Sonic Lost World - Nintendo Exclusive

[Majestic Joey]

Edit: whoops did not realize the last post was a smash bros based post as well.

here is the trailer btw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_z4u74cHUU

I assumed he would be in it, since sega is making exclusive sonic games for wii U.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Here's footage of Lava Mountain, the last known stage in the game.The place has a sort of evil-factory vibe to it, which we really haven't seen since Eggmanland.

Also, the green Hover Wisp is back, presumably with its creepy accompanying music and everything.

[Jingles]

So uh I preordered the game and apparently I get 25 extra lives? I guess? I don't really know how I feel about that.

[Yami CJMErl]

It seems like a really dumb idea (and...well, it IS a really dumb idea), but I also see the bare bones of logic behind it. Unlike recent Mario games, Sonic games aren't necessarily known for just handing out lives like lollipops, especially when your primary means of obtaining them (Rings) is also tied to your physical condition (99 Rings > get hit by a stray bullet > lose all of them > can only pick up, like, 20 back > my face when)...

Not saying it isn't really stupid, though. Because it is.

[Wombatwarlord777]

Honestly, they should just do away with the whole concept of lives. That's one of the things that Rayman Origins and Legends did right. Do we know how far back a Game Over sends you in Lost World? To the beginning of the level you died at? Since your last save? Sending you back that far after you run out seems arbitrary and doesn't encourage exploration at all.

Besides, I've seen a couple of times during gameplay videos where Sonic falls to his doom due to quirks with the new homing attack rather than any fault of the player. We shouldn't have to get punished for mistakes like that.

Also, the losing rings in this game is kind of funny and painful at the same time; They seem to go gonzo on spherical or tubular level segments and they're hard to pick up.

[Jingles]

I think lives may be harder to come by this time around - in one of the trailers shown Sonic picks up 100 rings and doesn't 1-up.

[big_smile]

Getting 100 rings hasn't given a 1-up for a while. I know this didn't happen in Colours or the Wii version of Sonic Unleashed. I'm fairly sure it didn't happen in Generations (but I might be wrong about that).

I quite liked the life system in the Wii version of Unleased. Sonic had a life counter that could only be increased by winning (unfortunately, tedious) mini-games. Each time he started a level, his number of lives would replenish to the maximum of this counter.

So if the counter was at 10, you would always start each level with 10 lives. If you lost some lives, simply exit the level, re-enter it and it would go back to 10.

I wouldn't say it was the perfect system (one flaw is that once you get past a certain number of lives, you don't need to worry about losing any as you'll always have enough to beat the level), but it was an interesting idea and worked better than the systems in later games. (Although I still think the original 1-life-for-100-rings mechanism is the best solution).

[Radrappy]

So it turns out the last of the three "exclusive Nintendo" titles was what everyone expected it to be.

I don't think. . .this counts.

[Radrappy]

Honestly, they should just do away with the whole concept of lives. That's one of the things that Rayman Origins and Legends did right. Do we know how far back a Game Over sends you in Lost World? To the beginning of the level you died at? Since your last save? Sending you back that far after you run out seems arbitrary and doesn't encourage exploration at all.

Besides, I've seen a couple of times during gameplay videos where Sonic falls to his doom due to quirks with the new homing attack rather than any fault of the player. We shouldn't have to get punished for mistakes like that.

Also, the losing rings in this game is kind of funny and painful at the same time; They seem to go gonzo on spherical or tubular level segments and they're hard to pick up.

I mostly agree but on the other hand I think players should be punished when they die and are at fault. If there's no punishment, then there are no stakes. And without stakes there's not as much of a payoff when you succeed. I just bought Rayman Legends and I love it but I will admit that sometimes the victories don't feel as sweet.

[G.Silver]

As an opportunity to pimp one of my recent favorites, Volgarr the Viking has infinite lives, but if you can get through a level without dying (and not getting hit too much) you get scooted over onto a different set of levels. Certain items count as 1ups in that mode and you can stay in it as long as you keep collecting them, if you run out it's back to the main path. So you still get that gentle (hah! Nothing is gentle in this game!) infinite life mode, but the "one credit clear" is not only encouraged, it's actually rewarded.

