SEGA Removing "Poor" and "Average" Sonic Titles From Retail

[Nabeel Ansari]

if this sonic 4 is the only option, then the "right thing" would've been to not release it all, nor even create it in the first place

that much more attention to sonic colors

everyone loved the day levels in sonic unleashed because they were really well-made

my money says colors is the sonic game we've all ACTUALLY been waiting for and sega's marketing strategy is compiled from assorted stool samples

I sure think so, I mean it is fast paced, and using the color alien power ups isn't as stupid as it might sound, it actually adds cool tidbits to the game (like just suddenly launching into the air in rocket form and reaching a whole nother half of the stage previously unavailable). It has nice platforming, which is what Sonic 4 demo lacks.

[Kinslayer]

I'm sorry, but this whole bitching and moaning thing about game mechanics is lame, let me explain:

First off, I highly doubt a Sonic title will ever go back to it's roots or be as good as the original Genesis titles simply due to the fact that the games themselves are being developed by a decimated Sonic Team that is only that in name. The minds behind the programming are no longer there, so you can't expect a game developed by inferior minds to be near as good. Also, this mantra about the 3-D games not being as good is rather hindered by the 3-D environments themselves. It's really hard to design a roller coaster level of the magnitude of Sonic 1-3-Knuckles because it involves about 10 times the amount of programming a sidescroller does. Sonic will never reach that amount of potential it had back in the old days again because the programmers insist on putting out half-ass efforts that aren't satisfying to those of us who actually have played alot of the older games. I wasn't even a fan of Sonic until just recently when I bought my Genesis and the first four Sonic games, as a kid, I found the games too fast to follow and unbeatable. Now I find them refreshing and fun compared to the older Nintendo titles. The fact of the matter is, it's hard to go back to a game's true roots without having the original development team to pour their minds into it. Point in fact.

Sure you could suggest that they go with Capcom's idea and restore the game to it's original programming and expand upon it like MM9 and 10, or hire fresh developers to remake a classic, as Nintendo did hiring Retro Studios to make DKCR, but the fact of the matter is: Sega doesn't want to make the effort to make Sonic new and fun again, they insist on milking the population of fans until the franchise is as old, dry and boring as Mario is getting these days.

At least Sega isn't remaking the same game over and over again and calling it new (Zelda anyone?)

[Moseph]

At least Sega isn't remaking the same game over and over again and calling it new (Zelda anyone?)

Oh snap. I agree with this, though.

[Bleck]

At least Sega isn't remaking the same game over and over again and calling it new (Zelda anyone?)

are you really comparing sonic to zelda games

really

there are people in the world who would murder you for that

[Jonnas]

Sega doesn't want to make the effort to make Sonic new and fun again, they insist on milking the population of fans until the franchise is as old, dry and boring as Mario is getting these days.

Umm... What? Mario? Really? If you're talking about the spinoffs, fine, but the main Mario platforming series is the antithesis of what Sega have been doing with Sonic.

At least Sega isn't remaking the same game over and over again and calling it new (Zelda anyone?)

Why do you phrase this like Sega went for the better option?

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

So the final verdict is that Sonic 4 is ass. I haven't played it yet, so I'm just going on with what "the fans" are saying.

Can we just put the final nail in the coffin and just never talk about Sonic games like they were relevant ever again now?

[The Phalanx]

Can we just put the final nail in the coffin and just never talk about Sonic games like they were relevant ever again now?

I don't think they've been relevant for a good 5 years now.

This game just so happens to smack of nostalgia-cashing and failed poorly at it.

[Maco70]

Slightly off topic (though, Sonic 4 is also not the thread title).

Has anyone played the Sonic Adventure remake for XBLA?

[EC2151]

From what I've heard, though, Sonic Colors seems to be the Sonic game most Sonic fans have actually been WANTING to play for a long time now.

[BardicKnowledge]

From what I've heard, though, Sonic Colors seems to be the Sonic game most Sonic fans have actually been WANTING to play for a long time now.

I still have high hopes for it! I must also be the only person that didn't hate Sonic 4 apparently (at least the demo), so take that with a grain of salt.

[KyleJCrb]

Slightly off topic (though, Sonic 4 is also not the thread title).

Has anyone played the Sonic Adventure remake for XBLA?

It's not a remake, it's just a port. Same exact game as the one released on the Dreamcast.

[AkumajoBelmont]

You know, I hear all of these complaints about the little things wrong with the game, that seemingly add up to a whole lot. I'm going to get it for PSN whenever I get the chance to see for myself, but speaking in gross generalities, Sega fans and ESPECIALLY Sonic fans are nearly impossibly hard to please. There are so many, that like so many different particulars about the games, that there's no way they can win over everyone.

