Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

I just looked through the credits and searched online to see if anyone who was claimed to be a lead to an aspect of Shadow Generations worked on Frontiers or not, and all of them did. They all worked as programmers.

If the game came out to 5/10 and 6/10 review scores and we saw these guys from Frontiers as leads on important aspects of this game, would we be saying it's the new blood's fault, or would they be blaming these guys? I think many people would.

 

That path in Sunset heights isn't even a shortcut, really.

It's an alternate route for the collectible, the music key. While it's a creative application for Chaos control, I think that makes it better in this sense. That's specifically telegraphed in a way you wouldn't want for actual shortcuts in Sonic, but it's very good for indicating secrets in a level.

 

For you and anyone else who's apparently having trouble... using a controller... here's a picture from the Xbox website on how to hold the controller in a way that makes it not uncomfortable to press the bumpers and the triggers at the same time:



Notice how you can use the middle fingers for the triggers and the index fingers for the bumpers, and still have thumbs available for both movement and face buttons.

I swear you guys are pecking on the controller like a bird or something.

 

Yeah man, just pretend that people don't know how to use their fingers instead of considering that both the bumpers and triggers are more comfortable to use with your index finger, and especially don't even think about interrogating why most games out there are not expecting you to push a bumper and trigger on the same side of the controller at the same time. Clearly it is simply that other people's hands are stupid. After all, triggers are famously a thing you use to fire a gun with your fucking middle finger.

 

Oh pipe down, mate. I don't have the energy to care about your intentionally provocative rhetoric today.

People don't usually hold controllers like that. And when they do, because a small minority of games like Sonic Frontiers and SXSG expect them to, they come to realise that such a grip feels uncomfortable and unnatural. There's really nothing else to it. Using the triggers and bumpers simultaneously is not standard.

 

My hands don't look like that

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while i do think quickstep/slide in this game is very cool and raises the skill ceiling in a novel way, it is definitely extremely strange for a default control scheme to basically require a claw grip for optimal play. i’ve gotten used to shifting into claw grip during straightways, it would have probably been better if it was L1 + left / right rather than taking up both bumpers - at least that would keep you from having to switch to claw all the time.

 

Seriously. This double pack has to be the absolute best 3D Sonic game period, if the Shadow campaign isn’t already.

 

Ive been claw gripping for years now for platform fighters and fighting games that it doesnt bother me at all but I know thats not the norm so i totally understand why folks may have issues with the current boost bindings. I actually personally just quickly swap my index with my middle finger on boost whenever a quick step section shows up but im used to that and can make that swap on the fly relatively quickly

 

When I play shadow generations the right side quickstep does not exist and no I will not change how I hold the controller for every other game.
Strange sonic team only made a left quick step and not a right one.

 

I find my index finger more comfortable than my middle finger for the trigger generally, such that it's my default, but not to such an extent that I found Shadow Generations' controls remotely difficult to adapt to, like at all.

I went and tested other games I've either been playing recently, or have otherwise put a ton of time into, to see what's natural to me. In Valheim and Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, I find myself using the right trigger and left bumper simultaneously quite often (in the former to attack out of a sprint, in the latter to quickly fly upwards), and that never feels unnatural. In Super Smash Bros., I find myself resting my middle finger on what is effectively the right trigger, and my index finger on what is effectively the right bumper, and it's not uncommon to be holding down the "trigger" to block before pressing the "bumper" to grab. In Halo, my middle finger is actually the best way to abuse the semi-automatic nature of the Plasma Pistol, since that can mash faster than my index finger. I claw grip for Dark Souls and Valheim just fine.

We shouldn't be projecting what's comfortable or natural to us onto everyone else (I find clicking the left stick in to sprint in FPS games just fine, but my wife has trouble with that kind of input), or pretend that it's some grand mystery how they expect you to use two different fingers to press two different buttons. That said, I do think they should just add more control options to these games to accommodate different things feeling more natural to different people. Many people in this thread having trouble adjusting doesn't count for nothing.

All that to the side though, insofar as they continue to make Sonic a pseudo racing game, having the "gas button" be the right trigger is in line with standard racing controls, and is very intuitive. The Quick Step as a concept continues to be the problem. Leave it in the mud, Sonic Team.

