@Jackpaza0508 Believe me: anyone who writes and turns out work consistently is going to look at their older stuff and cringe. The important thing is to keep striving to accomplish more with each subsequent piece.
Your own style has definitely come more into its own, even in the short time you've been submitting to this thread, and you've also been going more into detail about what you like and dislike in each game, which is terrific.
If I get a PS5 at some point, Astro's Playroom will probably be the first game I play. You might not wish to disparage 1, 2, Switch, but I do think it embarrasses that game a little by being both a higher quality offering AND free with the system.
Actually, it's interesting how Nintendo-like a device the PS5 has been so far in terms of leading with exclusives early on and including a number of interesting hardware gimmicks into the controller.
I agree it's an incredible-looking game. In general, I feel like vibrant and at least partially stylized art-styles really shine on the more powerful PS5 hardware, which is turning out games that look like Disney movies.
Looking forward to that Galaxy review! It's a favorite of mine. Probably my all-time favorite 3D platformer.
I started to type this up in the Current PS4 games playing thread, but it got a bit long, so I dumped it over here.
I played Divinity Original Sin over the weekend on PS4. I thought I would be a good testing ground for Disco Elysium, as there are both similar enough types of game in my head.
I've enjoyed it. I've not played many CRPG's and the more recent ones haven't clicked with me. The main thing that put me off was the amount of text to read, and the ones I played in recent times had not been fully voiced. DOS is though, although it does bring up a dialogue box which fills up a bug chunk of the screen, which I'm not a fan of. The writing and voice acting is class, with some genuine LOL moments. There is a certain ability which you can unlock which allows you to speak to animals. This is official The Best Thing Ever, as they all have different accents. Rats have French accents, chickens have Texan (i think?) accents and cats sound all smarmy like you expect.
It can feel quite plodding when moving around the landscape with no run ability (the characters jog at best when going full tilt) and i really miss the double/quadruple speed from FFXIIZR. There are transport gates scattered around the map, which does makes things a bit better.
Combat is turn based which I'm ok with. What I really like is that you can combine certain elements to boost damage. So you can douse a few enemies with an oil spell then hit em with a fire spell for increased damage. Or if it is raining, cast an electrical spell. Or cast a rain spell to put out someone who is on fire. And so on.
Story is good so far. What starts out as an investigation into a murder soon takes a few twists and turns (the main one I did not see coming. If anyone says they did they are lying or should be enrolled in the Mystic Meg School of Fortune Tellers). And there are whole bunch of side quests to do, which I have hardly touched, but some of them do tie into the main quest. The aforementioned talking animals are not just a novelty eiher, as some animals can assist you with some missions, like a dog helping sniff out his owners grave and smell evidence 'borrowed' from suspects, which he can determine if his dead owner was with them. Quite excellent.
Anyway, I will be continue to play it, as a sorta side game to Returnal. Which is a weird side game for me, as I usually go for smaller games and this is supposed to be a huge time sink. But it felt different enough to Returnal for it to click.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@JohnnyShoulder Glad that DOS sounds like it’s clicking for you. @kyleforrester87 will be proud.
I have always intended to play it (or DOS2) but the time commitment is a little daunting. Will be interested to hear if the game continues to hold up for you over the dozens of hours.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Yeah I wasn't expecting or planned to play it, but after dipping into a few games which weren't doing it for me, I decided to bite the bullet. It is one of those games I've always put off playing, and has been in my library for years, so will be good to finally experience it in full.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Exactly thirty years ago today, Sonic the Hedgehog made his debut.
The three decades since have been, for the most part, awesome. The Blue Blur has become a household name thanks to his games, comics, television shows and a major Hollywood blockbuster (the sequel to which is currently in development). He's a genuine icon.
Right now, Sonic is celebrating his 30th Anniversary in style... and yet, back when he hit the halfway point, he nearly stopped running for good.
