#finally been playing some 3d sonic

[maripr]

Turns out Sonic Adventure 1 is actually fantastic and Sonic Adventure 2 is as wonderful as I remember it to be, if not more

[h-worksrambles]

Sonic X Shadow Generations fascinates me. Because it feels like something I shouldn’t be excited for. And yet I absolutely am.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Sonic Generations. It’s my third favourite game in the series and my favourite 3D Sonic game (with Sonic Adventure 2 in a close second). I’m very happy to see it getting a re release to expose it to new audiences, and playing it in 4K60fps on my PS5 is a very enticing. Likewise, I really like Shadow as a character and I’m excited to play as him again.

And yet, his new bonus campaign promises to basically be a bunch of nostalgic pandering for Shadow the Hedgehog, a game which I consider to be, simply put, crap. It was boring, dull, colourless and embarrassing trend chasing. And pretty much everything I hated about it is on display in this trailer.

We’ve got gritty, grey cityscapes, we’ve got the rather blah alien villain, Black Doom returning, we’ve got the looming return of the series’…bafflingly executed lore. In a word, Shadow was a pretty much everything I didn’t want Sonic to be shoved into a blender. I’ve given my thoughts on revisiting past excesses and failures for the sake of nostalgia. I wrote a whole thing about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and my fears that it would go overboard pandering to the 2000s spin offs (which I dislike a for lot of the same reasons as a lot of Sonic stuff from the mid 2000s). A faux attempt at maturity that sacrifices Sonic’s camp and colour, and lacks the writing competency to make its tone shift work is pretty much my worst case scenario for the series. And now we’re invoking that for nostalgia? Again, I should hate this.

So if I dislike Shadow the Hedgehog so much. If it really is so emblematic of Sonic’s worst excesses that I want it to leave behind in the 2000s…then why am I so damn hyped for this? Why am I not feeling the same dread as whenever VII Remake implicitly threatens to bring back Genesis?

I think it’s because of the specific relationship Sonic has had with its past for the last decade. So much of the stuff from that time period is material that Sega has seemed actively scared to touch again. Sometimes with good reason. But I think that’s why some material from that time has gained such a strong nostalgic cult following, and why they’re held up as such bastions of missed potential. There’s never been anything quite like Shadow or 06 since they came out with how safe Sega has subsequently played things. And in many respects, that’s a good thing. But I can see how it build a sense of mystique around them. It was kind of sad to see 2010s Sonic so…scared of itself. Terrified to invoke its own history but not really committed to a new direction either. And this is pretty much the exact opposite of that hesitancy.

Basically, the reason I react to seeing Westopolis or Black Doom with ‘holy shit let’s go!!!’ rather than ‘why, god, why?’ is because I genuinely never thought I would see them again after this long. It’s just exciting to see Sonic Team throw caution to the wind and embrace all the parts of their franchise. Even the parts I personally dislike. Plus, Sonic Generations is kind of the perfect game in which to reimagine that stuff and make it..actually good this time. This was the game that made Crisis City of all things into a banger level. The game that took Silver, one of the most notorious boss fights in the series, and gave him a kickass encounter.

If they can fix that, they can do anything.

Plus, the fact that the trailers already show all these trippy stage effects and anime af boss fights and set pieces tells me we’re not just gonna be running through the same drab washed out burning cities that made Shadow 2005 so boring. Again, there’s evidently an effort being made to rehabilitate and reimagine this stuff, not just repeat all the same mistakes. And that’s exciting.

So yeah, Sonic X Shadow Generations has somehow managed to get me genuinely excited for all the parts of the series I typically balk at. And that’s pretty impressive.

That said, if I see Mephiles again, I’m leaving.

[thankskenpenders]

So I wrote a whole long thing about Amy's tarot cards, but what about, you know... the rest of the Sonic Frontiers DLC? The new alternate story route, the hours of new gameplay, all that?

Having now played it, I'm not sure Sonic has ever had this specific combination of good ideas that make the future of the series look bright, and execution that I fucking hate.

(Full spoilers ahead.)

The good

There's a lot to like here, conceptually.

First and foremost, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy are finally playable in a new mainline 3D Sonic game for the first time since 2006! Seventeen years! We've been begging for this for so very, very long. Nature is finally truly healing from the fallout of Sonic '06. Early on I hedged my bets and expected them to be locked to Cyber Space or something like that, assuming that there was no way they'd be fully playable in the Open Zone. But sure enough, while they're a bit limited compared to Sonic, they're still all full-blown characters with skill trees to unlock and lots of exploration to do.

We also got a more bombastic alternate final boss fight, after the first take on The End kind of underwhelmed. And it's obvious that Sonic Team has listened to our pleas to focus on the 3D platforming over the forced 2D sections, and to reduce the amount of automation in the level design. This update is chock full of Actual Platforming. Wow! I can only pray this means we never get an area as agonizing to explore as Chaos Island again.

Sure, there's still some jank - especially with Knuckles' movement, which is kinda rough. But if this is the stuff they're trying out so that they can refine it further for the next game, then I'm really excited.

On the other hand, good fucking lord is The Final Horizon tedious. And that tedium sapped most of the fun out of it for me.

The frustrating

The new scenario massively increases the difficulty over the base game, seemingly out of a desire to give the hardcore players who were posting speedrun videos and whatnot more of a challenge. It's the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of Sonic. This difficulty comes in many forms throughout your playtime, some worse than others, and continues to ramp up over time.

Rather than giving you a tutorial level, the new scenario dumps you directly into a remixed version of the final island and makes you do some fairly precise platforming with Amy, Knuckles, and Tails - new characters with new movesets that you won't have any experience with. You'll also need to find character-specific Koco that give you free levels, because Sonic's friends all start at level one and certain locked moves in their skill trees will be mandatory to progress. They don't even have Cyloop unlocked at the start. And because they're all low level, that means you'd better steer clear of the beefed-up bosses scattered around the map, which will absolutely annihilate Sonic's friends. (I honestly just avoided them and never bothered beating any of them, not even with my high-level Sonic. I have no idea if they're beatable with the others.)

None of this is explained to you particularly well. I spent my first few minutes with Amy wondering why the attack button did nothing, only to eventually think to check her skill tree and realize that I had to unlock her basic attack. If you don't bother to take the time to read through the skill trees, you'll very quickly find obstacles you have no way of getting past with no clues as to what exactly you're supposed to do.

Adding to this confusion is the fact that objective markers often tell you to go half a kilometer into the sky, and you'll have no idea how to get up there because all of the relevant platforms are out of your draw distance. Many objects seem to only pop in for me when I'm within about 60 meters of them, which isn't a long distance for a high-speed open world platformer like this. I was having this problem running the game with high graphics on PC, so I can only imagine how obnoxious it is on Switch. I'd frequently find myself poking around nearby clusters of platforming objects and praying that they'd lead me to a spring, rail, or cannon that would eventually point me in the direction of the floating objective marker.

There were always complaints about the art direction in Frontiers and the way it relies on floating rails and prefab platforms that are visually disconnected from the natural scenery of the islands, but it's even more dire here. The new platforming sections are dense and complex, but they seemingly didn't have the budget to change the topography of Ouranos Island at all, so it all takes the form of these prefabs. It very strongly gives the vibe of a Forge creation in Halo 3, back when there were no blank canvas maps and people just had to make "new maps" by jamming a bunch of shipping containers and barricades together in the sky above one of the default arenas.

I was still more or less having fun, though, despite the jank. It's a big creative swing, I told myself! They're trying stuff out! They're experimenting!

And then I hit the towers.

The towers are agonizing because they're SO close to being great. The logical part of my brain understands why some people love them, but god, I just fucking hate them. The platforming there IS cool! These layouts are cool! The individual challenges along the way are a bit tough, but totally doable. You know what's not cool? Making one mistake and slowly falling 800 meters all the way back down to the ground, forcing you to start over. Because none of these towers have checkpoints. For me, this one decision transforms what should have been a fun set of platforming challenges into a massive, unfun difficulty spike.

I enjoy some masocore platformers, but those are typically games with quick deaths and restarts like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or VVVVVV. Hell, the Mario games tend to get way more difficult than the average Sonic game, and those are obviously all great. Quite frankly, unlike those games, Sonic Frontiers is nowhere near tight or polished enough to make this difficulty feel fair. Bits of jank that I could ignore in the base game due to its lower difficulty are now matters of life or death. Missing a jump because I boosted off an incline in a way the game didn't like for reasons I don't understand is not fun. Falling off a tower because the camera was pointing in the wrong direction while I was in midair and I couldn't see the next thing I was expected to homing attack is not fun.

