[eggFL]

http://www.sega.com/games/game_temp.php?game=sonicnext

Did you guys see this yet? The movie there shows more of the level, and some glimpses of other levels. Also, I believe this is the first time we get to hear music from the game. (the music is soo cool)

In the description: 'Sonic's first adventure in the human world' you know it drives me crazy when they say stuff like that. Not just the press, but Sega PR ignores the Sonic Adventure series.

Multiplayer: It says that multiplayer will involve each of four players controlling Sonic.

Also, as I said in chat, I was told that the game will have Knuckles in it. Let's wait and see if that is true. If it is, you guys owe me a coke.

[F-Man]

Yep, seen it since a while.

Also, as I said in chat, I was told that the game will have Knuckles in it. Let's wait and see if that is true. If it is, you guys owe me a coke.

You owe us a source dammit.

EDIT: "Up to four players can play as Sonic and his amigos in high-spirited multiplayer fun!"

[eggFL]

"and his amigos"

gah, ugh. I guess pays to read. x__x

[Marth]

I'm pleasantly surprised if SADX fixed this, but in SA, in Windy Valley you reached a tornado *loading time* then you get through the inside of the tornado *loading time* then appeared in a completely different area with cheesy music.

Now in Sonic06, we see Sonic grab onto an eagle. The eagle flies him a little, then the game is interrupted by a 'now loading' screen. When it's done, Sonic appears in a completely different area, on the ground, with the eagle nowhere in sight. Ugh. But this will be fixed in the final release... right? The gameplay in the demo wasn't finished yet, right? Only which parts are finalized and which arent...

I approve non-Sonic gameplay in the games, but I generally prefer if the characters have some speed, although not as fast as Sonic. But it doesn't really matter. As a fan, I really want character's speeds to be consistent from one game to another, and it would drive me nuts when they make everyone else Sonic clones. (Sonic Advance anyone?) The best non-Sonic stages are the hunting stages starring Knuckles, to me that was a pretty clever and it was addicting.

"Time-attackers are rewarded instead of ignored" Time attackers aren't ignored since you have a time bonus and your best time is recorded. Ultimately, the score which combines time and completion together, is much more interesting, and any good racer is capable of doing well enough to get the highest rank anyway. It only applies to the game's ranking system, and, in terms of replay value, having it based off score is just fine.

Heroes was not the most serious/franchise-defining release. The game was good considering its gimmick, imo. Controlling one character is best, but that doesn't mean we should hold every single Sonic game to that standard.

1. After Sonic spins around in the tornado for a few seconds, the camera changes
to show him inside it, and area 2 appears at the exact time that the camera changes.
The short pause might have something to do with setting up some little details, but I'm not sure.
(It comes about 2 seconds late in Speed Highway.)
When Sonic jumps out of the tornado, it does the same camera change and pause as before,
and Sonic lands in area 3 (The Air), which happens to have pretty good music (which is actually from Sonic 3D Blast).
Check out any of the DX videos (Windy Valley for example).

2. Okay, that's a little dumb, but at least it's not super embarrassingly glitchy.
That's just like... uh, what game does that, anyway? (I thought there was something.)

3. I don't mind as long as they're actually running. Amy moved at about a human's walking speed in SA,
and then she was suddenly going fairly fast in Sonic Heroes. (still not fast, but more than fast enough for a game to be fun)
Knuckles's stages would have been great if they had been like Sonic's.
Even the hunting wouldn't have been terrible if they had just set 1 position for each Emerald piece.
And then, as if the randomness wasn't bad enough, SA2 brought in some huge stages.

4. The time is recorded, but the ranking system rewards scores alone.
The time bonus isn't nearly enough, especially because restarting (which is almost always necessary
for the fastest times) resets the score to 0. I don't like that the game acts as if I'm no good
just because I set a time record instead of a score record,
and it also bugs me that there are so many missions to play for scores.
(A score-based system wouldn't be so bad if there was only 1 mission, although I still say that
my 1-mission system that rewards times, rings, and scores (with times being most important) is the best.

5. Yeah, I still think of Heroes as a kind of spin-off... like some typical so-so, multiplatform
game with the now-much-too-common gimmick of teamwork.
I'm still waiting for a Sonic Adventure 3, and this new game had better not be it (unless it comes to Revolution later).

[magnum12]

When refering to an "Ultimate Sonic game" Marth was discussing here's my thoughts on it, assuming 2D, for the Wii (with remote attached to conventional shell, and some occasional 3D ideas added to the mix.
1. All characters have the basic Sonic gameplay skeleton but with their own twists. Sonic would play like he does in Rush, Amy would play like a combination of Sonic gameplay with a Zero inspired fighting style, and Shadow would have all sorts of weapons for players to use but the combat mechanics would be like the Gun Star Heroes series.
2. Tails' and the super forms flight abilities would be controlled with the remote. (For Tails, push A while airborne to activate flight, then use the remote to make him fly in any direction. Of course you would be able to see his stamina while he flies.) The use of Wii based flight would give players unmatched precision control and maneuverability during flight.
3. Upgrades that can be found in stages.
4. If the SA:2 shooter stages come back, the gameplay and controls should be more like Mech Assault, making the pacing quicker, the combat deeper, the aiming controls less clunky, and the combat more intense.
5. Punishing difficulty. However, the difficulty would not be because of some enemy that players could not possibly react to in time in annoying posistions or from fatal blind jumps (these are the cheap death complaints spouted by critics about 2D games), but from really nasty, unforgiving enemies and boss battles.
More thoughts later.

