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Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by charcoal, Jan 29, 2024.

  1. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    Yeah that about sums up how I feel. The boost games mask the 2D sections with boost, and Lost World's slow replacement shows its ugly warts front and center. It doesn't help that a lot of the 2D layouts have a greater emphasis on platforming on blocky terrain and more vertical level design to make use of the wall run gimmick. It just makes what was an already bad set of controls feel even worse. Frontiers 2D sections at least have the boost + stomp and mostly horizontal level design from borrowed layouts that still tricks my brain into having fun.

    3-6 still tickles me.
     
  2. Starduster

    Starduster

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    I don’t think we have any hard proof on this in particular, but telemetry permeates the games industry at this point for at least partly this kind of usage. It’s a little different since it’s an always-online mobile game, but Fire Emblem Heroes has a yearly event that features a leaderboard for the character that has been tapped the most by players on the game’s home screen. If something as banal and useless as that stat is being tracked, I’ve no doubt that there’d be significant interest in extrapolating data from slider usage in Frontiers.
     
  3. Does Frontiers have anything that requires internet connection? That's the only way I can think of how they'd even be able to collect that data, like with the FEH example you mentioned
     
  4. charcoal

    charcoal

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    Frontiers on PC uses telemetry when connected to an internet source, but its only purpose is collecting crash dumps and inspecting what hardware users using. I don't believe it collects settings data but someone would have to dig deeper to check.
     
  5. Starduster

    Starduster

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    Yeah I just want to be clear: I’m just some schmoe who’s putting conjecture out there, don’t take anything I’m saying as given.
     
  6. shilz

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    Okay, weird thing, something I missed when I originally noted the PlayStation Stars digital collectables is that there were also Classic and Modern Sonic ones in the points store... You would have to be INSANE to waste your points on either of those instead of however much Wallet Funds they'll give you, because getting the points in the first place takes a lot of work.

    Also, Generations is part of The Game Awards' Player Choice nominees. Yet another way for Sonic to lose to Balatro.
    20241202_165314.jpg
     
  7. Crimson Neo

    Crimson Neo

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    I'd rather Shadow Generations lose to Balatro than Genshin (again) and ZZZ. :doge:
     
  8. Lambda

    Lambda

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    They gotta stop putting games that came out previous years into the Game Awards. The fact that Genshin, League, and No Man's Sky are in here clogging everything up is crazy.

    I get the irony that Generations is technically a re-release, but the Shadow campaign really is a whole new game that just happens to be duct-taped to the side of an old game.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2024
  9. HammerKirby

    HammerKirby

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    The fact that live service games are eligible is so silly. If Sega pushed out an update to Sonic Mania could it suddenly become eligible again just because they did some development? At least they're not nominated for GotY I suppose...
     
  10. Jaxer

    Jaxer

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    But a DLC to a game from 2022 is :rolleyes:
     
  11. McAleeCh

    McAleeCh

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    Really enjoying the game so far - I've now beaten the main story and recovered most of the collectibles. The chests and bolts were less annoying to find than I'd been led to believe - on each, I managed to find all but two through exploration before resorting to guides, and in the case of the chests that was only because I didn't realise + - that two of them spawn on the Radical Highway style structures which only appear when the Doom Zone is active.   Still trying to crack some of the Doom Zone ring/clock challenges, those are the only thing preventing me from completing the Collection Room at the moment.

    I love the amount of stuff in the Collection Room, but the sheen is taken off a little by some of the blatant mislabeling or misordering of things. There's concept art in there that's clearly from Sonic Adventure 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog which has been labeled as material from Shadow the Hedgehog instead, and in the Story section, for some reason Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog are listed the wrong way around. Hopefully they'll fix this in an upcoming patch; the sheer amount of material provided is great and there's quite a few pieces I've never seen before, but it would be great to see it all represented properly.

    Final boss was good fun, though I flubbed it first time by not realising you had to *mash* the attack button when a Homing Attack target appeared, making the fight last waaaaay longer than it should have. Still, it was a dramatic finish, made good use of a bunch of the moves you acquire throughout the game, and certainly felt a much better climax than the Time Eater in Sonic Generations. I apparently suck enough at it to only be able to get a C Rank currently though, no idea how I'm going to get all the way up to that coveted S...!

    Speaking of which, I've been slowly going through trying to S Rank all the stages/bosses, and have been having a whale of a time finding new shortcuts or alternate paths to try to lower my time. I'm glad to see it's actually possible to still get an S Rank after dying providing you don't hang around - Sonic Generations handed out S Ranks much easier in comparison, but the 'no dying' rule was really frustrating if you accidentally messed up near the end of a run, especially if you then reached the goal with a time which should otherwise have netted you an S.