I think many people would agree that, regardless of whether or not you liked the 3d Sonic games, at least Sonic 4 Ep1 is a step in the right direction for the franchise. Understandably, the original team that created the Sonic from "the good ol' days" is long gone so there's no way that the original magic can be captured again. Even if it was, it'd probably not be seen as fresh besides being functional.

I'm betting half the team that made Sonic 4 (the Sonic Team half) are so used to making the other, less-well-liked Sonic games that getting into this new gaming mentality is a slow process. DIMPS has shown that it at least knows some of the things that make Sonic work, and Sonic Team has shown scattered glimpses of hope in previous games, which was usually overshadowed by the more glaring issues. I wouldn't have expected a perfect follow up to S3&K on the first time out TRYING to follow it up in, what, 15 years? Sega has at least shown lately that it is keeping an open ear for the fanbase, so I would bet that Sonic 4 Ep2 will show much improvement. If not, then it was a lucky fluke, and I would lose that bet.

I would say more, but I'll save additional comments for after I play Ep1.

I don't think Sonic fans are that hard to please, Stevo. I'm a big Sonic fan from way back when, and since SA2, I've constantly been disappointed by the franchise. All I want, really, is my old Sonic physics back. All the new Mario games are great. Why? Because they feel similar to the old titles. Anything you could do in the older games, you can do in the new ones... there's a massive sense of continuity in the controls. No matter what new 2D Mario game comes out, you can always just slip into it, comfortably, and know what you're in for. The same cannot be said about Sonic games. Every new 2D Sonic game feels different, and no thanks to Dimps, gets progressively worse. Sonic feels slower than ever. And why does he, the fastest thing on Earth, have to rely on goddamn boost pads and horseshit like that to achieve even a modest speed?

I say turn the world upside down and give Sonic to Nintendo. At least they know how to make a good 2D platformer... and they'd understand what the fans want out of it.

The only Sonic games I am going to look forward to now are, oddly enough, the ones where they chuck the poor blue bastard in a Kart. Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing has been best thing to happen to the Sonic franchise for years.

Sumo Digital, I love you. You made a game that I cherish even more than Mario Kart (any of em').

[Jonnas]

So the final verdict is that Sonic 4 is ass. I haven't played it yet, so I'm just going on with what "the fans" are saying.

Can we just put the final nail in the coffin and just never talk about Sonic games like they were relevant ever again now?

Sonic Colours seems to be game that will make Sonic relevant again. It looks amazing.

Sonic 4 was just another of Sega's mistakes. (For now, at least. They may change something in the following episodes, though I'm not getting my hopes up.)

[Level 99]

I don't think Sonic fans are that hard to please, Stevo. I'm a big Sonic fan from way back when, and since SA2, I've constantly been disappointed by the franchise. All I want, really, is my old Sonic physics back. All the new Mario games are great. Why? Because they feel similar to the old titles. Anything you could do in the older games, you can do in the new ones... there's a massive sense of continuity in the controls. No matter what new 2D Mario game comes out, you can always just slip into it, comfortably, and know what you're in for. The same cannot be said about Sonic games. Every new 2D Sonic game feels different, and no thanks to Dimps, gets progressively worse. Sonic feels slower than ever. And why does he, the fastest thing on Earth, have to rely on goddamn boost pads and horseshit like that to achieve even a modest speed?

I say turn the world upside down and give Sonic to Nintendo. At least they know how to make a good 2D platformer... and they'd understand what the fans want out of it.

The only Sonic games I am going to look forward to now are, oddly enough, the ones where they chuck the poor blue bastard in a Kart. Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing has been best thing to happen to the Sonic franchise for years.

Sumo Digital, I love you. You made a game that I cherish even more than Mario Kart (any of em').

Ehh, the problem with pleasing Sonic fans is that Sonic doesn't have the market spread mario does over genres (getting there, though, especially with S&SASR), and that the old gamers are used to Sonic in one particular way, and the young gamers are used to Sonic in a different particular way. These two ways are nigh impossible to mesh and keep every side happy. Not saying that some Sonic fans aren't easy to please, but all of them? Probably not that easy.

You're right about Mario's consistency, though.

And Sumo Digital is an awesome studio who really need to get more work from Sega. They treat their work with very high respect.

