Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

Fuck the Shadow scenes, this is easily the best Green Hill has ever looked in 3D.

 

Well deserved. Good fucking job Sonic Team.

 

The irony is that we were all sick of Generations Green Hill being reused in promotional material for 13 years and they finally update it for the one game it would have made sense to use it verbatim.

 

That trailer makes me wish Generations got an actual lengthy rewrite than the hack job that we got.

 

I know Sonic is marketed mainly at kids but do we really need to bring up variations of "the kids are gonna love this" so often? Especially concerning Frontiers and SxS, which have way more of an "all ages" vibe compared to everything else that's come out in the past few years. I mean, this is Shadow we're talking about, dude's been extrememely popular for over 20 years, there's definitely a good chunk of adults probably getting this cuz they remember liking Shadow back in the day and heard this game was good. Its not like Sonic fans are the only adults playing these games, just like how Mario games aren't played exclusively by kids.

This probably should've gone in the Unpopular Opinions thread ig, but whatever.

Anyways regarding the games' budgets, I think Frontiers was much more expensive, the game was in development for significantly longer and likely had similar spending on marketing. As for why SxS looks better, it just boils down to already having some kind of framework established to work off of and much better efficiency with development overall (just like with Unleashed ---> Colors and Gens). We'll likely see something similar with Kishimoto's next game as he's proven extremely receptive to all kinds of feedback and is likely studying what gets praised about SxS and working to incorporate that.

 

Anyway, here's an excellent review from Digital Trends, which I highly recommend everyone here to read, even if you think that its 3,5/5 score is too low or too high.

I especially recommend it to those who were really upset by their Sonic Frontiers review from 2022; it directly addresses you, and in a very intelligent and mature manner at that.

 

We could have if you didn't put words in my mouth. I'll go through this very slowly for you.

You said:

"[another guy's] argument that they just got better people on board doesn't make sense when they're the same exact level designers."

I pointed out that, in that very same post, you mentioned two guys who weren't on Frontiers, but who had prior experience working on Boost games, worked on Shadow Generations. That means they are not the same exact level designers. You said something that was incorrect, and I tried to helpfully point this out to you.

The original goalpost I had remains unchanged. Shadow Generations does not, in fact, have "the exact same level designers" as Sonic Frontiers. It's got more, specifically some from games with widely praised level design. That doesn't count for nothing. That's it. That's my goal post. Even if I was inclined to move goalposts (which I'm not), I would have had no need to do so, because you didn't rebut my point. If you had no rebuttal to my point, you could have said something like "fair enough, I should have worded it differently", and we could have moved on. It's fine, it happens, nobody's perfect. For instance, I derailed another thread last week by using the word "essential" in a misleading way. I clarified in a subsequent post and we all moved on.

You also could have asked me to clarify my position regarding these other matters before (incorrectly) assuming my stance on them. Instead you accused me of moving goalposts by associating me with arguments I was not making. Not every single person who is disagreeing with you is part of a shared hivemind. The fact that you're getting disagreement from multiple users doesn't mean that those disagreements need to be collectively consistent. It's different people with different opinions making different points, with different goal posts. Sure, they share the fact that they're disagreeing with you, but that doesn't make them some uniform mass that is beholden to internal consistency. The mass isn't changing its goal post, because it's not actually a single entity with some single goal post that it can decide to change.

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Now, beyond my point about Frontiers and Shadow not having "the exact same level designers", I said, as an aside:

"Thank god for the death of those Olympics games. Rest in piss, you won't be missed."

You'll notice I didn't call them mediocre, as you claim I did. I didn't make any judgment on their quality. I couldn't tell you what kind of a day at the office those games reflect, because I have never played one of them in my life. They have never interested me. You know what has interested me, that I have played, and that I have enjoyed? Boost games, like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Generations. I credit the people who made those games, which includes level designers, to my enjoyment of them. No level designers, no level design, no Zephyr enjoying level design. Simple, yeah?

Reminder: While obviously related to the talk about Shadow Generations and level designers, this is a different conversation than the one featured above the three dashes, which contained my Goal post™.

I've long been bothered by the fact that the next Boost game after Generations, Sonic Forces, had basically none of those level designers from Unleashed and Generations (you'll notice I called them level designers, not "directors", as you claim I did). Knowing that they've been working on games I don't care about instead of games I do care about was personally annoying. Those games they were working on that I did not care about are now done, which could theoretically free them up to instead work on games I do care about. And, wow, thanks to you, I know that they have done just that! That's awesome, honestly. I love it, and I thank you for the information. This is why I am glad they are gone. Because people who did thing I like can go back to doing thing I like. Now, I should concede that this doesn't necessarily mean that these two guys are responsible for levels I specifically really liked. They could have been the worst ones, who knows. Wish we'd get specific names to specific levels.

Either way, this does not say anything about Kishimoto. I had long been a Kishimoto hater (specifically circa Forces), but I loved Frontiers, so I've been past that. I also loved Shadow Generations. Imagine if we got all these guys together. They might still have bad days and get crunched, but I would sooner trust them under bad conditions, people with something resembling a proven track record, than I would some people who have never worked on that type of game before. I mean, for all I know some random new guys could turn out to be even better under those conditions, but I certainly wouldn't take it as a given. But I'd bet on people with experience making the sort of thing they're making if they're working thin, if that makes sense. Like, if someone had to make a 2D Classic Sonic game in a very brief window of time, I'd sooner trust Yasuhara or Taxman with the project than I would Kojima or Kamiya, because the latter two have no experience with that type of game.

