Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

The target audience argument is so lame.
The target audience of Sonic Adventure 2 is the same as Sonic Generations. Games in general need to stop treating kids like idiots. They aren't going to get better at playing games if you don't challenge them.

 

I saw a video of a 9 year old kid beating Elden Ring, kids are probably innately better at video games than adults lol

it's all about keeping your skill floor low and your skill ceiling high

 

The ranking doesn't naturally reflect how good of a time I'm having:
having fun; getting an E-rank
not having fun; getting an E-rank
having fun; getting an A-rank
not having fun; getting an A-rank

Which is only acceptable if the player was given the freedom to succeed on his own terms. If not, chances are I'm gonna blame the game for my lack of skill.

It's a double-edged sword. On one hand, it guides players how to have *more* fun with a game, on the other, it kind of sucks being put under pressure like that.

 

have not gotten around to this game yet but the main thing I'd want to see out of a ranking system is consistency. Frontiers had this problem where getting an S rank in Cyber Space 1-2 was somehow the hardest content in the (base) game and it was the second cyber space level, and everything else I S-ranked first try.

that said, getting A ranks in SA2 could be frustrating largely due to design problems. having to restart all of Hard Mode City Escape near the end because Sonic bounced straight into a pit near the end instead of using the Light Speed Dash is still something I remember being very tilted by 20 years ago. I also wouldn't consider its implementation consistent either - Hard Mode treasure hunt stages are trivial to A rank because the items are literally in the exact same places every time, and Eggman's levels are almost universally easier to A rank than Tails' because most of his stages are glorified score attack levels.

 

The thing I was actually responding to was claiming that people were going to be alienated by ranking being optional. I could not give two-tenths of a shit about the game having a score. A number is only high or low when compared with other numbers. That is what you should actually want, a system people can choose to organically engage with to compare themselves with their own skill and others. I didn't notice a lack of replay value in Sonic 3 just because the game didn't wave its ass in my face because I died too close to the end of an act. And that's not even the argument I'm making here! I fully support people's right to have an ass in their face! I go for the asses all the time! I'm just saying it's an annoying distraction when I am playing a video game campaign mode.

Let your amazement cease! Because that's not actually the argument I'm making. The point is about immersion, tone, atmosphere. I have no problem with pretty much anything a game tells me about my performance in the context of, y'know, a game about scoring. Which makes sense for an extra mode in Sonic, not the main story. If I'm "supposed" to want to come back to do better on a campaign stage, then the game should do that by making its levels actually interesting to navigate, not by saying "you should have taken it better, slut". I don't want to be called a filthy little slut when I'm trying to save the world! Maybe you do. Personally I think that's the wrong tone for a Sonic story to take.

Can't help but get the impression that a lot of this is taking the long way around chanting "skill issue" at someone who doesn't even struggle with S-ranks that much. Does context just not matter here anymore? Like it's not enough to just be a sweaty tryhard, but we can't choose when we become sweaty tryhards or else it's ruining the soul of the game?

 

Sonic saying "barely made it" cause you didn't do very good isn't the game "waving its ass in your face" any more than Sonic staring at you impatiently is in Sonic 1. I could make all the weird sex analogies for the idle animation I want and it still wouldn't be a big deal that it's in the game.

 

...immersion? Because of a ranking system?

I don't think Sonic games are really concerned about that whilst they give you a score tally, graded or not, at the end of a level.

The presentation matters just a bit more, like...level dialogue repeating upon regular replays.

 

Talking about the series where the main character has been making side eyes at the player based on their performance since the first game like it's Ori or something means you've already lost the plot on this entirely. Like, you don't actually know what Sonic's tone is meant to be if you find cheeky acknowledgement of it's mechanical layer disruptive. Or maybe you do and you don't like it. Either way, you're playing the wrong game. These are arcade platfomers first and animated films second.

 

Well yes it is, because this wasn't a problem in Sonic 1.

There's no such thing as a "big deal" here. These are video games, they're not real.

I don't! I find it being annoying disruptive. Did I not say that I don't have a problem with scores on the face of it? Those aren't more or less "acknowledgement" than ranking, they're just not stupid annoying shit.

 

Is it not a big deal or is it comparable to violent sex? Not sure where your line is there or why you made the analogy if its not a big deal which was my point.



Point to me on the video where SA2 touched you. Literally what is actually the problem with anything here? Every quote is inoffensive besides Sonic and Rouge's reaction to the worst possible rank. Does the letter E really annoy you or something?

 

Now I'm thinking there should just be an option for Sonic to call folks a good boy at the end of each stage. Since we're dealing in options, why not have one for every type of player?

Anyway, my point wasn't that people would be alienated by ranking being optional. My point is that people like you would be alienated by it being mandatory. It's worth alienating people like you if it gets even one more person to think about the game in a way that leans into mastery. That's why they have to stay front and center, and no, they simply aren't as effective as an option for that reason. It's why I am not a fan of the "player is always right" school of game design. Gotta draw a line in the sand somewhere.

 

The true target audience is the tired adult gamer who wants a chill vibes, stress free, gaming session.

 

The most oppressed group of all.
I wanna ask a question, are there examples of games that feature some sort of scoring system, but it's rather easy to ignore? Or not essential to the experience?
My first guess is Stardew Valley, personally I feel like I'm always pushed to achieve the best possible profits, max relationships with everyone and etc.
But the developer has said you're free to play the game however you want, and I think he's right. You can just vibe with that game if you want.

 

"Violent sex", he calls it.

