Post by Juliett. Bravo. Alfa. on Dec 29, 2007 13:21:29 GMT
Well everyone else has one, Why not me?
/Ego.
So yeah, Sonic based Top 10s and discussion etc.
Lets get the depressive one out of the way:
Top 10 worst Sonic games.
(Note this list won't include Secret Rings and the Rivals series, Haven't played them. A revised list could be made, when I do, though.)
10) Sonic 3D,
Its not so much a terrible Sonic game, more a concept that doesn't work with Sonic in isometric 3D.
The trouble with Sonic 3D, is that it would have worked as Flicky 3D and then take out all the Sonic gimmicks and make a much more focused game based on the Flicky arcade game.
The saving graces for 3D was the Mega Drive music and the Saturn special stages. The best version of the Sonic 2 Pipe ever.
9) Sonic Heroes,
Only No. 9?, I hear you cry! Yes dear reader, you see instead of talking about its numerous shortfalls(which you already know), I'm going to talk about what was good.
The first 6 levels were brilliant. Maybe they weren't the multipathed levels of mayhem I wanted but they were just pure unadulterated Sonic. The visual style looked like they were ripped from the Mega Drive and plonked into 3D.
It brought back the Chaotix, and Espio was the best character in the game!
There were occasional moments of brilliance in it. And that where the problem lies, you can't help thinking: if the controls were tightened, The Light Dash glitch was fixed, if the camera had some idea what you were going to do and not what it wanted to do and Rouge had never want to find Eggman's treasure then maybe it wouldn't have been all that bad.
8) Sonic & Knuckles, (oooo controversy)
The problem with this game, is that it is pointless without Sonic 3. Without that gem plugged into on to it in some sort of cyber porn it is just a good game doesn't have enough giant rings beyond Mushroom Hill. And no Tails.
Ahh, the days where Sonic Team used to be able to cope with unrealistic deadlines. "We will just cut the game in half and charge people full price for both cartridges!"
And they got away with it too. The handsome devils!
Its definitely doesn't deserve a place on the list due to gameplay issues or graphics or anything. Just the concept of paying twice for the full game: Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
7) Sonic Advance 2,
Ugh, A horrible/nigh on impossible way to enter the (rather good) special stages and a very deceptive level design.
When you blast through the levels, dying at the amount of level memorisation you'll have to do, the game makes you believe that the levels are linear and basically "Hold Right to win!", but they aren't, there are a few routes through the levels. Sadly though, the whole level is normally above a giant pit of death, rather like a 2D version of Super Monkey Ball.
This would eventually become Sonic Rush's (Number 11 BTW) flaw as well. Advance 2 made it in because, it was the original. Advance 3 was much better if a bit awkward with the character select thing. (If anyone was wondering)
6) Sonic Adventure DX Directors Cut,
I love Sonic Adventure. It has a lovely story along with dodgy voice acting. When the game came out in 1999, few cared about camera issues, sensitive controls and occasional glitches. This was an evolution of the 2D gameplay to incorporate upgrades to your character. A basic hub area with a nice story about the lady too scared to talk to someone working in the burger bar. And it had Gamma's story. ;_; But there has been no classic game that has aged as badly as Sonic Adventure
Then Sonic Adventure DX Directors Cut came out in 2003. And what we thought was, we were going to get polished version of the Dreamcast classic. No more glitches, no more slowdown, improved camera and the tighter controls from Adventure 2. And that Directors Cut has to mean that we will get some new content, Maybe Knuckles V Chaos Zero, Maybe and epilogue story with Rouge and how she stole the Master Emerald. And that Dragon that was supposed to appear in Sky Chase! And we are going to get a Mission mode! Brilliant!
With the exception of the Mission mode, none of that happened. The game managed to play worse on the Gamecube than the Dreamcast. The only thing that implied it was a Directors Cut was the possibility that Cream left the Ice stone and the Wind Stone for Sonic and Tails. That was it. I believe that this is where the Sonic series started to go a bit dodgy.
Adventure 2 attempted to improve on Adventure. And it might not have all worked and there is still the discussion on whether Adventure 2 was better than Adventure 1. But they addressed the concerns and tried to improve on it. This half arsed port of a then 4-5 year old Dreamcast game did none of that.
