Sonic X Shadow Generations announced, releases Autumn 2024

Sonic Rumble.

..Look, I didn't like saying it either.

But in seriousness, with how refined boost gameplay is now in ShGens + how Tails, Knuckles and Amy etc are apparently allowed to boost in the Frontiers DLC and Dream Team, it's odd that they haven't tried it. I guess it would require Sonic Team to do it, and they'd rather make mainline games. Which tbf I'd prefer that for them too.

 

I guess I just completely forgot Rumble existed, but you're not wrong. I'm not actually all that bothered, especially since it'll get a Steam release, but the damn thing hasn't even bothered to come out in the states.

I guess my other stipulation is that I want a Sonic racing game that won't be permanently deleted once the money machine slows down.

 

I know it's a low priority but I hope they're able to bring back multiplayer modes one day. Maybe I'm just getting nostalgic for SA2B's multiplayer but I miss split-screen multiplayer in general lol

 

We already got Sonic R2, just not in name.
Edit: from producers of "Crash Bandicoot" BTW, just wanted you guys to be aware of that. They really produced that game.

 

We also have Sonic R 3, and it has Gex in it!

 

For what it's worth, Rollin' Rascal has four multiplayer tracks available to play in the free demo already and scratches the same itch for me. If you haven't given it a try or even if it's been a while I'd definitely recommend giving it a shot as the devs are very active and are adding a lot to the demo over time as the full game continues development. The single player levels are huge and layered like a mix of Sonic Adventure and Mario Sunshine, and the multiplayer maps are more linear obstacles courses like SA2 or Mario Galaxy. They even added items to the multiplayer in the last update a la Mario Kart.

I could gush about this game all day tbh but I'll save that for when it's more relevant.

 

frontiers is extremely spectacle-based, I'd argue even down to simple enemy encounters with Sonic's rather flashy attack animations and inputs that take cues from (extremely spectacle-driven) character action games like Bayonetta. this isn't even taking into account the minibosses or the main bosses. you can go flying off over environments even without the spindash (which is how I got many field memory tokens instead of their intended routes), and that kind of thing is only hampered by the low draw distance and pop-in, very likely a technical limitation as opposed to artistic shortcomings.

when the game came out, someone here called it the "Sonic CD intro simulator", which everyone knows for how cool it is, and that has stuck with me since it's basically how I played that game, cyberspace levels aside.

 

hahahahahahaha

No.

 

Okay, this totally doesn't matter and makes me look silly. I get that. I know getting mad at Yahtzee's reviews is passe. I understand. But I'm going to do it anyway for just a second. Is it just me, or does it really feel like he just hasn't been trying very hard with Sonic recently? A paltry couple of sentences spent on the gameplay (mostly the elements it already has in common with the game he reviewed ten years ago), with almost everything else dumped into either rehashing the same lines about Sonic as a series (which, believe it to be true if you'd like, I'm just saying it's repetitive after he's made like 7 videos with this same Sonic rant in them) and a really long way around saying that he thinks Shadow is a stupid idea.

Which, again, fair enough if that's his opinion, but he might as well have been reviewing the 2005 game for all the difference it makes. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of a ZP/FR viewer who watches Yahtzee's videos but doesn't play Sonic games, and asking myself what the differences in gameplay are between Unleashed, Colors, Sonic Generations, Forces, and Shadow Generations just by the way his videos talk about them and I'm honestly not sure there's much of anything beyond "this one has the werehog" and "this one has Classic Sonic".

It's making me kind of reconsider my relationship with his videos as a fan (even if I've never liked his Sonic takes), but I'm remembering that I liked his Dark Souls reviews even before I actually played the Dark Souls games, and there's still obvious stuff to point out like DS2 lowering your health cap on death and letting you upgrade flasks permanently (in exchange for only getting one to start), and it just seems like there's so much more effort placed into his critique when it's a game like that. Obviously it's denser than Sonic, but I get the impression he thinks 3D Sonic gameplay has been doing the same schtick since SA1.

His Superstars review irks me, in a similar way. A few sentences spent on it being a serviceable 2D Sonic platformer, then this long waffle about how the online multiplayer isn't very good (which, again, is not an incorrect criticism so much as a weird thing to hang the review on), and how...because the game has tokens for cosmetics, that is somehow analogous to microtransactions, and then we end on an "in summation, game bad"? What are we even doing here?

 

I can’t remember the last time I heard a word from that guy and I plan on keeping it that way.

 

This guy is extremely harsh towards every single game that he reviews, yet only Sonic fans make a stink about it

Funny how that is :P

 

You only hang out in Sonic circles?

