Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood

You're no fun

 

He's raping her. It's violent, gory, arrousing, and vomit inducing all at once.

At least the art is nice.

Happy?

 

Is it a good thing that this game isn't trying to return Sonic to his roots like Sonic 06 was supposed to?

 

To be perfectly honest, this game seems to be going more after Sonic's roots than '06.

Cartoon animals that don't look like giant muppets, the humans are cartoony as well, colorful environments (such as the Green Hill Zone, which wouldn't have fit in with Next Gen's gritty bullshit realism at all). We don't even have to listen to shitty voice work (that we know of). Hey, it's even got platforming and speed, even though it's in an entirely different fashion. And I'll bet the simplistic controls handle better too. I'm honestly looking really forward to it, and I'm glad it'll be here in less than two weeks.

Come to think of it, if this game had come out ten or so years ago, we'd be fucking loving it, shitty side characters or not. The fact that Sonic games have been so shitty lately makes us a little too skeptical, especially considering this time Sonic's in the hands of a developer who, you know, actually knows what they're doing. Sonic hasn't been doing us any wrong. Takashi Iizuka's development team has. Think about it. Recent Sonic games not directed by this mother fucker have been alright (Riders excluded, but those are just generic racing games with Sonic slapped on, though I'll admit those weren't as bad as they could've been).

So while it may be Sega's fault Sonic gets ten new games per year, the worst ones were directed by Iizuka, who used to be good at what he did. Used to. Before he was a project director. I mean...NiGHTS JoD was a complete disaster. "Oh, but SWTJ, NiGHTS fucking rules, it was just that shitty platforming." NO. No. The flying levels were terrible. The game itself looks like ass. The model for NiGHTS, you know, the titular character, looks like it was done in an outdated version of 3DS Max by a thirteen year old who bullshat his way around the help menu. The levels themselves, while they have some intriguing level design, are just...boring. And since you're forced to stop when you get back to the Ideya Palace or whatever because of that mother fucking chain, you can't pull of any real score attackan. Yeah, you can not catch the bird, but it seemed no matter how long you tried to draw it out, your score meant nothing.

And...really, why do I have to chase a fucking bird for a key to a prison I'm already free from? All you did was chase a bird. Four times. Then you chased some other little piece of shit hermit crab thing. Then you played as a kid, and then you chased a bird again, and then you fought a mediocre boss. What happened to the weird ass tentacled thing you had to defeat with the blue chips? Where is that? I liked that thing. Now the collectibles have no purpose aside from score, and that really doesn't motivate me when I can't even score attack.

Mother FUCKING chain not letting me bypass the Ideya Palace so I can do more laps and get more shit and have a FUN GAMING EXPERIENCE. Fuck you.

NiGHTS JoD was pure shit. The gameplay, the graphics, the characters, the story, the voice work...the music was good, but that's the one thing these people can get right anymore.

I still stand by my argument that everything is Sammy's fault, because even though Naka's...skill was starting to deteriorate, things were better when he was around. And we all know by now that Naka left because Sammy was full of corporate dicks who wanted to take control of everything, and he didn't want to be a part of it. Seriously, what the hell is he doing now? Running some company who hasn't done JACK SHIT in the 2 and a half years it's been running. And it's probably because he's affiliated with Sega and doesn't want Sammy to bring down the hammer on any of his shit.

Anyway, I didn't mean to bitch and bitch and bitch about NiGHTS and Sammy(in fact it wasn't my original intention to mention them at all), but it's been a while since I've given anyone an earful, and I'm in a terrible mood, so I figured...why the fuck not?

But yeah, I'm looking forward to Chronicles.

tl;dr: NiGHTS JoD, its dev team, and Sammy are full of shit, but Chronicles actually shows promise, and more of a "return to form" than '06 ever could have.

 

It's not so much tat Naka's skills were waning, it's just that Sega kept making him producer when his education and experience were in programming, and desire as well, I believe. The flying levels were terrible, but they could have been much improved by making them half the size they were before. Many of JoD's levels don't have enough stuff in them. They only had one year to make the game, they knew this, but instead of using the secret rings engine or something, they made their own engine from scratch. I remember reading that in an interview about Sega Superstars Tennis, someone mentioned how great it was for NiGHTS to be in a game that actually ran at 60 fps.

