@Darkstorm:
I'm kinda surprised you stuck with it that long. I think I played it for about twenty minutes.
The actual Sonic stages were pretty fun and gave me hope. My hope was that if I suffered and toughed it through the werehog stages to get the sonic stages, even once, then after the effort I'd have a level select and be able to JUST do the sonic stages at my leisure. Except the werehog stages outnumber Sonic's 2-1, and they take about 8 minutes on average, while a Sonic stage typically took anywhere from 30 seconds-2 minutes. Horrible time misbalance. They could have completley cut the werehog, the temple exploring, and the faux rpg mini-quest and the world map entirely. JUST given us the sonic stages with no story at all… and it probably would have been a pretty good game.
Oh, and I've done huuuuge rants on why current gen Sonic sucks before. Here they are again. And bare in mind, this are from about a year ago, BEFORE Unleashed came out, and everyone was still saying "Well, they're bringing back the 2-D aspect, so that should be good!" while I was incredibly weary for it.
! That youtube demo is COMPLETLEY NOT 2-D, or even 2.5-D. Its another lame 3-D Sonci game, where, for 20 seconds at a time, it switches to side scroller on automatic pilot, which is assinine.
! Sonic works best as a 2-D game. Sonic Rush and Sonic Rivals for the DS and PSP are THE best Sonic games that have come out in the last 10 years. All the 3-D ones, ALL of them, for TEN YEARS, have sucked. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 had novelty and epic scale and amazing graphics, that was fine, but… Sonic, who is meant to go fast, just doesn't work in 3-D. You can't gauge jumps or attacking the enemies properly, (which is why sonic has HOMING attacks to compensate. LAME.) and pits of death are insanely common... in every single part of a level without a solid wall on the side. Expecially on the token rail riding where you have to switch between rails... a part thats supposed to be fast and awesome is a deathtrap half the time.
! They've had 10 years and like a dozen games on a variety of systems to figure out all the bugs and problems by now, but they keep making the same mstakes and each game has the same problems. And this were-hog beat em up nonsense is EXTREMLEY not Sonic (and they already tried that out with Shadow's game, which nobody liked). Sonic just does NOT work well in 3-D. Doesn't help that the thin plotline has only gotten thinner over time, with EVERY game since Sonic 2 focusing on Robotnick stealing Chaos Emeralds as the entire plot. Sonic Adventure was the last time that worked.
! All fans have wanted, for 10 years now, is an actual 2-D sonic game with next gen capabilities and graphics. Rush and Rivals were both great and prove it. Odin's Sphere, a 2D game with PS2 graphics, is AMAZING. 2-D isn't dead, its just ignored. Hell, Night into Dreams was real 2.5-D, and it was super fast and awesome, and THAT was like 14 years ago!
! 3-D works on franchises that were meant to be 3-D. Spyro the Dragon, Dynasty Warriors, Virtua Fighter, Kindom Hearts. Sonic wasn't born to be such.
! Sonic has an insane fan following due entirely to the solid quality of the original 4 games, and probably the cartoon and comics. thats right, the sheer quality of the product back in 1994 has kept people suckered back in and giving all the material since a chance, in the hopes that THIS time, Sega'll figure it out and it'll be good again. I can't think of any other property that has managed to survive this long and well based on the high quality of its first five years, and were Sonic a lesser mascot like say, Alex Kidd or Ecco the Dolphin, or Kid Icarus, he NEVER would have had this many games made since 1998.
! Sega for some reason, just can't figure that out and REFUSES to do an ACTUAL 2-D game. Whats worse is, on THIS particular game they've been promoting it as 2.5-D since they announced it, when clearly, it really isn't except for a random ucontrolled area of camera switch. They KNEW what people wanted, they PROMISED exactly that, showed VIDEO of exactly that, and we'd gotten to hoping that maybe the Sonic portions would be fast 2-D and the crappy were-hog portions (which NOBODY has been terribly excited about) would be slower 3-D, a balance. And it turns out, thats not what the game is a all. Its ALL 3-D. They knew what we wanted, said they were giving it to us, teased at it, and then pulled a bait and switch, which is incredibly lame. I'm... just not bothering anymore. I didn't pick up the one with Silver, I'm not getting this one either.
! At least the RPG on the DS is doing SOMETHING interesting...
Then after that essay I got called out and was said to be "not a true fan" and to "give the next game a chance, you're judging it before its even out!" and "its the programers and designers, not the game's fault!" (barring the fact that its been the same people in charge since the original Sonic Team left the company.) So, here was the follow up a bit later.
! I've owned, and beaten, practically every Sonic game that has ever come out, its one of the franchises I always give a chance to. The original 4 on Genesis, Sonic CD, Spinball, 3-D Blast, Racing, Chaotix, Adventure 1 and 2, Heroes, Shadow, Rush and Rivals, the new one titled JUST "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the PS3, and even the stupid compilations that just collect the original genesis games again. I own the cartoon dvd and read the comics from issue 0-120something since I was 8, (and I'm 26 now) and I plan on picking up the RPG game sometime soon. I enjoyed the Sonic Adventure games. Sonic is a big part of my childhood and I am a Sonic fan. And 3-D just doesn't serve him as well as 2-D does, at least not the way they do it.