***
Platform: PS3 (version played) and Xbox360 Release Date: November 14, 2006
For his 15th Anniversary, SEGA put Sonic everywhere. He had other, smaller games on other, smaller systems (most notably the PSP exclusive Sonic Rivals, as well as the hoverboard racing game Sonic Riders on the ageing sixth generation consoles) but all the hype was focused on what promised to be his biggest adventure yet, coming exclusively to everybody's shiny new hardware. The problem was, Sonic Team hadn't been given enough time with their development kits... and worse, they were working against the clock. SEGA had struck a marketing deal with Microsoft; come hell or high water, Sonic had to be part of the Xbox360's holiday line-up that year, whether he was ready or not.
And then, thanks to the steep learning curve inherent in programming for Sony's proprietary processor, the PS3 version got itself delayed until 2007, although this didn't help it much (in fact, it's missing some key visual effects, like surface reflections and heat haze). The sad reality is that, no matter which copy you picked up to play, Sonic the Hedgehog was a textbook example of a rushed release. For a character who's entire schtick is speed, it was death by irony.
Sonic the Hedgehog (which quickly became known as Sonic '06 to circumvent the annoying trend of franchise title reboots; I'll be calling it that from here on out) opens with an utterly gorgeous CGI cutscene set in the Venice-inspired kingdom of Soleanna. Its teenage monarch, Princess Elise, is presiding over a public festival when all manner of nonsense starts happening to her. She has a vision of the city aflame, dominated by a giant monster, and then Doctor Eggman launches a brazen kidnap attempt, one quickly thwarted by Sonic. As the dust settles, a mysterious new hedgehog watches Sonic carry Elise to safety and whispers to himself, "I've finally found him... the Iblis Trigger!"
So starts Sonic's story which, honestly, is kinda dull. Elise gets herself kidnapped with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season, giving Sonic little downtime between rescue missions. He does manage to get the band back together, with Tails and Knuckles joining him for brief gameplay cameos in certain levels, but otherwise his path ends up being little more than a shallow convenience, allowing him to visit and unlock other, far more interesting events.
Lynchpincushion: His overall involvement may be peripheral at best, but Sonic is the necessary thread which keeps everything tied together, I suppose.
Because this game is the last hurrah of the Sonic Adventure design template, it features two additional storylines which run parallel to Sonic's own... and, in a stark reminder of Adventure 2 in particular, they're infinitely more interesting than anything the Blue Blur gets up to. They intersect with one another far more frequently, weaving a complex time travel tapestry which is far more ambitious and weighty than anything Sonic Team had attempted before. It isn't perfect (among other things, one of the Chaos Emeralds gets itself caught in a bootstrap paradox) but I appreciate the effort all the same.
First up, Shadow is back, concluding his well-drawn character arc which started in Adventure 2 and continued in his own game. He's now an agent of G.U.N. working to understand, and ultimately defeat, an ancient evil called Mephiles. At a crucial juncture, he faces up to a betrayal by his friend E-123 Omega, as Mephiles taunts Shadow with the extent of humanity's reactionary fear and questions why he would want to fight for those who would (literally) crucify him. None of these rich narrative veins are mined with any style or flair, which robs them of their potential impact; it's the kinda material that sinks in after the fact. The game never leaves you with any doubt as to Shadow's noble intentions, no matter how many long pauses it awkwardly inserts between each line of dialogue.
And then there's my favourite Sonic character of all time.
Then there's Silver.
Silver Takes Gold: Despite his name suggesting otherwise, there'll be no consolation prize for this hedgehog here, as he'd definitely be standing atop my podium.
Silver hails from the nightmarish future everybody is fighting to prevent. Together with best friend Blaze, he spends his days hopelessly trying to suppress Iblis, the sentient flames of disaster which have engulfed the entire planet and which can never be fully extinguished. One day, after a particularly brutal battle with the burning baddie, Silver is approached by Mephiles, who offers him a chance to change history for the better. In a classic case of time travel temptation, all Silver would need to do is go back early enough to kill the Iblis Trigger, a.k.a. the person responsible for unleashing Iblis in the first place... and that person, according to Mephiles, is Sonic.
