The Sonic Syndrome

Ngangbius · Post by **Ngangbius** » Mon May 28, 2007 9:38 am

To be fair, some people argue that the first Sonic Adventure hasn't really aged well over the course of these years, and it really was the game that started the genre changing that many people seem to hate about this series.

Majestic Joey · Post by **Majestic Joey** » Mon May 28, 2007 11:51 am

really? I can go back and play sonic adventure and still have a blast. To me it is just as fun as when I first got it. The other 3d sonic games can't do that.

Black Rook · Post by **Black Rook** » Mon May 28, 2007 1:05 pm

At the very least, the genre-changing is by choice in Sonic Adventure. Yeah, you need them all to get the real ending, but you can choose to play through an all-Sonic game, or just do all-fishing. In later games, you don't get the choice, it's forced on you.

I still think SA is the one that got closest to a good 3D Sonic game, both in gameplay and in the general tone of the game.

Xigz · Post by **Xigz** » Mon May 28, 2007 3:32 pm

Segaholic2 wrote:

Are those going in or out?

Sonic has taken a turn for the worse. I don't see why Sega can see that ,most of the fans like the old formula, yet they still try and add some sorta' gimmick, such as guns, or team play.
I also don't like all these new character they are adding, and the overly deep storyline. It should be any deeper than Robotnik steals the Seven Emeralds, while Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles try and stop him.

Radrappy · Post by **Radrappy** » Mon May 28, 2007 8:45 pm

Sonic Adventure is a good, almost great game. I'm sure everyone who now has a bad opinion of the game have wasted their time playing the shoddy gamecube port. I'd bet my life on it.

Xigz · Post by **Xigz** » Mon May 28, 2007 8:52 pm

Radrappy wrote:Sonic Adventure is a good, almost great game. I'm sure everyone who now has a bad opinion of the game have wasted their time playing the shoddy gamecube port. I'd bet my life on it.

Weren't they the exact same except for a few additions?

Opa-Opa · Post by **Opa-Opa** » Mon May 28, 2007 11:20 pm

Black Rook wrote:I still think SA is the one that got closest to a good 3D Sonic game, both in gameplay and in the general tone of the game.

Amen to that. Playing Sonic Adventure felt like playing a 3D Sonic & Knuckles. I didn't even care about the repeat business.

Sonic Adventure 2 was a whole different story. The Sonic and Shadow levels were great. The Knuckles and Rouge levels were fun. But the Tails and Eggman levels were like hitting a brick wall in the middle of a highway.

Omni Hunter · Post by **Omni Hunter** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:34 am

I concur, Sonic Adventure felt the most "balanced", especially with the same levels being used in different ways. After that, it all went to extremes of speed and shooting.

Radrappy · Post by **Radrappy** » Wed May 30, 2007 12:57 am

Weren't they the exact same except for a few additions?

Well, if you consider the massive frame rate drops an addition then yes. Did you happen to play DX? It's an enjoyable experience enough for those that liked the original but offered no gameplay improvements and actually managed to cheapen the experience with slowdown. Sonic Team had a chance to address the nagging flaws of their games multiple times with these rereleases. It's a shame they decided to go with almost exact ports with minor additions and challenges slapped on to justify a second purchase.

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Wed May 30, 2007 1:26 am

Opa-Opa wrote:Sonic Adventure 2 was a whole different story. The Sonic and Shadow levels were great.

Um, rails?

The Knuckles and Rouge levels were fun.

Really? I didn't have any fun on any of them. At least in SA1 you got to explore otherwise unaccessible areas from Sonic's levels, which was the main attraction for me. In SA2 level design for hunting stages was bland at best and incredibly frustrating at worst.

But the Tails and Eggman levels were like hitting a brick wall in the middle of a highway.

Second'd. It was like they took the E-102 levels from the first SA and slowed them down to a crawl (in all aspects, movement, aiming, jumping, etc).

This seems a good a time as any to ask a nagging question I've had: did Sonic 06 contain any rail sections? Or did they listen to one complaint while ignoring all the others?

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed May 30, 2007 2:59 am

There was hardly any grinding at all in Sonic 06, much to my dissapointment.

Xigz · Post by **Xigz** » Wed May 30, 2007 5:57 am

Radrappy wrote:
Weren't they the exact same except for a few additions?
Well, if you consider the massive frame rate drops an addition then yes. Did you happen to play DX? It's an enjoyable experience enough for those that liked the original but offered no gameplay improvements and actually managed to cheapen the experience with slowdown. Sonic Team had a chance to address the nagging flaws of their games multiple times with these rereleases. It's a shame they decided to go with almost exact ports with minor additions and challenges slapped on to justify a second purchase.

Okay. Now I see what you mean.
Yes. I did play it, but there was quite the difference between the two.

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Wed May 30, 2007 8:35 am

Zeta wrote:There was hardly any grinding at all in Sonic 06, much to my dissapointment.

Are you sure you're talking about the same game I played? Because the game I played had grinding in practically every level, at least for Sonic's story. Wave Ocean had grinding around a lighthouse, Crisis City has plenty of mandatory grinding over large lava pits, Dusty Desert I recall having SOME grinding to it (and the boss immediately after/before requires you to grind up its back, in addition), and Kingdom Valley has grinding prominently in the demo. The only levels I don't know of grinding in would be White Acropolis (it was probably there, but nothing comes to mind), Flame Core (same, only this time I never actually finished the level before my rental ended), or any other level (because I never reached it if I haven't already listed it).

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Wed May 30, 2007 9:46 am

Kingdom Valley is the only level where I remember it actually being important in the sense of Sky Canyon or something. Everything else is just very short sections randomly placed throughout the game.

