I'm not sure I get how you say Aquatic Ruin doesn't have annoying music. If I were to agree with you AR would be guilty along with Hill Top and definitely Metropolis.
Sonic 2 is the same style as Sonic 1. Except maybe just more excessive if anything. So I guess that's your problem with it.
Like maybe I would infer that you don't like Sonic 2 because it has way more zones than the other games (unless you were to really count S3&K as one game that really was seperated into two games on purpose) and as a result had a smaller ratio of hits to misses. (More bad songs and some zones just not refined.)
But I will treat this as I did before, just PPA's act for all intents and purposes, and if that's not it, well I don't really care either way. So what if he doesn't really like S2. I mean after all he still likes S1 and S3. And PPA is our friend so we should totally respect his opinion.
Chemical Plant owns though. As far as I'm concerned it's stages
like Chemical Plant which are entirely the basis for having doubts about 3D Sonic games.
Perhaps I should point out specific examples to stuff wrong with Sonic 06.
1. More glitches: The "touch a dash pad in Wave Ocean and randomly pass through the loop and die glitch", the broken gem meter that doesn't work the way its supposed to, skipping part of a level because of crappy bomb physics in Kingdom Valley, falling through floors and walls in general (ShtH all but completely had this under control as the least glitchy game in the series), Knuckles' and Rouge's wall jump getting stuck in a lot of the walls (never had this problem in SA or SA2). That's just the tip of the iceberg.
The Wave Ocean glitch almost never happens. Other games have glitches like this too. Same with falling through walls/floor.
And it was possible to fall through walls/floors in Gears of War (even affecting multiplayer matches causing everyone to wait until the game time limit ends) but it happens seldomly and the game is regardless one of the most critically acclaimed games on the console. A rare glitch doesn't really make any real impact on a game's enjoyment or popularity outside the couple of seconds it pisses you off. Granted perhaps the glitches in Sonic06 combined came up much more frequently and was more annoying than in other games. But it's still exaggerated. It doesn't really change what the game is and the game can still be fun once you get past them.
The gem meter doesn't count because (besides technically not being a glitch) it doesn't affect gameplay in any negative way. If you don't notice that the meter aspect isn't complete, it's not even a flaw.
And yes the Knuckles and Rouge wall problem is hugely annoying! What the hell were they thinking. (they must have left it in on purpose those jerks) This is a result of Knuckles/Rouge jumping straight up when they jump from a wall climbing position. So if the wall wasn't sloped, you just cling back onto a wall again. =/
2. Vehicles: Forced to use them in White Acropolis, Kingdom Valley, Radical Train, Wave Ocean, and Dusty Desert (over half the game). At least the glider had no deaths solely to bad controls. I take it that you hate shooters as well since they're on rails. ShtH only forced you to go on vehicles on Cryptic Castle (more forgiveable since flight had better controls than the others), Prison Island, The ARK (Black Volt's Panzer Dragoon style gameplay was decent at least), Iron Jungle (only the Dark path if done right, but at least its the jump mech), Space Gadget (less than 10 seconds if done right), Black Comet, and Final Haunt (see the ARK).
The glider shouldn't be praised for no deaths to bad controls. That doesn't make any sense. Look, vehicles have bad controls in general. That's the point of a vehicle. They are heavy and unresponsive and affected heavily by momentum. Of course you may collide many times with the jeep from steering it into spike ball trap or it flipping over. That's what makes it a jeep.
The glider is not a vehicle. They did not make a gameplay engine for the glider. It has no sense of control. In Star Fox 64 when you move your arwing up, it takes a moment for the arwing to start moving up. Let go of the joystick, and your arwing with /gradually/ move back fall into a straight course. You can also roll and boost and brake which affects your handling and the inertia of the arwing. Getting hit knocks your arwing away which also affects your control.
None of those things apply to the glider in Sonic06. The glider is essentially a very slow moving digital cursor that's pulled along on a set and very strict course. Even if you get hit, you just go through the enemy!
To even think that is good.. is the kind of thinking that would make them decide to have Sonic in Sonic run slowly, have ultra sensitive controls, be totally unaffected by slope, and have no dynamics in his homing attack. Isn't it?
Or making the next Mario Kart better by being making it on-rails and you only move left and right along the set course and you only two speeds: complete stop and max speed. (depending on whether or not you have the brake button held down) That way if you die from going too fast it will be purely your own fault and you will never be frustrated from going in a turn at the wrong angle.
Or it's like saying that 2D shooters are hands down better than 2D platformers solely because 2D shooters let you move in any direction without jumping, and you can't die from missing a jump being knocked off a platform.
It's utter madness.
Like maybe you thought the jeep could have cornered better or didn't flip out so easily. But that doesn't make it better than the glider. The glider is a failure. There is nothing good about it. (even if there is nothing "bad" about it, although if you see it that way that's horrible)
3. Side Characters: Knuckles' attacks were reduced to an even more useless version of his combo in SH (step backways like I mentioned earlier), Amy's even SLOWER than in SA and her hammer is even more useless (once again, step backwards in terms of game play). The treasure hunting in this game actually makes SA2's treasure hunting seem fun by comparison. Tails' ring bombs are useless, have lousy targetting, and look exactly like real rings (fake rings never had this problem in SH).
