I definitely wouldn't mind having a prequel series of shorts or something showing what shadow and maria were like together, but at the same time I don't mind it being up to interpretation. I think it was deliberately done in that way
In defence of SA2's plot, the story is not just about a hedgehog who lost a close one. It's not about Shadow wrestling with his grief. Other things like amnesia & vigilantism are very front and centre throughout Dark Story, as well. Eggman is just such an idiot. Instead of taking care of Shadow, he immediately turns him into his weapon.
Knuckles Chaotix is easy, I'm not even sure that's particularly contested. But easy doesn't mean fun. The game is made up of samey, mostly-empty stages with too many similar acts, and the whole thing constantly grinds the pace to a screeching halt because of your inability to predict or properly control the movement of your weighty partner character. The game isn't hard regardless, but there's very little to enjoy about the core gameplay because of this. It also has the worst campaign structure of any classic Sonic game, with 5 acts per zone that you have to play out of order in a semi-random selection. I'm not sure how skill issues are supposed to affect a bunch of bland hallways.
If you can watch paint dry, you can master Chaotix. I've never heard anyone complain about its difficulty.
Speaking about underrated levels, I think Lost World in Sonic Adventure (as Sonic) deserve to have more love. I genuily think it's one of most fun and unique stages of the game. I also love the vibes it has. I get it, the water snake section can be a little jank, but that didn't kill the joy this stage had. It just cream "you're getting closer to the endgame" thing.
Always loved both this stage and Final Egg a lot for how they both really nail the vibe of late game setpiece levels.
When I meant easy I was specifically thinking of learning the ring tether mechanic, but my own excitement of dropping dumbass posts prevented me from clarifying such. But hey maybe I’ll start hearing in a YouTube video this made up thing that people think the game is hard one day.
Generations is overrated and I hate the way that it's regarded as the gold standard for 3D Sonic by a lot of people. Lost World was an entirely welcome change in direction regarding gameplay as far as I'm concerned, but only in theory. In reality, Sonic Team did a really bad job of it and ended up with a game that isn't fun to play. It's gimmicky, unfocused and highly cumbersome. The main parkour mechanic is undermined by both the confusing, difficult control scheme and the level design that makes minimal use of it.
I really REALLY want to like lost world but it never uses parkour in fun or interesting ways (and the few decent times are either scarce or mindless) and its filled with gimmicks and minigames that control terribly. Every wisp also controls horribly, and even sonics controller himself feels weird to turn with when on those tubular stages, feels like he jerks around a lot when trying to make adjustments and change paths. Just a really unpleasant feeling game that coulld have been a nice change of pace
Smith is the closest to sounding comfortable and natural in the role with any hiccups usually being on the voice direction. Ryan doesn't start to get even remotely comfortable voicing Sonic until Heroes to me, and by that point Sega makes the boneheaded decision to replace him with the worst VO he's ever had so it doesn't get to develop cleanly from there.
Drummond's actual sound is the closest to Kanemaru, which is why I like him. If he were a perfect actor, he'd easily be my first choice. Unfortunately his performance is the least-consistent due to the industry practices of the time, and I don't think he's ever gotten the professional chops of modern game casts. Griffith is...not too far off, and his performance is more consistent, but that also includes being consistently wooden up until 07/08, where he was already on the way out by that point. It's amazing to me that people can watch Shadow or 06's cutscenes in English and feel anything but embarrassment. Smith is obviously the furthest sounding from Kanemaru, and he struggles with the most unconvincing and emotionless material. More than this, I'm not sure what's going on with the direction a lot of the time. Griffith got a lot better in Unleashed and Black Knight, but Smith, whom I've heard in enough other stuff to know he can act perfectly strong, seems to keep being told to just be an infallible cartoon man, and the attempt to reverse direction in Frontiers has lead to some scenes where he sounds genuinely great, and some where he's barely doing a voice at all and doesn't really sound like he's even acting.
I can actually get behind this criticism, well said, I myself still quite enjoy Lost World as the gimmicks can make some fun and memorable moments such as the Rail levels or the speed levels. The run button has always been a bit of a questionable decision but I think it works due to the higher emphasis on slower blockier platforming. Thanks for your insight.
They solved that back in 1999 with analog movement. Sonic Team has been afraid of that since the PS2. I can't call Lost World good. Some of the most unsatisfying controls in a platformer where movement is key.
The biggest difficulty I've had with Chaotix is playing it on real hardware without something losing connection inside the system and resetting the game...
Has a lot of cool tech opportunities, and I always love trying to execute them all perfectly in a single go. Sonic 1's just great platforming all around, even when it's more linear, less slopey, or underwater.
Tooting my own horn but I didn't choose Marble Zone to exemplify the concept of rhythm groups a while ago for nothing. It's one of the stages that more elegantly embody Yasuhara's cycle of fun, always giving you little glimpses of diversions you could follow, choices you could make and risks you should take. And it feels awesome to take the bait and still react in time to what it throws at you. It's a stage for rock stars.
Will never hate Marble Zone. It has my favorite sequence in the original 4 games and I gotta do it every time. If you don't break every block, every run, don't talk to me
I've always loved how the amount of blocks in this sequence is juuuust enough so that when you hit the last one, you get the extra big bonus points.
