Shadow and Rush, Opinions and General Bitching

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Zeta
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Post by Zeta »

Omni has a gay little brother? Cute.

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Post by Baba O'Reily »

Everyone is a little gay for j-man... except for Baba. Baba has feelings for only one man:

Image

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Zeta
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Post by Zeta »

What do you think of the ice cream?

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Ritz
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Post by Ritz »

The chocolate variation is a bit too strong and overrides the cherries and vanilla chips, while the vanilla is too bland. And the cherries and chocolate chips are few and far between, so it depends on my tastes at the moment. But yeah, I think I've eaten more collective pints of Cherry Garcia than any other ice cream.

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Post by j-man »

@j-man- My brother is still whining about how sexy you are :/.
I am fretful.

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Post by Baba O'Reily »

Zeta wrote:What do you think of the ice cream?
The ice cream is quite nearly as sexy as the man himself, but, as Ritz mentioned, the chocolate can override the chips and cherries. But anyone who worries about that is a fucking communist and thinks that Dark Star from Fillmore West is the best version, as everyone knows that real men eat the vanilla and listen to Dark Star from the Fillmore East.

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Zeta
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Post by Zeta »

Sonic Rush is the bomb-diggity, yo. It feels like a combination of Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic and Knuckles (note - not Sonic 3 and Knuckles - just SK). So it plays pretty good. The stage gimmicks are really keen as well. It's the first Sonic game to make me LIKE a water stage. Seriously, the Palace Zone is just fun, unlike most other water stages which are basically gloom and doom and the game telling you "Congrats, you sorry bastard. You were fucked and drowned the second you stepped into this zone - prepare for 15 minutes of scrambling for bubbles".

There ARE quite a few flaws. First of all, the stage enemies are horridly ugly. They're crappy 2-D versions of the crappy Sonic Heroes enemies. They were ugly enough in 3-D but in 2-D they just look silly, squat and grotesque. They look even worse next to the gorgeously 3-D Sonic and Blaze models. They needed to didtch the 2-D Eggpawns and GUN robots and just go with new 3-D characters. Or at least do enemies from a better game with better design. Similarly, the small animals that pop out from them are the same 2-D ones from the Sonic Advance games.

Also, bottomless pits. Especially annoying in the first fucking stage - Leaf Storm. A similar badness happens in Altitude Limit, which is the sky fortress stage. Ironically, there are no actual bottomless pits but just laser beams that fry you if you fall too far. Which was incredibly sucky.

Finally, the bosses are also really cheap sometimes. They usually took me about 15-20 tries each to beat them. This is because quite a few of them have a one-hit-kill attack that knocks you off the screen and to your doom no matter how many rings you have. Luckily the bosses are so gorgeously designed and animated that you might not care. The water boss is a spiffy plesiosaur. The sky boss is a awesome robot pteradon. Actually, these robots look a little TOO good for Eggman. But not totally out of character like the 360/PS3 Gundam bots are.

Finally, I am totally loving Blaze as I thought I would. Her character personality is essentially a less stupid, female Knuckles, and she plays like Sonic - but her animations are so unique and gorgeous that I don't care. Honestly - her basic spin attack is just pretty to look at and all her animations are just so sleek and fitting that it's just nice to see such a well-designed character introduced after having to sit through the likes of Cream and such. I'd be perfectly alright if she was brought back, or even if they just boiled the series down to Sonic, Blaze, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman and ditched every other character in the series. Although I have to wonder who at Sega has a thing for purple cats.

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Post by SegaSonic »

I just hope they didnt gave Blaze the whirling jump and let Espio do a crappy normal Spining jump instead.

I agree, Blaze is the first cool female character, Shes Not stupid, She doesnt talk nonsense, she does what she has to do! period!, and she doesnt show off like Shadow or Espio (but Espio is supposed to be a comical character, so its kinda okay I guess)

Amy is a nut, Rouge is a slut and cream is just a bumbling kid whos copying the stupid behaviour of others.

So Yeah, Rejoice Female fans! you got a decent female character ATLAST.

I feel sorry for what theyre doing to Knuckles, making him retarded like that, he was naive before but not retarded and neurotic. And Tails should start kicking ass like before.Amy should return to how she was in SA1 dammit. Rouge should vanish..shadow too.

Ok enough ranting!... for now.

