The GHZ Forum

Oh definitely, Conker was kind of their last stand and even that was a step down, but I guess as long as they don't actually show the game there's still hope.

Banjo-Kazooie was about the only game from them I really liked on the N64. I never played Jem Force Gemini, I hate Goldeneye and its predecessor Perfect Dark, and I really didn't care for Donkey Kong 64 or Banjo-Tooie. Those games destroyed destroyed what interest I would've had for Conker's Bad Fur Day (though I still want it for the N64).

DK64 was too much. It was all running around collecting meaningless items (often the exact same items over and over as different characters) and the level design was incredibly generic. Had none of the clever charm of Banjo or Mario. It was all fat and no meat. Banjo-Tooie struck me as the same, though I never ended up playing it. I bought it and had it sitting on my shelf for 6 months before I finally traded it in unopened.

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:I hate Goldeneye and its successor Perfect Dark

Fixed.

Did anyone else who played the demo notice that Sonic's VA seemed to sound like Ryan Drummond?

Shadow Hog wrote:

Tsuyoshi-kun wrote:I hate Goldeneye and its successor Perfect Dark

Fixed.

Thanks. Can't believe I forgot that.

Banjo-Tooie wasn't awful, Green Gibbon!; there are some clever challenges in it, and the writing and dialogue, like the original, is very funny. But you never really knew where to go or how to get a lot of the Jiggies (some involving you to do tasks in as much as three worlds to get a single Jiggy) short of using a strategy guide, the Internet, or Nintendo Power. Also, the frame rate was awful, and even more inconsistent that Sonic Adventure (15-18 frames per second was the normal speed in the game). Having to trudge through levles in 5 different ways (Banjo and Kazooie, Banjo himself, Kazooie herself, Mumbo, and the animal transformations) also gave the game a very Donkey Kong 64-esque feel to it all, which is never good.

It's too bad, because Banjo-Kazooie is still one of my favorite N64 games ever made, and arguably the best platformer on the system.

I found the demo to be quite a lot better then all the comments I've heard. It controls fine for me. My biggest complaint by far is how slow Sonic is. He's just not very fast at all unless you use dash pads. The scoring system, I discovered, is also a big mess. I can get 40000 points before I've grinded the first path of wind, just by light dashing into every path of rings. I do like the level design though. I was so surprised when I fell off the platform I was on, and landed on a different route.

Slow Sonic? So is a "New Sonic Adventure" that plays slow or something? Sonic is about speed...

<i>Sonic</i> is about FLOW. You can have all the speed in the world, but if it doesn't flow right, the game's crap. See: <i>Advance "Let's fling the characters into traps at high speeds" 2</i>.

Personally, a slower <i>Sonic</i> doesn't bother me, if it means there's a better flow from high-speed to low-speed areas. <i>Sonic</i> never went that fast in the old games, anyway - that's what the Speed Shoes were for. Nowadays, that power-up's just redundant (and be honest, how often do we see it anymore?)

Shadow Hog wrote:See: <i>Advance "Let's fling the characters into traps at high speeds" 2</i>.

That was Advance 3, I thought. Advance 2, in fact, flowed so well for the first 4 zones that you could fall asleep behind the controls and win anyway, which sucked. Anything beyond that was more along the lines of "Hey guys, how about no floor?"

I dunno, I could've sworn I had more of a problem with it in <i>2</i> than <i>3</i>. <i>3</i> definitely is guilty as charged, though.

As for why the first few stages sucked: I'm guessing it's because there was <b>flow</b>, but really low <b>interaction</b>. Of course now I feel kinda silly adding in a new variable to explain why having a large amount of the independent variable (flow) still yields low dependent variable (fun), but I suppose in a layman's view it makes sense. What you don't really interact with (holding a button down, and nothing more, doesn't qualify in my books) isn't fun.

Shadow Hog wrote:<i>Sonic</i> is about FLOW. You can have all the speed in the world, but if it doesn't flow right, the game's crap. See: <i>Advance "Let's fling the characters into traps at high speeds" 2</i>.

Personally, a slower <i>Sonic</i> doesn't bother me, if it means there's a better flow from high-speed to low-speed areas. <i>Sonic</i> never went that fast in the old games, anyway - that's what the Speed Shoes were for. Nowadays, that power-up's just redundant (and be honest, how often do we see it anymore?)

Sonic labyrinth

No, no, that's really not what I think he meant.

I vaguely enjoyed <i>Labyrinth</i> as a kid, but let's face it - that game lacks flow, which, among other reasons, contributes to its really not being very good at all.

Stop talking about "flow", for God's sake. It's creeping me out.

What the "flow" gotten into you?

ARGH

Shadow Hog wrote:Let the bodies hit the flow.

Lifestream, lol.