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elise does not show tit :(

Post by Green Gibbon! »

After a somewhat hysterical effort over the past few months, the entire museum has been updated to my satisfaction, more or less. Still no new pages yet, but all of the existing articles should be accurate with all relevant knowledge. I've streamlined as best I could, but some pages (such as the Adventure articles) could still comprise small novels despite my best efforts to trim down. I thought next, before I proceed with the museum, I might fortify the encyclopedia a bit and write up some articles on major characters and locations, but first I need to figure out how to use this newfangled wiki thing...

So anyway, I've finally decided to sit down with the 8 unopened Sonic games I've had sitting on my shelf for the past 3 years, scrape off the mildew, and bring myself up-to-date in the affairs of the corporate mascot who, 15 years ago, I (very unwisely) chose as my childhood hero. I took a quick run through Sonic Rush first, which is the only one I'd heard anyone speak of in anything even close to a complimentary tone, and while it ain't no rebirth, it is one of the more successful attempts of recent years. It's mainly a twitch game - very fast and Naganuma's upbeat score helps to keep the pace rolling, but the odor of Dimps still lingers in the nooks and crannies, such as in the abundance of pit deaths (some downright unfair) and comparatively bare level maps. The Special Stages, amazingly enough, are a treat - playable, functional, fair, and fun, four traits I'd given up trying to associate with the series. I actually got all 7 Emeralds, which I don't think I was planning to do. Also, I must admit that I'm rather fond of Blaze, if only for Nao Takamori's sultry voice. Unfortunately, I find it impossible to project my impure fantasies onto a cartoon cat.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG. Shadow the Hedgehog is, of course, abysmal, though not really for the reasons I was expecting. I somehow got the impression that it was just a generic Sonic game with bad level design and a glaring absence of aesthetic sense. I got two out of three, but it turns out that it isn't really a Sonic game at all - infact it's not much of a game at all, the structure is so loose that you're never quite sure what you're meant to be doing. When you do finish a stage, it's usually by accident. On the bright side, Senoue did a good job with the score and I derive a (shameful) satisfication from finally, 6 years after the fact, learning the truth behind the ARK fiasco. GUN's motives now make more sense than they ever really did in Sonic Adventure 2, but at the same time, the organization has kind of lost its mystique. It's a bit of a letdown to think that they've been the good guys all along.

Sonic Riders is the most roundly average of the recent crop in terms of quality - there is a steep learning curve and frustration factor is stratospheric, but if you can muster the zeal to sit around and play each stage 48 times in a row to eventually, by miraculous alignment of the stars, run 3 perfect laps, you might just be compelled to muscle your way through story mode. Course design is solid and there's a definite "just one more try" appeal, but I finally gave up in frustration trying to clear Wave's mission mode. (Speed can't drop below 140? Fuck off.) I like the Babylon Garden legend, but the bird rogues are entirely forgettable. Jet looks more like a parrot than a hawk...

I was vigorously appalled by the half-stage demo for Sonic '06, but only after sitting down with the game proper can I appreciate what a monumental trainwreck it really turned out to be. And the tragedy is that it didn't have to. Had someone shown me the design doc, like, maybe 3 or 4 months into development, I would likely have wet myself with glee. Nakamura's Sonic is mellow and smart, a welcome change from Iizuka's sugar-rush rockstar schtick, and closer, I think, to the original series aesthetic. Structurally, the game is most similar to Sonic Adventure 1, which was, for my money, the last "proper" Sonic before the series veered off on another tangent. Tragically (it just had to happen), the game is incomplete. Like, grotesquely so. Not just a general Adventure1-ish lack of polish, I mean this is very obviously half a game. Stages vary wildly in appearance - some, such as White Acropolis and Tropical Jungle, are highly generic with none of the visual uniqueness you expect of a Sonic game. Others, such as the forest adventure field, are barely Dreamcast quality. Niggling flaws such as load times and slowdown have no business in a game with this kind of budget - how can there even be slowdown on my cutting edge, $600, like, million-bit console? These machines are powerful enough to melt icecaps, you would have to make a concerted effort to program slowdown like this game has. The real final blow, however, is the shoddy control (or lack thereof). It actually feels slower than the Adventure games - like you're constantly fighting an invisible force pushing against your sprint - but steering is nonetheless more agonizingly rigid and hopelessly inaccurate than it ever has been. There are new peculiarities that make absolutely no sense (such as the loss of speed after each jump). Silver's game is a joke and a half (I may never play billiards again) and with the exception of Blaze, all the amigo characters are slow and crippled. I'm not even going to get started on the ill-conceived and incompetently executed "high speed" sequences.