Continuing the legacy established by Knuckles and continued by Shadow, Silver represents the apex of one of the franchise's core narrative trends, namely that of a naïve hero being manipulated into performing villainous acts. With such high stakes and direct action, combined with some split-second glimpses of maturity in the writing, Silver's storyline is unquestionably the highlight of Sonic '06.
As is his gameplay. Only capable of a light jog, Silver slows the pace right down and instead relies on a suite of psychokinetic powers to achieve victory. With his focused mind, he can pick up debris, like crates and rocks and wrecked cars, and toss it all around with reckless abandon. He can hover over small gaps and stun nearby enemies with a special shockwave. Best of all, he can go full Neo on anybody stupid enough to fire a weapon at him, freezing the incoming shots before flinging them back from whence they came. His combat is a total power trip and, when everything comes together, it can be a gleeful delight to lay waste to an entire army with its own ammunition. Some of his periodic physics-based puzzles are less lovely, with the game's unpredictability and some arbitrary restrictions causing one or two headaches, but these do little to dampen the success of Silver's co-star status. He represents Sonic Team's determination to strive for new, unique and imaginative content, and was (and still is) primarily responsible for helping Sonic '06 feel truly "next-gen" in parts. He blew me away when I first got my PS3, and he still impresses me today.
There is No Spoon: It's six against one in Crisis City, and somebody's about to get a beatdown, but you can bet it won't be the glowing guy in the middle.
Unfortunately, this is where everything else starts to fall apart. Sonic and Shadow have near-identical controls, with their separate special moves sharing inputs and barely bringing any diversity to the gameplay table. As the fastest of the playable characters, they feel skittish whenever they get up to speed, and frequently get themselves stuck in the scenery (or worse, stuck on it, running up vertical surfaces and causing all sorts of problems in the process). Funnily enough, out of all the speedy folks, it's Silver's supporting buddy Blaze who controls the best, thanks to her reliable homing attack and ability to stop on a dime whenever she initiates her flaming pirouette move, which becomes a useful get-out-of-jail-free shortcut. I swear this isn't personal bias; it's more likely that Sonic Team started with the newcomers, got them right and then, as the schedule tightened, cut corners with the returning cast.
Shadow is no longer packing heat, but his levels are littered with vehicles, some of which fare better than others. There's a needlessly fragile hovercraft-jetski hybrid which calls to mind wrestling with a similar contraption in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and here's me pretending that the ridiculous hang-glider sequences don't exist, but some chunky jeeps and motorcycles are always a welcome sight. Meanwhile, over in Sonic's story, auto-running Mach Speed Sections are the unique selling point, but their implementation is an unmitigated fail. You're supposed to steer around and jump over oncoming obstacles, but it's impossible to dodge everything and, unless you have pixel-perfect path recollection, Sonic will happily fling himself into an abyss, or a wall. Or a tree. Or a crate. Or an enemy. Or the rough edge of some invisible geometry, left untrimmed, on which he'll trip and die. During the inaugural example of this mechanic, a huge loop-de-loop acts as the grand finale but, unless you hit its ramp at precisely the right angle, it'll lethally launch you into next week. Trust me, it's the kinda thing that's real funny to watch, but frustrating as heck to figure out.
Because of this imbalance between the three protagonists, it's preferable to chop and change as each hedgehog's story is unlocked. Doing this will break up Sonic's bland and broken gameplay into bookends for Shadow and Silver, and make a full playthrough easier to stomach. It helps guard against the problem of only playing Sonic's story, seeing its credits roll and thinking, "Was that it? Jeez, that was awful. I'm not playing the other two!" because I'm pretty certain that's what happened to a lot of people back in 2006, punters and journalists alike. I can't blame anybody for having such a self-defensive reaction, but it also might explain some of the game's dire reputation.