And it's such a jarring spike when moving from the base game to the DLC that it feels like the game is suddenly quizzing me on skills it never bothered to instill in me. Maybe if you've spent the last year labbing out the movement tech in this game this is all a no brainer, but for the average returning player it's a kick in the dick.

I'm sure I could've beaten these towers normally if I gave them enough tries. They aren't the hardest thing in the world. But I very quickly decided I had better things to do with my life and turned on easy mode, which adds tons of extra springs and homing attack balloons to make all of the platforming piss easy. I wish there was a middle option between Only Up: Sonic Edition and this extreme hand holding, but when given the choice between the two I gladly picked baby mode. I just wanted to see the story.

(The new Cyber Space levels are also long, challenging, and devoid of checkpoints, not unlike the towers. But I only ever found the entrances to two of them. So I only did two. They're theoretically required, because they give you "Lookout Koco" that you need for... some reason? But in a rare act of mercy, Sonic Team put Cyloop treasure spots that give you free Lookout Koco all over the map.)

As I continued, so many little things started adding up to piss me off. Why do you only reveal like five tiny squares of the map at a time? I would've loved to find all the new 1-on-1 dialogue scenes, but not if I had to do dozens of hard mode versions of the stupid little puzzles and challenges to reveal the whole map. Why does every character need their own unique collectibles? What is this, Donkey Kong 64? Why can't I just grab this EXP for Amy when I find it as Tails? Why can I only manually swap characters by talking to an out-of-the-way NPC unlocked right before the final boss? Why is fast travel disabled? Why are the new vocal themes you hear when playing as Amy, Knuckles, and Tails so monotonous, with a single verse repeating over lo-fi beats ad nauseum? Why is the jukebox feature completely disabled throughout the DLC, even after rolling the credits? Why can't Tails homing attack? Why do I have to wrestle with the camera so much while also holding the jump button to fly as Knuckles and Tails? How many right thumbs do they think I have? Why is this animation for picking up animals in the Cyber Space levels so incredibly slow, and why can I still take damage while it's playing? Why does the stupid starfall event have to make it so hard to see what I'm doing when climbing these towers? Why does this shitty combat trial have a popup that makes it seem like I should be using the Cyloop when the actual strategy revolves around repeated parries? And on and on and on...

The story

What about the new story? Well, there sadly isn't much to chew on here. Most of the DLC has the cast running around and finding different macguffins for arbitrary reasons, as part of some sort of plan to divide up the work on the last island so that Sonic can go train with the spirits of the Ancients and harness the power of his cyber corruption. What the fuck is an Impact Form? I don't know, but Knuckles needs something to do, so go find one.

It's a thin excuse plot meant to make you do platforming challenges around Ouranos Island, with little room for Ian to add any real flavor of his own, even though he certainly tries. Having Sonic meet the spirits of the Ancients who controlled the Titans, who are revealed to directly parallel the personalities of him and his friends, is kinda neat, I guess? It's something. The optional conversations seem to have some fun bits, including both conversations between the supporting cast and additional lore. But again, I only found a few of those because of how tedious filling out the map was.

The writing is also let down by the voice acting - or I guess the voice direction, because I know this cast can do better. Roger's voice continues to be weirdly, distractingly deep as Sonic, which was clearly something that was requested of him just for this game. (For a recent example of him going back to his regular Sonic voice, see this LEGO trailer.) The performances of Sonic's friends are also WILDLY mismatched. This is most clear when they start feeling the effects of the cyber corruption. Knuckles seems to be barely affected at all, Tails sounds like he's moderately hurt and low on energy, and Amy starts completely overselling her pain out of nowhere. The extremely strained performance makes it sound like Cindy's literally being tortured in the fucking booth. I have no idea what's going on over there.

The final challenges

People have debated whether or not things like the towers and the new Cyber Space levels are fair challenges. What's not up for debate is the fact that Master King Koco's Trial is complete and utter bullshit, and I can't believe they shipped this.

Before you can fight the new final boss, the game forces you to do a boss rush of the first three Titans - INCLUDING the pre-Super Sonic climbing sections - with a hard limit of 400 rings. For all three lengthy, heavily scripted fights. Back to back. You can't even cheese it with the leveling system, because you're forced to do this at level 1. This all but forces you to look up speedrun strats for the Super Sonic fights so that you don't run out of rings and fail the trial.

And the real kicker? They changed the parry just for this trial! Originally, you could just hold down the bumpers endlessly and Sonic would ready himself to parry the next attack, whenever that may hit. Now it requires you to do a "Perfect Parry" with specific timing. And you HAVE to hit those parries if you wanna clear this trial and get to the new ending. Miss a few and you're probably fucked. You just have to reset. Time to go through all those fights, all those climbing sequences, all those QTEs, and all those unskippable mid-fight cutscenes all over again. This is by far the most egregious example of the DLC deciding to quiz you on new skills that the base game never required of you, and it's one of the most absurdly unfair things I have ever seen in a Sonic game.

Easy mode does make this trial easier by making the timing window for Perfect Parries much more generous, but that's all the help you get. It's still easy to lose time failing to parry Wyvern's hard-to-read animations, or to lose rings by getting hit on the climb sections, or for things to just fuck up because these fights were always kinda jank. I gave it a few shots. I looked up guide videos. I tried the Quick Cyloop and stomp combo strat that seems all but mandatory. But I quickly decided that, again, this wasn't a worthwhile use of my time. It just sucks. And I really, REALLY didn't want to overwrite all my fond memories of these Titan fights, some of my favorite setpiece moments in any Sonic game, with memories of this shit ass boss rush.

So I cheated! And if you're on PC, you should too.

With the worst hurdle out of the way, I turned cheats back off and moved on to the new final boss. It was pretty cool. It's much flashier than the original fight against The End, that's for sure. It's still kinda annoying, and it requires you to do very specific shit without properly telegraphing it, but it's nowhere near as bad as the preceding challenges. I was hoping for one last new metalcore song to go with the new fight, which we sadly didn't get, but at least the new version of I'm Here is good.

The ending is... mostly the same, with a couple altered scenes that don't really change anything in the long run. But overall the new finale was pretty good. I just wish it hadn't been such a slog to get there.

Closing thoughts

Sonic Frontiers: The Final Horizon wants to be three things:

A patch that adds a new alternate ending that was probably supposed to be in the base game in the first place.

An experimental take on making Tails, Knuckles, and Amy playable again, presumably testing things for the next game. And...

An official Kaizo Sonic Frontiers mod for the sickos.

The thing is, the people showing up for #1 and #2, the main things that Sega hyped up about the update, are not necessarily going to be down for #3. If they had announced some uber-hard new Cyber Space levels for the arcade mode or whatever, I'd be like, neat! And then not play them. I would never touch Master King Koco's Trial if it was an optional challenge. I would leave that for the sickos. But instead, they made the hardest content mandatory for anyone who wants to see the new Good Ending where the final boss gets an actual budget.

I'm mostly left in a state of shock that it shipped like this. I cannot believe they playtested this and decided this was the state The Final Horizon should be released in. That this should be the note Frontiers ends on. That this should be how we remember those Titan fights. That this should be the lingering taste in our mouths as we wait however many years for the next 3D game.

Armchair devs always love to say that things would be "easy to fix," but like... there really would be easy fixes for the insane difficulty and general tedium here! Add a few more tutorial popups explaining what the game expects of you with Sonic's friends. Give the Cyber Space stages and the towers a couple checkpoints. Give the combat trials more generous time limits, especially on the lower difficulties. Remove half of the map puzzles, and make the ones that remain uncover twice as many squares. Skip the startup animation for Knuckles' glide. Let me turn on the goddamn jukebox. Since so much of this update was designed around fan feedback, I can only pray that Sonic Team is still listening, and that they tweak at least a few of these things with a balance patch.

But still, after those many, many paragraphs of complaining... this still somehow makes the future of 3D Sonic seem pretty promising?

Sonic's friends are FINALLY playable again, and the focus is back to proper 3D platforming, rather than railroading players into awkward forced 2D sections in what's otherwise an open world. These are the things that they hopefully want to carry over to the next game. The difficulty? Well, that's just because it's the postgame DLC that's supposed to be the toughest challenge in the game. It's just an unreasonably cruel one of those - an example of how designing and balancing for a vocal minority of your fanbase can really hurt your game. But Sonic Team is onto something here, and I hope that they can learn the right lessons from this expansion and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[dr-spectre]

I just watched the Shadow Dark Beginnings animation preview and bro.... where do I even begin?

