Sonic Generations Megathread

trakker · Oct 19, 2011

I'm so getting all these 1000 points! None of them look particually punishing

I'm looking at you Unleashed Hoddog and Shamar missions!

Tiranno · Oct 19, 2011

Just pre-ordered the Steam version. I can wait 3 days for better price, better graphics, modding, and a solid 60fps.

Jimmy Hedgehog · Oct 19, 2011

Wait. The "Look both ways" achievment...is that tornado carrying a car? :v:

Squidgy · Oct 19, 2011

Ugh... I'm not sure I can even run the PC version.
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU, 650 @ 3.20GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.2GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 430

Whereas Sonic Generations minimum requirements are...

OS: Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 (2x2.0GHz) or AMD equivalent
Memory: 2GB RAM (XP)/3GB RAM (Windows 7 / Vista)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 (512MB) / ATI Radeon HD 2900 (512MB)
DirectX®:
Hard Drive: 11 GB free hard drive space
Sound:

And their recommended...

OS: Microsoft Windows 7
Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 2.66 GHz / AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.0 GHz
Memory: 3GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (1GB) / ATI Radeon HD 5850 (1GB)
DirectX®:
Hard Drive: 11 GB free hard drive space
Sound:

Could anyone tell me if my PC can even handle this?

Also, that achievement list... do I see

two Super sonics?

jackaroo · Oct 19, 2011

Silver Got Served lol. That is an awesome achievement title. From the achievements with descriptions it doesnt sound like they will be too hard. The ones without descriptions seem pretty self explanatory for the most part though so it's looking like I wont have much trouble getting 1000 points from this.

Namo · Oct 19, 2011

Quick question: What are all those percentages by the achievements? How likely you are to complete the challenge specified?

GeneHF · Oct 19, 2011

The percentage of people on Steam who unlocked the achievement who have the game. The lower the number, the fewer people have unlocked it.

Chimpo · Oct 19, 2011

The development team sure is slacking.

Herm the Germ · Oct 19, 2011

I, for one, am glad Omochao got included again. <3

Voice actress is quite alright, too~

Also, I made two gifs based on a total of 8 texture files from the second demo:

Cooljerk · Oct 19, 2011

Herm the Germ said:

I, for one, am glad Omochao got included again. <3

Voice actress is quite alright, too~
Click to expand...

I'm ambivalent towards omochao. Never liked him, but never hated him.

I loved Tikal from Sonic Adventure though, her voice, despite being horribly recorded, was so soothing.

Mentski · Oct 19, 2011

I guess it's time to unlurk now my account's been approved...

I'm in two minds about Generations right now after finally having some spare time to play this new demo. There's no doubt it's the best Sonic game for a long, long time, and I'll no doubt buy it and play it through, but I'm still finding the classic levels a little lacklustre.

Call me anal (heck, someone wants to "smash my face in" based on a report I wrote after playing the 2 builds available at Eurogamer), but the classic levels still don't gel with me - A lot of the vertical springs are still scripted to shoot you up invisible tubes with no horizontal movement, the horizontal springs won't let you immediately tuck into a roll, presumably for the same scripted reasons, and there's still a lot of ramps that squarely place you in same position no matter how much speed and momentum you built up. The levels only work if you do what Sonic Team wants you to do - That same old "push forward to win" schtick that we've seen for the last decade. It's a shame.

Bar the little scripted events such as racing through tubes on Chemical Plant zone, etc, I expect a bit more freedom from my classic Sonic.

I expect scripted events all over the place in my modern Sonic, and probably for that reason I actually enjoyed playing the modern Green Hill level more. But I get the feeling that despite the illusion of momentum in the classic levels, it's doesn't really matter because the scripted stuff all over the place will still push you where Sonic Team want you to go.

But you know, the demo says it's not indicative of the final build, so they might fix it. Right? Yeah.

Metal Man88 · Oct 19, 2011

Eggomaticwaffles said:

I'm surprised no one has brought this up when discussing Classic physics and rolling in GHZ...I did a quick side by side comparison of the size of the loops, keeping the size of the Genesis/Generations sprites the same, and it becomes VERY apparent why those classic physics everyone's after would never work in Generations. The distances travelled in the original level were a fraction of the length they are here. Those loops are HUGE and definitely require considerable momentum to get around them...in many ways, this justifies the overpowered spindash. That said, if ST were to change the physics so that you're going fast enough to go around the loops like you did on the Genesis, the feel of Classic Sonic would drastically change. I'd venture he'd feel even less like his Genesis counterpart. If the Team were going to change anything, it'd be to make Generations model larger in relation to the environments so that the current physics better emulate the Genesis set-up.