Sticky Sneakers: Don't worry, he's supposed to be running up this wall... I think, or at least I hope, given that this is a publicity screencap taken from an official press kit.
It's also wise to conclude with Sonic because he's the focus of the epilogue, which is unlocked once you've cleared all three adventures and seen the whole story. Every plot thread leads back to the Blue Blur and his friendship with Elise, and everybody joins forces for a final showdown at the literal end of the world. Despite its stop-start action being plagued by an incessant amount of loading screens, it works pretty well, and ends up being quite compelling. Nothing I say here can dilute fifteen years' worth of memes but, sufficed to say, it isn't as nauseating as you've heard, either. Not by a long shot.
Once it's all done and dusted, you can return to the three Soleanna hub worlds to polish off any side quests you may have missed, using any of the three 'hogs you want. There's not much incentive to do so, especially since you've just spent hours wading through their bone-headed, ham-fisted mandatory missions, desperate to progress to the next proper level. They're peaceful places to chill, but nothing can excuse the tedium of their implementation, as you run from NPC to NPC performing the most mundane of requests. It's here that those aforementioned loading screens will really start to get your goat, as well; they're one part of the online myth surrounding Sonic '06 which hasn't been exaggerated, believe me.
Allow me to share the magic of the experience with you, dear reader. Imagine you've just approached me in the street, and I seem to be in a spot of bother. I describe the situation to you, and ask you for your assistance. You agree to help.
Right, now stare at this GIF whilst counting to sixty.
Now finish reading this sentence (which, you'll note, contains no new information) before staring at it again for another sixty seconds.
Okay, now you can help me. If you don't, you'll have to watch the GIF again!
The loading screens in Sonic '06 really are an itch with a capital B, and shatter any sense of immersion when wandering around Soleanna (they also break up the component parts of the main levels, but far less frequently). They point to poor optimisation across the board, once again exposing obvious panic during the final few months of development. Which is a shame because, when they're freed from their cage of technological constraint, the production and design standards can soar, and some clever complementary tricks can boost them even higher. Character models are kept quite small in some environments, to heighten a sense of epic scale when sprinting towards a skyscraper-sized monster. Elsewhere, crowds of basic enemies intimidate with sheer volume, swarming around the edges of your showdown.
Spectator Sport: Look, I've clearly got enough to worry about here, without having to fend off a possible pitch invasion when I start winning, so give me a break!
In fact, in many ways, Sonic '06 has aged rather gracefully. Its image resolution is pin-sharp and, for about half any given playthrough, it'll hit the 60fps target it's aiming for. Whenever the framerate does struggle, it doesn't judder, but instead enters a strange sort of bullet-time slow motion which I've seen deployed as a special ability in other games. It's the smoothest lag I've ever seen and, if it triggers in the right place, it can actually provide a tactical advantage, but its randomness robs it of any potential praise. Nevertheless, when you compare its performance to later Sonic games on PS3, most notably the smeary PowerPoint slideshow that is Sonic Unleashed, or even other third-party games from the generation's early years, Sonic '06 holds its own surprisingly well.
And then, of course, there's the soundtrack. In terms of style, it's all over the place, hyperactively bouncing between orchestral grandeur, overdriven rock and complex electronica, and often overlapping two or three of those in the same track. For many levels, you'll get a calmer, core version of a piece to begin with, before a faster, more frantic version kicks in to accompany one of those infernal, sanity-testing Mach Speed Sections (so, in other words, a burgeoning breakdown may be making you gnaw on your controller, but at least you'll have something nice to listen to whilst you eat).
There are also vocal themes (one for each hedgehog, then some bonus numbers for Elise and the epilogue's credits) which have become musical signatures for certain characters as they've progressed in the intervening years. I'm forever grateful to this game, because it started the trend of playing an amped-up instrumental version of Sonic's theme during the final boss battle; finally, I could start to enjoy every tune on each album without having to endure what I'll charitably call "singing".
