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Classic Sonic Levels in 3D (Dreamcast)

Setanta

Member
Yeah I will always remember this! I actually got this level on the DC and loved it, hoping all future Sonic games would follow this style in the future. How long ago was this out now? 6 years or so?
 

[Nintex]

Member
MadOdorMachine said:
Nope. Sonic Heroes deserves a mention. It had some of the best level designs of any of the 3D Sonic games. It still didn't fix the problems with falling off edges of cliffs/eratic camera, but it was an improvement of the Sonic Adventure games.
The casino level was a blast.
The Lost Jungle level had some of the best water effects I've seen on GC.
I really hate the team/shitty friends stuff that's going on in those vids. Secret Rings was actually a breath of fresh air because you only played as Sonic. Still the game wasn't perfect and had countless issues. For example the "stop-blocks" instead of letting Sonic automaticly stop or something you bumb against a ledge or block to stop, this makes jumping impossible because he keeps walking forward.
 
A lot of people seem to write off Secret Rings completely, and it's strange. It was a new attempt at Sonic gameplay and control systems, it focused on Sonic solo, it was developed by a new team (ex-UGA employees) with almost none of the existing expectations of a 3D Sonic game (there were homing attacks, rings, and some springs/dash ramps, that's pretty much it). It could be seen as a "side game," but frankly, it got too much effort for that.

It did have problems; A for "Turn Around" seems like a no-brainer, and the game has a "sweet spot" that you have to work a little to get to. And once you go too far, the upgrading required to get some of the medals is a real chore. But for a first game in what could be a new approach, or at least a side-series, I thought it was a good one.


Sonic The Hedgehog (the PS3/360 trainwreck)... the horrible thing is that the game could've been... not terrible. Not fantastic, because they still couldn't help but include many of the design conventions and issues they promised wouldn't be there this time, but the nuts and bolts of the game were extremely promising. Graphically, few platformers compare. You can pull Ratchet & Clank out _now_, but that's not even close to out. The engine has high-poly characters and long draw distances, and usually runs at 60 FPS. (With more polishing, it could've probably had it solid.)

The bitch is the almost total lack of polish. It's an infamous bit of info about just how much each local branch of Sega rushed their ass off to fix and polish what they could, resulting in different things being fixed in different regions. The game practically skipped over the tweaking period most go through, and it was a huge mistake. The more upsetting thing is how much people have discovered COULD have been in the game, but had to be cut out because the developers didn't have the time to polish and complete it. Super Sonic in levels? Separate episodes for each side character, _AND_ Metal Sonic? Extra missions? Music trivia contests? An upgrade system for those broken "Gems"? (Look at the HUD, there are still slots for it.) Silver was supposed to get a Speed-Up upgrade, separate from his Teleport Dash (makes some of his levels and rankings more reasonable now, doesn't it?) How about the time of day differences? Remember the first demo way back showed that they could alter the time of day on the fly? Presumably they had to bake in some shadows and give it up, but that's not even certain.

They spent a lot of money to get a good engine 80% going. It'd be a pity for them to completely throw it out because the game bombed on lack of polish and bad design in spots. (It wasn't the game people wanted it to be, and it wasn't what they promised. And I think people would've been less betrayed if they'd called it Sonic Adventure 3. But instead they simply titled it on the lead character, only to slap you in the face on the very first stage by FORCING you to play a slow, crappy Tails.) I really think they could recycle the nuts and bolts, but create something new, differently-inspired. But above all, the people working on it can't be pressured to be done for some stupid artificial release date. They have _got_ to take the "it's done when it's done" approach with it, or it's just going to be the same mistake over again.
 

Fio

Member
Sorry for the lame post, but if someone reply i'll appreciate.
There are Sonic games on DreamCast that were ported to GC. What are these games ? Do they worth playing (on GC, of course)?
 
Fio Maravilha said:
Sorry for the lame post, but if someone reply i'll appreciate.
There are Sonic games on DreamCast that were ported to GC. What are these games ? Do they worth playing (on GC, of course)?

Two of the three big Sonic Dreamcast games got ported to Gamecube:

Sonic Adventure 2 got ported as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Expanded multiplayer mode (but it made some of the characters no fun to play as), lots of single player touch-ups, and a few all-around additions. I'd say it's worth playing for some excellent Sonic and Shadow stuff, and the shooter levels with Tails and Eggman are different, but kind of fun in their own way. (Knuckles and Rouge hunt, but their levels are too damn big and their radar is weaker than the original.)

Sonic Adventure got ported as Sonic Adventure DX. It's a sloppy, lazy port. It does run 60 FPS sometimes, and has added water effects and somewhat better player models, but it also has uniquely added slowdown, which can be really unpleasant. Some fixes over the DC version, and it may be worth it to try (it's not like you can't get it for cheap), but it's going to be rough around the edges. Some really classic stages, though, like Windy Valley and Speed Highway.

