What I want to talk about is the recent demo they released (like literally just released, I just downloaded it off the PSN) to coincide with Sonic's 20th anniversary. Its just one Green Hill Zone level, but I just finished playing it and I gotta say...I'm pretty impressed! I'm tempted to say they finally got it right this time! The graphics are nice and vivid, Sonic and his movements look great, and the platforming feels just right. You really feel the speed, and is infinitely more satisfying than what we got from Sonic 4.
You see, I'm one of those people that thought Sonic 4 was very unsatisfactory and wasn't enough to fill that void Sonic fans have looking to fill. The graphics look half-assed and stale, and Sonic's movements were stiff and awkward, thus making the platforming a bit underwhelming. Then after Sonic 4's less than enthusiastic reception, some fan on youtube released videos of a Sonic game that seemed to do what the entire Sonic team couldn't do. The graphics were several times more vivid and nicely blended, and Sonic's movements were much more fluid. Fans cried out "why can't they make a game like this?!". But with this new demo, I really think they've created something quite close to those fan videos.
But don't take my word for it, go play it yourself or check out this video of the demo in its entirety. It is quite short, but oh so sweet. Can't wait til this comes out.
Sonic "fans" just like to moan. They moaned about sonic 4 because it wasn't "what they expected" even though it was pretty damn good. And they will complain about this when it comes out.
ReplyDeleteI actually rather liked sonic 4 but when I played the demo of sonic generations, my impressions were rather lacklustre to say the least. And they were like that for exactly the reasons you pointed as strengths! For one, the graphics are so "blended" it's incredibly difficult to see where the enemies are! I lost count of the number of times I ran into an enemy simply because they were hard to see! The sonic 2 remake which ppl raved about after sonic 4 only looks good when you watch it. Playing it is a whole different thing.
Following into that is that the speed is too much. You don't feel like you are in control when you are running at speed in sonic generations which only compounds the problem of the "camouflaged" enemies!
Also, I don't want to play the green hill zone, I want to play something different. If I wanted Green hill, there are plenty of ways to do it.
Trying to Cater to Sonic "fans" isn't really the best idea since they will complain about everything and anything to do with the game. I was excited for sonic Generations, but if it's just a bunch of remade stages from various sonic games, as the demo kinda suggests, then it's a miss.
Its definitely true that it was hard to see when you're moving at such speeds, and I ran into enemies plenty of times too. But I think this has been the case for pretty much every modern Sonic game, especially the previous console games.
ReplyDeleteThere are obviously things that'll fly without trying to consider the fans, and Generations seemed like a bit of a cop out at first, but games like Unleashed (the werehog) were definitely bad ideas and everybody knew it.