Oh, and absolutely no discussion of the soundtrack can be considered complete without mention of this next track. It would later make a remixed reappearance in Sonic Generations, and is widely celebrated (by fans and detractors alike) as one of Sonic's musical high points.
There are far too many examples that I want to embed, but I can quickly hyperlink other notable highlights, including music from Wave Ocean, White Acropolis, Soleanna Forest, Kingdom Valley and the End of the World. When compared to some of the series' greatest hits, the Sonic '06 soundtrack might not be as hummable, but it's definitely just as memorable.
And that's the game all over for me. I think of it often, and fondly, but it isn't my definitive Sonic. Many of its much-maligned moments don't bother me as much as they perhaps should, and yet I still find myself sitting in a precarious middle ground between those who'd wholeheartedly dismiss the entire thing, and those who'd defend it as a flawed masterpiece. For example, I'm totally fine with its realistic human NPCs (they're just the natural evolution of the humans seen in the previous three games) but then I look at the equally-realistic redesign of Doctor Eggman and think, "Okay, I understand there's a logic to this, but it's still a big ask." Everything I really like is instantly threatened by something that I dislike... or more accurately, something that I cannot find enough justification to like.
When one of the latter is Sonic's involvement in his own game, it's not a good sign. There's a lot I can overlook, even moreso when armed with the context of Sonic Team's development pressures, like the failure to deliver in-game features promised by the printed manual, or the errant dialogue clip where you can hear the voice actor fluff his line, mumble to himself, and then retake it. All of those quirks would've been fixed by a few more months in the oven, but I have trouble seeing how such a grace period would've changed the uncomfortable truth that, whenever Sonic is centre stage, Sonic '06 is kinda lame.
So maybe surrounding him with other characters isn't always such a crime, eh?
Shadow Boxing: It strikes me that, if the entire game was just these two 'hogs doing what they do, I'd be ending this review on a much more positive note.
***
Back in March 2019, this forum conducted a megapoll to rank all 1,442 physical PS3 games, and Sonic '06 came dead last. Below every ill-conceived Move minigame compilation, below cynical annual sports paycheques, and even below Get Fit with Mel B, Sonic and his pals were placed more for reputational reasons than anything else. The echo chamber of the internet would have you believe that Sonic '06 is a biblical plague upon gaming, but the reality is far less apocalyptic.
Don't get me wrong here; it's not a great game, not by any metric. There's no denying that the (un)finished product is real rough, and all the charm and good intentions in the world can't hope to compensate for all of its shortcomings, but it's not the worst.
Sonic's survival proves this because, if it really were as bad as its infamy suggests, it would've killed him off for good... and yet, here we are.
Happy birthday, Sonic. Here's to your next thirty years.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Nice 30 year anniversary tribute! As we know, I’ve never been a Sonic fan and failed my recent attempt to jump on board late, but it’s clearly a cherished franchise that has stood the test of time.
Are you excited about the Sonic 2 movie? The little guy sure has a way of remaining relevant in popular culture.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Thanks for reading, especially since Sonic holds little interest for you!
It's a game I've wanted to talk about for a while, and the timing for today just worked. I think recently defending another famously downtrodden game, namely Mass Effect 3, boosted my confidence. Anything short of a total, scorched-earth condemnation of Sonic '06 is a dangerous prospect on the internet but hey, it's his birthday, so I figured sticking my neck out is the least I could do!
And yes, I am excited for the movie sequel. I don't think anybody expected the first one to be watchable, let alone enjoyable, so I'm trying to keep my hype in check, but I reckon it's gonna be great.