So yeah, it's buggy, clumsy, and very blatantly rushed beyond the point of all good sense. Like walking into a beautiful house and discovering the inside walls haven't even been plastered. The game needed at least another year. As usual, however, the score is fantastic - epic even, and a welcome change from Senoue's guitar-heavy butt rock. Also, Eggman's new look rocks my universe.

I can't be bothered to think of a good closing paragraph, so here's a screenshot from some old MSX porno game:

Image

キタ━━━━━━(゚∀゚)━━━━━━ !!!!!

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Post by Oompa Star »

Thank you for the screenshot and the funny opinions on the broken and unplayable games from the past three years.

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Post by Opa-Opa »

*ahem* Just out of curiosity... which game is that?

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Post by SuitCase »

GG!, didn't you get the impression that Sonic the Hedgehog 360\PS3 was the first Sonic game with some kind of definite soul and character to it in a way that's been missing since SA2 or so? I know it sounds airy-fairy, but even though the story was shitty it at least felt like they tried, and various short passages of the game did approach some of the greater moments of the previous games (until Sonic hit a rock and fell off the upside-down tidal wave, or whatever.)

While I completely agree that the game needed a year or more extra development time, I can't help but feel some affection for the game as it had some "I'll feel nostalgic about this in a few years" sort of sequences that the other games completely lack. I felt this comparison was most evident when playing Secret Rings - I stuck through StH and had a motivation to beat it despite all the horrific bugs and that fucking boulder in Silver's level, yet I've beat about a quarter of Secret Rings and gave up on it, because it's so hollow and boring.

Maybe it's a kind of masochism, but StH seems to me like a captivating, memorable Sonic game with a soul - that just went horribly awry due to rushed development, and I feel better for playing it. Any of the other recent Sonic games, though, end up feeling like shitty cash-ins or gimmicks that may be more polished with far less bugs (Secret Rings) but lack that allure of being potentially fantastic.

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Post by Wooduck51 »

Thankfully getting all A ranks in ShTH is a rather easy thing (It is no where near the impossible level of pain that Heroes required and it takes less time than SA2). And even more relieving is the fact that Hard mode is actually more fun than normal, mainly due to the straight forward nature of it (no missions) and epilogue like nature.

And you forgot to add horrible dialogue to the ShTH flaws.

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Post by Isuka »

Gibb, on Shadow the Hedgehog, wrote:On the bright side, Senoue did a good job with the score
Gibb, on [u]Sonic[/u] The Hedgehog, wrote:As usual, however, the score is fantastic - epic even, and a welcome change from Senoue's guitar-heavy butt rock.
I must admit that I'm certainly confused by this commentaries, but I'll guess that what you meant was that each score matches it's respective game's look 'n' feel. I didn't play either, but just checked the soundtracks and they're indeed quite good.

On the control issues of Sonic Next, from every single video I saw of the game it looked like they tried to re-implement the momentum of the old 2D games when you start running instead of hitting maximum speed instantaneously as in SA1/ 2/ Heroes/ ShtH, but the catch is that you never achieve said speed without a dash panel (either that or Sonic Team fucked up the Havok's libraries).
Also, it seems that you played the PlayStation 3 version and you didn't mention the loading issues that plague the original 360 one. Does this version also suffer from this problems too, or they actually fixed that?
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... *sigh* OK, may as well use it here and now:
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Post by Ngangbius »

Reading your impressions, GG! makes me wonder if you are really going to purchase any more Sonic games(at full price even) ever again.

And Isuka's gift is quite hypnotic.

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Post by Green Gibbon! »

GG!, didn't you get the impression that Sonic the Hedgehog 360\PS3 was the first Sonic game with some kind of definite soul and character to it in a way that's been missing since SA2 or so? I know it sounds airy-fairy, but even though the story was shitty it at least felt like they tried, and various short passages of the game did approach some of the greater moments of the previous games
I actually totally know what you're talking about and I can't explain it, either. The game is a disaster, but I get the feeling that 10 years down the line, this is the one we'll look back on and be like "Well, you know..."
Also, it seems that you played the PlayStation 3 version and you didn't mention the loading issues that plague the original 360 one. Does this version also suffer from this problems too, or they actually fixed that?
Nope, the load times are prehistoric. It's like playing a first generation Sega-CD game.
And Isuka's gift is quite hypnotic.
It's from Pachinko Sexy Reaction. It's the funniest animation in the whole game. I mean, uh... so I've heard.

