Sonic The Hedgehog Games

[GigantorUnitron]

no you don't understand this is peak character design and totally not a furbait Metal Gear Solid expy
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I don't get it. she looks ugly as hell with her eyes open, but how does she not fit into the sonic mold?

 

[BetterFuckChuck]

Come now, Marble Garden might be the weakest of the Sonic 3 levels, but you can't tell me Carnival Night sucks.

Act 2 is way too long is just what trips me up. I actually think Marble Garden if you avoid the spinning tops and take more shortcuts is stronger than Carnival Night

 

[starborn427614]

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I'm starting to think that maybe Flynn and Evan's previous work on writing stories for the Sonic comics was just a flash in the pan, or they've just lost touch with it, if this is what the big 'story arc' that started with Impostor Syndrome was supposed to culminate in. Surge's character motivation continues to be very convoluted.

Is that arc still going? It's hard to tell since Ian and IDW aren't saying anything. There was at least a clear divide between the Metal Virus saga and Starline's arc.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

So I played a bit more of Sonic Generations. It feels like there's too much padding, unlocking keys shouldn't be a thing. Just whisk me off the the next zone instead. The hub world is a bit unnecessary too, but it's not too bad.

There's also the famous, obligatory 3D Sonic jank. It's still pretty good though, and I like the ability system, equipping stuff like shields or improving abilities. Do they ever bring this back afterwards?

 

[Local Degenerate]

So for christmas my brother got me a copy of sonic forces for the switch, kind of as a joke because he knows I am not the biggest fan of the game, but because it was a gift I chose to at least finish it once there, it is pretty short after all.
Rate me autistic, but I actually had more fun making multiple avatars than playing mlst of the stages tbh.
Which one do you guys think I should draw?

I still stand that Forces, for all it's infinite (kek) flaws, has the bones of a legit great game.

The plotline is great off the bat, the idea that Robotnik wins, takes Sonics out of play, and forces the chucklefucks that follow him to nut up and actually do something. As proof, look at New Yolk, which is basically that.

Similarly, Infinite is a really cool concept. A thug beaten by Shadow, becomes so obsessed with not feeling fear or weak, that he sides with Robotnik, and allows him to jam a reality warping jem in him. You could do a lot with that, not to mention his former cronies. And any time he showed up to fuck with stages (looking at you metropolis stage) it was always a fucking blast.

And as memable ast it is, character creators are never a bad idea, and actually could've worked really well. Not to mention the obvious autist bait of the sonic OC makers, all the thirteen of them that were still around pre-prime.

Just a shame Sega fucked every single one of those ideas up beyond all recognition.

 

[Book Thief]

So I played a bit more of Sonic Generations. It feels like there's too much padding, unlocking keys shouldn't be a thing. Just whisk me off the the next zone instead. The hub world is a bit unnecessary too, but it's not too bad.

There's also the famous, obligatory 3D Sonic jank. It's still pretty good though, and I like the ability system, equipping stuff like shields or improving abilities. Do they ever bring this back afterwards?

Don't think so. After this was Lost World, which dropped it in favor of a slower, Mario Galaxy-esque style of platforming. Then there was Forces, which probably comes close with the Wispon thing, but if you ask me, the less said about Forces, the better.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

but you can't tell me Carnival Night sucks.

It does have one sin though.

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

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I'm starting to think that maybe Flynn and Evan's previous work on writing stories for the Sonic comics was just a flash in the pan, or they've just lost touch with it, if this is what the big 'story arc' that started with Impostor Syndrome was supposed to culminate in. Surge's character motivation continues to be very convoluted.

I kinda disagree. I'd say her motivation is pretty simple.

Like she said, she was made to be in Sonic's shadow. Even if she chooses to live her own life, she will always being nothing more than Sonic's replacement mostly due to the fact that any remnant of her past is seemingly nowhere to be found.

