Sonic Axiom game release thread

Someone get this man a full membership status, he's given us one hell of a game, and releasing bugfixes too.

 

I was playing the latest build and hit a lamppost. After beating the Bonus Stage...I was greeted to this:



What happened?! I'm sad inside a wall!

 

Alllllright, let's see.

First off, I'm honestly not a fan of the Worlds engine. Its main focus is "emulate CD physics", and I hate the CD physics (and I could go into a tirade against the Super Peel-Out, don't you worry). Unfortunately, much of what the engine does not compensate for (the fans in Glacial Galaxy, every boss) becomes scripted, jarringly and painfully. It's like you combined the worst of the engine and the worst of MMF.

So, let's divide and conquer:

Levels:
A good portion of the levels is "hey, let's go through this crazy curvy formation" and it's sometimes hard to tell when I'm supposed to stop crashing through and actually platform. For example, the classic games tended to strategically place ledges to stop you and hint at "hey, stop running and start thinking!" That said:

• COSTAL CAUSEWAY: The first level, and relatively easy. Quite frankly, this is the only level I genuinely enjoyed. Packed with secrets even at 100mph. You misspelled "coastal", by the way.
  ----BOSS: The bosses in this game are cheap and mostly scripted. Here, good luck getting a pattern down. Hint: you won't.
  
• NEON NIGHT: I enjoy bouncy levels. Just not when I get constantly bounced away from where I need to be. There's also a big glitch if you enter the Special Stage through a starpost on the bottom path. You know those platforms that appear out of nowhere shooting out of the ground? It's a checkpoint near one of them. When I spawned out of the SS, I instantly died. Repeatedly. Until I Game Over'd.
  ----BOSS: Fuck this boss. Barely predictable, hard to hit, easy to take damage from. Fuck this boss.
  
• STEEL STATION: The platforms here are largely not jump-through, though they look like they can be jumped through. The gold bolts are a perfectly fine gimmick executed accurately for a Sonic game, but the zoom tubes are not. Try pressing the jump button inside one of them and see what I mean.
  ----BOSS: What the fuck am I running from? That shitty Kool-Aid that comes in thick plastic "bottles" and tastes like crap? Eggman himself is pointless. He can't damage you, you don't -really- damage him. So what the fuck is he doing there? The running-away is pretty challenging, though, and it's here you really notice how "bouncing off of Badniks" works in this game.
  
• RIPTIDE R- okay, fuck this stage, long and boring, I despised Tidal Tempest in Sonic CD and I despise Riptide Relic in Sonic Axiom. Also, is it just me, or does Sonic not lose any height when he peels-out off a ledge underwater? Also, there is NO excuse for having a mace that acts like a Mario 1 firebar.
  ----BOSS: Dear lord, this boss. This is the one boss to have a real pattern... and it's a fucking The-Games-Factory-level of programming. As in, it's the exact same thing repeated for the entire fight. Oh, and just so you know, your boss teleports several feet to return to the proper position to start the pattern again. Really jarring.
  
• SANDY SINKHOLE: There's really not much to say to this level other than it reminded me of a certain "Try grabbing onto that horizontal bar!". Those bars could use some work. Figure out a way to let us through without screwing us over if we aren't immediately in the right place.
  ----BOSS: You know what? Here's my suggestion: scrap this boss. Executed terribly, running is choppy and not really "running", the boss is another TGF nightmare, just find something else to put here. Please. It's really beyond repair.
  
• MINERAL MINE: Is there really a need for two water levels? Anyway, expect to get hurt. A lot.
  ----BOSS: I have to give you props. This is a really nice spin on the Quartz Quadrant boss.
  
• GLACIAL GALAXY: This level is an asshole. Freezing traps that fuck up your platforming, well-placed Badniks that fuck with your platforming, and those fans that take away all sense of platforming. And this level revolves around platforming. Ugh. I flat-out dislike this stage, and you know what the icing on the ice level is?
  ----BOSS: I have yet to clear this boss. There. I said it. No pattern whatsoever, its movements are erratic and its attacks doubly so, and suddenly it's on the ceiling and you're getting shot. Ugh. 10 lives lost to a boss? Ragequit. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't tolerate the game anymore.

