General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

It did but the physics in that game were wonky as hell.

At most up sloped walls. To get a 3D feel of the same thing you did in 2D Sonic games as you sped up a tall slope.

And I believe that it was because of the them trying to apply running up slopes and along walls like that is what caused the physics to fuck up.

But yeah, still. Only certain walls in early 3D Sonics, or scripted transaction sections in later games.

Being able to just leg it up any surface would be neat, but probably a huge pain for level designers.

edited 12th Dec '15 11:20:52 AM by Geist-Fox

You can run up any sloped surface in Sa1...but the physics of that game just weren't ready for such advanced control shift when you did.

Sa2 definitely made sure to get rid of all those that weren't area specific.

edited 12th Dec '15 11:53:46 AM by randomness4

YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.

Speaking of SA 1, I was replaying it recently and I remembered just how awesome the soundtrack is to that game.

Adventure 1 might be my favorite game soundtrack (not counting Smash Bros as that's basically remixes of other soundtracks with one original tune that is remixed to death). It's just so mesmerizing.

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

Ohhhnooo.

It's unwritten law that when sonic music is brought up in any positive fashion during an online discussion, that chain gushing about said sonic music begins.

Bring out the links guys!!!

My favorite and the most mesmerizing IMO.

that chain paused rather quickly

Regarding A1, one of its many accomplishments is that it provided some of the most strangely appropriate volcano music ever known:

"Tell them to shut up and have some faith in me." - dead flashback guy

Twinkle Circuit is a personal fav of mine.

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

I thought for sure this would show up somewhere in Generations' arrangement of Speed Highway. Alas...

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I swear, that backbeat has to have been sampled from a Public Enemy song, but Who Sampled has failed me on this front.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

FOUND IT, and I was wrong but close enough but not really

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

So disappointed there wasn't a remix of that. Would have been cool for one of the missions at least.

To be specific...

It's one thing to make a spectacle. It's another to make a difference.

On the list of "unexpected places to hear Supercat"...

Though I guess not so unexpected. Either way, on the topic of sick instrumental beats...

edited 13th Dec '15 11:08:06 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I always wanted a wild canyon instrumental. It has such a cool beat.

Ah, thanks, didn't realize there was an officially-released instrumental.

He just wants to fly. Put your arms around him, baby, put your arms around him, baby.

Also, that piece is pretty sick. Where in Adventure 2 does that song show up?

Man, I always seem to forget how fantastic SEGA always has been at music in their games, especially in the Dreamcast era. That sounds like it could've been in a Jet Set Radio game. It's like late '80s jazz, when jazz started taking hip-hop influence.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

That's Knuckles' terrible rap from SA 2 without the vocals. As far as I know, you can only officially get it from that album.

The same album also has an instrumental of Knuckles' even more terrible rap from the first one. And everyone else's themes, too.

And I'm with you on how awesome their influences were back then. Rouge's theme is one of my favorite vocal Sonic tracks ever because of it - someone in their music department was definitely listening to some Fertile Ground at the time.

Me too. Of all Knuckles' songs, at least going by the music behind it, Wild Canyon has got to be my favorite.

edited 14th Dec '15 10:55:35 AM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I wonder if Sega recorded the song and went "Yeah, this sounds good, not like shit in the slightest"

It's not Ogre, It's Never Ogre.

I'm not convinced that English was the lyricists' first language, so the awkwardness probably didn't dawn on them.

And, honestly, outside of the awkward lyrics, I thought the Knuckles raps had decent enough backing melodies.

Moon◊

Aye, they do, particularly with Death Chamber and Meteor Herd. It certainly helped to make going through those stages more tolerable.

edited 14th Dec '15 12:29:48 PM by Komodin

Experience has taught me to investigate anything that glows.

I actually like Wild Canyon's theme, despite how cheesy it is.

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

The rapping itself isn't terrible(the fact they're so memorable says at least something), honestly I hear worst crap on the radio daily but the lyrics are extremely narmtastic.

edited 14th Dec '15 1:20:52 PM by Vertigo_High

Pumpkin Hill a best.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

So, I was watching SGB's most recent part of their Shadow the Hedgehog playthrough and I couldn't help but feel like writing this big ass rant on my feelings on the game. I was gonna post this in the comments, but I felt like it was a little too long. Just giving a warning, this is a long read. I'm probably wrong on somethings or I'm just repeating what has been said before, but I just wanted to get this out of my system.

