Honestly, something that's not really been discussed yet is Amy's Memory Hearts. This may sound really weird and superficial but the idea that we'll be collecting and restoring the memories of Sonic's friends is going to really motivate me to go out of my way for these things. Functionally, these collectibles could be anything, but making them memories attaches emotional significance to them and I just think it's really odd how compelling that is to me.
Big is a cosmic being. Yeah, honestly the videos doesn't do the justice of the game's visual especially because I can't play videos on 720p very well.
I’ll just get this one out of the way: Spoiler: embarrassing rant, proceed with caution Jesus fucking christ, chemical plant again? AGAIN? For fuck sake, at least Green Hill was a cool level originally, but like…nobody likes Chemical Plant, right? It used to have this "rookie killer" reputation in the series before Gens, what made Sega think "man I’m sure people would love if we reused it for our next 4 games" I will forever be salty it became the de facto "Sonic 2 zone" because Sonic Team is hell bent on recycling Generations asset. There’s so many great zones in Sonic 2, why did it have to be this one? Gens’ poor stage selection was my biggest complain about it back then and it’s still biting me in the ass 11 years later, it’s sureal lmao That aside, everything else sounds totally exiting. With the controls sliders we’ve been confirmed to get and a lot of previews praising the way Sonic feel, it looks like it’ll be the first time Sonic feel good to control since… Adventure 2 really. It’s always been my main complain with the boost games; Sonic controlling like a crippled horse made these games very difficult to appreciate.
Hey now, they finally managed to reuse assets from something other than Gens with the highway stage being clearly made of Skyscraper Scamper assets!
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Speed Highway in gens also used retooled assets from Skyscraper Scamper as well, mostly just recolored and such to fit speed highway instead, though I might be misremembering!
We have no confirmation they didn’t reuse Speed Highway assets for this stage too, and if I were a betting man…
The whole time I was in high school and college, every time someone found out I was still into Sonic, Chemical Plant was the zone they brought up. Especially because of the music! It always seemed like Sonic 2 was the most well-known game in the series among my peers by a huge margin, and Chemical Plant was always their favorite stage. So yeah, I'd say it was already the de facto Sonic 2 zone, and one of the most iconic places in the series, well before Generations came along. (And I mean, I love it too, and I'm not nobody! )
Yeah, lots of people love Chemical Plant. It's got awesome music, pretty visuals (In Sonic 2 at least, I'm still salty about how depressing and grim it looks in Generations), and most of all it's really fun and speedy, making it one of the most memorable Sonic stages right up there with Green Hill, City Escape and Rooftop Run. Saying that nobody likes Chemical Plant is just plain ignorant in my opinion. But yeah, I am a little tired of Chemical Plant even if it is awesome. If they're gonna reuse stages, Mystic Cave would be a great stage from Sonic 2 to bring back.
Considering we know about 5 different action stages now (highway/"metropolitan" stage, GHZ, Sky Sanctuary-inspired, Chemical Plant-inspired, "Unleashed"-inspired)... I think the leak that suggested there are 7 action stages per island is beginning to sound plausible. If the entire leak ends up being true and there are 28 stages, so far 3 of them (roughly 11%) are old locales. Compare that to 43% of Solo Modern Sonic stages in Sonic Forces being old locales (that doesn't include Death Egg because it's mostly different stuff with an old name). Super down for a fishing mini-game too. Even if it's awful, it has the potential to be a charming quirk and not a janky mess you need to fight through in order to complete the story.
Here is tomorrow's Q&A provided by IGN. It should answer some questions from this Twitter thread. It premieres at 9 a.m. PT, 12 p.m. ET, 5 p.m. BST.
I love the stylization of the Adventure art just because it's so unique, but my actual favorite era is post-Adventure all the way through Rush. Uekawa started slowly getting closer to the model after that, with his current art being extremely rigid, and from the front it looks almost like he's tracing the modern model: Yep, I was saying this for a while SA2's muzzle has a nice flow which gives his face a sleek look, and the quills are bendier and sharper, making them look much better and more defined from behind. It's my favorite Sonic look and is why I made a high poly version of it (beyond my SRB2 project which required it. :P) Also, I think the SA2 design just looks the best from Behind. In Heroes onward the middle quills flared out kinda weird, and in Forces they're super short and chunky looking. The long, sharp SA2 quills give a nice, defined look from behind, which is the angle most important in a 3D game (well, except for all of the sidescrolling 2D sections these 3D games have). (my SA2 model on the right)
God I wish I hadn't read this message because now I can't unsee it in all of the renders. It looks so bad now that I see it.
I truly believe there is no chance that with 28 stages each one would have its own theme. It’s way more likely we’d get 7 themes with 4 different “acts”. Only 11% old locales is just wishful thinking.
I've seen a lot of people online suggest that this new Green Hill is somehow more unique than the one in forces, and I feel like I'm going crazy. As debatably "lazy" as it is, Forces green hill has an overarching aesthetic to it that had a point in the story, and I think it worked in giving it a somewhat different vibe, especially considering it had multiple levels which took place in other locations within it. This green hill is just.. green hill, but floating in cyberspace. I hope it ends up being more visually interesting later on, because right now it kind of just looks like generations green hill assets but used somewhat worse, which was never an impression I got with the Forces one, honestly.
I'm still incredibly sour about the reuse, make absolutely no mistakes or hold-ups on my part for that. It's like Sega thinks you can't recognize Sonic without these same things that they can keep using assets wholesale from. It's just not productive for me to rant about it constantly, and instead I can only really push to try to see how they execute it instead.
Yeah, if you jump into the dash ring above the ramp (it's hidden by the sign in this shot) you can land on that overpass.
I don't know. I haven't seen game journalists this excited for a Sonic game since Pre-Release 06 (aka when we thought they were going to release a finished game) other than Mania. It feels good to see game journalists talk about how fun a Sonic game is without them prefacing it by mentioning that he has had a rough transition to 3D. They seem to be rooting for it and that's nice. I'm genuinely excited for this game now and I wish there was less negativity surrounding the title. And I say this was one of the people who was once of the games biggest detractors.
