My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Live Reactions & Discussion)

@Kegisak: Congrats on the promotion.

I actually agree with you on preferring Vinyl and Octavia to have a mutual respect. I'm actually working on a story at the moment about how they get to that point when they started out not really liking each other much.

Well the dynamic doesn't require them to completely hate each other's interests. They can start out that way, but they don't have to stay like that forever. Just having big personality differences in general is fine. Like having Vinyl repeatedly get drunk and throw wild parties while Octavia tries to keep everything classy {And fails miserably and hilariously}. Or use the personality differences to further strengthen the bond between the two. Heck, the very idea of them being friends, let alone possible lovers, would show just how much Starlight Glimmer's ideology compleatly falls flat on it's face.

edited 14th Oct '15 1:53:45 PM by marston

Congratulations on the promotion, Kegi.

Also really the only people I'd say were Vitriolic Best Buds would be AJ and RD but even their stuff has evolved more into friendly teasing and less "I'M BETTER! NO I'M BETTER!" that the first couple of seasons were.

Ahem dear sir, those are ponies, not "People". They tend to get very easily offended when you confuse the two. It might even result in an angry scrunchy face. Scrunchy Face is best face.

edited 14th Oct '15 2:20:04 PM by marston

@marston: I like Sonic 3 and Knuckles a lot too! It's probably my favorite Sonic game, although I like the other "Classic" Genesis games. And, no, I'm not someone who hates the newer games, I just either haven't played them (so I consider myself to be neutral to them) or the few I have played (the 3 Gameboy Advance sidescrollers) I found to be enjoyable. I've even found hacks that people made where Tails is replaced by Fluttershy in one version and by Rainbow Dash in another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MICfr9g0rIQ (A video of the Fluttershy version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Twzn8OSKwM (A video of the Rainbow Dash version)

edited 14th Oct '15 2:25:52 PM by Rainbow

I still find it funny how similar RD and Sonic are. If I didn't know any better I'd swear that RD is an Expy of the Blue Blur.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles is tied with Sonic Adventure 1 as my favorite Sonic game. It's just so much fun, all 3 playable characters work perfectly, the graphics are very great for the type of system it's on, and the music is awesome too. I love the bosses and 16-bit scenery too. My only gripe is that the special stages are annoying and not fun, but you can kind of say that about ALL the special stages in the series.

Why Sega can't ever seem to go back to that quality standard and instead release mediocre at best stuff ever since Shadow's game {Aside from the Sonic Rush games and Sonic Generations, which were quite good. Also Sonic Colors to a lesser extent}, I don't know. Maybe they're lazy. In fact, yeah, they're lazy. How else do you explain the disasters that were Sonic 06 and Sonic Genesis {The latter is a really terrible GBA port of the original Sonic game}? Not to mention making Sonic the only playable character in modern games. I hate that shit. Stop pretending that the other characters don't exist, Sega.

edited 14th Oct '15 2:34:53 PM by marston

Sega has been making more of a return to form lately, especially with titles like Colors and Lost World trying to trying to go back to the basics of the titles in some fashion. Generations is arguably their best modern title so far though.

Then the spin-off Boom showed up and BigRedButton slipped right the hell up when Sega was cleaning up their act, albeit they may have had some cause in their trying to fulfill the Nintendo deal. And then DIMPS being...DIMPS and making questionable design choices with the supposed offical sequel to the beloved classic series.

Still enjoy the classic titles of course, I'd like to see their brand of seamless act variation and progression of storytelling expanded on as well. The mobile remakes by Stealth and Taxman are also brilliant and I still wish they could get proper console releases.

edited 14th Oct '15 2:39:48 PM by StarvingGecko

At least the Sonic Boom cartoon is apparently pretty good.

From what I've seen it has this bizarrely deadpan, kind of surreal style of humour that's almost funny because it isn't.

I haven't seen any full episodes though, just clips, so I can't say for sure.

Apparently the Sonic Boom game for the 3DS is decent enough to warrant a sequel. The Wii U game though has the same amount of recognition as Sonic06 now.

A lot of it I find funny. It's really weird, but in a good way, and I find it a better TTG than TTG. It helps it has a new setting with background characters, and isn't stepping on the toes of the previous series or comics.

I can't judge having not played Unleashed or anything after, but people calling Sega lazy really gripe about stuff almost ten years old.

Sonic 06 isn't even fun to make fun of anymore. Yes we know a human kissed a hedgehog, yes we know Silver is annoying and the plot doesn't make a lot of sense, move on.

Adventure was great, I agree. And I liked Heroes a lot, even if it has a lot of detractors.

I'd argue that Boom Wii U is even MORE irrelevant than '06. '06 while bad (though imo there are worse Sonic games) is still somehow iconic in it's awfulness. Boom is there, it's bad, but most people have just moved on or don't care. I do wish that people would focus on the good like the Adventures, Colors, and Generations and just ignore the bad, but that is wishing FAR too much.

edited 14th Oct '15 3:37:04 PM by LordVatek

I agree with dark. Unleashed wasn't bad, Colors is great, Generations was as well, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some games that were good as well.

edited 14th Oct '15 3:36:17 PM by EpicBleye

So you're talking Sonic, heh?

