I am legitimately sad about what happened with Sonic Boom.

[Zipa]

As usual Penny Arcade are on point about such things, Sonic has become a joke.

 

[Adam Lester]

I remember when I saw the announcement for it, I thought it was a late April Fool's Day prank or something. I'm not mincing words, I thought it was fake...it looked so ridiculous in an attempt to be mature/edgy, I couldn't see any other way of it going.

Sonic for me is in the same camp as Silent Hill or Final Fantasy's sad attempts to recapture the feeling of Final Fantasy 7. I find myself more times than less silently hoping every new one bombs so they'll just either leave it alone or a light bulb will finally go off.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Since they made precisely one good 3D sonic game ever, Generations, and then completely ignored everything that worked about that game for subsequent releases who is surprised that there is a shitty Sonic game coming out?

Sad, but not surprised.

I thought that the Sonic/Shadow levels of the Adventure games were good, and I did enjoy Heroes a lot. Then again, it's been at least seven years since I last played them, so it might have just been my ignorant, younger self that enjoyed them with my current self being led by nostalgia. Still prefer the 2D games regardless.

The Adventure games were OK, but they already showed that Sonic is a super limited character in 3D. Almost every time they wanted something "special" to happen it did so via boost plates or springs so that the weak level of control the player had over Sonic didn't ruin it all.

It just wasn't possible to come up with an interesting level and have the player navigate it with the tools the character gave them because those tools are bad, you can't jump precisely (which is why the homing attack exists), you can't put Sonic specifically where you want him, etc.

So instead of letting the player navigate the level it's just spring or boost plate setpieces, ring trails, and straight lines to run in.

 

[Rayce Archer]

Some people are even saying it's as bad as '06.

It's bad, definitely. There is no defending it any other way. However, it is not as bad as Sonic 06. On the launch stream my friends and I had for the game, we talked about it and got lots of people asking if we think it's worse than 06. See, 06 was worse because it marked the absolute lowest point the series could ever hit. Not only was it supposed to be the next biggest Sonic game, hyped up as all can be, but it was also for Sonic's 15th anniversary. That's what makes 06 worse, that Sonic Team release not only that game to reboot the franchise for their mascots 15th birthday, but they also released this abomination the same day:

Spoiler

The fact that both those games were released the same day, and the PS3 port shared the same bugs as the 360 port despite being released later (it had even more bugs as well, which is why I LPed that version) showed that Sonic Team had no care at all. That was a wake up call for them, and they've at least been attempting. Yeah Lost World wasn't the best, but seeing as I've seen and played the lowest point of the franchise I definitely know it could of been worse.

Is that... Is that a Genesis game, running in an emulation layer, running on a GBA? Why? Why would they do that? It's amazing that it works as shittily well as it does! Didn't they already have a GBA sonic engine from, you know, the GBA sonic games that they could have rebuilt the damn thing in?

 

[Solbasa]

Well, there's still the 3DS version, which I have played to story-completion (I've gotten 88% so far - it's really short) and found to be pretty solid, well-built platformer. The levels are large and expansive, with the controls and playstyle designed to facilitate exploration. And, unlike what I've heard from the Wii U game, it's well-written and funny, which is always a plus. Then again, that game was made by a totally different developer than Rise of Lyric - Shattered Crystal was made by Sanzaru Games, while Rise of Lyric was made by the aforementioned Big Red Button. However, since reviewers have been oddly quiet about Shattered Crystal (except IGN, not that anyone cares) nobody seems to know that the game is alright and nothing like the Wii U game. Plus, once you beat the game, if you get all the collectibles, you unlock an endless loop of the characters doing the robot. Which is wonderful.

 

[SweetShark]

As usual Penny Arcade are on point about such things, Sonic has become a joke.

*image*

When he open his eyes, he will realise the blood is fake and Sonic will say to him before run away.

"See you later f*cker"

But yeah, I hope the show is ok.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I'm genuinely curious how a series that continuously pumps out sub-par material can continue being viable on the market. Surely even the most devout of fans would decide not to participate anymore instead of excusing all the missteps.

Then again, I still enjoy the Alien franchise and we wouldn't have gotten Isolation if I had given up when I should have. But at least the AVP games were functional. Colonial Marines is the only true disaster I can think of in the gaming arena.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

on november 11, 3 games were released

-Sonic Boom
-Assasin's Creed Unity
-Valkyria Chronicles

there was only 1 right choice

dont call it a grave OP, this is the future you chose

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

For the record, as soon as I saw the multiple types-of-gameplay-thing return, as well as the hints at combat, I immediately lost what little hope I had for the game. I am not surprised that it sucked. Especially when it's a rushed release to coincide around black friday and the launch of the TV show.

