The Official Sonic the Hedgehog thread

specs · October 2, 2008, 7:56am

Sonic Chronicles is good… but not great.

More impressions tomorrow.

Carbunkle_Flux · October 2, 2008, 9:02am

Que?

Sonichuman · October 2, 2008, 10:41am

I’m enjoying the game chronicles really…I da know if it’s mostly cause I’m a sonic fan or what but I think bioware’s done a relatively good job with the game so far anyway. I did get that music thing where it just went silent for a good half a minute and I was like ‘uhhhh…’ I think if they made another one and fixed the problems that people had with this one it’d be awesome.

In any case that’s not what I came to post in here there’s some small footage of sonic and the black knight in here

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/conference2008fall/mov/wii.html?n10

very short…very brief…but it’s there…try moving the cursor abouuuuuut 7/8ths of the way to the end

Ephidel · October 2, 2008, 10:45am

Glad to hear chronicles is turning out to be ok, I’m getting my copy soon :bgrin:

Sonichuman · October 2, 2008, 11:31am

something else i’m going to say is sort of wrong on some of the reviews is about some of the enemies not knowing when it might be a good time to run. I had enemies trying to dip on me after about my 10th battle cause I was beasting too much lol. I’m not really minding the way how the battle system is really…I can see some of their gripes with doing these motions and what not for the pow moves but at the same times I’m actually being interactive with the attacks and not just sitting there…which could probably be worst. Nobody knocks Super Mario RPG for having to do the same timed button presses for their attacks right?

scum_gale_88 · October 2, 2008, 11:32am

oh my god a new Klonoa, new Punch-out!!! yes! YES!!

was that a…Sin and Punishment 2 that I saw?
I think I just came. Im not joking, semen just came out of my penis.

Sonichuman · October 2, 2008, 11:49am

yeah i forgot to mention that that is indeed a new punch out and sin and punishment 2…I think lots of people who hear that punch out is making a return are gonna shit bricks lol. And it’s the return of OG lil mac.

specs · October 2, 2008, 8:36pm

Despite how good the title looks it is coming from a developer with a proven, consistent track record of sloppiness. Therefore, despite how good or bad the previews look, you should not trust the the title is worth your time. So rent it from a game rental shop. That way, if it is a piece of shit, you didn’t give Sonic Team money (and if you BUY the game and end up thinking it sucks, Sonic Team doesn’t give two shits).

My impressions on Chronicles. I posted the following on BioWare’s Sonic forum, and I figure I don’t need to retype it all:

This is feedback. This is not condemnation of the title. If you respond to this, if you disagree, please present your rebuttal with concrete reasoning; if your post is going to be blind defensiveness or a blatant attack, don’t bother posting.

With that out of the way:

BioWare, I believe in giving feedback to game developers, in giving fair and honest assessment of a title’s benefits and drawbacks. I hope you’ll consider the points I’m about to mention.

– What Sonic Chronicles Does Right –

Though I’ve never been a big fan of many BioWare titles, I appreciate the amount of effort that goes behind them. (I firmly believe that I can think a game is good without liking it, or like a game that I think is bad.) Mass Effect, however, blew me away. I put it on a very high pedestal, alongside classic greats like Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, and Skies of Arcadia. I’m glad to see some of Mass Effect has rubbed off on this game.

I very much like that attack descriptions tell me what determines their damage (like what % of my damage is dealt and how many times the attack hits, and special properties like Can’t Miss and elemental type). This lets me plan out my skill progression and theorize on what attacks deserve upgrading and usage.

I also enjoy the dialog, both how it is written and how dialog trees work. The tabbed dialog window is a stroke of genius, and though I realize that, unlike Mass Effect/Jade Empire/KotOR, the dialog extensions ultimately have little effect on the bottom line, it is still a very intuitive system that lets me choose to extend a conversation or cut it short at my own discretion. Options are always welcome.