Special Stages: Confession time: I have yet to beat the first Special Stage. It might be the way bouncing works, and it might be the way the flippers work, and it might be the orbs from Sonic 3 being poorly implemented, but I just can't do it. And I've tried. A lot. Please, tone it down. Not everyone is a star at your game like you are.

Sound:
Actually a decent soundtrack, with one little peeve of mine: Could you possibly fade out the music when the 1-Up jingle plays? It really clashes with the level music.

Other notes:
The Super Peel-Out is waaaaaay too fast. Seriously, with the absolute minimum charge time you're already faster than standard running speed.
Badniks have strange hitboxes. One Badnik in Riptide Relic (the one with the green fro-hawk) can be smashed when its spikes are out, but sometimes not when they're in.

Final verdict
Reeeeeally unrefined. With more work, this could easily become another really popular and good fangame. And if I ever get past Glacial Galaxy I'll let you know how the rest of the game fares! If it makes you feel better, I fully intend to try until I succeed.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16wGJTh983E

 

What on Earth is going on with the hitboxes on that? The player gets hurt when there's no visible danger.

 

Cool, thanks for the bugfixes! I don't know if anyone found my "mac port" useful but I'll update it if anyone expresses interest.

 

The level layouts leave much to be desired. Knuckles handles like a lead weight; he's not supposed to drop like a rock when he comes out of gliding in mid air. The Special Stages, while a novel idea are poorly designed and and nad-crushingly difficult. They are not fun.

Nice try, though.

 

I don't agree that the special stages are all that difficult—minus the first one. Once you figure out how to keep steady on the bumpers, everything else is easy.

I will agree that the bosses are in serious need of refinement. Some of their animations are jilted, and most of them are either jokes or frustrating waiting games. The only boss I felt was good was boss 2. And the main boss theme is terrible.

I'm rather fond of the Sonic CD styled level design and themes, though. A time attack, some options to tweak, and some freaking refinement on those bosses would be great.

I'd love to know what songs you used for the game. Listing artists only carries you so far when several of them have huge discographies, or published songs.

 

I will say this was completely unexpected however I have not completed the game but when I do I'll give you a full wall of text of feedback. There are some things I've noticed wrong with the hit boxes of multiple objects in this game though the largest one I should mention are the saws in I think it was Steel Station. I was getting hit no where near the damn things. Currently at Mineral Mine and I will say I really enjoy the music you've put in for the zones they seem very fitting. Though I do agree with everybody on the fact that the special stages are a pretty big bitch to beat. May I point out though for the boss fights, TOO MUCH WAITING. Just about every boss in this game has something you have to wait after it repeats itself over and over to get 1 or maybe 2 hits in. In my personal opinion the boss from Steel Station was a tad too hard for how far you are in the game, perhaps slow the rising *stuff* down just a tad. For example the first set of spikes trolling the bar, if you don't go instantly and wait for it to cycle again you are automatically dead and I don't think that tension is appreciated from an earlier boss.

One thing I have noticed that I REALLY like to see from a Sonic fan game, no bottomless pits and very little dick moves while still managing to be a difficult game at times. I can't stress enough how cheaply placed death traps make me rage so props to you for making a game without any or I am to assume it doesn't have any since I have not seen or fallen into one in my entire play though.

I'll be back with a more organized wall for you when I finish the game.

 

Yeah the last time I posted in this thread I got suspended so I guess I will have to be more careful with my words this time. I wasn't enamoured with the game but it provided a shockingly close experience to the Genesis games and although it's not perfect as a one-man-created effort could never be I recognise the achievement that this game is. Evidently hundreds and hundreds of hours of work that resulted in a stunning game.