NiGHTS's redesign was fail. In fact, it was so bad that I was hoping NiGHTS wouldn't be in Brawl because Sega would make them use the new design.

I wouldn't be surprised if Naka hates Iizuka now. But at the same time, I wonder if maybe he was simply over worked. He was both the director and lead designer, whereas he was only the lead designer in NiD, so perhaps he was overworked? But that doesn't explain the chain, or the owl, or... most of the shit with that game. Fun Fact: Claris's original VA sings in one of the versions of Dreams Dreams

The only good thing to come out of JoD in my opinion was that it helped me appreciate Stick Canyon, for having stuff in it.

I could write more than a wall of text, I could write an entire dam of text about JoD's failings.

 

who doesn't hate Takashi Izuka
I mean
he dug the fail pit that was Sonic Heroes, and with that, crap came like Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic NXG
and he dragged in NiGHTS into it as well, creating JoD
I hope he's fired, or at least dead

 

Now you guys are just venting. I'm not going to defend JoD, but it wasn't a complete desecration of the original. I wouldn't mind another NiGHTS as long as it doesn't use that crappy Shadow engine and it brings back the Ideya captures from the original. JoD could've done without the owl and those crappy platform levels too.

Iizuka needs to stop directing games though. Thank heavens Sega Studios USA has been absorbed.

 

Reviewed in Official Nintendo Magazine Issue 35(november). Received 93% and Gold Award. Want a scan, they also have a unleashed preview...

 

And Sonic Unleashed.

 

"Sonic Unleashed: Classic Sonic, with a twist (to the heart)!" - I think they should cut out the werehog part, and it's gold in my eyes though.


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Anyway, I think Sonic Chronicles will actually be pretty good, at least we won't be dealing with horrible camera angles, like in '06. =P

 

Wow, new echidnas?



http://www.planete-sonic.com/jeux/archives...nicles-n286.htm

 

There's a Nintendo World prerelease "party" from 1-4 PM one week from now in NYC. Going there gets you a signed copy from Bioware, as well as an exclusive chao a la Pokemon promotions.

 

...which will no doubt be hacked out very quickly.

 

Yeah, I totally agree. That was really the first thing that came to mind for me -- I'm sure it's able to get hacked just like Mew was.

 

Boy oh boy, this sure isn't anything illegal.

 

Since I am too lazy to browse through the pages one by one to find this, I'll bring it up.
The music.

Downright horrible, crappy remixes, and the uncredited Sonic midis that are scattered throughout various websites.
Example:
Metropolis
Panic Puppet Act 1 uncredited midi
Why such a crappy soundset?
The first battle theme is some crazy epic grunge remix of Tidal Tempest Past.
The boss theme is Panic Puppet Act 1 (again)
Blue Ridge Zone is a remixed Diamond Dust Act 1
And before I go any further, I don't wanna hear,"Richard Jacques helped make the music for the game that's why there are so many S3DB remixes in there!"
All these remixes are made by Steve Sim.
Continuing..
The N'rrgal Colony is one of the US future remixes of Quartz Quadrant, again a take on one of the uncredited ones.
The Kron Colony is ESPIOKaos's midi of Volcano Valley Act 1
The Metropolis Ground Zero is ESPIOKaos's midi of Tidal Tempest Past

And that's about it.
It seems that Steve Sim jacked a bunch of uncredited (and 2 of ESPIOKaos's) midis, arranged them, and popped them on the game.
It may be just me, but I'm pretty sure thats called being really damn lazy.

Tell me if you rage when you notice this, k? :v:

 

Too Zetta Slow
I think everyone already knew this one, sorry.
Also, Nocturne theme = Incredibly crappy demix of the Final Boss song from Sonic & Knuckles.

 

I don't think "everybody knew it," especially considering I didn't know that the horrible music was literally a MIDI rip. That's grounds for a lawsuit or something, is it not? I'm sure you have at least some rights to works that you publish on your own website.