Complimenting Sonic and the Black Knight

I like the presentation a lot. Seeing familiar characters with new identities and settings like this is one of my favorite things. It had good enough writing, cool environments, and nice music.

 

It is decently fun. I feel like most critics just got to "SANIC HAS SORD? LAME HERPADERP" and stopped there. The knightly aesthetic for the characters was awesome. Music is bitchin' as usual. The villain actually has a really interesting motivation.

 

It controls better than Secret Rings. I like the variety of the music. I like that it attempts to have multiple playable characters in a 3D space without being too intrusive. I find the Final Fantasy lite story unintentionally funny.

Uum, that's all I have

 

Knight of the Wind is WONDERFUL. They replaced most of the voice cast after this. Uh... nobody had anything good to say about it in 2009, so I didn't buy it when it was new, which meant by the time I finally DID pick it up, it was only $5. At that price, the soundtrack alone should be worth it, right? :P

EDIT: In the interest of fairness, I actually went back and found the Sonic & the Black Knight release thread here on Retro. The pre-release period sees a solid 81 pages of everyone trying to come to grips with the idea that no, this actually is a real game. Much like Shadow, everyone seems to hope it's some kind of hoax or April Fools' joke at first, but denial turns to acceptance turns to, of course, anger.

The game finally comes out on page 82, and there's a lot of negativity, but there are some people who think it's pretty all right, with one even saying it's the BEST 3D Sonic game so far.

Unsurprisingly, nobody talks much about the story, which is something that fans who grew up with the game harp on as one of the very best things about it. I think the best praise anyone here offered it was, "The dialogue isn't half bad," or something like that.

Either way, we spend a grand total of TWO PAGES talking about the game itself, before getting focused on the soundtrack (which was, as usual, the one thing everyone could agree on!) and whether or not Crush 40 is good for the series. This goes on for about four pages.

Then the topic just ends. We got about five pages after the game actually came out.

So maybe it's not so much that nobody had anything good to say about SatBK on release. It's more like nobody had much to say about it, period. Black Knight was kind of looked upon the same way the Sonic mobile games are, now. "They're clearly targeting someone, but it's sure not us."

(There was also someone wishing desperately for Sonic 4, even though he knew it'd probably never happen. I hope he got what he wanted!)

 

I think people just look back fondly on the story because it's the last of the "at least they tried" stories before Colours came in with its baldy nosehair and Cubot voice chips and ruined everythi... I mean... saved the franchise.

Whether the story is any good or not is another discussion.

 

I genuinely enjoyed the cutscenes. I remember the dialogue being actually good, and Sonic's interactions with Caliburn were great. What's not to like about a snarky talking sword? I wouldn't have minded the humor in later games if it had been more like this. The game was pretty lighthearted without reducing Sonic to a parody of himself or relying on memes and attempts at self-awareness.

 

This is indeed getting out of hand, more general threads like: "Bashing 16-bit games" or "Complimenting unorthodox games" would have been a better option to not flood the main page. But I'm ok with all this trend, and I'm OK with the way weaponry has been used in this franchise (starting with Sky Chase in SA1, Sonic's plane with a gun).

 

I got this game again because of this topic so I can give it a fair review. Hope it's worth it.

 

Fight the Knight is a banger, and it made every boss a little less frustrating. With Me is a great track as well.

Despite gameplay issues, there were some cool ideas and implementations that were cast aside seemingly forever because of the reception of the game, and I've always kind of resented that. Pre-Mania, this was one of the few, and last Sonic games to have other playable characters (other than racing games), and it pulled it off really well! They were optional, if I recall, and they played like Sonic, but with other abilities (as it should be, imo). The characterization in general was done well here iirc, but all of this was mostly done away with because of the whole silly misguided "NO MORE FRIENDS" thing.

I remember the waggle and weird input delay moments being frustrating (those King Arthur 'clashing sword' prompts ring a bell), but I also remember having a good time here and there once I adjusted to it a bit; this adjustment definitely was smoother than Secret Rings, as the motion controls were less gimmicky and forced. I'd honestly love to try this game with only button inputs.

The presentation was also really creative at some points, with the whole storybook aesthetic. I remember also being quite impressed with how nice some of the set pieces looked. Titanic Plain is a beautiful stage; it's nice to run through lush, pastoral green hills, without them being....Green Hill (though this arguably makes me lament the 'on rails' nature of the game even more, but I digress).

EDIT:

I actually prefer having separate threads, because it gives each game the necessary and deserved focused conversation.

 

Something to keep in mind is that a lot of the discussion for SatBK at the time was held on IRC/a stream chat. I had close to 100 people at all times from here watching me play through the game from start to finish before it released (Which I since understand was illegal and stupid) and they were forming and sharing opinions outside the thread. A few days after finishing it I had started to be more fair to it and thought the combat felt good once mastered. Damage was done though :\

I played it again a few months ago with roommates and I do think it has aged for the worse. Some parts still feel good but you really can just waggle your way through most of it effortlessly.

 

SatBK is one of the few Sonic games I've never played. I was feeling particularly salty after 06 and Secret Rings, then this happened and I was just not feeling it. I had no interest in it at the time and I still don't really, but I will say this. It's the only 3d game that had a good approach to multiple characters as it was the closest they got to the classic style. Overall the characters played like Sonic but they have different powers that can be used to to traverse levels differently. Perfect. Great line up too - Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow and Blaze is a great cross section of thd different eras (Knuckles - Classic, Shadow - Adventure, Blaze - Modern).

Maybe one day I'll give it a try in dolphin. I have no interest in the plot, I just want to try the levels and if I can map waggle to buttons then great. There's bound to be "unlock everything" codes for this right?

That being said I did enter a drawing into the contest in the hopes of winning the game, butttt i didn't win (I saw what won and I did not deserve to win... well me and that asshole who traced someone else's drawing)

 

The bosses seem to mostly be character rival battles. They seem slightly more involved than secret rings bosses.

That game really did this one no favors. That and the sword. Oh another compliment. It was the 1st Sonic game that brought back Sonic's love of chili dogs lol.

 

I honestly wish they didn't do this. Sonic's chili dog obsession was entirely invented by the western Sonic canon in the DiC cartoons and Archie comics, and while I enjoy those adaptations, I think it's weird to mix that element with the Japanese/modern canon.

Also it was technically Unleashed that brought chili dogs back.

 

wait what came 1st this or Unleashed? I forget.

And I think it's a nice nod to the western audiences, besides, we like Sonic more that JP anyway, why not include more western elements? Also there are some western elements that fill gaps that JP lore doesn't have (Mobius as opposed to "Sonic's world" for example) I think sonic liked chili dogs in Fleetway too.

 

Unleashed came first. Overall, I just don't think it mixes well, and just seems out of place. It's not like I hate it or anything, it's a very minor thing, I just don't care for it showing up in the modern games. To each their own.

 

I enjoy the writing and tone of the cutscenes. Probably the only game between SA2 and Unleashed that I can say that about. Also probably the only game before Roger showed up that I liked the performance of the Eng voice cast. Multiple playable characters was a nice feature as well.