    It feels refreshing to have fully 3D stages again, as Sonic Generations' Modern stages all had large 2D sections throughout. However, I've really enjoyed Shadow Generations' 2D stages too - so much, in fact, that I actually felt a little cheated that + - Radical Highway is fully 3D for both Acts.   If this game ever gets more DLC down the road, an optional post-game + - 2D Radical Highway Act 3   would be a nice cherry on the top in addition to whatever the main content would entail.

    I did encounter one bizarre bug on my playthrough so far - when re-running Sunset Heights Act 2, for some reason after a certain point pulleys straight-up stopped working. Shadow would home in on them as normal, but they would never pull up like they're supposed to, and he'd be stuck sitting there in his spinning state until you jumped to move him back off again. I managed to pass a fair bit of the stage in spite of this, but eventually had to restart after reaching a section that's literally impassable without use of the pulley.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2024
  12. The final boss is deceptively easy in terms of what you need to do finish in under 4 minutes and take no damage, it all comes down to getting through the 3rd doom morph without hits and that’s difficult considering how incoherent that one can be, just find a flow that works and stick to the timing of it. For the wing section you’ll want to use the spin to knock the missiles back to avoid its time devouring tube thing.
     
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  13. Starduster

    Starduster

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    I think the head swipe attack is kind of a pain, especially once he starts doing multiple at once. Once you realise there’s a pattern and you’ve got it memorised then you’re fine, but there really isn’t much visual distinction between the head swipe across the top of the screen and the one across the bottom.
     
  14. Snub-n0zeMunkey

    Snub-n0zeMunkey

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    maybe I'm a bit of a sadist but I kind of think they hand out S ranks too easily in the newer games. I like how they did it in SA2/Unleashed where your rings and overall score play a big part in the ranking; they still have a score counter but you don't see it until the end of the stage so there's no real reason for the player to care, it may as well just be a random number imho

    I get why they changed it though. It was probably demoralizing to keep getting D or E ranks, especially for younger players. I hope they bring back score attacks in the next game, hell I think Shadow Gens would've been a great game to re-introduce SA2's score system; the Doom Spear is basically like mech shooting lol
     
  15. kazz

    kazz

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    I never thought D and E ranks being demoralizing was a good reason to get rid of them. Wouldn't a C also be demoralizing by the same metric if it's the minimum possible rank anyway? If we want Sonic to be fast and flippant as he originally was then I think it's perfectly fine if he mutters "barely made it" when as far as the game's concerned you're furthest from the best whether Sonic says anything or not.
     
  16. Chimpo

    Chimpo

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    We all remember how 1-2 took off with the youtube crowd with its tighter than usual S-Rank requirement. And then the rest of the game went back to handing them out like candy so there was never a reason foe Joe Schmoe to go back to them unless they really wanted to. I think making those harder to get would incentivize replayability for a lot of people easily.
     
  17. Kilo

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    I like my rank requirements to be hard. S is supposed to reflect perfection. A basic run through a level should not grant me an S rank, because that tells me there's no space to improve on my time, score, or rings. There's no real difference if I beat a Generations level in 30 seconds or 3 minutes, and that's lame.
    And Shadow Gens at least somewhat improved on it, could be a little harder. But when I got a B rank for the first time in that game I was like "Oh shit, I really gotta lock in"
     
  18. Lambda

    Lambda

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    Yeah, I'd like to see it rebalanced a bit in a way that encourages more people to get into playing for ranks.

    Something like: poor players get C, average player gets B, good players get A, really great players get S. Maybe a hidden S+ for truly exceptional times (just bragging rights, no unlocks so people don't feel like they HAVE to persue that level of perfection).

    And the game could give you tips/hints on how to improve your score after your rank is given so players know what to do next time.

    Actually, it'd be SUPER cool if the game analyzed your play and gave you a hint at where specifically you're lacking... but that's not the sort of thing I really expect from Sonic Team... it'd be sick, though.
     
  19. Hoiyoihoi

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    I'm thinking something like speed runner splits... like it keeps track of the time spent between individual checkpoints, and tells you whether you've gained or lost time since the last time you played the level. That'd be the simplest way to do something like that, i guess.
     
  20. Overlord

    Overlord

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    Remember who the target audience is. High ranks in SA2 are difficult to get, moreso because of the fact how fast you clear a level - you know, part of the point - basically is meaningless compared to farming enemies.
     
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