AarowSwift

Sonic SR is the type of game to garner a very wide range of reactions from people, which is not unusual for a game that's pretty darn good but has too many flaws to be really great. I'd recommend anyone to give it a rental and spend a few hours with it, then decide how they really feel about it. I rented it. I felt it gave off a rather poor first impression. By the midway point I was really frustrated at various points but enjoying myself enough to keep going. By the time I beat it (real ending) I decided that yes, I'd enjoyed it enough to buy it, full priced. Also how much you enjoy a game like this is an issue of tolerance. I have both high standards and high tolerance for flaws. I see the flaws quite clearly, but they don't necessarily detract enough from my enjoyment to ruin any given experience.

Any time one of my controllers went wonky I fixed the problem by re-syncing the controller or by replacing the batteries. If neither helps you out, I'd suggest you contact Nintendo for a replacement.

I agree with the comments that how it's interpreted will be more dependant on how it's sung than the words themselves. Though, if you want the words themselves to be unambiguous, here's a thought: Add some positive reinforcement, like a descriptor that this is a happy statement... "And now you rejoice as the sun sets on the world you saved today." Stating that "you rejoice" makes it pretty clear this event is a happy thing. This statement I disagree with, people tend to most remember the last thing they read or see (this is why in paper ads, company logos most often adorn the bottom right corner of the advertisement, because that's where the reader's eye ends). If you end with the sun setting instead of saving the world, that will, supposedly, reinforce the negative. Plus, it would probably make for a cumbersome sentence.

Yeah, before I read the comment and just looked at the photo I thought "oh, sorta cool, they made his shadow look like a demon, there's the tail and the horns and goat legs". Then I read your comment and go "Whhhaaat??" Seriously folks, what is wrong with people?

I'd like do know how it is too. I've never played more than a few hours of this and am considering picking it up since I missed it originally.

In reference to Tales of Symphonia, I found that particular method of character interaction a bit stiff and yeah, the characters themselves were sometimes hard to bear but then, they pretty much hit all of the anime cliché’s that I just can't take anymore (well, I can, but I don't really enjoy it like I did back in my teens). It is true, a lot of stories from Japan be they games, anime, or what have you tend to be on the convoluted side, but not all. Skies of Arcadia managed to shoot pretty straight and had wonderful characters that, while still simple, were expressed with a subtle, upbeat honesty that I found refreshing. It's one of a handful of RPGs that's aged really well for me. I still enjoy it thoroughly. FF7 - FF10 I just don't anymore. I ate them up when I was in my teens and early 20's. I replayed them a couple years ago and decided to sell the whole lot. FF 12 on the other hand, may age much better than its predecessors, I'll have to see what I think of it when I replay it a year or so from now and even further down the road.

There are of course exceptions. Nanaki was pretty well developed, easily the best character all around in FF7. I can't name any real stand outs in 8. Freya had potential in 9 but it never developed into anything, and Auron was pretty cool in 10. But each game should have more than one or two standouts. Also, notice a trend here? All of the best characters are of the "old warrior" archetype (Basch falls in this category too, and is one of the better characters in 12). SquareEnix handles them pretty well..or at least, better than angsty boy/hyper boy/hyper girl/princess girl/mysterious guy/serious girl/cute kid/throw away character, which pretty much covers their usual range of character types.

I can honestly say FF 12 is the best FF I’ve played (played 7 and up), but it does really point out the biggest weakness of these games, that being the lack of story/character content. You heard right, I say every FF game I’ve played suffered from this, but previous games distracted the player from this fact via two decoys: Characters with bizarre back-stories and convoluted story telling. In my opinion, every FF character had a shallow personality and characters in game never got to know each other through interaction, rather, they spelled out their motives and feelings to the player during fancy, and often forced, cut scenes. To fill this personality vacuum, many characters typically had crazy back-stories with a heavy helping of angst to grab the player’s interest and sympathy. The stories are always the same and effectively simple, but are bulked up with convoluted story telling and a zillion oddball subplots to overcompensate for the basic plot’s simplicity. FF12 really had none of that. Characters were relatively normal and the story was told in a straightforward manner with few diversions. As a result, it felt rather barren. Plenty of things happened in the story, but without all of the fat and additives, it seemed to lack substance. I really don’t want the storytelling to go back to the previous styles, however. Rather, it would be nice if SquareEnix put a little effort into developing characters with more than 2 dimensional personalities and finding ways for them to express those personalities during the game without resorting to five + minute cut scenes. In game dialog, which other games have used to great effect, would be one possibility. Edit: Gah, what happened to my text's spacing and size? Can't fix it either.

