Sonic Unleashed?

[Baba O'Riley]

Sweetie, these days 10 minutes for an opening cutscene is pretty conservative.

In, say, RPG's, sure. It's not only expected but welcomed, because ridiculous drama amuses me. Platformers are not on my list of games that are allowed ridiculous cut scenes.

On a related note, are you familiar with Star Ocean?

Talk talk talk talk talk talk talk.

[BlazeHedgehog]

Sweetie, these days 10 minutes for an opening cutscene is pretty conservative.

In, say, RPG's, sure. It's not only expected but welcomed, because ridiculous drama amuses me. Platformers are not on my list of games that are allowed ridiculous cut scenes.

Yeah, but... In Super Mario Sunshine it's about 3 minutes until you finally get to play a little bit of the game (like, 30-60 seconds worth), it's another 3 minutes until you're finally allowed to play the game proper.

Super Mario Galaxy sits you down for about one full minute of text-only exposition, about a minute of gameplay, then a two minute cutscene, two minutes of gameplay, and finally, one more two minute cutscene before it drops you in to the game normally.

While those games break up the cutscenes with ultra-brief gameplay snippets, they're just as bad, if you ask me. And that's Mario - a character who's never, ever needed a storyline or ever really embraced one (outside of the RPG spinoffs, and even those are arguably lighter on plot than most RPGs).

Really, it's not that uncommon. The first Ratchet & Clank game, if I remember right, has an intro around five minutes long. Jak & Daxter's opening is about six minutes in length. Banjo-Kazooie's intro approaches four minutes.

Sonic Unleashed has a pretty standard intro length. The only difference is while most of the games I just mentioned use in-engine cutscenes primarily, Sonic Unleashed has purdy, high-quality FMV.

[CM August]

My tolerance of opening cutscenes depends entirely on how watchable they are. For instance, I'd never think of skipping Banjo-Kazooie's intro, but would grit my teeth through Super Mario Sunshine's. The best thing about Sonic intros is that most of them are skippable.

Anyway, I reeeeally hope it's possible to run a bit slower than blinding speed through this utterly gorgeous level. One of my favorite things about Sonic Adventure was the opportunity to just stop and smell the roses; I used to spend hours stopping at prime locations and fiddling with the first-person camera. As people like Hybrid have said before, these feel like actual scenic locations rather than glorified obstacle courses. That sort of thing basically vanished after SA, not to mention decent camera control.

[Dasher]

Those saying that rings go directly to the ring counter and don't have sparkle effect are wrong, they do have the vanishing sparkle effect when you grab them but they added a little extra effect how they would look traveling to your pocket if you know what I mean.

Well the towns are sure smaller than Sonic06, and hold true to what Sonic Team said, that this game is more action oriented! I just love the intro stage and wish it was more than the intro stage.

[Tsuyoshi-kun]

God damn it, you STILL lose all your points when you die?! That's bullshit.

I agree that the inane amount of cut scenes and the long loading times in this game are worth pointing out. And that's just the X-BOX 360 version; I'm sure it will be much worse on the Wii and PS2 versions.

[Delphine]

On a related note, are you familiar with Star Ocean?

Tri-Ace have made some of my favorite Bad RPGs. I loved how in SO2 you could collect battle dialogue. CRAAAUUUUUD.

[Radrappy]

http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13501_son ... otage.html

According to this video, Unleashed has one of the worst cameras I've ever seen. To think I was about to spend money on this crap.

[DackAttac]

I can't remember the last time a Sonic game made a cutscene unskippable.

Sonic Shuffle I believe.

Makes sense; I didn't remember Sonic Shuffle.

If I can ask a stupid question, what can really be done to improve load times? They strike me as kind of a necessary evil. I mean, I'm really not thrilled about waiting half a minute to get going, but really, if X number of polygons need to be rendered, how does a programmer go about copying their data off the disc and onto the RAM faster? You can put cosmetic products on a swine, but... sorry, didn't mean to get political there.

[K2J]

I'm sure it will be much worse on the Wii

I've experienced pretty fast loading times on the Wii, personally. It's not like it's going to have to load the 360 graphics, so it won't be nearly as complex.

[Wooduck51]

Great wumpus he turned the Earth into Aether! Also, this gives more leverage to the theory that SEGA should start making short films out of their Sonic game ideas. (though I may be proved wrong soon depending on "Night of the Were-hog")

[Zeta]

Is it wrong that I actually kind of like Chip? It seems like a version of Tails finally returned into his innocent Sonic-worshiper child self instead of the gadgeteer genius second-banana teenager he's become recently. And he has a better personality than Tikal or Omachao. Also, he morphs into a monster too, which is hilarious. In fact, I think I might have liked the Were Sonic concept more if you were playing as WereChip instead, because the idea of an adorable fairy puppy turning into a giant monster brings back happy memories of Peter Puppy from Earthworm Jim.

[(...)]

IGN have their preview of the final build.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/923/923923p1.html

To paraphrase:

Platforming is great.
Town stages suck.
Werehog stages are mediocre.

Also, apparently the platforming stages now make up the bulk of the game. It seems that they must have cut back on the werehog stuff considerably.

[DackAttac]

I can't trust any reviewer that thought Heroes was the tits.

