Sega: Sonic Quality to Be 'Fixed Over Time'

I want to put this idea to rest here: Super Mario 64's stars are not collectibles. They are level exits. When you get one, you can move on to the next. Once you have reached enough exits, you can go to the next part of the castle.

 

It's hard for me to really see them as that though, given how open-ended most of that game was. I felt that many of them didn't necessarily end up on any really intuitive point B (the one thing that Sonic's gameplay can actually get right IMO, though this is hardly an impressive feat) from the starting point on account of that. Hence the game gave all those hints after entering a picture.

 

The levels were set up in a way that there was no real "finish" to them. You jumped in the picture, and the level was your playground with numerous goals.

Remember that mountain you saw the first time around? You gotta race a turtle to the top. Remember that chain chomp you passed a while back? You gotta set it free. You see that floating island? Seems awfully curios, I wonder what's up there. Is there a boss fight around?

64 is an example of an explorable 3D space. You have a big open level with numerous little set pieces here and there that will end up giving you a reward if you take on all the little challenges.

Unleashed does not have this. At all.

 

Fortunately, they do seem to be caring a bit more about them as of late, at least merchandise-wise. I'm still hopeful that this trend will extend to the games, in the future.

 

Funny, I seem to remember quite a lot of moaning about FLUDD (and nostalgia goggles over those annoying "Secret" levels that don't use it).

And in addition to what else has been said about comparing the Power Stars to Medals, there's also the fact that the stars aren't generally in blink-and-you'll-miss-it spots that you'd have to restart the stage for failing to grab.

 

Cleaning up a bunch of sewage might make for good characterization, but it doesn't make for a very good game. It also make jumping slow and ponderous because every jump seemed to be built such that it wasn't safe to not use the FLUDD.

 

Yeah just listen to how that Sega guy with the same name as the villain from Pocahontas was talking about the Sonic 1 iPhone port. The old games are still obviously a huge source of revenue for them and I doubt it's the same couple million old school fans buying them over and over again.

 

Maybe they are, but I always thought of it this way;

If the old formula appealed to kids, and the old formula appeals to the "hardcore" fans, then surely a game based on this would appeal to both.

Surreal level designs, 2.5D platforming gameplay reminisant of the Genesis titles, and simply cutting back on the dialogue and chit-chat adventure feilds, will still appeal to Johnny 5 year old, but lots of older folks will dig that too.

Reselling nostalga is one thing, but being inspired to create something new in it's image is what genious is made of. I mean look at the recent Star Trek film - that returned to the style that it started out with at the very very start and it drew more money than anything Star Trek has done since 1982, while the retarded constant "re-workings" just tired out the series and aliented the fanbase.

 

NONE of the Sonic Games have this. Sonic is mostly linear using multiple routes to get from point A to point B. The only exception I saw so far is the mission mode in SADX, yet it wasn't available in the main story. There's also the A-Life system that they used for Nights and Sonic Adventure, but I don't think that majority of the target audience give a crap about them.

I'll give them time to put their shit together since majority of the Sonic Team's developers either got laid off by the merger, or move on to other job opportunities. They had to get their new team to straighten up, or SeGa will have no choice but to replace Sonic like they did to OpaOpa or Alex Kidd.

 

I get what your saying and it would be nice, but the problem is that the kids don't know good quality, and SEGA is taking advantage of that.

If SEGA pulls out a great game that everyone likes, then kids will start to expect more from the sonic franchise and then SEGA can't make their below-par games for the kids, and if SEGA doesn't have to make 10/10 rated games to make a big profit, then why would they bother.

It's sad but it's the way these companies are these days

 

That wasn't the argument. The argument was that Sonic Unleashed itself had good exploration elements.

It didn't. It was a linear game. Going through door C only to get to a dead end with a minor or nor reward and having to go back to the main path is not exploration.

 

Of course he is. But if he were like mario, he could be for kids and still be able to appeal to everyone as well. That's what the old sonic games did.

 

So you think the decline in quality is intentional?

That logic is backwards, even for Sega. Every game developer wants to make good games. Every developer wants their game to get good reviews and good sales. Why would Sega want to make bad games, even if it means they no longer have to conform to high expectations? And if that's the case, why is Sega sending these PR people to do damage control in the first place? You can already tell they are aware of the backlash they have been receiving. It's certainly a big enough issue for Sega to publicly address it.

 

Yeah there a difference between "E" meaning for kiddys and "E" for everyone can enjoy.