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Post by Opa-Opa »

Green Gibbon! wrote:I get the feeling that 10 years down the line, this is the one we'll look back on and be like "Well, you know..."
"Well, you know... Sonic Next was a lot better than Shadow Next."

I'm rooting that 10 years from now, Sonic games will have improved enough for us not to look back on bad games.

By the way, I played Sonic and the Secret Rings the other day... and it kinda felt a lot more shittier than I thought it would. Really... I thought those controls were horrible. I think what I liked the most were the cutscenes, its drawing and atmosphere were nicely done.

But I don't know, maybe it's just me that can't control that wiimote properly. Still, controlling Sonic with a steering wheel never sounded like the best of ideas.

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Post by Ngangbius »

I noticed that Secret Rings seems to get the most mixed reviews to any Sonic game recently. The impressions range from "Now this is how 3D Sonic should be done" to "GOD! Even Sonic 2K6 is better than this!" and everything in between. Course, I can't try it out for myself on the account that I lack a Wii.
Opa-Opa wrote:I'm rooting that 10 years from now, Sonic games will have improved enough for us not to look back on bad games.
I'm banking that 10 years from now, Sega have bounced back from their post-Sammy takeover blues, and that we get a string of incredibly awesome console games they created--especially those from their Japanese internal studios.

That or they farm out their IPs to the more talented companies in this industry and solely become publishers.

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Post by UCHU »

SatSR was sort of fun at first, but then it got boring and repetitive after a while and I only played it for the sake of beating it. The controls were sort of bitchy; there was a very noticeable delay when you turned. Being forced to do the side-missions to continue in the main story wasn't exactly fun, either. I haven't gone back to it since.

As for StH '06...I've only played the demo for the 360 and that was enough.

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Post by Tsuyoshi-kun »

UCHU wrote:As for StH '06...I've only played the demo for the 360 and that was enough.
Same here. 10 minutes of playing the Dreamcast Sonic Adventure demo was enough for me to buy the system and game. Sonic 2006 just made me all the gladder for not owning a 360 yet.

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Post by Isuka »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sonic Next was the very first 3D platformer since Adventure 2 in which you can play as Sonic alone (kinda), ain't it?

And, well, I was going to post about SEGA's current business affairs in the SR:Zero Gravity thread, but maybe this one's better suited for that kind of discussion.
Though I didn't know until just now that SEGA's currently a major publisher in the States, it looks like (aside from specific, big name titles like Virtua Fighter) they are not quite getting the desired Japanese consumers' feedback, all the while they do get it here. So, the point is that there aren't really any reasons to try and get smashed again in another console war or anything because of consumers' general disbelief in the brand name and the overpowered competition.
A SEGA console in the vein of Dreamcast would totally rock, but people didn't buy it back then, and most probably won't buy it now thanks to the rampant success of both pathetic non-gaming and soulless, generic shooters. But, you never know.
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Post by gr4yJ4Y »

I really enjoyed playing SatSR the first time through. It's just that it wasn't really a Sonic game. It was just a high-speed platformer that happens to have Sonic in it. I wish that there were more "main" levels instead of quests like "Collect 50 Rings" and "Beat the Level without Getting Hurt".

But the art direction, music, level design (for what is there). Were all pretty solid, in my opinion.

I think that might be what Sonic2k6 has that is missing from SatSR. Sonic2k6 is an actual 3D Sonic game. The likes of which we haven't seen tried since SA2. Hopefully they try it again in a year or two, but give it the time it needs.

