Sonic Heroes Discussion

The only thing I can remember about Sonic Heroes were all the leaks on CulT. The game itself was pretty forgettable for me personally. The last time I played it significantly was when drx released those prototypes years back. One thing that makes me laugh when I think about it was how much people said the game sucked around the time of its release. If only they knew of what was to come...

Speaking of which, whatever happened to the Gamecube version of the E3 demo?

 

That feeling when several of the prototype Heroes tracks sound better than their final counterparts.

Seaside Hill, Ocean Palace/Sea Gate, and Rail Canyon sound so much better in the E3 prototype.
Lost Jungle was IMMENSELY better (but didn't fit the level because it was a very laid back song. Would work amazingly in Sonic 06's Tropical Jungle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCt1COJw4C8

Ocean Palace before it got Jun'd was arguably better.
Egg Emperor had a neat extra guitar riff in its opening.

And so forth. I remember uploading all the dumped proto soundtracks as a present around... 2011 or 2012. They're around somewhere for those that haven't nabbed it.

 

Why is reusing certain portions of some levels in other ones suddenly a bad thing? This occurred in Sonic Adventure 2 many times and it is very noticeable there. Final Rush and Final Chase have very similar level design, portions of White Jungle are very similar to White Jungle, Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon have very similar layouts, etc. Also, Prison Lane and Iron Gate both have elevator sections, but the elevators travel in opposite directions.

In my experience, most of the levels in Sonic Heroes can be completed in relatively the same amount of time. Also, when a previous portion of the level appears again in the same level like the elevators in Power Plant, it usually indicates that you've reached the next major section of the level.

 

It wasn't a good thing in SA2 either, but the levels weren't 10+ minutes long and didn't have to be played through 4 times to beat the story.

 

I'll just leave this here

Spoiler

Full credit goes to TGE

Although that might be more appropriate for a hacking thread or something...

 

Oh good. Models that don't look like complete ass. Heroes/Shadow era models were just terrible and looked like McDonalds toys.

 

Tails and Knuckles look OK, but I've never been able to abide Sonic's SA2 model. Those eyebrows are hideous

 

Unless you're completing some of Team Dark and Team Chaotix's extra missions, completing most of the stages ideally shouldn't take even close to 10 minutes for each level.

 

I like Heroes, the trick is to stay in Speed as often as possible.

 

For me, Heroes was the breaking point. See, Sonic games were a big deal before then, they were a standard for others to be held to. Sonic Adventure went badly, but hey - they were timing it with the release of a new console, being rough around the edges is okay! They can always tune the engine in future games. Sonic Adventure 2 had problems, but it was still pretty alright! Plus it was the last Dreamcast game so they had to rush it for that! Sonic Heroes was Sonic Team's chance to refine the quite buggy engine and show that they can make something great!

It... fell quite short of that mark. The camera was still awful, the physics for running up walls/on ceilings felt more like a glitch than intended behavior, and now there's a forced "teams" gimmick tacked on. The art style overall was a nice return to fantasy and the acts are king of a thing again! ...but the character models are kind of odd and have a shiny coat. So much of it just felt like one step forward, two or three steps back. Back in the early- and mid-90s there were tons of "talking animal mascot with an ATTITUDE" games that tried to rip off Sonic's image without getting the "good games" part down. Sonic Heroes felt like it belonged on the same level as these games, and not in the series that I quite liked back then. Sega managed to get worse from there, but at the time Heroes was all of the things a Sonic game SHOULDN'T be, with a few good parts mixed in.

 

Actually, Sonic Adventure 2 wasn't rushed. It was originally going to be released somewhere in the Spring of 2001 but it was delayed to June 23, 2001 to coincide with Sonic's 10th birthday, meaning they had a few extra months of development.

 

I know that it's the matter of taste, but I can see here quite a big improvement in gameplay. Especially one thing, which is for me important - replacing mixed campaign with one, decent gameplay style (with quite fluent mechanics of "team work" - swapping characters and using them alternately was one of the thing which I've immediately "catched" in SH). That's something, especially after experiencing Sonic Adventure 2, where (approximately) 1/3 part of the game was looking of emerald's shards. Very irritating (especially in later levels) looking for emerald's shards. And "shooting levels" for Robotnik/Tails were at least a mixed bag. With emphasis on "mixed". Overall, I can tell that it was a good decision. The quality of performance/execution of this gameplay - that's arguable thing (on the other hand - it's very arguable in case of Sonic Adventure 2 too).

 

Oh given the amount of time spent wandering aimlessly trying to actually learn where the fuck they all are (and that one godawful shard on the train in mad space), the emerald-hunting in SA2 felt like a hell of a lot more than just 1/3 of the game, at least in terms of real time spent playing.

I'm not the hugest fan of the Chaotix missions -- the extra missions are the hardest part of the game, and often not for fair reasons -- but at least they don't all require anal-retentiveness in order to complete.