Sonic Generations Thread

[Asuma]

STOP THE WAR

Just hear the JP soundtrack. That's all.

And yeah, Sonic CD was kinda boring, but I must say that most of the boredom was occasioned by some specific technical issues (e.g. charge a spindash. I doubt you can hear it for 3 minutes in a row.)

Also, talking about soundtrack, I was hearing

and I completely thought that SEGA should've varied the kind of levels here. There's what, THREE city levels?

I would have loved seeing a remake of Chun-nan or Adabat instead of Speed Highway.

And I didn't like the remakes of the Planet Wisp music, from what I saw in the videos.

Sonic Unleashed had the best soundtrack IMO. Not saying that it's only good, but it's musically clever. All of the songs were unnatural to my ears, and I like it. The most "strange" one was Spagonia's, that seems to break the compass.

Sonic Colors comes after.

Sonic Unleashed = Sonic Star Online.

Egg Wyvern

Eggmland

/

.

I'm sure it's the same composer.

[Serephim]

It was. Sega constantly reuses the same composers. (I believe they're called Wavemaster)

Unleashed probably stands at the top for me because of how much it reminds me of Phantasy Star Online's OST, which almost makes the game to me. Unleashed and PSO had such a wonderful type of orchestration going on. (Especially PSO EpIII)

Chun Nan was probably my least fav of the day tracks, not to say it wasnt good but it just wasn't as good as the other ones.

The Night stages had the best tracks in my opinion though.

[Rawr]

Yessss, someone else who prefers the night tracks too ! I think its the Adabat night stage that reminds me of pieces of Lava Reef/Hidden Palace. Makes me happy to listen to.

[DerZocker]

Just beaten the game yesterday, i need more levels!

Even if i don't really like the US CD soundtrack, Stardust Speedway US sounds great for Speed Highway, also Sonic Boom is wonderful for every race and rival challenge ^^ It's not that i don't like the music, but most tracks don't fit even nearly. Somehow i have the same feeling about Rooftop Runs original track, i'm humming the melody all the day but as leveltheme it just feels... dunno... overlaid, at least for me. The classic remix fits great though xD

BTW wasn't there a list with all the unlockable tracks somewhere?

[Serephim]

just beat chemical plant

Already, best sonic game since the adventure series. It feels like a real sonic game, finally.

And im actually very impressed with the challenges. They feel like new stages entirely almost.

About the only thing that bothers me is that rolling with classic sonic is still pretty useless, although the levels themselves are fun enough that i really dont care. Even though the new SA styled spindash is pretty OP compared to the one you have to rev up, i honestly haven't been missing it in the slightest -- this game still feels like one of the classics to me despite the physics changes.

[Shadix]

Stardust Speedway Zone. Sonic CD stage. Have you ever heard of Sonic CD?

lol in Sonic CD they aren't actually refered to as "Zones". Generations even goofed\retconned on that with the music tracks.

[TailsSena]

Oh yeah, Rounds... Ahaha, yet another goofy bit from 1993... Oh well, moving right along...

Gameinformer has kind-of lost my faith at redeeming themselves. They have not given ANY Sonic game more than a 7 if Colors even made it that far! Generations got a 6.75, from them meaning that is was good for a Sonic game. Thank god my subscription ends this month!

[Serephim]

I dont know why anyone takes game critics seriously anymore. They're just as fucking retarded as the fans who trash them or defend them to no end.

Just play the game and enjoy it became my motto this last year. If you listen to GI/IGNorance/Gamespot all day then you'll probably just come to hate videogames down the road...

[luksamuk]

If you listen to GI/IGNorance/Gamespot all day then you'll probably just come to hate videogames down the road...

Better saying: If SEGA still had a top console, filled their asses with money and let them have an idiotic video channel to make players hear shit on the console's online network, then maybe Generations would score 9.5.

Specially with IGNorance

[TailsSena]

True. GI get's payed by Nintendo, and for some reason legit-ly like CoD... (*facedesk*)

Why else would they label Sonic as "kiddy" and not Mario? I think we all know who's kiddier these days.

[DJ espeed]

*ahem*

Anyways...