Now listen, I talk about Splatoon 99% of the time here, but you gotta understand something, Sonic was my first love in gaming. Ever since I played the classic games, Unleashed, Heroes, Rush and Rush Adventure. And watching clips from Adventure 1 and 2. I've always been a humongous fan of this franchise. I grew up in the crowd that watched those "I FEEL LIKE A MONSTER" amvs of Sonic the Werehog for f sake. I had a printed out poster of a render from Sonic and the Black Knight on my wall as a kid because I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

So, seeing this series FINALLY go back to actually telling more serious stories while being sincere about it too... man... it makes me so. Damn. HAPPY!!!! Frontiers wasn't a one time thing, the darker and more serious stories are actually gonna stick around now. I think we're finally free from the 2010s where we were stuck with "BALDY NOSEHAIR! THAT'S THE BEST THING IVE HEARD ALL DAY!" For a literal decade.

Us Sonic fans had to go through the 2010s where the series made fun of itself and was all "comedy" and stopped doing the cool serious shit they used to do... it makes me so happy that they are FINALLY diving into things they haven't talked about in over a decade. They aren't scared anymore to show a fucking human in this god damn franchise because a bunch of gaming journalists who dont give a fuck about the series said "humans in sonic are BAD!" They aren't scared to show Maria and something like Emerl. EMERL?!?! FROM SONIC BATTLE?!?!?! THAT'S SO COOL!!! I BARELY PLAYED BATTLE BUT STILL! THATS AWESOME!

Now.... was some of the stuff in the 2000s going way too far? Like Shadow saying "you're going straight to hell" and murdering Dr Eggman in non canon endings. And a human kissing a dead Hedgehog to bring him back? Yeah that's way too far. DOESNT MEAN YOU SHOULD THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER!!!! Lost World and Forces man. My God. Ugh.

Anyways, yeah I'm so excited and so hopeful for this franchise again. Before Frontiers came out I was so nervous if the game was gonna be good or not and what you may say about the game itself, it did appeal to tons of people and became the highest selling 3D Sonic game of all time, beating out Heroes. I am now actually fully confident and excited for Frontiers 2 or whatever the next game shall be.

People cheering and crying over the stuff that happens in that game AS WELL AS A PREVIEW FOR A SHADOW ANIMATION makes me so.... HGIWIDIDIS WAHHH IM SO HAPPY!!! IM HAPPY!!! SONIC IS BACK!!! SONIC IS FINALLY BACK!!! SHADOW IS BACK!!! BOW YOUR HEADS LOW ALL HAIL SHADOW!!!!

[martinsaenz96us]

R.I.P. LittleBigPlanet

It's been a really sad year for "LittleBigPlanet". First the servers for LBP3 PS4 just shut down (servers for previous entries are also shut down), and not only the digital copy of LBP3 PS4 (digital copies of previous entries have already been delisted), but all the DLCs that's ever been released from LBP1 to LBP3 are being delisted from the PSN store. It really sucks that this once beloved franchise is being butchered to death in favor of bland realistic graphics cinematic games, live service games and catering to the so-called "Modern Audience" (*cough*cough "Concord" *cough*cough*). It's just not right how this franchise has been treated lately. The last game in the franchise "LittleBigPlanet 3" has been released about 10 years ago at this point. All the franchise has going for it now is just a spin-off named "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" released back in 2020, which is nothing like LBP (it's basically "Super Mario 3D World" but LBP themed). Sackboy, a worthy mascot for the "Playstation" brand in the PS3 Era is now gonna be known as Sackboy from "Sackboy: A Big Adventure" (a spin-off mind you) instead of Sackboy from "LittleBigPlanet" (where he's originated from). Sackboy has always been in a special place in my heart growing up, I even used to draw him (besides Sonic) in my journal a lot during high school. Back in junior high I was in special needs because of my autism (I even rode the bus and took field trips with special needs kids). I played a lot of video games and I was also a bad boy (I used to get in trouble a lot by giggling and misbehaving during class). My homeroom teacher had a Wii with "Wii Sports Resort" (great game) and even my all time favorite "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" (better than Melee, change my mind). He would let us play when we were done with our assignments (we even got to stay after school to play and eat pizza in homeroom if we had good behavior). I never knew about LBP at the time and if you've been following me through the years, you know that I've been a big fan of "Sonic the Hedgehog" ever since kindergarten. So when I first heard LBP featured Sonic the Hedgehog costumes as DLC, I immediately wanted to buy the game for that sole reason (the same way I first got into Smash starting with Brawl). I was also into games that would let you create your own character or levels, that factor also drew me closer to wanting LBP and even "ModNation Racers" (rest in peace) too at the time. But I had a PSP instead, I got both LBP both and ModNation on it and I was a bit disappointed. LBP on PSP was my least favorite version, it felt so limited customizing Sackboy (not being able to place stickers on him too was a drawback for me), or customizing in general (ModNation on PSP is in the same bane too). Once I beat it 100% I wanted to start creating a level, and oh boy it all went downhill from there. The options were limited, the game kept crashing at any given time while creating. So needless to say I did not like LBP on PSP at all, and all it did is made me want a PS3 even more that I kept begging my mom to buy one for me. Around maybe my 8th grade year, I finally got a PS3 (I think it was a birthday gift, I can't remember). I became so happy that I immediately bought LBP at "GameStop" (I also bought both LBP2 and ModNation Racers at the same time). Upon booting LBP for the first time I immediately got so hooked. I wanted to beat it 100% but the only drawback was that I only had 1 controller, and there's sections in the game that require 2 to 4 players to get the prize bubbles. I felt kinda let down since I wasn't able to obtain those prize bubbles without multiple controllers, but I some how managed to get through a handful of 2 player sections using only 1 controller (like the "Construction Site"), which took dedication and dying a lot. I was so proud of myself for accomplishing sections that were only meant to be played with 2 people. The other 2 player sections however I wasn't so lucky, so I begged my mom to buy me more controllers, I didn't tell her why thinking she wouldn't agree with me. Then after beating LBP 100% I became obsessed with making costumes for Sackboy and showing them off while playing online, even in LBP2 I did the same thing. LBP2 is easily the best in the whole franchise. During the release of LBP2, the franchise hit it's all-time peak (I got a PS3 soon after the release of LBP2). LBP2 has also the best story mode. They were difficult at times (mostly ACEING all the levels, even in LBP1 it was difficult), but I still had a blast playing through it all. I also 100% the story mode and went on to complete all the level kit DLCs (which I did eventually). Fun Fact: At the time of LBP2's peak, "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" was also at it's all time peak (on the internet of all places). So while playing LBP2 I saw a bunch of levels related to MLP I got so annoyed by it. I played one of the levels I came across just for the sake of it, then I became intrigued and wanted to see what the whole fuss was about at the time. So one day I turned my TV to "The Hub" (R.I.P.) and the first episode I've ever watched was "Party of One" (you know, the one that featured Pinkamena who spawned a bunch of creepypastas). After watching the episode, I instantly fell in love with the show. The characters, the art style, everything about the show was so appealing to me. I've always been really really shy IRL, but then "Fluttershy" caught my eye since she's the one I can relate to, so she became my all time favorite pony to this day. I loved MLP so much I even drew ponies in my journals during my freshman year in high school (I was the quiet kid). And that is how I became a Brony. So back on-topic. I made so many memories with this game in particular that I will cherish forever. The community levels was a big step up from it's predecessor. Even when playing community levels online with random people made it so worth while (back when online play was FREE). All in all, LBP2 has become one of my most favorite games of all time. I loved the enjoyment of coming home from school to hop on straight into LBP2 (and also ModNation Racers) to play online with other people. Even one of my cousins enjoyed playing it, and would play together every time he'd come over. During my freshman year in high school, I heard about the PS VITA and I instantly wanted to buy it because LBP was on it. So eventually I got it with LBP (and because I love handheld gaming minus mobile gaming). I played it non stop, even between switching classes I would walk while playing. LBP on PS VITA was also great (not as good as LBP2, but way better than LBP PSP). I really liked it, and with the use of the touch screen and the back trackpad. The story mode was good, I liked how it had a slightly darker tone to it, compared to the previous entries. The characters were wacky and interesting (and some ugly tbh). And just like the previous entries, I 100% it all the way through. Online play was pretty cool too (but very laggy at times) and community levels were kinda good but a bit disappointing (not LBP2 good but it's passable). I also had fun making costumes everywhere I went (I even uploaded some on my DA page). LBP Karting however was OK (not up to LBP2 standards). I played through the story mode and 100% it too. The community levels were actually pretty interesting, there were even remakes of "Mario Kart" tracks that were spot on (but no custom music like LBP2). My biggest complaint however was the inability of customizing costumes like the previous entries (just changing outfits and placing stickers on doesn't cut it either), even the kart creation was barebones. Overall, the game just feels like a blatant rip-off of "ModNation Racers" (despite being made by the same developer "United Front Games" R.I.P.), which had better character and kart customization and you can even download custom made ones by other people and upload your own. LBP Karting does have better track customization however, but that's not saying much. And adding insult to injury, the fact that a full blown "ModNation Racers Sequel" got canceled in favor of LBP Karting is just a big punch in the face from Sony. A ModNation Racers sequel would've been miles better (pun intended) than LBP Karting in my honest opinion. Around probably Junior year, I got a PS4 with "LittleBigPlanet 3". From what I heard however it's been called the worst in the franchise, since the game was rushed to meet sales for Black Friday. So as a result, the game released with many bugs and glitches turning alot of people off from the game altogether (So I guess it's the "Sonic 06" of the LBP franchise). I bought it around maybe a month or 2 after it's release, and from what I played I really haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. In fact I really liked it, it felt more fleshed out and about as good as LBP2. Basically it's LBP2 but more expanded with new playable characters and creative additions such as expanded layers, new gadgets etc. I also liked how you had the ability to play every community levels ever made in both LBP1 & 2. I actually did play LBP3 on my PS3 first, but I then gave away my PS3 to my cousin to buy a PS4 (which I regret doing). What turned me off however wasn't the game itself, it was the fact Sony was charging for online pay (which killed online play for me) despite the fact it used to be free. At the time it costed $60 just for one year of online play, I could buy a full price game from retail then play & keep it for as long as I want. Paying for playing online is just a scam altogether. I did pay for one year just to play LBP3 online, then never payed again because what was the point. I did however registered my cousin's account to my PS4 to play online, so I played LBP3 online again then lost interest since the damage has already been done. Now I can't play it online anymore if I ever wanted to since the online servers recently got shutdown, and yet they still expect us to pay monthly/yearly for this (I did recently hear that Sony not only increased the price but added 3 tiers to pay for. The most expensive tier however is $120 a year, if that doesn't sound like a scam then I don't know what does). And recently I got myself a "Steam Deck" as a personal birthday gift about 2 years ago. Best decision I have ever made, and I would go as far as saying it's way better than the "PS5" (millions of games to play, it's a handheld, it's fully backwards compatible with everything via emulation, and best of all free online play). Lately I've been replaying LBP1 (and ModNation Racers) on a PS3 emulator and immediately fell in love with LBP all over again (although it's not perfect running on the Steam Deck with minor graphical issues and crashing every now and then). I've enjoyed every minute of it just like how I was when I first started played it back then, and now with a custom server is giving me the ability re-live those moments playing community levels and playing online without spending a single penny. Thank you "Media Molecule" for giving us a gem that will forever be in our hearts. Your love and passion that you created has brought joy to all of us around the world and will forever cherish the moments we spent playing your game. And lastly, thank you for giving us the power of playing, creating, and sharing our creations with the world. Rest in peace "LittleBigPlanet", you maybe gone now but will not be forgotten. Here's hoping for "LittleBigPlanet 4" in the near future (if Sony is willing to, and getting their act together) .