***
In my rush to post on the right day, I overlooked our first "review remake" from @Jackpaza0508 and a runaway impressions piece from @JohnnyShoulder up there, for which I apologise. Both contributions are really great reads, so my thanks for sharing!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger Yes, even as a casual outsider to the series, I’m aware the much maligned Sonic ‘06 and it’s reputation. There are so many Sonic games and reinventions of the game style that I give credit to the team for at least trying to innovate.
But the discussion gives me a chance to revisit one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time. Can’t help but laugh every time I see it. Never grows old —
Forgive me Rog if this kid is actually you a few years ago 😜. If so, I admire your passion, buddy.
@Th3solution How'd you get a camera in my room? I thought I was screaming into a mirror that day!
Of course, me being a kid of the 90s an' all, the funniest part of that video is that he's getting so defensive about Sonic whilst wearing a Mario backpack. It's like, do you even history, bro?
But yes, the Sonic franchise is a heady mix of developers with limitless imagination yet limited skill, a publisher who needs market saturation to stay afloat, and incredibly outspoken fans. It's why I like to hang back, watch most of it from a distance, and just play the games. It's a shame you bounced off Sonic Mania so hard but honestly, Sonic isn't for everybody. Maybe that's what concentrates the, er... "passion" in those who do get him? Because I'll always pre-order anything with his name on, no matter what.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger I think you had recommended I take a shot at a 3D Sonic game sometime and I do think it would resonate better with me. Perhaps I’ll take an opportunity to do that one day. But we know how retro-averse I usually am. 😄
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@JohnnyShoulder No worries! You made me chuckle with your reference to Mystic Meg and, whilst the game doesn't sound like my thing, the idea of talking to accented animals sounds genius.
As for me, I'm... yeah. Been better, but also been worse (he deflected convincingly). How's you?
***
@Th3solution The forthcoming remaster of Sonic Colours might be just the ticket. It was originally exclusive to Wii, but is built around a tried-and-tested gameplay template which'll only benefit from the polish it's currently receiving. Due out in September but hey, it'll only ever get cheaper (or might even wind up on PS Plus one day, since most other Sonic games do).
I'd caution against going back in time any further, especially with your retro allergies!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Fab Sonic '06 review and happy birthday to the blue dude with the 'tude! It's not at all surprising that he's had such enduring appeal, and I think a lot of older fans forget that there are now kids who are just as invested in the series as they were. I probably won't play '06, but I found your piece insightful and interesting. It's always great to read about something with a more "interesting" reputation. Gen 7 consoles were not easy to code for, especially very early on, so it's unsurprising that this was the end result after SEGA imposed such a tight deadline on the team. It makes me wonder what could have been achieved with more time and perhaps more realistic ambition.
Despite the game's many flaws, it does sound like there are some real bright spots there, and I do love Silver (there's even a Silver plushie in my living room 😁). The music is wonderful, too: I hadn't heard any before playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but was very impressed. Not long now until Sonic Colours is out!
@JohnnyShoulder I haven't played many CRPGs either, but I think I would enjoy the Divinity: Original Sin games. The quality writing is a big draw, I like turn-based combat, and the Doctor Dolittle skill sounds brilliant! Lots of slow travel is often a bit of a nuisance, so I'm not surprised it's so noticeable after zipping through FFXII's areas. Looking forward to seeing what you think the further you get into it.
@Jackpaza0508 Great write up on Astro's Playroom. It's an absolutely delightful game and fab pack-in. Completely agree regarding your points, although the short length didn't bother me too much. The presentation and music is wonderful, and I love how the game uses the DualSense's haptics. It's pretty great to walk over grass or have rain pitter patter on Astro Bot's umbrella, and feel it through the controller.
@RogerRoger Yeah think you summed up things quite well there for me too!
@mookysam It has quite a British sense of humour to it, which is one of the reasons why the dialogue sits so well with me.