It's funny, when we first got a glimpse at CPZ I was shocked by how small Classic Sonic looked in relation to the level itself. Perhaps this is the chief issue plaguing the physics. If the overall model was larger, he'd essentially have less distance to travel and would have fewer issues getting around those loops (and rolling too I'd imagine!)

Click to expand...

Hm, that does bring up an intriguing issue.

The old physics were based around the low-res screen size and fixed, smaller loops/stage shapes. Even if the algorithms were completely copied into Generations, this would make most parts of the stage require max spindash to have any hope of navigating it, if even that.

Sonic would have to be larger, but then he'd take up a disproportionate part of the screen. So Sonic Team can't implement classic physics 100% even if they wanted to. Something has to give. Some people might prefer rigid loops and less flexible stage design, but in my opinion, it's more interesting to tweak the physics to match a more interesting stage design than to dumb it down just because some primitive physics that assume the stages are relatively 'small' (so as to fix in the old school resolution).

In any case, I could imagine that if the original style of game continued without being cut off at the knees around 3D Blast, something like this would have to happen. Larger screen resolution would mean Sonic would behave differently. Stages would change in diversity and over all these sort of tweaks would be necessary. Of course, other ones like 'breaking monitors instead of standing on them' is kinda eh, but in the end, I'm more interested in the overall feeling of the physics than the nitpicking. Nitpick too hard and everything is bad, the original games included. After all, the physics don't even stay 100% the same between the originals. What if Sonic 3 came out now after we had only had up to Sonic 2 for 10ish years? "I hate this new more 3Dish Sonic sprite. And his jump feels slightly different. And what is this with this flashing white shield thingy? No way! No way!!! This is all wrong, I hate this game, it is bad!"

Chimera · Oct 19, 2011

Metal Man88 said:

"I hate this new more 3Dish Sonic sprite. And his jump feels slightly different. And what is this with this flashing white shield thingy? No way! No way!!! This is all wrong, I hate this game, it is bad!"
Click to expand...

And that, my friends, is why all purists are fucking retarded. Sorry, but I stand by my reasoning that if you were given Sonic Adventure in your childhood instead of Sonic's 1 2 and 3, sans some exceptions, you wouldn't be saying a thing about it.

....ahem. Anyway, looks like the level list got a slightly neglidgable yet interesting update. Interesting part being not everything is in caps this time.

That floating Genesis in the GHZ part of the HUB confirmed for being an emulator. Thank you, Genesis controller adapter~

Information pod is still called "Information Pod." Considering we have the Music Room with everything there and I didn't once see "Information Pod" or anything like that, let alone in the Generations text (maybe it skipped my eyes?), I still don't know what that is. And Death Egg has, curiously, been changed to Death Egg Robot, like in the playthrough Aaron Webber showed at CLNet. Maybe at some point the Dev team couldn't decide which Death Egg to pick? Or maybe they thought "Death Egg Robot" sounded less vague or whatever than "Death Egg." I dunno.

All I know is, this game. My goodness.

ICEknight said:

Click to expand...

This made my day. No joke.

EDIT: Also, controls in full English.

Okay, so I assume "Flippers" is for Casino Night. I USED to think "switch characters" meant something other than what it's likely for; switching between Modern and Classic in the HUB. Spring catapult is interesting. Join Hands is still unknown I suppose, unless you and your partner in missions hold hands to combine power I assume. Would also prevent Tails form being an idiot again, even though him failing all the time in Chemical Plant would indeed be a sight to see |D

'NUTHER EDIT: Apparently there's another, seperate file called "LOADING." It's basically a top-to-bottom list of the stages, then "CASINO NIGHT" (no longer with a "Zone" at the end, curiously), "RIVAL BATTLE," "BOSS BATTLE," "SEGA GENESIS" (back in caps), "FINAL BATTLE" (not called Time Eater anymore :P), "? ? ?," and lastly "MOVIES." Everything but MOVIES has been seen before, and that's likely loading archived cutscenes. Why it has its own loading screen seems odd o-O

moar edits: Well this is odd.