Posted using PostyBirb

[snowsetdeer]

What a year we've all had! For the first time ever I can post a fully digital, fully completed yearly art round up post. It's been so awesome to see my style change and develop around my interests this year. All of the pieces (and some commentary from me!) will be posted in full under the cut :)

January, Shampoo from Ranma 1/2 (Citrus Shampoo) The doodle that started it all! I was really busy with school starting back up so it's not the most polished piece in the world, but I really love the colors I used and I'm thinking about revisiting this piece in the new year.

February, Krystal from Star Fox (I can just draw anything isn't that amazing) Although this is only a doodle February is the shortest month so...

March, Faye and Falco from Star Fox, Miffy from Miffy (What are they looking at?) I was making a lot of 3D Miffy models and such for one of my classes this month, and I was still super into Star Fox, so I decided to just mix the two together! I really like doing art that puts random characters together like this in my sketchbook, maybe I'll do more crossover pieces next year :)

April, Falco, Peppy, Slippy, Fox, and Krystal's Arm (N64 collab over on Newgrounds) This was my first ever collab, and I'm really glad I pushed myself to join! This is a redraw of one of the covers for Earth Defense Girl Iko Chan, I reference a lot of Iko Chan pictures and media when I'm drawing lol.

May, Sonic the Hedgehog with the Beam Kirby Powerup (submission to the Sonic anniversary collab on Newgrounds) This was another collab, and I wish I had been able to put more detail into the background for the final piece, but the collab only required a clear background png of your assigned character so I really focused in on Sonic.

June, The prince and The King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy (LEAKED 2009 DS EXCLUSIVE DATAMINE aka Hold Out Your Hand Son) The beginning of an era. This 20 minute doodle gifted me a ton of creative ideas and passions this year! The Katamari I drew here and the background (a cropped free Katamari wallpaper) are used in almost every single Katamari piece I made this year as a way to tie them all together (and a way to save time!)

July, The Prince from Katamari Damacy [And technically The King but I did not draw him this time lol] (Katamari Kart!) My sister is a competitive Mario Kart player, and while watching her I thought the Prince would be a cool addition to the roster. This was made before I played the We Love Katamari level where The Prince has his little ducky car or else I would have incorporated it here!

⭐August, The Prince and The King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy (Katamari Creation) Side note this is my best performing piece, and I'm so glad I decided to make it!!! It is a redraw of a guy pretending to be a wizard by floating an apple between his hands. I was originally going to draw the prince hiding between the apple slices when you find him in We Love Katamari, but decided that the hands were impressive enough that I could reuse my own Katamari lol.

September, The Queen of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy (Selfie trend) There was a trend on twitter where a cosplayer put her phone over her face to show the character, and I thought that was so cute I just had to do it with The Queen. I made this to be my pfp on here, but just wasn't quite satisfied with it (it was literally my first digital drawing of the Queen ever lol) SO-

October, The Prince, The Queen, and The King of All Cosmos from Katamari Damacy (He likes to feel tall) This is my actual current profile picture! It was originally made for both here and discord, but discord's circular crop completely removes the King from the picture whoops. I'm really proud of the King's hand and the subtle glow around The Prince to draw the viewer's eye to him, took a lot of trial and error to get both of them just right lol.

November, Ulala from Space Channel 5 (She's Stardust Chic,,,) November I actually had 2 pieces made, but this is the one I intended to be my big monthly piece. I got back into Space Chanel 5 something fierce over the course of the month, and I made so many of my friends play it with me lol.

December, The Queen and The King of All Cosmos (and the Prince really tiny!) from Katamari Damacy (Katamari Christmas) And now we're done! My most recent piece, inspired by family photos turned into Christmas Cards. I also really liked drawing the King and the Queen being cozy. The King's longer hair and more scruffy beard was really fun to play around with too. That's all from me this year! I grew a lot as an artist, but also a friend, mentor, student, and researcher too! I achieved a ton this year, and I can't wait to hit the ground running next year Now it is time for my once yearly "I'm putting one million tags to boost my views and engagement" giant tags section lol

[doyoulikethisanimesong-poll]

Hello! A pretty random question, but I’m curious.

I saw you answered some asks about which songs you discovered & liked thanks to the polls, but have you discovered any anime that you decided to watch through the polls as well? I mean, did you ever look at a submission, did some basic checks, glanced at the synopsis and went “huh this looks interesting, might give it a watch” or the likes? Or do you focus on the music only and don’t check the synopsis at all (which would be understandable, with how many songs are coming in)?

Have a good timezone!

I don't really check the synopsis at all however there are a couple anime that I've got on a list because I thought the songs fucked so hard that I just had to try them out. Devilman no Uta finally got me to sit down and atleast try out Devilman Crybaby after ignoring it for years and I'm really enjoying what I've seen so far. I was a bit iffy on the style at first but after a couple episodes, I just couldn't help but adore it. I'm hoping to finish it up in the next week or two when I get some free time where I want to watch stuff.

The other big one is actually Gundam as a whole. I'd watched Mobile Suit Gundam 79 a couple years back and watched a few episodes of Zeta but I was really struggling with Kamielle so I put the series down in hopes that I'd come back to it later but after hearing a bunch of songs from the later series, I decided to bite the bullet and watch more Zeta. I'm about half way through now and also decided to binge all of Witch from Mercury in one sitting which I adored. I knew WfM was a banger of a series but its the first time in a long while that an anime has gripped me so hard. I think my only really complaint is the fact that someone in production obviously really wanted to try and make the relationship ambigious so they can claim "they were just friends" which is a tad frustrating.