Sonic Shuffle was never ported over. It was a party game, like Mario Party, themed around cards. It could've been good, but the load times were brutal, the characters unbalanced, and the AI is vicious (and cheats, it can always see what's in your card deck, the "Shuffle" technique doesn't help much at all, it'll just move over to follow it). It also took too long to get through a single board in Single Player (forcing you to collect the maximum number of stones), and you couldn't earn rings for unlockables in Multiplayer.
 

zoku88

Member
Fio Maravilha said:
Sorry for the lame post, but if someone reply i'll appreciate.
There are Sonic games on DreamCast that were ported to GC. What are these games ? Do they worth playing (on GC, of course)?
I believe that both Sonic Adventures were ported to GC. It also has the Sonic Gem Collection. I guess the gem collection is worth getting (since it has the original games) GC version of the Adventure games. I only played the GC versions.

EDIT: And I realize that you said Dreamcast, so you can forget about my mention of Gems.
 
The only mention Sonic Heroes deserves is mentioning that it was awful.

Sonic Adventure (the first) was a really good game, though. The only really good 3D Sonic game. A pity they couldn't put some effort into the port.
 
3D ruined sonic. the headache that video gave me only hammers the point home one awkwardly grabbed ring at a time.

they need to restrict sonic's movement to 2D, use fixed camera angles, and focus on level design. secret rings is a step in the right direction.
 

Nishastra

Banned
Kulock said:
Sonic Adventure got ported as Sonic Adventure DX. It's a sloppy, lazy port. It does run 60 FPS sometimes, and has added water effects and somewhat better player models, but it also has uniquely added slowdown, which can be really unpleasant. Some fixes over the DC version, and it may be worth it to try (it's not like you can't get it for cheap), but it's going to be rough around the edges. Some really classic stages, though, like Windy Valley and Speed Highway.
Don't forget that DX also has all the Sonic Gamegear games unlockable, and the (sometimes infuriating) mission mode added.
Aside from that, it is basically a slightly prettier direct port of the Dreamcast version. At least it has lots of fun glitches (characters in wrong levels and such) :p
 

ghibli99

Member
Dali said:
I could see a Sonic done like Klonoa 2 really kicking a lot of ass.
I'd play that in a heartbeat. They could do so much with the fancy camera movements during the parts where you don't have any control (going through tubes, etc.), but the gameplay would still be 2D.

Anyway, that video was cool, and was new to me. Wish the invincibility and goal songs would've been the remixed old tunes, too, but hey, nice bonus in any case!
 
This level epitomizes everything that's wrong with every 3D decent Sonic game after SA1 (no Shadow or 2K6 lolz): there's some great fun to be had, but you have to jump through millions of hoops to get to it, be they SA2's crap camera and treasure-hunting missions, Heroes's worse camera and half-assed team mechanics, or Secret Ring's ass-backwards uneven difficulty and horrendous music. I don't understand how one company could have forgotten so easily that what made their games so awesome was a perfect balance between breakneck speeding and tight platforming, not bullshit "epic" stories and millions of furries.

I swear, Sega should kill Sonic Team, give Sonic to a new developer, kill off every character not from the 16-bit days (Amy lives, bitches), and make sure that Hideki Nagamura is in charge of the music, since Rush's soundtrack was ****ing awesome. Then we can stop with this bullshit.

ghibi99 said:
Anyway, that video was cool, and was new to me. Wish the invincibility and goal songs would've been the remixed old tunes, too, but hey, nice bonus in any case!
I don't think Sega owns the rights to them. IIRC, Nakamura does.
 

Xeke

Banned
Dali said:
I can't speak from experience because SA 2 was the last Sonic game I've played period. The character design was inspired when it was just Sonic, Tales, and Robotnik/Eggman, but since the stable of characters has grown it makes everything seem like stale retreads. All the characters are starting to look the same.

Play Sonic Rush, please.
 
I AM JOHN! said:
This level epitomizes everything that's wrong with every 3D decent Sonic game after SA1 (no Shadow or 2K6 lolz): there's some great fun to be had, but you have to jump through millions of hoops to get to it, be they SA2's crap camera and treasure-hunting missions, Heroes's worse camera and half-assed team mechanics, or Secret Ring's ass-backwards uneven difficulty and horrendous music. I don't understand how one company could have forgotten so easily that what made their games so awesome was a perfect balance between breakneck speeding and tight platforming, not bullshit "epic" stories and millions of furries.

I swear, Sega should kill Sonic Team, give Sonic to a new developer, kill off every character not from the 16-bit days (Amy lives, bitches), and make sure that Hideki Nagamura is in charge of the music, since Rush's soundtrack was ****ing awesome. Then we can stop with this bullshit.


I don't think Sega owns the rights to them. IIRC, Nakamura does.

I agree that Shadow the Hedgehog was a gimmick in the vein of Dark Samus. However, they went completely too far with the "anti-hero" idea, and made a shitty game based around Shadow's nonexistent "dark side." Seriously, if anyone thought that a game full of forest animals should have guns and a dark storyline, they should be blown to smithereens. Shadow was all right as a rival character, but it should never, ever, take itself too seriously. I loved the backstory to the Eclipse Cannon, though.

