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Sonic Colours out for Wii/DS

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by TimmiT, May 26, 2010.

  1. SilverstepP

    SilverstepP

    Now with twice the sprites. Member
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    STILL trying to get these damn spam bots off the Open Sonic forum.
    Well, Sonic 4 is fun, but I think I'm actually looking forward to Sonic Colors more, since it's a complete game. Sonic 4 is divided into episodes, and I'd rather have the whole experience, if you know what I mean.
     
  2. Sonic Hachelle-Bee

    Sonic Hachelle-Bee

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    There was a demo of Sonic Colours at Japan Expo in Paris. A guy of the SEGA stand was playing a level of the game. The level is filled with cakes, ice-cream and cheeseburgers you have to go through to reach the end (you can actually dig the cakes with a yellow "Colour" that gives you this extra power). It is really looking nice on Wii.

    Besides of that, I'm not too excited by this game. The player was clearly annoyed, rarely pushing any button, watching Sonic going extra-fast through scripted ramps and loops, and then pressing one button... Sometimes you have to jump over 3 platforms, destroy a badnik or two, take a "Colour" to have a special power, and then watch Sonic going extra-fast through scripted ramps and loops... And rank S at the end. The boss he was playing is kinda cool (the blue "Colour" gives you extra speed), but it only takes 3 hits to be destroyed.

    I have a very (really) bad video of it recorded on my phone. You can see some pixels move around, and ear the crowd. I was pretty far from the screen, and it doesn't do video quite right I'm sorry. I use it mostly to... phone :v:
     
  3. The levels and bosses were shorted for the purposes of the Demo. Same happened at E3. What was seen is exactly what will happen, and these are the first two levels.
     
  4. Rosie

    Rosie

    aka Rosie Member
    I was just looking on Wikipedia, and it said that Amy was confirmed to be in the game. I haven't read this anywhere else, have I missed something or is this just the usual Wikipedia bollocks?
     
  5. The KKM

    The KKM

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    It was confirmed at SSBB, if I recall correctly.
     
  6. Blue Blood

    Blue Blood

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    She and Tails get kidnapped. The DS version has a different story (the extend of which is unknown) and an interview in NP said that characters such as Knuckles and Shadow may appear exclusively in that one.
     
  7. Hanyou

    Hanyou

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    I still advocate for an open-world 3D Sonic game—it's really the only way to capture the essence of the classics in 3D, and a failure to do that is just lazy. Knowing how Sonic Team has handled their own ideas, though, they'd be liable to screw it up and make gamers at large dismiss the idea of an open-world Sonic even more than they already do.

    My feelings about this are tenuous. Perhaps it will be incredible, perhaps not. When I first saw it, it looked an awful lot to me like a Mario Galaxy ripoff, but now I'm not sure what to think.

    If it's good, awesome! I'd prefer an open-world Sonic, but I didn't think SA1 and 2 were half-bad, and linearity can be much more easily pulled off. But based on what I've read, it's just going to be more of the same. That's perhaps better than Sonic '06, but still less than stellar when stacked up against the true classics.
     
  8. When was this new information?
    Ramps and loops have been scripted since the dawn of Sonic in 3D. Go back to SA1. There were always dash-pads before loops and they were always scripted. Its much harder to implement momentum based loops in 3D if I'm not wrong, otherwise it would have been done a long time ago in the days of Dreamcast.

    I'm not sure "open-world" is the phrase you're looking for...
    Open-World is usually attributed to GTA and the like, with one HUGE hubworld that you can walk around in, and do anything. I think what you mean is large wide-open levels where you can go anywhere, but with a singular end "goal". The classics were vertically stacked side-scrollers with many ways you could complete a level, and the same should be true of a 3D game, except it should use Longitude, latitude and altitude in the level design. This is possible, but with a character as fast as Sonic, most players won't really take the time to explore, they'll just end up blazing through to the end in a more-or-less straight line. So to SEGA, it may end up being a waste of resources, as only a very small proportion of Sonic players will actually explore.
    I don't know all the specifics, but I'm guessing that, that is the main reason for the linearity. I just hope that they end up filling the later levels with a lot more platforming, ala Eggmanland HD (Sonic sections only mind)
    I guess it would be possible to creat large levels with a ton of exploring, if they managed to creat level design that encouraged exploration, by making certain routes, passages and areas faster than others. This way, people may take a slow or medium route to the end the first time, but in a second run, they may come across a faster route in order to beat their previous record.