(and for the record, I still hate that knuckles redesign. Especially the fact they apparently made him an even BIGGER idiot)

Well, they've been doing a decent job with sonic the last few games. As long as they-

Just so you know, Sonic Team had nothing to do with Sonic Boom at all. In fact, Sonic Team themselves hate Sonic Boom in it's entirety, but SEGA let Big Red Button Entertainment go ahead with it. Heck, when Takashi Iizuka, current head of Sonic Team, played the game he actually was caught on camera facepalming at what the game was.

Wait, seriously?! Like, no lie?

That makes me happy. Gives me hope for future sonic games that the guys making the real sonic games think Boom was trash.

This one experiment aside, I like how sonic has been for the last few games. Colors was great. Generations was great (but a little short). Lost world 3DS was decent, and COULD have been great had they focused less on some of the gimmicks (and the gyro controls for some things) and focused more on the parkour mechanic.

I'm still cautiously optimistic about the series, but if they put out a bad game from time to time, I'm not going to be surprised.

 

[Lieju]

I'm genuinely curious how a series that continuously pumps out sub-par material can continue being viable on the market. Surely even the most devout of fans would decide not to participate anymore instead of excusing all the missteps.

Kids who don't have a very good concept of quality and recognize the characters and like the tv show(which is apparently good)?

Or at least don't read the reviews beyond 'I like Sonic, oh a new Sonic game, I'll play it.'

I know kids like these, and kids like these will be okay with games that aren't terribly good if they lack good points of comparison. And kids don't have all that much money to use for games, and lack life experience, so they can be happy with a product more experienced people will consider subpar.

This one though, has some pretty major issues from what I hear. So even those kids might lose interest quickly.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I'm genuinely curious how a series that continuously pumps out sub-par material can continue being viable on the market. Surely even the most devout of fans would decide not to participate anymore instead of excusing all the missteps.

Kids who don't have a very good concept of quality and recognize the characters and like the tv show(which is apparently good)?

Or at least don't read the reviews beyond 'I like Sonic, oh a new Sonic game, I'll play it.'

I know kids like these, and kids like these will be okay with games that aren't terribly good if they lack good points of comparison. And kids don't have all that much money to use for games, and lack life experience, so they can be happy with a product more experienced people will consider subpar.

This one though, has some pretty major issues from what I hear. So even those kids might lose interest quickly.

If it was just kids, I'd understand. However a lot of the interest seems to come from older fans who game on a regular basis from what I can tell.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Generations was great (but a little short).

People complaining that the games are "short" is the reason we get Sonic games with shitty padding like Unleashed's night levels.

Because make no mistake those levels were there directly to increase the length of the game because with only the day levels people would have complained about "too short".

A game with the same raw content as Generations but which better contextualised its repeat play objectives (y'know, like Mario games do) by pushing the player to actually do them as part of progress would have been good and people wouldn't have complained it was "short" because they did the critical path content and considered themselves "finished" when they still had 50 odd bonus levels left untried and probably had crappy scores on some of the levels.

The more you look at it the more you realise that the people who make Sonic games have literally no idea how to make a good game.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Generations was great (but a little short).

People complaining that the games are "short" is the reason we get Sonic games with shitty padding like Unleashed's night levels.

Because make no mistake those levels were there directly to increase the length of the game because with only the day levels people would have complained about "too short".

A game with the same raw content as Generations but which better contextualised its repeat play objectives (y'know, like Mario games do) by pushing the player to actually do them as part of progress would have been good and people wouldn't have complained it was "short" because they did the critical path content and considered themselves "finished" when they still had 50 odd bonus levels left untried and probably had crappy scores on some of the levels.

The more you look at it the more you realise that the people who make Sonic games have literally no idea how to make a good game.

Honestly, if they had broken some of the longer levels (say, Planet wisp which takes over 10 minutes to beat, and Crisis city, and the beach level, and maybe Spagonia) and broken each of them into slightly smaller levels so we'd have more levels, but smaller levels, that would have resolved my complaint very nicely.

See, it's not the amount of content, but the FEEL of that amount. Sonic Colors had about the same amount of content, but it was broken into smaller chunks, meaning that it felt longer because there were more levels to play, and thus more content, even though they were all shorter.

More levels, but shorter levels are the way to go, I feel. Maybe it's just my instinct as a casual speedrunner talking. It's why I like the classic games too. Every zone is broken up into 2 shorter acts instead of being one huge long level.

 

[GloatingSwine]

More levels, but shorter levels are the way to go, I feel. Maybe it's just my instinct as a casual speedrunner talking. It's why I like the classic games too. Every zone is broken up into 2 shorter acts instead of being one huge long level.

That's an interesting way of looking at it. Having more natural breakpoints in the content might have extended the raw time people spent clearing it, but I do think that just making better use of the bonus content and ranking system would have solved the problem and drawn attention to what has largely become one of the core elements of a Sonic game, mastering the levels.