(Note:I'm not the biggest Sonic the Hedgehog fan out there. I like the series well enough, but I'm not a huge fan of the series. I just really hate Shadow the Hedgehog{The game, not so much the character}. A lot.)

I'll give Sonic 06 this, it could've been better. It could've been a good game, great, possibly something people would see worthy of calling Adventure 3. But it's quite obvious that they rushed it for the 15th anniversary of the franchise. Though, when I say it could've been better, I mostly mean in just about everywhere but the writing. Maybe. If 06 wasn't as much of a buggy mess, it'd likely still have problems like Elise, Mephiles, and the kiss resurrection scene(Though Elise and the kiss scene could be salvaged with making Elise a anthro like the majority of the Sonic characters).

Even Rise of Lyric(And to a lesser extent, Shattered Crystal) could've been better then what we got if it wasn't for being rushed for both the holiday season and the release of the show. It does have some interesting and good ideas, just really bad execution. It'd certainly be less of a glitch fest in just about everything(from the gameplay to cutscenes). Perhaps they could've made the combat have more depth and meaning. Hell, maybe even the collectibles would have more of a point.

Shadow the Hedgehog, on the other hand, is very hard to salvage. For one thing, the game wasn't rushed for one reason or another. From what I understand, this is the intended final product. And it sucks. Majorly. With the former two games, you can at least blame rushing the game out for a reason(To get something out for the 15th anniversery and to tie in with the show and the holiday rush) for a lot of the game's problems. You can't do that with Shadow. The game, while not as buggy as the other two mentioned, still has some problems with the gameplay. For one thing, the spindash is just as worthless as it was in Heroes. The homing attack can end up screwing you over. Even though it isn't as glitchy, their are still times when you can die by accident thanks to a glitch. Shadow feels very slippery to control which can lead to you hitting something. Theirs also the melee attack that's about as useful as Banjo's Bear Paw attack in the original Banjo Kazooie. But the game has much more bigger problems.

First, the reason why this game exists in the first place; to answer if Shadow's just a clone or the real thing. However, why make a game to explain this plot point if you could've easily done that in the previous game? Why doesn't Rouge ever tell him about his past or about the Shadow's in the pod? She's got no reason not to. Besides, the game barely even goes into this in to whether Shadow's a clone or not. Besides a few mentions(Which you could miss if you didn't take he right path. And even then, with the endings that have him accepting he's a robot, they're basically pointless since the true canon ending exists once you get every other ending), it barely has to do with the game at all. And the way it gets explained is stupid in that it feels tacked on(You get the explanation by waiting long enough in the final boss. You could probably miss hearing this and never find out how he came back to life) and poorly written(Shadow gets saved cause Robotnik sent a robot to save him before he fell to Earth and dies and is put away in stasis.).

There's also the fact that we don't learn that much about Shadow's past besides what we already know(Maria got killed because... Because). And what we do learn(Which involves two of the worst characters{IMO} in the Sonic Franchises thus far, Black Doom and that GUN Commander leads to even more questions and plot holes.

Another big selling point of the game, the morality play, is crap. No matter who you side with, all the enemies will attack you. And there will be points in the game where you need to kill the enemies to proceed with the game. And no matter what ending you choose, they all don't matter(barring true hero) since theirs a Last Story to unlock. The way you choose you alignment sucks since 1) it relies on missions to choose a different pathway, 2)you're gonna have to at least replay Westopolis several times just to get all the endings since you can't just choose a level and continue from there, 3) the missions suck as they're usually monotonously boring and/or frustrating, and 4) the story doesn't blend well with the gameplay or your choices. Theirs also the problem where if you just wanna play the game like any other Sonic(IE: Get from point a to point b at a fast rate) by choosing to go Neutral, odds are you're gonna have a very short playthrough. Bad enough when you've bough this game used for little money(or if you rented it back then), awful you paid the full retail price back when it came out. And odds are, if you wanna do a different pathway, you'll have to do some sort of obnoxious task that will likely take a while to complete to change the level. And in some cases, you can even miss out on changing your path/continuing it(Like when you're chasing after the President's ship or the Black Arms ship). And then theirs the fact that some levels are just plain unfun, long treks to go through no matter which pathway you choose.

