PPA - hmm.. sure, why not. Or maybe he was 14 in all past adventures. or maybe Sonic never ages... >__>
they might have, but it doesn't matter, they are crazy. It's not even a Sonic game and they are destroying Sonic's identity
BWAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. HA. Sonic has an identity. Classic. I can't even begin to fathom your thought process there. Sonic today is generic, traitless and marketeered. Back in the day as the "hedgehog with attitude" this was pretty much the same, but you didn't have script and dialogue and godawful voice acting so it worked fine.
That's simply not true, Sonic has tons of personality and romance. Plus Sonic has always been about action/platforming. Even before it went 3D Sonic stood out for its unique style, sick background designs, and insanely catchy music, so what you say is just typical rubbish.
Let's differentiate the feel/style of a Sonic game, and Sonic's personality. I get the point on the former, although franchises have lived off different types of games for ages (pinball and RPGs seem to be the most common). On the latter, you're talking rubbish.
and then jadedly embrace this game with open arms saying oh its not made by incompetent Sega, it's the best Sonic game.
Bioware has a back catalogue of awesome (Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect - consistent Game of the Year winners/contenders). Sonic Team has, of late, produced mediocrity at best and downright shoddiness at worst.
Yes, but why Bioware. And why a JRPG. and why on the DS
It's a spinoff. Why not? And if you're going to do an RPG, Bioware are the best.
Why not, a true Sonic game. And why not, oh let's say... Konami. And why not on Wii at least. How about it?
Seriously, what a tease. That's what this game is. Any critic who's hyping this as the best Sonic game is totally full of air.
Although the best thing that can come from all this is that it's in fact Sega's precursor to commissioning a developer to make the next FULL-FLEDGED actual Sonic game. And that's what you could call "the best Sonic game to come in recent years."
To me that hints bias.
Towards a multiple GOTY standard publisher instead of what Sonic Team is now? Colour me biased.
I was thinking that it doesn't really matter to them who is making it as long as it's not Sonic Team. To them, the fact that it's a multiple GOTY standard publisher is just a bonus.
Or is merely the words of a gamer who is indifferent to Sonic and platforming and looking at it from a more objective standpoint.
What, pray, could be the reason for indifference to Sonic? Perhaps shoddy games? Given the warm reception most have given Galaxy, I'd say people still like platforming in general.
I think you're missing the point of what I said. I was meaning that a person who says Sonic Chronicles is the best Sonic game is either a Sonic hater who is just as well lying, or just someone who's opinion in regards to the series doesn't hold that much weight. Something like that.
Because anyway you know a Sonic hater would be way too eager to like this game. Knowing what they did about it, they would try to like it just as they did with Secret Rings. In fact, you could probably dress up Pokemon Mystery Dungeon as a Sonic game and it could work just as well. So as far as I know, the claim that Sonic Chronicles is the best Sonic game means nothing at all. Yes it's a Bioware game. That fact is pretty much all we have to go by.
There you go again with that 'hater' word. Someone having a different viewpoint does not make them a hater. Further, thinking your opinion matters more than other people's - people who will
buy the damn games - is so unbelievably arrogant I can't even begin to comment on it. Yes, it's a spinoff, it's different, it's not a classic platformer Sonic game. That doesn't mean it can't be the best game
with Sonic as a title character in a while.
However as a JRPG
Bioware don't make JRPGs, they make real-time isometric view D&D based RPGs for the most part.
Well apparently they make JRPGs now, since that's what Sonic Chronicles is.
And I meant let's see Sonic developed as a fighter PHYSICALLY. Homing attack in SA1 led to homing attack stunts in Sonic Adventure 2, and then homing attack combos in Sonic06. That is brilliance. The "Sonic spin" is corny, it's obsolete. It doesn't even fit Sonic anymore.
I think that's got a lot to do with the transition to 3D. Oh, and "brilliance"? lolwut? Taking a concept and tweaking it ever so slightly so you can say "look it's a new feature honest" is easy. I know, it's what most software developers do day-to-day. Try some real innovation if you're going to use a word like brilliance.
What the hell are you talking about. Since when did anyone say it was a new gameplay feature. Who would honestly consider an aesthetic homing attack upgrade a "new feature". Why you would even infer that Sega was riding on that as a selling point for Sonic Adventure 2.
How is it in any way a bad thing to take something and change it to make it WAY BETTER?!
I didn't say it was a bad thing. Evolutionary design is fundamental to a franchise. I just said it hardly counts as "brilliant".