    As for this game; its a relatively low-budget title that is clearly designed to advance on the massive success with the Unleashed Daytime stages. Its something media and public hugely enjoyed and its a natural path that SEGA should be expected to take. It makes sense. They may do further experimentation with Sonic gameplay and level design in games with a larger budget.
     
  9. Hanyou

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    I see what you mean, but I actually did mean open-world.

    I think Mario 64 is an example of a platformer that came close to the open-world model—it gave the gamer a lot of freedom to go from one place to the next, encouraged exploration, etc. and the only thing not "open-world" about it was a failure to connect the levels through anything but a hub world (which wasn't really a failure per se—the game is perfectly designed as is). Rare's Banjo-Tooie, though I'm not too fond of it, is actually a better example, since the levels are interconnected.

    I would expect an open-world Sonic game not to be that different from GTA; zones would be as distinct as separate Mario levels, but would bleed into each other seamlessly. There would be objectives which would not be difficult to complete, since the design of the levels would naturally guide you in one direction or another (again, taking a page from Mario 64, or even Mario Galaxy, which is less "open-world"), but you would still be able to branch out and explore.

    I strongly believe that what made Sonic 3 and Knuckles such a strong game was the openness of its levels. Exploration was encouraged and subsequently rewarded; furthermore, once you finished the game, you were encouraged to go back through the levels and collect any chaos emeralds you missed. There were lots of moments where you slowed down, but even then, exploration was seamlessly incorporated while the player jumped from platform to platform or sped through loops. This was masterful design. I know it's easier said than done, and I'm no game designer myself, but a team that really wanted to could adapt this into a good open-world 3D model that would feel just like a step up from Sonic 3 and Knuckles; that sort of thing has been done before in platformers, and would only require gamers to prefer a momentum-based Sonic to an exclusively speed-based one.

    Interestingly, I've seen some concept art for Sonic Xtreme which suggested that they were considering just this approach. I don't have it on-hand, but I can try to retrieve it to prove my point if necessary. I don't know how the Sonic community at large feels about Xtreme, but I just think it's interesting they considered such freedom even as far back as that game's development phases.

    With modern technology able to render games like Oblivion and Red Dead Redemption, an open-world Sonic almost seems like a necessity. Again, damn impressive open-world and semi-open-world platformers have been present at least since the Nintendo 64 era.

    So Sonic Colors looks like "just another linear Sonic game" to me that will probably end up lacking the charm and skillful design of SA1. It's not enough to make me not want to play the game, but it is just enough for me to wish that a team with the resources Sonic Team apparently has would tackle something more ambitious, now that hardware allows for it. By failing to stress some degree of exploration, they've really been shortchanging Sonic all these years.

    EDIT: I wanted to add that I spent just as much time dicking around, proportionally, in the objective-driven Mario 64 as I did in the clearly open-world Morrowind. That I completed objectives in the process was just a nice bonus. Gamers who liked Sonic 3 and Knuckles might be able to enjoy a similar mechanic.
     
  10. I see.
    Thats still a longshot, but if it happens, it will probably be for the next big-budget Sonic game. Colours is a low budget title, that I think has been designed by Sonic Team freely, just to be fun. There was no expectation and they could just make a game that stands alone and is just fun to play through.

    I'll PM you my thoughts on you concept, seeing as we're straying from the focus of this Topic.
     