! Its not JUST the speed. Even the 2-D games while you COULD just blast through most levels in 30 seconds if you tried or were practiced at them, or they had areas that automatically sped you through (like chemical plant zones tubes in part 2) but it was about exploring and stomping the enemies and finding little hidden away things and platforming, with occassional areas where you can go all out speed wise.
! But platforming, due to depth perception, is quirkier in 3-D. Landing squareley on top of an enemy with a stomp, is quirkier. This is true of pretty much all 3-D games that try to be platforming. There's some 3-D I love, particularly shooters (Starfox and Panzer Dragoon, for instance) and in games that have platforming that aren't based around speed, and where falling off a ledge wont KILL you, (like Kingdom Hearts), its great. But all the 3-D Sonic games, from Adventure on up , have tried to keep high speed gaming with platforming intact, which would be great if the ever got it RIGHT.
! (Rush and Rivals also miss the point a little by forcing you to go through at top speed, but at least in the 2-D, you can see how big a pit is and don't randomly fall off the edge fo the world every 30 seconds)
! Sonic games in 3-D, to accomodate this, basically put him on a rail and have the game autopilot, including homing attacks and ring trail homing, and encourage you to try and do it FAST. But for 10 games now they've had the same buggy problems of fall through walls, skill-less enemy attacking (homing just insn't the same), horrible hit detection and incredibly linear levels. The 3-D games, when they're on their mark, are incredibly fun.
! Sonic Adventure hit a lot of good notes, and then. had Big the Cat's fishing game. And Kunckles and Rouge's expore the level looking for items game. Which… didn't work.
! I LOVED the first level of Sonic Heroes, it was amazing, but then every level that followed was full of instant death, split second cannon shot out switching, and... stuff. When RAIL RIDING, which is built into practically every level as a basic mode of "fast but required transport" = death half the time, even when you do it right, something is wrong with the game design. (Whereas the rails in Nights, 12 years ago, or the abundant spots on ony Hawk games, NEVER killed me.)
! Basically, all the games are released when the due date is, never when the games are READY. There's clearly never enough playtesting or debugging on any of these, and its irksome that problems that have been in place all along, that they are aware of, have NOT been fixed by now over the itteration of multiple games.
! This is already lengthy, so I'm not even going to get into the reptitive uninspired storyline or level designs, or the fact that they think the magic fix for everything is introducing a new edgy character every game.
! With Sonic Unleashed, they've said in interviews for MONTHS that half the game was going to be 2.5-D, indicating sidescrolling with 3-D elements. They showed pictures of this and it was promising, but all the more recent video releases have shown thats its just like the previous games, with the camera turned briefly. It possible that all the persistent bugs have somehow been fixed in this, but them promising 2-D and then lying about it bodes badly. And the werehog portions, with going around slowly and smashing things and fist fighting, while interesting, are out of place in a Sonic game. (I've got Legend of Kay, or Dynaty Warriors or Dragonball Budokai, or the incredibly amazing Okami, if I want to go around beating stuff up and destroying landscapes.) I would rather they spent all the time developing JUST the Sonic game, polishing it and making it great, than splitting their concentration into two different games with different play styles. Hell, now that I mentioned Okami, THAT game managed to do speed AND platforming AND puzzle solving AND enemy combat without ever pissing me off.
! (Spiderman 2 was an amazing game. Spiderman 3, while being the exact same gme, split the mechanics for the Venom mechanic, and despite better graphics, just wasn't nearly as good as part 2.)
! When they make a GREAT 3-D Sonic game, I'll be perfectly happy with that and trust them again. Sonic 1-4 and Sonic CD were amazing games and hold up even today on whatever system you re-release them on. Rush and Rivals have their own quirks but capture a lot of that spirit, even if they miss some of the quality. (the 2 screen thing on the DS STILL drvies me nuts...)
! Sega has a better idea of how to do a 2-D game right than they do with a 3-D game. So give me a 2-D sonic game with the graphic achievement of Odin Sphere or LittleBig Planet and the same innovation. Where there's 3-D effects and style, but 2-D gameplay quality, and I'll be golden. Or deliver 3-D sonic at the quality of Okami, or Shadow of Colossus, or God of War, or Kingdom Hearts, and any number of dozens of other games that isn't BROKEN while still being in 3-D. (And I realize Okami was a Zelda game, but it did ALL the speedy platform and combat stuff exceptionally well. And when that wolf godess RAN, it was extremely gratifying and fun, but she NEVER died from bad level/endless chasm design.) Don't give me ANOTHER game on a rail with sidelines of death, where if I go top speed even briefly it means death, where half the development time was spent on something not needed in the game (in this cae, werehog. In the previous game, Silver.) They got it CLOSE to where it needed to be with Sonic Adventure, and then never fixed the problems. That one was good, but flawed. They've since followed it up with more and more flaws without fixing the earlier problems.
! I don't have faith in Sonic team at this point, because they haven't earned it. I've supported the product its entire lifespan, I don't trust them anymore to deliver a great game. (I didn't even bother with Sonic Riders 2, the first one was so nearly unplayable) A passable game maybe. Decent enough to spend a weekend on possibly. Good? Not since Sonic Adventure. Great? Not in even longer.
I'd LOVE for a great new Sonic game to come out that actually captured the feel and gameplay and design and music and aesthetics of the old… but it just. isn't. happening.