[Frieza2000]

I...I have to say this, because I don't think I've said anything like it on this forum before. That opening was the most awesome moment in Sonic in any media from any epoch, ever. This is the cinematic character that they've been reaching for since the Adventure games. For 6 glorious minutes I forgot everything that's turning me away from this - even the appearance of the werehog seemed permissible. THEN SUDDENLY, EXPERIENCE POINTS, and I woke up. If they can manage to get to the ending without committing sacrilege against the Chaos Emeralds or making Dark Gaia Amy's incarnate love for Shadow, the story could be...enjoyable!

It's all a really mixed bag. They're taking the epic approach to the storyline, but it looks like it's going to be short and Sonic's the only playable. They've got the old wisecracking Sonic, shadowed by his extreme-yet-cartoony new demon slaying transformation. They've got town stages, but they're largely optional, and the gameplay is a split between NiGHTS style obstacle courses, 2d and 3d, laced with showy graphics and presented at mach speed, and a combination of slower platforming and (ill-conceived) fighting segments. And, of course, the now-apparently-obligatory RPG elements. It looks like they're trying very hard to please everybody as much as they can, but while that may end up bolstering sales it could turn what might otherwise have been a good Secret Rings 2 or Sonic Rush: Console Edition or even SA3 into a decent yet dissonant experience.

I reeeeally hope it's possible to run a bit slower than blinding speed through this utterly gorgeous level. One of my favorite things about Sonic Adventure was the opportunity to just stop and smell the roses; I used to spend hours stopping at prime locations and fiddling with the first-person camera.

I would've laughed at the thought before this last batch of videos, but in the tutorial level there's one point where Sonic is in a small open area dealing with a puzzle or something. We've got the werehog stages to play in, but those are all in the dark.

[Neo]

I take back what I said about the loading times. They're absolutely foul in this first 18 min video.

I tooooold yoooooou~

Seriously, though, the loading for the actual stage wasn't that bad. It was on par with Sonic Adventure / 2. But it's way longer than what you'd expect to be necessary. I guess if the entire stage loads at once it's acceptable, I mean, the thing's huge.

Now, the gigantic load time for that stupid little hub (which I assume connects all the act warps together) is ridiculous. It reeks of Sonic '06 all over.

http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13501_son ... otage.html

So what's the excuse for this Werehog stage lacking shadows too? It's bright as fuck!

Also, I clearly misremembered the camera in the town stages. It reminds me of Sonic Rush Adventure's 3D segments (on the island). The camera seems to want to stay put regardless of Sonic's direction. Regardless, it's just as bad, if not worse.

[Crazy Penguin]

So judging by the responses I've gotten on other forums, I'm pretty much the only person who has noticed and/or cares that the "Rings as a Lifebar" stuff is basically how things are probably always going to function forever and ever? It started in Shadow, continued in Secret Rings, and is now found its way in to a mainline Sonic title with Unleashed.

Didn't Chaotix and Sonic & Tails 2 do this as well?

[Neo]

Not quite.

Chaotix had the Silver Ring monitor, which made all your rings drop as a single fat ring, but that was the only thing they did to the health system. You could achieve a negative ring count, but that was only by abusing the call button and would behave just like having zero rings otherwise. Unless you mean your partner being able to lose rings a small amount at a time (how much, I forget).

The games that employed the "lose X rings" mechanic were Sonic & Tails 2 and G Sonic. And to an extent Tails' Adventure, but rings in that game were just an excuse not to use hearts.

[Rob-Bert]

I figured that if they really wanted to use the "lose some but not all rings" thing, then it should've gone in tandem with the RPG stats they feel the need to keep putting in. When you start the game, you lose all your rings, but as you increase your defense, you lose less rings. Either that or have some sort of power-up or equippable item that halves the amount of rings you lose.

Didn't Secret Rings employ something like this?

[Dasher]

Hey was that the famous video that showed an AmyxWerehog cutscene and two Sega representatives jumped in to cover it but oh too late?

I knew Sega representatives were really wolfmen.

[Zeta]

Didn't Secret Rings employ something like this?

Yes, you could use level-up abilities to alter the amount of rings you could carry and loose.

[Rob-Bert]

Something like that would definitely work better in an adventure type deal rather than an on rails action title. They always use all their good ideas in the wrong place.

Recently I've been wondering about controls in 3D Sonic. For instance, why was there never a crouch button before Unleashed? Better yet, why did they opt to map crouching to the B Button? Shouldn't it be on a shoulder button or something?

[G.Silver]

I thought they did it in Secret Rings because backtracking was ridiculous and they didn't really expect the player to pick up the rings he dropped (or stop, for that matter).

[Baba O'Riley]

On a related note, are you familiar with Star Ocean?

Tri-Ace have made some of my favorite Bad RPGs. I loved how in SO2 you could collect battle dialogue. CRAAAUUUUUD.

God, yes. "I will turn you into a beehive."

I'm pretty sure that I'm subliminally attracted to Tri-Ace games, though. I even bought Infinite Undiscovery without realizing it was a Tri-Ace game, and wondering what could possibly have attracted me to purchase it, and lo and behold, they talk about Item Creation, I check the back of the box, and it's Tri-Ace. As always.

[Dasher]

I just want that Ps3 demo to come out already! its supposed to come out this month, I speculate perhaps the 15th.

I hope it comes out sooner.

[Baba O'Riley]

I just want that Ps3 demo to come out already! its supposed to come out this month, I speculate perhaps the 15th.

I hope it comes out sooner.

A Saturday seems pretty improbable for a demo release.

At least, it does to me. Sticking it in the middle of the month would just be arbitrary.