As a former Sonic fan (long story), I’ve played many Sonic games, so you’ll imagine my surprise and delight at how detailed the in-game Codex is. I remember many of the events chronicled in the Codex from various games, from Gerald Robotnik to Gizoids to G.U.N. It’s all there, and really fleshes out the canon of Sonic’s universe. I spent a good 20 minutes just perusing the Codex and reading. The other journal sections are also welcome; you don’t even need the manual with all the information you can find in here.

The entire menu interface, from item/Chao equipping to status viewing, is very nice and detailed. I really don’t have much more to say about it; it’s a well implemented interface.

The visuals are a mixed bag (more below), but the hand drawn backdrops are very pleasing.

Though I prefer games that use the DPad and face buttons over pure stylus affairs, the interface for the game is quite easy to navigate and simple to use, with the possible exception of the corner menu (many DS screens require more stylus force on the corners; hardly BioWare’s fault but something that I wish was considered).

– What Sonic Chronicles Does Wrong –

A good friend of mine said, about The Force Unleashed, something akin to this: “it’s good, but it’s no God of War.” I have a similar statement to make about Sonic Chronicles: it’s good, but it’s no Super Mario RPG. And the comparison is valid in many ways: both games place platforming mascots in their first RPG adventure, both games seek an interface that is simple and intuitive but provides a good amount of depth. And both games have very well written scripts. But, especially with Mario RPG recently released on the Wii’s virtual console, Chronicles has a difficult time holding up by comparison.

Mario RPG’s combat mechanics are fairly simple: tap a button just as you attack or just as you are attacked, and you improve/negate damage. Special attacks have their own ways of pumping up damage that may differ from a simple timed button press, but each attack tells you what you have to do (e.g., Mario’s fireball attacks prompt you to tap Y repeatedly to increase damage). Sonic has a similar concept that ultimately falls short: tapping the screen Elite Beat Agents style is certainly a novel way to take advantage of the DS’s stylus controls, but makes these special moves feel long and drawn out. I would have preferred less time playing a mini-game for extra damage, even if that meant the mini game would have to be made more difficult to compensate.

One of BioWare’s mentioned goals during development was to have a quick pace of combat, and this is certainly the case… if all characters pick Attack or Defend as their action. Throwing POW Moves into the mix, with the aforementioned issue regarding the time it takes for these attacks to execute, and battles slow to a crawl.

The same feeling of sluggishness applies to movement outside of combat. I’m not the type of person to ask that Sonic be made “fast” as though that were a cure-all panacea for issues the franchise has (which is the extent I’ll talk about that issue, to respect BioWare’s request for no dev bashing on their forums). But movement feels too slow. Sonic and co. don’t follow my stylus with any real urgency, which often makes movement a chore, especially when dodging enemies you wish to avoid fighting.

Speaking of which, I appreciate that enemies are visible. This is a system that all RPGs, in my humble opinion, should adopt, as it allows one the choice of avoiding combat. But enemies respawn way too quickly. Many reviews of the game thus far have noted the issue with exploration, and how fast enemy respawn, repetitive combat, and sluggish map movement make exploration more tedious than it should be.

The Mario RPG comparision comes back in play here. Very rarely was that title ever tedious. The more complex maze-like dungeons were often preceded by more simplistic areas, and succeeded with interesting boss fights or bonus mini games to break the tedium. That is not to say Chronicles is defined purely by tedium, but it displays the trait far more often than it should.

To mirror one of the pros I mentioned before: while in the menu screens, attack descriptions and effects are nice and detailed, those descriptions are completely missing in combat, meaning I have to memorize which attacks have special properties like Armor Piercing or Can’t Miss. On a similar note, I wish the game would have eased me into various enemy traits like Agile and Armored sooner; the first time I faced the insect swarms in Green Hill is when I should have been given a tutorial on their mechanics.

