General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

Sonic's collaborating with Monster Hunter again! You can dress him up in some Rathalos armor by downloading free DLC for Frontiers, starting on November 14th.

Edited by SonicWind on Oct 10th 2022 at 8:33:26 AM

A Camcom property.

What is going on.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

Makes sense. The most recent MH game had Sonic DLC, now Sonic returns the favor by having MH DLC. Nice.

(Also, what happened to the links you provided? There was one for Sonic's EN and JP Twitters, but what was the third one?)

The third was from the Monster Hunter EN Twitter. Decided to cut down to one with all the images for simplicity.

Edited by SonicWind on Oct 10th 2022 at 8:42:21 AM

I was wondering when (and how) that crossover would return to Sonic. This game presents an unprecedented opportunity in the Sonic series to do this sort of thing. A Sonic game where you can dress Sonic up in all sorts of funny outfits. Never thought I'd see the day, but I'm excited for it.

I'm wondering what other kinds of outfits (especially crossover ones) might be DLC. Will we finally be able to dress Sonic up as Mario?

More seriously, another LOZ crossover would be both fun, amusing and amazing. Or even crossover levels, like mini-hubs with their own enemies and challenges. A Monster Hunter themed DLC hub where the boss is like a giant robotic Rathalos for instance.

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

I'm guessing a Nintendo costume might be a harder sell this time around since, unlike Sonic Lost World, Frontiers is multiplatform. I wouldn't put it past SEGA to have console-exclusive content, but who's to say.

I'm here because I thought applying tropes to Tumblr posts was a good idea.

All Stars Racing did a similar thing with Banjo & Kazooie for the 360 version, iirc.

Edited by Chortleous on Oct 10th 2022 at 10:20:15 AM

If they did do console specific DLC, costumes would probably be the best way to do it since they're so minimal and non-threatening, plus potentially aren't too much hassle for the programmers (at least in comparison to, like, levels and such).

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 10th 2022 at 9:01:20 AM

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

So I finally played through Sonic 2006 for myself. Honestly, it's not that bad. The controls and physics have issues, but once I got used to the shittiness it was kind of fun. Sonic's stages are actually pretty well designed for the most part, the issue is that Sonic is just hard to control because the physics aren't working right. Funny enough, I think his first stage is the worst designed one, since it's only one where I died because a scripted sequence didn't work right. The biggest issues with Sonic's stages though are the super speed sections and the one snowboarding section, because those are just way too slippery, and the last obstacle in the first stage's speed section just doesn't work correctly.

Silver felt like kind of the opposite. I never felt like I had much trouble controlling him, but just the concept for how he works isn't all that fun, so his levels just felt like playing a mediocre platformer with wonky combat. By the time I played Shadow's story I was pretty used to it all. The only big issues I had with him is that some of his levels went too long and his homing attack was weirdly finicky and hard to control (while I never had any real trouble with Sonic's homing attack).

While I got used to it, I think it's a really odd decision to make it so every character is vulnerable unless they're specifically doing an offensive move. Meaning, you can't just have Sonic jump into an enemy to hurt it like every other Sonic game, he has to use the homing attack or slide.

Here's the 3 major issues that affect you no matter what character you're playing as.
Air movement is way too jerky. Ground movement isn't really any worse than Heroes or Shadow, but every character just jerks around way too fast while in the air and it makes controlling where you fall overly difficult.
You also lose all momentum in mid-air if you do any sort of action. The most obvious example being, in earlier games if Sonic does a running jump and performs a homing attack he then continues to fly forward through the air. In Sonic 06 if you do that, he stop completely in mid-air after the homing attack animation is done and then falls straight down. This doesn't particularly cause problems because the game is mostly designed around it, but it feels stiff and awkward.
The physics engine they used was an obvious case of them trying to show off because it was the shiny new console generation, but it only causes problems. The obvious ones being the slowdown any time a robot or box is destroyed and pieces fly everywhere, Shadow's car wanting to flip itself upside-down and backwards at the slightest collision, and physics puzzles for Silver that barely work.

Its not that bad but you just listed off essentially everything wrong with the game lol.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Aside from the story.

The bad is bad, but is exaggerated due to the publicity the game got, to the point the good is forgotten, and, unlike plenty of bad games (and, trust me, I grew on PSX platformers, I can recognice a truly bad one), there is plenty of good in there. Give Project 06 a go instead.

Flew too close to the sun.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Yeah. I meant that people make it sound nearly unplayable, but like I said it was kind of fun despite all the jank. The only parts that stick out in my mind as particularly frustrating where a couple optional vehicle missions with Shadow, and the last couple sections with Omega.

I skipped over talking about the side characters last post because they're mostly fine outside the jerky aerial controls, but Omega just feels wrong. He has this really intense acceleration to his movement that makes it so the only way he can be guaranteed to make a jump is if you awkwardly run in circles to get him at top speed and then do a running jump over the pit. His attacks are also weird since there's no indication of what he's locked onto.

The game overall didn't feel like some games I've played where it's either so frustratingly broken it isn't fun or just felt there was nothing much good there make it worth playing. It felt like a game made by passionate people who mostly knew what they were doing, but just straight up didn't finish it. It feels like the game is 70% done.

Also, the worst part about the game is probably the loading screens. It's not even that each screen is long by itself that's the problem, but the way they programmed town missions that has you sitting through 4 loading screens in quick succession, and even more if you fail the mission (because there's no option to just immediately retry the mission for some reason).

