Sonic The Hedgehog 2006: 2D

Sounds more a Sonic and the Secret Rings remake than an 06 remake.

 

This new trailer looks a lot more stiff than their old one did. Good on them for being accurate, I guess, but they probably shouldn't be replicating flaws. :p

 

Well, I suppose I'll wait to play the demo thing before doing some criticism (I cant right now, got web develop. class in about 30 minutes :P) but that trailer didnt look bad at all... I mean, like people said, there may be some flaws when replicating a flawed engine/game design.

Also, I may be the only one thinking this, but isnt that Sonic player object way too small for the whole screen? :P It may be kinda subjective, but I feel that's its too small... the backgrounds look kinda nice and I love how big these are though.

I'll comment properly about it later I suppose~~

 

I played the demo a handful of times and all I can say is that they are striving for accuracy. Which, if you can't guess, that means they're even trying to replicate flaws in Sonic 2006, just stopping short of flat out replicating bugs.

Controls are somewhat stiff, feature no traditional sense of momentum whatsoever, and frequently get you killed for kind of reasons you would expect (light dash, bounce attack, spindash, and flip kick are on the same button). The Kingdom Valley level on offer is heavily scripted - with some creative spindashing you can complete more than half the stage without ever touching the d-pad.

The only way to deal with enemies is via homing or bounce attacks. Jumping in to them, as one would expect from Sonic 2k6, simply damages you. Enemies are lined up in groups, requiring a flurry of jump-button-mashes to clear them. More powerful enemies are just as annoying as ever, as having to hit them twice (or more) feels absolutely pointless in a game that lacks any sort of combat depth whatsoever. I have to admit, though, the 2D plane makes kicking boxes in to enemies a valid method of attack, and is genuinely amusing to do.

The 2D Kingdom Valley tries to adapt the 3D version as closely as humanly possible. If you're familiar with that stage, you'll pretty much know what to expect here - not that it would matter either way, as there are no branching paths, no exploration, and hardly any secrets beyond a couple of shortcuts.

To say that it's bad would feel a bit harsh, however. At the very least, it may offer a (slightly different) glimpse at what Sonic 2006 might've been like if the game had the appropriate amount of polish. Because, I mean, I didn't fall through the floor or encounter any glitches. That's a plus, I suppose.

But yeah. Super weird. I remain morbidly curious to see where this ends up.

 

my idea to show the 3d stage in 2d would be some perspective effects (like in knuckles chaotix) where the player moves towards the screen in a stage, giving the illusion of 3d...

Could be a good idea for 2d sonic 06

 

I... Really don't see a point in this. If you're going to remake Sonic 06, that's one thing. In 2D, that's a little bit of a streatch that can be done if executed right... But to litterally SHIFT S2K6 to 2D- as in, not improving on one aspect of it whatsoever (art wise especially; those robots look as emotionless as ever), is just... Unneccessary and time consuming for a project that'll only be very roughly enjoyed at least, if at all, since some bugs weren't programmed in. But those are a select few. I can only imagine how far the sky gem will throw people now...

That said, I honestly don't have any care for this. You offering to help them with superior gameplay and them shutting that down is just cemented evidence that this is going to suck, since people who love 06 fail to realize that what made the classics fun was the gameplay itself—Classic doesn't mean old, it just means vintage. And quite frankly, the vintage gameplay in 3D with some modern twists to it—even if this was done in 2D—would be pretty damn awesome if you add in some creative level design. But this? No. Improve it or it's not really worth anything except for fanboys :|

Eh, a little harsh but I mostly agree.

EDIT:

If the final release was actually a later build than the damned demo at E3 with its actually finished aninations, dynamic lights, and non-ass physics, along with using a better Sonic model and animations a la Unleashed's style, scrapping the somewhat crappy story and (more of a personal nitpick) making you collect the Time Stones in the story instead so Chaos Emeralds could be a side quest that unlocks Super Sonic (and maybe the end of the game) and made Mach Speed sections more like Unleashed/Colors/Generations and less like "Press A to not die... Sometimes" then yes it would have been a good game.

