Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: Endri - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Lobotomy, on 12 October 2014 - 01:18 PM, said:

Not only the pacing is slow, but also the progression is incredibly linear and convoluted. These game designer should earn some kind of prize, because that is a pretty hard thing to accomplish in game designing, to make a progession linear and convoluted at the same time. I'm not a fan of this modular level design, either, with all these self-contained challenges with only a single, linear solution.

ashthedragon, on 02 October 2014 - 03:22 AM, said:

The thought of it being one of those arcade machines definitely crossed my mind. And I'm quite sure that those are not foggy memories at all; I remember it clearly that my brother and I were waiting for the launch of Sonic 2 (SMS) during that period, so much that, when he arrived from his extra-curriculars, I told him: "they showed footage of Sonic 2 on the TV!" I was right about the fact that it was Sonic 2, at least. :P That's why I want to get ahold of the episodes of this TV show circa that time, but so far my research have been returning empty values.

GUYS I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING.

In the '90s, there was this police news TV show in Brazil that used to air on afternoons. Long story short, for whatever reason, they were showing kids somewhere else in Brazil playing in what appeared to be an event and/or an arcade (thing is, there have never been gaming conventions in Brazil until 2005), and I distinctively remeber a kid playing Sonic 2... in an arcade cabinet! :o I remember that image pretty well in my head, because I remember that the kid was sucking at (stuck, trying to get past) the quarter pipe right at the beginning of Chemical Plant for the entirety of the footage.

And this happened way before the release of Sonic 2. Not even Sonic 2 for the Master Systems was released yet. What was that, anyways?

Edit: this is the show, by the way. Indeed, it used to air from May 20th, 1991 to December 6th, 1997. This corroborates the info in my memory. I feel tempted to try to find episodes of this show between 1991 and December of 1992 to see if I find the aforementioned footage of Sonic 2. It seems that those things are almost impossible to find nowadays.

Dude, on 29 September 2014 - 05:44 PM, said:

Iizuka, hiring someone who could possibly know more about Sonic games than him?



I learned the hard way that (most) companies don't care about product quality anymore. They issue a bunch of possible prototype of possible different ideas/IPs, and use an algorithm to decide which idea would take less time to implement, as well as the best investiment/return ratio, also analyzing if such concept would be accepted by the target audience (most of the time the target isn't well defined) and if it would stick. The quota that could otherwise be invested in fine improvements of the product, are actually invested in marketing instead (because, nowadays, marketing is what is important; this is what will make the game stick, all thanks to the fact that minds are easily manipulable). The budget for marketing is beyond anything imaginable. If on one side the quality of the product doesn't deliver, on the other, the marketing alone will give the expected return. But, of course, this (may) cause backlash and alienation (as in this very case).

That doesn't mean that there aren't actually creative directors that are concerned about the quality of the products that the deploy. I can count in one hand the number of diretors that know what they are doing, and that are concerned in providing a feel good experience first and foremost: Mitsuo Iwao (Tri-Ace), Koichi Hayashida (EAD Tokyo, Nintendo), Matt Boch (Harmonix) & Hideo Kojima (Kojima Productions, Konami). These are the kind of directors that are more inclined to pursue specialized intel in whatever issue they are going to tackle.

I reeeeaaaally feel tempted to be the devil's advocate here, but I could be taken legal actions against if I did.

ICEknight, on 29 September 2014 - 01:44 PM, said:

+3

But, about the subject on matter, I remember copies of Sonic 2 for the Mega Drive for sale at the flea markets, in Brazil, before the release date. Someone was playing a different version of "Aquatic Ruins" in the kiosk. Memory fails me right now, since I was way too young, but I didn't have a Mega Drive myself at that point (but my cousin did, and we would borrow from her regularly at some point). When Sonic 2 MD was released and my cousin got it, I always found it weird that the Aquatic Ruins I saw way before was different. However, a childhood friend got the game earlier in this very same place; he would say that he has gotten "this Japanese version of Sonic 2, where everything is different, and super hard to beat". I don't know where he got this creativity to call it a "Japanese version", but I didn't know any better, and wholeheartedly believed it, until I learned about what a prototype is. Yes, he was talking about what we call the Sonic 2 Simon Wai Beta.

I also saw a curious Sonic 3 cardboard box at some point in my childhood.