I've been renting this game from redbox and am considering a purchase. It's pretty good in my eyes. I've been enjoying it, namely for the fan service and nostalgia put into the stage designs. It's neat.

So I got past Seaside Hill, played some of the challenge acts. Even got around to the Shadow battle. The attacks you get with the pink orbs are lame. You just run into meteors, making them hit Shadow. And then, once you're close enough, you basically sit on top of him until his rings are gone and have gotten the last hit on him. It's lame. Sadly, the best part of it would have to be the remix of "For True Story". At least that's one thing they got right with it, IMO. That's not to say this game is bad. But that battle just sucked.

Speaking of Challenge acts, I think they're kinda fun and quirky. But I'd enjoy them more if they weren't required to get the Boss Keys. Boss keys. Really? >:| I've got two more to get in the DC era before I can face off against Perfect Chaos. I wish I could find the other two, but they just want to be needles in a haystack.

Save for the lame Shadow battle and the boss keys, this game isn't all too bad so far. :I

[luksamuk]

Games themselves are kiddy. We want new ideas these days.

SOMEONE PLEASE HEAR ME! I'd love to see a First-Person Medieval War game.

[Serephim]

That shadow battle was awesome. Just the way you kill him was pretty lame. I guess they decided not to try and explain Sonic's magic wind attack he gained for that fight. The lamest part to me was how easy they take it on you. Shadow doesn't even try to get the cores unless you're battling him for it, and then he somehow manages to outdo you.

The most disappointing point of generations to me was the Egg Dragoon battle, which just felt somewhat clunky to me compared to the other bosses as of late, especially the original egg dragoon battle. It just felt like it lacked a solid concept, and the seemingly scripted bad handling on sonic in that fight was infuriating. The final boss was...interesting. The music was very very catchy, and i dont mind having to figure stuff out every now and then, but for the first 3 lives i honestly had no clue what to do against that guy. Aside from that, the thing that pissed me off the most about this game so far is that i actually managed to get 50 rings during the Perfect Chaos battle, but it wouldn't let me fucking transform to relive the old fight.

Speaking of Super Sonic...im pretty underwhelmed at the Classic version (he feels absolutely no different, i dont even think he jumps higher), the most useful thing about him is that he can't be damaged. I was EXPECTING his super form to have uncapped speed (spindash max being his actual max), which would have been amazing. But he's just like equipping a pair of speed shoes -- you probably wont even notice.

....and speaking of Modern Supersonic...he makes the game even more fun because of how surprisingly difficult it is to achieve and maintain the form, since his rings run out so god damn fast when you use him. But when you boost with him, he goes shit fast, and he's even scripted to fly past parts of the stage if you boost with him to make it even better (but then your rings decrease like triple the speed....)

But the thing about Modern Supersonic (which is ironically the same for Sonic 2's supersonic) is that he's surprisingly buggy at times....I've been flying through a stage and had him just straight fly OFF a platform at times because he was hovering too high for the spring...And at one point in Seaside Hill, i actually got damaged using him. the rolling circle stones near the end of the stage can actually damage supersonic, which PISSED me of because i had finally found a good situation to use his boost ability and was about to beat my old time but just got hit instead.

But his flying ability is super awesome. It works like Chaos Control from Shadow the Hedgehog, except actually fun because it keeps you in control.

[TailsSena]

Well, the Seaside Hill rocks crush you, and remember that no matter what game or what situation, no Sonic character in any form with any power-up is immune to being crushed. ...Unless you cheat in some way...

[DimensionWarped]

Actually I agree with Game Informer... the score I mean. Not the sentiment. Actually, I found the whole thing to be decent enough, but not really polished enough to be worth a second look. I felt Sonic Colors was really a much better, more consistent and well planned out game over all, and I still wouldn't have called that more than an 8.5 or a 9.

That said, if the game had been consistently as awesome as the rival battles were, I would have a completely different opinion.