 

Sonic 2006 would not be my ideal choice to make a fan-game based off of but whatever floats your boat.... However, I am impressed into how much detail and work has been done into these demos. Obviously, you can tell this isn't a poorly made game. A lot of attention has been put into the details such as the pre-rendered title screen, exact replica of the menus, to the faithful control scheme & game-play and even the loading screen. Not only the physics and the level layouts feel very faithful to the actual game, but so do the enemies' behavior patterns. Only thing that isn't faithful is the lack of multiple bugs and glitches. :P

I understand this game is meant to remain faithful to the original, so asking things such as changing the level design or game-play mechanics is obviously out of the question... So I will be considerate in my criticism.

Lets start with the title screen, the frame-rate of the looped background animation seems like its missing frames and is moving way too fast... The inclusion of Sonic next to the logo feels very tacked on and non-faithful to the title screen. As well as the "2D". I don't like the look of it and in my opinion would look better in a larger size in consistency with the logo on the right side.

Next, I feel the stage scenery is very un-lively. Kingdom Valley is a very windy stage, you have things such a leaves blowing into the air, flying hawks in the sky, trees moving from the wind, moving waterfalls and even moving grass. None of this appears in the demo. Another thing that really stood out was the inconsistency of the textures. Some textures were higher quality then others and the lower res textures stood out like a sore thumb.

Up next is the stiffness of the enemies. They need more frames of animation, with much looser movement. They are way to stationary and stiff. Not to mention the whale in Wave Ocean.

Also, is full screen possible? I've been trying to enable it and it doesn't work for me. I tried enabling it through the configuration file as well and it just doesn't work.

Overall, its Sonic 2006 in 2D (except less glitchy). Its very faithful in game-play, level layouts and a lot of work has been put into it. Not to mention the game-play feels much more solid then the actual real game. I wouldn't mind seeing this finished, its neat, nothing spectacular or original but does show a lot of effort.

 

So, it's done, apparently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDELNiml8Jk

I think. It only contains Sonic's story but I recall them saying that's what they were going for.

 

Heh, I never heard of this.
Even still, it looks exciting considering I've never played through Sonic 06 that much.

There was another Sonic 06 remake out there that played just as good as this looks.

It's always nice to see a completed game.

 

Oh, my mistake then. So I take it they plan on making Shadow and Silver's stories too?

Light dash is mapped to the X key now, but you have to get the timing on it just right in order for it to do anything. Also the homing attack ditches all forward momentum, so if you're ever thinking of using it to extend your jump distance, you'll want to think again. Sonic's animations are nice and the enemies look good, but they really clash with everything else. The environments are blobs or shapes with the environment textures from 06 slapped over them, and it's often confusing what is part of the background and what isn't.

The boss arenas (and level backgrounds) use a cool pseudo-3D effect which is nice.

In terms of gameplay there isn't much improvement from the last demo. It still feels choppy to play. Overall, it feels like they focused more on making a Sonic 06 game than a Sonic game, if that makes any sense.

 

Man, this game really emulates the Sonic 06 experience.

 

This game had potential to be something good.. *sigh* I really have no idea why emulating all the flaws of 06 was thought to be a good idea, or a point behind building the game.

 

Dusty desert really got annoying with insta-kill sand and the different physics, it just plain bad.

Aside from that is a good remake but as the others said the creator of this didn't had to replicate the bad elements of the game.

P.D.: Spin jump should hurt enemies!

 

I don't know if I'd necessarily call this bad. There's a few questionable decisions here and there (especially when they decide to stick frustratingly true to a bad game design decision), but it's... well, interesting, I guess. And weird.

I beat the whole thing a few hours ago, still collecting my thoughts. Might write something up for TSSZ.

 

Of all the pointless things someone can do I think this is one of the top. This is something I have disused with my friends, Sonic 2k6 is a really bad game. Even if the game wasn't a broken piece of Alpha Stage garbage it would still suck. The level design was uninspired, the hub worlds to big, the story was worse than your average fan fiction. The only way 2k6 could be good is if they recreate the game from the ground up but by then it wont be 2k6.

 

At first I was liking the direction that this game was taking, it had pretty cool sprites, used some cool 3d technics, had physics to the objects. It was pretty decent, I guess.