She's mad at the world for putting her in this situation and, as a result, wants to go scorched earth on everything relating to Sonic, Eggman, etc.

this might be me personally but as a character design sort of fascinator I think all the sonic characters made for the comics are so obnovious to me and im glad theyre not being used outside of them. for all the faults of the "sonic's shitty friends" trend all of those characters are well designed, but all the comics literally look like furry bait that doesnt fit into the philosophy of how a sonic character should be drawn

All sonic characters are inherently furbait. Besides, you say that as if Rouge, Blaze and Infinite don't exist.

I'd say the comic characters fit in just fine. I've yet to see a design that felt out of place for the series.

no you don't understand this is peak character design and totally not a furbait Metal Gear Solid expy
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The least you can do is give her a more flattering picture:


She's pretty ugly when she gets emotional, but that's the likely the point given how timid she is usually.

 

[Mr. Idiot]

this might be me personally but as a character design sort of fascinator I think all the sonic characters made for the comics are so obnoxious to me and im glad theyre not being used outside of them. for all the faults of the "sonic's shitty friends" trend all of those characters are well designed, but all the comics literally look like furry bait that doesnt fit into the philosophy of how a sonic character should be drawn

All sonic characters are inherently furbait. Besides, you say that as if Rouge, Blaze and Infinite don't exist.

I'd say the comic characters fit in just fine. I've yet to see a design that felt out of place for the series.

I can see where @BetterFuckChuck comes from because from what I've glanced the characters designed for the games often have very minimal accessories cluttered onto them and they have an very easy on the eyes-appeal to them. And a good couple of the few female mainstays also have clothing that doesn't scream 'overcompensation' and have a simple design appeal to them. Sure, Rouge's design feels kind of off since her body has clear female supermodel anatomy structure to it as opposed to the usual spaghetti limb-like stuff but Blaze looks decent.

Where I find the comic characters tend to flop at design-wise sometimes when it comes to emulating the Sonic anatomy style is that they re-use character elements a lot and put on a few different accessories on them and call it a deal. Fiona for example just looks like a recolored Tails primarily and Whisper while I like the clothing, the color scheme on her body and the mask/staff don't really do it for me.

There have been some interesting characters design-wise back in the Archie days and I'd say I even like a few from the IDW from what I see occasionally whilst looking up images since I don't follow the comics myself personally, but for me Tangle is a prominent female from the IDW comics whose design I could easily mistake for being an character designed for the games since she has a easy color pattern, clothing design and an interesting offensive gimmick to her tail. (Heck, wasn't she put in like 2 mobile games?) With Surge coming to a close second.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

Yes I agree, they should hire me to make new designs

 

[Nauseated Courgi]

Speaking of comic character designs, did you guys know that Starline, Surge and Kit are based on the graphical glitches of older sonic games?

Surge is based on Ashura.
Kit is based on Blue Knuckles.
And Starline is based on Wechnia.

 

[Dom Cruise]

3D Blast is garbage and I quit it pretty quickly, I then moved on to Sonic CD, I imagine a vocal track coming from a console game was pretty mind blowing in 1993, as for the game itself the level design is kind of sloppy and confusing at times, I also don't really get the point of the time travel gimmick, it's not as good as the first 3 Genesis Sonics, but it's still pretty interesting.

I then moved on to the 3D era and briefly tried Sonic R and Sonic Fighters but both are pretty bad.

I then moved on from that to Sonic Adventure DX and while yes, going from the precision platforming of the 16 bit era to the awkward early days of 3D platforming where you have to sometimes fight the camera is what it is, the game still has a great sense of style and loads of charm, 3D graphics of the Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GameCube era have a lot of personality to me, whereas today as things get more realistic everything also starts to look kind of samey.

I still vividly remember how insane Adventure looked at the time, I remember seeing footage of the game on the news and later briefly playing it on a friend's Dreamcast and in both instances I couldn't believe my eyes, only knowing PS1 and N64 games it was a massive difference.