The story isn't that bad. The only big issue is that there's a lot of weirdness (sudden scene transitions and side character popping in and out of the plot) that feels like they didn't finish the final draft of the plot and fused it with a couple earlier drafts. Shadow's story is perfectly fine, it's focused, each stage directly leads to plot advancement, Rouge and Omega have adequate stuff to do, and the only weirdness that happens is Rouge asking Shadow at one point what he saw in the past when she wasn't there to know he time-traveled at all. Silver's story is mostly fine, but Blaze pops in and out weirdly and it could have used more focus on her considering her and Silver's relationship ends up being the focus in his ending.

Sonic's story is obviously the worst one. I actually have nothing against Elise and her scenes with Sonic, but the problem is that much of Sonic's story has nothing really happening. You have levels that end in nothing getting accomplished, and crossovers with Shadow and Silver's plots that don't mean anything to Sonic's plot (whereas Shadow and Silver's crossing over mattered to both of them). Basically the only important scenes in Sonic's plot are the start, his first big scene with Elise, his second big scene with her, and his ending. Also, Tails and Knuckles pop in and out and don't really matter to the story at all.

Something I thought, it's kind of funny Sonic is the hero and talks about friendship and stuff some while Shadow is the edgy loner, but Sonic's plot doesn't involve his friends at all and they even sort of disappear before the final boss fight and ending, while Shadow's friends tie into his plot quite a bit and his story ends with the 3 of them fighting together.

<Grumbles about the whole "Team Dark is a not a thing and never has been" mandate>

Really. This is a group that's not a team and has never been friends. Sega, you need to learn not to throw out the baby with the Bathwater. Instead of building on what was good, they just ejected everything.

I truly hope that Frontiers is the beginning of them maybe learning to actually take note what they've done well and what they've done wrong instead of letting their attempts at damage control destroy literally everything.

....I also admit I posted that clip because I've always liked that ending. Even before I found out that many consider Shadow's story one of the better things about 06, I just liked his line about fighting even if everyone is against him.

Fitting considering all the ow the edge memes and edgy the hedgy stuff. I guess it's fitting that someone who travelled to the future could predict it.

Even if the fandom should become his enemy, he'll fight....until Ian Flynn writes him out of the story because the mandates utterly handicap him from telling good stories.....

Does quite fit, does it?

One Strip! One Strip!

I just love how they played with themes in the music for those scenes. Mephiles' theme for the grandiose breaking speech, just to switch into orchestal All Hail Shadow for Shadow telling Mephiles to shove it. The composer knew what they were doing in that one after all.

Just like Solaris Phase 1 being Mephiles' theme being played with Iblis' orchesta. Damn that was a subtle yet nice touch.

Really, the reason 06 gets meme'd on as much as it does is mostly the timing of it.

Game was fresh off of Shadow, which was seen as an especially tone deaf game in its attempts to appeal to Americans and very poorly thought out exploration of Shadow's character that the negative repercussions of is still felt to this day and was seen by and large, a betrayal of Sonic's core traits. And that's in addition to the jank of the gameplay.

So 06 going head first into the whole photo realistic, final fantasy esc angle, while still keeping the mostly cartoony Sonic characters looking the same, on top of the game just extremely jank, was the straw that broke the camel's back to speak.

It was just...a lot of misguided and poorly executed ideas. I can respect the ambition, but there is such a thing as flying too close to the sun sadly.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

I have two last miscellaneous thoughts on the game.

Elise gets kidnapped and rescued 5 times in one game lol.

I've never been bothered by Sonic characters interacting with realistic-looking humans, but for some reason Sonic standing next a realistic regular-ass dog kind of fucks with me.

"I've captured you 17 different times!"

"I feel like it's gonna be at least 18."

"....The caucacity of this bitch..."

Every time someone claims to be realistic is a dour cynic in disguise.

The inherent issue with 06 (beyond as Yazuka noted the awful timing of it) is that it takes too much effort to get the good elements out of it. If you know the Sonic levels in and out you can know what not do to to avoid issues. If you selectively focus on certain story aspects there is an almost okay narrative there. But it shouldn't be the player's responsibility to carefully walk around a minefield because the developers' mistakes, especially with a series designed to be pick and play like Sonic.

And that's assuming you like the core ideas to begin with; if you don't, its basically a significant effort to eventually achieve an experience that's at best, okay.

Edited by BorneAgain on Oct 11th 2022 at 5:11:35 AM

06 was a very unfortunate case of mismanagement that led to a fucked game. IIRC Naka left during production and a lot of the initial team split to go work on Secret Rings, never mind that they were developing for brand new hardware that was significantly more complex and required much more manpower than anything before, with a tight release date that Sega was not willing to budge on.

I've played a little bit of 06 (about 2 hours or so) and my initial impression is that yes, the game feels very unfinished and while it may not be like the worst game of all time, i'd feel comfortable saying it isn't a very good game at all. It feels like the game needed several more months in the oven at minimum.

I refuse to call the story anything but bad but with cool moments a fan Will pretend it was the whole experience.

I know this because Dragón Ball existe.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

I Ts also a matter of Sonic being a household name by that point, so the idea that such an iconic franchise could release such a low quality product shook the gaming community to its core.

If Sonic was simply just another franchise, the game wouldn't have nowhere near the reputation it has. But because it's Sonic, the impact was felt much harder.

06 isn't anywhere near as bad as its reputation implies, but that reputation has left an unfortunate stain on the franchise that people are never going to forget no matter how much time passes.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Its a slightly hyperbolic comparison, but 06 was like the Atari E.T. release. Neither one are the worst games of all time by any stretch, but they were big lousy titles the worst possible time to be that.