I am intrigued by this level. I’m not hyped but I would certainly love it if Sega showed off an entire cyberspace level so we could get an idea of the level design. I’m also interested in seeing how the new boost system influences the cyberspace levels. Boosting off this ramp to get to the trick ring seems like it would be very satisfying: I’ve recently been replaying Generations with a new mod where Sonic carries his momentum in his jumps. I’m also using a mod that gives Sonic his SA2 bounce attack. These mods fixed my biggest issue with Generations which is that the platforming felt stiff… and frankly the level design had a lot of waiting the wreaked of Sonic 1. These mods both made it feel good to control sonic and gave him the tools to make platforming fun. The point of my rambling is that I think Generations’ boost levels were close to something really spectacular. They just needed some tweaking…unfortunately Generations’ lead level designer is gone and Frontiers is built off of Forces (which just feels awful to play). That said the game informer article was complimentary regarding Sonic’s controls… so we’ll see. Overall, the game informer article has further dimmed my excitement for the cyberspace levels as the way they are breaking the levels up really reminds me of colors and forces. For me that is not good. I shouldn’t be surprised since kishimoto was involved with those games as well. Colors had short levels with a SMB3-esque world map and we know that Frontiers open world is inspired by SMB3’s world map. At the end of the day though I need more gameplay before I can really make a judgement.
Uh, what. That's not what they said. They cited SMB3 as an example of the first instances of a world map to contrast with the fact that in Frontiers, the world map is a fully-explorable area of its own.
seeing all these cars in New Donk Highway makes me wonder if you will finally be able to get run over in a sonic game I said if there are 28, 11% so far are old locales, just as a present reality. Not a wish or an assumption. Re: the first point though, that would mean playing the exact same 7 stages on all 4 islands (again, just assuming the leak is true just for the sake of the hypothetical). That would be extremely weird, don't you think? I don't doubt some may end up having multiple acts, but I feel like they would mix and match some different stages between the islands, rather than put 1 act for each zone on a separate island.
ok with the direct trailer and the music and sage and previews praising the controls ive been feeling good but now THIS holy crap i think im genuinely excited for this game now
Could you please tell us the name of the mods? I always hated the platforming in 2D sections of Generations, it sounds like this could resolve my problem
It's weird to think that they were hiding the stages for the better part of the whole month to emphasize the open zone content, and now people are making it sound like the stages are intended to be the real meat and some folks think the open zones are going to be in-between filler.
I won't be surprised if most of the stages are just remixed content from Generations and Forces. I don't have a problem with asset reuse in general but when you're not even doing anything creative with it, it's really lame. Hopefully they do get creative with it and we're not just going to be seeing the exact same zones in the exact same way once again.
I will forget Green Hill, "Chemical Plant" (I need footage to be 100% sure it is indeed that stage) and Sky Sanctuary if we'll have 4 or new stages at least... Guess we'll have to wait and see.
I mean, I don't know if you're basing what you said *on* this, but just in case... we have people who've actually played it saying the same thing. This actually sounds perfect for me. My main hope since I first read the leaks was that the cyberspace levels would be substantial enough that I could just treat them as the "real" game and replay them 872 million times, and all the open world stuff could, like so many Werehogs and mech/hunting stages before it, just be this in-between thing I did to get to more speed stages. But man, Sonic Team really is damned if they do, damned if they don't, aren't they? When they focus exclusively on high-speed action stages (as in Colors, Generations, and Forces), one of the primary criticisms is that the games are too short, because apparently replay value is something we stopped caring about circa 1995. But when they do anything BUT high-speed action stages, the criticism is that all this other stuff is just padding, it just isn't as good as the traditional Sonic stages, and the game would've been much better if they'd just stuck with that. I think this issue, and Sonic Team's efforts trying to mitigate it and find a balance, are partly responsible for why this half-century long, possibly-never-ending "transition to 3D" era has been so rocky.
I mean, from what we've seen, they've significantly slowed Sonic down in this game. He's not much faster than he is in SA1. I guess the question is how wide the gap between speed settings is.
I got no rebuttal to this, so I guess I'll take the L and admit Chemical Plant is popular :p Still, the places I used to frequent when I was a wee lad were quite different from Sonic Retro, and almost everyone painted CPZ as this unbeatable level that ruined the game for them...but to be fair, we were a bunch of 11-12 year old raised on Sonic Adventure 2 and Mega Collection (Or Classic Collection on the DS in my case), and we were NOT GOOD at classic Sonic lmao. I guess I let my personal experience cloud my judgement, but I will say still I think CPZ is one of the more boring S2 zone and I wish Generations would've picked a different level. (I'm bringing up Gens a lot because it's obvious Sonic Team reused CPZ in Forces and Frontiers because of time/budget constrains and not because of any real desire in the fanbase to see it back. If anything Gens is the root of the issue, which is a shame because it's a neat game but its stage roster is retroactively getting lamer and lamer as the years go by ) edit: Play the Unleashed Project for the ultimate roadkill experience, you won't regret it
Hate to burst bubbles... but they are not reusing Chemical Plant because of the 'aesthetic'. Yes... but it also is very very likely.
The time to bring back Green Hill/Chemical Plant/Sky Sanctuary again was 10 years ago when making stage/extra act DLC for Sonic Generations would've been easy money. A not-Generations 2 with different zones/stages would've been appealing but I'm tired of what they're re-using. Hopefully these once again returning stages are a small part of the cyberspace acts.
Sorry to go a bit off-topic, but with the Game Informer article mentioning Eggman's AI program, do we know if any prior leaks regarding the AI were correct? I can't tell if there are two separate AIs or if + - SAGE is Eggman's AI who was somehow affected by the ancient technology and spiraled out of control like the leaks mentioned. Anyway, only two hours until the IGN video.
With the number of Sonic fans I see who suddenly talk non-stop about squash-and-stretch and “mascot effect,” I think everyone remembers lol. “Mascot effect” in particular seems to be the newest buzz word/phrase in the manner of “meta era,” “momentum,” “pinball physics,” “speed-as-reward,” etc. Not that I have any major disagreements with the video’s points (outside of thinking the squash-and-stretch in Shadow was excessive). It just gets old to hear everyone suddenly start parroting the same terms immediately after a viral video.
I mean are you really surprised at this point? The instant they revealed the boost was back I knew we were gonna get blocky 2D sections, I'm just hoping they're really, really few and far between.
No, but I was hoping. My newest hope is that some stages are purely 3D, and some are purely 2D. So I can never touch the 2D ones beyond the requisite first run. This, too will be dashed.
2D was never really an issue. it's how they execute it, in Unleashed it was fine, even breathtaking when done right, Generations is the same. It's only an issue in Colors and Forces when they become dominating and stiff, but i had the impression that the stages here are more 3D
