Sonic Generations Megathread

The content of your message is flimsy in the first place, and you're propping it up with the worst imagery your childish mind can conjure up to try and make it seem more more meaningful. HUR HUR SONIC TEAM AIDS JIZZED BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Just shut up, you're embarrassing yourself.

Your point is invalidated by the fact that this isn't Sonic 2006 - recalling imagry from Sonic 2006 isn't the same as literally being Sonic 2006. Complaints leveraged at such games don't apply because this isn't the same game.

 

Overreaction if I ever heard one. Somewhat different design, more talkative, more rock influence in his background music.. that's it? I've seen no reason to believe they're nearly as polarizing as you may claim, nor as polarizing as the example you gave. A few really bad / average games in a row, maybe? I don't know, I'm seriously having to look for reasons, and while that's quite factual it barely supports this argument.

It's not really being done because of a design preference as much as it is that fans are whining because of their own design preference.

And really, why do you want only classic stages represented? Because those were high-quality stages and the others weren't up to snuff / your expectations? Why does that matter whenever they're taking the stages and revamping them into much higher quality levels?

Edit: Some clarification.

 

So, has there been a translation on that stage select video yet? Or... anything interesting said?

 

Butting in here, but I thought the main selling feature of Sonic Generations was 'play as two different Sonics!', not 'play as two marginally different Sonics!'.

I do not think anyone really needs to bring up why modern Sonic is different looking, acting, sounding, and playing as compared to classic Sonic.

 

Sonic The Hedgehog 1&2 Soundtrack
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=POCS-21032

SONIC CD Original Soundtrack 20th Anniversary Edition
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=WWCE-31265

Sonic Adventure Original Soundtrack 20th Anniversary Edition
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=WWCE-31248

SONIC HEROES Original Soundtrack 20th Anniversary Edition
http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=WWCE-31255

Is it safe to say they're going to make this for all of them?

 

Sonic looks as different to how he did in the beginning as Mario does to how he looked in Super Mario Bros. promotional artwork. Got taller, moderately thinner, clothes/color modifications. Should I be told that SMB Mario is a different Mario than Galaxy or NSMB Mario?

There's absolutely no way to judge how Sonic acted or sounded without any indications past idle animations and his movements throughout SCD's opening and ending. Gameplay? Hardly a way to make judgement on a Sonic, considering I can give classic Sonic the boost just as easy as modern Sonic can get rolling physics.

 

More like 2 different "play-styles."

Because the character evolved over time?

 

I thought it was "Play as Sonic from 2 different eras!"

If anything we should all be complaining about how Dreamcast is under-represented then! I mean, Dreamcast doesn't get a playable Sonic. This clearlymakes this game terrible and nobody should buy it!

¬_¬

 

Everything about the franchise changed in the transition from classic to Adventure; the designs, ages and personalities of the characters, the art direction and the music, the tone and narrative, even the most rudimentary gameplay conventions (controls, physics, level design and progression). The fact that we can so readily distinguish the two eras is the very reason this game even exists. Are you suggesting that this whole game is a waste of time? There's no two ways about it!

I, uh, what? You might want to rephrase that. Everything Sonic Team does is done because it's their design preference. All whining is a consequence of their poor design preferences.

Who said I only wanted classic stages represented? I can think of plenty of zones that deserved representation here from SA1, Heroes and the handheld games. There isn't much at all they can do to improve any of the modern era stages. Rooftop Run is just another act with some fucking balloons in it. Even Planet Wisp doesn't look to be much of a departure from the original from what little I can see, high-poly geometry notwithstanding, because cleaner visuals won't have the slightest effect on the essential character of the stage.

Actually, come to think of it, I can't see much justification for remaking any post-sixth generation 3D game. At least the Dreamcast era offerings have been out of the zeitgeist long enough to fool us unto thinking we're getting something truly original out of them.

 

I have got to say that I don't particularly like the Cash Cash remixes either, there is enough vocoder shit in the pop charts with out the cancer infecting video games. The PSG OST is the only place outside of the 70s/80s that vocoder was done right.