I tried. He keeps running away from me. Can't think why.

The Boom 3DS sequel is Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, and it actually got delayed for a while based on Retro's posts, which hopefully means that Sanzaru has been making sure to polish the game even more. I think they intended to try to rectify the issues with the other title in the game too, but don't hold me to that.

Sonic Lost World is a Contested Sequel - for many it was meh, some loved it, some hated it, so on. The biggest gripe though goes toward the level design and easy boss fights, which I can agree on. I enjoyed the new control scheme and gameplay, but they should've maybe tried to stick with a more consistent, functional set of levels than being gimmicky. I enjoy the more classic-inspired aesthetic too, though I reaaaaally wanted more unique level themes.

Oh, and it's coming out on Steam on November 2nd. Woo.

edited 14th Oct '15 3:41:19 PM by StarvingGecko

Wait, Lost World is coming to steam? Isn't that game a Nintendo collaboration thing?

Yeah, so the dlc is being removed, sadly. But now that the Nintendo-exclusive deal is done, it seems Sega can sell the game just fie.

Sonic Dissected had an interesting take on the whole Sonic franchise. I think it was their "Sega vs. Nintendo dissected" video where they made the point: Sega as a company has much more of a focus on trying to create the hot new thing, rather than on developing and improving the old thing. The fact that Sonic has become such a long-running franchise is a bit of an outlier for them, but the whole "chasing the new thing" mentality still comes across in the way the main series titles keep introducing new gimmicks, many of which never show up again. None of the games play exactly the same. So if you're looking for "core Sonic gameplay", you either have to arbitrarily choose one game as the exemplar, or you make a Platonic ideal by combining your favorite parts from several different games.

Everyone knows that Sonic 3 is the one true Sonic game.

Or Sonic 2.

Apparently I owned the first Sonic game and only the first Sonic game. My strongest memory of the game was my brother getting me killed when I had finally gotten to the fifth or sixth stage and then having to dangle over lava from a chain or something like that. I was never able to really climb up that chain.

That makes it the one true Sonic game, I guess.

edited 14th Oct '15 7:45:52 PM by Arha

I have a vague memory of watching someone play Sonic on a Dreamcast.

@Meta Four, You could say the same with Square Enix and Final Fantasy, each of the numbered titles has different stories, different gameplay (at least form VII onwards, and most of them are based on the turn-based roots) and they almost seem like they want to reinvent the RPG wheel each time a new game comes out.

Again, one of my main problems with the recent Sonic games is the lack of any playable characters besides Sonic. I don't just want to play as him. Blaze, Shadow {At least in SA 2}, Tails and Knuckles were fun too. Sega seems to think that having more then one playable character is a problem because of Sonic 06. Guys, the problem with the playable characters in that game was that there were too many of them alongside way too many different gameplay styles {15 different gameplay styles, 9 playable characters} and the fact that NONE of them worked right or were fun. Stuff like Sonic 3 and Knuckles and the Sonic Rush games kept it simple. I happen to be a huge fan of Tails and Knuckles, and I hate the lack of playability for them as well as the horrible Flanderization the latter has gotten, especially in Sonic Boom {Which turned him into a "Durrr, I so dumb" big guy and nothing else. And I'm not just saying that to bash Sonic Boom: That really is his entire characterization in that damn game and show as well as the recent games. None of the badass quality's or stuff involving the Master Emerald}. It contributes heavily to my dislike of Modern Sonic. You don't see Nintendo taking the Mario franchise and going "Nah, fuck the other characters, no one gives a shit about them. Let's just have only Mario be playable from here on out".

edited 14th Oct '15 8:27:31 PM by marston

I think the other main issue is just one of consistency. Like Meta said, they're so obsessed with trying to be ahead of the curve that they don't take any time to refine the core gameplay rather than clog it up with gimmicks. The reason that the first four games in the series are so much more popular is because they incorporated the new stuff gradually rather than trying to make it the selling point. I.e. Sonic 2 added Tails and the Spin Dash mechanic, which changed the gameplay without dominating it. Same deal for Sonic 3. It increased the complexity of the level design with some new game mechanics, but didn't go overboard.

And part of the reason it's so aggravating is because if they would focus on the series' strong points rather than try to keep adding new gimmicks in, the games would be right up there with stuff like Mario Bros. or The Legend Of Zelda. Sonic Adventure games are a good example. The Sonic/Shadow levels were great and basically exactly what you want out of a 3D Sonic game.

To be fair, the main reason they did that is because most of the complaints people had about the SA games boiled down to "why couldn't they have more Sonic levels instead of Big/Gamma/whatever?" They didn't need a bunch of other gameplay styles. Granted, I think they went overboard in removing all the other characters entirely. They did need to tone it down though. Like Sonic Adventure would've benefited from having only two or three playable characters rather than six. SA 2 was an improvement (at least in my book) because it focused on developing three specific play styles rather than having half a dozen. They just need to strike a balance.

Anyway, I'm going to bed now.

edited 14th Oct '15 8:34:02 PM by JapaneseTeeth