I say there were a lot of crappy 90s Sonic games because that's my genuine opinion. I didn't know how I felt about a lot of them until 2022 because I either hadn't played them in a long time or hadn't played them at all. I love 3/4 of the classic quadrilogy (Sonic 1 is okay but easily my least-favorite), but everything else is a complete mixed bag. Spinball ranges from janky to boring. I like some of its audio and visual decisions, but the gameplay loop of trying to navigate mazes with pinball physics that you can sort of influence but not always and not know exactly when that changes...it doesn't work for me at all. I feel like if you want Sonic pinball, you'd be better off with Pinball Party. Mean Bean Machine...is not a Sonic the hedgehog game, but is ultimately competent, if not to my taste. Puyo is to Loren's taste, and he said it was okay but that other Puyo games improved on the formula a lot. I'll have to take his word for it. Chaotix is enormous wasted potential. Stellar visual and musical presentation, and it's a game starring Knuckles! Too bad it's got the most soul-sucking level design this side of Lost World 3D and forces you to play 30 jumbled-up acts with characters that fight the physics engine at every second. Sonic R and Sonic the Fighters were both big surprises to us. I'm neither a racing game guy nor a fighting game guy but the Saturn-era graphics and music on these games worked well for us, and while they're both really small games with nothing to do, rudimentary functionality made them stand out to us in a sea of struggle. 3D Blast is a game I desperately, desperately want to like. The old-school prerendered 3D, the novelty of going fast in these isometric environments and not one but two soundtracks I think are great should help the game, but the core gameplay loop ranges from boring to frustrating. Sonic's control doesn't feel good even on Burton's QOL update, the levels are all mazes that basically force you not to use the speed you have, and the whole game being a scavenger hunt for flickies that bounce all over the place when you take damage grinds the pace to a screeching halt. If you combined the "no flickies" hack with Burton's update and the Saturn visuals, maybe you'd have something tolerable. Labyrinth, Drift and Drift 2 were...unsurprisingly very poor. 2D racing doesn't work on the game gear, and neither does slowly walking around/fastly bouncing out of a giant maze looking for keys. Oh yeah, and I guess we played SegaSonic and the Pico games and Game.com Sonic Jam, but I'm going to be nice and not hold those against the classic era. Actually, I like SegaSonic, but only because I didn't have to put real quarters into it. Tails Skypatrol...might be for someone. It's amazing how a game that looks like it's made for babies is so brutally-punishing and strict. I guess if you treat it as trial-and-error input memorization you might have a shot, but it didn't feel good. No, out of Tails's two outings, we were only going to have fun with Tails Adventure, since the metroidvania concept and overall exploration and tool gathering was a fun foundation. It's hampered by some annoying design decisions in terms of where you're supposed to go and the very limited inventory. We liked the game, but it's not a pick-up-and-play star the way any of the platformers are. Speaking of which, I think this whole argument rests less on the laurels of spinoffs, but on whether you think the game gear platformers are any good. And, well...! I have some nostalgia for Sonic 1 8-bit, and I didn't mind Chaos or Triple Trouble too much, but all five of these things are chock-full of antiquated design choices that make them hard for me to give a pass. It's honestly the biggest disappointment that Origins Plus not only failed to include seven staples of the classic era, but the game also didn't do anything for its plain-emulation Game Gear ROMs. Hacking the inventory of Tails Adventure, giving the player rings in bosses for the Sonic games (also, do that for S2 Death Egg), this stuff would have gone pretty far for making them less frustrating, but ultimately I just don't think they hold up the way the standard classic quartet does. And I mean, Sonic Blast was always shit, obviously (ironically, the only one to let you have rings during bosses). So yeah! I think I'm justified in saying that Sonic's 90s track record was a pretty similar ratio of hit-to-miss to how it is now. The differences are all in how we perceive these games, how they're treated by developers, and how we engage with criticism. And in fairness, if SEGA were putting out as many Sonic games now as they did in the 90s, maybe we wouldn't be all that chuffed that Team Sonic Racing was a fun game but didn't set the world on fire.
Most of this list are good games, the only bad ones are Labyrinth and Blast. With the possible exception of Sky Patrol, I've not really touched that one to know.
I've played Chaotix maybe 3 times, never got too far into it. It's hard to describe, but the controls just feel so off to me. I don't feel in control of myself in that I both keep gettin swung everywhere and yet I can't budge, I'm not sure how they did that. I feel about it how some folks feel about CD, that the good parts are everything except the actual gameplay. Wish Knuckles got another shot at a spinoff, though.
Chaotix feels like they made 40% of a game and then just polished the shit out of that 40% instead of making the rest of the game.
Werehog portions of Unwiished are actually the fun and enjoyable part of the game. The daytimes stages are trial-and-error automation fests where you can barely control Sonic and just pray for the best.
You think so? I had absolutely no problems controlling Sonic or beating the daytime stages as a child, they were very much on the simple side. Eggmanland was where the game was actually getting kinda interesting with its level design but by then it's already almost over (minus the hour of night time Eggmanland levels, good God what were they thinking).
I love Spinball. But I like actual pinball, so that probably helps a lot. I'm the kinda person that spends way too much time in Casinopolis in Sonic's story in Sonic Adventure, it's probably unironically my favorite level in that game. (The best Sonic gameplay level is Speed Highway IMO)
I'm talking specifically about the Wii version of the game. Granted I haven't played it since 2008 but the things that stood out to me are: Cool edge being extremely boring. Long stretches of nothingness where you are constantly tapping the boost button to make Sonic move slightly faster Dragon road being trial-and-error fest with dumbass javelins that suddenly fire at you leaving you with 0.01 seconds to react unless you memorize the level Eggmanland day with its 90 degree turns over the bottomless pits and those straight line segments on curved ground (over a bottomless pit obviously) where you have to try to make barely controllable Sonic not fall off them. Overall day stages being extremely uninspired and consisting of nothingness with occasional "homing attack here" segments Night stages on the other hand were fun solid platformer and even though these days people tend to talk about Wii motion controls as being pointless gimmick, I thought they added to the combat feeling fun and not monotonous
Well, as I mentioned so-and-so pages ago, I quite like Unwiished as a complete package! I think it's one of the most underrated Sonics out there! I don't remember having much difficulty doing the levels myself, but I know my memory's fuzzy so I could just be blissfully ignorant.
Ironically I'm pretty sure people are complaining Knuckles isn't getting enough spotlight in favor of Shadow. Also, that's way more than most characters have gotten you really can't complain that much.
On the subject of Knuckles, I reeeeally don't like his current voice. Granted, I don't much like anyone's current voice. Knuckles' just feels like a stranger's impression of what he thinks Knuckles would sound like, it has that problem I have with other Knuckles voices where the toughness overpowers all his other traits. It's better than the surfer dude direction he was given in TSR, I have no idea where that came from, but I don't think I would call it anything good. This, combined with Knuckles easily suffering the most from the ever-deteriorating current models, unfortunately makes me not care about Knuckles as much. Which is a darn shame, because if he's done well he's easily one of my favorite characters.
While I disagree that the daytime wii levels were bad I agree that I enjoyed the werehog levels much more than the HD versions because they focused more on platforming and made sure to be visually interesting (the purple starry sky of Apotos, the village and then castle of Chunan, the ice palace of Holaska) which invested me in progressing through the levels. I still think the highs of Unleashed HD are some of the highest in the entire series but I appreciate SD a lot more because it's consistent and when replaying games that really makes a difference.
I actually can't help but get flashbacks to Secret Rings' final boss whenever I watch a video of the SD Dark Gaia fight. Ugh, and it just serves as a reminder that even without the Connect a video game can cause me physical harm. I have no idea how I was able to endure the fight against Alf Layla Walayla so much, every time I fought him my arm feels like it's on the verge of falling off by the end. I am so glad I managed to avoid the SD version of Unleashed. Painful memories aside, from what I've seen of the fight against SD Dark Gaia, it looks like a major step down from the HD version. It doesn't feel right without Chip lending a helping hand. In fact, I can't actually see them topping HD Dark Gaia anytime soon (if even ever). Ah well, not everything can be a winner.
Speaking of the final boss of Secret Rings, it's kinda disappointing how easy it is to cheese once you learn how to gold medal it. However, I think Secret Rings as a whole is loads of fun. It definitely starts slow and really feels like you're fighting the game for a good part of it. But once you unlock all the skills it's a ton of fun and on par with base Black Knight (Which if I hadn't made clear is my favorite game in the entire series). Most can argue that having to grind to make the game playable is inherently bad design, but in my eyes, that just makes it more replayable as you want to shred through the stages with max stats because it's very satisfying. However, I do understand the decision to make Sonic faster and more controllable right away in BK, and is probably why I love it more than Secret Rings.
Trying not to make it sound like I'm jumping on you again, but for me with replaying games it's exactly the opposite - when playing through the game the first time I value a consistent experience. When replaying a game I can pick and choose what I like, and therefore high highs are better.
oh right also to add to this, Konami straight up has a building in Vegas with their name on it. It's by one of the runways at McCarra--er, Reid airport. Even back in 2009 I thought it was pretty amusing. re: spinball, the thing that I dislike about that game is how needlessly floaty and imprecise it feels. So combine that with the gimmicks that often take away control and it feels like a lot of the game comes down to luck.
SD Unleashed can be played on Wii with a Gamecube or Classic Controller. Not to mention the ps2 version, so it definitely doesn't force motion controls on you.