All that to say, to clarify my feelings about Kishimoto circa Forces: I'd have trusted an Unleashed and Generations guy to lead a Generations followup under slim conditions than I would have a Storybook and Wisp guy. By the same token, if we ever some day get a game titled "Sonic Adventure 3" with a Chao Garden and everything, I'd sure feel more comfortable with it if they got people who made the original Chao Garden rather than some people who had nothing to do with it. Not that I'd want to shackle any human to just making the same type of thing for their whole lives, or that I'd want to gatekeep new blood from getting in, but in the interest of wanting good stuff to get made, if someone proves to be good at making a certain type of thing, I'd like to see them keep at it, especially to see where they might go with it as they improve their craft over time. So, it feels nice to see these guys finally "come home", so to speak.

Like, does that make sense, or should I try to clarify what I mean a bit more than that?

 

cool trailer but I wonder who animated it? it doesn't seem like Marza's style at all

 

Yeah it really didn't feel like Marza. Animation and color grading both looked really off from their usual affairs.

 

If you could see how my 11 year old nephew and 7 year old niece go completely apeshit over Sonic you'd understand. It surprises me how both of them know absolutely everything about the series. Like both of them know exactly who Shadow is and are pulling their hair out excited over the movie. When the Sonic 2 trailer dropped and Knuckles was shown off, my nephew had this entire spiel ready to tell me exactly who Knuckles was and why this was so incredibly hype inducing and why we needed to go see the movie immediately lol. Sonic has kids hook line and sinker stronger now than ever before, and I say that as someone who was completely obsessed with Sonic as a kid.

I'm not raving to my adult friends who grew up with Sonic about Shadow Gens, I'm telling my nephew to come over this weekend and binge it with me. Sharing Sonic with kids is so much fun right now, especially if you grew up with it and are now 40. It actually matters more to me now how little kids like the series, because I get more joy out of it being a thing I share with the kiddos now.

 

I'm not responding to your individual points because this borders on stream of consciousness, when you responded to me first and I wasn't talking to you in the first place when you chose to respond to me.

"Personally, I think getting some blood who worked on Unleashed and Generations means that (in addition to any other differences in staffing, budget, or dev time) they also got some talent that Frontiers did not."

This implies you feel the people who worked on this game are more talented than the people from Frontiers when all the level designers and programmers all worked on Frontiers, save one.

I never said the Mario and Sonic people worked on the level design for Frontiers and if you've never played those games, and are pretending like they haven't been poorly received for years, it feels like you're putting your fingers in your ear and closing your eyes and blocking out anything that doesn't suit your argument. Especially if you're going to use the games you didn't enjoy that Kishimoto made against him.

Can you give some names of these other level designers from sonic games that worked on Shadow Generations? I just looked it up and none of the Sonic Unleashed or Generations level designers worked on this game at all.

It's fairly apparent to me they are just being afforded better access to resources now than before because they clearly haven't made major changes to their staff, yet there has been a clear increase in quality to the games at hand. We got to see the fruits of this from Shadow Generations, Kishimoto hasn't been given a chance to show what he can do without being relegated to lower budget titles yet.

If the unleashed and Generations people were involved with Frontiers, I'd have mentioned it in my post because I'm only presenting information I've found and not trying to stick to any biases. And I think even if they were or weren't it doesn't change that 90% of these people worked on Frontiers AND Shadow Generations and didn't suddenly become hyper competent overnight.

They were already competent, they just needed the resources to show it.

 

It’s very relevant, yes. If a new Sonic release won’t be appealing to kids, then the game will likely not be a success.

Make no mistake, the series is for everyone, but the prospect of kids loving a new game means new fans, and that’s exciting to me as someone who grew up with the series and was a new fan once.

 

Doesn't Sonic grab onto ledges in Frontiers?

 

@Mana @Zephyr Fellas. Fellas. How much does it really matter who’s right on this? It’s not like Sonic Team staffing changes based on posts made to these boards. Whatever’s happened, Shadow Generations shows improvement over Frontiers, and that should be celebrated right now. There’ll be time later to hope that SEGA and Sonic Team take the right lessons away from it, whatever they may be.

So stop splurging paragraphs arguing about the specific impact each individual staff members has had and instead splurge them arguing about the absence of Hooters-based marketing has a positive impact on the reception of Sonic games.

 

Unless I've been playing the game wrong, no he doesn't. You might be thinking of him climbing up walls.

 

The lead programmer (Kohei Moriya), Boost Level Designer (Tetsu Umezawa), White Space Designer (Ryo Ishiguro), and Boss Designer (Hiroshi Aroi) all worked on Frontiers in important and similar roles.

I love this site because it tries to stick to and discern fact from fiction. So can we stop acting like this game and Frontiers had a majorly different staff at hand when only the lead director of the game is someone entirely unattached to Frontiers?

 

I just wanted to celebrate to a Sonic game selling this fast and having good general rating...

 

I feel like Shadow Generations worked in the alternate character gimmicks from Sonic Adventure 1 better than any other game has before. The Doom and Chaos spears reminds me of E 101's gameplay, but much more streamlined and better integrated. The Doom Wings also reminds me of Knuckles and how he glides. The Doom Morph was like a call back to the player character from Forces but integrated into the level design a lot better. With the overworld, I feel like they finally have all the stuff together that could constitute a real Sonic Adventure 3 going forward. All the parts are there.

 

The kids gonna love this.

why we use such phrases? Cause we, as adults who are fans of sonic and shadow, already got the game and did our part, we follow gaming news and know exactly when a new sonic game will release, we probably already pre ordered it, but when we talk about “holiday season sales” , or “post-movies sales”, the vast majority of those sales will come from kids and families , saying that the kids will love this and it will be popular among them in this context is valid

 

Only in Sonic Retro can one celebrate a Sonic game achieving massive mainstream success AND simultaneously watch two nerds having a wimp fight over the silliest argument possible.

I love this place so much.