Sadly though I always wanted to this is the first time I'm playing the game in full after 23 years, which is pretty wild to think about, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

So far I beat Sonic's campaign and the robot dude's, I assume you have to play as everyone to unlock the full ending, yes? That beats trying to beat all the pain in the ass bonus stages in the 16 bit games though.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

3D Blast is garbage and I quit it pretty quickly, I then moved on to Sonic CD, I imagine a vocal track coming from a console game was pretty mind blowing in 1993, as for the game itself the level design is kind of sloppy and confusing at times, I also don't really get the point of the time travel gimmick, it's not as good as the first 3 Genesis Sonics, but it's still pretty interesting.

I then moved on to the 3D era and briefly tried Sonic R and Sonic Fighters but both are pretty bad.

I then moved on from that to Sonic Adventure DX and while yes, going from the precision platforming of the 16 bit era to the awkward early days of 3D platforming where you have to sometimes fight the camera is what it is, the game still has a great sense of style and loads of charm, 3D graphics of the Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GameCube era have a lot of personality to me, whereas today as things get more realistic everything also starts to look kind of samey.

I still vividly remember how insane Adventure looked at the time, I remember seeing footage of the game on the news and later briefly playing it on a friend's Dreamcast and in both instances I couldn't believe my eyes, only knowing PS1 and N64 games it was a massive difference.

Sadly though I always wanted to this is the first time I'm playing the game in full after 23 years, which is pretty wild to think about, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

So far I beat Sonic's campaign and the robot dude's, I assume you have to play as everyone to unlock the full ending, yes? That beats trying to beat all the pain in the ass bonus stages in the 16 bit games though.

Hmm, something tells me you are not going to enjoy getting the true endings in the advance games and heroes.

 

[Two Dollars]

3D Blast is garbage and I quit it pretty quickly, I then moved on to Sonic CD, I imagine a vocal track coming from a console game was pretty mind blowing in 1993, as for the game itself the level design is kind of sloppy and confusing at times, I also don't really get the point of the time travel gimmick, it's not as good as the first 3 Genesis Sonics, but it's still pretty interesting.

Since it sounds like you’re playing CD through Gems Collection, I assume you’re playing with the US soundtrack. It’s okay, but the JP/EU soundtrack is widely considered to be much better.
As for the time travel, it’s an interesting idea in theory where you can get a good future in each zone by going to the past and finding/destroying the robot generator to get the best ending. But in practice, you can also just get 50 rings -> beat special stage to get time stone -> repeat five more times for the same effect.

I then moved on to the 3D era and briefly tried Sonic R and Sonic Fighters but both are pretty bad.

Fuck you.
… What I meant to say is, Sonic R is very “love it or hate it”. There’s enough exploration that it shouldn’t be approached as a traditional racing game, but a lot of the alternate paths are objectively worse than others, even when accounting for the emeralds and medals you can collect to unlock more characters (who are very unbalanced; good luck ever doing anything with Amy/Robotnik). I think if they had split each track in two - an Act 1 and Act 2 if you will - it would have solved a lot of the game’s problems.

 

[A Hot Potato]

3D Blast is garbage and I quit it pretty quickly, I then moved on to Sonic CD, I imagine a vocal track coming from a console game was pretty mind blowing in 1993, as for the game itself the level design is kind of sloppy and confusing at times, I also don't really get the point of the time travel gimmick, it's not as good as the first 3 Genesis Sonics, but it's still pretty interesting.

I then moved on to the 3D era and briefly tried Sonic R and Sonic Fighters but both are pretty bad.