Ive beaten Sonic Rush (Japanese ver, I hate 4KIDS Va's ) and It really captures the Sonic Spirit in Some ways, first the Music returns to groovy techno dance and the Stages have a nice blend of Speed and platforming.

Some of the Music in Cutscenes sound Way better than the Stages actually, NOTE: some of these Music were once the level stages music like the Blaze arrives Song was the music in Leaf Storm in the beta version in E3. Im suspecting that the Music when Sonic and blaze are about to fight the last boss was the Level Music for Water Palace! it just sounds so old school! but I guess they wanted crazy music with lyrics in the last minute. :roll:

But Im not complaining, the Stages Music in Rush are way better than some shit we've seen in previous games like Heroes and Shadow.

I really liked the direction the music is going, dance Music really fits Sonic games! it will be like the old days if they keep this up.

I just hope Sonic PS3/360 will have Music as good if not better than this.

The Low point of this game are ofcourse the @$$Holes as I like to call em (you know the endless pits) and the Stupid Dumb Whores known as Eggpawns! if Sonic Team thinks these badniks are Kawaii they can shove it!! They look like BS! But on the good side of things this game has Some of the Animal friends like Pocky,Flickies and also New ones like a Raccon and Monkey!? and you can summon them when doing tricks! Just press the A button twice then the B button, then the Animal friends will pop up on the screen.

But seriously the Eggpaws must go..the Gundam shit in the New Sonic look ok..but too...extreme like like Zeta said. Where are the buzzbombers? and Motobugs?

Kudos to Sonic Team for making the last boss (not the extrazone lastboss) a pain in the ass, So much in fact that I had to set it on easy. I will beat in on normal when I want. the button smashing was cool..but it hurts! they shoulve toned it down a bit. you almost have to destroy your DS to win.

The Special Stages were nice, the use of Stylus was cool, the last Special stage was hell, but the key was holding the stylus almost at the tip and looking really close at the screen, theres just too much shit on that stage and if you blink you die.

Bottom line, Great Game! best Game since SA2! KUDOS TO SONIC TEAM! keep making em like Sonic Rush and you will win...But please! PLEASE! Give us Animal/bug/cool robots like in the advance series instead of this Eggspawn Garbage!

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Post by Baba O'Reily »

Exclamation points only add exclamation when used sparingly!

Otherwise, they lose almost all effect!

They also should! go after! and not in the middle of a! sentence!

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Post by Locit »

Sonic Rush is in fact the bomb diggity. Zeta's right about everything. I'm having some trouble with the special stages, but I've sucked at these for a while now so no big deal. Awesome. Buy it. NOW.

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Post by big_smile »

I received Sonic Rush for my Birthday (on the 22nd) and I am currently up to the fifth level. So far, my impressions aren’t as favourable as those by Zeta and Locit.

The level design is a definite improvement over previous instalments. While the initial stages are fairly bland, the later zones sport a good selection of set pieces. These help to add a level of variety that hasn’t really been seen since Sonic Pocket Adventure, and some of the better sections easily measure up to Sonic & Knuckles.

The scope for exploration has also been improved. Although the initial levels only feature brief shortcuts, the later stages contain genuine alternate routes. These aren’t as developed or as well hidden as those in Sonic 3 but they do further the variety of the experience.

Unfortunately, the level design is also the biggest problem of this game, mainly due to the bottomless pits, which have become just as about as common as the gold rings. The pits serve as punishment for even the most understandable of mistakes, such as mistiming a jump in a high-speed section.

Rush does manage to rectify a lot of my grievances with the Advance games, particularly with regards to the graphics, special stages, and story. The graphics are less repetitive and contain many nice touches. My favourite one is the Flickies that are nesting eggs in the first stage. The special stages aren’t very original, but the use of the stylus and the Shenmue QTE style mini-games helps to make them feel fresh. The stages are also easier to access than in the Advance games and have a more balanced difficulty level. The story feels slightly ‘forced’ in places, but it is entertaining and perfectly captures the friendship between Sonic and Tails (which is something that hasn’t really been done since the Saturn-era).

These improvements, however, aren’t enough to compensate for the frustration of the pits, which is why Rush fails to be the ‘bomb diggity’ for me. The pits seem to increase with each level, so I doubt my impressions will have changed by the time I reach the end. Sonic Team were at least close this time, so there is hope that they might get right in the future.

^_^

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Segaholic2
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Post by Segaholic2 »

Also, the bosses suck!