I was really dissappointed in the Espers. I found them utterly useless. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I tend to use Summons in games when I need help against a really tough enemy, but when I summon the FF 12 espers, they either died before I could even do anything to buff them up, or my lone party character got taken out before the Summon could cause any real damage. Am I alone in feeling the Espers were seriously gimped?

BOO to all of you. I won the thread dammit so stop posting Seriously though, on the retconned question of Photo-realism, I've already stated I don't like it. I mean; you have tools that allow you to make any sort of visual you want...so why the heck would you want to recreate reality? Or worse: gritty reality. I find that a waste of potential, however: America likes realism - http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3155815 Follow that link to an excellent article talking about the cultural differences between Japanese and American games. I was nebulously aware of a lot of the points made there without really knowing the background reasons, so it was an enlightening read to see some things spelled out. Now, addressing art styles in videogames, I feel that developers should pick styles that match the style of the game play. Again, in games aiming to simulate reality (WWII shooters, flight simulators, sports simulators, etc.) choosing a more realistic or even going for photo-realism are valid goals. Personally though, I'd like to see more imaginative art designs for games set in fictional environments. Look at all of the art styles used in American comic books and Japanese manga, or Television animation, or book illustrations, etc. There are so many possibilities one could explore.

Hmm. Devil May Cry 3 was better than Devil May Cry 1 (DMC 2 does not exist). Even if the younger Dante' does seriously need a backhand into a wall.

I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. When I was talking about graphics on a pedestal, I was specifically refering to photo-realism. This is a completely seperate issue from machine capabilities. I'm not saying that PS3 and Xbox 360 = bad because they are graphic powerhouses. I'm saying that you don't need a graphic powerhouse to create a beautiful game. I'm also saying that photo-realisim does not trump all other styles. Edit: I also should note that in no way do I feel striving for photo-realisim is an invalid goal. My dislike of photo-realism is purely personal taste and extends to other art mediums beyond videogames. Visuals are very important to me, what with me being a graphic artist. But I'm interested in the foundation and artistic integrity that lies beneath a design, not the flashy stuff overlaying it. If it's good, it's good, and fancy effects are icing IF they add to the design. But flash for the sake of flash with nothing underneath does not impress me. Also, you do not put a fur shader on say, Bugs Bunny, just because you can. Simpler approaches can yield impressive results. Limitation, imposed or volunteered, can solidify design. And all of this is dependant on artists. Artists of merit, with a clear vision and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their medium, will create great visuals regardless of what system they design on. Just because something is made for the PS3 does not mean it will automatically look better than something made for the Wii. It's dependant on the people creating the game and how well they play to a system's strengths. Vagrant Story on the original Playstation, is a beautiful game, not was, but is. The Sly Cooper games are marvels to look at, but sport little in the way of fancy effects. They hardly push the PS2, but they don't need to. The art design in those games is so strong, that the only benefit they would gain from a more powerful system is better texture resolutions. Solid design is timeless and independant of system power. Instead of making "mine is bigger than yours" arguments, people should simply enjoy and appreciate the craftmanship of great looking games irespective of what system they appear on, and not get so tied up in whether it's bump-mapped or not.

