Having good lighting can really make an area 'pop' even with low quality assets, and Hedgehog Engine 2 does wonders in that department. It's especially stark considering that 06 had this flat, dull lighting in the majority of it's stages that is simply nowhere near flattering. Funny how for the game directly after 06 they decided to go way overkill on the lighting with the semi-realtime global illumination for Unleashed, I guess Sonic Team really learned their lesson with that one.
Ya it’s all lighting. 06 final had very basic lighting in comparison to Frontiers (Frontiers looks like how 06 wanted to look)
And Frontiers can natively do day-and-night cycles instead of having to jury rig the engine for it, something both Unleashed and 06 can't really say for themselves. It's actually surreal seeing Soleanna at night with the windows lit up like that.
Probably invisible rails to do the animations but make it seem like Sonic is actually riding the surface. Actually getting water effects to play rather than sparks, however, is the real question.
For clarification, he is agreeing with you. Turbohog was being sarcastic, that's what the "/s" at the end of the post means. It's a tone indicator. They're very useful online!
Saw the stuff saying the game was patched on PlayStation, then saw reports as early as yesterday, and I just checked for an update on PS4 and even opened the game to see if it would update and it didn't.
Just beat the game. Last island was fun but I was feeling ready for the game to be over so I just fished to get around the obscene memory tokens requirements. I think islands 3 and 4 were definitely the weak point of the game. Island 5 could have been more original but I liked the aesthetic enough not to really care. Some closing thoughts: I really wish the terrain wasn't just a place to house all the mini-challenges. The environments could look pretty (I love Kronos) but the obstacles were all intensely video-gamey. There weren't enough cool areas like caves and valleys that I could run through. Physics and collision really need some work. Sonic can trip on a rock and fly into space. He can stick to a ramp and run down the wall instead of flying off of it. I can traverse up certain slopes but not certain identical-looking ones. I've regularly clipped through things or had automation fail me because I phased through a spring or something. Sonic's normal top speed should be higher, he should carry his speed much more fully into a jump, and jumping off slopes really needs to work more consistently. It's been very long since I've played anything nearly this janky. I like how unusual this game's feel is compared to other games in the series. I like the bizarre monster designs, the cold and mechanical presentation, and the general loneliness. I feel like the cool vibes of the intro started to wane as the game went on, though. The challenges spread around the islands are amusing little bite-sized things. Despite the automation I was able to have fun by cheesing the designs and doing my own fun little tricks and flows. Cyberspace stages were definitely the weak link. Sonic's way too slow, he doesn't control very well, and any problems with the physics feel exacerbated. I wasn't thrilled by the returning stages, which mostly played worse than in their original forms due to having better controls and less reliance on homing attack chains to carry you through things that Sonic's poor controls were not able to handle. There's a handful of original stages near the end of the game and I thought they were pretty neat despite still suffering from the controls. I don't know what to make of the plot. I think the character writing was good, besides Amy who just felt boring. I don't think the game asked or answered any interesting questions—it kinda just said very little despite how much it wanted to seem big. The Super Sonic fights were interesting at first but they felt really easy and mostly-automated. The charm fell off kinda quickly for me and these fights could get really janky and annoying. Super Sonic ended up being used so much in this game that any cool factor was diluted, and I wouldn't mind getting a long break from him. Combat was just not very fun. Not much enemy variety and unless the enemy put up a barrier I never felt compelled to do much besides spam that rapid-kick projectile and mash the attack button. None of the attacks felt like they flowed together at all, almost like they were almost resetting the battle every time I pulled one out. Some bosses took way too damn long to become vulnerable to my attacks so I'd just run away from them whenever possible. The quests just kinda sucked and some of the little minigames and setpieces thrown into the story were pretty bad. It's fun to hate on island 3 but I feel like that place struggled a lot in all three of these areas. Big's fishing was a cute little thing that I didn't mind doing every now and then, and it's comical how something so small can completely break the game's pacing and power curve. Endgame definitely did fatigue me. With the lore dump and the immensely-grindy final island, I was ready for the game to be over. I just fished and bought my way to the end of the game. I had my fun but wanted to get a move on. Overall, this game was... okay. It was an amusing thing to play on my Switch in casual sessions but I don't think it had the depth and quality to justify the full price at all—I am glad I was given a gift card. This doesn't feel like an evolution of the series, it's all the existing problems but with a new framework slapped on top of it. The design is still automated and simplified, with no trust in the player's ability. There's so little interesting and intentional design and it felt like I was mostly just making my own fun with this game rather than enjoying the stuff it did on its own terms. SA1 at least had some cool levels and environments in Sonic's story, and I can still appreciate that despite not liking the rest of the game. Here, on the other hand, it felt like a super-simplified Mario Odyssey whose only Moons were the worst ones.
Here we have an even earlier layout of Kronos pre split. Few interesting things to note: This version is even emptier than that other version of the pre split island, but that makes sense this is revision 1 the other video was revision 2 (final is referred to as r3) Outside the tutorial section there seem to be no missions yet, and the 2 missions that do exist are more simplistic at this point For whatever reason all the guardians after the tutorial are broken versions of the spider boss. For some reason Tails is on Kronos but either only serves as a warp or has no dialog. Amy’s not present All emeralds are obtainable via cages as opposed to the final where at least 2 of them are plot based There’s an unused portal that crashes the game if accessed In general nothing is in the same spot after the tutorial Interestingly, 4-8’s cyber portal used to be where Eggman got sucked into cyberspace in the opening cutscene. Maybe they made that cutscene around this point of development. A lot of the “4-X” stages are available here which I find interesting as those are also the “original” stages, which makes me wonder if the significant reuse was planned initially. The “NSEW” Big fishing spots can all be found on Kronos as opposed to each island being a different location. Maybe these used to work differently too? Would certainly explain why regardless of island, Big’s fishing spots all look like Kronos (shame you couldn’t fish in lava on Chaos island.) And perhaps the most interesting difference Spoiler Giganto’s battle used to take place where Supreme’s battle does in the final, which makes me curious what their original plans were with Supreme/the final boss Despite the final still having problems, I’m glad these early layouts still exist because it gives me a somewhat good idea of how much they actually listened to playtester feedback. Because this island looks empty and dull and if they stuck to their stubbornness this would’ve been bad. Seems like while they couldn’t do much to change the general direction of the game they did a good amount to make the game feel fun at least.
Beat the game and collected every little thing. Final Review + - This game is sick. ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Story is stinky and forgettable though
The story itself was not presented well, but the implications of it for future games were intriguing. Also, Flynn writes damn good character interactions. I never would have expected character growth in my pastel furry fellas in the 20s. Everything about the last third of game screams "we ran out of budget." Five years is a long development cycle for a typical Sonic game, but now that's the expected time for a AAA game, and they charged AAA price (albeit briefly before Pokémon came breathing down their necks, selling 10 million copies of jank). This is definitely Kishimoto's best game since Colors, but it's still lacking in polish and cohesion. I wonder how much of that is in his control, versus upper management pulling the rug out from under him.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet selling that well while being that bad makes me angry at the entire industry. This is why we can’t have nice things.
