BTW, I would like to give a reminder that Sonic Boom is being released just ten days ahead of the 20th Anniversary of the Sega 32X's release. Make of this what you will.
[NOTE: I freak out a bit. I promise that I understand this is simply a video game and at the end of the day life will go on, but being a lifetime fan, I'm saddened by this (as I hope you all understand as well).] I knew the game wasn't going to be good. We all knew that. But this is much worse than I thought. I understand that this is a sub-series and things will most likely go about like this never even existed soon, but you have no idea how overwhelmingly disappointed I am. I thought another 06 could never happen again, but obviously I was very, very wrong. It simply baffles me how you could even think about releasing a game with this many bugs, especially after the series almost ENDED when a similar event happened. I know I've been saying since the beginning that we really don't know how it is until we get it, but do you think we can forget about that now? I mean look at it! This is awful! Even Sega knows this! What the hell kind of world do we live in where a product can consistently be mediocre and sometimes terrible and they don't care to fix it a whole lot because they know it will sell anyway? I don't understand. I really don't. I almost think Sonic needs to be taken away from Sega, the way a child needs to be taken away from abusive parents. Nintendo puts time and care into their products, and they tend not to screw up. Activision releases a new CoD every year, and as repetitive as they are, they're polished very well and honestly are solid games. Sonic is worked on within Sega, outside of Sega, and they don't have anything near the quality control you'd expect them to have. I just don't understand it. Now, don't get me wrong. I think Sega is doing a good job managing the rest of Sonic, including but not limited to the digital releases within the past few years (The extremely moddable Generations, SA2HD, Sonic CD, 1 and 2 TaxStealth ports, Virtual Console releases, and so on), events such as Summer of Sonic and Sonic Boom, the comic books, and all that. SoA has done a great job being friendly with the community (Aaron if you're reading I appreciate what you did while at Sega so much), and really since about 2008/09 everything's been looking up. Then Lost World came out last year. And now this. I just... don't get it. This is your game, not ours, Sega. You know that they turn out bad. So fix them, for crying out loud! You have formulas that work (Classic sidescroller, SA1/SA2 3D platformer, Modern 2.5D/3D sidescroller). I don't claim to know how Sonic should be made, but I think I can make an educated guess and say that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't know if I'm missing something, but it seems to me that something is wrong right now. Does this mean I'm giving up? On the contrary, I'm patiently waiting for the next "normal" Sonic game that I hope to God will be anything better than this.
I'd never heard '06 almost ended the series (and I certainly don't remember it). Are we starting to forget what happened or are we so distraught that we're now adding our own information to the history? Sonic & The Secret Rings was well received in 2007 (shortly after 2006's release) and we also had Rush Adventure and Rivals 2 that year. Also, there was Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games too, which seemed to get a positive reception. I don't think SEGA is doing much of a good job though. Sonic 4 Ep I was mediocre. Ep II was left on a cliffhanger that will probably never recover, we're yet to see much regarding the remastered games on TV (let's not forget Sonic CD and Ep II on Wii U?), a lack of clarity on where the series was headed. Sonic Lost World wasn't as great as I'd hoped, despite being pretty cool in a lot of areas it was frustrating due to major level design flaws, and Colours wasn't better than an 8/10. Generations has been the best thing that's happened to the franchise since the end of the Advance series and even Generations was THREE years ago now. They need to stick with the stylings of Generations, but maybe give boost Sonic a bit more Sonic Adventure-style freedom. Surely that's not a hard thing to do?
More like a red button. *bricked* I'm terrible. :specialed: Big Red Button could always patch this game post-release, but I guess living down a rough launch could be really tough for everyone involved. It's still shocking to me that some people who've worked on the likes of Crash Bandicoot, and Uncharted, were okay with shipping a game with a few big bugs. That's arguably the best explanation I've seen for the whole video games and derivative works topic.
Secret Rings was well recieved? I remember a badly controlling game that at times rivalled Sonic 06 for control frustration, albeit nowhere near as buggy. The other games, yes, but not that one.
Sub series or not, playing Fancy Pants Adventures as a blue hedgehog would be closer to a Sonic game than this... Here I just see Jak and Daxter with skins of Sonic characters.
I definitely remember Secret Rings being well received, though I still have no idea why. It is complete shit, the worst main-series Sonic title I've played. I guess people were happy that it wasn't 06 (though I've heard people say now it might be worse), or everyone was really stupid back in 07.
