I still think its far more apt to compare it to Dimp's previous work What went wrong in Dimps since 2001? they pretty much had this down first try
But it's a valid example. No matter which way you slice it, Sega split one game into two, and expected you to buy both halves. Besides, my point still stands. What modern games are in episodic format? I don't know of any. And for the record, the Wii is limited by software size as well. Just so you know.
Seriously, fuck the 7th Special Stage. The bumpers were always a joke in the earlier ones (4th in particular) but how they can honestly pass this shit off as challenging and not just frustrating is beyond me. I hit a new best time for touching a goal block today - 4 seconds. You hit a bumper and it throws you all over the place without any level of control.
I don't know the details, but someone else *cough*Jimmy*cough* could explain how the game is poorly put together and is far larger than need be.
OI! Don't dis Sam & Max, Season 1 was a bit of a let down but Season Two was brilliant and Season 3 was just Utter Epic, TellTale know what they're doing with this and their structure really worked.
How much smaller could it have been made? I'm not arguing against the point you're making, but unless the game can be shrunken down to 1/3 of the size with no loss of quality on any front (be it visual, musical, etc.), I can't agree with it. Why 1/3? I'm assuming this game is going to be released in 3 episodes. So, for all 3 episodes to fit in the same space as episode 1, episode 1 will have to be constructed in a way so that it is 1/3 as large as it is right now, so that episodes 2 and 3 could fill up the remaining 2/3. Are you saying Sonic 3 acts are longer? That's entirely subjective, you know. I notice little difference in the amount of time it takes for me to beat an act in Sonic 3 and the time it takes to beat an act in Sonic 4. It is true that Sonic 4 has less variance than Sonic 3 does, though. Sonic 4 only has 4 zones. So far.
This might be because they might've been programmed/arranged by another person who's not Jun Senoue. The game has two audio banks: Bank_1215_Jun Bank_Kinukawa Kinukawa is <a href="http://www.google.com/#hl=en&expIds=17259,18167,24683,26637,27101,27103,27120,27138&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=%22Tadashi+Kinukawa%22+sega&cp=18&pf=P&sclient=psy&safe=off&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22Tadashi+Kinukawa%22+sega&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=24caab9999a5d8d0" target="_blank">Tadashi Kinukawa</a>. According to the credits list, Jun Senoue still composed all the music for the game. However, for the Wii version at least, Kinukawa is just "special thanked" in the credits, a long with Naofumi Kataya and some other guy: Code (Text): Special Thanks..Naofumi Hataya..Tatsuya Kouzaki..Tadashi Kinukawa I packaged the bank files in my original 7z that I posted around the first two or three pages of this thread. I'm not sure which bank belongs to who, and what information we can gather from them. But this is one possibility as to why some music sounds differently arranged in the Wii version - because there was another rearranger who worked along with Jun Senoue on the Wii version.
Cause I don't know about the size thing, I'll let someone else explain. But yeah, the acts in S3 are MUCH longer than in S4. Hydrocity 2, Marble Garden 1&2, Carnival Night 2 and Launch Base 1&2 really stand out of act that are longer than S4 ones.
Entirely subjective? I think there's a LITTLE bit of an objective comparison that can be made. http://qntm.org/maps
Again, entirely subjective. You may feel like they are longer, but someone else doesn't necessarily agree with you. Keep in mind, I'm not saying you're wrong. Though on second thought, a lot of Sonic 3 acts feel longer to me also. That wasn't always a good thing though. Launch Base annoys me when I'm playing Sonic 3&K, I don't know why. Doesn't bother me with just Sonic 3. In any case, this is irrelevant. I do concede that the length and level of polish of Sonic 3 permits it being only half a game. I can't put my finger on why I don't care that Sonic 4 isn't as long, or as polished as it probably should've been. Maybe cause I don't care what Sega expects me to be okay with buying. The practicality of the situation is, if I want to play Sonic 4 but don't feel like I should have to pay for it, then...I don't. And I won't pay for future installments until Sega convinces me they are worth the $15. Just cause the map is bigger, doesn't necessarily mean it takes longer to get through. The initial portion of Marble Garden is over in about 10 seconds, and that's a sizable chunk of the map... In any case, see above the quotation. You don't have to argue your point so aggressively anymore. EDIT: And just to add the last nail to my own coffin...I misread your post. I thought you made a comparison to Sonic 4, originally, not Sonic 2. My bad.
Oh yeah! 200/200. Fucking laser got annoying but I somehow did it. And I also somehow managed to get the second highest "legit" score on E.G.G. Station (as well as at least other 15 people before me). There is no point in adding more, since many already expressed their opinion on this game. But I have to say I can't find the physics so much wrong. True, Sonic falls like a 100 ton weight the soon as you lift the finger from the D-pad, and putting a bottomless pit right before half of the end of Acts got annoying fast (and that damned Special Stage 4. Holy hell I hate it!). But again, the physics aren't a big deal. They are not broken, you don't fall right through the floor, you don't get crushed in loops. The game is playable and can be completed easely. But I still wonder what went wrong. In ES, if you try to brake (by pressing the opposite direction Sonic is running) as soon as you're launched outside one of those speed tubes Sonic brakes just as it's supposed to be, he doesn't suddenly stops. Yet, if you lift the finger, he stops immediately. Why the physics work only if a direction is pressed on the pad? This is the only thing I don't understand. They work, yet at the same time, they don't!
Sonic 3 acts were explicitly designed to be longer. That's why they zig and zag like motherfuckers all the time. It's possible to complete them quickly, but a medium-speed, casual playthrough of Sonic 3 & Knuckles will always produce a longer stage time than a medium-speed casual playthrough of Sonic 2.* [*assuming both playthroughs are played at the same approximate skill level.]
The Sonic 3&K Acts are definitely much larger than in any Sonic game by far, that's fact. And they most definitely do take longer to get through than compared to most acts in Sonic 2. I'd say that while this game has just as many acts as Sonic 3 alone does, I think that the acts are just as large as the earlier Sonic 2 acts. Still, I'm sure as more episodes are released the acts will get bigger and the end game could potentially be longer than Sonic 3&K.
Hey, that's why I said a LITTLE bit of objectivity. Not entirely objective. We can say though that the level maps for Sonic 3 are larger, and that the larger a map is, the more likely it is that it will take longer.
Marble Garden has so many branching paths it's not even funny. You probably don't even get to experience half the level in one run. Boy I dunno how this relates to personal experience and facts of Sonic 4, but we seem to be talking about it for some reason.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a game designed so that you could play it for 16 years and still find new things hidden in it that you'd never seen before.
Just comparing game lengths, mostly. Mentioning Sonic 3 stage length in response to the "Sonic 4 has the same act count as Sonic 3" argument. It's a valid counter-argument. Sonic 4 stages are designed more in the style of Sonic 2 than Sonic 3 in terms of size and alternate pathways.* [*apart from the Dimps-ish design quirks like roundish slopes, boost pads, and spring-to-spring segments.]