Majestic Joey · Post by **Majestic Joey** » Wed May 30, 2007 10:54 pm

what's so fun about grinding anyways? I always thought it took away from the running.

Tsuyoshi-kun · Post by **Tsuyoshi-kun** » Thu May 31, 2007 12:36 am

I always thought anything that didn't involve running from point A to point B took away from the running. It didn't bother me until Sonic Adventure 2, though.

Owen Axel · Post by **Owen Axel** » Thu May 31, 2007 5:23 am

I'd be happy to see the grinding mechanic done away with completely. Failing that, I'd be moderately satisfied to see those converyor belt pad things that hurl you across chasms removed. Both mean a lot less actual level to play. Granted, the levels are getting too dang long by Sonic Y2K6, but it would be nice to have some space for running instead of platform-platform-bounce-platform-fight-platform-bounce-platform-end.

cjmcray · Post by **cjmcray** » Thu May 31, 2007 7:04 am

I liked grinding in SA2. Especially in City Escape.

I don't really like the idea of grinding on unrealistic stuff, like say, slime or wind, but if you're in a city level, and your grinding on rails, it's loads of fun.

(Try using the bounce bracelet on the rails in City Escape. They give you a HUGE burst of speed.)

I also don't like the idea of grinding on rails for ten minutes (Rail Canyon) but in moderation, its really fun, and adds a new depth to gameplay. SA1 isn't as fun to me becuase it lacks grinding.

Senbei · Post by **Senbei** » Thu May 31, 2007 9:57 am

Grinding was a great way of recreating the sensation of speed in SA2. It was cool, it was stylish, it was unique (at the time), and it was fun. However, two problems plagued this gameplay: switching from rail to rail was made difficult by shoddy jump controls; and the grinding areas were too often suspended over the infamous bottomless pits. I personally never found the latter to be a big deal unless trying to explore some particularly dangerous routes in Final Rush, but it was still an irritation. Unfortunately, rather than trying to mend these problems in later games, Sonic Team apparently chose to indulge them with levels like Rail Canyon in Heroes, which was ridiculous. I still haven't played Shadow or 2K6, so I can't say as to whether grinding has worsened or not, but my point is that it was a great idea when it was introduced and could still be if utilized properly.

Neo · Post by **Neo** » Thu May 31, 2007 10:33 am

Grinding was completely fixed in Shadow. As long as you tilt the analog stick in the right direction, you never miss the rail you wish to jump to, since hopping between rails is now an automated process (ie: you "lock-on"). Tapping X gives you a speed boost, rapid and repeated tapping increases your speed quite dramatically, at the cost of reaction time for obstacle evasion. The only issue is that you can't aim your gun very well while grinding, Shadow just slightly turns to the direction you hold.

I really wish they had built upon it, as it's quite a shame for Shadow the Hedgehog to be the game with the best grinding mechanics in the franchise.

Post by Bo » Thu May 31, 2007 3:52 pm

I think Sonic Adventure was a pretty great game with some weird, unnecessary add-ons. Big and E-102's games were entertaining in their own sense, but really detracted from the overall integrity of the game. Playing as Sonic, Tails, and even Amy was spot-on, and the Knuckles game wasn't too far off base - there was a lot of hunting for lamp posts and big rings in the 16-bit games.

Sonic Adventure 2 was fun for itself, but not really a great thing to call "Sonic the Hedgehog." I was good at grinding and enjoyed it in Sonic and Shadow's games, but again... doesn't belong. Tails replacing E-102 was lame, and introducing Shadow and Rouge was really lame.

I quit paying attention after that.

Opa-Opa · Post by **Opa-Opa** » Thu May 31, 2007 10:18 pm

Yeah. It really bothers me how they've made grinding one of Sonic's main features. We have WHOLE LEVELS dedicated to grinding.

Please... leave grinding to Tony Hawk and his Underground buddies.

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Thu May 31, 2007 10:56 pm

You know, there's a slight problem with this trope. This documents the series' downfall in the third dimension... but what about his subsequent downfall in the second dimension, as well? I mean, I liked the first Sonic Advance, and both Pocket Adventure and Rush have their fans, but as a whole, the whole system just... collapsed, really.

Even Rush plays NOTHING like the Genesis games, all things considered. Very little platforming, but a great deal of "hitt the fsat button too go supar fsat!!!11!!!!1!", in its place. It works, but it's nothing like the source material it was based on... not to mention the sudden death pit affinity they developed. Talk about annoying, that.

Or better, how they decided that grinding deserves as much attention in 2D as it gets in 3D, despite 2D grinding being far, FAR more limited than even 3D grinding. It's absolutely pathetic, really. It's an okay mechanic in 3D, if used in moderation, since it can greatly expand the areas you can access in addition to bog standard platforms, but it's a flat-out terrible mechanic in 2D; grinding over linear rails over giant death pits just strikes me as a poor substitute for actually jumping for platform to platform. Why do they keep using it...?

Locit · Post by **Locit** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:05 am

Shadow Hog wrote:I mean, I liked the first Sonic Advance, and both Pocket Adventure and Rush have their fans, but as a whole, the whole system just... collapsed, really.

As far as I can remember Sonic Pocket Adventure was an exact port of Sonic 2 without Tails plus some puzzle piece junk thrown in to mix things up a bit, which is fairly faithful to the Genesis games in its own way. It was a wee bit slower, but I thought it was a really decent port.

Shadow Hog · Post by **Shadow Hog** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 12:24 am

While there are definite, undeniable stylistic influences from Sonic 2, I hardly think the thing's an exact port; most of the level design's all-new. Seemed pretty faithful to the formula the Genesis games operated on, even (I think Yasuhara worked on it, but don't hold me to that).