 

There is such thing as retconning, you know. It happens all the time; especially for small changes like age differences on anthropomorphic cartoon characters. And it's not like anything about their personalities in previous games was expanded enough to contradict anything new SA-onward brought to the table for them; that was later on when every character became flanderized to hell and back. And not even that is that bad anymore.

And if you mean three eras when you say two, then yeah, that is the reason the game exists. The aesthetics have changed a lot in just about every game in the entire series (not modern exclusively!), so whatever you say.

'Poor design preferences' is purely objective. That's about all I can say about that.

I'm just going to walk away mostly because I'm tired of this discussion, really. Probably the best for me.

 

I just want to get a word in edgewise here...

Fact: there is a major difference, both aesthetic and functional, between Genesis-era Sonic games and Dreamcast/Modern-era Sonic games.

Fact: in a sense that refers not to their characters but to the above fact, there are two "different" Sonics.

Fact: the fandom has a tendency to make a somewhat bigger (read: fussier) deal out of the above two facts than is strictly necessary, mature, or warrented.

Fact: despite the third fact, there is a solid case for the earlier "Sonic" being higher-quality than the more recent one.

By the by, trying to bring up the Mario example in that context sort of fails. In the storyline of Generations, the two "different" Sonics are the same single Sonic from different points in time. If we were to accurately compare this to Mario, one might bring up the comparison between the 2D style and the 3D style. Although apart from concept art, there isn't a lot of difference between NES Mario and 3D Mario—certainly not as much as between Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic...

Regarding the stage selection (not just answering Azukara here), I do think there were more levels in the Genesis era that present higher potential for the Generations style, although I disagree with the "THERE IS NO DREAMCAST ERA, THERE IS ONLY MODERN" idea. The contrast between what Generations dubs the Dreamcast and Modern eras may not be as strong as their collective contrast with the Genesis era, but there's enough of a gap in terms of time period and function to distinguish the two. What I dislike is the choice of levels representing these two eras: while the Genesis trilogy is represented by three distinct tropes, the only stage from the latter two eras that doesn't repeat its trope at least once elsewhere in the game is Planet Wisp. Fortunately, the designs appear distinctive enough to override this, but needless to say, the level lineup could have been much more varied.

 

The two Sonics are completely different. We just didn't get too much of a development on Classic Sonic's world before they decided to do a game about Sonic in the real world (Sonic Adventure), even though basically every game has a different sort of perception of how Sonic's world is like.


But it's pretty clear that Classic Sonic was a lot more cartoon, charismatic and a lot more of a cartoon-y fantasy world going on, with a 90s/80s pop-art style and direction to it.

The Sonic we see in the Adventures and forward was a pretty clever way to renew Sonic to make him still have that same sort of relevancy and "edge" in a newer era (that worked pretty well in Sonic Adventure, but after that, his popularity declined a lot harder). He's older, cooler, within a more realistic world that has a punk rock music direction, and with more "serious" storylines.

The Sonic on Unleashed and forward seems to try to get the Adventure era style and intersect it a bit with the Classic one, with worlds that are sometimes realistic but twisted in cartoony ways (inspiration for Sonic Unleashed's art direction was Walt Disney World), and sometimes more fantasy-like, but with lots of realistic details to them (like Colors), with a mix of orchestral, rock and techno/electronic music direction.



