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Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:18 pm
by Esrever
Which console are you playing the game on, Radrappy? I know they both must suffer from some framerate issues, but I wonder if one of the versions is worse than the other.

I'm kind of bogged down with work stuff today, but I'm going to try to squeeze in a little playtime tonight. I'll let you know if I get the same reaction you did!

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:28 pm
by Radrappy
I'm on ps3. I remember Unleashed running much better on 360 so I wouldn't be surprised if that was also the case here.

I want to say that despite my negative sounding impressions, I am eager to try the game some more. The death egg boss fight music is simply incredible.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 2:56 pm
by Esrever
OK! I'm getting the 360 version, so I guess we'll see how it goes! I'll post back later tonight when I've had a chance to try it out.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 7:55 pm
by Majestic Joey
I'm really enjoying this game. Yeah the levels were not the most interesting choices but I think they were interpreted in a cool way.
Classic Sonic is a badass. They really did a good job conveying facial expressions and him not talking while everybody else talks makes him even cooler.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:47 pm
by Radrappy
holy shit I just beat the game. Egg Dragoon and Time eater are two of the worst boss battles I've ever encountered in my life. Having to do them back to back has totally sucked me dry of enthusiasm for this game. As if to somehow represent the state of things, the textured sky was totally glitching out during the final moments of the last cutscene too. What should have been a magical moment was made utterly pathetic looking. Way to go sonic team.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:24 am
by Pepperidge
Not quite done yet, but I'm really enjoying the game so far! Some quick, hastily written thoughts:

Pretty much all of the classic stages have been more or less to my liking, which is great because that's exactly what I was looking forward to most. I know a lot of people have been disappointed by the lack of classic stages, but ever since the video of classic City Escape had been released, I had been completely sold on the idea of stages from newer games being reconfigured in 2D. I was glad to see that he rolling physics have been improved since even the latest demo... although they still aren't perfect! The modern gameplay isn't too bad, although having boosting powered by the frequency of ring collection is pretty annoying. Apparently it was different in Colours. If so, it's too bad that didn't get carried over. The way it played out in the Shadow boss fight was interesting, but also kind of frustrating because the damned thing just keeps going and going and going until you have the exact right strategy figured out. It was impressively put together though, and I wish that much attention had gone into the Metal Sonic race, which was not only short and disappointing, but seemed to drop all of the Stardust Speedway motifs we saw in early screenshots. Why would they do that?

I also have to agree that Modern Seaside Hill is absolutely fucking awful.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:20 am
by Majestic Joey
Sea side hill is as far as I had time to get to (ugh 5am morning shift at the gym). Anyways I think the main problem with Modern seaside hill is that it is cluttered as shit and a lot of the time you cannot tell if Sonic is in 2d or 3d mode.

I really like both levels of speed highway though, probably my favorite level.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:28 pm
by Esrever
OK! I finally managed to squeeze in a bit of playtime late last night. Thus far, I've played every regular act up-to-and-including Classic Spagonia... but only once. I also played through all ten of the GHZ sub missions, just to get a vibe for what kind of variety to expect. Thus far, my impressions are pretty positive, although with only one playthrough per stage, they're also pretty superficial.

Case in point: Nothing is more important to me in a Sonic game then tiered, multi-route level design. And throughout all the Classic stages and even most of the Modern ones, I certainly felt like I was constantly spotting (and missing) tons of alternate routes and areas. But until I actually go back and start exploring, I can't really say if all those little nooks and crannies actually add up to substantial new spaces.

Modern Sonic
Modern Sonic is Modern Sonic. Some of the stages feel more like linear Unleashed-style race tracks, while others feel more like sprawling multi-route Colours stages. You can guess which ones I like best! One improvement from Colours, found in the best Modern stages like Sky Sanctuary, is the return of branching paths and platforming to the 3D segments. And man, it's nice to be playing through a level like Crisis City and suddenly realize -- hey, I just jumped across a series of tiny floating platforms in 3D without accidentally falling right into a pit because of completely unmanageable jump controls! Sonic is still no Mario, but he handles pretty well at low speeds... or at least, as well as he needs to?