[Radrappy]

I never considered a perfect run bonus! That sounds fucking great!

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Prefect run bonuses have always been my favorite means of incentivising skill over obstinate determination. E.g., in Link's Awakening by never getting a game over you grant Marin's wish for flight -- and incidentally saved from nonexistence -- which was such a tingly good bonus that I often gone to herculean efforts to never lose.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I love that reward in Link's Awakening :) I too strived to attain it. It's such an awesome reward.

Somebody at Retro pointed out that in Generations, it's only possible to get the highest end-level rank if you pass a level without dying. I think the game is challenging enough that attaining that rank in each level isn't too easy, but I like the concepts that G.Silver and Dr. Bugman described better.

[Jingles]

So the game is out already in Europe and apparently Tails is playable in a bonus world. Took 'em long enough!

[Wombatwarlord777]

He is, but his butt is firmly planted in the Tornado, if I recall correctly

[Esrever]

There's a little bonus round thing where you launch Tails out of a canon to pop balloons and collect rings, which I guess counts as playable Tails? He goes into a little spinning ball with his Tails impossibly trailing behind, just like in the old games.

That's actually one of the only spoilers I caught from all the streaming yesterday... I'm generally trying to avoid learning more about the game until it comes out. What little I've seen from the reactions of both the thrilled and the scandalized, the game sounds interesting and divisive enough that I'd like to discover what's in it firsthand.

[Radrappy]

There's a little bonus round thing where you launch Tails out of a canon to pop balloons and collect rings, which I guess counts as playable Tails? He goes into a little spinning ball with his Tails impossibly trailing behind, just like in the old games.

That's actually one of the only spoilers I caught from all the streaming yesterday... I'm generally trying to avoid learning more about the game until it comes out. What little I've seen from the reactions of both the thrilled and the scandalized, the game sounds interesting and divisive enough that I'd like to discover what's in it firsthand.

I popped into the same stream a couple of times and have been reading some impressions of people who have the game. A lot of people hating it so far. I'll reserve judgement until I get my mitts on it but I'm prepared for the critical bloodbath that will inevitably hit tomorrow.

[G.Silver]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... H3jNLX8IRo

Here's an interesting video of a guy playing the game, allowing his own play to "correct" the claims of other reviewers, whose audio plays over the footage. While a lot of his speed means he's skipping some interesting platforming sections, he also makes some really precise moves and jumps, does multi-step parkour moves to climb tall walls (I've read in some reviews that the wall climb is limited--not the way this guy does it) and save himself from gaps, and when he wall runs he doesn't lose speed the way I did when I hit those same surfaces. It doesn't have me convinced that the game's critics all are wrong, but there must be more to it than it seems at first.

Also props for recognizing Meteor Herd and Mad Space as the proto-Mario Galaxy that they were.

As usual I think I'm just going to have to get it and try it myself.

[Popcorn]

Unfortunately, "you're playing it wrong" is never a reasonable argument.

[Radrappy]

Unfortunately, "you're playing it wrong" is never a reasonable argument.

Agreed. Man this has been a pretty depressing turn of events. Especially when you consider a game like Skylander's Swapforce is being praised by critics across the board.

[Esrever]

I think the issue is more about player expectations than it is about player error. They're not playing the game wrong; they feel like they've been given the wrong game entirely. I dunno if Lost World is any good -- it seems pretty unlikely at this point -- but review-wise, I'm not entirely sure it would have mattered?

Negative reviewers chastise Lost World for being too slow, and lacking the roller-coaster thrills and reflex tests of the previous games. (Different) negative reviewers chastised the PREVIOUS games for being TOO fast, making them either mindless automated roller-coasters or trial-and-error murder traps.

Execution issues aside, these are two groups of people who want completely different things. More than wanting them, they expect them. Around half the criticism in a given Sonic review these days is dedicated to critiquing, not the actual content of the game, but the content that isn't in the game... the perceived absences.