Sonic Generations follows this third one's direction the most, and all we see from Classic Sonic's direction are nods to it (like how the game's HUDs and menus follow the style of classic Sonic games' japanese box-art). I am too disappointed that we don't get too much of a representation of his world, but he's not really coming back and we should move on from that. The Sonic series' got a thousand more interpretations of how Sonic's world should be like (comics, cartoons, and on the games themselves) and we should face that they'll really never please everyone because of these thousands of interpretations. Some people got into Sonic because of SatAM, and they wish that there'd be things like Swatbots and Sally in the games, but they know that this will likely never happen. (although Chronicles did have Swatbots and Spinball did have Sally)

Still though, the game looks so far fantastic. Both Sonics do have flaws (you can't play Classic Sonic exactly like you played him in Sonic 1, 2, 3 and CD, rolling is fucking useless, etc. Modern Sonic is way too focused on 2D sections and tight corridors/racetracks and still doesn't explore real 3D gameplay much), but the game seems to succeed at lots of things - levels seem really interesting and fun to play, there seems to be a lot of cool stuff to do in the game, and in general, this game looks legitimate fun and probably better than Colors. For a company that did a few years ago horrible excuses of games like Sonic 2006 and Sonic and the Black Knight, this is quite an accomplishhment, as this seems to be one of the better games I've seen this year. I just hope they don't look at the excitement of this game as a "mission accomplished" message, and rather a message that they are just on the right way.

 

This isn't just about the character design, never mind that Mario never had any design shifts as radical as this in either the games or the promotional art! Sonic had a dramatic shift in aesthetics between the two eras, Colors and Heroes were the only two attempts that bore any of the spirit of the originals. That's only something we've been bitching about nonstop for the past decade. Mario and his world have always been distinctly Mario. The appeal of the entire franchise hinges squarely on the inflexibility of his world- and, paradoxically, the versatility of that world, because it was never explicitly defined to begin with. Classic Sonic had a very specific and distinguishing style to it with the whole art deco vibe, and the Adventure games turned that world on its head with a bell curve tending towards reality. There's something to be said for the Sonic fanbase having about 8 subdivisions when Mario has one fanbase encompassing the entire world.

But what indications his art and animations were! You can't tell me Japanese Sonic wasn't entirely clear in conveying his personality when prior discussions here have shown that we all have a unanimous conception of what his character was: Cute, methodical, sometimes detached. Some of that spirit was lost in the west's art (and Sonic in other media was an entirely different beast altogether), but it still came through in the games. It was only reaffirmed by the OVA, and it's not like there's a reason for that or anything.

And no, you can't give classic Sonic the boost and etc., only Sega can make those alterations. They never did. Stable distinguishing element!

Subjective, you mean? Like all things worth arguing about? A person could only ever complain about a perceived poor design choice. Personal taste may vary, but generally, if someone's complaining about something, you did something wrong. The fanbase's expectations would be a hell of a lot less volatile if they hadn't subdivided the fanbase in the past- people are inevitably going to be disappointed, but it'd be best for them to stick with whatever end of the franchise was most successful for them instead of trying to placate two irreconcilable groups with a product that won't fully satisfy either. That's why Generations was a bad idea right from the start.

 

tl;dr Sonic Generations is technically a good game even if it underrepresents parts and aspects of Sonic's history.

And at the end of the day, we really just want a good game to play.

That being said, Sonic Generations could have been a lot, lot cooler.

EDIT: And after reading Ritz's post, probably better as two separate games. But I'll leave my criticisms for later.

 

Honestly I think Generations is doing a pretty damn fine job of representing the different phases of Sonic. Now is it doing a perfect job? No, it's not. I'll admit, I was a bit bummed out to not see classic Knuckles or Amy, and I was kind of looking forward to seeing the Sky Sanctuary intro redone along with seeing Mecha Sonic in at least some form. However, this aside, I still think they got most of it right. While it may seem that classic Sonic is being underrepresented, is it really? As far as console games are concerned, they got the legit ones, and they took the part from Sonic CD that people actually cared about. They did combine Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles into one game, but it was kind of supposed to be that way to begin with.