On the other hand, I'm also probably a little sore about how Classic Sonic was basically just a bad joke, made to be inferior to its successor to the point of wanting to ape him by the end of the game. He received about a third of the screen time as well, and the classic levels received about the same (considering the length of the stages). I don't see the reason for making a game feature the classic Sonic stuff if you aren't going to give it at least equal emphasis and not act like your bullshit is superior. It reeks of Takashi Izuka's ill-deserved egotism. I'm pretty convinced that the whole reason for including Classic Sonic was less about celebrating their past and much more an attempt to belittle it. It's not like classic Sonic was conceived as an early 20's black and white silent film era Felix the Cat type character anyway. Oh sure, the influence was there in the character design, but it was decidedly more modern. Sonic was more like Felix the Cat from the slightly campy 1988 movie that I used to have on VHS when I was about 4. And by the way, Felix could always talk. Felix not talking was just a limitation of the medium, just like Mickey Mouse. It's not like this wasn't established early on with Sonic either.

There are about a thousand little desires for details and consistency that just make me very resentful of the whole thing... which is a damn shame, because a lot of effort was put into this game, but as usual it just wasn't all the right effort for my tastes.

Below spoiler isn't really game spoiling, just trying to cut down on the ranty aspects of this post...

DW's Wish List for this game included the following:

• Less easy stages, variety of difficulty in stages picked from all over. Also, chronological order of the series never should have decided the level order, that was a huge faux pas.
  
• Consistency. They spoiled the classic Sonic narrative by introducing a classic Tails who not only could talk, but was basically indistinguishable from his counterpart in attitude and mentality.
  
• Speaking of classic characters, I was miffed to see that they missed an excellent opportunity to explore more of the classic character relationships to their modern counterpart. Modern Vector and Classic Vector would have been epic as would have Charmy meeting his past self... which is entirely nonsensical.
  
• Classic renditions of characters who lacked classical presence. Specifically, this would have meant classic Blaze, Rouge, Shadow, and Silver. It just would have been amusing really.
  
• Controls that didn't make me think my TV had gained considerable output delay and a spindash that didn't suck so much that was awesome and wasn't so awesome that it sucked. Also rolling. Rolling wasn't in this game. Oh sure, Sonic looked like he was rolling, but clearly that move was just a fancy looking way to break.
  
• Less abritrary holes. I was pretty pissed to fall off a pylon in Sky Sanctuary as classic Sonic going towards the left... which I had entered from the right only to fall to my doom, knowing that there were in fact platforms right below where I was falling and recovering my position would have taken 5 seconds... had it been the original sky sanctuary, which didn't immediately drag the death line up with you.
  
• Enemies that didn't suck. Anyone who has ever played one of my demos should realize I hate boring enemies that don't do anything and can't defend themselves.
  
• Yeah SEGA, I saw what you did there what with that shoddily emulated, badly scaled, ugly, visually polluted and generally defiled Sonic 1 rom you stuck in there. I don't know whether I should be cynical about you all trying to sell the same game to people (thus making a free version suck ass) or cynical about you all trying to make Sonic 1 look like a worse game by making it uglier so that modern Sonic games look that much prettier by comparison. In my ideal, they wouldn't have even bothered with this.
  

[TailsSena]

Classic Blaze would've been cool to see as well...

And there's a Sonic 1 ROM in there? Which one? Genesis, Saturn, GBA, or DS?

[DimensionWarped]

Genesis naturally.

[Serephim]

There really was no rolling in this game. But like i said, i honestly could not ever bring myself to really care.

Classic Sonic was sort of the sidekick in this game. I find it interesting they decided to choose the route of "future/past" instead of inter-dimensional alter ego." In that sense it would make modern sonic superior. But the only difference between Classic and Modern Sonic is how the games are able to protray their abilities -- classic sonic moves on a 2D plane, jumps and rolls, while modern sonic is able to pretty much do whatever they'll script him to do for the stage. In every animated appearance of Classic sonic in the past, he's pretty much indistinguishable from Modern Sonic in terms of ability. Except i do find it interesting that they've come to accept the Homing Attack as one of sonic's actual natural abilities. I guess it started with Sonic 06's opening, but Unleashed seemed to protray an obvious blue energy with his disposal of the robots in the opening as well.