The only other selling point of the game is the "edgy" stuff(Weapons, vehicles, cursing, and killing people). Out of all 4 of these, only 1 works well. The weapons. As stupid as they are, they actually work well and can be very useful. Only problem is that theirs no manual locking on, but that's not too bad of a problem. The vehicles, outside of the mini mech, are unpolished, useless, frustrating, and have no point since your faster then them. You can skip them all and not miss out on anything. Killing stuff is pretty light, surprisingly. Enemy soldiers just sorta faint while the Black Arms bleed green and don't die all that graphically. Cutscene deaths(Like Maria and Robotnik) get off pretty easy since we don't see them die on screen. And the cursing, well, it's unneeded and stupid.

To make a long story short, I feel that Shadow the Hedgehog is an awful game; one of the worst Sonic games I've played(Note:I've not played 06 or Rise of Lyric. The only other Sonic game I find this bad that I've played is Chronicles. And even that I find better then Shadow). It's existence comes from a plot point that should've been solved in the previous game and it's over selling points are either stupid or poorly executed. I don't really have much of an idea on how you could fix this game, story or gameplay wise.

My Tumblr "If theirs one thing I'm good at, it's blowing" Jesse Cox 2013

I swear I mentally read SGB as "supergreatbriend". Every single time.

Moon◊

I still read it as Super Game Boy.

I think the best way to sum up Shadow the Hedgehog in terms of Mario is, it wanted to be the Wario Land, but it turned out more like the Yoshi's Story. (Now just imagine an ending where the black Yoshi says, "FINALLY, I'VE GOT ALL THE SUPER HAPPY FRUITS," while the fruits orbit around him and Baby Bowser is on the ground pleading for his life.)

Certainly they made the level progression simple enough to understand but also to where the story rarely makes any sense, as every level from the third onward has two or three levels Shadow could have come from by taking opposite missions, and characters don't fault Shadow on zigzagging morality or anything he's done in previous levels, yet bosses always appear on the same levels even if you were helping those in charge of the boss. Oh and apparently you don't have to beat every level to unlock anything but the Extra trial, only every ending for the Last Story, and I guess you only have to A-rank a mission on each level for the Extra Mode too, so I imagine players can get away with repeating a lot of the easiest stuff.

I was a little puzzled after I realized that three fifth levels' scenes begin in Iron Jungle, and in two of them Shadow meets Sonic on a spaceship rather than the android army, and it's the "most heroic" path where Shadow steals the Chaos Emerald powering the craft mid-flight and spends the whole level in a flashback, whereas the "lesser" one has Shadow actually help Sonic search the Ark. But then the other fifth levels may show the "watered-down violence" for the new rating, as the Dark missions appear to have you murder the President, yet he miraculously gets away safely somehow, in the same cutscene for both levels no less! And LOL at paths that lead to Lava Shelter without any of the hints about androids or even meeting Dr. Eggman. Then the Last Story is frustrating because its beginning matches none of the endings really, so we never learn for sure what exactly Shadow did do over most of this game to get those Emeralds.

It's funny, after Retsupurae played Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, there were comments requesting some other bad Sonic games, but I don't think Shadow the Hedgehog even works that well for a straight longplay due to the many replays required to witness its full nonsense. (This playlist was a good way to see most of it at your own preference, though, if only Azura would finish putting in annotation links for the later levels.) And the 2006 game turned out to have a lot of similarities in plot and style with Shadow of Destiny/Memories, another adventure game Retsupurae covered, if you threw in a bit of Chrono Trigger's plot as well. But then Shadow the Hedgehog suddenly reminded me of when Retsupurae watched Harvester, because the Sergeant-at-Arms basically is Black Doom, yes? He's got the gravelly voice, he tempts a troubled young amnesiac into committing bigger and bigger atrocities... All these quirky characters keep bothering you with their own agendas... In fact, I think each game would benefit from each other's plot revelations: I thought Harvester made more sense if there really were space aliens putting on the whole thing as an act to test their understanding of humanity out on someone, like "Eh, eh, this is what you're like, right? We totally get you!" While in Shadow the Hedgehog, maybe all the paths are canon because

Black Doom has got Shadow locked in a simulation of all the places he might go to participate in the war, which he repeats with his mind wiped a little differently each time, to see what Shadow's capable of. After the Black Arms are defeated, the simulator is found and repurposed into a training exercise.