Plus, what's the difference if they don't include every classic level in the game? What made those levels special is the way they played and the way they were presented. And they've shown in this game that they can make the newer levels have just as much charm as the older ones, and in many ways they can blend the older levels to look more like the newer levels. The older levels may have been a bit more colorfully designed, but even the newer ones look great with a fresh coat of HD paint. Besides it's not like they're ignoring all the levels they didn't put in. The Endless Mine riff and Aquatic Ruin styled loops in classic city escape, the flying battery in the background of Rooftop Run, the Marble Garden flying top gimmick, the Labyrinth/Hydrocity water tunnels in Seaside hill, that Knuckles Chaotix song (As minor as it may be, they pulled something from Chaotix for fucks sake. Sonic wasn't even in that game and outside of this board I'm pretty sure most people have never even played it let alone heard of it), and I'm sure they're many other examples we haven't seen yet. Are these minor details? Yes. But it does show that they've put in some classic love where they could. Besides we must not forget the people who don't really like older Sonic games. This game is a celebration of Sonic's entire history, not just us classic fans. So they picked the important games in Sonic's history and threw them into one game, and I think they got a pretty fair representation of that (Examples of what did not define an important moment in Sonic's history DESPITE the fact that they may have been fun or not: Every portable title save Sonic Advance 1, 2, and Sonic Rush 1, Sonic Spinball, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, Sonic Shuffle, etc.)

Edit: @ Ritz's post: I primarily consider myself a classic Sonic fan yet this game is doing a fine job satisfying me in like every way

 

Okay, so after watching both that German preview and the Dreamcast preview, (never knew Sonic Heroes was on the dreamcast :v all I can express is..

 

I don't see the amazing surreal fun-as-hell to fuck around levels like Collision Chaos anywhere in this goddamn game >:C

But yes, it's pretty impressive how they did some of the nods and references to Classic Sonic, something that we thought that SEGA pretty much killed and pissed on its grave. There are many things that we'd thought that would never be referenced or shown up in another SEGA official game and Generations did it. Fuck, the very return of Sonic's Classic design was basically that. Specially after Sonic 4, which did give the impression that Classic Sonic would never really come back in any way or form.

 

SEGA has always found ways to inject little mentions and nudges back to the Classic games in more recent titles.

Generations goes back and reimagines them. And where they're representing the Dreamcast and Modern games, even then they're still nodding to and acknowledging the old games.

Whatever your attitude about the game's overall technical accomplishments or basic idea, the love is practically bursting at the seams with this game. We can all enjoy that, especially us oldfags.

EDIT: Consider that this is probably a really passionate and dedicated development team we're talking about here. One that likely wanted to put even more into this game than what we've seen already, but couldn't due to time and resource constraints.

And DLC is still on the table as far as we're concerned.

 

What's really bad about Generations? Are we absolutely certain Classic Sonic will be overshadowed? When I last heard, it was possible to beat most of the game with him. Having said that, this whole topic is so fucking hard to keep up with because we don't have a particular page to update all of the current information as it happens, so misinformation spreads like Sonic Wildfire.

Any of you who are genuinely upset about Generations and feel like it's a bit of a let down, I'd just go home right now :v: There is 110% effort going in to this game. Yeah, the physics might not be totally identical to the Mega Drive games with 2D Sonic, you may not be able to see classic Knuckles or Amy, you may not be able to play a Sonic 3 level (big fucking whoop) and you may miss out on Mecha Sonic in Sky Sanctuary, but SEGA are making the game, not you. There comes a time when these sort of issues shouldn't be mentioned as a criticism, because we could do that with anything we liked. I'm pissed off that my original GameBoy didn't have a light built in, and that I couldn't watch TV on it, but me saying that like it's a genuine problem doesn't make it really valid. SEGA could put everything in to this game and still not 'please' a lot of you because of either the way they've done it (which you really don't have a say in, unless it's something like the Sonic 4 physics), or because they've missed out a tiny detail.

This whole game isn't a 2D game- it's a 3D game with some side scrolling stages balanced out. If you're complaining that 3D Sonic has an equal amount of stages, tough, we knew this would happen when the game was announced!

Anyway, not to be a downer, I just read through the last few pages and had some nitpicking to do of my own.

Now, I've heard some random stuff which hasn't been linked to. Is it true that the 3DS version WON'T include Sonic Advance series stages after all?