Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

I just switched to the "classic" control scheme for exactly that reason. Boost being on the Square button makes the most sense when I'm expected to use the shoulder buttons for quick-stepping. I use my middle fingers to grip the controller, not to press the triggers.

Anyway I just beat the game last night and it was okay I guess. I don't think I care that much about these games anymore, at least not as long as the boost style is being used. Just a ton of little nitpicks that compound together to make a game that does nothing for me.

 

Dude just stop, no one is ever going to agree with you, especially with that tone.

Edit: Forgot to quote the guy's post but y'all probably know who I was talking about

Anyways the solution is pretty simple, since the move is borderline useless now, just cut out the Quick Step all together and find something else to use the shoulder buttons for.

 

No it's not, the way a controller is "designed to be held" means jack shit to the way people end up generally using it, and means nothing as to what a game uses it for. A controller is "designed" in such a manner that both stick clicks, both triggers, both shoulder buttons, all four face buttons, start button and select button could all theoretically be pressed at once to activate an input. Any game that actually asked this of players would be universally recognized as fucking stupid and feel terrible. Like I said before, there's a reason that most games don't ask you to press RT and RB at the same time, or indeed a reason that you don't have to flail your controller around like a shake weight like you did in the Wii era, and it's not because the controller design pope blessed these sacred inputs and we've all lost faith. It's because these actions do not feel good, which is what is actually important. It means the designers are wrong, of either the game or the controller. Teleport to the fucking woods.

 

I actually like that they went away from using the stick to switch lanes in shadow generations, because it came with the addition of being able to move left and right during hallway sections without lane switching. There were actually a few moments in Shadow Gens early on where I thought some of the hallway segments were extra tough because lane switching wouldn't make me miss rings, like the steps between lane switches was too great, until I realized I could actually steer shadow now when he ran. In previous Sonic boost games, you were basically stuck going forward with very little left and right control outside of lane switching so I hadn't thought to try using the stick to dodge things. Once I realized I could, I wound up using both the stick and lane switching in concert to great effect. That said, my lane switching was mapped to the paddles, so I never had any problem lane switching in the first place. But I'd definitely like them to keep the analog stick steering as well.

 

Now I wanna play games that make me use the same bumpers and triggers at the same time There’s gotta be some games that have tried, not necessarily for the better. Curiosity just kills lol.

(By this I mean where it’s important to use both, say, RB & RT at the same time. I feel like y’all know what I mean)

 

I seem to remember having to do this in the old Tony Hawk games on the Playstation quite a bit.

 

Last year I played Dark Souls Remastered attempting a no-death run (it took me a while but I did it).

Since I wasn't comfortable with the default mapping, I did a custom one, a little bit closer to the 3D Zelda's typical layout.

I've mapped run/roll to a bumper (I think left, don't remember) and shield to the other bumper. Then, I mapped Jump and Parry on the respective triggers, because they are extensions of the same action (jump requires running*, parry is a move performed with the shield).

After a while, I changed the mapping of the triggers to be crossed: left bumper and right trigger for run and jump, right bumper and left trigger for shield and parry (or was the other way, can't remember as I said). On paper it sounds less intuitive to cross the connected actions on both sides of the controller, but in practice it felt much better, because I could do it with both hands and I never jump while shielding, just as much as I never parry while running or rolling, so I never have to push both the bumper and the trigger of the same side.

*

Spoiler: jump mechanic in DS

it won't let you jump at all unless you are running at full speed. The jump button does absolutely nothing otherwise. The jump can also be mapped by tapping run/roll while at top speed but it sucks hard because a lot of times you would accidentally jump into enemies instead of rolling away of them.

In conclusion: using both the trigger and the bumper of the same side of the controller at once sucks.

 

i don't care if you're not interested in "argumentum ad populum" - by definition, if the instinctual way most people are using the controller is with index fingers for bumpers and triggers (and it is), then that is the natural way to hold the controller.

you might prefer control schemes that deviate from that, and those control schemes might be a better choice for this or that game - that doesn't make people who disagree "wrong," and i have no idea what makes you think that you have the authority to decide what is and is not "uncomfortable" for people who are not you. it is not a coincidence that you're literally the only one in this thread digging your heels in on this point. i feel insane even arguing about this - every person i have ever seen in my life holds controllers with their index fingers in charge of bumpers and triggers by default, and the only people i see doing anything else are speedrunners or people who are otherwise playing in a wildly atypical way, which are the exceptions that prove the rule.

 

How much does it really matter who’s right on this? It’s not like Sonic game controller settings change based on posts made to these boards.

 

The GameCube is a weird one - by only having Z on one side, it feels more like an afterthought than something inspired by PlayStation (although it's undeniable there's a DualShock influence elsewhere so idk). Almost if they realised that if they didn't include Z, they'd have fewer buttons than the N64, but they didn't want to put something on the back this time.