I do agree with most of this. Some games benefit from photo-realistic styles. Any game aiming for realism in its action, like a simulation, is an obvious choice. In cases like this, a reality based look is only appropriate, though not the only visual choice. As for shooters, I feel it varies. I think say; a gritty comic book presentation can be just as successful as a realistic look. Again, it depends on the shooter in question. If we're talking a military sim with realistic weapons, then sure, make the characters realistic. If we're talking something more science fictiony, then studios should look into other art styles too. Personally, I just hate how photo-realism seems to be placed on a pedestal by so many gamers, as if it were the end-all in graphic presentation, and how a lot of developers seem to view it as the default look to go for. It makes for a lot of games that look samey. It also makes for games that look bad, and I'm talking animation here. It's not too hard to make something look realistic in stills...but add in animation and it's a whole new ballgame. The more realistic a model, the more exact you have to get the animation. Reality is full of subtle movement that makes it real, like the jiggle of fat and muscle, the way skin creases when you smile. The more realistic your model, the more nuances you have to hit or it just plain doesn't look right. No, motion capture doesn't help in this regard. This is the biggest pitfall of photo-realisim: getting the animation right. It’s also an element that drives up production costs big time. It’s still my personal taste to see stylized presentations and solid art design over special effects and fancy shaders. Artistically speaking, my biggest fear over the increasing power of game systems is that it becomes easier and easier to Chrome a Turd. Chroming the Turd – definition: A Turd is a fundamentally bad piece of art, be it a 3-D model, or sketch or game design or whatever. Chrome is shiny. A Chromed Turd is a bad piece of art that’s “Ohh Ahh, I can see my reflection shininess.” In other words, an attempt to hide bad art by dressing it up in fancy coloring, or special effects, etc.

Are graphics important? Yes, of course they are. But what is really meant by good graphics? Does photo-realistic mean good? Not for me it doesn't. I like games with a sharp art style and that is dependant on skilled artists, not how many zeros and ones a processor can push out. Some of the most beautiful games I can name are on older systems or weren't technically impressive but had such strong art direction that they didn't need glitz to look amazing.

I loved the 4th item. I got a total Metroid spiderball vibe from it. It's one of my main candidates as a return item. I would love to see much heavier use of it in a next Zelda game with its twitch puzzle potential.

Hmm, just wanted to state that I actually prefer this new version. I liked the extra verve of the guitar. I had the older version from VGMix for quite a while and loved it, but after comparing the two, I replaced it with this new version. I'd recommend listening to them back to back before making a decision.

Wow, I haven't seen this much ass kissing since donkey mating season ended. This is a beautiful piece of music and a no-brainer for my collection, but there are a lot of pieces off this site that speak to me more. Saying that this is the best piece on the site is, well, not an opinion I share. This is a fantastic piece, but there are a lot of other pieces I've pulled from this site that I'll play more often than this. This musical track is one amongst many that belong on the top tier of quality.

I was doing no such thing. I was merely giving a reason for some of the more negative reactions. I personally am completely neutral and have no opinion of the song whatsoever, since, as I said, I haven't listened to it. My "personal preference" isn't relevant and I don't know why you brought it up.

There are a lot of songs on this site of high production quality and creativity that were never honored with the phrase: "This is what ocr is about". The fact that this particular piece was pointed out for such rubs a lot of people the wrong way, and a lot of people obviously disagree with the sentiment. As for me, I haven't actually listened to the song and don't plan to. Why? I worked in a record store south of Chicago for roughly a year and rap was almost all they ever played. I never liked rap, but now, as a result, I have a frothing hate for it and all of its associated catch phrases.

While people are making the connection to PoDW, I'm going to go ahead and say that when I was talking to Unknown, he talked about this mix as Dragon Roost Isle done in the style of the Pirate of the Caribbean score. Actually, that is exactly what it reminded me of (Pirates of the Caribbean), I just didn't state it. I never connected it to PoDW, I only noted that I missed that show.

This is a wonderful piece. I'm enjoying it immensely. Hmm, someone here mentioned Pirates of Dark Water...I miss that show...it never did reach a conclusion...

*rant* Why..WHY do people feel the need to stick a frigging speech into the middle of their songs? I was really happy with this piece, listening to it as I wrote, then bam, a $#^&(&*! monologue ruins it for me. *rant*

Ha! I DLed this song off of MP3.com months ago (along with every other piece of music by Symphonic Chronicles I could find). I loved it then and love it now. I highly recommend people go to MP3.com and find the numerous pieces by this artist and enjoy them as well.

Wonderful instrumentals. I just wish "Silent" would remain silent in his songs. But then, it's a rare day that I like anything with recognizable vocals.

This mix sounds a little strange. I like it.