5) Sonic Labyrinth
While, I'm not one to preach, how Sonic is all about SPEED, SPEED, SPEED, SPEED and SPEED, all Sonic games have always had an element of speed. Until Labyrinth came out of course. The precursor to 3D, this was terrible. Running on a console which was all but dead with no real objects or item boxes to avoid or collect, it was a vague story about how Sonic had to wear Robotnik's slow down boots. Yet they looked exactly the same as Sonic's normal shoes. Terrible then and terrible now.
4) Tails Skypatrol,
A game where the floor can kill you. Not a pit of death but a floor. This might have worked if Tails was in one of his machines and was turned into a proper sidescroller shooter, but it wasn't. Shame I suppose because the graphics were really cute.
3) Sonic Blast/G-Sonic,
The ugliest Sonic game ever made. It would have been alright if they used the Triple Trouble engine as opposed to the one they used here. And Knuckles's gliding was terrible. Confusing level design in the later levels and enemies so small you could step on them and kill them but that would be cheating.
2) Shadow The Hedgehog,
Now, actually this wasn't as bad as some people like to say it is. Some of the level design was interesting. And it had Shadow blowing up the internets. Genius.
The problem comes down to the concept. A "Dark Sonic" game was always going to be dodgy. A "Dark Sonic" game with guns and vehicles was always going to be viewed with some suspicion. A "Dark Sonic" game with realistic guns and vehicles and crap looking aliens (Black Doom excepted) and a quite frankly terribly crap and contradicting story about Shadows origins was always going to be SPARTA.
This would have worked as some sort of parody of the current state of the games market. Oh look we've given Shadow a gun, lol!. Now we are teh cool! And gaming journalists would have clapped Sega and went on with their lives. But they released it. Oh my God and various people's Gods they released it.
And they did it all with a straight face.
Sega took this game seriously. The voice actors must have wet themselves laughing but they did their job. Jun Senoue made a bloody good soundtrack and Remix Factory did E.G.G.M.A.N. and GUN Mobile remixes. And the FMV's were gorgeous.
With the exception of dodgy gun targeting and vehicles. As well as the problem with all 3D Sonic games since Adventure, this wasn't completely terrible. But it lacks so much. It needed a sense of self and other games mocking. I couldn't make a game that controversial and not include in-jokes. Maybe Big running through the game with his tail on fire or screaming "The Horror...The Horror..." Or Shadow saying you have 20 seconds to comply. Something like that.
Oh well...
Honourable mention: Sonic the Hedgehog: Genesis.
This was originally going to be number 3 but then I realised that I had blocked G-Sonic Blast from memory. We all know this was bad. Unfinished, the fact there is a superior iPod version now shows there is no excuse for this to be bad. No! Bad Sega! Very, very bad Sega!
1) Sonic The Hedgehog,
If you didn't expect this go home. Now.
This goes a step further from the badness that is Shadow. Not only did it pretty much become Sonic Adventure: Next Generation, it did it while saying "Look at me! I am Sonic Adventure: Next Generation!"
And it was. Not only was there every problem with Sonic Adventure incorporated into the game they added some new ones too. Ridiculously long and frequent loading times, barely incorporated Havok psychics engine (which we all know is good), Amigo characters which ruin the already bad experience and the ugliest Sonic character ever made. Yes, squid-head Sonic will take some beating by Yuji Uekewa.
Again, taking itself just a seriously as Shadow. Not only was this game was "darker" than Shadow, but it was Sega's own brand of darkness that made Shadow bad and this, worse. Shadow got his own "Metal Sonic", We got FIRE CHAOS!, Time travel, A ruined future and the most disturbing scene in gaming.
The sad thing was, that in every interview Shun Nakamoto, the man charged with directing this classic, taking over from Takashi Iizuka said that: We are going to make this one properly. We are addressing camera issues. We are addressing control issues. He said all the right things but the game was released like this.
I feel for anyone who got this game on Christmas 2006, with their new shiny Xbox 360 (PS3 wasn't made back then) and hoped that it wouldn't be all that bad. Sadly it was.
You can eek enjoyment from the game but that come across as pure fluke more than anything. The one hope I have from this game is that Sega have learnt from it and never makes the mistake of releasing a title this unfinished again. And they never go into the realms of "That scene" again.
------
TL:DR Version
10) 3D
9) Heroes
8) S&K (lolwhut?)
7) Advance 2
6) SADXDC
5) Labyrinth
4) Skypatrol
3) G
2) Shadow
HM) Genesis
1) 2K6
------
Thank you for reading. I'll do another one of these soon. Eventually. In this topic. I won't make another topic and put in another Sonic based Top 10. That would get me banned.
