SEGA finally realizes something very important.

Its not about gaming perspective, or speed or any of those other things people go batshit over. To make a quality sonic game all sega has to do is not pull the project out from under the dev's feet 2/3rds through the process and call it a final product.

 

Screw that, people are tired of getting the same games all the time, especially because they're just the ROMs emulated instead of remakes with improvements >_>

Also:



That loop in the background. It's detouring backwards. WTF? o_O

 

I really do think that this is largely the case.

Then again I utterly detested Unleashed and apparently they didn't interfere with it as much.

 

I'm kind of irritated at this, it seems like another cop out. It also bugs me because it sounds like he might have no plan of ever trying to take advantage of the massive potential of a classic style 3D game.

Edit: Sega is rather clueless when it come to telling the difference between classic and modern anyway. They seem to think that Rush qualifies as "being like the classics"

 

What did they expect? They keep trying too many new things which ends up making the fanbase (and beyond) even more of a mess. Just look at Sonic Unleashed.

Good luck to them for now but seriously, stick to one thing or at least not sell unfinished games.

 

Story holds up in my book, pretty much point for point.

Bring on Unleashed 2 in 2010-2011.

 

Well, at least they stopped beating around the bush about it.

I can't help but feel it isn't... like, an elaborate forum post that just happened to be delivered as PR, though. Seriously—how many times have I and several others made the exact point that we're not the target audience? It seems like it should be obvious beyond any shadow of a doubt, but for some reason people still drabble on about how we're the only people SEGA should ever appeal to.

I will say this, though—the old Sonic games were timeless classics that appealed to all audiences, regardless of age. Shouldn't the goal be to work towards this instead of making two different "categories" of Sonic games? It seems like a better investment to me... but then again, I don't work for SEGA.

By the way...

Don't be so full of yourself. We didn't "break through" to anything; SEGA knows exactly what their mistakes are when they make them. They're not naive, they're not dense, and I seriously doubt that they would ever take serious business-related advice from people who have nothing better to do all day than complain about video games on an internet forum. This attitude irks the shit out of me.

Finally, I'll end with this—it's not impossible to please both crowds; just highly implausible, considering their creative talent that has fronted the past few Sonic releases.

 

Mark my words, those "core" games will be very much engineered for the 360 and PS3, with a diluted version specially crafted for the Wii so as not to draw too much attention away from their "storybook" games which very much arse, bollocks and several other forms of genitalia

In fact really, the Wii games seem very much to be the scrotum of the franchise, waxed and plucked to make them seem prettier than they are.

 

This is not very smart, because, maybe he forgot (but maybe not, since he even states he knwe Heroes was successfull in the same article) the games made for us, the "older audience", were some of the most succesfull. Just look at Heroes. New and old fans were both happy, even if it was made mostly for us. So every one will think: hey, let's make another game like this.
They didn't.
Why? It was succesful. It sold. Why, really?

There is a specific part I don't understand:

So wait. Sonic was competing at one point against Moder Warfare? Why? Those targets are completely different. This makes no sense at all. Even if you would put the cool factor in, I find it hard the "Werehog lovers" are also fans of Modern Warfare or other FPS.

And about Mario, it's true that the Mario series is for everyone, but that doesn't mean the older fans aren't a target nowadays (just look at NSMBW: why putting the Koopalings in if not to make older fans happy?). It just means the games are so good that they can be enjoyed even by the non Hardcore Mario fans. And know why? Because they still follow the formula which made it succeful in the old days.

It seems only another Rush Adventure failure (marketing wise. Nothing to say against that game, but consider that Rush 3 is still MIA, if it ever will be made) may allow them to understand these things? Capcom realized this since the beginning. Maybe, Nintendo too realized this lately (still many casual crap, but at least we got Punch-Out, and we will have Other: M). But no, SEGA must do their own way.

Also:

Expect Shadow The Hedgehog 2 in the future 6 months. You have been warned.

EDIT: What were I drinking when I made this post?

 

I'm tempted to say "8 year olds don't know any better". You could give them the console's box and they might be satisfied for a while.

A 90+ score on Metacritic is still something worth aiming for. Chances are a lot of the reviewers aren't long time Sonic fans. Hell... any good magazine would probably stop the obsessive Sonic fanboys from writing a review about Sonic to eliminate a bit of the bias. Not aiming to achieve the best results is a very odd strategy. As said, the kids will probably be quite happy as long as their favourite characters are present, the older fans will be happy because it's actually a good game and the crazy fans will also be happy because in order to be a good game it'll have to have scrapped things like poor voiceovers and weird storylines.


But it is a bit true, the FPS genre has stepped in and taken that role Sonic had all those years ago. Mario just floats about in its own little world since its lasted so long, and you can't not have respect for that, but it doesn't really add up because Sonic could have his own little bubble too if Sega had played their cards right.