Classic Sonic
Classic Sonic is working for me. I like his stages a lot, especially (surprisingly enough) his versions of the modern stages, which really seem to have brought out the most creativity from the design team. Classic Spagonia and Classic Crisis City (I know!) are probably my two favourite stages so far, for really awesome reasons that I don't want to spoil. Other stages, like Speed Highway and Seaside Hill, are used more like "cheats" to sneak in Starlight and Labyrinth-style zones in design, if not appearance. Works for me.

Classic Sonic is certainly not a "perfect" recreation of the original physics, but it's a solid, good-feeling approximation. The kind of stupid thing is that he doesn't really handle right until you purchase the first couple of skills from the new "Skills Shop": a kind of simplified version of the Skill Rings in Sonic and the Secret Rings. For example, once you've equipped the "lose less acceleration on sloped surfaces" skill, it corrects that issue from the demo where Sonic couldn't get around a loop on foot. Silly, right? But on the other hand, the internet has spoiled a ton of the upcoming unlockable skills, and a lot of them are really cool. Some are very fan-service-y, and some are more goofy or controversial, but either way, it'll be cool to be able to flip them on and off at will.

Meaningless header for consistency
For the most part, I agree with Radrappy's early assessment of the stages, only I'd probably elevate a few of the stages out of the boring category and into the good one. (It's hard to say, since there is a sort of "been here done this before" kind of vibe that comes with the territory in this kind of project.) I'd probably kick Modern Chemical Plant down to bad... there's just too much on-a-tiny-path-over-a-pit BS for my tastes. On the other hand, I really enjoyed Modern Seaside Hill the first time through! It's a giant, ludicrous mess of a level, for sure... one that makes Sonic CD look like Sonic Advance. But I never felt punished for it's weird layout, and I never felt like it unfairly thrust me into anything really stupid or unfair. It was just kind of astonishingly weird. So for now, I'm going to put it under the "really interesting experiment" header.

Technical issues
As for the technical issues, I hate to say it, but it sounds like maybe PS3 users got the short end of the stick again? (Argh!) The 360 version (installed to the hard drive) still suffers a bit from the locked-at-30fps feel, especially during the 2D stages, but when it comes to catastrophic framerate drops or other inconsistent performance issues, I haven't encountered much of anything. There was a noticeable major frame snag at the end of the skyscraper run in Modern Speed Highway, and a couple of other places with some minor choppiness, but that was all I saw.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 2:33 pm
by Esrever
Oh my GOD, I can't believe how long that post turned out. Who the hell is going to read all that shit? I'm going to edit in some bolded headers to make it look slightly less like a giant wall of text. lol

By the way, does anyone have ANY idea what the secret trophy room is for? Hold down the back button (or I guess select on PS3) for five seconds when you're in the collection room and you will find a secret empty room where you can input passwords to do... something?

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:43 pm
by Frieza2000
Have you tried inputting anything along the lines of 19 65 9 17? Or 19921124?
I can't believe I still have them memorized.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:23 pm
by M.C.Dillinger
Someone on game FAQs discovered all the passcodes already. I know fans can discover something about again quickly but this is kind of ridiculous/suspicious. . .

Also one more thing. If you pre-orderd the PC version of steam you can preload now. For some reason the cable company with a near monopoly in my area can provide decent Internet at these hours. So this is taking me several hours. Good thing I started about a day in advance.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:39 pm
by Esrever
I just wonder how you were meant to find all the codes originally! Maybe they are hidden in the game somewhere?

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:13 pm
by M.C.Dillinger
My guess is said to want to give them away themselves. Kind of like the secret codes in Animal Crossing that got you special furniture. Except these are character models that you can look at server not exactly special.

The PC version is due November 3 now I'm not sure if I'll get any work done. . .