Note what's written there. It only lists Sonic, Shadow, and Cream, out of the other many characters there, and it's been said by SEGA that only Sonic is playable. I wonder why. Its filename is ui_gameplay_word. Huh.

Machenstein · Oct 19, 2011

At this point, Sonic Team's goal with this game shouldn't be to recreate the classic physics 1:1, but to ensure classic Sonic feels fluid to control within the parameters of the level design. Even though classic Sonic is playable enough in the new demo, there are still some rough edges that need to be patched out. The player still has no control of classic Sonic when he bounces up from vertical springs, he can't build up enough speed on flat ground to run up loop-de-loops (yet modern Sonic can without the boost), and of course the rolling is still gimped. There is less input lag in the PS3 version now, but not enough to make classic Sonic's midair control as fluid as it should be.

Could classic Sonic build up enough speed on flat ground to run up loop-de-loops in the June demo?

Dusk Golem · Oct 19, 2011

Full Time Eater code from the demo, ripped by JacktheInfinite101:

Code (Text):

<BossTimeEater>

<Category>

<AbsoluteRay>

<Param>

<ColLength>50</ColLength>

<ColRadius>3</ColRadius>

<DelayTime>1</DelayTime>

<LifeTime>3</LifeTime>

<OffsetX>0</OffsetX>

<OffsetY>0</OffsetY>

<OffsetZ>0</OffsetZ>

<Velocity>70</Velocity>

</Param>

</AbsoluteRay>

<Common>

<Param>

<Agility>1</Agility>

<AngDistance>5</AngDistance>

<BoostSpeedRatioFar>0.7</BoostSpeedRatioFar>

<BoostSpeedRatioMid>0.7</BoostSpeedRatioMid>

<BoostSpeedRatioNear>0.7</BoostSpeedRatioNear>

<ConflictView>15</ConflictView>

<DebugEditFlag>false</DebugEditFlag>

<DefaultSpeedRatioFar>1.2</DefaultSpeedRatioFar>

<DefaultSpeedRatioMid>1.2</DefaultSpeedRatioMid>

<DefaultSpeedRatioNear>1.2</DefaultSpeedRatioNear>

<DistanceFar>80</DistanceFar>

<DistanceMax>100</DistanceMax>

<DistanceMid>60</DistanceMid>

<DistanceNear>40</DistanceNear>

<Rotating>1</Rotating>

</Param>

</Common>

<Damage>

<Param>

<AwayMaxDistance>50</AwayMaxDistance>

<AwayVelocityRatio>2.5</AwayVelocityRatio>

<ContactOffsetX>0</ContactOffsetX>

<ContactOffsetY>0</ContactOffsetY>

<ContactOffsetZ>4.2</ContactOffsetZ>

<FVCameraOffset>10</FVCameraOffset>

<StandTime>3</StandTime>

</Param>

</Damage>

<DmAttackCommon>

<Param>

<AttackOffsetDelta>12</AttackOffsetDelta>

<CollisionDelay>1</CollisionDelay>

<CollisionLength>10</CollisionLength>

<CollisionRadius>5</CollisionRadius>

<DelayTime>3</DelayTime>

<VelocityXY>10</VelocityXY>

<VelocityZ>30</VelocityZ>

<WaitTime>0</WaitTime>

</Param>

</DmAttackCommon>

<DmAttackFV>

<Param>

<LeftArmOffsetX>10</LeftArmOffsetX>

<LeftArmOffsetY>5</LeftArmOffsetY>

<LeftArmOffsetZ>-40</LeftArmOffsetZ>

<LeftArmRotationY>0</LeftArmRotationY>

<LeftArmRotationZ>0</LeftArmRotationZ>

<RightArmOffsetX>-10</RightArmOffsetX>

<RightArmOffsetY>5</RightArmOffsetY>

<RightArmOffsetZ>-40</RightArmOffsetZ>

<RightArmRotationY>0</RightArmRotationY>

<RightArmRotationZ>0</RightArmRotationZ>

</Param>

</DmAttackFV>

<DmAttackSV>

<Param>

<BackArmOffsetX>0</BackArmOffsetX>

<BackArmOffsetY>0</BackArmOffsetY>

<BackArmOffsetZ>40</BackArmOffsetZ>

<BackArmRotationY>180</BackArmRotationY>

<BackArmRotationZ>135</BackArmRotationZ>

<FrontArmOffsetX>0</FrontArmOffsetX>

<FrontArmOffsetY>0</FrontArmOffsetY>

<FrontArmOffsetZ>-40</FrontArmOffsetZ>

<FrontArmRotationY>0</FrontArmRotationY>

<FrontArmRotationZ>-45</FrontArmRotationZ>