@kyleforrester87 I've changed the difficulty to explorer, as I was getting walloped whenever I faced enemies outside of the first town, so hopefully that will make things a bit more bearable in the long run.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@mookysam Thanks for reading, and for your generous praise! And you're right, Sonic is most certainly an intergenerational success. It's always interesting to use a franchise like Sonic's to track nostalgia trends, and right now the prevailing opinion towards his 3D adventures is experiencing a bit of a renaissance (as evidenced by the excitement for Sonic Colours Ultimate, for example).
Yeah, even knowing you're a Sonic (and Silver!!) fan, I can't recommend you play Sonic '06. As much as its reputation has been overblown to ridiculous proportions, it's still a broken, unfinished mess of a game, packed with potential and little else. There are some sterling efforts underway in the fan community to get the game working properly on PC, but it's slow going, especially since it was never designed to run on PC in the first place. If you know and love Silver, you've managed to take away the best part of Sonic '06, without ever having had to engage with it. Bravo!
@JohnnyShoulder Wow, good for him, I'll bet he is! That trailer even got me thinking, "Hmm, so what's this Minecraft thingie all about, then?" but then I remembered, if I didn't get LEGO Dimensions for its Sonic content... still, here's hoping your friend has a blast!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@JohnnyShoulder The way elements interact in DOS sounds pretty cool, honestly. CRPGs aren't my favorite genre, but I've enjoyed stuff like Dragon Age and Diablo in the past, and I've heard particularly good things about these games, so I would like to get around to them one day. On PC.
I might play just to see these Texas-accented chickens you speak of.
Thanks for posting! I enjoyed your impressions piece.
@RogerRoger An anniversary post! That was well-timed, for sure. Even more interesting that it was a rather even-tempered look at a famously looked-down-upon game, but I appreciate that approach, given my own occasional frustrations with online echo chambers as well. Communities can often take a reasonable criticism about something, or perhaps a more-or-less accurate observation, and inflate its significance to the rest of the product until it becomes so exaggerated and overwhelming that the spirit of the original criticism or observation becomes lost in the process. If you're anything at all like me, I imagine the dismissive and sometimes vicious attitudes adopted toward this flawed (but not disastrous) experience might have pinned you into being more defensive of the game than you would otherwise be in conversations, if only to counterbalance the tsunami of invective and negativity being ushered toward it. Which is always a weird place to be.
Given how many people complain about Sonic games being stuffed with characters that aren't Sonic, it does seem reasonable to assume that Sonic's campaign is all that will matter to many of them. It's comforting to hear, at least, that at least one of the campaigns that make up Sonic '06 hold up considerably well given the age and reputation of the game as a whole. It rather seems like Silver's campaign would have benefitted from being given a sharper focus in the advertising, even if his name lacks the clout that Sonic still manages to muster to this day.
The OST is definitely decent. The Solaris Phase 2 track, in particular, has a sense of drama to it that I enjoy. But then, Sonic games almost always have decent scores, I think ("almost" because The Dark Brotherhood exists, lol).
Oh, and those load times sound painful. I imagine it's particularly nauseating returning to minute long loadtimes after playing on a PS5! If they're long enough, or even happen often enough, they can sour an otherwise great experience, or make a middling experience that much more painful.
The slowdown you mention that makes it easier to play is really interesting, since it reminds me quite a bit of old NES games where the movement would slow to a crawl when too many particles or enemies filled the screen. I suppose in today's world of tech fetishism these would be looked down on, but I think a lot of those old games would have been almost impossible to play without the technical limitations of the hardware they were on saving those of us without godlike reaction times!
As always, your review was impeccably crafted and almost painfully witty. And it's funny because, as an unrelated observation, I had been thinking off-handedly yesterday: "I haven't seen Rog post in a while," and then, boom, you're here!
@Ralizah Thanks for the kind comments and for reading my ramblings!
Although the game controls fine on PS5 through backwards compatibility with a controller, it probably is better with a mouse and keyboard.
I hope I'm right about the chicken accent (not something I expected ever to type out), I am a but rubbish in placing some from America. I wouldn't bet any money on it!
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
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