...I enjoyed Secret Rings. Except when you had to back up. I want to see the proof that '06 nearly ended the franchise. It's a dead horse that kept spewing money from its corpse. Then, as now, Sega wouldn't have killed the face of their company. Is there any way at the consumer level to convince Sega that Western-developed Sonic games aren't inherently bad with the proof they have in their past partnerships? I don't want Sonic to be kept under lock and key again with Sonic Team if they can't decide on what makes Sonic fun either.
I loved Sonic Riders. I bet more people would have liked it if it didn't have Sonic slapped onto it. This to me makes a lot of sense and gives me hope for another PC release. :v: Either way, I don't have the consoles to play this game. Until then, I'll wait for an entire glitch compilation to decide whether or not I'll consider it a true successor to Sonic 06 :specialed:
You know what really bugs me a lot about Boom as a whole? Sonic is just a really unlikable character. There's no more youthful happy-go-lucky guy with the occasional cocky remark. Now it's just him being a douche with the occasional feelings for Tails. It was dripping into the main series a bit, but in Boom he's full blown asshole.
I actually kind of like the characterization seen in Colors and Lost World. He's a cocky dork who rushes through things and thinks he's top shit, but behind his snarkiness he wants to fight for what's right and genuinely cares about his friends and the greater good. Before he was just a blank slate with a wannabe surfer dude voice who was the generic hero, only fast. He had no flaws. Where was the cockiness and the impatience of Sonic of ol? It was wiped out and replaced with nothing besides that nike smile that wouldn't die. If anything Tails is the douche now. A nerdy, know it all, douche. But at the very least their relationship seems like one that would form after years of two people being friends even though they have nothing in common. Sonic does his shit and cares for Tails like a brother, and Tails cares too, but he's seen it all before and isn't afraid to call Sonic out on his crap. Robotnik wins it all though. But Robotnik always wins in the personality department.
Actually, his name is Fastidious Beaver. And he's the shit. I'm more amused than turned off by all the glitchy madness this game is apparently bringing to the table. I guess that's a bad thing, because I'm still planning on picking it up in the morning.
So, quality-wise, the Wii U game is like Colonial Marines but without the high expectations that preceeded it... Okay. I'm still hoping that an unknown group at SEGA (or Platinum Games) is secretly working on a 2D HD Classic Sonic game with good rolling physics that will take all of us by surprise. Something like... No more redesigns. They were fine since the 90s and still appeal to both kids and adults alike. No more "HEY GUYS I GOT A GREAT NEW GAMEPLAY IDEA THAT WILL REINVENT SONIC AND/OR HIS PALS!". Sonic never needed to be reinvented, it worked pretty well as a simple sideways platformer with no boost to win or homing attack as pre built-in power-ups (those things used to be items for a reason). No more Mega Man physics. Play the classics and see what's different with the controls (try pressing down when on a slope and see what happens!). No need to make Sonic the only playable character. You got that wrong. People were just complaining about being forced to play as every single character in order to see the true ending. A simple character selection menu with a good ending for each character would be fine, even if they all share the same levels and goals through the whole game, we've always been fine with that. Try to follow the steps of Naka, Oshima, Yasuhara, Yamaguchi and Co. and figure out what would they have made on an HD Mega Drive, back in '91. Or just ask them. That would be going back to the basics that were successful in the past and are still getting attention thanks to the recent mobile ports. Now is the perfect chance to redeem what happened with Dimps' Sonic 4 (and with some luck, even retcon it as "Sonic 4 Classic" and pretend it never existed). Just try doing that for once, SEGA. People who always buy the bad Sonics will be getting such a game anyway, and then people who enjoyed the mobile ports will most likely be interested on it too, as well as those who liked those "young Sonic and Eggman" in Generations and were left craving for more. Win-win situation.
Pretty much ICEknight's entire post. I too would support a new classic Sonic game on the condition that A.) Sega has enough passion for the classic games to do it right, or B.) Sega commissions another developer who has enough passion for the classic games to do it right. Sonic 4 proved that we shouldn't use "nostalgia bucks" to encourage them to make a new classic Sonic game. It has to be done solely because the developers want to do it. If they don't want to do it, then they simply shouldn't because their apathy would manifest itself in the final product anyway. I'd love to see a Sonic 4 Classic come by and retcon Sonic 4: Episode 1 and 2, but if we get Sonic 5 instead, I'll just pretend Sonic Advance is Sonic 4 anyway. Spoiler Wait, this topic is about Sonic Boom. Sorry.
