SAGE 2016

Please don't forget to vote on the movies that will be displayed tonight during SAGE After Dark!
Also check the link if you don't know what SAGE After Dark is and come have a great time with us tonight on the Interact Page!

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SAGE 2016 - Sonic DL Adventure

 

The final video of the SAGE week. And this is probably my longest "Let's Try" yet! But this game is totally worth my time. It's Sonic World release 7!

http://youtu.be/QH09mq_ipFs

LINK

 

How much longer will the site be up? I haven't downloaded any games yet, so it would be nice to know when everything goes offline.

 

Good to know I don't have to worry about games going offline when I download them tonight. Considering how one game is having its upload put up tonight, might be worth leaving SAGE open an extra few days in case anyone missed the announcement today.

 

Sonic Vs Darkness - SAGE 2016



Having being out of the fangaming stuff for a while, I was absolutely blown away by this game. Holy shit, I seriously hope it ends up getting finished! I love Rush games a lot, and this seriously nails it.

 

So, will the download for Utopia be available elsewhere after SAGE is over? At least for a short time after? If it becomes available while I am asleep and removed when I wake up, it will feel like a kick in the teeth.

 

"Go home. It's cancelled."

 

Wait, are you serious or is this me not recognizing sarcasm?

 

Utopia is available to download. It looks and sounds really, really good. The controls are also quite good, and it feels very responsive, although I did find some odd quirks. For example, Sonic will keep "running" against walls. I like the Badnik sounds and animation, and really the entire thing is endearing. Aesthetically, it really is stunning.

However...as nice as it is, I am sick of seeing 3D "Open world experiments". SGDK is littered with them, and in my opinion none of them work; the world becomes little more than a glorified playground. For me, the standout section in Utopia is the Labyrinth-esque part, as it feels like an actual platformer. I hope that if Utopia is going to be more than just an experiment, it turns into something with more structure.

 

I won't be able to try Utopia for a few months yet until I'm back home, but this is exactly what I was thinking. I want to see a 3D Sonic fangame that's more than just a test of rolling in a 3D environment. Utopia does look great, but just looking at footage shows that it's once again more of an example of the things that can be done with Sonic in 3D and not an example of how to bring those things together to form a solid gameplay experience.

 

While I love the current state of Utopia and would love to have a full, open world Sonic game, I have to agree. I'd like, too, to have more self-contained levels (as was the case with, well, the Genesis games'). Make no mistake, though, I love the game as it is right now.

 

Just to beat the Utopian dead horse a bit more: This is boring.

Gameplay, art, music, all of those are nice. But the oversized, barren level design lost my interest in about 10 minutes. I just hope this lovely engine they've created isn't seriously going to be wasted on yet another open world snore-fest.

I feel like every time someone claims they're reinventing/improving upon the 3D Sonic paradigm, we end up with another mediocre box of assorted slopes.

 

If you think of Utopia as less of a level and more of a tech demo, you can see the potential it has for more focused, traditional 3D Sonic levels. His low-speed turn radius is perfect, he loses practically no controllability at high speeds, but at the same time, unlike Sonic Adventure or SA2, doesn't become instantaneously twitchy at said high speeds. And without doubt, the flow this demo gives of being able to recurl mid-air to hit the sweetspot of a ramp is the most satisfying thing I have felt in a 3D Sonic game, period.

Also appreciate that the camera, unlike SGDK, or any other 3D Sonic for that matter, fan-made or not, almost never becomes an issue. The homing attack loses almost no momentum and doesn't feel cheap, but more like an optional pivot point for determining where to go next. If you guys can't see past the veneer of "another barren open world 3D Sonic level" then you're entirely missing the point of Utopia, which is pure, unadulterated potential.

 

The thing is, there hasn't been much of anything said about this project's direction. We have no idea if it ever will have traditional levels. As such, I'm giving my thoughts on the game's current state. I agree that it has a lot of potential, but we can't yet assume that potential will be used.

 

That's a valid viewpoint, but I think in the end it depends on the aspects of it that you are focusing on; for me personally, I'm looking at what Utopia has improved upon compared to what previous attempts at 3D Sonic fan projects have not gotten right in the past. I appreciate the effort that has gone into attempts like SGDK, but when push comes to shove, Sonic controls too weighty and tank-y to make him fun to operate and the camera is too limited without meticulous scripting that make vertical movement almost impossible to present well.

Controls and camera are the two biggest issues plaguing 3D Sonic not just in fan projects, but official projects. Utopia has almost eradicated both of these problems. The fact that the level itself – which in this context, amounts roughly to window dressing to show off those two tenants – is a little barren, is almost negligible. People just don't seem to be realizing what a breakthrough Utopia has achieved. Whether they intend to make the engine opensource or pursue it as a full-fledged fan project, its the biggest step forward for 3D Sonic games probably of all time, in either an official or a fan capacity.

 

I think that control-wise, Sonic Utopia gets it right. It's the best Sonic has ever controlled in 3D, and it's easily the most impressive accomplishment the game manages to make. But I think it fails when it comes to the level design. Mainly: it doesn't really feel like there's a purpose to having multiple paths. It just feels open for the sake of being open, and it doesn't feel like there's much purpose to taking one path over the other aside from the hope that maybe you happened to pick a path that might take you to a secret area. Besides that, there's not much variety in the level design, and not really that many landmarks. As a result, even if you're going for the goal it can be hard to see if you're going into the right direction, because each direction you can go in looks similar.

Still, I feel like this is the closest 3D Sonic has gotten to capturing the feeling of Sonic CD's opening. I imagine that Utopia's controls combined with something like slightly more open and less scripted Adventure level design could be something really cool.

One small thing about the controls though: the deadzone on the analogue sticks really needs to be adjusted. They're just a bit too small. Oh, and it should be possible to re-center the camera behind Sonic with the press of a button, perhaps by pressing the right analogue stick.

 

The thing is, with Utopia I don't feel like I'm seeing anything new. It's a much better attempt at the same things every other 3D Sonic engine tries to do, and the potential for those was clear too. As a technical demonstration, Utopia is great. But I've seen it before. I would love to see someone take it to make a proper game now (even if that "game" is just one level).