So yeah, Discuss.
/Ego.
So yeah, Sonic based Top 10s and discussion etc.
Lets get the depressive one out of the way:
Top 10 worst Sonic games.
(Note this list won't include Secret Rings and the Rivals series, Haven't played them. A revised list could be made, when I do, though.)
10) Sonic 3D,
Its not so much a terrible Sonic game, more a concept that doesn't work with Sonic in isometric 3D.
The trouble with Sonic 3D, is that it would have worked as Flicky 3D and then take out all the Sonic gimmicks and make a much more focused game based on the Flicky arcade game.
The saving graces for 3D was the Mega Drive music and the Saturn special stages. The best version of the Sonic 2 Pipe ever.
9) Sonic Heroes,
Only No. 9?, I hear you cry! Yes dear reader, you see instead of talking about its numerous shortfalls(which you already know), I'm going to talk about what was good.
The first 6 levels were brilliant. Maybe they weren't the multipathed levels of mayhem I wanted but they were just pure unadulterated Sonic. The visual style looked like they were ripped from the Mega Drive and plonked into 3D.
It brought back the Chaotix, and Espio was the best character in the game!
There were occasional moments of brilliance in it. And that where the problem lies, you can't help thinking: if the controls were tightened, The Light Dash glitch was fixed, if the camera had some idea what you were going to do and not what it wanted to do and Rouge had never want to find Eggman's treasure then maybe it wouldn't have been all that bad.
8) Sonic & Knuckles, (oooo controversy)
The problem with this game, is that it is pointless without Sonic 3. Without that gem plugged into on to it in some sort of cyber porn it is just a good game doesn't have enough giant rings beyond Mushroom Hill. And no Tails.
Ahh, the days where Sonic Team used to be able to cope with unrealistic deadlines. "We will just cut the game in half and charge people full price for both cartridges!"
And they got away with it too. The handsome devils!
Its definitely doesn't deserve a place on the list due to gameplay issues or graphics or anything. Just the concept of paying twice for the full game: Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
7) Sonic Advance 2,
Ugh, A horrible/nigh on impossible way to enter the (rather good) special stages and a very deceptive level design.
When you blast through the levels, dying at the amount of level memorisation you'll have to do, the game makes you believe that the levels are linear and basically "Hold Right to win!", but they aren't, there are a few routes through the levels. Sadly though, the whole level is normally above a giant pit of death, rather like a 2D version of Super Monkey Ball.
This would eventually become Sonic Rush's (Number 11 BTW) flaw as well. Advance 2 made it in because, it was the original. Advance 3 was much better if a bit awkward with the character select thing. (If anyone was wondering)
6) Sonic Adventure DX Directors Cut,
I love Sonic Adventure. It has a lovely story along with dodgy voice acting. When the game came out in 1999, few cared about camera issues, sensitive controls and occasional glitches. This was an evolution of the 2D gameplay to incorporate upgrades to your character. A basic hub area with a nice story about the lady too scared to talk to someone working in the burger bar. And it had Gamma's story. ;_; But there has been no classic game that has aged as badly as Sonic Adventure
Then Sonic Adventure DX Directors Cut came out in 2003. And what we thought was, we were going to get polished version of the Dreamcast classic. No more glitches, no more slowdown, improved camera and the tighter controls from Adventure 2. And that Directors Cut has to mean that we will get some new content, Maybe Knuckles V Chaos Zero, Maybe and epilogue story with Rouge and how she stole the Master Emerald. And that Dragon that was supposed to appear in Sky Chase! And we are going to get a Mission mode! Brilliant!
With the exception of the Mission mode, none of that happened. The game managed to play worse on the Gamecube than the Dreamcast. The only thing that implied it was a Directors Cut was the possibility that Cream left the Ice stone and the Wind Stone for Sonic and Tails. That was it. I believe that this is where the Sonic series started to go a bit dodgy.
Adventure 2 attempted to improve on Adventure. And it might not have all worked and there is still the discussion on whether Adventure 2 was better than Adventure 1. But they addressed the concerns and tried to improve on it. This half arsed port of a then 4-5 year old Dreamcast game did none of that.
5) Sonic Labyrinth
While, I'm not one to preach, how Sonic is all about SPEED, SPEED, SPEED, SPEED and SPEED, all Sonic games have always had an element of speed. Until Labyrinth came out of course. The precursor to 3D, this was terrible. Running on a console which was all but dead with no real objects or item boxes to avoid or collect, it was a vague story about how Sonic had to wear Robotnik's slow down boots. Yet they looked exactly the same as Sonic's normal shoes. Terrible then and terrible now.