Another fun one that I just remembered is Sonic. The Sonic X submission got me playing the Sonic games again. I had been doing a full playthrough of all the Sonic games in release order and at the time of that submission, I had gotten through the 90's 2D games but hadn't started Adventure 1 yet and was just a bit burnt out. But since that submission, I have gotten through all the "main" 3D games from the 90's and 00's (except the Riders series which I will be checking out at a later date). My most recent completion was Colors which I enjoyed the gameplay of but dear god was the story a complete shitshow. I remember enjoying it so much more as a kid. I'm now alternating between Lost World and Forces (haven't started Forces yet but I have a few hours today where I'm gonna sharescreen with my friend and see if I can finish it in one session).

[miloscat]

[Review] Sonic Lost World (3DS)

The better Lost World?!

Dimps made some of my favourite Sonic games: Advance 2, Rush, Rush Adventure, Generations 3DS... not only have I now played them all, their handheld companion version of Lost World is the final Sonic game they've developed. And they went out swinging, because this dinky SD game shows up Sonic Team's console effort in many ways.

As with Unleashed, this version shares much with the higher-spec console game: the soundtrack, visual design, cutscenes (albeit crunched to 240p, and some have been removed). Broadly speaking the concepts are carried over as well, but a shift in focus and some gameplay tweaks make this a more playable and enjoyable experience.

For a start, there’s still a run button but Sonic runs faster by default and conserves more momentum. The homing attack is streamlined: back on the jump button where it belongs, and the kick is replaced by an arc projectile with a more clear situational use against strong enemies. Wallrunning and climbing are more useful and easier to maintain due to a mechanic that lets you extend them with a spin. The spin dash has slightly more use too but that’s more down to level design, which I also find more engaging.

Compared to the Wii U version, this game is more like a puzzle platformer. There’s still plenty of running fast and the platforming is challenging and involved, but they pack in a lot more interaction in these dense levels. Elemental shields are now given in levels rather than through the inventory system, and used to open alternate paths by protecting you from hazards. Wisps are also utilised better (including a few exclusive to this version) with some extended sequences that require and explore their powers.

Even the helper feature is implemented better here. Instead of simply whisking you ahead in the level, dying a few too many times offers you a relevant power-up like one that auto-attacks enemies, makes you intangible to damage, or gives you higher and floatier jumps. This version also actually has special stages which give a motivation for grabbing and hanging onto rings until the level’s end. They play out with Sonic flying in 3D space and are very gyro-heavy which was troublesome and made me dizzy at times but they’re a nice novelty.

I do have issues with some other choices. Taking a page from Colours, Wisps are now unlockable and so some can’t be used on your first run through a level. Gyro is now non-optional for some sequences including certain boss fights and Wisp powers. There’s also a tacked on crafting system where Tails can make you items from materials gathered by playing levels, but it’s entirely ignorable. The Streetpass feature sort of plays into this; people send you their best runs of individual levels (which you are now ranked for) and you have to beat them for the reward of more materials. Having cut the side missions and minigames I found I didn’t miss them but these replacements aren’t much better.

Although the Zeti remain boring, with lazy and stupid designs, they at least have slightly less of a presence here. On Wii U they would talk at you sometimes during gameplay, displaying more of their shallow and broad “personalities”, and have two boss fights tacked onto levels per world. Here not only are their fights improved but they’re relegated to a boss fight act. This means there’s fewer levels overall but it’s worth the compromise. The final lava world is also nothing but a boss rush, a slightly underwhelming change although I suppose it gives a more climactic feel.

With Unleashed and again here, I’m glad my completionist tendencies prompted a look at these alternate versions because in both cases I prefer them to the leading HD iteration! Dimps did a great job especially considering the 3DS’s weaker hardware necessitated cutbacks on the scope. In fact that just makes Lost World 3DS more focused and streamlined, on top of the improved controls and puzzley tendencies. They even did the gravity gimmick better here, I reckon! I hope Dimps gets another chance with Sonic at some point but if not they at least have a strong legacy, and this is a fine way to cap it off.

[semi-sketchy]

That...was it?

I mean, yeah, I probably should've expected it to end in a "adventure continues in SXSG" but that was very abrupt.

GUN, Rouge and Omega know there's something big coming, but just fuck off after this? There's no glimpse of what awaits Shadow? No real cliffhanger, it just stops? This wasn't satisfying.

It started with "Black Doom might be back I have to get to the ARK" and ended with "Black Doom might be back I'm on my way to the ARK." I stopped to look at the timer near the end because I was like "wait it's just gonna end here? We watched a travel animation?"

Maybe this is because I haven't been following SXSG super closely, but I don't understand how Shadow's campaign is going to start so I have no context for how this leads into the game. That's probably partly why it feels so abrupt right now.

I liked the music and action scenes, though I thought some lines should've been cut.

Like this is pretty obvious, but it keeps going.

The scene would've been better had this line been cut. Same thing happens in part 2.

Sometimes, silence speaks volumes. But of course, everything needs to be "spelled out" though that's an issue with the Maria scenes in general.

Man this shot of Shadow though with that music swelling, holy cow.

Hits you in the feels.

Overall though, it was okay!

My biggest compliment really goes to the sound design. I just love how the music and sound effects come together. Also really enjoy how snappy the animation is. By part 3 I definitely was able to tell I was looking at 3D models, but honestly I don't really care which medium it is as long as it's done well. This looked good!

Writing wise, I think part 1 was the worst and that's due to the stiff, on-the-nose interactions between Shadow and Maria (plus the slip-in of "low-gravity remission"). I definitely preferred the action scenes and interactions with Rouge, sadly Omega was just kinda there in the corner like "I CALL DIBS" and didn't contribute anything noteworthy.

I said this about Xenoblade 3 and it rings true here: this felt like watching a draft rather than a finished script. Some parts are cooked and others are raw. If Omega had nothing to do but blow a few things up in the background, why was he here? Even Shadow was the one to take down the GUN ship Omega originally engaged. Give him a bigger purpose or cut him.

The Maria scenes play out the most like a draft, something you'd write to get the basics of what you want the characters to convey before going back over and replacing those lines with actual dialogue. (This is something I do if I'm struggling.)

Now do I really care that the GUN Commander got his Archie name? No. Of all the things in this animation, Sonic Twitter picked the stupidest one to blow up about. I think the "low gravity remission" and Shadow knowing he's part alien is an actual issue. (Although I guess this could be argued since in ShTH he still had amnesia, he wouldn't remember so this wouldn't matter. Still, wasn't it supposed to be a secret? The Commander only found out by accident?)

Some things just aren't as well thought-out as others, which cements my thought that this script needed polishing.

All that said, this is the biggest promo animation project we've seen in Sonic yet and it's quite different from others before it. I don't think I'd call it "the best", I think the Frontiers one was super cool, but it also didn't have the run-time of Dark Beginnings. Like with XC3: Future Redeemed, it simply didn't have the time to screw stuff up as much.

There's good, there's ehh, so overall Dark Beginnings was just okay for me.

My biggest disappointment is still the fact that this animation simply wasn't what I wanted, which isn't its fault. I saw the teaser of Shadow and Maria on the ARK, I thought it was going to be about them on the ARK and it ended up just being about Shadow traveling to space. I wanted and was expecting something this animation was never going to be.

I guess we'll find out soon how the final game handles Shadow's story, though if this animation is anything to go off of, I'm keeping my expectations in check.

[blazehedgehog]

Recently I’ve been playing, and loving, Penny’s Big Breakaway and it’s made me realize how stiff official Sonic games have felt since Sonic Heroes. It feels fantastic to chain moves together as Penny. While I don’t want a Sonic game to play exactly like Penny’s Big Breakaway I do want to enter a similar flow state while playing. Sonic Team seems allergic to making any gameplay/movement options that allows for flow… do you have any idea why?

That's the 65-million-dollar question, isn't it.

Several times over the years I've pushed back on the idea when people say Sonic "can't work in 3D." Of course Sonic could work in 3D, it just takes the right team to build it. The concepts and principals of a Sonic game are not exclusive to 2D. You can build a game on those ideals in 3D and it will work just fine.

If you go back and watch my "How Do We Fix Sonic?" video, I also put forth the idea that a lot of 3D Sonic games are the way they are because Sonic Team does not trust the player. To some degree, rightfully so: there's a growing pile of one-level fangame demos where some college kid tries to do 3D Sonic "right" and while a lot of them are okay, I think it makes for an easy case to see why official Sonic games have so much scripting in them.

When you're going that fast, and you're that acrobatic, it becomes very easy to make some incredibly dumb mistakes. It's not that nobody can play that game, it's that a game like that might struggle to achieve mass market appeal. Sonic is, first and foremost, a pick-up-and-play game. I've been thinking of that term a lot lately since the release of Ring Racers, and it basically means a game you don't have to learn. A game where you turn it on and know everything about it instinctively.

