@Norm:I mostly just see it as Japanese culture, as well as the target audience of V Ns. Which are lonely men looking to waifu on some 2D Chix. So basically if a VN doesn't have a sex scene in it, it usually won't sell and the company will bomb. But the fans they do get from that pour so much money into the franchise that they're basically staying afloat on the Japanese userbase alone.
And I think this is kinda sad because it pushes wider audiences away from V Ns. V Ns are incredible medium that can mix the detailed story-telling of novel, the presentation of a comic/graphic novel, and immersion of a video game. And the fact that its being used for...well eroges kinda sucks.
I honestly feel like Fate/ fans that didn't read the VN because they were, understandably, put off by the prospect of having to sit through a sex scene missed out on a HUGE part of the experience. Because it didn't just tell a compelling story it used its medium well, to present that story.
edited 15th Oct '15 11:43:25 PM by Azure
PM box is Closed, Indefinitely Friend Code: 3368-4181-6850Sonic Unleashed.
When I said "I was having so much fun playing this game I forgot it sucked ass" I was being serious.
It has the same problem as the Sonic Adventure games — maybe 20% of it is actually good. The Sonic levels themselves are excellent and it was clear that Sega was on the cusp of finally figuring out how to make the transition from 2D to 3D (something they finally figured out in Sonic Colours). The controls are satisfyingly smooth, if not a bit slippery at times, and it's really satisfying to chain together a homing attack combo and then grind onto a rail and then run down the side of a gigantic clock tower while robots chase you. When Sonic games are good, they're really good, and as hard as it is to nail a concept like "stupidly fast parkour" I think they really pull it off here.
However, the Sonic levels are maybe a tenth of the game. The rest of it is some godawful beat-em-up hack and slash thing plagued with QTEs every four steps for every fucking thing imaginable, and they're so fucking long. The Sonic stages are fast (as they should be, something 06 didn't quite figure out), so the longest of them will only be about five minutes. The Werehog stages, on the other hand, are thirty minutes minimum, and realistically are about an hour each, and there are way more of them than the Sonic stages, which was the result of Sega feeling like they needed to pad the game with something, probably.
You punish yourself so that maybe after another three hours and memorising combos the game will finally let you have fun again for another five minutes. It's an abusive fucking relationship, is what it is. It draws you in with promises of rollin' around at the speed of sound, and then once it knows you're hooked it punches you in the goddamn face with Jason Griffith doing a bad David Hayter impression, and when you consider breaking up it says "look, it won't happen again" and goes back to being the most amazing boyfriend ever, until inevitably it just pushes you down a flight of oh-whoops-your-exp-clipped-into-a-wall-and-you-can't-get-it-also-no-checkpoints-for-you and makes you promise not to tell anyone.
The difference here is that Sonic Unleashed doesn't have the same camp value or two decades of selective nostalgia that Sonic Adventure 2 had. I'm sure if I went back and played nothing but the Sonic levels I'd start defending Unleashed as a hidden gem too, but objectively it's just really bad.
I wanna go fast
LET ME GO FAST
Compare and contrast: Which one
would you rather play?
It's been two hours and I'm still on the same damn level. If you fuck up the quick time shit you lose health, so I thought maybe I could just stick to abusing combos (read: mashing square and occasionally triangle) but later they spawn a million enemies at once that you have to kill immediately with the QTEs shit or they'll all dogpile you.
It's easy enough for the asshole in the video, he's already leveled up enough to max out all his health and shit (something else that does not belong in a Sonic game by the way).
I want to quit but if I do I'll just have to do it all over again.
edited 16th Oct '15 2:20:22 AM by WonderSquid
It's been three hours now.
I think the neighbours heard me throw the controller.
Fifteen robots or something in a confined space. I have to QTE every single one. I can't afford to miss any of them. I will get no experience points for this because it clips through the walls every single time, and it fades eventually if you don't pick it up immediately.
I hate this game. It's fucking awful and I'm amazed Colours got made at all.
I'm going to keep playing because I know the level after it looks like this.
If I'm patient and keep at this, I'll get to see it one day... right? Right?
that honestly looks way more fun than werehog segments
dangle it in front of you like a carrot on a string
mario is red, i am green, i try my best, but everyone's meanhooray new panel
I DID IT
FUCK YOU
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU
It took me three and a half hours. I got a D rank.
"Ugh! Can I start over?"
Fuck you Sonic. No, no you may not.
ughhhhhh and chip is like Puck with all the likability sucked right out of him
I'm not happy. I'm sad. I'm sad and emotionally drained.
It's almost worse like this. Like Crisis Core. There's good bits but they're smothered by so much bad it physically hurts to reach for them. Sonic 06, there's nothing good, so you can just sit back and laugh instead of hurting yourself trying to extract any sort of genuine joy out of the experience.
unleashed was a rocky step towards Good that fell into a volcano
colors was the game that confidently stepped itself over the volcano and generations was the post-confident sonic series basking in self-satisfaction
sonic boom was what happened when it decided to see what happens if you stick your dick in a volcano

I made a Nancy because I hate myself and also hate sleep.
make it through this year if it kills you yet | 2001-2019