I dunno how I can communicate the idea of "writing posts in a way I think is funny" to you if this is how you react to something as tame as a little dirty talk.

Because that would still be disruptive and annoying. We already have the good version of that, which is called having a results screen telling you you beat the level. It plays a little jingle and Sonic strikes a pose! You want to get rid of that for your hardcore funtimes? Maybe it shouldn't even count unless you learn to steer with your elbows! Look at me, I can make slippery slope arguments too!

Okay well that's really really stupid then. You don't actually know that doing it this way makes more people play the way you want them to, only more of the specific group of people that would select the option you like better from the start. I for one think quite a lot of people engage with optional challenges better when they're not under any sort of pressure. Exactly what makes those people innately worse and your way better? It's not like we have any empirical data on this shit.

Moreover, "Mastery" is a totally subjective and invented concept here, you can literally argue that literally anything being mandatory can stochastically influence people to occupy your elite class of god gamers or whatever so long as the people you don't like are turned off by it. It's ridiculous. When I made the "sweaty tryhards" comment before, I didn't think that was literally the only type of person you thought could reliably count as being actually good at the games.

 

The rankings are the only way I can justify playing Sonic games to myself; imagine the cringe if I was playing Sonic for the story. I could read the wikipedia articles for the plot, I'm playing because I enjoy the gameplay loop.

 

Balatro, and I mean it

 

Okay I don't know if Impish is replying to anyone in specific, but their post gives me the impression that I've crossed some wires incorrectly here, so let me re-clarify:

Ranks as a concept are good for Sonic games. I like trying to do well in Sonic games, believe it or not. I am not arguing against the existence of ranks, and especially not score. What's bad is the game sending mixed messages.

The main campaign of a Sonic game is usually not about the score. The score is just a number with no context that the game tallies up at the end, it only has the importance that players give it. A Sonic campaign is usually about the stages and bosses, exhibitions of spectacle and making the player feel cool and powerful. There's still difficulty in that, but it's organic difficulty, challenges the cool powerful guy you're playing can reasonably interact with in-context. It's not "playing Sonic for the story", it's playing Sonic for fun, for the presentation (which can include the story, but Sonic writing is usually, y'know, bad), for the curated experience the levels were designed to impart on the player. I would never say that NiGHTS or Tony Hawk shouldn't have ranks (although I would prefer if NiGHTS didn't lock its final boss behind scores), because those are score attack games. The manufactured "high number you have to hit" is a part of beating the stage at all, whereas Sonic is about the journey towards a goal. So making ranks a part of this, the first time playthrough of a platforming adventure with a linear progression structure, is just backwards to me, because the player is never going to know what they're up against.

If you get a bad rank, it's hard to feel like it was because you did poorly, because it was your first time seeing that level! This isn't helped by the fact that modern Sonic games are filled with optional collectibles that provide no gameplay benefit (and thus don't help you get a good rank) but act as a challenge to get anyway. If I'm supposed to be focused on just finesse for a good rank, even on my first plathrough, then these are what should be held back for a replay, like Sonic Forces did with its moon and number rings. Except don't actually do that, because that shit was stupid.

On the flip side, if you get an S-rank your first try, then obviously the level's easy enough that coming back to try again is kind of pointless. This happened to me right here in Shadow Generations (did you remember this was the SxSG thread? I didn't), where I got so many first-try S ranks by spamming chaos control and gunning for the highest path that I stopped feeling compelled to explore or try alternate routes, because I had a fairly-reliable way of getting S-ranks even on first playthrough. I replayed the Act 1s because they were fun, but I so-consistently both S-ranked and got the keys on Act 2 that I've still only played some of them once.

Now, obviously that's on me, at least in-part. And a lot of it is because ranks should be more difficult than that. So why have ranks have been so easy since Generations? Probably...because a lot of people complained that their first tries kept getting low ranks, and Sonic Team decided the easiest way to solve that was a really low barrier to entry. If they're going to be ranking players on their campaign playthroughs, then the ranks are going to balanced for a first try. May not have happened if ranks were a choice from the start, except now nobody gets a challenge, even if they wanted one!

Ranking makes a lot more sense as separate thing because you're creating a different context, one that focuses completely on skill, on the interaction of systems to create a challenge. I am all for making ranks difficult, even brutal, when it's not intruding on the core feelings that a well-paced Sonic campaign intends to impart, which has never been "you are a master at the system we built", even on the ironically-named Master System.

If there's really that much of a problem with this, I would ask exactly where the lack of ranks stopped people from replaying and getting good at the classic games, because that sure hasn't been my experience. Those invented a contingent of players taking their performance way too seriously all on their own just by being really fun. And again, you're still getting more than that relative to each game's theoretical maximum, because I'm literally just advocating for this as one option, rather than removing them entirely.

 

I ain’t reading all that. Automatic E rank post.

 

Your reaction when SA2 puts the letter E on screen or whatever's so upsetting about it. The game giving you a low rank your first time is not a problem. Almost nobody's ever good at anything their first try.

 

You shouldn't care about getting a good score unless you're specifically trying to do so, which realistically shouldn't come without practice. Getting the top rank often isn't the most fun way to play through levels anyway. Going for an S in levels like Radical Highway ShGens involves missing significant chunks of the level by sticking to specific paths, going for an A rank in 06 often means slogging through every enemy possible, going for a S in Cyberspace or Lost World is only a matter of time attack.

Getting a top rank is a specific challenge to overcome. You're not prevented from doing so in story modes (except Lost World), but you're reay not expected to care either. Ranks serve as a simpler way to gauge your performance than scores or time alone.