Sonic was obviously able to talk in the genesis games, but i believe the reason they left it out is simply to keep the image (and im guessing the only reason Classic Tails/robotnick was talking is because it'd be very difficult and one-sided to have any kind of story between talkative and mute characters.) It's the same principle around Sonic's mouth as of late -- ever since Sonic Adventure his mouth had been properly centered on his head, but sometime around Unleashed i guess they thought it was more "nostalgic" for the "sidemouth" idea. It never bothered me until i played Unleashed, where not only Tails but Amy also (a hedgehog too) had their mouths placed where they were supposed to be. So now, sonic just looks weird to me.

As for Classic Sonic's involvement in gameplay...no, i'd honestly say it was 50/50 on that one. I remember spending a longgg time on Planet Wisp classic. It was wonderful of course, but i'd say the game was split pretty equal this time around.

But yeah i guess the whole idea behind the game is that you aren't supposed to think too hard on it -- it's pretty obvious to everyone what this game was supposed to be, but the decision to make it canon (and the specifically point to its entry) was a pretty bold one TBH. It's obvious that Sonic as of late just doesn't take itself seriously anymore, which allows them to get alot more creative with stuff. The whole Saturday Morning humor thing has been going on since Unleashed, and it's only been drifting even farther into that category.

[quote name='Dimension Winnie;146331

[*] Less easy stages' date=' variety of difficulty in stages picked from all over. Also, chronological order of the series never should have decided the level order, that was a huge faux pas.

[b']

I actually thought it was a good idea. I dont know, made it easier for me to anticipate what was coming next. Although i already saw the leaked list, i had no issue with the "era" spacing of the levels.

[/b]

[*] Consistency. They spoiled the classic Sonic narrative by introducing a classic Tails who not only could talk, but was basically indistinguishable from his counterpart in attitude and mentality.

Yeahh i dont get that. I guess they didn't want to give the fans something else to bitch and moan about, seeing as Classic Sonic is the jesus of this series.

[*] Controls that didn't make me think my TV had gained considerable output delay and a spindash that didn't suck so much that was awesome and wasn't so awesome that it sucked. Also rolling. Rolling wasn't in this game. Oh sure, Sonic looked like he was rolling, but clearly that move was just a fancy looking way to break.

I found it hilarious that you literally decelerate if you choose to roll with sonic. That, and i could barely ever get him to actually do it. By the time i was done with chemical plant though, i believe i rarely even used the down button to roll -- the instant-spindash was just far more effective than anything else.

I dont get why people call it "broken" though. It's no less broken than the boost for Modern Sonic, which is actually one of the quickest ways to murder yourself this time around.

[*] Less abritrary holes. I was pretty pissed to fall off a pylon in Sky Sanctuary as classic Sonic going towards the left... which I had entered from the right only to fall to my doom, knowing that there were in fact platforms right below where I was falling and recovering my position would have taken 5 seconds... had it been the original sky sanctuary, which didn't immediately drag the death line up with you.

I dont really get this one, i rarely got killed by falling down a pit i didn't know was actually there. The whole "THIS IS DEATH" sign idea is probably the best thing they've done in a while. If a pit killed me, it was probably due to an actual error on my half. Either that or the shitty delay i sometimes experience on this game (which i believe has to do with the framerate)

[*] Enemies that didn't suck. Anyone who has ever played one of my demos should realize I hate boring enemies that don't do anything and can't defend themselves.

Didn't bother me, because i honestly don't remember too many enemies (only 3 come to mind as of me writing this) that actually did anything but stand there and die in the genesis games. There were spring enemies, enemies with rotating spike balls, and those fuckshit mantis bastards from Metropolis Zone.

[*] Yeah SEGA, I saw what you did there what with that shoddily emulated, badly scaled, ugly, visually polluted and generally defiled Sonic 1 rom you stuck in there. I don't know whether I should be cynical about you all trying to sell the same game to people (thus making a free version suck ass) or cynical about you all trying to make Sonic 1 look like a worse game by making it uglier so that modern Sonic games look that much prettier by comparison. In my ideal, they wouldn't have even bothered with this.

