Sonic Heroes Discussion

Wow, I just failed horribly at expressing myself. What I was trying to say is that I've been anticipating its release rather than being bummed (my stupid: bummed -> bumper, like bouncing for joy xD)

I agree, you probably nailed it.

 

I've played Sonic Heroes a few years ago, and really enjoyed it, almost as much as I enjoyed Sonic Adventure 2. However, when I look online, there is usually a mixed bag of praise and hatred, unlike games like Sonic '06 and Shadow the Hedgehog, which are almost universally hated. I enjoy this game, but I am interested in finding out other people's oninions of this game, so I ask that you say what makes Sonic Heroes a good or bad game.

 

Wow, it's been longer than I realized since the last time we discussed this. My opinion is still the same as it was last year, though. The graphics are gorgeous, but the platforming is uninspired, the three-character mechanic is mostly wasted on quick-time events without the quick-time, the camera is a nightmare, and the combat is extremely repetitive and dull.

 

The best thing about Heroes was playing as the Power Types, I really enjoyed combat mechanics.

 

Level design took it from being potentially a fantastic 3D Sonic game, certainly the best in its era, and made it crash into the ground with no hope of return.

 

My opinion is that this thread is unnecessary.

 

It's a fun game, but starts to feel tedious after the third or fourth set of levels. The levels tend to drag on and on, and are really samey. I kinda wish there were only three teams, and the levels were divided between them, so you don't have to play the casino levels or the airship levels four times over.

 

Heroes was a okay game at best. The stage design was gorgeous, finding a perfect balance of realism and fantasy and the stage tropes were pretty unique too (why don't we have more haunted house tropes?).

The gameplay was okay-ish, the combat was repetitive as hell and got pretty obnoxious by the last few stages. Speed characters were probably the most interesting characters to play as as they pretty much provided a good well-balanced gameplay. The bosses are pretty boring but I can admire the creativity behind them.

The camera was awful, but never really destroyed the experience for me, yeah caused some cheap deaths, but I can live with that.

The game's biggest flaw is also where it stands out the most which is the team mechanic. The idea on itself is pretty amazing, having three characters to play as and have them interact with eachother in order to overcome obstacles. This idea is gold. However its execution is awful as Covaar mentioned, felt like QTE events without QTEs. This idea would be amazing if the level design was built more openly where you would find diferent paths for each character instead of having to use them to travel through a linear stage. >Run with Sonic >Some large stones blocking the way >Switch to Knuckles >A bottomless pit >Switch to Tails. That is boring as hell and break the pace of the game for me, instead they should've tried to offer diferent paths and allow the player to choose their playstyle and experiment with various approachs in order to find one that grants a bigger score or a faster time.

Apart from the plastic shader on the characters, the game looks gorgeous even today. It aged incredibly well. The music is also pretty awesome and the story is simple and yet charming. I loved how each team represents a difficulty level and the stages are different for each team. The teams are also pretty fun to play as, apart from the Chaotix.


Overall, while I do dislike the game, I can't hate it. It's far from being awful as some people say it is, but it is by no means an awful game.

 

I know I like this game, but I will point out that I hate some of the Team Chaotix levels, because of how tedious they are. I don't like how when you start a game from the first level as Team Rose, you have to go through the tutorial, and listen to *shudder* Omochao. Some of the voice tracks in this game are played over and over and OVER again, the worst being Eggman saying "take this!" several times during the normal final boss, and some of the voice acting is pretty dumb. I do like this game, but I'm not so in love with it that I'm incapable of pointing out its flaws.

 

I stopped being a child the moment I heard Sonic say "Let's show him the true SUPER POWER of TEAM WORK" and pretty much lost faith in the series. Don't think I have much more to say on it other than I actually kinda remember enjoying it up to that very moment.

 

Yeah, that part ruined all the build up towards the end, I didn't even wanna beat the game at that point because I didn't wanna hear anymore corny lines. That writer really though, "Yeah, Sonic would say this."

 

I agree that those lines are really REALLY bad, but Metal Overlord's theme, "What I'm Made Of" is a pretty awesome tune, as well as the main theme. I just don't like how the people who made the game tried so hard to make kids like teamwork that they made one of the coolest video game characters of all time seem kinda lame, which makes me hate teamwork, ironically.

 

My opinion? I quited. Too much boring rails and crap for me. But I have to say that I liked the music from the train station (or however it's called, the stage that it's an entire bottomless pit and rails) because it reminds me to Hall of the Mountain King from Rainbow.

 

My oppinion: Good graphics and good music alone don't make a good game.


And then SEGA made the same mistake many years later, with Lost World. :P

 

Eh, as hit or miss as Lost World is when it comes to gameplay, it's still a lot better than Heroes' tedious long acts.

 

I love the "Team" mechanic of Heroes. I just wish that it hadn't completely dominated the gameplay and made all the teams feel like re-skins of each other.

I'd love to see the concept revisited in the future, bu with more emphasis on what each member brings to the team in a unique sense instead of making them all identical. That's part of why I like Team Chaotix so much, they felt the most unique out of all the teams, design and gameplay wise. Though their missions could be just as tedious as any other group's, sometimes moreso with how easy it was to miss the objective sometimes.

Part of what makes Heroes disappointing to me is that it had amazing potential, but it feels like it was squandered. I still enjoy it, but there are so many simple ways it could have been better.

Make Omega play more like a Shooter character from the Adventure games in addition to having raw physical power. Give the flying characters a chance to shine with skills beyond "Throw partners at enemies and jump high." Make Amy slower but have her use her hammer in unique ways to move faster and get around obstacles that'd stop other speed characters. Make Knuckles faster and more technical then all the other bulky power characters.

Really, it suffered from Sonic Friend syndrome hard. Adding too many good characters without taking the time to make them stand out and be fun.

 

I dunno when I first played Heroes I loved it. And beat it with every team.
Sure now I can't play it because of how tedious and repetitive it is but if I was to play it for the first time today I'd probably like it.

 

I think that Sonic Heroes is a good game. There are a few problems with the camera, but those don't really hinder my enjoyment of the game. The music is great, the team mechanic is fine in my opinion, and the levels seem to be designed well. There are quite a number of alternate paths in some of the stages. Egg Fleet, Grand Metropolis, Power Plant, Frog Forest, and Lost Jungle are a few examples of stages that have them. Every attack that all of the characters can perform has a useful purpose, and most of the enemies can be defeated in different ways. Even the Rocket Accel is useful because it has a lot of invincibility frames and it's more useful than the Tornado attack for removing shields from a large number of Egg Pawns that have them. I've also liked that the goals of some of Team Chaotix's stages weren't always to reach the end of the stage because it encouraged exploring the levels. However, besides Shadow the Hedgehog, stages like that haven't really appeared in any of the subsequent games, which is a bit of a shame. It is a bit repetitive having to complete Team Sonic, Team Dark, and Team Rose's stories, though.

Sonic Heroes is criticized for how long it can take to finish the stages and some people say that the stages should only take as long as Team Rose's stages do. However, Team Rose's stages are very short even when you take into account the smaller amount of enemies that they fight. Team Sonic and Team Dark's stages have very interesting setpieces, but you barely do anything in Team Rose's stages in comparison. I don't think that shortening the length of the stages would work very well with the game's mechanics. Besides, Team Sonic and Team Dark's levels aren't really that long. Most of them can be completed within 6-7 minutes, if I recall correctly.

 

I really like Team Dark in this game, especially Omega, as I love his machine-gun or flamethrower attack. I also love Team Chaotix's team blast, because I think it's funny, and it's also useful for getting extra lives.