Sterling has pretty much always been spot on with his reviews for me. I've almost always agreed with him, with a few rare instances. This is probably going to be a rare instance.
Played it most of this weekend, up to the last zone now. Some thoughts: - Love how starting the game for the first time literally just throws you straight into the first couple acts. - The classic badniks that show up, unlike how much they were hyped for Sonic 4, are a pleasant surprise, and many are used in new better ways (like the Motobugs chasing you down fast roads). - Starlight Carnival Act 1, both the music and the scenery...DARN. - The whole game in general looks fantastic. It really is darn close to the HD Unleashed visuals just with less of the elaborate lighting and filters. The character models look like they are taken straight out of Unleashed HD in fact, maybe downgraded just a teeny bit. The worlds are imaginative and NEW, rather than recycling the classic zone styles. - Yeah some of the dialog is cheesy, but this is the best script a Sonic game has ever had. It's generally funny and well written, miles ahead of anything before it cut scene wise. Go back and compare to this to the acting in Adventure, Heroes, 06 etc and see what an improvement they've made this time around. - Have gotten used to the new voice actors already, and there is next is particularly zero talking during gameplay which always bugged me in a lot of 3D Sonic games. For the first time since I think Adventure 2 I haven't wanted to switch over to Japanese. - Stunning soundtrack. Mind you Sonic games have hardly had trouble in that department, but there is some incredible tracks here. - Game play is everything I was hoping for and a bit more. They've taken everything that worked in Unleashed, taken out just about everything that didn't, made it mostly 2D with clever level design and plenty of platforming and exploration with multiple routes galore. - Mind you the platforming does feel a bit sloppy when trying to make pixel perfect jumps onto tiny platforms, and there are still a few cheap deaths here and there that will defiantly kill you the first time as you won't see them coming. The controls never feel against you though, and there is next to no reliability on QTEs this time thank god. - The wisp powers really do add a lot to the game, just think of the like the shields from Sonic 3 or the power ups in Mario games. Some make for some clever puzzles and unique level designs, with some having different routes based on which wisp you pick up. - Under water gameplay is FUN. Holy shit. It no longer feels like a chore going through under water sections like the old games but you still have that tension of the oxygen running out that made water sections so fun/scary. - So much of this feels like they've actually been listening to what people have been asking for from the 3D Sonic games and improving on what worked. Unleashed had moments of brilliance and those have been fine tuned here with better controls, better level design, and actually being able to play every level one after the other from a simple world map rather than having to find those dumb medals. All in all this game has not only met my expectations (which were Unleashed = the bullshit), but have exceeded them. This game has turned out even better than I could have imagined, I've really enjoyed it with such minor things to fault it on they barely even matter. So far this feels like the best 3D Sonic game full stop.
It's much better to just turn or double tap the stick to stop as Luigi. Plus, using the stomp to stop? jumping and then doing another move to stop is hardly what I would call natural.
So I finished the game finally and wow, I've never had so much fun with a Sonic game. The final boss was really cool, it was great to see simply Sonic on Eggman good old action. The replayability value feels solid, I keep coming back to the levels. I've said it already I believe, if not here atleast on another forum, but this really feels like the best Sonic game since S3&K. On another note Sterling reviewed the DS version now and he's all gaga over it. I find it funny comparing this to his Wii review.
Btw a few classic badniks not mentioned on the Colours enemies list yet: Burrobot or Grounder, though he's pink in this. Buzzer/Buzz Bomber. Jawz (from Sonic 3) in the underwater sections (at least it looks like him) Clawton (from Sonic 2) shows up in Asteroid Coaster. Haven't seen Orbinaut anywhere yet, where about does that one show up?
Burrowbot and Grounder aren't mentioned in the DS version concept art. Instead the bad is just called "mole" and actually looks very different to either of them. He has hair even. An Orbinaut is all over the place in the DS version. Only the S1 style yellow/green variant is present and I think he's always stationary.
I do that, too, but sometimes it's more convenient to just slam to a halt. It's especially nice when you don't have any room to maneuver and the idea of turning around or in any way continuing to move seems precarious. The butt-stomp trick was oriignally used in Mario 64 for a similar purpose when Mario was sliding and wanted to get the overexaggerated slope physics out of his system, as I recall. But on a more practical point: the stomp is a straight-down LAND HERE move. You don't really ever have an excuse to overshoot a jump in 2D with a Stomp in your arsenal unless you're trying to land on a rotating platform.
nice, I like that guy's comics. I just finished the story like 5 minutes ago, damn those credits were long. But where is this alleged + - super sonic that I've seen model rips of? I love this game. loveitloveitloveitloveitloveitloveit I could talk all day about it but, yeah, it was good!
Old, but: <ChrisHighwind> So I read Sterling's review, and then read the comments. I quit after the 1,000,000th "BAAAAAAAAA-D GAME! I'm NOT GOING TO BUY THIS BAAAAAAA-D GAME BECAUSE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JIM STERLING SAYS IT'S A BAAAAAA-D GAME!" <ChrisHighwind> But then again, should I be surprised? Seriously, fuck Sterling. Sonic Colors was awesome and is the only Sonic game I'm considering doing a second playthrough of at this moment once I get the game.
Characters models? There's nothing of interest there. And by concepts arts I would assume he means the concept arts.
It is rare that the game ROMs themselves contain concept arts, as they are, by their very definition, not in the finished product. >_>