PS. I don't suppose anyone wants to give me a level select code or tell me how to beat Glacial Galaxy's boss? Yeah I just couldn't get past it.

 

Found a glitch for ya, upon touching the box pulling things at a high speed in Machine Mayhem I was put into a state of running in air disabling jump and trapping me in my current position until I died due to time over.

 

SPOILER ALERT

If you haven't played this game DO NOT read my post

As promised here is my wall of text.

Spoiler

This is a review of the version in the original post before any bug fixes. Alright I'm going to start this off by saying that after finishing the game I quite enjoyed it, that being said I'm going to broadly go over every zone and my opinion on such. This was written after only my Sonic play though as I figure that is most important. Note as well the reason I call the bosses too hard is because the zones are a cakewalk by comparison, if the zones and the bosses were equal on difficulty I wouldn't have mentioned the bosses being too hard.

Costal Causeway: Obviously as the first level in the game this level is going to be easy and I had a blast tearing this level up, that being said the two acts feel *empty*. There is a lot of random rings in this level like at least a string of 40 rings before a single badnik. To be honest I hardly encountered any badniks at all and even if I did they didn't hinder my progress at all since in this zone you can go as fast as possible while rolling and not hit many points of platforming, which is fine there just needs to be some more badniks nicely placed to hinder you a LITTLE. As for the music, no complaints it was pretty fitting for the first level. The boss of this zone I did not like, it was absurdly difficult for the first zone considering the first zone was really easy. I'm not saying it's too hard in terms of a boss but it seems a bit over the top for the first level of the game.

Neon Night: This stage I also enjoyed, there is no bottomless pits and very little dick moves. You can get a great amount of speed on this stage too without poorly placed badniks or spikes ganking you unfairly which a lot of fan games fail to do. I feel that the colors used for this zone were a bit much and it made a lot of shit blend in with the background but rather than that there's not much that can be said about this zone, it's just fun. The music was just fine though didn't feel as in-place as the music for Costal Causeway. The boss here I have to mention though, it is an asshole of great proportions. The lightning that comes down is impossible to find a pattern out of and hitting this boss is a pretty big bitch, not to mention those bumpers on the boss have a 75% chance of knocking you right into either a bomb or the lightning bolt.

Steel Station: This level is where platforming starts to appear since the other levels were mostly speed with little to slow you down. That said the saw blades are retarded, I can be hit by them when there is absolutely no chance I was being touched by it. Also this level *feels* like the final level of the game. The background and music gives it a very final area feel which you may want to tone down with a color scheme change to be less dark. Once I hit this zone I noticed something wrong, there is too many extra lives in this game. You could literally get 4 in one act if you kept all your rings. Rather than that I really like the gimmick you put in for this level, even if it felt pointless more or less it really added to the flavour of the zone. The boss fight here I enjoyed and also hated. I loved that someone would remake a Labyrinth Zone boss BUT if you're going to make it like this make it so the water doesn't instantly kill you. If not change it to something that makes more sense to be obvious that it's an instant kill like lava or the sort. On top of that this boss is ball crushing in difficulty which also made me think that this was the last zone of the game. Make that shit rise a little slower because as it is now one screw-up and that's it for you which is a bit much for only the third stage of the game.

Riptide Relic: My absolute favourite zone in this game and that is something hard for a Sonic fan to say about a water level. I absolutely love everything about this zone the level design is great and feels like some sort of ancient old civilization that's sunken underwater which honestly makes absolutely no sense for a level transition from Steel Station to here but I'm not complaining. Although one area I have to mention, there's an upper path that leads to five ten ring monitors and a bubble shield which is a problem. This is what I meant about too many extra lives, I suggest toning the amount of ten ring monitors you have on a level because as it stands right now when I hit this zone even after dying five times on the Steel Station boss I had twenty lives. I would also like to point out that spin dashing under water gives an outrageous amount of speed in comparison to running normally, may be a glitch but it's a HUGE difference. The music for this zone is absolutely perfect for a really good atmosphere, however the boss of this zone ruins it completely and it's the only thing I dislike about this zone. This boss isn't hard at all once you get the pattern but VERY LONG AND VERY BORING. It does the exact same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER and you can only get one hit on it before it repeats the pattern, also the transition from airborne back to on the floor version of the boss is REALLY poor. The damn thing seems to skip a whole second of transition and poofs from thin air to the lower section. This is a shame though because this is the only blemish on an otherwise perfect level.