Leave 3d Blast and Fighters alone k I like those

 

[BetterFuckChuck]

just finished frontiers. that was... okay? the gimmicks were extremely frustrating and some of the janky mediocrity really annoyed me, but i can see potential in how good sonic controls compared to the boost games. i feel like i would enjoy the game more if i discovered earlier the fishing spots and fast travel and tried to go for a more 100 % run but at the same time you have to trog thru some really annoying shit like some shitty bosses. maybe patches will fix it up but im feeling sonic fans overrated it by a lot. it's better than forces, that was miserable but it's worse than all the boost games and only slightly better than Adventure 2, which is like a 6/10 overall. so i guess this is like a 6.5? good controls, good visuals, a kind of cool open world but stiff feeling cyberspace levels even tho they do have mostly alright level design,a bad final boss and some cumbersome UX

 

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

just finished frontiers. that was... okay? the gimmicks were extremely frustrating and some of the janky mediocrity really annoyed me, but i can see potential in how good sonic controls compared to the boost games. i feel like i would enjoy the game more if i discovered earlier the fishing spots and fast travel and tried to go for a more 100 % run but at the same time you have to trog thru some really annoying shit like some shitty bosses. maybe patches will fix it up but im feeling sonic fans overrated it by a lot. it's better than forces, that was miserable but it's worse than all the boost games and only slightly better than Adventure 2, which is like a 6/10 overall. so i guess this is like a 6.5? good controls, good visuals, a kind of cool open world but stiff feeling cyberspace levels even tho they do have mostly alright level design,a bad final boss and some cumbersome UX

It may be a bit of honeymoon period, but I still enjoyed it a lot, and as for the boost games being better, I agree with unleashed and generations, those are better, but I like this one more than colors.

 

[blazecollins]

I really liked the ciao garden in sonic adventure 2 for GameCube. I have a lot of memories from playing that.

 

[Mr. Idiot]

@Dom Cruise Sonic CD is a game I do want to sincerely like, but the stage design is less catered towards something like Sonic and more like that of a typical 90's mascot platformer of the era. It's a maze of obstacles of which the way it's implemented doesn't usually lend itself to a whole lot of opportunities for Sonic to go fast and take advantage of the momentum-based platforming and you're usually stopped dead in your tracks.
That also majorly hinders the whole time travel mechanic in how unless you're certain you can maintain a steady amount of speed the stage design will often be the main cause of you losing speed mid-attempt and lose it entirely.

It also creates a conflict in how the devs want people to play these stages. On one hand you can opt to try and search every awkward nook and cranny in the past for the robot generator and destroy it for a good future and the optional Metal Sonic projector to have animals roam the area for visual effect, but since the stage layout and routing can differ per time period and coupled with the wonky time travel, it's more hassle than it's really worth it and in fact I believe one of Wacky Workbench's generators is only accessed by letting yourself get launched by a crusher actually disguised as a tunnel sequence, with no visual indication something's off about it.

And on the other hand you can just opt to ignore all of the searching entirely and just go straight for the goal with 50 rings for the special stages since all the time stones also give good futures and the better ending. This game has it's fans and all the more power to those who do genuinely like it, but I just find it an unfocused mess and mostly remember it as 'That game that introduced Amy and Metal Sonic to the series'.


I don't have too much to say about the weird mid-90's Saturn era of Sonic, since R is so short and the character roster so unbalanced I find it best enjoyed as a once and done-curiosity deal and I'm bad at vs. fighting games so I hardly put much effort into Fighters.

As for Adventure, this post is a bit late, so I assume you've cleared other characters' stories besides Sonic's and Gamma's? You do indeed unlock the last story from completing all 6 characters' stories, but iirc if you don't want to sit through the super long credits sequence after every plot is done just reset when it comes up and it should still count. And yeah, the camera sometimes being very uncooperative can be a thing but if you can handle that you're mostly good.

A little tip I can offer is for Big's rather infamous fishing stages, let the lure sink a bit and only start making it wiggle to the left and right once near Froggy to make it go for the lure, then flick down once he bites to start the reel-in sequence, and since Froggy is always very close to your starting position you can finish them in a minute if just going for him. (Also the Mission A stage requirements' weight is RNG as sometimes the fishes that meet that quota won't even appear until you catch other fish to make it spawn in, and it can take some time, assuming you don't go nuts from the random 'reeling attempt resets out of nowhere' jank that can happen sometimes.)

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

I really liked the ciao garden in sonic adventure 2 for GameCube. I have a lot of memories from playing that.

i still remember my first chao. i miss you Pinky.