....Huh? I saw a video of the Sega Genesis controller thing a while ago. Looked identical to me playing Sonic1 on Emulator TBH...

Anyway, in all i can overlook most of the physics problems with classic sonic. Probably because i haven't been wanting a classic sonic game, i've just been wanting a fun one. While the physics aren't 1:1 and honestly are pretty wonky at times, it's nothing that could possibly hinder me from enjoying the game because i still felt like i was playing a classic sonic game, unlike in Sonic 4 where it felt like Sega was trying to pull shit over on us.

tl;dr, i dont think the physics are as important as everyone is making them out to be. Yes, the closer to the old the better, but i feel like they actually met it halfway this time. It has its good moments and it has its bad, just like the old games did. The game isn't perfect, but neither were the genesis titles. And the Dreamcast ones sure as hell had their issues as well.

[DimensionWarped]

I was referring to the split of classic levels vs modern levels, not the split of time played as classic vs modern Sonic. As in, you get a 3 stages based around the classic era and 6 stages based around the modern era (and yes, Adventure is the modern era). It's reflected in the bosses you fight in those eras as well.

Honestly did not like Planet Wisp. It dragged, like most Sonic stages that last longer than 6 minutes tend to. It also lacked a lot of the beauty and appeal that it had in Colors.

....Huh? I saw a video of the Sega Genesis controller thing a while ago. Looked identical to me playing Sonic1 on Emulator TBH...

Videos don't do anything justice. The only way you are going to know how ugly that Sonic rom is will be if you play it yourself. It doesn't help that they crop it awkwardly and that it scales poorly (at least on a 1080p television).

I dont really get this one, i rarely got killed by falling down a pit i didn't know was actually there. The whole "THIS IS DEATH" sign idea is probably the best thing they've done in a while. If a pit killed me, it was probably due to an actual error on my half. Either that or the shitty delay i sometimes experience on this game (which i believe has to do with the framerate)

Oh, I rarely ever died... probably four or five times outside of the boss fights in total. But 100% of those were due to holes, and the one that stuck out most to me stuck out because it was a structure identical to what was in the original Sky Sancutary, but fell short in that particular aspect for no decent reason. I'm fine with death pits used in a proper sparing fashion, but when those pits exist where they physically shouldn't and where the precedent set from the source material is for them not to exist there, then that's a problem to me. And yeah, lots of random slowdown while playing on PS3 confounded the pit problem.

Didn't bother me, because i honestly don't remember too many enemies (only 3 come to mind as of me writing this) that actually did anything but stand there and die in the genesis games. There were spring enemies, enemies with rotating spike balls, and those fuckshit mantis bastards from Metropolis Zone.

You know, I can agree with this, the number of actual trying enemies in even the classic Sonic games were pretty low. Still, you should be able to pick out at least one from each game that was a total pain in the ass, and it's my opinion that if you are going to bother to have enemies in the first place that they should be a challenge that needs to be overcome and not exclusively exist as a stepping stone. You can use perfectly good stepping stones to that end.

I found it hilarious that you literally decelerate if you choose to roll with sonic. That, and i could barely ever get him to actually do it. By the time i was done with chemical plant though, i believe i rarely even used the down button to roll -- the instant-spindash was just far more effective than anything else.

I dont get why people call it "broken" though. It's no less broken than the boost for Modern Sonic, which is actually one of the quickest ways to murder yourself this time around.

There is just something wrong to me about a move that grants that much speed and relative safety that easily. I don't like the boost either, so there's that... but again, this was supposed to be a so called classical Sonic, and the way he moves just isn't classical at all, and this was one of those instances where not only did they miss the boat, they got so drunk that they took a Sea-Doo.

[Strife]

tl;dr, i dont think the physics are as important as everyone is making them out to be. Yes, the closer to the old the better, but i feel like they actually met it halfway this time. It has its good moments and it has its bad, just like the old games did. The game isn't perfect, but neither were the genesis titles. And the Dreamcast ones sure as hell had their issues as well.