Unfortunately, nostalgia is seen as a cash cow by many producers. Only a few actually fulfill their promise to cater to that and/or continue the tradition appropriately (as subjective of a statement that is)

[Salluz]

I don't think they've been relevant for a good 5 years now.

Five years? More like, almost a decade.

Fuck all of the custom/consistency shit, just... make a good game and keep making good games.

[Bleck]

people say sonic 4 is the game to play

they even played a demo and it's good

comes out and it's shitty

now people are saying sonic colors will be good

they even played a demo and it's good

I am just shaking my head in shame at you people

[Jonnas]

now people are saying sonic colors will be good

they even played a demo and it's good

What demo? I'm basing my opinion on Unleashed, that gets undeserved hate because of the werewolf and the PS3/X360 versions.

As for Sonic 4, I stopped raising my hopes once they announced the return of the homing attack. That should've told everyone this wasn't going to be an old-school Sonic, no matter how much they tried to say otherwise.

[AkumajoBelmont]

And Sega, Sonic Team and Dimps got owned... Hard:

http://sonicresearch.org/sonicfanremix/

There's a demo in that link too... downloading it now. Just by watching the YouTube video, it already looks like everything Sonic 4 should have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeVa1oeif0s&feature=player_embedded

[halc]

And Sega, Sonic Team and Dimps got owned... Hard:

http://sonicresearch.org/sonicfanremix/

just tried out the demo. very cool stuff

[Moseph]

And Sega, Sonic Team and Dimps got owned... Hard:

http://sonicresearch.org/sonicfanremix/

There's a demo in that link too... downloading it now. Just by watching the YouTube video, it already looks like everything Sonic 4 should have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeVa1oeif0s&feature=player_embedded

If Sega were like Valve, they'd hire these guys and release the game officially.

[AkumajoBelmont]

If Sega were like Valve, they'd hire these guys and release the game officially.

Yup! But they're not. Companies like Valve are rather rare, unfortunately...

[zircon]

Please read the following and think it over carefully.

Making a game demo for a computer != developing a game that fits within XBLA/WiiWare/PSN standards, plays at a normal speed, meets memory requirements, etc. It's really ignorant to suggest that. As a game developer myself, I've seen firsthand that even a VERY SIMPLE game with no physics engine or 3D graphics can run flawlessly on PC and yet fail the tech requirements to run properly on a console.

[Moseph]

Please read the following and think it over carefully.

Making a game demo for a computer != developing a game that fits within XBLA/WiiWare/PSN standards, plays at a normal speed, meets memory requirements, etc. It's really ignorant to suggest that. As a game developer myself, I've seen firsthand that even a VERY SIMPLE game with no physics engine or 3D graphics can run flawlessly on PC and yet fail the tech requirements to run properly on a console.

I'm talking more about the gameplay/feel than the code. If these homebrew people had an actual dev team behind them, there's no telling what they could do.

EDIT: Or were you talking to AkumajoBelmont?

[zircon]

I'm just speaking generally. It's really easy to point to a YouTube video of a PC demo of a game done in a completely different engine on a completely different platform than Sonic 4, and say "Look at the differences!" Now, if they did this with WiiWare dev tools AND deployed successfully, people might have a point.

Edit: To expand on what I'm saying, it is very very very easy to 'fake' things when you have basically unlimited processor power, memory and your choice of tools. To give you an example, my company (www.spacewhalestudios.com) produced a game in 2 days (with breaks/sleep) using Flash for a competition. The game had several levels and mechanics, a UI, menu system, etc. I would estimate that the amount of time it took to redo that same game using XNA (a 360 dev kit) was more like several months - and we were still missing functionality that the Flash prototype had. Even today, almost a YEAR later, we're struggling to optimize our code and assets so it doesn't take a 360 twenty minutes to load our game.

Does that mean we're bad programmers? Obviously not - we made a highly functional, fun prototype in Flash in a very short period of time. But the toolset and platform has an enormous impact on how you work, and making a game that is truly scalable and optimized is very big challenge indeed.

[AkumajoBelmont]

Please read the following and think it over carefully.

Making a game demo for a computer != developing a game that fits within XBLA/WiiWare/PSN standards, plays at a normal speed, meets memory requirements, etc. It's really ignorant to suggest that. As a game developer myself, I've seen firsthand that even a VERY SIMPLE game with no physics engine or 3D graphics can run flawlessly on PC and yet fail the tech requirements to run properly on a console.

Point is, that Sonic Fan Remix looks like the game that Sonic the Hedgehog 4 should have been. Kinda ironic/poetic/whatever that this demo comes out just after the release of Sonic 4