The GHZ Forum

Here's some video footage of the Wii U game. The commentary is pretty bad, but...

Part 1
Part 2

Here's some of my non-technical observations:
* The one "Adventure Field" seen so far is huge, but at least seems to have enough landmarks so that you don't get lost often. You can also add structures to it to reach more areas.
* The combat is simplistic, but you can upgrade your combos and attributes so it might get more complex. Characters do seem to have unique moves (Amy can circle her hammer swings to cover all of her immediate area, while Tails can attack from a distance using a small laser).
* The first 2D areas are pretty blocky and awful, but the one in the mine actually seems interesting.
* The voice acting and writing is pretty great, even for new and secondary characters.
* The music is nice and atmospheric but not really catchy or memorable.
* This contains a really interesting characterization for Metal Sonic; he's shown leading a horde of Eggman-controled robots hunting after the four heroes and is as voiceless and intimidating as ever. Shadow also shows up early in the story for a second to remind you he's in the game.

Esrever wrote:Yeaaaah. I only played it for about an hour, but it is exhibiting Sonic '06 levels of unfinished. The frame rate frequently drops to an absolute crawl at times, especially during speed sections. I also fell through the floor once. And during the cut scene that (I assume) would have introduced the new villain, the audio glitched out and started screaming static until I skipped over it. So now I'm also just not sure what's going on.

Aw, that's a shame. I was starting to enjoy the storyline of the game..

All right. After playing the game for about three hours, I'm upgrading my opinion of it for a bit.

The game gets off on the worst possible foot with it's intro section (the part I played earlier). It's primarily four very tedious, very blocky 2D segments, with a couple of combat rooms and bookended by two of the autorun speedways. It makes for a terrible first impression, especially because it has some atrocious performance and framerate issues. (And also my aforementioned cut scene glitch.)

After that, you're dumped into a big hub area. From there, you can access the actual proper game stages.

The levels themselves tend to be large strings of traversal challenges, punctuated with occasional "arena" type rooms where you fight a few waves of enemies. I've enjoyed the traversal segments so far, particularly the Knuckles and Amy portions, which were very climbing focused and reminded me of games like Sly Cooper. The Sonic and Tails areas were more like Ratchet and Clank lite -- consisting mainly of button puzzles and smashing crates. These traversal segments transition pretty seamlessly between 3D and 2D segments, and also occasionally integrate smaller speedway or water running sequences, all of which feels fun, if a little shallow. The arena areas feel like an intrusive chore, though, because the combat is very shallow. (And really feels like it could use a proper dodge or block mechanic.) It reminds me of the police-fighting areas in Jet Set Radio Future. You just want to mash your way through them so you can get back to jumping on things.

The hub is my favourite part so far. There's lots of gradually unlockable nooks to explore, and new areas that you can open up by building things with the robot parts you collect in the levels. There's also a huge autorun speedway subsection integrated into it, very similarly to the boost boot courses in Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time. This segment would be really fun, except that the frame rate during part of it is such a disaster that it becomes almost unplayable.

And that's kind of the issue with this game in a nutshell. If it was patched to hell and running on a more powerful system, you'd have a decent if flawed game... some fun platforming ideas mixed with shallow combat and occasional tedious moments. But right now, on the Wii U, this thing is a borderline disaster. Any area meant to showcase high speed or graphics just chugs like crazy. And any portion that runs smoothly, like the hub or the bulk of the indoor platforming, look like an older gen title, with lower res textures and simple geometry. And this is all without utilizing the co-op feature, which makes performance even worse. There's also a ton of popup, and some weird glitches. (Like my unwatchable cutscene, or that strange segment with Lyric's ship.) It just feels like it was rushed out the door without enough engine optimization or bug testing.

It's a shame, because it's clear that a lot of effort and time was put into this. And the story is pretty enjoyable and well presented, with generally decent dialogue and voice acting in the cutscenes. (Although the actual in level incidental commentary -- "I think you need to hit that switch, Sonic!" -- is cranked way too high and grates at times.) It never would have been a "real" Sonic game, but maybe with a few more months in the oven it could have been a decent throwback to ps2-era 3d platformers. Instead, it's just kind of frustrating. If you're a fan of the characters or this genre of platformer, you'll be able to squeeze some enjoyment out of the good parts, but you'll definitely be shaking your head a lot as well. And without those soft spots, it definitely is not worth the hassle.