 

I know it's been reiterated time and again, but Sonic Adventure, even looking back ten years earlier, managed to hang onto a lot of the style, charm, and attitude of Sonic's glory days. I've been trudging through it on and off for the last week or so, and everything just...works. There's an aura about it that the newer 3D titles don't have, and a lot of that probably comes from it not taking itself so seriously. Sonic isn't the fastest he's ever been, but does that even really matter? No, and I don't mind scripted events that carry me along when the platforming/gimmicks in between are well designed, and most importantly, interesting and fun. Sonic and Tails's stories are near interchangeable, save for the final boss (which, when you look back all those years ago, is about how it went down in the old days), Knuckles's story almost feels like it's own game at times (and since the stages are modified to suit his needs, you can parallel that to his alternate routes in Sonic 3 & Knuckles), and to be quite honest, the other characters are built and varied well enough to entertain you (though it helps their stories aren't quite as long, and that all characters aren't around each other all the time).

Even Sonic Heroes retains a lot of Sonic's original charm and grace, from the colorful landscapes, to Sonic's about-to-go-on-a-four-year-hiatus smart-ass attitude, to the story itself. Team Sonic's story opener is literally a visual representation of your classic, simplistic instruction manual story. You don't even know what the fuck Eggman's up to: he's developed a weapon, and you have to go stop him. The fact that a lot goes unexplained doesn't detract from the story, because the characters convey their own personalities well enough so that it stays entertaining. What's that in the sky? He's got a fleet of airships now? Why? How? That doesn't matter, we gotta stop him either way! Sonic, Knuckles, wait for me!

Speaking of which, I played through a decent portion of Team Sonic's story last night, and the game seems to be a lot more fun and interesting than I remember. Granted, I haven't played through the same levels with all four team again, but even so, the series had a lot more going for it before the market became saturated with edgier, more realistic titles. More than most give it credit for anyway. IMHO.

I was happy to read this article, but as Tweaker said, this has pretty much been common knowledge for a while now. I mean...think about all the games we got between late 2005 and late 2006: a compilation of 'everything else', a speedy DS sidescroller, an edgy spin-off with guns, an airboard racer, an edgy core title, a rubbish GBA port of a timeless classic, and a 2.5D racer/sidescroller. Then came a simpler, more "casual" Wii game a few months later. And so on. You can look at all those and pick out a different demographic for each...the big problem is that people like us probably bought them all, risking time and money for another glimpse of Sonic's former glory. And the kids...well, obviously they want whatever Sonic's pictured on. And I hate to say it, but when you get into all the nitty-gritty and seriously 'study' each, the closest the series came to its 'roots' during that time (aside from compilations/ports of course) was probably Sonic Riders, with Rivals in a not-so-close second. Sonic was his usual self, for the most part, as were the supporting cast, the story was fairly simple and tried to convey some light humor, and the tracks were pretty unique and stylistic, and did a fairly good job of utilizing each character type's moves.

Think what you want, but I'd say Riders is probably the game from that year I've played/enjoyed the most.

 

This is why I generally forgo buying the new games (Unleashed aside) and stick to simply getting the soundtracks.

 

For those who want to keep bitching about it, we know we aren't the target audience. We're saying it's no excuse for bad games.

Seriously though, I'm hoping that this leads to a good Sonic game. Not a classic one, not a "OMFG DIS IS TEH SHIZ" game, but a good one. There's no problem with the gameplay stuff they ant in, it's just how it's implemented.

 

Funny, I dun see much of a problem with the implementation in most games I played. (For clarification - not a 360/PS3 owner, so I dunno about games on there).

However, about the timeless-thing... I know a buncha kids in RL ages 8-12, or so, and they do seem to have quite a bit of trouble getting through those "timeless classics". Dunno, maybe it's just 'cuz Germans are stupid, considering I have a problem with those games (S3&K aside), too, but... yeah.

 

I think a great deal of the apparent "divide" within the fanbase is largely the result of a certain facet of human nature: Humans have no ability how to predict their emotional response to events. I've spent some time at SSMB, and many people there (and some here) have done nothing but confirm that. I think that an actually good Sonic game would go a long way to getting rid of these divisions. There are a few people who this won't work for, especially those who will pick out one of the newer games as the "best in the franchise" and yet dislike other games similar to them, some going so far as to specifically cite aspects of this supposed gem as reasons why they don't like other games. I noticed a particular instance of an SA 2 fan stating that they disliked Super Mario Galaxy for being too linear and not offering enough exploration. Marketing to people like this is a fools errand, their enjoyment of a game seems to be essentially random.

 

That's bad man.

Sonic 1 and 2 are easy mode. S3&K is children mode.

 

Hey, that's why I call dibs on "The Unskilled Gamer" as a personal title. <.<

 

My nephews are living proof that "old-school can't please youngsters" is bullshit. They fucking LOVE original hardware Sonic 1, 2, 3, and K; and they played Heroes, SatSR (and are better at it than me ), and Unleashed first.

 

I'm glad to hear from others that they too know that Sonic Heroes was made for fans of young and old. Apparently they thought it was great...but could only be used once and went back to giving Shadow his own game. I for one am offended that we learned of Shadow's history before Sonic!