[Bilan]

5. Punishing difficulty. However, the difficulty would not be because of some enemy that players could not possibly react to in time in annoying posistions or from fatal blind jumps (these are the cheap death complaints spouted by critics about 2D games)

Hello Mystic Cave Zone Act 2.

[eggFL]

1. After Sonic spins around in the tornado for a few seconds, the camera changes to show him inside it, and area 2 appears at the exact time that the camera changes.
The short pause might have something to do with setting up some little details, but I'm not sure.
(It comes about 2 seconds late in Speed Highway.)
When Sonic jumps out of the tornado, it does the same camera change and pause as before,
and Sonic lands in area 3 (The Air), which happens to have pretty good music (which is actually from Sonic 3D Blast).
Check out any of the DX videos (Windy Valley for example).

The camera doesn't change to show him inside the tornado, rather I'm pretty sure it's an entirely new area. The fact that it changes music as well makes the level feel even more hyper and broken apart -- the game can't keep a single mood for more than a minute.

Music for The Air is from Sonic 3D Blast?... huh, I saw a 3D Blast video and I thought that song sounded familiar... now I know! Anyway I still think the song is too candy.

Anyway, as I was saying, Shadow does the same thing in the stage Glyphic Canyon but at least in that the loading is like 1 second, and the music does not change, so the game at least pretends to disguise it. (practically the same as if the stage was not broken apart) Also of note is the fact that these parts happen when Shadow gets sucked into a tornado. A sort of pointless throwback to Windy Valley? (plus both of them are stage 2's)

2. Okay, that's a little dumb, but at least it's not super embarrassingly glitchy.
That's just like... uh, what game does that, anyway? (I thought there was something.)

I think it was because the game was incomplete. Seeing the movie on the Sega site showed some eagles carrying Sonic to other places in the same area and it showed much more of Kingdom Valley that could not have been before the end of the demo stage. So it must not be like that in the final game. (I am hoping)

3. I don't mind as long as they're actually running. Amy moved at about a human's walking speed in SA,
and then she was suddenly going fairly fast in Sonic Heroes. (still not fast, but more than fast enough for a game to be fun)
Knuckles's stages would have been great if they had been like Sonic's.
Even the hunting wouldn't have been terrible if they had just set 1 position for each Emerald piece.
And then, as if the randomness wasn't bad enough, SA2 brought in some huge stages.

Huge stages are good. They're -great-. Of course, if you don't like a certain type of stage you would want them to be as small and short as possible, but I think anyone who really appreciated Knuckles stages liked that the stages were larger in SA2. (I didnt even take them seriously until SA2) Plus the complexity increased a little with the switches and all. The only downside imo is that in SA2 the radar was fixed to show you one emerald at a time. To me this was just a crude way to get you to spend more time in them (or maybe to dumb the game down for kiddies or haters? dunno) and really didn't make sense creatively or in terms of gameplay.

I think they could be even bigger and deeper, and more detailed, and have more than 3 things to find maybe. In turn they can increase the radar range to make up for the massive stages. Also maybe a rival to compete against in the same stage who is looking for the same emeralds as well. Behold Knuckles Adventure. ahh yea.

Gamers would think that the stages are excessively slow or hard, but not so much. You're not playing a bad Zelda, you're supposed to actively and briskly scout the stage to pick up a radar reading. Some rats think Chaotix stages are somehow better just because they are in the same areas as Sonic, when it really doesn't make it any better, if the items are harder to find and you have no radar to help you anyway. Knuckles stages are really interesting, they are just different and that is really the main complaint.

4. The time is recorded, but the ranking system rewards scores alone.
The time bonus isn't nearly enough, especially because restarting (which is almost always necessary
for the fastest times) resets the score to 0. I don't like that the game acts as if I'm no good
just because I set a time record instead of a score record,
and it also bugs me that there are so many missions to play for scores.
(A score-based system wouldn't be so bad if there was only 1 mission, although I still say that
my 1-mission system that rewards times, rings, and scores (with times being most important) is the best.

Score in Sonic games is really time + score. Score encompasses both. There's TA'ing and then there's boring completion runs. But scoring in Sonic games pits you against both factors. That's why SA'ing is so great.