Sandy Sinkhole: There really isn't much I can say about this zone other than it sucks. There is an abundance of dick moves in this stage and I have to call out a certain section of act two. You are at the foot of a wall and have to spin dash or peel to scale it when it loops around and your running on the ceiling all of a sudden this set of spikes comes out of fucking nowhere and ganks you which really made me say out loud what the fuck is this shit? After looking back I realized your suppose to jump when you see the spikes but you have like a 0.5 second time frame of seeing the spikes to crashing into them which is really uncalled for. The music for this zone wasn't anything special, it fits but as sand is nothing can make you go WOW A SAND LEVEL I LOVE THOSE! As for the boss I agree with Blivsey, scrap it. This boss is really boring and repetitive and there isn't anything I can say other than I did not enjoy it.

Mineral Mine: This zone was pretty good it felt exactly where it should have been in terms of difficulty vs levels played, I am totally fine with two water levels in a Sonic game ever since Hez pulled it off very nicely in his Sonic Classic but that's a different story. This zone contains the two very key elements to a Sonic game in a very nice balance. There's certain sections where you get some really good speed and then it stops you for a platforming section, fantastic! There's always something in this level that stops you once you get to a platforming section which I REALLY like to see from a game. I never flew into a pit of spikes due to going too fast and I always had a feeling when to speed up. Although I will say the pole jumping gimmick you had for here I didn't like for control sake. It was pretty hard to stick to those bars and the controls didn't help either, if you simply tapped right just before you jumped it would launch you way off course of where you wanted to go. If you could tighten up the controls on those bars it would be acceptable. As for the music of this zone I loved it, fit in perfectly with this sunken *mine* feel you were going for. As for the boss, this boss also felt in line with the difficulty of the zone which in this case is bad. All the bosses before were stupid difficult and since Sandy Sinkhole they seem to get EASIER. If the bosses in other zones were more in line with this one I would say that it's an A+ boss fight but sadly it's just too easy by comparison.

Glacial Galaxy: This zone was ok, I didn't like it but I didn't hate anything about it. The only thing I can really complain about was the level of asshole placed badniks within the zone I got hit SO many times in comparison to other levels and it felt very unfair at times. The overall brightness of the background was a bit much though, if you ever are going at a fast pace the ice blocks in the background can be really blinding to the experience of the zone. As for overall difficulty of the zone, acceptable. Felt like the Metropolis zone of Sonic 2 and in that perspective I mean hard and full of platforming. The music for this zone was also very fitting to the zone and I must give you props on finding or creating this music for these zones as they all feel like they belong in your game. The boss fight in my opinion had some issues not in difficulty sense but in bug sense. The pattern was easy to figure out and the boss itself is easy but when you hit the boss the physics go mental on you and sometimes you get thrown right into the boss for no logical reason. For example if I jumped at the boss from the left and hit him on the top left I should rebound to my original position right? Wrong. This boss couldn't give two shits about where you hit him he just sends you where the fuck he wants.

Molten Meltdown: This is where the game started to frustrate me a little bit. I won't lie the level design is quite nice for this zone but in general it feels like the zone is just asking for too much. There is so much stop and waiting you get burnt out playing this zone pretty quickly. On top of that the hit boxes on the flames are disgusting, I was being hit nowhere near them and one time I jumped over one and got hit as soon as I jumped even though Sonic was at least a whole foot above the fires which as you can assume is quite annoying. Rather than that there isn't much to say about this zone, considering your nearing the end of the game it is expected to be hard though it feels like it lasts just a little too long. As for the music I thought it was fine although it didn't feel like it belonged for this zone unlike most of the other music. I will give you props to the boss fight though, that was one of the most interesting boss encounters I have experienced and honestly felt easier than some of the dick move bosses in earlier stages which is no good. That being said this boss fight was awesome and challenging. Definitely the best boss of the game.