But after I played I saw how this game is bad. I mean, you can't blame the guys who did, the job was done... Even better than any S2k6 Remake on the fangame community. But the problem is, instead of making the game enjoyable, fun, and actually decent, he tried to replicate S2k6 in a almost 1:1 scale. So that included the flaws as well... And man, they're fucking everywhere. I mean you can't jump on enemies, you HAVE to use homming attack (which sucks and actually gets you killed sometimes because you try to play a Sonic game, like running and jumping and the goddamn enemy hits you cause you'd jumped on his fucking face at 120mph in a fucking spike form)... But that's ok... Right...

So... The level design, oh dear god. The obvious and tedious alternative paths that leads you to almost nowhere, the shortcuts that actually makes you go slower than the normal path. The holes... The holes are everywhere! The gameplay is bad, the moves doesn't work well, you are never sure when you can homming attack something or not. Sonic run slow as fuck, there is no momentum.

That desert level was one of the worst levels I'd ever seen in a game. It first show you that you can't step on the sand otherwise you will die. Then after you jump across a few deadly-sand dunes, you find youself on a ground too big to homming attack. The game taught you that you would be killed if you touch on the sand, so what the fuck shall you do? So after facing your own fear, you go ahead and try to jump... For your surprise, this fucking sand doesn't kill you anymore. Oh dear god, what the fuck. It's almost like you have a Green Hill Zone level, and you play through it 'till you come to the very ending of it... And when you got there, the ground has no collision or that grass hurts you. Like what the fuck?!

That Iblis boss... Oh my god, if you miss a jump or Iblis hits you, the plataform will NOT reapear in a certain point, you're stuck 'til you die. So you gotta start again a boring as fuck boss battle all over again.

The game gives you no indication to where the fuck you have to go sometimes, like on the Tropical Jungle level where you have a fucking reverse-C pipe leading you to a hanging flower. The way that the C shit throws you give you the impression that you have to go to the left then. But no. You have to go to the fucking right. Like, how the fuck should I know that? I can't see the ground on the right, the C-thing dropped me for the left. Luckly the level design is so bad, but so bad, that now you can be sure that all you gotta do is go to right, doesn't matter what and luckly in 1~2 minutes you will be hitting that Giant Ring and reciving a Rank for a level that the dashpads made pratically 70% of the work, the other 70% (lol, no russia jokes, sorry) 30% is just you homming attacking the shit out of enemies placed always in the WORST spot possible and avoiding random holes that will give you a instant death.


It's a shame overall because when you see the 3D graphics, the cool effects, the custom sprites, etc... Makes you kinda feel like, this is THE game. A remarkable game that will be remembered to generations to come. A game that will inspire many people, a game that "will teach SEGA how they have to do their games" like the newcomers on fangaming LOVE to say.

But actually, when you see how bad this game is and how much work, time and resources were wasted. All you feel is sadness because you see two talented people (the creators of the game) with so much potential, wasting their time creating one of the best looking Sonic fangames of 2011 and also one of the worst Sonic fangames of 2011 instead of creating an unique and truly enjoyable experience.


I just hope that both of them don't give up on making fangames and that the next one will be like a decent game.


If I would give a score would be: 3/10

+Great graphics
+Recreates perfectly the experience of Sonic the Hedgehog '06...
- ... which is terrible because... Well... It's STH'06. I'm not really sure why would someone tries to recreate that nowadays (in 2006~2007 I would understand, actually (even because I had something similar to it, back in the days), but not on 2011).
- One of the worst gameplay that I'd seen since the Plataform Movement was "banished" from this world.
- Automatic as fuck I'd to double check a few times to be sure that I was playing a game and not watching a video.
- Terrible level design.

 

If this version doesn't have so many of the bugs, why doesn't Sonic move faster? The only reason he moved so slow in the first place was to hide the poor collision detection.

It seems to me that the developers got so obsessed with recreating the game that they forgot that they were actually trying to recreate the original and improve on it, rather than recreate the original verbatim. If they do make Shadow's story, he'd better move 5x faster. And he should be able to take out most baddies without a homing attack. And the level designs should be drastically overhauled.

These people should be writing emulators, not making games. :v: