Spoiler Thread - SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS (SPOILERS!... Obviously.)

Apparently, the final stage will be "7+ minutes long".

 

Sonadow Miderations looks like automated garbage.



Homing attack chains. Just boosting forward. “Obstacles” you can just fly over with an air boost. Truly the peak of Sonic level design.

It just baffles my mind how anyone thinks any part of gameplay we have seen at any point has been any good. I’ve genuinely tried to understand it, and it honestly seems Sonic fans are still in the mindset that “more paths = better level design” without actually considering the gameplay involve of traversing those paths or switching between them.

This game is an ez skip.

My only interest in this game is the Sonic Peakerations half. And not because of the game itself, because none of the qol stuff I have seen so far, though nice, seems like reason enough to justify buying a game I already have.

Nah, my only interest is in seeing how the reception to it will be. I wonder if the public will turn on that game now that some time has passed.

 

Close enough, welcome back Eggmanland.

 

I don’t know how it was in original Unleashed. I have barely played HD Unleashed. But playing the Eggmanland mod in Generations, in which you are not forced to switch to the freaking werehog…

…honestly I kind of loved it.

It’s “difficult” in that it has actual platforming and stuff. In 3D. Rather than being “difficult” in the way I found some of the unleashed project dlc levels to be in that the only real challenge here is memorization and, when you know where the stuff is, it’s actually not hard at all to deal with it.

Doubt will get anything like either in this game though.

 

I dunno, to me, even 2D level design looks good in this game. Obviously, it's just 30 seconds footage, so we can't judge much, but I like what I saw, already feels like much more thought put than the Forces and even some of Sonic Frontiers level design.

Production-wise, I still stand this genuily looks higest quality Sonic game since Unleashed and Sonic Generations. I can't tell if the game will end being 100% consistent with that, but that's the impression I got from every preview / leaks. Every people that have have people the demo have liked it so far as well, either Sonic fans or casuals, so I'm having a difficult to be skepticall about this, personally.

I hope someone will leak Bullet Station soon, wanna see how is the level design.

 

And when the public continues to like the game, will you just start calling them out for having terrible taste? Oh wait, you already did that when you said you're baffled that anyone could like the gameplay shown so far.

Why do you talk like you came here from a certain imageboard?

Its really... cringe, if I may borrow their language.

 

Only approved opinions on here I see...

 

I love Sonic Generations and likely always will. But it is simply the case that public reception of these games is unpredictable.

I am just mildly curious if they’ll make up stuff to justify hating it. Or if they’ll start acknowledging the ACTUAL issues that game has.

But it really is just curiosity. I ultimately don’t put much stock in what those outside the fandom has to say about the games past surface level stuff. I don’t generally put much stock in what people INSIDE the fandom has to say either, but people outside tend to really give the impression they have no idea what they’re talking about in a lot of cases I have seen.

Outside occasionally pointing out unfair design.

I talk like that because it is stupid, and I find it funny in an ironic way.

Honestly , don’t pay me any attention. I am just some random jerk who cares way too much about this stupid blue rat and has almost no filter when it comes to criticizing it.

And that at times seems to be directed against other people, but it’s not. Just overly strong wording I use some times.

 

Since we're using language like "Miderations", allow me to get a bit memey myself:



The 2D gameplay looks like the best 2D modern Sonic gameplay since Generations, praise you will probably see repeated for most of the professional reviews, since I feel like calling a Sonic game bad for having, uh, homing attacks and boosting is the domain of particularly hardcore Sonic fans.

Every single preview is glowing, and the impressions from leakers are, somehow, even more.

Considering that Sonic Colors Ultimate was glitcher and less put together than the original but attained a similar score, I think Sonadow Miderations will be considered peak.

It's not controversial to say Colors and Generations are considered good by many, and there's frankly literally no reason to expect that to change.

 

If I may, I think the problem here is more how the opinion is being expressed rather than the opinion itself. While yes there is some of this on these forums (I may have contributed to this regarding the Ian Flynn discourse, in which case I apologize), in this case the "Miderations" and "Peakerations" terms are childish and shutting down any genuine discourse in good faith. Same with using the same tone to express confusion and exasperation at people who do like what they're seeing. There are far more rational and respectful ways to express distaste for this game.

 

I’ll try to check myself a bit.

But I just came off skimming through video of runs through the modern stages, particularly checking out the 2D sections, but the 3D stuff as well. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy.

I’m not.







Generations does have those same things going on that I mentioned in that sunset heights shadow level. And it sucks in Generations as well. But you know what else I notice?

Platforming. Honest to God platforming. It is so much to want some platforming in my freaking platformer? lol

Also, as far as entry to other paths, it’s about precision and/or well timed jumps and stuff.

Slope jumping, the most fun application of Sonic’s physics and what sets it apart from other platformers, is actually a thing you do at times because there is opportunity and point to it.

It’s about chaining different actions together, besides the homing attack where you’re just spamming x. Nah, it’s boost jumps, slope jumps, air boost, the light speed dash, stomps, as so on.

And I also noticed that holy shoot. The speed is still turned down way too much in Shadow Generarions. That stuff it’s important. Not just because it is a Sonic game and you want to feel fast. But because speed is a source of difficulty. It narrows timing windows, decreases opportunity for reactions, and so on.

These are speedruns. But outside that last one where he is taking advantage of knowledge of the flame’s hitbox timing, it’s not like this stuff is abusing glitches or anything. It’s just mastery of the mechanics they have given you being used to efficiently traverse level design they created and taking advantage of the opportunities they set in place. Nothing here feels unintentional.

Whether this Shadow stuff is the best stuff we’ve seen since Generarions I can’t say. What I can say is that that range definitely does not include Generations itself.

my conclusion is the same. Ez skip

 

Why is it when you boost over things in Shadow Generations, it's automation and a lack of level design, but when you boost over things in Sonic Generations, it's "chaining actions together"?

You can't light speed dash in Generations if not prompted, and Shadow Generations have the same actions and techniques besides other contezt-sensitive ones like Drifting.

In exchange, we have Chaos Control and the Doom Powers, which make the game significantly different from Generations, which even if you held it to the same type of gameplay, it would have the ability to stop time and turn enemies into platforms or give you the power to turn a Black Arm enemy into a shortcut. Even the Chaos Snap changes the nature of the basic Homing Attack.

Those 30 seconds show none of that because the player chose not to do it. That doesn't mean the depth doesn't exist. Nothing in that video was mastery, it was a simple playthroufh and it seems more than engaging enough.

 

A key difference is that after you do an air boost in Generarions, there is actual platforms to land on and stuff and so you still need to act with some precision. Not boosting into a wall that cancels your momentum for you so you don’t have to manually land, nor placing things to where the maximum air boost range falls short of the pit you can overshoot into, which is exactly what we see happening in that Shadow clip.

I think axing the drift, which was one of the few good, non-shallow mechanics the boost introduced, was not a good idea. Even if it was “context sensitive” before.

we’ll see how well the shadow gens uses the doom powers and such. I must say that the implementation so far as far as things like chaos control feels like something ripped straight out of Crash 4 with it’s time slow mask, and so that is the standard k am comparing it to.

Let’s just say that, while alright, it’s not holding up that great so far.

Chaos snap is basically just the homing attack except slower. Yeah, you can teleport through stuff. But I have yet to see any opportunities where that attribute is used in any interesting manner.

And I don’t need the player to show off the games depth when I am looking at the level design itself and can tell the opportunities for higher level play is not present here.

 

Well, we kinda got that in the end.

But it's near the end of the stage (act), so can't really judge the level design there. I love the transitation tho', it's so smooth, still can't belive it's in-game. I'm not used of seeing Sonic doing this cool technical shit in-game.

 

completely unrelated but man I'm watching this video and, despite being a game from 2011, I feel like Generations still looks pretty great visually. In terms of art direction and lighting I feel like it totally looks better than Frontiers. Unleashed and Generations were the closest they ever got to achieving Marza-like visuals (Unleashed moreso)

 

I really hate to say this. I mean that. But honestly, seeing all these qtes and mid level cutscenes just make it seems like these levels are going to get very tedious to replay for better times and stuff.

 

Oh, there's more than just the 1?

Neat.

---

Edit: If you were referring to the Rail Canyon one...that was literally 5 seconds long. Or about the same length as the other one.

What's up with that? Is it about as tedious as the usual Sonic set piece? Or are those better simply because they don't take the control away?

 

Is there any more footage of level design from the leaks than these brief clips? I don’t see how we can decide that the level design is ass in this based on a brief clip plus what we’ve seen from early demos, which indicated the opposite

 

I haven’t seen much from the demos that looks very good either, honestly. In fact, one of them is exactly what I had in mind was what I was talking about the QTEs. That one in the ark level where you’re spamming to deal with the oncoming bullet, followed by the long sequence of Black Doom messing with the imagery and caps off with the amazing boss fight of spamming the homing attack to knock robots into Doom’s eye.

I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen a pretty good amount of Kingdom Valley, too.



I will say that the surfing section looks better than the rest of the level at least. Not just holding forward or boost but looks like it will take some actual control.

But ultimately, this doesn’t look very good either. Outside surfing, the dominant design here looks to just be holding boost, homing attack chains, or taking alternate paths through such skilled and thoughtful gameplay as pressing stomp when on a rope. Or simply just choosing a different path. That…

I…

I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but no. That is not good level design, my guy. I’m sorry.

 

There's more of Sunset Heights in the sewer but I think that's it for now