One of the poorest aspects of 3D Sonic games has always been optimization, and this being a Wii U exclusive only makes things bleaker. I assume all the development problems that plagued Sonic 06 are repeated here. Poor executive decisions and a due date that makes optimization and bug tweaking all but impossible.

I saw footage of the game today and it made me remember my favourite forum to discuss bad Sonic games at! I hope everyone's doing fine?

SEGA is purging videos on YouTube, so I haven't seen much of the game yet—besides an art style evocative of shitty movie tie-in platformers of the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era… and the same gameplay, too! Pummeling large numbers of enemies with awkward combos (instead of, perhaps, jumping on them)? Forced to switch to other characters at fixed points? Annoying dialogue at every step? Oh boy, this takes me back to watching video reviews of games like Madagascar or Over The Hedge and never buying them! At least there's still the obligatory glitches causing the player to fall through the floor to remind everyone that this is a Sonic game (the oddly proportioned characters or painfully genetic landscapes certainly don't).

At least the cutscenes are hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDCzoqhjP7M

Finally, people will no longer have to reference Sonic 06 when they talk about the worst Sonic game! I'm still hoping, secretly, that this will rid it of its stigma and make SEGA release a Director's Cut with bugs fixed, controls revised, and loading times shortened—because the level design was actually pretty good.

P.P.A. wrote:Finally, people will no longer have to reference Sonic 06 when they talk about the worst Sonic game! I'm still hoping, secretly, that this will rid it of its stigma and make SEGA release a Director's Cut with bugs fixed, controls revised, and loading times shortened—because the level design was actually pretty good.

Ah my favorite 06 apologist. Good to have you back P.P.A.

Radrappy wrote:

P.P.A. wrote:Finally, people will no longer have to reference Sonic 06 when they talk about the worst Sonic game! I'm still hoping, secretly, that this will rid it of its stigma and make SEGA release a Director's Cut with bugs fixed, controls revised, and loading times shortened—because the level design was actually pretty good.

Ah my favorite 06 apologist. Good to have you back P.P.A.

To be fair, this is all true. Sonic 06 was set to be a decent if not actually good game -- they just never finished it.

The show felt more like a continuation of the Donkey Kong Country show than early comparisons indicated. The only thing missing are musical interludes. Everything else from the setting to the blithe hit-and-miss humor are so similar I'd be tempted to cross-reference the production crew if I could somehow care enough to.

At least the Amy fared better than Dixie Kong.

Neo wrote:Sonic 06 was set to be a decent if not actually good game -- they just never finished it.

it really, really wasn't.

P.P.A. wrote:At least the cutscenes are hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDCzoqhjP7M

Holy shit. Is there a video of how that's supposed to play out, or does it do that all the time?

My goodness Shadow's voice is awful. It's painfully obvious he is only in this game because Sega told BigRedButton to toss him in there. He just randomly appears and decides he's gonna kill Sonic. No reason, just because. Ugh. Like him or hate him, Shadow used to have motives for his actions in previous games.

His character model looks.. off, too. Like they just repainted Sonic's model.

cjmcray wrote:My goodness Shadow's voice is awful. It's painfully obvious he is only in this game because Sega told BigRedButton to toss him in there. He just randomly appears and decides he's gonna kill Sonic. No reason, just because. Ugh. Like him or hate him, Shadow used to have motives for his actions in previous games.

Yeah, I decided to take a look at a bunch of cutscenes and saw him in there and just went "what?". I get that Shadow's not always the most cooperative guy, but just being a jerk "for the lulz" is...kind of out-of-character for him, at least without any explanation.

It honestly reminds me a little of Bass from the original MegaMan games.

Here's the reward you get for 100%'ing Shattered Crystal.