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 10:42 am
by Majestic Joey
wow, the last boss really is terrible. I think out of everything it was the worst part of the game.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2011 8:59 pm
by Radrappy
yeah its awful. Like a cruel joke.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 2:06 am
by Majestic Joey
"it looks like a homing shot."
"careful sonic!"

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 5:47 pm
by (...)
Just played it up to the end credits. This game is brilliant. IMO it's easily the best of the 3D era, and probably one of the best of the whole series (Gamesradar reckon it's the best one since Sonic 2, and I kind of agree).

I liked:
- The art style: It's gorgeous. It's like the devs played the fan remix, then watched that rendered video of Mushroom Hill, and set out to surpass them both. Putting the mega drive Sonic 1 in the game was a good idea, because it allows a straight comparison. When viewed side by side, its easy to see how much effort went into creating an idealised version of a 20 year old visual look.
- The music: Some tracks are better than others, but they are all pretty top notch. And the game does a good job of making it all consistent. Sonic CD's techno pop music, Green Hill's chiptune stylings, Crisis City's bland orchestral stuff, and the cheese-rock music from the adventure games all sound like they are from the same game here.And the seamlessly-transitioning violin renditions in the hub world are just great.
- The level design: Sonic actually works in 3D now! The modern stuff is still a branching obstacle course made for speed runs, but now the levels mostly feel fair in their layouts, and there is enough replay value in them to encourage exploration.There is just lots of little tweaks that make it a nicer experience. Like the hazard icons that appear by the bottomless pits. Because their positioning actually compliment the level design, it felt like they encourage a sense of danger, rather than the hacky deadline implementation that they were in Sonic Colours. Classic still plays as brilliantly as it ever did, and brings a lot of nice new ideas to the later levels. Both versions of Chemical plant, Rooftop run, Speed highway, and City escape were my stand-out favourite levels overall.
- The Sonic 4 question: Since it's an unfinished game with an ill-defined place in the timeline (it's set around Sonic CD, but with modern characters?), I was wondering how/if they were going to work it in. All the music cues in the final level were a nice compromise (the Sonic 4 tunes only ever start playing when both Sonics combine forces. Nice touch).

I didn't like:
- Crisis City and Seaside Hill: Both versions of these levels are just terrible, and seemed to be the only levels with any cheap deaths in them.
- The Time Eater level: A confusing mess of wobbly pixels and moving objects. And it's really boring. The boss fight is literally "hold boost to win".
- The graphics: The art is beatiful, but it suffers for the lack of anti-aliasing, and even on 360 it frames out in places.

I'm interested to know where Sega go next with this. Not only did they finally figure out how to make the gameplay work in 3D, but they finally delivered on their 5 year promise of bringing the hedgehog back to his roots, and it left me wanting more. Classic Sonic in his own spin-off games? Extra level expansion packs for Generations? Sonic 4 episode 2 with Classic's physics and art-style? Or even just an all-modern game with level design to this quality? I'd be happy with any of those outcomes.

I heard about Sonic Dimensions, and I hope it's a work of fan-fiction because it's a god-awful idea.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:50 am
by gr4yJ4Y
(...) wrote:I'm interested to know where Sega go next with this.Extra level expansion packs for Generations? Sonic 4 episode 2 with Classic's physics and art-style?
This is most likely the next step. In one of the reviews I watched (probably Gametrailers) they made it sound like DLC levels were coming for sure. There are a lot of levels they could use for this.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 10:40 am
by Emperor Omochao
I figured that the Sonic 4 series was gonna bridge the gap between classic and modern sonic from S3&K to Sonic Adventure. In Sonic 4 he already looks about halfway between Classic and Modern.

Hopefully the responce they get from Sonic Generations will encourage them to put the same amount of effort into future titles.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 11:44 am
by Arcade
Sonic 4 is having too many problems for a 2D game, I hope they finish the thing, then pack it as a full game for the 3DS or the Wii U.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 4:40 pm
by Crisis
I've finished it and I'm working on the missions.