The entire pitch for Sonic was a game you could play with just one button. Easy to start playing, difficult to master over the long term. It's a tough balancing act. Especially when you're aiming for a game that a 10 year old can play.

When I was 10 years old, I couldn't even stay on the road in Super Mario Kart. That's what we're working with here.

So they make Sonic into this guided experience with heavy scripting where they can insulate the player from making dangerous mistakes. Lots of spectacle and minimal friction.

Now you add in the pressure of deadlines and budgets. A fangame like Sonic GT can spend five years as an alpha still figuring out its level design, tweaking its mechanics, before finally releasing a four or five level "game." Whereas an official Sonic game probably has to make a pitch, get to alpha, nail all of its controls and mechanics down relatively early. Probably within the first year of development at least, if not within a period of months.

Then they have to build a game for those mechanics. And, with being so scripted and directed, they can't deviate much. Once they're locked in, they don't have a lot of wiggle room to redefine what the game plays like.

That even goes for researching better ways to do things. I don't think these guys were given much of a chance to stop and think. Sonic Adventure 1 came out in October 1998 in Japan, that team moved to America to work on the September 1999 United States release, Sonic Adventure 2 was announced probably not even six months later, it came out within 18 months of its announcement just in time for that team to crank on the super rushed Gamecube port, which segued into an equally rushed port of the original Sonic Adventure, then their first multiplatform release on a third-party engine just a year or two later, followed by a sequel less than two years later, and another sequel less than two years after that...

Running and running and running and never stopping... and, well, I guess this is just what Sonic in 3D plays like now, right? That's the precedent. Sales are relying on not alienating people who are used to the way these games play.

Plus, it also depends on who within Sega is involved. I tend to agree that we shouldn't pin decisions all on one guy anymore for how many developers are actually involved in a game (200+ for Sonic Frontiers), but it's hard to deny that in the Morio Kishimoto era of 3D Sonic games, they've made a dedicated to effort to lock Sonic down and script his movements more than ever. Starting in Sonic Colors all the way up to the most recent Sega of Japan games, player movement is more restricted and automatically controlled than any other Sonic games to come before it.

Even Sonic Frontiers, for all of its open zone gameplay, once you touch a rail or one of those floating platforms, it tries to restrict and control you as much as humanly possible. Helicopter parent game design. "Do it my way exactly, or stop playing the game."

And I think all of this just collides with itself and makes a big ugly mess. I think it's telling Sonic Unleashed is such a cult favorite given its the closest thing we've had to a decent reboot of mechanics, even though it's still trapped in a lot of that scripted spectacle design.

[tomyo]

LoZ Minish Cap

I've been really thinking about my backlog again over as I've moved on from Harvest Moon game collecting into Sonic game over collecting and figured it was time to revisit what I currently owned on my Wii U.

So yeah, Minish Cap. Gorgeous game. To be honest I only stopped playing it because I got stuck and this time I had to look up a guide because I couldn't even remember what was wrong.

From my previous session I had just passed the Minish dungeon and at this point I've ended up just before the Hylia section. All in all, that's....two more dungeons? LoZ and I have always struggled with this love hate relationship. I love the design, hate the gameplay. I am not a gamer despite what this adventure may or may not inform you about me. I feel tense whenever basic combat comes into play. In fact I loved the switch saga simply because I could do the elements I found fun while avoiding puzzles and being lean on combat. I think it says a lot I have never challenged a dungeon or boss in either game too.

However, every time an online store goes down I'm confronted with suddenly needing to wisely spend a large sum of money across a large catalog of games, dlc, skins, and avatar goods. Side tangent but I deeply regret not buying a digital copy of Sonic 06 now realizing my og copy might be showing signs of disk rot. Either way, the 8th gen Nintendo console closing led me to a lot of retro game downloads and Minish Cap made the cut.

Why did it? I think most obviously the graphics. I am that person who romantacises my Gaelic heritage and no other Zelda game leans into the aesthetic more. A lot of the Celtic braiding, the kin stones, the Minish, and so forth. But even beyond that, the pixel art is some of the most stunning work on the GBA. It's not too surprising since it's coming out of Capcom who also produced the disgustingly gorgeous Oracle games. The singular graphical complaint I have is for Link himself who looks a little like they based him off a 3D model . Did they? I don't know. It's still amazing that his tiny form manages to work so well though so we can look past it all. The tiny segments though, fucking masterpieces.

Gameplay again, isn't bad it just isn't me. I think I've hit my put down point and it's not the game's fault but I don't think I'm particularly worried about playing more at the moment. As far as I can tell I'm halfway through with 3 more dungeons before the finale. Like usual though, Zelda's side quests shined amazing and the kin stones and gacha were my favourite part of the experience. I liked the feeling I was changing the space of the game though stones and there was calculated strategy what to choose. The gacha however is this somewhat vindictive task because I happened to see a guy talk about how unfair it was and while I'm not saying he's wrong, I just want to prove a point. Currently I have 50/130 with just what I had on me at the time. If I finish this game, it's to spite that video.

What can I say, it was a solid experience but not really me.

[mossy-green-aka-ferrythem]

Played most of Sonic Unleashed for the first time recently.

Genuinely one of my favorite Sonic games. Favorite games in general even. The 3D level design in the Day stages is some of my favorite in the whole series. Not a single main stage I dislike.

The Werehog is an interesting take on the gameplay, and I appreciate what they were going for here, and also realize that something like the Werehog is mechanically necessary, since it's kind of impossible to market and sell a Triple AAA game that would be like, 2 hours at most if the Werehog wasn't there. Also, it is kind of fun to experience a gameplay style that contrasts so much, a slower puzzle platformer that still keeps with what Sonic's about, while having a fairly fun beat-em-up gameplay style to boot. Of course this pales in quality to the Day stages, but that's kind of what it's meant to do in a way. It feels like the entire team KNEW the Day stages exist at the peak of what Sonic the Hedgehog is. It gets to a point where I can get an S Rank on the level, and then play it again just for the fun of it, because this is some of the most fun I've had in a video game period. The changes in routes that happen at light speed, the intelligent emphasis on high-stakes to keep your run engaging, while making it all the more satisfying when it goes smoothly, and just like. Everything about it. Wow.

Also. This game honestly has a Final Level that puts most of every other Sonic game to shame. Nothing against things like Sonic Adventure 2's Final Rush, or Shadow Generation's Radical Highway, but really, they pale in comparison, in my eyes, to the apex that is Eggmanland. Eggmanland feels so brilliant to me because it by all means, feels like a burst of excitement like no other, excitement that they finally get to create Eggmanland, after teasing it for so long, after having it's construction a main motivation for Dr Robotnik ever since right around his first inception, has finally been created, and it lives up to that buildup and more. A level that combines all of Unleashed's gameplay styles into one in a beautiful way, all in a Dystopian Theme Park/City hybrid, which is so big it takes up most of the space on the small continent Dr. Eggman took as his own. The music, just like all of Unleashed music, is perfectly fit for the stage, and is just such an incredible music composition, with both the Day and Night themes shouting at you that this is the end of this game, a grueling romp through Eggman's cartoonish dystopia that is Eggmanland. It fucking rocks.

Genuinely this game is so fucking good. Always wanted to play it ever since Sonic X Shadow Generations got me fully back into Sonic, and by god does it deliver...

Even if the biggest issue to this game is the pacing issue the medals present, it kind of ends up feeling insignificant once your at the final act, because Jungle Joyride into Eggmanland is probably one of the strongest one-two punches I've seen a Sonic game do. Hell, games in general. Also, the Werehog does have some things that undercut some sauce he could have, I feel like the lock-on range for platforms is a bit too narrow, and he should be able to lock onto platforms after an attack, to give more cool movement/skipping opportunities that have always been a huge part of Sonic's identity. Either way, it does very well for what it is, and is a nice side-dish that complements the main course, a main course which is one of the best I've ever tasted. Fantastic game.

[thankskenpenders]

There have been some interesting bits of Sonic-related news lately! This is the post where I comment on them.

Sonic Superstars

Finally! A new Sonic sidescroller! It's been too long.

Admittedly, in a perfect world, I would've wanted a Sonic Mania 2, but I'll take a 2.5D game with all new zones for sure, especially when the art direction for it looks this nice. And four-player co-op with Sonic, Tails, Knuckles AND Amy playable? Hell yeah. Also Fang is back, and there's a new funny little guy designed by Naoto Ohshima! Wow!

