Super Sonic Galaxy

Recent happenings of pertinence to Sonic fans.
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Kogen
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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Kogen »

Crisis wrote:I'm having similar control issues. I'm supposed to hold down the jump button if I want to keep spinning as I fall? Is there any reason why I'd want to unspin?
Ooh, that is why I kept dying when try to jump on fish. It is uh... yeah.

To be a bit more positive, I still think this is better overall for console platformers post Dreamcast. I am just not sure why people presented this as 'the true Sonic 4' when it is a strange but mostly-playable spinoff.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Protodude »

I don't have the game in my possession currently so I can't go back to play it, but what are these "invisible walls" you speak of? FlashTHD mentioned it in another thread as well and I can't for the life of me think of any examples offhand.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Kogen »

Random points where you cannot go back, similar to Super Mario Brothers 1. It is kind of a kick in the balls when you were planning to get one of those red rings and such, and you know it is right behind you.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Vortex Drone »

The levels are not even that long. You are supposed to remember where they are if you want to have a good score in the level.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by FlashTHD »

Vortex Drone wrote:The levels are not even that long. You are supposed to remember where they are if you want to have a good score in the level.
Yes, excuses. That's exactly what I wanted to hear to explain a retarded invisible barrier that stops me from going down simple steps directly behind me.

If you must play this, the DS version is the only way to go, seriously. Wii version is one stupid, stupid facepalm after another.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Emperor Omochao »

As I'm still playing the DS version (in my usual completist way, hence testing its replay value) it is pretty annoying that this game hasn't really recieved much attention... considering it's one of the best 2D Sonic games in many, many years.

Maybe if there was no Wii version, then this game would have had recognition beyond just being seen as a supplimentary game.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Esrever »

I don't know the first thing about programming, but I assume the invisible barriers have something to do with the system/game engine only being able to handle one chunk of the level at a time. Like, you can't go back because it's purged the previous chunk and loaded up the next one. I guess when you think about it, pretty much every 3D Sonic has had the stages chopped up in some way or another. (Although not always so conspicuously.)

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Neo »

Esrever wrote:I don't know the first thing about programming, but I assume the invisible barriers have something to do with the system/game engine only being able to handle one chunk of the level at a time. Like, you can't go back because it's purged the previous chunk and loaded up the next one. I guess when you think about it, pretty much every 3D Sonic has had the stages chopped up in some way or another. (Although not always so conspicuously.)
The problem with this logic is, if you are loading the next chunk and unloading the previous one when you move forward, why can't you flip the logic around while travelling backwards? Just unload the next chunk and load the previous one again.

It feels like Super Mario Bros.'s silly "no backtracking" rule, except 25 years have passed since then.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Zeta »

The problem with this logic is, if you are loading the next chunk and unloading the previous one when you move forward, why can't you flip the logic around while travelling backwards? Just unload the next chunk and load the previous one again.

It feels like Super Mario Bros.'s silly "no backtracking" rule, except 25 years have passed since then.
A lot of modern games on the Wii have no backtracking. Including Super Mario Bros.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Radrappy »

If you must whine at least pick something legitimate like the shoddy level design in the later zones to bitch about. The most offensive case that comes to mind is in Aquatic Park act 6 (or was it 5?) when immediately after a 3d racetrack portion there is an arbitrary giant chasm. It's really too bad considering the rapids sequence afterward is one of the nicest looking set pieces in the game.
FlashTHD wrote: Yes, excuses. That's exactly what I wanted to hear to explain a retarded invisible barrier that stops me from going down simple steps directly behind me.


So yeah, invisible walls? No backtracking? That's more of a pet peeve. Terrible level design? Now you've got some justification to rage. But I'm having a hard time understanding why you aren't having fun with the game in the first place. Apart from a handful of bad decisions it's a very solid, well produced experience and one of the best we've had in a decade.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Neo »

Zeta wrote:A lot of modern games on the Wii have no backtracking. Including Super Mario Bros.
Not as an engine limitation, but as a conscious design decision. I'm pretty sure the random invisible walls go as far back as Unleashed and Secret Rings, they're "technical limitations" in the handling of the long-ass racetrack levels.

I haven't even played Colors, so please stop writing me off as "whining" or "bitching" about the Sonic game du jour, I'm just echoing my thoughts on what other people bring up.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Kogen »

I have been to portions in this game where I could see item boxes right behind an invisable wall and I was unable to do anything to get them. It not only ruins the exploration but it simply looks bad. Why have the game so exploration focused if you have to follow a set path like before? To further the issue the game plays itself too much, forcing you past places you wanted to go.

I do not think the game's overall quality has gone up at all, it is the same junk we have been seeing since Sonic Heroes. The only difference is the game's atmosphere has improved (no DBZ-reject characters or Ninja Turtles Chaotix, for examples).

