Sonic Rush Adventure E3 thread

Recent happenings of pertinence to Sonic fans.
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Locit
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Post by Locit »

If you think they've been trying for incredible you're kidding yourself.

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DackAttac
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Post by DackAttac »

Well, come on, last year's fiasco was obviously an attempt to craft an epic, balls out game when the time just wasn't there.

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Esrever
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Post by Esrever »

http://ds.ign.com/articles/818/818572p2.html
Additions include jump dashes and hop jumps which prove invaluable for rectifying potentially deadly errors of judgement. Notably, Rush's infuriating procession of blind jumps and impossible-to-avoid sudden death sequences have been all but entirely obliterated, making for an easier but far, far less frustrating game.
I'd sure be happy if this is actually true. It's nice to see someone who has played the game specifically mention this, at least, since it was easily the most annoying aspect of the original.

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Post by (...) »

It got a 9.0 from IGN?? Nice one!

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James McGeachie
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Post by James McGeachie »

That's from the UK team mind you. For some reason lately IGN have been giving games separate reviews from both their British and American staff and in some cases there's been very drastic differences in opinion. In general, however, the UK guys have a habit of being far more forgiving and giving overly high scores. They remind me somewhat of Play magazine.

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Post by (...) »

Bought it yesterday.

- The 2D stuff is awesome. Basically it's Sonic Rush, only the level design flows better.

- The 3D stuff jet-ski levels work surprisingly well. It's more fun than it should be. It still feels like filler material though.

- Apart from the tornado sequence and the title sequence, all the cuscenes suck. Marine is already the most annoying character ever.

- The music is brilliant.

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Post by Plorpus III »

I've been playing the ROM for a bit now, and I was pretty disappointed at first. There's alot of emphasis on the "Adventure" part of the name, more than I expected, and Marine is pretty annoying. The ROM runs pretty slowly during the levels, so that probably shaped my opinion a bit, too.
Then I realized that I kept coming back to play more. For some reason, I was enjoying it. The game's NOT Sonic Rush 2, and plays more like a sort of Tails Adventure/RPG/Sonic Rush hybrid. When I started thinking of it as its own game and not a sequel, I started realizing that it's a fairly good game. Not 9.0 material by any means, and not quite as good as te original Rush, but it definately stands on its own as a fun game.

Also, the level design is pretty good, alot like Sonic 2's. Very few bottomless pits, as well.

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James McGeachie
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Post by James McGeachie »

Bought this yesterday, game is a pretty different experience than I was expecting...

For a start I'm surprised just how big a part the 3D water travel sections play. It might be around a 50:50 ratio between 2D platforming and 3D 'minigames' though platforming probably just edges out. The 3D portion is surprisingly competent though and is saved from ever feeling too repetitive through variation, with several different types of gameplay between 4 vehicles, ranging from simple racing to even an Ouendan-lite rhythm action game.

Exploring the map with stylus drawn routes is a cool new idea, mainly because you can encounter hidden platforming levels by exploring uncharted areas. Many of these levels play a part in the "Mission" mode too, of which there are 100 separate missons to complete, giving the game a fair amount of replay value outside of the main quest.

The regular 2D platforming stages remain close to Rush, though there are some creative stage-specific gameplay gimmicks strewn throughout that help the levels feel kinda fresh. Most of the stages try to avoid the usual theme stereotypes too, which is good in that it means the game feels more original than the Advance series/Rush, though also bad in that they've tried to experiment with different colour palettes too and as a result some areas are very dull and drab looking. In a hugely welcomed move, pit deaths have been toned down significantly and in many stages you'd have to search pretty hard to even find any at all.

The music in the game does the job but there are barely any memorable themes and it just can't compare to Hideki Naganuma's Rush score. Most people wouldn't see this as a big deal I guess, however for me Naganuma's music was a big part of the original's appeal and had me "pumped up" when playing through the stages. You wont feel anything like that at all here.

I'd rather not touch upon the storyline, but to sum it up... it's even worse than Rush's, the new characters are atrocious and there's some of the worst dialogue ever. Nothing more to say.

Overall I'm pretty impressed. The 2D stages are fun, the dual screen boss fights are pretty awesome (though plagued with slowdown) and the "adventure" elements are far more enjoyable than I think anyone would expect from hearing about them. I definitely agree with Plorpus though, in many ways this does feel more like a standalone new game than a "Sonic Rush 2", which is both positive and negative.... but thankfully leans more towards the positive.

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Isuka
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Post by Isuka »

So, maybe this could be an effective way of making a good Sonic-themed RPG. Hope Bioware takes note of it.

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Post by Rob-Bert »

I've been wanting a 3D sequel/remake of Tails Adventure for the longest time now. Any similarity as such working to the game's advantage is good to know in my book.