Machine Mayhem: This zone I liked as it felt like a final zone in terms of background and level design. That being said I think it's just a little too pink although I guess that can be an issue since Steel Station feels a lot like a final zone maybe not in level design but definitely in artwork. I liked this zone but I feel that the timers on the lightning floor were just a little too fast to make without flawless timing. Also the hit boxes on the lightning shooting out of cubes and ceilings is atrocious you get hit from large distances clearly out of harm's way and this is a big issue since some of these boxes you have to platform on. As for the music it was very fitting for the level and like the rest of the songs in this game I quite enjoyed it. The Metal Sonic boss fight, is a mess. I don't know if it was intended or not but you can hit this guy when he is in his spike ball which makes just about no sense as well as it is completely random if you spin into him that you take damage or hit him which really spoiled the epic encounter I was expecting from such a return. The final boss was very well done and I loved the music that accompanied him but his pattern was just a little too easy to figure out on top of the fact that the only thing threatening on him is the laser. Rather than that this is a pretty easy final boss, although if you had no rings it would definitely be worthy of final boss status. On that subject did you want people to face the final boss with or without rings? If you die on him there are no rings past the check point so you have to backtrack downward to get some which seems a bit redundant.

Game Play: 7/10
Next to no control issues aside from a few poles.

Level Design: 7.5/10
I'm really torn on this because a few on the levels are awesome yet a select few managed to piss me off a lot else this would have been higher.

Bosses: 4/10
I hate to rate so low but many of the bosses were major piss offs and either very boring or unfairly difficult for their area, this would have been even lower if you didn't have those few awesome fights.

Music & Sound: 9/10
Just about every single song in here is perfect for the level it's in, this would have been ten but honestly the boss music got annoying after a certain period of time.

Artwork: 6/10
Many of the levels managed to blend in with the background on top of a few levels that blinded me and resulted in damage taken due to the coloring.

Overall: 7.5/10
This one damn fine fan game if I do say so myself and I appreciate the time you put into creating this, clearly you knew what you were doing for the most part.

Thank you for creating this game I hope you got some useful information out of this 2500 word post and I look forward to any updates you make to the game.

On a note unrelated to the review, I'm surprised so many people had problems with the Glacial Galaxy boss, his pattern is really easy to understand, he does 3 rotations on the ceiling than drops down and the spikes fall, he will shoot his spike upward only twice while on the floor giving you the chance to hit him twice then does 2 rotations on the ceiling and drops. Rinse and repeat, or it would be that way if the physics didn't throw you in to the boss when you were off to the left of him.

 

Okay I feel stupid for asking this, but how do I save my game? I made it to level 4 with one emerald, pressed F8 to open the options and quit. The next time I open the application my save file is gone. I did find a new .ini file containing the following:

Code (Text):

1.  
2. <¸‚ä      ï   †   
     î
     =
     
     d
     Š
     F
     '
    
3. 
     –
     ë
      
     ö
     Ñ
     Ç
     
     Ö
     
     ºšþð-ðê=Kl=
4.  

Again, this probably has an obvious answer and I'll feel like an idiot but I'm new to Sonic Worlds.

 

Did you try starting the game under the same save file? It doesn't show it saved, at least for me, until you actually select the file. Then it shows you the level and how many emeralds you have.

 

I tried that, it showed zero emeralds and when I actually started the game, it was in Coastal Causeway.

Edit: Possibly related since it's another Sonic Worlds game, but the Before the Sequel demo doesn't save either.

Update!

I downloaded the older version and it saved.

This "improved version" is the one that won't save.

 

Sonic Axiom is great!