing in that video that WOULDN'T work mechanically or thematically as part of Shamar if you just slapped a desert texture on it instead of a GHZ texture. Hence: Shamar pallete swap. QED. Level-specific gimmikry remains woefully absent.

Fair point, though it's hard to discuss levels we've not seen. I remain worried that it's going to be a re-hash-athon - which, however well-intentioned, will fail to slake my thirst for new level themes. The Final Fortress from SASASR looked fucking brilliant, but that didn't stop it being the same smoke and fire factory I've seen a trillion times before. At least mix some new in with the old, Sega, PLEASE.

I don't contest this in the slightest. ^_^

Hmmm... unconvinced. Especially if they're really TRYING to be The Rehashinator 2000. Considering the bile they got for S4's homing attack, I can genuinely see Classic gameplay actually being Sonic 1's physics and moveset.
Which is all well and good, but certainly not a smorgasbord of variety.

I had to pick ONE of them. Shamar had the most canyon-y backgrounds.

 

Discussion is better than BAWWWWWWing most of the time.

Hm. I'm not sure there'll be much mixing. At least the layouts are brand new and the environments are going to look fresh. See this and this. You're probably going to be disappointed on the front of wanting to see some new stuff added to the mix. It's possible, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Fair do's. I'm just going to wait and see. I'd honestly be surprised the none of the levels, Classic or Modern style, amounted to little more than new acts. There's sure to be plenty of variety considering that all of the zones are from a collection of previous titles.

 

You make good points as you usually do, but I for one am pleased so far with the looks of it. Also, not having played Unleashed HD, I'm not as sensitive about how familiar the mechanics are to it, but if I end up enjoying that then I'll probably end up enjoying this.

But yeah, I do get where you're coming from. If they implement a stage like Stardust Speedway, I would be disappointed if it felt like just any other 3D stage from Unleashed or Colors. They can rehash old level tropes all they want as long as they do it well and design the stages with new design gimmicks that we haven't experienced yet in Unleashed or Colors. That would truly be thrilling and ensure that this game is a success.

Actually, the 3D gameplay reminds me more of Sonic Heroes than anything, if Sonic Heroes looked and controlled more like Unleashed and dropped everybody but Sonic.

 

On topic of the stages, what about acts?

Keeping note that Sonic Colors has 6 acts per level, I wouldn't be surprised that for each zone there's 3 acts a peice for classic and modern Sonic. Not only would that be a good balance but it'd also be the same amount of acts as in Sonic 1 and 4.

 

Well, speaking of Colors, I'm sure you all noticed the 5 red rings spaced over the stages in the interactive character select menu. Whether or not that relates to Chaos Emeralds, do you think that's any indication they'll be following Colors' lead in structuring this game?

 

I must say Frozen Nitrogen, your posts were just pissing me off, until this page. The previous posts had trouble getting across your point, and seemed more like whining, but now I understand what you mean. Please, if something pisses you off, try to go into a little more detail about exactly what it is. =P

Personally, I'm not too bothered about the game in this area, I'm just excited at the prospect of having Classic sonic in modern levels (I can see City Escape being rather like Ice Cap 1), and seeing the old-school levels remade in the style I've always longed for.=P

 

You do realize that's his whole gimmick right? There's never a reason to get angry over a FN post.

Buuut I do agree with what he said - The modern sonic parts of this game are probably lifted directly from unleashed. I think the entire idea behind the unleashed project was to make a 'modern sonic' if you will, game that could be re-arranged and sold over and over again. Hence its large initial investment. However, this doesn't bother me. I'd like to see them settle on something for once instead of releasing a dozen half-baked 'experimental' ideas like heroes over and over again.

 

@Frozen Nitrogen: Sorry for misunderstanding your post, I thought you were trying to say that both the classic and modern styles were identical to Shamar in Unleashed, instead you were trying to say how Modern Sonic's levels are linear.

 

Hey guys. I just thought it would be nice to remind you that there is no confirmation that Sonic Generations has left the Nintendo. NO Confirmation at all. In my opinion, Sonic Generations will BE On the nintendo, just not the wii.

Some of you are forgetting that ALL Developers are scrapping the wii for the rumoured 'Nintendo HD'. SEGA Couldn't exactly SAY Sonic Generations would be for an unannounced console, now would they?

SEGA and Nintendo are very good partners, they definitely have access to the new console. When Sonic Generations was announced to not be for the wii, their excuse was 'Generations is an HD Title.' That's it, HD, right there. Nintendo HD. It's going to happen, just wait and see.

 

Well, it makes sense, they ported their 10th anniversary game (SA2) to the GC and were going to port '06 to the Wii until it became SatSR, if they keep the pattern then this would be a Nintendo HD release too.