Oh, and sorry to disappoint everyone who's not finished yet, but the final section is awful.

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Post by James McGeachie »

That's opinion, the final section has some cool cutscenes and music in my opinion and the Super Sonic fight is no worse than any of the others to me. Then again, however, by that what I'm saying is that I don't think ANY of them have been good, including Doomsday, though it was the best based solely on the fact it was first and the idea hadn't been done to death then.

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Post by Esrever »

I really like all the bosses! I thought they were one of the best parts of the game. I haven't seen the real final boss yet though, but I've seen all the others. They're generally harder than what I'm used to, but I thought they were solid designs that made excellent use of the 3D perspective to do some classic-feeling boss battles that wouldn't have worked as well in 2D. The regular final boss' one-hit-kill attack is a bit merciless, but hey, in Sonic 2 all the final boss attacks were one-hit-kills.

My opinion of the game pretty much echoes Smiles' word-for-word, except that the bottomless pits didn't bother me as much. There are still too many of them. But as Smile says, they're generally used as a punishment when you make a legitimate mistake in a jumping section, rather than a random death that you could never have seen coming. What really bugged me about the Advance series was how you'd get thrown into a pit at top speed, with no chance to react. There are only a couple of places where that happened to me in Rush... usually, the game "slows you down" before tossing you into a more platforming/pit-dodging area.

The exception to that rule is the sky level, which as far as I'm concerned is the one truly unfair stage in the game and possibly one of the worst Sonic levels ever. Outside of that I never found the pits too aggrevating, but in that level I was about ready to strangle someone until I'd memorized the offending sections.

I like the visuals. Even though they're going for a less surreal style, I think they pulled it off very well, and there are lots of nice little flourishes that help give the game some personality and make the levels look less repetitive. The level layouts pretty slick, and the object/enemy placement is seldom cheap or unfair. Each level has a pretty distinct "feel", and makes good use of unique obstacles and objects. The hidden areas and multiple routes seldom reaches the heights of S3&K, I'd say it's generally on par with Sonic 2 in terms of linearity. The standout level is defnitely Huge Crisis.

The bonus stages are great! I was surprised how much fun I had with them, even though I really, REALLY suck at playing them. I still can't beat the last one.

So yeah! On the whole I really like it. The downers were definitely the bottomless pits, the excrutiating after-school special story and the lack of real differentiation between Sonic and Blaze's gameplay. Oh, and the annoying cheerleading during the boss fights. They're hardly deal-breakers, but those are the mistakes that keep the game out of the same category as the original four. But it's sitting pretty comfortably in spot number five, and I'm looking forward to seeing if they can do even better next time.

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Post by G.Silver »

The problem with the bosses isn't really the cheap hits, it's the time required to kill them, they suffer from the same problems of most boss fights that take place in 3D--they stand around looking cool and firing crap off at you, and you just sit on your ass waiting for a weak spot to open up. Getting killed wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to spend so much time waiting. They're ok to fight once, but once you know how to avoid their attacks most of them don't attack fast enough to keep things interesting. A plus side is that you never do have to fight them again, but it seems like a waste to have them there if fighting them isn't enjoyable.

It's not like they are BAD bosses or something, they are just designed with a poor philosophy in mind. Look at Sonic 2's bosses, who you are probably thinking are all a bunch of pushovers because you can wipe them out so fast if you know what you're doing, but that's just it--it's fun to discover how to destroy them as quickly as you can. It's engaging, you don't have to wait for the boss to attack, you can go on the offensive any time you like.

I echo the sentiment on the special stages--I didn't expect to like them at all and it turned out they were quite enjoyable. Even after getting all the Chaos Emeralds all I still like playing through them.

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Post by James McGeachie »

I agree with the boss length comments, the fights would definitely be a lot more enjoyable if there weren't points you had to wait possibly minutes before you had a chance to attack, I hope this is something they choose to change for the next game, assuming there is one.

Oh and about special stages, anyone up to the challenge of beating my highscore for the final one?

http://img493.imageshack.us/img493/1431/thescore4eh.jpg

I realise that'll probably be considered insane (or maybe I'm wrong and people here have already surpassed it), but I was being pretty competitive with another guy I knew who owned the game.

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Post by j-man »

In other news, I got Shadow for Christmas. Seems all right. Using guns is pretty funny.

