Happy 18th Birthday Sonic the Hedgehog!

Yay, go play any of the online Phantasy Star games today! (Sonic and co. appears.)

Hopefully we get a good 20th anniversary.

 

18 years and still running.
18 years and still troubling.

May you continue for at least 18 other years.

 

I haven't died on WFZ's boss, or the final boss in years

 

Good lord what did I just read.

 

Utter crap?

 

I guess that S2's is the hardest, but at the same time if you only hit him right after landing you should live.

Of course, you can also play like me and just get 7 hits in before he takes off the first time anyway.

 

Sonic 2's final boss is torture as Knuckles. At least it gives continues and extra lives actual use.

 

Or painful epiphany?

 

Sonic 1 was greatly paced. Make it too fast and you get Chemical Plant Zone 1 or most of Sonic CD -- sure, it's fun to watch but the challenge fades quickly. Either that or you get cheap stages like a lot of Unleashed or Battletoads that never slow down properly and require heavy amounts of rote memorization.

Sonic 1 is the only of the games that in any way still presents a challenge, partly because speed wasn't just handed to you on a silver platter like most of the later games (except in Star Light), and partly because there's some real platforming in Marble, Labyrinth, and Spring Yard Zones. (And damn if there aren't many opportunities to win at the special stages compared to the other games too.)

 

It doesn't hand you speed on a silver platter, but at the same time, it presents a lot of scenarios where getting real speed is impossible (particularly in Marble and Labyrinth). It's one thing to make speed a valuable commodity; it's another to design levels that forcibly slow you down.

 

Am I the only one who things this line should rather apply to S3&K? O_o

 

Sonic 1 only gives you 10 chances of which you need 6 (60% =P). S3&K has at least 70 (and I think over 8), of which you need only 7 (less than 10%).

 

And that's not even mentioning that in S1 you have to get 50 rings and hold onto them until the end of the level. S3K allows you to do so just by finding the special stage rings -- though I'd go with 14 of them needed, just because that's the "true ending" really. :P

 

Oops, right. It's still under 20%, compared to the 60% of Sonic 1.