The game doesn't imply you're no good just because you got a time record instead of a score record. The ranking is just a replay value thing. It's just a matter of knowing that it's based entirely on your score. (since one would guess that it would be based off /something/, and that something doesn't have to be everything, which is your suggestion)

5. Yeah, I still think of Heroes as a kind of spin-off... like some typical so-so, multiplatform
game with the now-much-too-common gimmick of teamwork.
I'm still waiting for a Sonic Adventure 3, and this new game had better not be it (unless it comes to Revolution later).

If this game is Sonic Adventure 3 then what would be wrong with that?

[eggFL]

When refering to an "Ultimate Sonic game" Marth was discussing here's my thoughts on it, assuming 2D, for the Wii (with remote attached to conventional shell, and some occasional 3D ideas added to the mix.

I don't think there is anything 'ultimate' about Wii. :[ lol!

What 3D ideas added to the mix? If you're going to go 2D, do it all the way. Right?

5. Punishing difficulty. However, the difficulty would not be because of some enemy that players could not possibly react to in time in annoying posistions or from fatal blind jumps (these are the cheap death complaints spouted by critics about 2D games), but from really nasty, unforgiving enemies and boss battles.
More thoughts later.

You know, this is an ancient memory, but a long time ago I remember defending the 2D games against critics who thought they were too cheap. Well, actually... I think the real complaint was that the games were all about holding forward and the occasional jump. (which is even less true...)

Anyway I was thinking lately how 2D no longer suits Sonic all that well. Well, it seemed fine in the originals, but I'm not /entirely/ sure if it was because the screen covered plenty of area... and that the levels had more platforming than full-on speed... or maybe it was just because I have since gotten almost entirely used to the levels.

But in the Advance games and in Rush, I have this feeling that the gameplay is a joke since you practically have no warning or time to react to anything. The gameplay itself is a meaningless guessing game. And doing well literally means memorizing the level layout in your head. I primarily blamed this on the series's over-emphasis on speed (which is often referred to as a signature aspect of the series when in fact the original games were nowhere near that A.D.D.) But lately, like I said, I wonder if it is in some part due to the small screen size, or the fact that the levels are new.

So anyway yea, those are the issues facing 2D Sonic at the moment. It's ironic, since by the looks of Sonic 2006, the game speed is not obsessive, and Sonic looks to move slower than any 3D Sonic to date.

In any case, when I think 'ultimate' I definitely think 3D. Creatively it far surpasses 2D and creates a better experience. Believe it or not. (if you had an ultimate 2D Sonic and an ultimate 3D Sonic, I would definitely expect the 3D one to be much more ultimate)

[Marth]

The camera doesn't change to show him inside the tornado, rather I'm pretty sure it's an entirely new area. The fact that it changes music as well makes the level feel even more hyper and broken apart -- the game can't keep a single mood for more than a minute.

Huge stages are good. They're -great-. Of course, if you don't like a certain type of stage you would want them to be as small and short as possible, but I think anyone who really appreciated Knuckles stages liked that the stages were larger in SA2.

Gamers would think that the stages are excessively slow or hard, but not so much. You're not playing a bad Zelda, you're supposed to actively and briskly scout the stage to pick up a radar reading. Some rats think Chaotix stages are somehow better just because they are in the same areas as Sonic, when it really doesn't make it any better, if the items are harder to find and you have no radar to help you anyway.

The game doesn't imply you're no good just because you got a time record instead of a score record. The ranking is just a replay value thing. It's just a matter of knowing that it's based entirely on your score. (since one would guess that it would be based off /something/, and that something doesn't have to be everything, which is your suggestion)

If this game is Sonic Adventure 3 then what would be wrong with that?

1. I did say the tornado is a separate area. The music changes, the tornado suddenly gets taller,
and the slowdown just makes it seem more broken apart, like you said, but it's smooth enough to not
seem really bad. It's not like: *spins around in the tornado* *freezes for a few seconds* *appears in area 2*,
like it must have been in the Dreamcast version.

2 and 3. The main problem is the radar (which only shows one emerald at a time), but it's not all.
"Actively and briskly" exploring isn't good enough for SA2's massive space stages.
Random positions make time-attacking or (in SA2 space) even getting an A difficult and annoying.
Chaotix usually is worse, though.

4. Sonic is about speed, and time is the main category for most players.
It seems weird that the games choose score as the one thing to rate a run by.
The system with one mission and 3 grades solves the problems of the ranking systems in SA, SA2, and SH.

5. There's just one little problem: No matter how good a game is, I can't enjoy it much when it's on the wrong consoles.
(I'm not getting XBox 360 or Playstation 3, and I don't know if my friends are. They probably aren't.)
Even if it's released for PC, that'll be annoying. (Everyone in the family always wants to use the PC,
and I'd barely get any time for SA3 if it wasn't on Revolution.)

[Espio00222]

I dont care about the fact that the speed is "to much" i think its just better because youll get the feeling ur goin fast and and the best thing is it sharpens ur reflexes

[Crowbar]

What a great contribution to the thread.

[Bilan]

Damn straight

[B. Hatfield]

whats with the shadow hating? that game was fun!