 

This is literally how the controller is designed to be held. Using the triggers and the bumpers simultaneously is absolutely standard. As an example, every racing game I've played in the last ten years has had accelerate on right trigger and gear up on right bumper, and never have I had to perform any strange maneuvers to gear up while accelerating because my fingers are already on those controls, as they should be.

Also this isn't the "claw grip" - the claw grip is using the index fingers to press the face buttons, which is certainly uncomfortable, unnatural, and is a great way of getting arthritis. Use your thumb to press the face buttons. Notice how most games don't require you to press multiple face buttons at once (fighting games excepted).

Can't believe I have to teach you guys how to use a controller.

 

the overwhelming majority of people use their index fingers for both triggers and bumpers, and the overwhelming majority of default control schemes accommodate that by having actions that need to be done simultaneously bound on different sides of the controller. it boggles my mind how you could think otherwise if you've ever observed a normal person holding a videogame controller, even once in your life, ever. even in the souls community, where the grip you're describing is much more common, the vast majority of people use their index fingers for triggers and bumpers.

it's fine if you don't have a problem with that control scheme, but pretending that you're the normal one for using a demonstrably uncommon grip style and that everybody else has got a skill issue is totally ludicrous.

 

Back paddles like those on the steam deck completely solve the issues of triggers and bumpers for me.

 

Too bad those controllers cost an arm and a leg. I demand it to be standard God damn it.

 

there are controllers from anbernic which are clones of the 8bitdo ultimate controllers called the RG P01 that are only $18, which is an incredible deal. Comes with back paddles:



EDIT: worth noting, this is the Console-gaming style back paddles, not the steam input back paddles. What that means is the controller will internally mirror buttons to the back paddles, so they are clones of existing buttons. There are 4 profiles you can "program" to change what the back paddles do, like profile 1 could have the back paddles being LB and RB, while profile 2 has them being X and Y, things like that.

This is different from the Hori steam controller which is due out soon, which has *steam input* back paddles. This means the back paddles are seen as two entirely separate buttons which can be remapped to anything per-game in steam input, including virtual buttons or mode shifts or any of the advanced steam input options. But again only select controllers, like the Hori Steam Controller, lets you have steam input buttons.

 

I wouldn't call that the "vast majority" of people, but even if so, then the vast majority of people are using controllers wrong. I'm not interested in argumentum ad populum - the controllers are literally designed to be used the way I described. To say it's "uncomfortable" and "unnatural" is what's totally ludicrous here.

 

$18 dollars with $15 dollars shipping and only 2 back buttons instead of 4. D-Pad also seems pretty bad for diagonals and not too wild about the triggers according to the reviews.

The search carries on...

 

It is, but it isn't.

The double shoulder button design came from the original PlayStation, where you'd use your index and middle fingers for R1/R2 and L1/L2 without problem. I'm less sure that Microsoft were thinking about that when designing the Xbox 360 controller - they just wanted as many buttons as the PS2. And then everyone copied Microsoft.

I came across a game not long ago that demanded both sets of triggers be used, and while yes, I could cope, it really isn't something I've done often in the last 15 years, and I'm not sure is factored into modern controller designs anymore (i.e. it's more like PS1/PS2 legacy that sticks around). It came from a day before analogue shoulder buttons, and depending on the amount of travel (or the need to regularly use face buttons as well, which I might argue is less of a thing in racing games), it can feel awkward.



A gameplay equivalent - in the original Assassin's Creed, you can sit on benches. They highlight it as a way to blend in with your surroundings as a key gameplay feature.

None of the sequels mention benches but because they're built off the same engine, you can still sit on them. By Brotherhood or Revelations there is literally no reason for this feature to exist anymore, but it's still there (I assume it's been removed since... but I couldn't tell you which game removed it). Is it a conscious part of the design by the third or fourth iteration, or something you get for free for iterating on a previous design, rather than coming up with a brand new one?


Also always take stock photos with a grain of salt - just ask electrical engineers

 

I'd say it came from nintendo, not microsoft. Microsoft always had the same number of buttons as the PS2 controller, instead of shoulder buttons they had Black and White buttons which were in a 6 button gamepad setup originally on the Duke. Nintendo is the first one to really double up a shoulder button with a trigger on the gamecube controller, which was before the 360 controller.