There's been some concern over how this will play, particularly after it was discovered it's being co-developed by Ohshima's company Arzest. They're perhaps best known for some mediocre Nintendo games like Yoshi's New Island, Hey! Pikmin, and the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic 2016, as well as, of course... co-production on Balan Wonderworld. The thing is, Arzest is very much one of those "silent collaborator" type companies. They're hired gun developers who do the grunt work on projects for other studios without being put in the spotlight. The quality of their games isn't really up to Arzest, who are presumably just doing whatever they're directed to do with whatever resources they're allotted. It's up to their publishers.

Based on the side-by-side physics comparisons that have been going around Twitter, it seems clear that SOMEONE on this project is invested in making Superstars play just like the classic games. I'm admittedly no Sonic physics purist, but the extended gameplay footage (with placeholder music from Sonic 4 Episode 2) looks spot on to me. Christian Whitehead also seems to know things about the game, stating that "the Mania physics were indeed fully translated to modern 3D." It seems that at the very least they consulted his previous work on this, regardless of whether or not he's actually involved.

But even if this ends up not being true, honestly, I'll take a new Sonic sidescroller that's "just okay" if it has all new zones, nice art direction, and good music. If Sonic 4 had checked those three boxes but played exactly the same, I would've been way more into it.

Really, it's the music that has me most concerned. Obviously we all love Jun Senoue, but hearing he's trying to do "classic-style" music again makes me worry that he's gonna bust out the fake Genesis synths. I'm actually a weirdo who likes the Classic Sonic stage themes in Forces, but those weren't by Senoue, whose otherwise very strong compositions were really hurt by the sound palette chosen for Sonic 4. Like many others, I'd prefer it if Superstars went for the new jack swing sound of Sonic Mania - and considering Tee Lopes is contributing, hopefully he's allowed to tap into that sound a little. But I'd be open to other styles, too. I just really don't think a game with HD visuals should be going for a fake 16-bit sound.

But yeah, overall, I'm looking forward to Superstars. I think we've needed something like this for a long time, and I'm glad they're finally doing it.

Sega union update

We don't have many details on this, but the newly forming Sega of America union, AEGIS-CWA, is facing resistance from management. Apparently some form of "anti-union campaign" (their wording) is underway, also described more worryingly as "relentless attempts at union busting." We unfortunately don't have more details right now, and it seems like no news outlets are doing anything with this story.

This behavior is unfortunately not surprising, even from a company that purports progressive values like Sega. Remember kids: corporations are not your friends.

In the face of this, the members of AEGIS-CWA are still trying to convince management to stay neutral with the help of their fan petition that raised over 4300 signatures. At the time of writing this, their first union election is also underway. I continue to wish them luck in their efforts. We're currently seeing a wave of unionization attempts the likes of which we've never seen before, and I have to hope that at least some of them stick. We need real change in the game industry, an industry where if you're able to stick around longer than ten years without burning out then you're one of the lucky ones.

Okay now time for the thing y'all really wanted me to comment on

Penders says he's leaving Twitter

Earlier this month, Penders announced: "Since Twitter is promoting anti-trans nonsense, I can’t in good conscience continue to be associated with it much longer."

He's certainly not wrong. Elon's been doubling down on his transphobic fearmongering, and Twitter's already weak moderation of hate speech has only gotten even weaker. (They quietly removed their rule against intentional misgendering in April.) But based on the date he tweeted this, I assume Ken was referring specifically to Elon promoting Matt Walsh's shit ass transphobic documentary, which Elon personally allowed to be hosted on Twitter in its entirety. I'd quit the site myself if it didn't feel necessary to promote my work and stay connected with my peers. (Both the furry community and the gamedev sphere are very much centered on Twitter.) Assuming Ken does actually leave in protest, hey, good on him.

There's been some surprise over the fact that he's apparently a trans ally, but for all his many flaws, Penders has always been your average baby boomer Democrat. Half his tweets are about hoping Trump goes to jail. He has many outdated views that he refuses to unpack (I am not going to devolve this post into a catalog of stupid shit he's tweeted), but he at least understands that "progressive" is a thing you should try to be. He's that uncle who you wouldn't go to for a nuanced view on queer identity, but like, he knows trans people exist and are discriminated against and that that's bad.

Of course, instead of just leaving Twitter, he's announced that he intends to leave by September 30th, after which point people will have to contact him via his website. The idea of someone scheduling a date four months in the future on which they're going to leave a social media platform in protest is very, very funny to me. I wonder if he has something planned for September that needs to happen first - like, you know, maybe finally releasing at least a portion of The Lara-Su Chronicles?

Lord knows when the hell we'll be able to read the first part of the comic, but in the near future you WILL be able to buy THIS on a t-shirt!

Wait did he change that one character from Anthony Mackie to Ernie Hudson???

Anyway, my one hope is just that even if he does leave Twitter, he doesn't delete his account. His tweets have long been one of my most important sources for behind the scenes info on Archie Sonic, even if you do have to take some of it with a grain of salt. Gallagher and Bollers are simply not going on Twitter and talking about this stuff on a regular basis like Ken does. With so many old forums and fan sites now gone, only partially preserved by the Wayback Machine, Ken deleting his Twitter would truly be the burning of the library of Alexandria for old Archie Sonic behind the scenes drama.

You know, assuming he actually does leave Twitter.

...

Aaaand that about does it for Sonic-related news lately, I think? Okay, back to my hiatus. I would still like to get back to updating sometime this year, but I'm still in recovery mode following SLARPG's launch, so I can't promise when that'll be. I appreciate everyone's continued patience!

[omamervt]

I feel like videos of Shadow Generations gameplay doesn't really do the FEEL of playing those levels justice.

It LOOKS on the surface like any other 3D Sonic game with Boost. But there's a huge difference in how it FEELS.

For instance. They separated out the Homing Attack from the Double Jump. I think even in Frontiers, you'd double jump UNLESS there was a Homing Attack option, which wasn't a HUGE deal, except in Final Frontier, but keeping that from becoming annoying required them to adhere to certain level design decisions. Separating it out in Shadow Generations takes some getting used to, sure, but it opens up a lot of new doors for what KINDS of platforming challenges they can add to levels.

There's also been some adjustments to the controls in other aspects, as well. Again, comparing to Frontiers, mainly because it was the last Boost game to get such a positive reception, but there were some issues with how they worked. Again, I think the levels in Frontiers were designed AROUND the issues with the controls well, so it wasn't until the Final Frontier update where they added a series of high-precision challenges that you'd even stop to think of how finicky the controls can be. I'm not saying I've had NO issues with that kind of thing in Shadow Generations, but overall, in the handful of areas where I did end up having to slow down, it felt BETTER. I haven't messed around with either system enough to be able to explain why, but it just did.

But I realize looking back at my gameplay that I very often look like I'm overreacting to the quality of the level, and I just wanna assure people that being in control did, in fact, FEEL different.

[aotopmha]

I finished Sonic Adventure 2.

I think the key takeaway of my revisit is how little the low points of the game hindered my enjoyment of it.

Starting with the most important element, the gameplay: the Sonic and Shadow stages are still the obvious highlight of the game for me.

I think I spent tens if not even reaching to hundreds of hours perfecting my runs of the stages and doing the same with the challenges when I first got to play it now almost 20 years ago.

Even if they technically were just a third of the game, I think they almost entirely made up for any of the frustrations with the game I had because I they were so much fun to play and I replayed them so much. I got my worth out of the game just from these stages.

And I still really felt that fun in trying to perfect them all these years later. They really are evergreen to me, which is always really special for any piece of media to be.

There are, however, some quality of life elements brought in by later entries I'm really grateful for: I think the much improved lock-on for homing attack in the boost games goes a long way in fixing the issue of dying via unintended homing attacks. There were so many times it just didn't target the enemy and sent me flying to a pit.

I think mapping the sidestepping to different buttons fixed the extremely clunky rail switching, as well. Same for also including lock-on for the starting points of rails.

And finally, while I think the controls are still probably the best 3D Sonic has ever controlled, they still aren't quite perfect, as precision movements are still pretty difficult to pull off. I noticed this the most when trying to land on rails, in which case the controls were just a touch too sensitive for smaller adjustments, either overshooting or undershooting.

So, the Sonic and Shadow stages are great.

But this is where the true fun begins when discussing the game: the controversial shooting and treasure hunting stages.

And my opinion on them is that they could've been made in a way that leaned into combining these concepts with the fundamental principles of Sonic's gameplay.

Keep it speedy, but combine that speed with slightly more exploration for Knuckles and Rouge and add elements of Gamma's shooting stages for Tails and Eggman instead of putting yhem in a mech.

That said, the mech gameplay was the big surprise of my revisit. It genuinely had some really fun stages, particularly the ones leaning much more on the rail shooter element of the gameplay.

