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Bashing Sonic 2: Electric Boogaloo

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Dek Rollins, Jul 24, 2020.

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  1. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    It was released as a standalone game though and I in fact played Sonic and Knuckles alone before Sonic 3, because the latter was so rare when I was a kid!

    So I think the point stands.
     
  2. Dek Rollins

    Dek Rollins

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    Don't forget that Flying Battery came in the middle of the Sonic 3 half before the split.

    Chemical Plant Zone isn't even all that more difficult until the end of act 2 when you hit the pink water part.
     
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  3. Xiao Hayes

    Xiao Hayes

    Classic Eggman art Member
    I thought this was common knowledge, you just had to try different character selections and see how many rings they ask for in the first special stage. The mistake here was assuming that just because you had to characters you'd get more rings, but what you get is more bombs because, unlike in normal gameplay, Tails DOES lose rings, and there are plenty of bombs for him where he stands when no one controls him. Collecting the amount of rings they ask in S&T mode could be doable when playing as a single character, but the lower requirements of playing alone would never be doable with your a two-tailed sitting duck as your sidekick.

    Btw, the trick about the special stages wasn't completely learning them, it's more about learning the moments where bombs will come out, and some tricky turns where you're short on rings and can't see where they'll come from. The rest, you might end up memorizing the whole levels, but it will happen in a more natural way. Also, remember you're in fact only moving left or right inside a closed loop so usual physics more or less apply when trying to get aerial ring sequences. That said, I never bother to play the special stages these days.

    Oh! Something I forgot to add when bashing it: while this game is fun to play and all, I find it the least interesting to replay, it has nothing really special about its gameplay that makes it a choice over the other classics.
     
  4. People talk about Oil Ocean or Metropolis, but I think Wing Fortress is the worst stage of the game. The layout is too confusing and you don't know where to go.

    Honestly, I think the most consistent stages of the game are Emerald Hill to Casino Night. I still like the whole game tho', but the first half is much better.
     
  5. I second the notion that Wing Fortress is the worst proper stage in the game. So glad that Sonic Team essentially redid the trope to give us the vastly superior Flying Battery.
     
  6. Sai Start Marker

    Sai Start Marker

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    Sonic 2 is a sacred cow that I will slay at any given opportunity.

    Seriously though, it's still very good, but there's a lot wrong with it. And it was my first video game that I ever owned and I got it at Christmas and I have great nostalgic memories... but I have to be objective. It's easily the worst of the original Mega Drive quadrilogy. Still very, very good but:

    - I know this is confirmation bias, but I think the rushed and troubled production is clear within the final product. Don't get me wrong, it's a miracle that it's good as it is, but so much is half baked and half realised. It's a shame and I genuinely believe that Sonic 3 was Sonic Team's attempt at a do-over (sans time travel, because they couldn't top CD). Everything done in Sonic 2 was done much better in Sonic 3.
    - Platforming is minimal and when it hits, and only really shows up in the last 40% of the game. This is probably why the general populations fondly remember the title. Sonic 2 is very simple in lots of places.
    - The Special Stages are dreadful. The only classic Special Stages reliant on extreme pattern memorization with no room for error, made worse by playing with Tails. I find them to be absolutely not fair and very frustrating. Their iconic visual design is their only saving grace.
    - No real divide between a bad ending and a good ending. Makes getting the Chaos Emeralds even less appealing.

    I know that the Taxman remake makes my last point null and void, but I'm basing this on the original release.
     
  7. kyasarintsu

    kyasarintsu

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    I can't believe that Wing Fortress has that speed booster thing that will happily drop you into a pit and kill you if you happen to be holding right on the D-pad. Just another reason to hate the speed cap.
     
  8. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

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    I've thought about that. I really couldn't come up with a reason they wouldn't...unless it was somehow an attempt to keep Super Sonic a secret. As if the game is all "Yay you won completely! And there's absolutely nothing else to be gained from getting the Emeralds! Heh heh, fools..."

    3 unveils Super right out of the gate, so even if you didn't know Super Sonic was a thing before, you would now. It's funny: Sonic 1 gives a good or bad ending but no gameplay incentive, 2 gives a gameplay incentive but no good or bad ending. Why did it take them until 3K to do both?
     
  9. nineko

    nineko

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    I disagree, if you time your inputs right, you can make Tails dodge all the bombs even if you're playing alone. In fact, I could do that with two sitting ducks, in Sonic Classic Heroes (proof, in the first 30 minutes).
     
  10. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    I thought Wing Fortress wasn't that bad until I played it again yesterday, and yeah, it's bad. Loads of bottomless pits you can't see coming and loads of annoying parts. Especially this conveyor which you cant see coming and can easily kill you:

    upload_2020-7-26_21-47-4.png
     
  11. Mana

    Mana

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    If we're going there Flying Battery Zone isn't all that hard either outside of the outside part.

    And looking at the original stage order my point still stands that Mushroom Hill was still preluded to a very hard stage, Sandopolis in the original order. I'd rather play Flying Battery after MH than that. Relaxing stage before they gear you up for the second half.
     