In a JRPG or Smash Bros or a game in which Sonic is guaranteed to need to do things besides spin dashing, why does he still spin dash so much.
Evidently he isn't "guaranteed" not to.
That's a lie, since Sonic does other things in those games. (as he obviously would have to in order to work in those genres in the first place, hence the "guaranteed" part)
Sorry, I misread, I thought you meant he was guaranteed never to use spindash. My bad; however why not use it? It's definitively Sonic in a way that generic fighting just isn't. If you can integrate it into other gameplay what's wrong with that? I thought you held incremental design as "brilliant"?
The loop screenshot I posted is just an eyesore imho. The right path of evolution is for Sonic to now attack like Shadow and for loops (in general) to be replaced with more inventive and more realistic running paths.
I'll take fun over realism in a Sonic game, thanks.
Yes, I did mention realism, but I don't remember where in my post I said that Sonic should be less fun.
Please. Remember this: Everything I ever say in regards to Sonic is about making it more fun. I actually care about fun unlike some people it seems.
Anyway, with any luck, the loop in Sonic Chronicles might actually not be a scripted non-interactive sequence. Hurray for shallow tacked-on "Sonic-y" elements! imo
It depends; if stuff like loops and the spindash are well integrated into the game they help make it familiar to the franchise, that's classic spinoff design. At what point does that and features being tacked-on overlap? Couldn't you say a Sonic game is just a generic platformer with Sonic-y gimmicks tacked on? You could argue that, but they're part of the identity of that game so most wouldn't describe it like that.
anyway I never played a Bioware game but I am familiar with them from all the splash hype surrounding Mass Effect. But regardless of their track record it's still confusing and disappointing that they would make the game a JRPG. It's gonna be a "good" game I'm sure, but it's still a JRPG, and it's still not a Sonic game. It seems hard to get excited about something like this.
You're not familiar with them if all you've heard is Mass Effect hype. As I said, multiple GOTY games stretching back over 10 years, and pretty much everything they've released has been excellent (yeah okay, KOTOR2 wasn't finished properly, one black mark and it was still very good). They are the daddy of the RPG world (anyone who mentions Final Fantasy dies a painful death).
Perhaps I didn't say it the right way. But from hanging at Gametrailers.com and with all the anticipation of Mass Effect (AND this game), I already know everything you just said.
Okay, here's the difference I see. I've been playing Bioware games since 1998, I've played just about everything they've produced as a company, and I'm very familiar with their evolution - pretty much the same as with Sonic games, in fact. You've read some Mass Effect hype and a bit of background. It's natural that a game studio I've grown up with and loved is going to make me excited with
any release, let alone one with my favourite game character in it. Is that unreasonable?
Why am I excited? Probably my favourite studio working on a game with my favourite retro character in it. Excuse me if I think that's a recipe for awesome.
generic and traitless, too. Don't forget that.
Right, let me explain this fully. Original Sonic was fast and had attitude. That was it, and that was all there needed to be for those games. It's all you need for an amazing platform lead, I mean how deep is Mario's character? However,
if you're going to play off storyline you have to do more than that, and Sonic as done by modern Sonic Team is just far, far too shallow to be interesting on that level. Probably Bioware's biggest strength is their rich, well developed characters, and I therefor hold out hope that they'd be able to do something with the Sonic cast.
Now you're going to come back and say Sonic's personality is deep and rich and whatever other bullshit, and I'm unlikely to change your mind on that, but I ask you to think about: what
genuine personality traits any Sonic character has;
what stereotyping they fall into and any differentiating factors that make them in any way original or innovative;
what market they were created to appeal to and again if they display characteristics outwith the box on that one; and
if their character has developed through the storylines.
Again, I emphasise that a good platformer doesn't need the heavy-duty characterisations or storyline, and
doing them badly is worse than not doing them at all.
I'll leave you with a final thought, which is: you appear to be annoyed that we're eagerly anticipating this game rather than the next 360/PS3/Wii platform title. I put it to you that your annoyance has far less to do with Chronicles than it has to with the fact that most of the rest of the world don't like the current Sonic games, don't expect an improvement and therefore won't care about the next one. Believe me, I'd love nothing more than for Sonic Team to come out with a game that destroys everything before it (SSR briefly looked like it could be it, sadly not); I just have very little reason to believe Sonic Team can (or want to) do it. Of course, to you that makes me a 'hater', but whatever.