...what were you expecting?

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Post by Ritz »

I was prepaired to give Shadow a fair "Better than heroes", but then I made it to Central City.

Not much I can say about the game that hasn't already been said, though the level of detail is quite noteworthy. The amount of activity taking place in most stages is really impressive, while moreso in the first stage than the others. Bridges and buildings collapse, helicopters fly overhead, shit explodes. And you gotta love the wavy effect that explosions have on the surrounding area. Most of the environments look like ass, especially since most of them are recycled several times throughout the game. Most of Eggman's stages are pretty, though.

This game could've been pretty decent, had they ditched the arbitrary missions which make up 75% of the game. Not one of them are even the least bit enjoyable; most of them are the generic 'kill/find the 50 cheaply-hidden enemies/objects', and- wait, nevermind, they're all the same. Huh. And most of them involve mazes. Anyway, because of this, Shadow is by far the first Sonic game that I haven't beaten in one sitting, mostly due to lack of interest. I suppose I'll have some fun running through the stages at my leisure once I'm done with everything, though.

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Post by SegaSonic »

James McGeachie wrote:I agree with the boss length comments, the fights would definitely be a lot more enjoyable if there weren't points you had to wait possibly minutes before you had a chance to attack, I hope this is something they choose to change for the next game, assuming there is one.

Oh and about special stages, anyone up to the challenge of beating my highscore for the final one?

http://img493.imageshack.us/img493/1431/thescore4eh.jpg

I realise that'll probably be considered insane (or maybe I'm wrong and people here have already surpassed it), but I was being pretty competitive with another guy I knew who owned the game.
Woah! thats some crazy shit!

Im happy enough that Ive beat that sucker once.

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Post by Professor Machenstein »

Sonic Rush easily compensates for all of the series' recent blunders, as if they never happened. You would be amazed at how one good game could make up for a bunch of bad ones. I would go so far to say that it is precisely the best post-S3&K Sonic game that has ever been made, and that includes Sonic Adventure 1.

My only complaints are the bottomless pits (I'm looking at you, Altitude Limit, AKA Sky Canyon: Version 2), ugly enemy sprites, and Tails not shutting the hell up. That's about it.

But with Hideki Naganuma's music score, Katamari Damacy's atmosphere, a decent mixture of speed and platforming (Akin to the classics), the rush meter, the trick system, the crafty boss battles, and the most novel experience to the Sonic 2 special stages since the Saturn version of Sonic 3D, Sonic Rush single-handedly rekindled my love for the Sonic series.

This... this is the bullet of brilliance we have been waiting for. The Sonic series' equivalent of Resident Evil 4. SONICTEAM has restored all of their credibility with this game, and I am more than hopeful that they will continue to do so with Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star Universe, Puyo Pop Fever 2, Akadoko, and any other of their future projects.

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Post by One Classy Bloke »

How does Katamari relate to Sonic Rush?

Also, it's called "Sonic The Hedgehog.

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Post by Professor Machenstein »

One Classy Bloke wrote:How does Katamari relate to Sonic Rush?
They both have an incredibly quirky atmosphere to them. They're both weird, and in a good way.

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Post by EmeraldGuardian »

Could be cause I got the ps2 version, but SHadow sucks big time. Controls and overall gameplay is shit. Still, hopefeully I can get used to it and finish up the story.

I'm not too far in Sonic Rush yet, but I'm pleased so far. A bit difficult with the enormous amount of bottomless pits, but otherwise it's very nice. The touch screen special stages are frikkin sweet. I think I'm getting used to their 4kids voices. ;_;

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Post by One Classy Bloke »

Professor Machenstein wrote:
One Classy Bloke wrote:How does Katamari relate to Sonic Rush?
They both have an incredibly quirky atmosphere to them. They're both weird, and in a good way.
The atmosphere is completely different between the two games. Katamari is a bizzare game involving the transformation of everyday objects into astronomical objects, while Sonic Rush is about a collection of mutated, talking animals posed in a conflict which echos the ecological concept of man vs nature. Of course they are both weird in design, concept and style, but the difference between the two is like comparing an acid trip and drunkenness.

I am also fairly convinced that the story in Shadow is not canon. Mainly because they fucked up the character Gerald Robotnik. Plus now there's probably discussion about what the fuck Sonic may be now.

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Post by Frieza2000 »

So I take it Dimps had nothing to do with this game.

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