 

Game had an update today on PS5 but it doesn’t have patch notes -an issue with PS5 games in general for some reason-, i assume other versions had the update, does anybody knows what the update contains? Besides generic bugs fixes description

 

Obviously he receives a lot of hate from other communities too (usually for stupid reasons), but I've yet to see a single other gaming community declare him public enemy #1 to such a ridiculous extent

 

We declare everyone public enemy #1. He ain't special. Dude is washed.

Only update notes on Steam is one from a week ago about bug fixes. No mention of it in the Steam forums yet about an update.

 

Honestly I dropped off of him probably six years ago at this point and I'm pretty sure it was his Smash Ultimate review that did it. Not that I don't think he's entitled to his opinions but he just seems so...joyless. The constant churn of negativity is just exhausting more than anything else and while I can understand that a brand like that might have appeal, I don't think his content has ever evoked any critical thought in me.

 

Reviewers that are driven by the personality first are going to focus on the entertainment factor. Fair dues if you think the content is repetitive, but I wouldn't count on the five minute shit-take series for in-depth discussion. There are things Yazhtzee misses about every game he reviews because the 5-minute gimmick and having to stick to the million-jokes-a-minute bit limit what the series . I'm a Yahztee fan, but I'm also a fan of fighting games and he's about as good as a toddler slapping buttons down when it comes to those. His Street Fighter 6 review did not even begin to get into the improvements and nuances between titles as far as the core fighting game goes. He barely talks about the core gameplay at all even though the multiplayer is why most people sign up. He just talked about the gimmicky single player mode instead because that was the stand out thing that you can mine new material from quickly. Did you give a shit then? Did you even notice? Or did your relationship with Yahtzee only get more complex when it's your thing he's doing his usual shtick on?

There are also obvious biases at play here but it's not like he doesn't own up to him. I can't count amount of JRPG videos where he admits he didn't even finish the game before he decided to review it, but he downs Soulslike(a genre I am decidedly not interested in and think is stinky) like water. I don't even mind this much because every reviewer is gonna have biases the same as players do. It's just important to know those going into their content. Even as someone who agrees more with Yahtzee's takes about Sonic than most Sonic fans I wouldn't take a video about Sonic from him seriously. He's not a child nor does he have the 20 years of emotional investment to understand why Shadow stopping on a dime in this one is remarkable. Most gamers don't. Doesn't make it a cardinal sin that he's talking about the game. Take solace in the fact that Sonic has more sway than ZP ever will and keep it pushing.

 

I'll chalk it up to him having very well defined ideas of what things are, what they should be, and having clear preferences. And almost everything about (modern) Sonic goes against that.
And him talking about it invites a lot of subjectivity.
Still very annoying tho.

 

I dunno how to tell you this, but I am simply a better Yahtzee fan than you guys. My point is that his Sonic videos feel like they're falling below his usual standard. I know well enough that none of his individual game reviews are going to have the kind of depth a lot of people need, but I don't think that means that they're all equal. I also don't think he's "extremely harsh towards every single game he reviews", he knows where and when to apply praise when he wants to, and there are tons and tons of games he likes and loves, it's just that it doesn't look like that if you only watch his videos on games you already like, because people that aren't invested in his theories of games in general are probably fans of bigger AAA titles, which fall below his standards as a matter of mainstream AAA titles being designed to appeal to a lowest common denominator he has no patience for. Moreover, I think Croshaw is generally an intelligent guy, I think with his Extra Punctuation/Semi-Ramblomatic essays he shows exactly how much thought he does put into his criticisms, which is why it's disappointing to me that Sonic feels like such a blind spot. Other than maybe Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty, I'm not sure I've heard him ask "why are they still making this" so many times about a series, and it just makes me ask "why are you still reviewing this", which is significant because he stopped reviewing a couple of those for a good while.

Extremely weird passive-aggressive tone aside, no. I didn't notice that about his SF6 review. Because I don't play fighting games, and I don't know shit about them either. That's why I brought up the Dark Souls thing, because I felt like they gave a good impression of the games before I played them and I still think they do a decent job now. I am not saying in any way that Sonic is the only series he could conceivably do a half-baked video on, but it doesn't generally happen for other games that I've played and he's reviewed. I disagree with a fair amount of the stuff he said about Outer Wilds, Splatoon, Pizza Tower, and a number of other games I like, but they didn't feel completely disposable or obligatory. I think his reviews of Psychonauts and Night in the Woods (games both he and I liked) are closer to this kind of problem, but those are respectively a video from fifteen years ago and one stapled to a different video about a game he found so boring he'd rather bait-and-switch his viewers with a better one. I'm not infallible here! The venn diagram of games both he and I have even played isn't that massive, but when he shittalks a Zelda game I like I don't feel like he's doing a terrible job of it, and I thought that was a significant enough contrast to mention.