</Param>

</DmAttackSV>

<FVCamera>

<Category>

<TypeDimension>

<Param>

<DistRatioFar>80</DistRatioFar>

<DistRatioMid>50</DistRatioMid>

<DistRatioNear>10</DistRatioNear>

<DistanceFar>100</DistanceFar>

<DistanceMid>60</DistanceMid>

<DistanceNear>40</DistanceNear>

<FovFar>60</FovFar>

<FovMid>60</FovMid>

<FovNear>60</FovNear>

<OffsetFar>10</OffsetFar>

<OffsetMid>7</OffsetMid>

<OffsetNear>5</OffsetNear>

<TargetOffsetX>0</TargetOffsetX>

<TargetOffsetY>0</TargetOffsetY>

<TargetOffsetZ>0</TargetOffsetZ>

</Param>

</TypeDimension>

<TypeNormal>

<Param>

<DistRatioFar>80</DistRatioFar>

<DistRatioMid>50</DistRatioMid>

<DistRatioNear>10</DistRatioNear>

<DistanceFar>100</DistanceFar>

<DistanceMid>60</DistanceMid>

<DistanceNear>40</DistanceNear>

<FovFar>60</FovFar>

<FovMid>60</FovMid>

<FovNear>60</FovNear>

<OffsetFar>10</OffsetFar>

<OffsetMid>7</OffsetMid>

<OffsetNear>5</OffsetNear>

<TargetOffsetX>0</TargetOffsetX>

<TargetOffsetY>0</TargetOffsetY>

<TargetOffsetZ>0</TargetOffsetZ>

</Param>

</TypeNormal>

</Category>

</FVCamera>

<Grip>

<Param>

<FVCameraPositionOffset>15</FVCameraPositionOffset>

<FVCameraTargetOffset>5</FVCameraTargetOffset>

<HomingTime>1.5</HomingTime>

<HomingVelocity>20</HomingVelocity>

<OffsetX>0</OffsetX>

<OffsetY>-3</OffsetY>

<OffsetZ>18</OffsetZ>

<SVCameraOffsetY>8.5</SVCameraOffsetY>

<SVCameraPositionOffset>33</SVCameraPositionOffset>

<SVCameraTargetOffset>7</SVCameraTargetOffset>

<VelocityControlTime>1.3</VelocityControlTime>

<VelocityMin>40</VelocityMin>

</Param>

</Grip>

<HBullet>

<Param>

<AccDelay>3</AccDelay>

<AccLife>1</AccLife>

<Angle>15</Angle>

<FirstVelocity>15</FirstVelocity>

<HomingLifeTime>10</HomingLifeTime>

<Invalid>15</Invalid>

<LastVelocity>40</LastVelocity>

<LifeTime>10</LifeTime>

<Num>8</Num>

<Ratio>0.7</Ratio>

<StartHomingTime>2</StartHomingTime>

</Param>

</HBullet>

<Motion>

<Param>

<SmoothLinkTime>0.2</SmoothLinkTime>

</Param>

</Motion>

<Obstruct>

<Param>

<AlphaTime>1</AlphaTime>

<BoostVelocity>45</BoostVelocity>

<DefaultVelocity>5</DefaultVelocity>

</Param>

</Obstruct>

<RestraintTrap>

<Param>

<BoostVelocity>45</BoostVelocity>

<ColRadius>2</ColRadius>

<DefaultVelocity>5</DefaultVelocity>

<DeltaRoll>270</DeltaRoll>

<EffScale>1</EffScale>

<OffsetX>-18</OffsetX>

<OffsetY>0</OffsetY>

<OffsetZ>10</OffsetZ>

</Param>

</RestraintTrap>

<SVCamera>

<Param>

<DistRatioFar>10</DistRatioFar>

<DistRatioMid>30</DistRatioMid>

<DistRatioNear>20</DistRatioNear>

<DistanceFar>100</DistanceFar>

<DistanceMid>60</DistanceMid>

<DistanceNear>40</DistanceNear>

<OffsetFar>15</OffsetFar>

<OffsetMid>10</OffsetMid>

<OffsetNear>10</OffsetNear>

</Param>

</SVCamera>

<SelectAttack>

<Param>

<SelectFlag>false</SelectFlag>

<SelectIndex>0</SelectIndex>

<SelectOption>0</SelectOption>

</Param>

</SelectAttack>

<SlowBurst>

<Param>

<EffOffset>40</EffOffset>

<Life>20</Life>

<Speed>0.1</Speed>

</Param>

</SlowBurst>

<SunObject>

<Param>

<SunAngVelocity>20</SunAngVelocity>

<SunOffset>180</SunOffset>

<SunRadius>140</SunRadius>

</Param>

</SunObject>

<TheSun>

<Param>

<AppearMax>0.5</AppearMax>

<AppearMin>0.05</AppearMin>

<AppearanceRatio>0.1</AppearanceRatio>

<FVCameraOffset>5</FVCameraOffset>

<PlayerRotate>360</PlayerRotate>

<PositionOffsetX>0</PositionOffsetX>

<PositionOffsetY>25</PositionOffsetY>

<PositionOffsetZ>20</PositionOffsetZ>

</Param>

</TheSun>

</Category>

</BossTimeEater>

