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Estee


On the Sliding Scale Of Cynicism Vs. Idealism, I like to think of myself as being idyllically cynical. (Patreon, Ko-Fi.)

More Blog Posts1258

Jun
28th
2022

I knew Sega was living in the past, but... · 6:15pm Jun 28th, 2022

"A special zone called cyberspace."

...what year is this?

Hey, kids! Want to hear one of the longest-running jokes in the game industry?

"The next mainline Sonic will be good!"

Gets me every time.


Everfree Northwest Ko-Fi Drive ends at midnight EDT on June 30th. Because I am obligated to mini-font something. And on July 1st, the new Ko-Fi goal becomes something sane. Like AAA renewal.

Because my car is seventeen years old and needs all the tows it can get.

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Comments ( 15 )

If nothing else, at least the soundtracks have kept their quality from the Adventure duo. Since that's also the only part of the game that can be experienced completely independently from the rest...

"The next mainline Sonic will be good!"

Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Colours, and Sonic Generations would like a word with you.

Hello cyberdream why you chasing me? My computer screen is my enemy

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...Unleashed?

Really?

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The day stages were a lot better than people often give them credit for. True, the Werehog was a big weird, not disputing that, but seeing as the boost formula went on to be the basis for the excellent Colours and Generations, I'd say they'd hit the ground running with that one.

Pun very much intended.

I suspect Sega got sucked into a cycle of "Nintendo released another Mario game, we need another Sonic game right the fuck now!" and forgot pretty much everything that made the original Genesis and CD releases hits to begin with. And then the hardware wars ended with the gutted corpse of Sega's hardware division being dragged away for disposal and Sonic was all they left, so they doubled down on releases to stave off their final consumption ("look, we're still pushing new releases on this hit-maker IP, we're not dead yet!").

They even stole the slogan from their enemy.

To be This good will take Sega Ages.

Hmmm, Retro. :moustache:

Sonic games are very hit and miss in general, tending to flip back and forth on quality. Segas biggest problems is they're terrified of anything going stale mechanic wise, so throw everything out even if it's successful and rushing games for arbitary deadlines

Lol, ever since Breath of the Wild, every gaming company wants to make an Open-World RPG...

Probably an unpopular opinion, but Sonic games have never really been that good. No, hear me out!

First, it needs to be said: the first two Sonic games were stunning to see in motion in their day. It's hard for young gamers to understand how much of a step up they appeared to be compared to 8 bit titles: even Super Mario World, a superior game to any of the Sonic titles, looked positively pedestrian in comparison.

However, they had a fundamental flaw in their design: the games were intended to be played at speed, and looked and played beautifully at pace (briefly, anyway), but would constantly punish players for doing so. There was a seemingly endless number of sadistically placed spikes and enemies waiting in line to sucker punch gamers who had the gall to play at full pelt, which would bring everything to a immediate grinding halt, ruining the pace and flow of the game. These would be almost impossible to avoid unless you knew they were there through previous runs through a level.

In fact, they tended to reward slow, cautious and exploratory playstyles, oddly enough. Which is pretty much the antithesis of how most people want to play Sonic.

Not sure if this situation has improved much over the years, but I have been meaning to give Sonic Mana a go. From what I understand of most modern Sonic, it seems that they have found every possible other combination of design flaws in their quest to get something, anything to stick. still, hope springs eternal.

I feel like Sega never actually understood why Sonic games were enjoyable. Like, it's become a running gag that every new sonic game adds new Friends because that's what Sega thinks is what draws attention.

Sonic 2 gave us Tails
CD gave us Amy
3 gave us Knuckles
& Knuckles let us play AS Knuckles
Advance gave us Cream
Adventure gave us Big, E102, playable Amy.
Adventure 2 gave us Rogue and Shadow
The Fighters gave us Bark and Bean
We got Blaze and Silver in 06
Sticks the Badger is the latest I think

Like, the Mario games, outside of the RPGs, introduce new powers, but rarely new characters for the purpose of perspective. They've given us more insight into Bowser, sure, even let us play as him, but typically they keep the plot simple and the story easy to follow. And don't get me wrong, I love SatAM, but Sega themselves always tried to stay away from things that would make their 'rad character' emotional.

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Like, the Mario games, outside of the RPGs, introduce new powers, but rarely new characters for the purpose of perspective.

It's worth mentioning that, in the RPGs, Miyamoto has since vetoed the introduction of meaningful new characters or even reuse of the ones they'd previously created outside of remakes. We can talk about how that shows he doesn't understand RPGs, but it at least shows that this was an aggressively deliberate stylistic choice.

:raritydespair::raritydespair:
No one makes jokes about the "sonic cycle" anymore, but that doesn't mean it ain't still true.

I mean, I think it looks pretty interesting. The gameplay I've seen at least shows that even standard mooks aren't pushovers, which is an interesting change of pace. Yeah, "Cyberspace" is not great, but Colors had the McGuffin energy called "Hyper-Go-On", and that game was still fun. I mostly want to know why you can't just run around these tougher enemies.

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Sonic 2 gave us Tails
CD gave us Amy
3 gave us Knuckles
& Knuckles let us play AS Knuckles
Advance gave us Cream
Adventure gave us Big, E102, playable Amy.
Adventure 2 gave us Rogue and Shadow
The Fighters gave us Bark and Bean
We got Blaze and Silver in 06
Sticks the Badger is the latest I think

Rouge, not Rogue (Rogue is the R63 version of the character). Blaze was actually introduced in Sonic Rush, which predates 06 by a year. Additionally, Sticks is from the Sonic Boom TV show, and is not canon to the games.

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