My final piece of criticism is presentation. The interface is fairly slick, the hand drawn graphics are nice, and the intro movie is quite a treat. But the character models are woefully lacking compared to other DS titles (especially the two Sonic Rush titles). This isn’t so bad when you see the character’s backs during combat (enemy models aren’t quite as bad for whatever reason), but the moment they turn around to declare victory… argh, it’s ugly, don’t look. Sound is disappointing. Classic sound effects are nice (ring collectin, jumping), but other sounds effects, from enemy noises to menu selection confirmation effects, are kinda bleh. The music is uninspiring, and in same cases even annoying (Tails’s workshop comes to mind).

That’s my $0.02. Thanks for this game, BioWare! It is good! Just… not great.

Carbunkle_Flux · October 2, 2008, 9:53pm

I know well of Sonic Team’s track record. After all, I used to play PSU and Ambition of Illuminus (and what a shame they were, on that note).

It is sad when customer faith is that low. They really need to step it up.

Sonichuman · October 2, 2008, 10:53pm

I agree…it’s good not great…I’d like them to take another stab at it if possible

specs · October 2, 2008, 11:05pm

Agreed wholeheartedly. It’s BioWare’s first handheld title to the best of my knowledge. And this is not a bad first shot.

rogueyoshi · October 3, 2008, 12:24am

they are working on a sequel

Sonichuman · October 3, 2008, 2:22am

I think if anything this proves that Bioware is a really good company…they had 2 major things going against them into this project. 1) first ds title and 2) a Sonic RPG…for their first handheld title that some people thought it was going to be nigh impossible to make Bioware at least made the game good and proved them wrong. Bioware deserves props for this alone.

fo real? good I can’t wait then I wanna see how they’re gonna improve upon this. The first one was a good start now they gotta beef up and. get ready for round 2

System_1 · October 3, 2008, 2:33am

So I’m not an RPG fan anyway. I tend to find the combat tedious. But even expecting that, Chronicles still disappointed me. I was hoping for at least a huge cast list, and instead it’s just the usual current “hot” characters + random new person (which really, did we need? This series has too many characters as is). Story is okay so far I guess. Hopefully it’ll pick up.

I’m hoping that Chronicles 2 goes all-out on the cast. I wanna see mother fucking EVERYONE from the series. I’m talking not just random obscure characters like Fang or Bark or Ray, but even totally surprise shit like Teddy Tails.

scum_gale_88 · October 3, 2008, 9:44am

Id like to see a Sonic rpg styled around something like Zelda 2 or Popful Mail. combat is quick, real time and sidescrolling with the usual rpg elements and shit.

Ephidel · October 3, 2008, 11:36am

Just got my copy today, I’m liking it so far. Definitely not ground-breaking or anything, but tolerable.

SMS_Team · October 3, 2008, 10:25pm

I am currently enjoying Sonic Chronicles myself.

I think one of the driving forces of playing this game, for me, will be to see whether Amy’s just trying to pathetically spite Sonic by coming up with the whole ‘My new boyfriend’ Dexter, or if this Dexter actually exists!

Sonichuman · October 4, 2008, 1:05pm

I’m pretty sure she’s lying…I still haven’t gotten that far but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Ephidel · October 4, 2008, 2:59pm

Made it to Ch.2 - actually I would of been there but since it’s an RPG I’m just lv up and wandering around for items. I’m still liking it so far, I think it’s a good pickup if you’re into this kinda thing.

Sonichuman · October 5, 2008, 8:42am

I’m in the middle of fighting shadow currently…O.o;;…didn’t expect him to have this much HP…he’s probably gonna murder my ass.

Edit:

NM Sonic, Big, Knux, and Tails surrounded him and stomped his ass before he got a chance to do much of anything lol.

Shadow:…hmph!..CHAAAAOOOSSSSS—whaa—???

Edit2: wow eggman…has it gotten so bad that you actually have to calculate your downfall in your plans now? lol

Edit3: So…is the only way we can level up chao is by trading them with other peeps? If so any of you guys wanna trade?