  12. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    I'm not sure where to begin. I like playing Sonic 2 more than Sonic 1, but of the original classic games it has always struck me as an odd duck, with several aspects that bug me about it:
    • The game by default sets you up for failure in the special stages - because the game's AI for tails is awful, and it also gives you increased ring requirements. To make the special stages winnable as a single player, you have to go with Sonic Alone, thus completely removing one of the game's major gimmicks.
    • Tails is garbage in this game. No flight, lower speed cap, for...........a slightly smaller hitbox. okay.
    • As mentioned by several people in here already, the game's art direction is wildly inconsistent. I would like to add as well though, that I think this is because the game shifts between interesting zones and....industrial ones that all have the same ugly gray and black-and-yellow-striping aesthetic (Chemical Plant, Wing Fortress) or levels that share a similar "gold/gray" dominant color pallete (Casino Night Zone, Metropolis Zone, Wing Fortress Zone) and also don't really follow the classic games' "early 3D polygons" aesthetic. I think OOZ is the only one that doesn't follow that pattern.
    • This also not only makes the game's level progression nonsensical, but also makes parts of the game feel samey as well.
    • That said, I don't think a lot of the art is all that great either. Hilltop Zone's lava looks like fire instead, the crushing segments in that stage are utterly nonsensical (why is the floor trying to kill you just some mountain flowers?!), Emerald Hill Zone is an uglier Green Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone looks a little too "rough" compared to other mechanical/factory zones in the series...I think the only zones that actually feel properly realized are Mystic Cave and Metropolis; the rest feel like they needed some more passes to work.
    • Metropolis is too long and labyrinthine (it could have been worse though - the betas had the evil crushing segments from Scrap Brain return in Metropolis originally!), and the enemy spread is too cheap. Asterons honestly could've been put in Oil Ocean without too much trouble.
    • Aquatic Ruin Zone's music has always struck me as disjointed, and after hearing the original MIDI demo, this has become even worse for me.
    • Wing Fortress Zone's music is obnoxious.
    • Hell, Wing Fortress Zone is obnoxious.
    • The way you get into the Special Stages is the worst of both worlds - Sonic 1's 50 rings requirement combined with Sonic 3's mid-level placement means that you spend the levels just far too scared to do anything lest you lose your rings before you hit a checkpoint. In Sonic 1, the special stage being at the end of the level means that you feel like you have breathing room to get enough rings before the end of the stage, while in Sonic 3 the mid-level placement encouraged you to go hunting (Sonic 2 also did some of this with hidden checkpoints hidden in walls and other nooks and crannies later in the game) - Sonic 2 just really has you so anxious throughout it.
    • Silver Sonic is ugly.
    I know there's more nits I can pick about this game but I can't think of them at present. I'll probably remember them later, too :/
     
  13. nineko

    nineko

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    Was my previous post invisible?
     
  14. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    It took me several minutes to type all that out, so quite possibly. :oldbie:
     
  15. nineko

    nineko

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    Anyway, it's time for me to actually start bashing, I guess.

    It's not that I dislike Sonic 2, but I think it's overrated for some reasons, and not the best of the classics as some people claim (but of course, we have different tastes).

    My main problem with Sonic 2 is that it's too long and it has too many slow/boring levels, and it gets demanding to be completed in a single session (unless you emulate it and you use savestates, of course). I know that Sonic 3 & Knuckles is much longer, but the replayability greatly benefits from the integrated save system, and there are many more enjoyable levels to begin with, especially in the Sonic 3 half (with Mushroom Hill being the one fun level in Sonic & Knuckles).

    When I play Sonic 2, I just can't take it anymore after a few zones, and there are more mazes than I'd like. Sonic 1 already had its share of slow zones, so it's not like this is a new sin, but yeah, I can say Casino Night, Mystic Cave, some Chemical Plant, some Hill Top, Oil Ocean (!), Wing Fortress (!!), I can name more zones I don't like than zones I like. I can easily say that I like Starlight Zone in Sonic 1 and Marble Garden Zone in Sonic 3, but I can hardly pick a favourite in Sonic 2, probably because there is none. Ironically, I like the direction Hidden Palace was going to go, too bad they scrapped it because it had potential (and no, the Hidden Palace in Sonic & Knuckles pales in comparison, it's a glorified background for a cutscene and nothing more than that).

    So yeah, maybe I was wrong to begin by saying that I don't dislike Sonic 2.
     
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  16. Honestly, I think the Hidden Palace from 2013 version is better than the half stages from the original game.
     
  17. Laura

    Laura

    Brightened Eyes Member
    As much as I love Sonic Mania, I disagree. I think the level has annoying gimmicks (the barrels underwater which can crush you) and it has by far the most annoying boss in the entire game.

    I think it's impressive how much Whitehead and Headcanon improved on Mania.
     
  18. Mana

    Mana

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    i got all 7 emeralds in Sonic and Tails mode before.
     
  19. E-122-Psi

    E-122-Psi

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    As much as I like how the remake expands on HPZ in terms of items and obstacles, I admit I don't think it quite feels like the original in spirit.

    Hidden Palace in the original prototypes felt more mysterious and graceful, like you were trekking delicately in an elusive underground temple lost in time, while the remake's is more of a standard busy adrenaline type cave level. Fun, but it lacks this feeling of holding something greater. I think this setup is also why it doesn't use the sound test 10 while most fan attempts at HPZ seem to mesh with it fine (yes I know it wasn't CONFIRMED to be Hidden Palace's theme, but it is in the final game, and that whole mysterious riff is a lot of what played into HPZ's grandeur).

    Granted SEGA likely wouldn't have let the team reinstate HPZ's original importance to the game as the location of Super Sonic's birth, so HPZ losing some of its mystique was likely gonna happen anyway.

    If anything I could argue the boss would have worked better after this transition happened, since it seems very much a boss concept designed to waste your time, showing what happens if you are complacent with this new but fast draining power. At the same time though, the boss seems a bit over-designed to hurt you if you land anywhere wrong, making it a bit too easy to miss hits without Super. Make the boss smart enough to dodge even Super's high jump and he becomes a reasonable but more balanced challenge.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2020
  20. Sid Starkiller

    Sid Starkiller

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    ...we already knew why. It uses the music it used in the prototype.
     
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