Sonic Colors stealing Sonic 4's thunder?

A full game that looks stellar on all fronts versus a small multiple part game offered in pieces with shitty production values.

Gee, who would have thought such a thing would occur!

 

It's also a lot easier to be optimistic about Sonic Colors instead of Sonic 4. Sonic 4 is like the son that tried to please it's father, but failed.

 

Sonic Adventure was a step in the right direction?

 

Maybe not art direction-wise (that's Colors and Heroes taking care of that); but the gameplay surely was a step in the right direction. Okay okay, at least Sonic's was. :v:

 

I thought Sonic Heroes was pretty decent, just lacking in many departments.

 

It's pretty hard to be more excited for 1/3rd of a game with boss battles and enemies that are mostly from previous games but with slight modifications as opposed to a brand new game that does many things right.

Why can't you purchase it in non-disc form? o_O

 

I think Heroes was just fine. It could have been a lot better, but hell, it kept me entertained for a long time.

 

Overlord hates DRM.

 

I really want to play Sonic Colors but I don't own a Wii or a DS but I will buy Sonic 4 on day 1.

 

I'm not looking forward to either game, but I do think Colors is the better product. As far as 3D Sonic games go, this ones seems to be on the right track, while Sonic 4 is failing hard at being a good 2D game. Even though Colors does look like a decent product, the reason I'm not into it is that I don't find 3D Sonic nearly as interesting as 2D Sonic. So yeah, like others here, I'm much more interested in the hacks and (2D) fangames made by this community than the new official games.

 

This is some conspiracy theory bullshit right here.

I'll tell you why Colours isn't getting PR-hyped: because Sega only has a finite number of PR people, and they're devoting all their efforts in a (futile) attempt to convince us that S4 isn't bad.

Colours doesn't need hyping. We're doing that quite well enough ourselves, walking gleefully into stage 1 of the beloved Cycle just like we do every time.
:specialed:

 

I don't know about him, but I like to physically own the stuff I pay for. Specially games, I like to know that I'll still be able to play them 10 years from now when my original console and/or the download services might not be working anymore.

As I see it, downloadable games are not bought, they are rented. SEGA doesn't want you to keep your games for good, they want you to buy a freaking compilation in order to play the games you used to own so that they can always get more money. What amazes me is that most people are OK with the download system, they don't care for the fact that they are not gonna own the games for long.

 

Did anybody in here actually read the article he linked in the OP?

I bring it up because, uh, the link is broken and nobody in this entire thread has mentioned it. I had to track it down for myself:

http://n4g.com/news/584538/is-sega-worried...onic-4s-thunder

Article source is actually at:

http://gaygamer.net/2010/08/editorial_is_s...rried_abou.html

 

Not trying to start a Sonic Adventure debate here, but wasn't this the game where the seeds of the series' downfall were initially planted? Sure it had the most classic-faithful physics of the 3D games, but SA1 was the game that introduced overly prevalent speed boosters, homing attack chains, and light dashing as core gameplay mechanics. Sure, these weren't as bad as in later games, but this is where it all began.

 

SA2 is more were it began. SA1 set up a few things, but uses them a lot better than SA2 and onwards. SA2 started the whole rail grind, 5000 dashpad thing, as well as the straight forward level over bottomless pits.

 

What's really bothering me about Sonic Colors isn't its visuals at all. I'll admit the game looks fantastic. But when I look at it I see more of what made unleashed unappealing. For example: You run down an effectively straight path, ride some rails, go around some turns, do a few homing attack chains and boost once in awhile. The actual gaming involved is almost zilch and all of the important parts of the game are either way too tedious and frustrating or play by themselves. There's no middleground, it's all just a giant "look how fast sonic is" showcase. I mean it's taken them this long to realize people want platforming elements in the game and then they react by putting 100 uniformly sized platforms over a segment of straight track. The only thing is that now you can chose from multiple different paths to do the same thing on.

 

You know the way they handled rail grinding in most of the levels of SA2 (besides Sky Rail and Final Rush/Chase) was actually really good, and the whole "momentum" concept behind it was done rather well. The rest however was not and I can agree with it. SA2 indeed overdid the concepts of dashpads and straightforward levels over bottomless pits. By what I remember dashpads and homing or lightdash chains were little to none in SA1, although maybe every once in a while.

 

I really wish that one day we can have a Sonic game with controls and physics nearly directly taken from SA2, but with more open level with branching paths, side-scrolling segments, platforming, etc. That'd be perfect.

 

Not really. Taking the rails or not isn't really a choice, taking the rail is always the better option, meaning that not taking the rail is essentially punishment for not hitting it.

That, and the momentum business about the rails is fake as well. The need to lean around turns was built into the rails themselves, not some kind of simulation. Recall in City Escape, one of the banisters that you can grind on randomly has Sonic leaning to the right for a split second half way down. That, the the whole leaning thing is pretty much a waste of effort anyway, it doesn't have any effect on your speed, just holding B is faster.

It's just one part of the overarching problem of a focus on straightforward levels. Most of the mechanics seen in these games exist solely for the purpose of optimizing runs through levels, and when they're actually made integral parts, they just suck. Case in point: The stomp. The only set pieces that required you to use them were the plungers in Cool Edge, which were just a hassle. It's just this giant shallow time attack, and if Sonic's name wasn't on it, no one would give two shits.

You just described Sonic 06.