A few thoughts:

- Modern Sonic's 3D sections are the most interesting part of the game. In contrast, the 2D modern sections are typically the weakest.
- 2.5D is a little confusing for classic Sonic. It can get quite hard to track him on the screen. Keeping the levels flat and slowing them down a bit would help.
- Spin dash is completely, obviously broken. Why SEGA can't solve very simple problems is beyond me.
-Classic Sonic is ok. There are moments that really made me grin (the goal post in Crisis City for example). But most of the time I have trouble remembering his stages. Chemical Plant is one of the worst offenders - it looks pretty good in 3D but disappointingly bland from Classic Sonic's perspective. In fact, if you had taken out the water and changed the badniks then presented it to me without the name, I would have probably said Final Egg.
- Did Planet Wisp classic remind anyone of Metropolis Zone? In a good way.
- If you can get it on a decently modern PC, do so. The graphics are gorgeous and there was hardly any slowdown on my machine (I did only build it a few months ago, though).
- Time Eater is embarrassing but if you go in with low expectations then I guess he's easy to ignore? I treated Planet Wisp as the game's last hurrah and just kind of carried on to the boss fight (it was bad).
- Actually none of the boss fights are very good. Why does every boss have to be a huge monstrosity? What's wrong with fighting Eggman at the end of the stage?

Overall I am left with very mixed feelings. This seems strangely appropriate for a Sonic anniversary retrospective.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:28 pm
by Radrappy
yeah a lot of the classic stages end with such a wimper, making them super forgettable. It's like they forgot all about pacing and having memorable set pieces when designing these things.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:08 pm
by Majestic Joey
After playing sonic generations, it's ridiculous sega would continue the sonic 4 series. Generations although not perfect in any sense, was so much better than 4 in every way possible. In terms of visuals, music, gameplay, controls and overall awesome moments, Generations is the better game. sonic 4 is like a retarded older brother.

If anything they should work on refining the formula of Generations instead of waste any second on making sonic 4.

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2011 4:58 pm
by Crazy Penguin
So what did they change Classic Eggman's "Nobody calls me that any more" line to in Japanese?

Re: Sonic Generations

Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2011 12:36 am
by Esrever
Tails just calls him "Eggman", and they avoid the joke entirely.

I was out of town for a few days, so I'm not as far along as some of you. So far I've completed the story, then gone back and collected all the red rings up-to-and-including Modern City Escape. (But I've only done the sub missions for the GHZ.)

Like Colours, hunting for the red rings is definitely the part of a playthrough that shows the game in the best possible light. It really makes you appreciate how intricately designed and multi-tiered the Classic stages are... and many of the Modern Sonic stages, as well! I think if this level of craft was applied to a completely original title, it could be a pretty special game.

The problem -- and it's not exactly a game-breaker, but -- this ISN'T an original title. The stages are tributes to previous games, and I think some of them... just stick a little too close to the originals. Classic Chemical Plant and Modern City Escape are great examples. Taken on the own, I think these stages were both pretty well done! Classic Chemical plant is big and interestingly constructed. Modern City Escape has a compelling mix of big open spaces and tiny corridors, bracketed by two fun set pieces. But they both feel so similar to their ancestors... they just... don't feel very special, you know? I think that's the part that can leave you with that "Wait, was that it?" feeling when the level is over.

Compare that to some of the cooler, more memorable stages... the ones that do something really different from the inspiration stage. I'm thinking levels like Classic City Escape, Classic Spagonia, both Sky Santuarys, both Planet Wisps... these stages go farther, and feel really new and fresh.

I think it's the "best of" formula that gives the game that slightly... off feeling. But in general, I gotta say... I'm pretty happy so far. The Classic Sonic stages are easily the best take on 2D Sonic since 1994. And most of the Modern Sonic stages are fun and thoughtfully improved takes on either Adventure, Unleashed or Colours-style level design philosophies... although they're a little rough around the edges at times. Aside from Time Eater, the boss fights have ranged from cool to tolerable. And under the "excruciating" category, so far all I've got is the incomprehensible final boss and a stupid Vector the crocodile minigame. (We'll see if that changes once I start getting into the sub missions.)