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Post by Yami CJMErl »

I forget, when does this come out in NTSC regions again?

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Post by EspioKaos »

Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on your local game store's shipping schedules.

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Esrever
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Post by Esrever »

I played through the first four stages using the DS flash card. I'm reluctant to play much further than that though, since anything I do now I'm just going to have to do over again when my real copy gets here. Still, just to add to the early impressions:

The standard stages are very much in the vein of the original... that is to say, they are not 'classic' Sonic and instead are high-speed courses heavily structured around the use of tricks and the tension gauge. But structurally, they are more interesting and more varied than in Rush, with more interactive 'devices' and stage-exclusive obstacles.

The levels are also a lot more forgiving. Fewer enemies, fewer spikes, and fewer pits. They've also dramatically increased the strength of the right-trigger jump, which makes it a lot easier to recover when you fall off the side of something you didn't want to. However there are still a couple of cheap deaths here and there, usually due to stupid enemy placement.

It's also easy to make a mistake when a spring launches you up towards a grab-able object like a pulley or vine... because you are usually mashing the jump/trick button after every spring launch, and doing that will also make Sonic let go of anything he is grabbing. I plunged to my death a couple of times that way.

The artwork is not uniformly amazing but it is better than I was expecting. Even the pretty generic first stage, with it's harsh angles and black outlines, looks a lot better when it is on the small DS screen. Other stages, like the coral caverns, look really nice, and even feature some multi-level parallax scrolling backgrounds. (Remember those?)

As for the 3D water-navigating portions... I really like them. I'm surprised no reviewers have mentioned this, but it's pretty clear that they are an attempt to build on the success of the 3D bonus stylus stages in the original Rush. The hovercraft and jetski portions in particular are almost identical to those segments. I loved the bonus stages in the original and I know a lot of other people did to. I'm pretty convinced that this whole water-world idea was conceived to give the concept a heftier role in this game, and thus far I think it was a pretty good idea.

As a few have mentioned, the music is not as strong as the first game. I can't say for sure here, but rather than replacing Naganuma I think they have just employed multiple composers. Some of the tracks -- the boss music for example -- sound exactly like Naganuma's work. Other tracks sound nothing like him, and those songs vary over a spectrum of great (the coral caverns) to pretty forgettable (the ghost ship).

Now, the weakest link... the story. Instead of the insultingly corny, cheesy friendship hugathon of the original, this time they have decided to go with something goofier and light-weight. It's not awful, but it's not great either. Marine's 'hilarious' dialogue is particularly painful, while everyone else's writing is about on par with Sonic Battle -- in character, but way too chatty. But generously, all the cut scenes are 100 percent skippable, and even if you do decide to read them the game allows you to cycle through the text very rapidly (as opposed to the forced reading speed of something like Phoenix Wright.)

All in all, I am surprised by how much I enjoyed the game so far. It really seems like there is a lot of neat stuff to do, even if none of it is brilliant. I'm looking forward to digging in deeper when my copy gets here.

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Post by James McGeachie »

Naganuma isn't listed in the credits at all, there's 3 other composers however and the second composer from Rush is listed as sound director. I think the tracks that are very similar to his work were deliberate attempts at recreating his style, to keep the overall feel of the audio in line with the first game's.

I found the parallax scrolling in Coral Cave kind of funny by the way, because it's only used at the utmost bottom of the level for some plants so you virtually never get to see it...but it's also the only example I can think of in the entire game. It's a damn shame because the backgrounds could've been drastically improved if it was used more generously.

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Rlan
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Post by Rlan »

It's been mentioned before that the music was lead by the guy who did the Blaze remixes in the original plus some other guys.

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Yami CJMErl
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Post by Yami CJMErl »

I find it amusing/disturbing that NONE of the plethora of adverts in my Sunday paper mentioned SRA coming out at all.

I blame all the retailers fapping themselves dry over that HALO 3 Edition XBOX 360.

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Post by Arcade »

"Sonic doesn’t need a good game, he is so freaking cool that you buy the game anyway!" Sega

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Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

Yami CJMErl wrote:I find it amusing/disturbing that NONE of the plethora of adverts in my Sunday paper mentioned SRA coming out at all.

I blame all the retailers fapping themselves dry over that HALO 3 Edition XBOX 360.
At the Gamestop around here they didn't even put it under a new releases section. They just put it in a corner of the room behind the front doors with an assortment of other recently released games.

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Post by Samface »

I wasn't going to buy this after the original Rush - straight back to the shop in four hours - but after basically everyone on The Internet said it was not crap I gave it a whirl.