Andrew75 · Oct 19, 2011

With all the sonic Sonic Generations stuff being leaked .......
May as well revel the New character that was just now found !
Not sure what his name is, but he sure does look ..... uuuhhhhh Tweaked out.

Mr Lange · Oct 19, 2011

Metal Man88 said:

In any case, I could imagine that if the original style of game continued without being cut off at the knees around 3D Blast, something like this would have to happen. Larger screen resolution would mean Sonic would behave differently. Stages would change in diversity and over all these sort of tweaks would be necessary. Of course, other ones like 'breaking monitors instead of standing on them' is kinda eh, but in the end, I'm more interested in the overall feeling of the physics than the nitpicking. Nitpick too hard and everything is bad, the original games included. After all, the physics don't even stay 100% the same between the originals. What if Sonic 3 came out now after we had only had up to Sonic 2 for 10ish years? "I hate this new more 3Dish Sonic sprite. And his jump feels slightly different. And what is this with this flashing white shield thingy? No way! No way!!! This is all wrong, I hate this game, it is bad!"
Click to expand...

"Flashing white shield thingy" doesn't hinder the gameplay in any way. It doesn't do anything except give you split second invulnerability for spiked enemies or small hazards. Its a very clean, quiet tactic that adds to the gameplay value more than anything.
Look at the homing attack in Sonic 4. That has a lot of reason for gripe. It modifies your movement in a coarse, unreasonable way that doesn't agree with the actual gameplay mechanics, as if they were any good anyway.
When you compare things like that its easy to filter fact from opinion. One is a welcoming unobstructive favor, and the other is an obnoxious compromising fault..
That's why people would not be complaining about "white shield thingies" if it came out today, assuming Sonic gameplay was still being done right. It would be viewed exactly the same, as a merit and not a defect, because that's what it is, measurably, much more so than just fickle opinions souring with age. The "opinions" of older Sonic fans soured for real, substantial reasons, not just because things changed from then to now. You can actually measure with theory and numbers how Sonic gameplay today is worse in all ways. If you are ever uncertain, just remember to watch this again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze582VGaAkY

JaxTH · Oct 20, 2011

Mr Lange said:

One is a welcoming unobstructive favor, and the other is an obnoxious compromising fault..
Click to expand...

http://www.sonicretro.org/2011/02/guess-the-game-sonic-3-or-sonic-4/

GeneHF · Oct 20, 2011

All this jibberish and nonsense has brought an important question to my mind:

Is Sonic's Insta-Shield a skill for Classic Sonic? Because that would be all I need to make Classic Sonic perfect. Bless that move and how ridiculously broken it is.

Mr Lange · Oct 20, 2011

JaxTH said:

Mr Lange said:

One is a welcoming unobstructive favor, and the other is an obnoxious compromising fault..
Click to expand...

http://www.sonicretro.org/2011/02/guess-the-game-sonic-3-or-sonic-4/
Click to expand...

Lol I remember this, notice how one of the responses is from me.
How do I put this... they didn't know what they had until it was gone.

Sonic Generations Megathread

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