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Post by FlashTHD »

I've been wondering how the japanese fans have been getting by. They're prolly easier for Sonic Team to pander to, but wouldn't some lot of them be feeling the crunch as much as the western fanbase is (or close to it)? Could anyone who'd know comment on that?
Green Gibbon! wrote:Shadow the Hedgehog is, of course, abysmal, though not really for the reasons I was expecting. I somehow got the impression that it was just a generic Sonic game with bad level design and a glaring absence of aesthetic sense. I got two out of three, but it turns out that it isn't really a Sonic game at all - infact it's not much of a game at all, the structure is so loose that you're never quite sure what you're meant to be doing. When you do finish a stage, it's usually by accident.
You're playing the jap version right? Then I see where it could get dizzying, but when playing in a language you can completely comprehend, that problem clears up after a couple plays. I find the game a lot more entertaining after opening all the stages and throwing story mode to the wolves, but take that however you will considering i'm the type that also finds it fun to go for high ranks. (Shadow's As, BTW, came to me much easier...not sure if it's me kicking ass or them wussing out on the point limits.)

And hey, apparently, i'm now a "professional antagonist".

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Post by Delphine »

And you have no real name. <i>Shows you what for.</i>

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Post by Green Gibbon! »

It was the Jap version, but I was using English subtitles. The only one where I didn't (because I couldn't) was Sonic '06. I tried playing in English first, but cut it off halfway through the first cutscene. What I ended up doing was, after clearing each game, turning the volume all the way down and watching the English theater mode with no sound.

Do they actually swear in the English dub of Shadow? 'Cause I remember "damn" gets tossed around alot in the subtitles.

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Post by Ngangbius »

Yeah, they swear a lot in the dub, and it makes the dialouge sound poorer than usual.
FlashTHD wrote:I've been wondering how the japanese fans have been getting by. They're prolly easier for Sonic Team to pander to, but wouldn't some lot of them be feeling the crunch as much as the western fanbase is (or close to it)? Could anyone who'd know comment on that?
Sonic was never that popular in Japan as it is(was) in the west. However, it used to sell better than it does now, obviously due to the games degrading quality. SA2:B, IIRC opened at 190K+ in its first week while Sonic 2K6 opened at 7,500 units(PS3 6,500/360 1,000). Major flop central. Secret Rings had a better opening, but it was still poor.

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Post by Delphine »

Green Gibbon! wrote:Do they actually swear in the English dub of Shadow?
According to the script on gamefaqs, yes.

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Post by Green Gibbon! »

Also, for the record, Sonic Rivals is slightly more fun than a toothache.

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Post by FlashTHD »

Ngangbius wrote:
FlashTHD wrote:I've been wondering how the japanese fans have been getting by. They're prolly easier for Sonic Team to pander to, but wouldn't some lot of them be feeling the crunch as much as the western fanbase is (or close to it)? Could anyone who'd know comment on that?
Sonic was never that popular in Japan as it is(was) in the west. However, it used to sell better than it does now, obviously due to the games degrading quality. SA2:B, IIRC opened at 190K+ in its first week while Sonic 2K6 opened at 7,500 units(PS3 6,500/360 1,000). Major flop central. Secret Rings had a better opening, but it was still poor.
And...what has that got to do with my question?

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Post by Green Gibbon! »

I've been wondering how the japanese fans have been getting by.
To my understanding, they eviscerate themselves.

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Post by Arcade »

Try Sonic and the secret Rings, is not bad and really fells like a Sonic Game...

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Post by Opa-Opa »

I tried Sonic and the Secret Rings the other day and, I'm sorry, but it kinda sucks. Really. Maybe I was expecting much because people said it was "the best next-gen Sonic game", but I guess there wasn't much of a competition was it?

Anyway. Controls kinda suck. Having Sonic to be controled by something like a steering wheel really isn't one of the best ideas I've seen. This happened before in Sonic R and we all remember that. Sometimes I just wanted to ditch the wiimote and control with the D-Pad.

The art direction was great, and the cutscenes were really nice. I usually enjoy the cutscenes, even in Heroes, where dialogue sucks. But the whole idea of making it look like animated book illustrations was great, and probably cheap.

The levels were beautiful, but I wish they gave us something a bit more "straight-forward" work on between the levels. Absolutely having to do the subquests ("Beat the Level without Getting Hurt" was the worst, as gr4y was kind to point out) sometimes became a pain. Most of the things I did in a completely different order than the story told. Plus, I really have no idea where they were going with the whole Skill Points thing.

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Post by Ngangbius »

FlashTHD wrote: And...what has that got to do with my question?
That they are probably tired of the Sonic shit, maybe moreso that the Western audience?

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