And it is not crap! Not great, but fun - the boating sections are a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting (the jetski especially), the platforming is actually enjoyable, rather than rebounding from badly-placed enemy to spike trap to bottomless pit, and the bosses are some of the best I've seen in a Sonic game for yonks. (Top marks to Machine Labyrinth's Danglebot O' Doom and Sky Babylon's Guitar Hero homage.)

Plus, and it might just be me, but the cutscenes are really, really funny. Marine cracks me up.

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Post by Esrever »

You know, I don't even think it needs a qualifier. This is just a good game. Not "good, BUT", not "good, SOMETIMES"... just good! It's problems are minor and infrequent, and it is a lot of fun.

How bizarre!

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Post by BlazeHedgehog »

Since we're posting impressions here instead of the discussion forum...

I tried three levels of this via an emulator. I don't want to play the whole game, especially considering SRA only emulates at half speed for me, but:

I like it a lot. Based on the three levels I played, I think it's actually better than the original Sonic Rush. Yeah, sailing to the next level is starting to wear thin - and the dialog between characters is really grating, but the levels themselves are most definitely laid out much better, with many more gimmicks and interesting layouts than the original Sonic Rush. They're also way more forgiving - the first bottomless pit I encountered was made a lot easier thanks to the fact that the checkpoint right before it was positioned pretty much right next to a free 1up.

The bosses... are inventive, but... I don't like the fact that you have to strike them a hojillion times to do any damage. So far, the ones I've faced will blatantly stand there exposing their weak point so you can get in 4 or 6 repeated hits before they return to attacking you - or they'll give you a method where you can make both weak and strong attacks. Either way, bosses must take 15-20 hits total now to defeat.

Plot-wise...

I'm not sure I dig what I see. Marine's personality is like what Sonic's used to be, in a way - always looking for a new adventure; careless and cocky. Tails, and oddly enough, even Sonic, fill more of a parental role of sorts for Marine - they're constantly telling her to be careful and how dangerous this or that is. It's all very out-of-character, at least as far as Sonic is concerned.

Only problem is, with Marine, they cranked up her hyperactivity to 11 - she's dumb, and annoyingly peppy. All she does is bounce around and get herself (and Sonic and Tails) in to trouble; she's always ready to march off without looking where she's going and all Sonic and Tails can do about it is go "Marine, that's dangerous. Stop that." - and she never listens. It's pretty grating.


Gameplay-wise, something that wasn't covered was how you get Chaos Emeralds...

At one point when piloting to Coral Cave, I ran in to Johnny - the Torpedo guy who seems to be this game's Metal Sonic, of sorts (at least, I assume - plotwise they haven't told me anything about him, but that seems to be his role, judging by his design). He challenged me to a Jet Ski Race and when I won, I got a Chaos Emerald. No secret stage entrances or anything fancy, just surf around enough and get challenged to a jetski race. A bit of a bummer, but considering how weird the special stage requirements for other Sonic Advance games were, it's almost a welcome change.

I think this will be my next DS purchase, definitely. All fears have been quenched.

I even dig the music. It's not Hideki Naganuma, but the more I listen to it - the more I'm convinced that might be a good thing. The music in this game seems to shift more to the side of the soundtracks in the classic Genesis Sonic games. It sounds more like something you'd hear in Sonic & Knuckles or - dare I even say it - Sonic CD. Some of it can be a little cheesy, but if you think of it in terms of music for a mid 90's Sonic game, it fits like a glove.

Edit: For sampling purposes, Coral Cave Act 1, recorded via VGMTrans. Also, Boss Music, and Machine Labyrinth Act 1.

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Post by SDHawk »

Even though pretty much everything about Adventure is improved from the original, I still find it missing something in terms of feel from the original. Lacking any other reason I'm pretty much forced to place it on the music. It's not that it's bad (in fact, it's quite good), and it really is a lot closer to the classic Genesis games, but that type of music just doesn't work with the feel of the Rush series very well.

The primary difference between Rush and the Genesis games is that the misplaced marketing slogan of Sonic being entirely about speed is actually true with the Rush games, and Naganuma's style just works with that type of Sonic game far better. It's somewhat unfortunate given that everything else is better, the game is far more enjoyable without having to memorize any given level 5-20 times because the game encourages speed while instantly killing you with bottomless pits for boosting in the wrong place (a fact that eventually made me give up on the original Rush's last few levels even though I frequently replayed the earlier ones).

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Esrever
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Post by Esrever »

I'm not sure what's going on with the Canadian release of this game. It was supposed to come out on the 18th, but it still hasn't arrived. EB and Futureshop have no idea when it's getting in, and Amazon.ca has removed the scheduled release date altogether and replaced it with 'coming soon!'

Anyone in Canada actually manage to buy this thing?

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Post by Kogen »

I've seen it here at Walmart, so it is released.

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Esrever
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Post by Esrever »

Well, it finally arrived today. Case closed... OR IS IT

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