4) Tails Skypatrol,
A game where the floor can kill you. Not a pit of death but a floor. This might have worked if Tails was in one of his machines and was turned into a proper sidescroller shooter, but it wasn't. Shame I suppose because the graphics were really cute.
3) Sonic Blast/G-Sonic,
The ugliest Sonic game ever made. It would have been alright if they used the Triple Trouble engine as opposed to the one they used here. And Knuckles's gliding was terrible. Confusing level design in the later levels and enemies so small you could step on them and kill them but that would be cheating.
2) Shadow The Hedgehog,
Now, actually this wasn't as bad as some people like to say it is. Some of the level design was interesting. And it had Shadow blowing up the internets. Genius.
The problem comes down to the concept. A "Dark Sonic" game was always going to be dodgy. A "Dark Sonic" game with guns and vehicles was always going to be viewed with some suspicion. A "Dark Sonic" game with realistic guns and vehicles and crap looking aliens (Black Doom excepted) and a quite frankly terribly crap and contradicting story about Shadows origins was always going to be SPARTA.
This would have worked as some sort of parody of the current state of the games market. Oh look we've given Shadow a gun, lol!. Now we are teh cool! And gaming journalists would have clapped Sega and went on with their lives. But they released it. Oh my God and various people's Gods they released it.
And they did it all with a straight face.
Sega took this game seriously. The voice actors must have wet themselves laughing but they did their job. Jun Senoue made a bloody good soundtrack and Remix Factory did E.G.G.M.A.N. and GUN Mobile remixes. And the FMV's were gorgeous.
With the exception of dodgy gun targeting and vehicles. As well as the problem with all 3D Sonic games since Adventure, this wasn't completely terrible. But it lacks so much. It needed a sense of self and other games mocking. I couldn't make a game that controversial and not include in-jokes. Maybe Big running through the game with his tail on fire or screaming "The Horror...The Horror..." Or Shadow saying you have 20 seconds to comply. Something like that.
Oh well...
Honourable mention: Sonic the Hedgehog: Genesis.
This was originally going to be number 3 but then I realised that I had blocked G-Sonic Blast from memory. We all know this was bad. Unfinished, the fact there is a superior iPod version now shows there is no excuse for this to be bad. No! Bad Sega! Very, very bad Sega!
1) Sonic The Hedgehog,
If you didn't expect this go home. Now.
This goes a step further from the badness that is Shadow. Not only did it pretty much become Sonic Adventure: Next Generation, it did it while saying "Look at me! I am Sonic Adventure: Next Generation!"
And it was. Not only was there every problem with Sonic Adventure incorporated into the game they added some new ones too. Ridiculously long and frequent loading times, barely incorporated Havok psychics engine (which we all know is good), Amigo characters which ruin the already bad experience and the ugliest Sonic character ever made. Yes, squid-head Sonic will take some beating by Yuji Uekewa.
Again, taking itself just a seriously as Shadow. Not only was this game was "darker" than Shadow, but it was Sega's own brand of darkness that made Shadow bad and this, worse. Shadow got his own "Metal Sonic", We got FIRE CHAOS!, Time travel, A ruined future and the most disturbing scene in gaming.
The sad thing was, that in every interview Shun Nakamoto, the man charged with directing this classic, taking over from Takashi Iizuka said that: We are going to make this one properly. We are addressing camera issues. We are addressing control issues. He said all the right things but the game was released like this.
I feel for anyone who got this game on Christmas 2006, with their new shiny Xbox 360 (PS3 wasn't made back then) and hoped that it wouldn't be all that bad. Sadly it was.
You can eek enjoyment from the game but that come across as pure fluke more than anything. The one hope I have from this game is that Sega have learnt from it and never makes the mistake of releasing a title this unfinished again. And they never go into the realms of "That scene" again.
------
TL:DR Version
10) 3D
9) Heroes
8) S&K (lolwhut?)
7) Advance 2
6) SADXDC
5) Labyrinth
4) Skypatrol
3) G
2) Shadow
HM) Genesis
1) 2K6
------
Thank you for reading. I'll do another one of these soon. Eventually. In this topic. I won't make another topic and put in another Sonic based Top 10. That would get me banned.
So yeah, Discuss.
I don't think it's so aweful as to deserve 1st place, it sounds like you picked newer games for the higher positions.