I think I might even consider Eggman's Weapon's Bed and Cosmic Wall stages genuinely great because building up the enemy combo has its own sense of fun and speed, just expressed in a very different way than Sonic's.

And as I said on my previous post, it doesn't necessarily even control bad.

However, just like Sonic, it also doesn't control perfect, so the stages requiring more precise platforming are a lot less fun.

I didn't feel the need to mention it because it didn't bother me that much in them, but aside from the elements I talked about above, the speed stages also had occasional camera issues. I bring this up here because the mech stages are much worse with the camera. Combine this with some horrible enemy placement and pits and you get Eggman's Sand Ocean and Tails' Hidden Base, probably the peak of my frustration with the mech stages.

But the surprising part was that I think I had a good time with pretty much all other mech stages.

I think Tails' were worse because they felt so reliant on slow platforming and were more about picking and choosing when to or when not to engage with enemies, but they were also an interesting contrast to Eggman's more destruction-based gameplay.

I haven't seen it talked about much, but I think even if Tails' levels are less fun, how characterisation influences the gameplay here is at least an interesting detail.

Tails' levels are much more about navigating the stages while Eggman's are about, well, blowing stuff up. It reflects their characters well and I think that's neat. And I think it is intentional because it is pretty consistent.

Finally, I think the treasure hunting stages are the worst of the bunch.

Again, they control fine (if once again, imperfectly), but some of the design elements just really drag them down.

The first couple are at least relatively small areas, so they can go by fairly quick, but in later levels frustration can build up quick.

A radar that only detects emeralds one by one and in order makes searching more frustrating because you potentially could need to search the entire level all over again.

The vague hint monitors can be useless in the bigger levels.

And the precision by which you need to find the shards can lead to battling the imperfect camera, controls and bad enemy placement or all of them at the same time.

I particularly had a lot of luck with Rouge's stages (and Meteor Herd), but they were at best okay and at worst absolute nightmares (Mad Space), but never truly "fun".

I think Knuckles' part of Cannon's Core exemplifies all of it, but also adds water on top of it, as well.

Once again, I turn to recent QoL changes where I think better underwater movement options or lock-on (including switches) could go such a long way in making this playstyle much more fun.

But despite all of these issues, there are, once again, only a few stages here I think I truly hated. I think that's what ultimately saved SA2 for me.

Nothing is so bad as to ruin the fun I had.

I think the final bits of gameplay to talk about are the bosses, which are mostly boring jokes, but I did enjoy the Egg Golem, Sonic vs. Shadow (even if it can also be trivialised), The Biolizard and the final boss.

All of these were fights that had some manner of substance that also wasn't annoying (King Boom Boo).

I particularly remember struggling on The Finalhazard, but had a really easy time on this revisit. It still was pretty fun to dodge the lasers and hit the weak spot, though.

The two driving stages also exist, but aside from my frustrations with the design of the Rouge stage as I talked about here, I think they're a bit of content that either could've been made a cutscene or combined with some other stage in terms of plot.

Moving on to less important aspects, I still think this English voice cast is the best for the characters in terms of just "voices sounding like them".

Unfortunately, the acting itself is generally pretty bad. There are at most some better and some worse line reads. It's very typical early bad anime dub. And as per being dated, the characters also talk over each other, something some older video games also struggled with.

The music, however, is still just as great if you're on the mood for cheesy lyrics with catchy melodies (with a huge variety varying styles). The melodies are as iconic as they've always been, from Crush 40's buttrock to Shadow's techno stage tracks to Sonic's general pop/rock stage tracks. There is Rouge's fun jazz and peak cheese with Knuckles' rap.

It's also fantastic cheesy yet very sincere and fun Shounen manga in terms of story identity and I had the time of my life with it. The story is pure insanity that only works because it has the ability to have fun and be heartfelt next to some of its dark stuff.

At this point, I think the graphics really are showing their age the most, but particularly the human designs. They all look really bad, from Maria to the president. Even the humans in the better CG cutscenes look really bad. The adventure style is not thr way to go.

And the Sonic designs aren't particularly netter off either. It's not a well-aged game in terms of character design, but the environments look fine enough.

I think it's also a fairly polished game. I encountered only a few glitches across my entire time playing it, when I was expecting a lot more of them.

Tl; dr for Sonic Adventure 2, though?

In a general sense, I think I had a great time. There were only a few moments in the game that I genuinely hated, as at least to me, the best of it far outweighs the worst of it.

It clearly shows its age in many ways, and I think it is a game that I think would make massive sense to be remade, but I also had a lot of fun with it for what it was.

I have been in the mood for this kind of ridiculous Shounen manga fun and that's exactly what this was.

[emmatheyoshi]

Another rare instance of me sharing my writing on here! This time, a proper backstory for my Sonic.EXE retake…

Cliché.EXE

Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 are considered some of the best games in the Sonic Franchise. And with the new movie coming out this year, I wanted to play through them. I already had SA2, as I played it as a kid, but I never had the original Sonic Adventure. So, I set out to find a copy of the first game.

I wound up in my local Cartridges Galore, with a friend (who happened to work there), and in the back room, looking through boxes of various games. I eventually found something interesting, a blank GameCube disk with something Sharpied on it: “Sonic Adventure: Beta Test. DO NOT THROW OUT.”

While we did find a copy of Sonic Adventure, I couldn’t help but be curious about the beta copy. “Do you mind if I take this?” I asked Martha (the friend who works at the Cartridges Galore). “I don’t see why not,” Martha replied.” “How much do you want for it?” “You can have it for free, I doubt anyone would wanna buy a beta version of a game.” I proceeded to pay for the actual copy of Sonic Adventure and went back home.

Once I was back home, I loaded the beta disk into my GameCube. Instead of any sort of intro, I’m immediately booted to what looks like the very first zone of the level. That was to be expected, this was the beta test, after all. What startled me was…Sonic. He was facing away from me and looked very different. His quills were curled up and he only had three of them on the back of his head. When I moved the camera to get a better view of him, I was startled again. He looked like a non-machine Metal Sonic. His muzzle was a pale blue, his eyes were black holes with red irises and white pupils.

He wasn’t scary, per se. In fact, he looked…sad. He suddenly looked up at the camera and a text box appeared on the screen: “Will you play with me?” I looked around the area. It was clearly unfinished, some of the pieces of the set still having the black-and-magenta checkerboard pattern that untextured 3D models have. “I’m sorry, bud,” I thought aloud, “but….I don’t think I can. Where would we even play?”

Sonic looked up at the camera again. Having read my fair share of Sonic creepypastas, I braced myself for a jumpscare. But instead, he just…started crying. I could practically hear my heart break. This little hedgehog (whom I can only assume is a sentient piece of AI at this point) has been stuck in this disk for almost three decades, and just wants someone to play with. As I was processing what was happening, the TV shut off.

That night, I had a very vivid nightmare involving Sonic Adventure. I can’t remember it entirely, but I do remember just wandering a Fallout-esc Green Hill Zone, almost like the one in the beta test. Upon waking up and realizing it was just a dream, I realized I had to make a decision: What do I do with this disk? I didn’t want to break it, as it would then become lost media, but I also didn’t have the heart to throw it out or put it up on EBay.

I decided to revisit Sonic. When the game started up, Sonic was sitting on an untextured rock, still crying. A new text box appeared: “I woke you up, didn’t I? I can’t help the nightmares I cause…” Once again, my heart broke. I realized that I had to figure out some way to help this poor guy out. I haven’t figured it out fully yet, but this is what I’ve done so far.

I bought a new PC monitor (a used one), a second GameCube (also used), and a capture card. I hooked the capture card up to the GameCube and the GameCube to my PC. After some tweaking and multiple tests, I finally managed to get this contraption to work. I put the disk in the GameCube and booted it up.

Sonic was still sitting on the rock. He looked at me. “Will you play with me?” “I will, bud. I can’t do it right this minute, but I promise I’ll play with you.” For the first time, the hedgehog perked up a bit. “You will?” I nodded, “I will. I promise, Sonic. Although…I don’t think that’s a fitting name for you anymore…” “Then…what should my name be?” I thought about it for a few moments before responding. “Cliché. Cliché the Hedgehog.” “Cliché?” “Yeah. I found you, or well, your disk, at a second hand video games store and got it for free. That’s a classic cliché in video game creepypastas.” “What’s a creepypasta?” I chuckled, “I’ll explain it later.”

I’m a college student studying engineering and computer science, so hopefully I can make a more compact version of my current contraption at some point. I also hope that I can eventually modify the beta copy I have so I can actually play with Cliché. So to whoever left this guy at the Cartridges Galore, don’t worry. Sonic, or rather, Cliché, is in good hands.