  11. Hanyou

    Hanyou

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    Sorry about that. >__>

    Back on topic, I don't mind a low budget Sonic title. I'd welcome it, as long as it's good for what it is. Regardless, expectations will ironically be high because everyone tends to expect every new Sonic game to be the second coming.

    You know, the Sonic cycle and all that.
     
  12. 0r4ng3

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    Sonic was never about open world / free roaming in my opinion. There was a lot of exploration going on and a lot of different paths but the player was never free to do what he wanted. Levels had a beginning and an end and the route to there was close to always quite obvious. No matter how long the player spent within the level itself, going down the route that was given would eventually get him to the end. This didn't change in 3D, just the gameplay, because that didn't transition well in their opinion. The only time this was kind of touched upon was in treasure hunting levels (which have nothing to do with Sonic's gameplay) and somewhat in Sonic 06, which had good (or better, 06 good) levels such as Crysis City and bad levels that dragged on for far too long and the player got lost easily and had no clue where to go or what to do, such as Lost Jungle (main offenders, Rouge and Silver).

    I just can't see Sonic working in that format, because he was never that in the first and what he's supposed to be, both in 2D and 3D, aren't compatible with a feww roaming / open world format. That's for RPGs or mission based levels. And even if it did worked, it would be just another Mario clone. I believe that eventually, Sonic would fade into nothingness faster than a parede of bad programmed games.
     
  13. Willie

    Willie

    Each day the world turns Laugh 'til it all burns Member
    In regard to the idea of having an open world Sonic game, that would be a completely awesome and ideal 3D Sonic game. However, I'm glad Sonic Team's next game for the Wii is based off Sonic Unleashed daytime stages. There was a lot of potential with the Unleashed daytime styled gameplay and before moving on to something completely different, I'd rather have them pull a game off really well in that style rather than have all that potential go to waste. Not only that, but (excluding Sonic Rush 3) it's only for the Wii. Linearish styled games generally work very well on the Wii where as open world designed games are much more suited for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Maybe we'll get an open world Sonic game in 2011. :) Sonic Adventure 3 perhaps? :specialed:
     
  14. 0r4ng3

    0r4ng3

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    Star Light also used them effectively as a means to achieve more speed by using vertical acceleration, later revisited in Chemical Plant and 2-3 levels in S3&k. Apart from this, and by far the majority of the cases, they're either used to achieve more speed by using horizontal acceleration or as a pretty and seemless way of changing level heights or just stand there for no reason. A pity because I really liked the potential <-> kinetic energy conversion of the first case. In 3D they're just there because they're pretty.

    I fully expected the 2D sections of Unleashed would use physics and loops as more than decoration when I first say videos of gameplay, but alas it was not meant to be. There's nothing stopping these sections to be more classic physics based, while leaving the 3D sections for stuff that cannot be implemented in or from 2D.
     
  15. Lanzer

    Lanzer

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    Ahem...Diverting from the loops argument for a minute...

    Simple questions. first off can anybody find me these 2 pics in a greater quality?:
    http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5063/soniccolors12.jpg
    http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6388/soniccolors22.jpg

    Also, was the DS version second act of tropical resort and the boss shown anywhere? I can't seem to find any vids about it.

    Does anyone have a higher quality version of the instrumental of "reach for the stars" from the trailer? Can't seem to find a better quality.

    Finally, I heard that the website music released sometime back was the main menu or stage select music. Is that true?
     
  16. 0r4ng3

    0r4ng3

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  17. Overlord

    Overlord

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  18. Sith

    Sith

    The molotov bitch Member
    One thing in favour of colours is that it is wii only, which means that it will be custom made for wii (hopefully making good use of the hardware) and not some inferior version from a game tuned for PS3 and 360.

    With 'Sonic 4' that is not the case and I heard they dropped resolution for the wii-version. Hopefully not much else will suffer.
     
  19. TimmiT

    TimmiT

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  20. Rosie

    Rosie

    aka Rosie Member
    Having just watched the footage. I noticed this:

    [​IMG]

    Was I the only one who thought
    [​IMG]