All right, it's about time I got Sonic and his friends back from the future.
So, the next level is Crisis City, this game's representative in Generations. It statrs with another goddamn snowboarding segment, though at least this one isn't as painful as the one in White Acropolis. There are even a few extra lives to collect if you're good/lucky enough. One thing I noticed here, though: jumping on the board is totally scripted. That is, the game refuses to read any sort of input while you're in the air.
Anyway, this leads into the real meat of the level, which is of course the regular platforming part. It starts out with Sonic on a rail, and let me tell you, the grinding in Sonic '06 is terrible. It seems to be drawing from Heroes, giving Sonic the inverting move you had there, but there's no balancing mechanic. Even worse, they didn't program anything special for switching between rails, instead forcing you to do a full jump with the regular jump physics. As a result, it's safer to just stay on the rail you start on for this section.
Now, let's talk briefly about the enemies here. Since it's the future and Eggman's long dead, of course his reskinned SA2 models are nowhere to be found. Instead we get Iblis monsters, which may be reskinned Shadow the Hedgehog enemies:
- Four-legged lizards that breathe fire and might be reskinned Black Arms foot soldiers.
- Bats that drop rocks and could be reskinned Black Arms bats, but bats are such a ubiquitous enemy in video games that I'll give Sonic Team the benefit of the doubt on this one.
- Worms that like to spawn in the places you're most likely to be moving over and are probably reskinned Black Arms worms.
- Giants that throw boulders, take lots of hits to kill, and are most likely reskinned Black Arms giants.
You'll note that I don't have the highest opinion of this game's enemy designers.
Also, this section contained the first instance this playthrough where I died by no fault of my own because the spring that was supposed to launch me into the next part of the level glitched and launched me passed the spring it was scripted to launch me into.
Anyway, this segment ends by launching Sonic into the next part, which involves jumping between bits of debris that are being carried by strong winds. This part has a pretty neat gimmick where all the platforms are constantly in motion because they aren't on solid ground, but it's over far too quickly, and it leads into the most infamous Mach Speed section of all.
"That tornado's carrying a car!" Sonic says as the section begins, and if it were merely a car that the tornado was carrying this wouldn't be too bad. This section just throws obstacles at you to an absurd degree, and you can't collect the rings you drop in Mach Speed sections. To make matters worse, the camera shifts several times here, reversing the controls whenever it does so.
Oh, and did I neglect to mention that if something (say, a crate) is coded to damage you, even the smallest piece of it will throw Sonic into the breakdance of death?
I'm pretty sure this section alone cost me more lives than any previous level, and with the earlier script failure death, Crisis City is the most lethal level of the Sonic playthrough thus far.
I finished with a B-rank.
Notably, finishing this level unlocks Shadow's story, so now I can play as all three hedgehogs.
After the level, Team Sonic is walking through a hallway they couldn't possibly get to from the end of Crisis City, when they witness Silver and Blaze the Cat talking with someone who looks like Shadow, but with gray highlights, no mouth, and the voice of Dan Green. Dan Green explains that the world was ruined on the Day of Disaster, when Iblis was unleashed. He then tells them that they'll need to kill the Iblis Trigger, before handing Silver the purple Chaos Emerald.
Somehow the Emerald shows Silver an image of Sonic standing in a sea of flames, and for some reason that's enough to convince Silver that Sonic's the Iblis Trigger. Dan Green then takes them to the past.
Naturally, our heroes decide to check out the room Silver was in, and Tails notices something on the computer: two days after the Festival of the Sun, Elise died aboard the Egg Carrier. For some reason this adds a sense of urgency to a story about time travel.
Now, our heroes head to a wasteland area and meet with Shadow and Rouge, who already have a Chaos Emerald (green). The reason we're here is apparently because we were following a signal from a Chaos Emerald, which is in the next level: Flame Core.
As you might expect from the name, this level is full of magma. It also has sections with falling rocks that give very little notice of their arrival and explode in a highly underwhelming manner when they hit the ground. Add in fire jets from specially marked bits of ground (at least these give you some warning) and "arena" sections with a bunch of enemies you need to kill to proceed, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the first part of this level is like.
Once that part's down, we head into a volcano, which isn't quite the dumbest thing Sonic's done in his life. The first part of this area has lots of dash pads that you have to be careful around because they can launch you right into enemies, fire jets, or cliffs. It also contains one of the very few invincibility power-ups in the game, placed right before a downward running bit with terrible camera angle.
The next part has the lights go out. You're supposed to homing attack the bluish-purple spheres to get temporary light, but it honestly isn't that dark and the spheres don't give much light anyway.
Ignoring them leads to a faster path anyway.
After another brief platforming segment, I'm in control of Knuckles for another dark room. Knuckles can glide at a glacial pace, and he can also climb walls and punch things. With these powers, he's charged with punching a number of light spheres so that they're all on at once. The best way to do this is by ignoring every enemy so they don't slow you down too much.
Once all the lights are on, it's back to Sonic for the next part of the level. It has a sequence of springs that land Sonic on a dash pad that launches him into an unavoidable fire jet, meaning that your ring bonus is going to suck no matter what seeing as this is the last part of the level.
Other than that, the segment's pretty short, ending with another downward tunnel of poor camerawork leading to the goal ring and my B-rank.
After the level, we encounter another Chaos Emerald (light blue). Rouge tries to grab it despite Shadow screaming at her not to, and a giant worm-thing appears out of the lava to fight us.
Now, it's time for the third boss fight, against Iblis. He's only got two real attacks: dancing in midair to somehow launch rocks at you and charging right at you. He can also drop stalactites on the arena, and you're supposed to use them to get to a trio of light orbs that you can use to redirect his charge. After he hits one, his weak spot (a big green eye on his forehead) is exposed, allowing Sonic to homing attack it. Once that's done, you repeat until he's been hit three times, at which point his next charge will break through several platforms (possibly nowhere near you) and then you have to homing attack his forehead-eye one last time to kill him.
Simple enough. The problem is how slow the battle is. If you don't cheese it by using mercy invincibility to reach the light orbs, it takes over a minute to be able to hit Iblis, and after hitting him you go through an incredibly long sequence where Sonic is launched backward, hits a spring, and is launched back into the arena. The fight as a whole lasts over four minutes this way, and I got a B-rank on it.
Anyway, now it's time for Sonic and Shadow to use Chaos Control to…open a time...portal...
Okay, I'm pretty sure that's not how Chaos Control ever worked in any of the previous games.
Continuity errors aside, Team Sonic arrives back in the present, where Sonic confirms the date with a copy of the "Daily Soreana".
We're then dropped into the New City despite the previous cutscene clearly showing that we were in the Old City. Next time, we'll see what we can do about saving Elise.
Comments