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Crisis »

I dunno, loading transitions may be inevitable, but they could use a bit of flare. Windy Valley springs to mind.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Radrappy »

Kogen wrote:
I do not think the game's overall quality has gone up at all, it is the same junk we have been seeing since Sonic Heroes. The only difference is the game's atmosphere has improved (no DBZ-reject characters or Ninja Turtles Chaotix, for examples).
I'm sorry what? Heroes was a buggy mess of half baked ideas and poor functionality. Here the issue is that you can't back track. The quality has been improved greatly.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Rob-Bert »

Yeah but everyone knows having one flaw means the entire game is bad, right?

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by FlashTHD »

One flaw, eh?

Long stretches of just boosting or, more often now, just watching everything go by itself. Useless padding all over the place, from the drift turn sequences that control awkwardly and serve absolutely no purpose to those insipid little mini-acts which appear to have nothing to do with anything going on, none of which can be skipped. Zones that drag on for six mandatory acts for no apparent reason other than the designers feeling obliged to. Level design which, in spite of all these big set pieces, just feels randomly slapped together rather than impressing upon the player that you're going anywhere or doing anything interesting - more often than not it feels that you don't find the goal ring, it finds you. (Only when you replay stages after getting more wisps do some of these stages start to make sense, which goes back to the padding problem.) The "death pit" exclamation icon is a useful idea, but is used as an excuse for the designers to get away with putting blind jumps everywhere; remember those?. Bosses that exhibit the "how did I win, I don't know what the fuck I just did" syndrome from Sonic Heroes. The 2D areas only pass as a Sonic game in the most bare definiton; in fact many chunks of level are so laughably simplistic that they almost could have been done in f'ing Doom Legacy. Sonic not only de-spins while falling in a jump, but they didn't have the presence of mind to NOT leave him vulnerable when this happens, so hello nonsensical hits/deaths from just trying to jump on an enemy (see also: the ill-concieved "hop" jump from a light tap of the button). Smacking into those pointless walls floating in the way that you have to slide under god knows how many times just because they're there. Having to turn on the japanese voices and miss out on Mike Pollock's charming Eggman P.A. announcements because I cannot stand Roger Craig Smith's overacting as Sonic. Finishing a level and saying, out loud, "that's IT?" out of disbelief.

There you go, plus the invisible walls out of nowhere, my experience and every significant problem (that I can recall offhand) up to Planet Wisp's boss, after which I gave up. I don't know about you guys, but I exaggerate none of this. Every time I started to think I was having fun with something, it sucker punched me with more stupid bullshit. Underneath the pretty facade and nice music, this is no less mediocre a game than Unleashed was.

Radrappy, you call this an improvement? We are beyond the point where there is any reasonable excuse for any of what I just mentioned, sans maybe the voices. In fact i'm findng it harder and harder to believe the "Sega's just poor folk, they can't afford common sense" angle

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Arcade »

Please, its like you forgot how buggy the original Sonic Adventure was, the real point is, do the bugs really make the game far for enjoyable?

But, boxes stuck behind invisible walls? Please like it was so hard to stuck boxes inside visible walls you cannot break...

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Zeta »

Long stretches of just boosting or, more often now, just watching everything go by itself.
Replay the levels. It's your choice on whether to speedrun or use Wisps to explore.
Useless padding all over the place, from the drift turn sequences that control awkwardly and serve absolutely no purpose
Planet Wisp is the only part of the game that has Drift Turns sequences for more than a fraction of a second.
to those insipid little mini-acts which appear to have nothing to do with anything going on, none of which can be skipped.
Those are for the Wisp system, replay them.
Zones that drag on for six mandatory acts for no apparent reason other than the designers feeling obliged to.
It's pretty obvious that Zones each having six acts as opposed to 14 individual zones with 2 acts each allows the developers to save space that WOULD be used on re-theming all of the background and art every 2 acts and is what allows the caliber of the graphics to remain so high throughout the game. You getting tired of a theme has nothing to do with gameplay. It also allows for a wider variety of level design, from standard Sonic levels, to special scrolling or gimmick levels, to more puzzle-oriented Wisp themed levels where there's a lot of hidden content if you would stop holding down right on your control stick.
Level design which, in spite of all these big set pieces, just feels randomly slapped together rather than impressing upon the player that you're going anywhere or doing anything interesting - more often than not it feels that you don't find the goal ring, it finds you.
Because a common complaint in the Sonic games was that exploration was taken away in favor of making all the levels a straight run from point A to point B.
(Only when you replay stages after getting more wisps do some of these stages start to make sense, which goes back to the padding problem.)
"Not as an engine limitation, but as a conscious design decision." The Wisp system is there to allow the developers to encourage you to replay levels, something which this generation doesn't naturally incline itself to do, only whining about lack of content when a game is too short.
The "death pit" exclamation icon is a useful idea, but is used as an excuse for the designers to get away with putting blind jumps everywhere; remember those?.
I have no idea what game you're playing, but the only cheap death pit I recall was in the last acts of Aquatic Park, some level that obviously gave you trouble if it colored your perception of the game that much. I for one, was dumbfounded at the sheer lack of pits in the game. When I died, it was usually due to enemies or hazards like spikes, not pits.
Bosses that exhibit the "how did I win, I don't know what the fuck I just did" syndrome from Sonic Heroes.
Now you've just totally lost me.
The 2D areas only pass as a Sonic game in the most bare definiton; in fact many chunks of level are so laughably simplistic that they almost could have been done in f'ing Doom Legacy.
Because complexity equals quality. That's why Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog were such great games!