Apparently everyone is an expert about what "Sonic games should be" now. There will always be some variation of the line, "The best Sonic games are all about X". X might be speed, or exploration, or platforming, or 2D, or rhythmic flow, or mastering perfect runs, or figure skating, or cars that are boats -- but whatever it is, it will be something that is not emphasized in this current game, therefore making the game bad conceptually, regardless of execution. It doesn't even have to be the new games. I seriously, no joke, saw one major site review of Lost World take a casual dump on Sonic 1 for slowing things down too much with Labyrinth Zone, as an example of how all Sonic games have major flaws. I 100% believe that if Sonic 3 was released for the first time tomorrow, it would have a 70% metacritic because it isn't fast enough. (Or because it's too fast, or because there are too many boss fights, or because there's too much water in it.)

Aside from agreeing that Sonic should run at least some of the time, there is no consensus at all about how the games should play or where the challenge should be built in. If you have to dodge obstacles at high speed the game is "cheap". If you have to slow down and dodge obstacles at low speeds it is "flow breaking". If you never have to dodge any obstacles then it "plays itself."

SEGA has no one to blame but themselves for crafting this reality. If Nintendo had released Mario Kart, Star Fox and F-Zero all under the name of a single franchise, I'm sure they'd be dealing with split expectations too. Some series are criticized for repeating themselves too much, but Sonic is the polar opposite. It has been a million different things in a million different styles, many of which only appeal to completely polar-opposite groups of players. It's reverse critic-proof. I think the only way they're ever going to achieve universal acclaim again is if they by pick one style -- any style -- and spend an entire decade making ONLY games of that type, until everyone has forgotten about all the other things Sonic was "supposed" to be.

[Majestic Joey]

In general I think critics just like to shit on sega no matter what they do. It upsets me when reviewers give the WInd Waker remake (or any new zelda game) a perfect 10 while they say Jet Set Radio and Space channel 5 remakes just don't hold up.

[Radrappy]

In general I think critics just like to shit on sega no matter what they do. It upsets me when reviewers give the WInd Waker remake (or any new zelda game) a perfect 10 while they say Jet Set Radio and Space channel 5 remakes just don't hold up.

I don't know about shitting on them so much as not ever giving them a free pass. If anything it is somewhat of a blessing given the ridiculously inflated review culture we currently have. I remember when Uncharted 3 was showered with 10/10s only to get my mitts on it to discover that it's about an 8/10 at best.

It does feel like they get harsher with every new game though. I remember being shocked when certain media outlets rated Unleashed worse than 06. I was similarly spooked by the 1/5 Game Revolution gave this title. It feels like it was either informed by severe prejudice or that the player was suffering from migraines while playing. Apart from a 0/5, which I don't even think GR gives, it is the lowest score you can give a game. Which really implies that SLW is one of the worst games ever made.

[Esrever]

The vast majority of gaming journalism is enthusiast press, not criticism. That's not a dig, just an observation. Most game reviews are written by general gaming-specific reporters -- writers and bloggers who cover daily gaming industry news, attend and report on corporate press conferences, playtest preview builds, etc. etc. That's a job that has much more in common with folks who cover tech, cars and sports than the folks who review books for a living.

Being drawn to cover an industry minute by minute is a very different thing from just wanting to analyse completed creative endeavors. It attracts fans, not critics. (It NEEDS fans, because the pay is shit, so if you don't love it too much you wouldn't be doing it.) And fans take everything too personally, especially at first pass. Uncharted 3 gets a pass because we love Uncharted. Bioshock Infinite is flawless because we love Bioshock. Sonic gets dumped on because Sonic hurt us and so we must revel in his lows as a way of showing how strong our love of his ORIGINAL games is.

Now maybe later, a couple of weeks after the games have sat on the shelf and we've all calmed down, we'll start to admit to ourselves that in retrospect, Uncharted 3 and Bioshock were kinda disappointing, and maybe that last Sonic game was actually a little better than the previous one. But of course by then all the reviews have already been written and externalized!

Imagine a world where almost every review we have of Phantom Menace was written by a Star Wars fan the day after they saw it. It would have a 90% metacritic. Clones would have 70 and Revenge would probably be sub-50, even though it's (arguably?) the least excruciating of the lot. (Relatively speaking.) Fans needed time to admit they hated what was happening. And then when they DID hate it, they REALLY hated it.

[Popcorn]

I'm the only one who knows what's best for Sonic though, so.