It has the foundations of a neat game, but Runners is ruined by so much crap (bullshit level design that's often difficult to see coming, the F2P aspects, etc). And that's on top of the technical issues. I have had my runs ruined and invalidated by stuttering and fucking crashes. I'm on iOS, by the way, and generally, from my understanding, the mostly likely cause is that the game is exceeding its RAM budget. Good grief, Sonic Team, way to go back to your days of technical incompetence.
I noticed this when installing yesterday, so I did some quick thinking and It has IAP, it's rare for a developer to not make it tied to an online account when that's involved.
Ahh, so that'll explain why it's unplayable on my iTouch. I tried to play it this morning, and on the third Announcements popup the thing crashed on me. Seriously? :| Here's to hoping they'll make use of the iOS-to-Windows 10 conversion path Microsoft is laying out. Playing this on a desktop PC sounds like it'd run a lot better.
FFS Even with like 2 Egg spins and what I have to imagine is like 8 red ring spins, I still don't have Classic Sonic. That's all I want so I can stop the grind! Arghhhhhhhhhhhh
So far the team working on Runners has tried to adjust things when people have complained about them, not sure how much of it is the japan only player survey (mentioned on the twitter) and how much was them monitoring places like this. They fixed flying types when people complained about how they were utterly defenseless in flight, they nerfed Rappy for the WW launch (but it was pretty evident from the leaderboards how OP Rappy was), the team focused on getting an Android fix out the next day after launch. They tried to make the roulette a bit more fair (by removing the standard buddies from premium roulette), but agree there really needs to be a better way to make characters unlockable, buddies isn't so bad - but special characters really need something that isn't based on a 6% chance. also the change to the red rings is the worst, it was something that really didn't need to be "fixed" - 10 rings for most episodes + the 50 extra for the final episode "end" was sufficient enough to give players a chance with companions without completely removing the temptation to buy Red Rings. I still enjoy Runners, but it's with a certain sadness because I know it has potential to be a much better game, I just wish they were not penny-pinching so hard.
I just hope they look into iOS performance soon, the stutter is ruining all the fun I have in runners (getting high scores) The moment rappy was announced to be worth 10 animals I knew it was going to be godlike, add a character with bonus animal percentage and you are in the millions by 3rd eggman, get that clump of gold robots in a run where asteroid wisp is just before them and you are laughing to the bank. good to know thanks, maybe it's something to do with the OS if you are not getting issues.
Im really confused...is it just Green Hill zone? I feel like I have been playing the same level over and over...
What little interest I had in this game died real fast with the mention of advertisements, and making it impossible to unlock Amy. Don't they realize most fans have relatives or friends with zero interest in Sonic whatsoever? I know nobody outside these boards that still plays Sonic games, seriously. I would never get Amy, EVER. As if unlocking her in Sonic Advance 2 wasn't enough to make you sick of the game, before finishing hunting down 28 emeralds getting to her. They managed to top themselves this time, way to go, Sonic Team. Those jerks are always underutilize their series's selling points, and anything that gives a Sonic game the kind of depth it needs to have lasting value. I can't stand playing as Mr. "I manage to make Mario look more fun with how few cool moves I've got under my sleeve!" all the time. That's so sleezy. I'd rather the game be paid for upfront, than deal with malware served up in ugly, performance killing panels from the adverstising industry. Always online AND nasty ads are thoroughly intolerable. I seriously want to bet half of Runners problems are from ads, and not the game itself. This game sounds worse than Sonic Dash about grinding. By the time I got Blaze in that game, my interest in Dash nose-dived because I already did everything interesting there is to do in that shallow mini-game just to get to her, so I couldn't enjoy it without rolling content in updates. I think it's stupid Runners locks its extras alleviating exactly that problem to a dumb roullete wheel. Like that ever helped anybody get what they want. I am not falling for that grinding trap again. Runners might work in Japan, where they love gambling, grinding in boring, uninspired RPGs, and have Internet almost everywhere. I really don't see its crummy, fishy tactics working too well in other territories. Unless they decide to do away with the ads, DRM, and Facebook character scams, this thing might crash and burn soon enough for SEGA to break even on this candy coated turd, then delist it.
It is for the first 10 episodes or so, then you'll unlock Tails and the Sky stage, and at Episode 16 you'll unlock Knuckles an the Rock/Lava stage
Thinking out loud and not very seriously, I wonder if Sonic Runners could theoretically, being a rated E game (according to Google Play Store's ESRB rating), be reported for encouraging gambling schemes to minors. In Europe, that's more than enough to get people fuming or straight up banned in certain countries. Look what happened with Pokemon and the Game Corner. Mind you, actually doing this is bush league nonsense that will only hurt the whole industry by making it impossible to make a kids game with some gambling game theory, but I argue that it's justified in this case because the game encourages you to spend real money on red rings, but still have no guarantee of getting what you want. I was saying on the front page comments feed that I'd be okay with the scheme more if you were allowed to just spend red rings to unlock the characters straight up, ala Sonic Dash. You COULD get some of them by the roulette, or you did the criteria for them (see Cream and Easter Eggs.) If you did neither, you can unlock them without questions asked by spending a more substantial total of red rings (for interest's sake, let's put it at 500 red rings a character.) Now you have a fair alternative if you really don't feel like doing supporting the gambling scheme.
Damn the Google Play store tells me "Your device isn't compatible with this version". :/ I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, do I just need to wait until they roll out a working version? Have been looking forward to this...
Seek out the .apk files. I know people that have been playing the game on the Galaxy S5 without any more issues than the normal build.
If so, you'd have to do the same thing to both Dragon Coins and Chain Chronicle (also Sega Networks), as they also have random rewards from boxes that can be opened with real money.
For those of you who don't know, development for Sonic Runners started in 2013 with a number of 10 people. Then the number changed from 10 to 40.
Hogfather (with a second opinion from Brad) reviewed the game for The Sonic Stadium, as did Jim Sterling for his Jimquisition website. They like the game itself but hate the package it comes in, for the same reasons GeneHF pointed out in his review.
So is anyone having any issues with certain sound effects not playing during game play - rings, crystals, and cakes make no sound. Destroying an enemy makes no sound, but hitting an item capsule does. So weird.
I grabbed it just because of the limited chance to pick up Classic Sonic. I don't mind the gameplay. I think this is at least an original idea by SEGA in terms of their work in the mobile market. What really got me was the clusterfuck of a menu system and the loading delays. I'm running on a Nexus 4 so its not as if the phone is slowing the game down. The menus though... One minute you're on one screen then you're on another then you're being redirected to chao gambling then to a character select. Granted this was during the tutorial sections, but even being lead by the nose I felt overwhelmed. I thought the brilliance of mobile gaming was simplicity. The perfect metaphor would be a simple TV jingle. Its short, sweet, and gets the job done. Its like SEGA either had too many ideas with this one or they simply don't know how to eloquently translate them into a game. Fucking wasted potential, SEGA.