A lot of the time the manufacturers have best practises for button layouts, and my gut feeling is that Z was a "low traffic" button meant for menus (similar to "mode" on the six-button Mega Drive pad). By making the L/R triggers "clicky" perhaps the idea was they'd be pulling double duty, idk.


I'm sure there's some fascinating science. After making my last post, I picked up a PS4 controller and realised that yes, I do naturally use two fingers for R1 and R2... but not so much for L1 and L2, possibly because I'm right-handed. But then the triggers don't move as far as on an Xbox 360, which was what I was thinking about at the time.


So I think the answer is that yes, the original PlayStation plan was to use two fingers for two shoulder buttons, but depending on ergonomics, this may only be technically, not "comfortably" carried through.

That being said, I learnt this morning that an officially licensed way to play is to use the "Shadow Space Colony ARK REALMz™ Wireless Controller", which sticks a physical model of Shadow inside the case for extra immersion.



https://pdp.com/products/nintendo-switch-realmz-wireless-controller-shadow-space-colony

The Crysis Remastered games do this on console. Triggers for shooty shooty, but bumpers for stealth/shield, which you use constantly. Usually console FPS games like to map grenades to R1.

Mind you these are games which thought "touch pad + X" is the best way to configure weapons (and it doesn't pause when you do so).

 

One thing about the original non-dual shock non-analogue playstation controllers, as in the very first model with just the d-pad: L2 and R2 weren't large buttons. They were small shoulder buttons like L1 and R2 and didn't cover the entire hump on the back of the controller. It's actually a lot harder to hold these controllers IMO with my fingers on every trigger, although with modern controllers I do just that.

 

There's every racing game ever on every console that has controllers with triggers, that should get you started.

The best one I can think of otherwise is another game about a funny blue guy who rolls around everywhere and saves his friends in a story loosely following the theme of nature being good and misuse of technology being bad.

No, not Sonic, this guy:



(technically L2 isn't a trigger but shhhh...)

I must live in a pretty crazy bubble then, because I've asked four people I know; two of them hold the controller the same as me, one of them uses their index fingers but on encountering a game that requires using both trigger and bumper "would just switch to using my middle finger obvs", and one said he uses his middle finger for both buttons and I think that's the truly crazy way here (I hope he means the claw grip).

At my last job in the games industry we were required to do health and safety training on how to use various pieces of equipment (including keyboard hand positions, monitor angles, chair height etc.) which included the "correct" (in quotes just for you) way to hold a controller. We scoffed because we thought nobody in the games industry would need to be taught this, but maybe we were too hasty there. Bear in mind there's a correct way to sit in a chair too, and I imagine most people that spend a lot of time holding gaming controllers (either correctly or incorrectly) don't sit correctly either, and I include myself in that because I can get horribly slouchy; if I were playing a game that required me to sit properly, I would sit properly instead of blaming the game.

Given the default keyboard controls for basically every Mega Drive emulator (arrow keys for D-pad, A S D for A B C) I can only assume the correct way to hold a Mega Drive controller is like this:

I changed my mind, this is the only correct way to play the game.

 

I think it's very telling that the best argument you had here was pretending to believe that the differences in how people engage with a controller are determined by which console the game was released for, rather than, y'know, what controller they're using or what game they're playing

 

Street Fighter 6 requires you to press RB and RT to activate drive impact, a key mechanic. Even Capcom felt insecure enough about this to offer a 'Shortcut' input where you can do it pressing one button though.

Fighting games that require 6 buttons will have you dedicating one finger to each just so you can quickly pick the attack you want, though it's notable that 6 button fighters became less and less popular as the genre switched over to console.

Even though I'm kind of conditioned for this to not be a real issue for me I understand the vast majority of players are different and a casual game like sonic is probably better off the way it is

 

This is a really pointless argument that's going absolutely nowhere. For what it's worth, I can't use 'Legacy' on Shadow's portion because pressing Y for Chaos Spear (which seems to have become a vital part of speedrunning as performing the move seems to maintain forward momentum) feels really awkward while also holding X. That said, I use Legacy on the Sonic portion because those controls are burned into my brain.

I'm just about finished with the Shadow half of the game and I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed. Long-time members will know I am ever a proponent of Boost gameplay in Modern Sonic titles but I had begun to think they didn't have it in them to make long, engaging levels for it anymore. I'm so glad to have been proven wrong.

 

I found the Switch version perfectly fine, ngl. Weird it seems John was so put off by it.

 

Bear in mind these are, of course, technical deep dives, so any issue at all is going to get a lot of spotlight, and the nature of the work they do makes their staffers more sensitive to picking up on these things. I didn't notice and texture filtering or warbly pixel issues on PC for my part, so I'm sure the Switch version is serviceable for what you'd expect from it when you take a step back from looking at all the details.

 

What isn’t offputting about unavoidable stutter from it being incorrectly capped at 31.5FPS? That’s needlessly making the game feel worse.