: D
Sonic not only de-spins while falling in a jump, but they didn't have the presence of mind to NOT leave him vulnerable when this happens, so hello nonsensical hits/deaths from just trying to jump on an enemy (see also: the ill-concieved "hop" jump from a light tap of the button).
Oh noes, jumping doesn't make me invulnerable to all enemies now. Learn to homing attack, it's not exactly the hardest gameplay thing to learn.
Smacking into those pointless walls floating in the way that you have to slide under god knows how many times just because they're there.
I hated those pointless loops in Sonic the Hedgehog 1-4, where you just had to farm inertia for a few seconds and spin around in a circle. Totally pointless, amirite?
Having to turn on the japanese voices and miss out on Mike Pollock's charming Eggman P.A. announcements because I cannot stand Roger Craig Smith's overacting as Sonic.
Because Mike Pollock isn't overacting . . . >_> Now you're just purposefully looking for nonsense to bitch about.
Finishing a level and saying, out loud, "that's IT?" out of disbelief.

There you go, plus the invisible walls out of nowhere, my experience and every significant problem (that I can recall offhand) up to Planet Wisp's boss, after which I gave up. I don't know about you guys, but I exaggerate none of this. Every time I started to think I was having fun with something, it sucker punched me with more stupid bullshit. Underneath the pretty facade and nice music, this is no less mediocre a game than Unleashed was.
It sounds to me like you were specifically looking for the bullshit, or rather - you were running into one or two small problems and then retroactively putting the problems back in levels where they didn't exist in the first place.
Radrappy, you call this an improvement?
Sonic the Werehog.

You have some valid complaints on minor issues, but you exaggerate and misconstrue the game so much (anyone reasonable who has played this game will tell you that sudden bottomless pits are nearly extinct compared to their use in Heroes, Unleashed, and Sonic 2006 for instance) you're doing your argument more harm than good.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Radrappy »

FlashTHD wrote:Long stretches of just boosting
Are we playing the same game? Boost isn't even that easy to come by in Colors and what race track portions do exist are very brief.

I'm not going to respond to every single complaint you've made seeing as Zeta's already done that but most of them are understandable. The bosses are weak and the level design can be lazy. I'm not going to pretend that the game doesn't have its share of faults.
FlashTHD wrote:Radrappy, you call this an improvement?
Absolutely. Or have you forgotten that characters clipping through the floor used to be common place?
FlashTHD wrote:is no less mediocre a game than Unleashed was.
You've got to be kidding. Unleashed was 2/3's sloppy god of war rip off and 1/3 semi playable day stages. You may not LIKE colors, but at least recognize that it is a giant jump in quality.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Farmer »

Call "OLD" if you will, but has anybody else noticed that the Game Land level designs are lifted from Sonic 1? Plus for retro charm, minus for effort.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

Radrappy wrote:
FlashTHD wrote:Unleashed was 2/3 sloppy god of war rip off and 1/3 horribly designed day stages.
Fixed.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Kogen »

I like smacking into walls where I am expected in know in advance I have to use a Mega Man slide to go under them. It is real fun and helps increase the game's flow. Never does it stop you dead in your tracks and utterly kill any excitement or cause any bewilderment with the player simply asking 'Why?'.

To further increase the funability, each game and version of each game also changes the controls, that way it is always a challenge as the player has to relearn how to play during each gaming session.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by j-man »

At the risk of sounding like a Sonic Colours apologist - what a surprise! - that's a bit like complaining about falling into a pit because you didn't realise you were supposed to jump. Either you are heavily medicated or you have the reaction time of a bathroom rug.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by Kogen »

I go into a sleepy haze when a scripted running event occurs for 30 seconds with bright colours then suddenly I am thrown into a hole without warning and was expected to homing attack something to not die. I envy those who can predict sudden, fatal future events that occur in what are essentially cutscenes.

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Re: Super Sonic Galaxy

Post by j-man »

Yeah, that doesn't really happen. Unless you're talking about the very beginning of Starlight Carnival Act 1, but if you didn't realise you had to press A when a huge, red, bleeping target appeared, well... see my earlier point.

But I get it! You don't like it. It's cool, man, nobody cares. We'll always have Sonic 2.

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