Having weaker attacks than in last games doesn't make them a step back. How good a character's gameplay is or how good a game is doesn't depend on how strong the character is compared to other games.
The problem with Knuckles's attacks is not that it's
weak but that it's poorly designed/implemented. The hit detection for Knuckles's punches aren't even there. You can punch and go through and enemy and just end up getting hit. This is a similar problem with Amy. You can approach an enemy and before you ever get close enough to even hit it, you will end up touching the enemy and get hit! Her attack has ZERO RANGE.
But other than that I don't mind Amy. I don't like Amy in SA1. I mean what kind of comparison is that. In both SA1 and Sonic06 Amy is dreadfully slow. But SA1 in my opinion is worse because cornering with Amy slows her down even more. Sonic06 doesn't have this. (good maybe for a fast character, not for a slow one) And her whole top speed in SA1 and super jump was just plain annoying. Constantly trying to get her up to speed to do that super jump just made playing as her a hassle. And if you turn just slightly too much when running she goes out of it. It's so annoying to always make Amy run and then press the attack button at the last second just to make her come to a COMPLETE STOP and swing her hammer at nothing. Augh that's bad... imo Sonic06 is by no means worse just because she moves 1-2 mph slower in general.
"The treasure hunting in this game actually makes SA2's treasure hunting seem fun by comparison." That doesn't mean anything because the treasure hunting in SA2 was *gasp* actually good! If you have to play a broken version of the gameplay to realize that, then all the better.
The treasure hunting areas in the game.... which is what... Kingdom Valley Rouge... and that's it. It's a good area because it's not even that large. And it's set up in a linear fashion. If you missed a key, you can just go along it and explore each platform until you get it. It's much less complicated than SA2's sprawling 3D hunting stages so it makes it more fun and less frustrating to find a key. Even without radar. The keys in this game are put in key central places in the levels. It's not like SA2 where they are HIDDEN in unusual places. Keys are hidden in places like a cage that can be seen in PLAIN SIGHT. Or in the exact center of the room of the HUGE tower in the middle of the area. Or behind the laser fencing on the platform over there conspicuously surrounded by a ton of enemies. These are FUN places to "hide" a key. And as far as not having radar goes, the key finding in this is drastically easier than finding stuff in Sonic Heroes Chaotix missions. The only reason finding keys as Rouge would not be fun is because Rouge controls like a brick that gets stuck to walls.
The real problem with Tails as far as I'm concerned is that the idea of him attacking with ring bombs is just kind of stupid. (not to mention that having rings that you cant pick up is an asinine design decision) And the idea of him being able to throw infinite ring bombs while flying at speed faster than Sonic is stupid. And the idea of him (and Rouge) having to stand still and aim a bomb in first person is stupid, not to mention it goes against Sonic gameplay. And the rings flying all over the place and the loud sfx are just obnoxious to me. I don't care about his flakey auto targeting (or perhaps the way that all bombs after the first just blow up from touching a fake ring) I don't think it would really make a difference.
Side characters don't need to be more fun than Sonic as long as they look good and fit into the game's scheme.
But come on. Even if you're not playing as Sonic you're still playing an above average platformer as far as fun goes. I don't get how .. never got how someone would say "Knuckles? BOOORING" and then talk about a game with a character slower than Knuckles and has much more than 1/3 of the game being fetch quests and town stages. If you ask me, Sonic/Shadow/Blaze gameplay must be really great and exceptional if it skews people's views that much. If the difference between Sonic and not Sonic is that jarring.
Anyway, Psychonauts is not terrible or anything. And it probably makes sense that someone like me would not like a game like Psychonauts as much as other people. But to say it's original seems like a sham. It's also clearly overrated for its humor. It has probably the best implementation of humor I've seen in a game but it's as if humor that's in a game as opposed to TV is somehow supposed the best thing ever. Also the collecting money bit wasn't so bad since the dowsing rod mechanic actually had some merit, it was neat to look for items that aren't there and feel them with force feedback as well as a meter, even though the collecting interrupted the normal quest. But on the other hand I also remembered the fish city stage where you were Gogglor or whatever. That entire stage was just... not good. At least when you finally got to the boss, he was easy to beat and said funny things while fighting you. Psychonauts wasn't afraid to be even less fun in order to push the jokes and writing, and why not because like I said, there is nothing particularly fun or interesting about the gameplay in itself. One reviewer says the game is good because "the humor is the gameplay". And despite following all these bad 3D platform conventions, reviewers say the game is still good because the game does it with its tongue in its cheek. (gee, wish people could use that logic for Sonic storylines) Like one of them said that the idea of calling one of the types of arbitrary collectible items "figments" was a decision of brilliance.
Oh and for the record, I got to the end of the Milkman stage (the big house with the girl) before I returned the game. I liked the atmosphere of that stage (it was genuinely creepy) and the puzzle was pretty clever. But it was also dumb how after I went to the sniper place (apparently going there too early), the old guy would only tell me how to get past that part, even though I didn't have the right item yet. And the item was in the garden and had nothing to do with the rest of the stage's "trading" puzzle and solving it involved using clairvoyance on a crow to open a gate -- that made no sense.