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

Uhhhh

P.P.A. wrote:shitty movie tie-in platformers of the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era

Madagascar or Over The Hedge.[/spoiler]

Looks like I actually hit the nail right on the head:

http://brbent.com/ wrote:We have brought together a collection of talented veterans from Naughty Dog, Heavy Iron, Luxo Flux and High Impact Games

Heavy Iron: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Iron_Studios
 Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, The Incredibles, The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up…
Luxoflux: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxoflux
 Shrek 2, Kung Fu Panda, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (They actually made the True Crime games too.)
High Impact Games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Impact_Games
 “(…) formed in 2003 by former members of Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog.”

In other words, Big Red Button's staff is made up of the rejects of Naughty Dog rejects, as well as a collection of movie and cartoon tie-in veterans, talented at making mediocre and uninspired action-platfomers.

(Oh right, the edit limit...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8V0vM_ra6M

It keeps getting better!

Yeah, I decided to take a look at a bunch of cutscenes and saw him in there and just went "what?". I get that Shadow's not always the most cooperative guy, but just being a jerk "for the lulz" is...kind of out-of-character for him, at least without any explanation.

It honestly reminds me a little of Bass from the original MegaMan games.

At least in the 3DS game, they justify Shadow in a tie-in comic saying that Lyric brainwashes him. But yeah, if that's true in the console version, they better make that clear sooner or later.

I think it's unfair that people are comparing this game to Sonic '06. At least Sonic '06 had the virtue of being a roller coaster of awfulness; finding out just how flawed that game is conceptually is an exciting experience in itself.

Sonic Boom is, I think, a much more complete and tight game (there are huge bugs, but they tend to show up in coop or you have to go out of your way to find them). But from everything I've read, Sonic Boom commits the larger sin of being a boring slog. The combat, in particular, hardly evolves, despite being a pretty big part of the gameplay.

It's definitely true that Boom doesn't provide the never-ending kaleidoscope of awful that '06 did. But I don't really think it's the worse for it. The combat is boring, and there are definitely some parts that are hindered or wrecked by performance issues, but there's still a fair bit of the game that is enjoyable. (Provided you enjoy games like Sly or Ratchet and Clank.)

I don't' want to sound like I'm giving the game a strong or apologetic endorsement, because I don't want to downplay how rough it is, but I am definitely enjoying enough of it to want to finish it. That's way more than I can say for '06, which, to date, I have never been able to force myself all the way through even as a curiosity. I would put this game more in the category of games like Epic Mickey... deeply flawed, but with enough interesting stuff there for some people to still get into it.

I would put this game more in the category of games like Epic Mickey... deeply flawed, but with enough interesting stuff there for some people to still get into it.

This for me sums up nearly every Sonic game from Heroes to Unleased and then Lost World.
Bioware botched up Sonic Chronicles, so maybe Sonic is just cursed.

How is Boom when it comes to bottomless pits? Whatever fun the Adventure to Unleashed games contained was usually drained away by their needless obsession with bottomless pits. Is Boom more forgiving in that aspect?

They are around! But because there is no life system, the penalty for falling into them is pretty low.

Actually, the penalty for failure is really low in general, which is maybe why the glitchy parts are usually not super frustrating. (Because unlike '06, you don't have to worry about restarting a level for anything.) If you accidentally jump off the side you just have to start that sequence over. When you die in combat you respawn with the enemies all in the same state as when you died, like Bioshock, so you can brute force your way through any arena battle eventually. It's very western-mascot-platform-gamey in that regard.

Wombatwarlord777 wrote:

At least Sonic '06 had the virtue of being a roller coaster of awfulness; finding out just how flawed that game is conceptually is an exciting experience in itself.

I appreciate this attitude. Keep up the good work.

Esrever wrote:It's definitely true that Boom doesn't provide the never-ending kaleidoscope of awful that '06 did.

The fun is just starting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwi46F5B_t4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPwXKHqdXDw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eck2KxVpdcg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=burUCKW61lA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVp4uHInGh8

So I take it there was not a day one patch?

Wombatwarlord777 wrote:At least in the 3DS game, they justify Shadow in a tie-in comic saying that Lyric brainwashes him. But yeah, if that's true in the console version, they better make that clear sooner or later.

So they turned Knuckles into a dude bro and turned Shadow into a z list version of Knuckles from S3&K?

god why can't they just let sonic die already

I told you all this would happen. I told you!!!!