And its not like SEGA can't put effort into their games to make good ones that get super positive reviews. See Valkyria Chronicles, (while I admit isnt really a good example of E for everyone, just high quality, even voice acting 'shock') Seemless levels of quality from start to finnish. and Probably the same with VC2 when it comes out next year.

It's wierd that SEGA in general can make something cosistantly awsome, but Sonic-Team as a division can't. Can't they mix up the staff abit? get some fresh perspectives pumping. It wouldent surpirse me if there are many programmers at SEGA who have really awsome ideas for Sonic games, but they just arnt in Sonic-Team.

 

Sonic team was mixed up for Sonic unleashed.

And bar the warehog sonic unleased was a stellar sonic game. we know why they add in all this crap that we don't want, and thats to make the game longer.

To be honest if they made a sonic game with 7 zones each zone having 2 or 3 acts that would be long enough for me.
SEGA need to realise that sonic games don't have to be 10< hours long, they have to have excellent replay ability.

 

Thats very true, things like Sonic2 and 3&K can be dusted in under 2 hours. But if the game is fun enough, you don't need to pad it out, not matter how long the "story" is.

I hope we never see medal hunting again, it didn't make for very stimulating replay value ¬_¬

We'll have thoses 7-8 zones, 2-3 acts, mabye expand the classic P2 imput to be online compatible too, dosent really need fixing, just need expanding on what previously worked

 

That's a good point. A compelling time attack and 2-P competitive mode is all that you need to give a game near-endless replay value, even if some bits of the one-player mode are toss.

The Smash Bros. series serves as a particularly good example of this.

 

Strangely enough, I feel the same way about the GameCube port of SA2 (which was my first Sonic game). You could clear either of the two storylines pretty quickly, despite the frequent playstyle changes, but there are 4 more missions for each stage, each of which you get graded for. That's some immense replay value already, but then you also have the Chao sub-game and all of the multiplayer games (that were strangely popular with my friends back in the GCN's early days). It might not be as immersive as SA1's overarching world was, but SA2 certainly had a lot to do.

 

QFT, trakker, QFT indeed.

If you took the daytime Unleashed levels and put them in order, with nothing but a loading screen in between, you'd have something much more fun and compelling. The fact that Sonic used to travel from Zone to Zone without a bunch of bull-hockey in between made the games feel more streamlined, and gave you a better impression of Sonic traveling nonstop, on foot, across whatever island you just happened to be traversing, to get to the bad guy and make him pay for his misdeeds upon animalkind. It went hand in hand with Sonic's go-go-go attitude, and was even more prominent in Sonic 3 & Knuckles with the Zone transitions.

While I can appreciate a fleshed out story, especially with the Sonic characters that I've grown to love, I'd rather watch a Sonic film, and then play a Sonic game, or vise versa, rather than observe a hybrid of the two. Sonic Unleashed's story was better written than most, but even it got in the way of the Sonic experience after so long (and I could say the same for World Maps, hubs, etc; While well done in their own right, they bog the game down a bit). Sonic Heroes managed to blend game and story quite nicely, with only a line or so of dialogue as the transition between stages, but I don't know if they could come that close again.

Back to my first paragraph, I would've loved to see a "classic" mode via DLC which would let you play through all the daytime stages in one fell swoop (as in Act 1 plus one or two of the other Acts across the original game and DLC, with bosses placed where necessary). In fact, I wouldn't mind a "classic" Werehog mode either, to play straight through those levels without playing around on a map screen and navigating menus in between. I've always said one of the less-explored high points of the original Sonic games was a lack of tedious menus, which helped encourage the "pick up and play" nature we all like to tie in to the classics. You could turn on your Genesis, watch the game boot up, press start, and you'd be on your way, whereas nowadays you turn on your console, navigate a dashboard, start your game, sit through free advertising for ADX and Havok and Dolby and all that, skip a minute-long CG intro, press Start at the title screen, select a storage device, select a file, and get sent to another menu to pick what character, level, and blood type we want to play with. Then it asks if we're sure of said settings once or twice before letting us fucking play the game. It's all this unecessary crap that almost keeps me from playing modern games anymore. I can't even play a GameCube game without dicking around with the Wii's Channel menu first, because there's no option to turn on your Wii and automatically boot the game that's in there. Speaking of which, that menu needs a facelift, because after looking at it for almost three years, it's got incredibly boring and uninspired.

And while there were Option screens and a Data Select in older Sonic games, they hardly got in the way, as it was all simple and contained on one screen...that and once you had set your options (if you felt like doing so to begin with), you could start your game straight from that screen, in most cases. Like...in Sonic 2, you could go to the options, play around in the Sound Test, and change the player's character, but press start and go straight to Emerald Hill.