I also agree that the "new character" idea has gone too far as well. Right now, they're releasing a new character in every single game - Heroes had, what, 4? And they all sucked, horribly. It was like they turned Sonic into some kind of Sesame Street. Plus, the most recent ones are all female. It looks like someone at Sonic HQ has a bit of a...problem...

Anyway, Sonic done in the style of Super Paper Mario would be amazing. A new Sonic Adventure wouldn't hurt, as long as they didn't introduce a crappy camera, a storyline that tries to be deep, or a new character. Oh yeah, and no more Emerald-hunting levels.
 

Sean

Banned
It's pretty cool they brought back Green Hill Zone but that didn't look very fun to play at all. The camera was awful and the player had to make a lot of blind jumps etc and almost died a bunch of times.

I wish that Sega would update the classic Sonics - the characters and enemies could be remade in 3D but it'd still be a sidescroller.... kinda like Prince of Persia Classic on XBLA. That'd make them a ton of money.
 
Death_Born said:
I also agree that the "new character" idea has gone too far as well. Right now, they're releasing a new character in every single game - Heroes had, what, 4? And they all sucked, horribly.

Omega, and Metal Sonic in a different outfit? Unless you're counting the reinvention of the Chaotix, but they're just tweaked from the 32X game (and Vector even dates back to some of the original Sonic 1 development art.) Oh, and there was Chocola Chao, which was pretty much created to give Cream a reason to tag along without taking her normal Chao from her. :p


Death_Born said:
Plus, the most recent ones are all female. It looks like someone at Sonic HQ has a bit of a...problem...

Sonic was pretty much a boy's club up until 2000, Amy was the only reoccurring female character, and even she was a pretty obscure, random inclusion until Sonic Adventure. Since then we've had Rouge, which is pretty infamous, Cream, who was created as an Easy Type character for Sonic Advance 2 (then nonsensically hidden as the very last character to unlock in Sonic Advance 3), and Blaze, which is the first female character design to NOT include an overuse of heart symbols.

And technically there's Sharha, or however it's spelled, which was created for Secret Rings and we're not likely to see ever again. Tikal was introduced in Sonic Adventure, but similar situation, her inclusion in SA2's multiplayer mode was just because it was an easy replacement for Knuckles.

And Gamma had a female Flicky inside. Samus Surprise!


That may seem like a fair few, but again, Amy was it until Sonic Adventure, and she wasn't even in 3/4ths of the games. Girls have clung on to the Sonic series a fair bit, so it makes sense to represent them moreso now with the characters.
 
Death_Born said:
I also agree that the "new character" idea has gone too far as well. Right now, they're releasing a new character in every single game - Heroes had, what, 4? And they all sucked, horribly. It was like they turned Sonic into some kind of Sesame Street. Plus, the most recent ones are all female. It looks like someone at Sonic HQ has a bit of a...problem...

Not that the extra character in Sonic hero did suck but all of them had been in other games before Sonic Heroes. Cream was from Sonic advance 1 or 2. and the other 3 were ftom Knuckles chaotix game from the 32X. All the characters had appeared in the Sonic universe before Sonic Heroes.
 

Sean

Banned
Buttonbasher said:
I would love if they did a 3D remake of sonic 1-3 for XBLA and included an orchestral soundtrack like the arrangement from Video Games Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkmAQsvwMB0

Oh man that is so awesome. I loved the "SEGAAAA!" part, the crowd went nuts over that too :lol

Sonic 1's music was flawless, it's one of the most memorable video game soundtracks IMO. Starlight Zone especially rocked.
 

jobber

Would let Tony Parker sleep with his wife
if you wanted the stage unlocked, just download one of the VMU saves cds and load it on your VMU.
 

Cdammen

Member
FightyF said:
All Sonic needs is a fixed camera and Sonic physics.

It's simple, really.
Yes! And the development team also needs a low-tech audio chip so that they won't go apeshit and make awful and cheesy "rock" :(
 

Chinner

Banned
Buttonbasher said:
I would love if they did a 3D remake of sonic 1-3 for XBLA and included an orchestral soundtrack like the arrangement from Video Games Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkmAQsvwMB0

That brought back so many memories. Shame they ignored Sonic CD, which is alot more worthy than some of the sonic titles they showed there. I want to play Sonic 3 and Knuckles now, damn that game was good.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
MadOdorMachine said:
Nope. Sonic Heroes deserves a mention. It had some of the best level designs of any of the 3D Sonic games. It still didn't fix the problems with falling off edges of cliffs/eratic camera, but it was an improvement of the Sonic Adventure games.
The casino level was a blast.
All I'm seeing are horrible physics

and tails' voice is ANNOYING
Buttonbasher said:
I would love if they did a 3D remake of sonic 1-3 for XBLA and included an orchestral soundtrack like the arrangement from Video Games Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkmAQsvwMB0
I seriously got chills from that
 
Glad to see so many SOnic fans who also went "underground" after Sonic Adventure 2. I keep hope alive that one day a true successor to the game (heck even a decent 3D Sonic game) will emerge. :(
 

Brobzoid

how do I slip unnoticed out of a gloryhole booth?
If that is what's considered good sonic 3D, I doubt it ever will be made playable. That looked really poor.
 
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