Quoted for truth. Sonic Adventure is very fondly remembered despite its horrendous bugs and physics. And while the classic games had an incredible physics engine that suited the style of gameplay almost flawlessly, at some point Sega simply needed to move on like all of the other platforming franchises. Mario sure as heck doesn't use the same core engine that was used in his first few games - Super Mario Bros 2, for example, uses a completely different engine than its predecessor and indeed most other Mario platformers.

I think it's not so much that Sega needs to mimic the Genesis-era physics so much as they need to make whatever engine they use accommodate the style of gameplay, and just as importantly, design their levels around this. In normal people lingo, that means they just need to make it fun, at least to get me on board.

[DimensionWarped]

... Why even mention SMB 2 knowing that it was roughly the equivalent of a rom hack?

Ignoring SMB2, since the only way in which it is really a Mario game is that it is frequently referenced... the 2D Mario games remained more or less the same in their basic concept forever, and 3D Mario picked a formula and stuck with it too, but the basic mechanics still didn't go against what the series was... which was simple running and jumping. If you want to say that's all Sonic was ever about too, fine, but in doing so you'd miss a world of subtlety.

[Kirs]

I replayed Sonic Adventure (DX) a lot of times and I dont found any noticeable bug. The physics were good too. It's just that for being the first full 3D installment, the controls needed a bit of tweaking when running on walls or ceils : /

[Strife]

... Why even mention SMB 2 knowing that it was roughly the equivalent of a rom hack?

Ignoring SMB2, since the only way in which it is really a Mario game is that it is frequently referenced... the 2D Mario games remained more or less the same in their basic concept forever, and 3D Mario picked a formula and stuck with it too, but the basic mechanics still didn't go against what the series was... which was simple running and jumping. If you want to say that's all Sonic was ever about too, fine, but in doing so you'd miss a world of subtlety.

True. xD; Still, Sega's been trying to return to its roots for so long that I'm wondering if it's even the best option for them at this point.

[Serephim]

I replayed Sonic Adventure (DX) a lot of times and I dont found any noticeable bug. The physics were good too. It's just that for being the first full 3D installment, the controls needed a bit of tweaking when running on walls or ceils : /

It wasn't so much bugs as it was just the physics engine not working very well.

The pathing during 3D segments and stuff were pretty wonky (hell they still are, but they work MILLIONS of times better today than before), but most importantly, you were not capable of touching a wall without losing all of your speed. The game constantly shot you off in paths that were impossible to navigate perfectly. My favorite stage in the whole game was Sky Deck, but it was full of physics errors. And sonic's ability to run on walls was completely shabby...basically, it never worked. Ever. Except for that ONE scripted part in the first stage.

SA2 wasn't much different, but it was much, much more solid. I can't recall any actual serious glitches i ever encountered in that game, most of them had to do with the lightspeed dash or rails. I think Heroes was the most solid one, the only thing about it is that they greatly increased his speed but the handling was pretty wonky. Only recently, i guess they realized the only way they could include ridiculous speeds and the ability to actually turn would be to either 1) give sonic a drift (which works much better in generations than in unleashed, where it was much harder to use) or 2), assist the player with their turning during hard parts.

I think it's not so much that Sega needs to mimic the Genesis-era physics so much as they need to make whatever engine they use accommodate the style of gameplay, and just as importantly, design their levels around this. In normal people lingo, that means they just need to make it fun, at least to get me on board.

This is pretty much the way i feel.

I never played Sonic the Hedgehog because it had a nice physics engine, i played it because it was fun. I was still in the single digits of age by the time i was able to beat the game while barely losing any lives with all the chaos/super emeralds until the very end.

Sonic's more recent issues haven't been physics. A better physics engine wouldn't magically make sonic games better. Sonic Generations (as well as colors) uses almost a direct port of the physics engine used in Sonic Unleashed. The only thing they've been changing is their level design and content.

[TailsSena]

Although... '06 would probably be magically better if the physics worked... You could stand on the ceiling, and scripted paths could be interrupted by anything from a pebble (literally) to a wall or ceiling... Slope detection is also bad. Stand on the top of a roof and it'll go crazy trying to figure out which side you're standing on. Knuckles often stuck to walls and couldn't detach, and some rails didn't fling you off at the end, instead keeping you there until you jumped off yourself.