/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.356697]

I'm seriously not trying to start a shitfight or anything, but can someone please tell me the appeal for Sonic the Hedgehog games?

I don't know if it's just me, but the fact that you just speed through levels as fast as possible doesn't appeal to me whatsoever and I have a hard time putting into perspective how the games are so well renowned and loved when there really doesn't seem to be much more to it than that?

I'm also glad I can ask on here now rather than /v/ where it would've been a shitstorm no matter what. I love you /vr/ guys.

[Anonymous No.356710]

>>356697
>I don't know if it's just me, but the fact that you just speed through levels as fast as possible doesn't appeal to me whatsoever and I have a hard time putting into perspective how the games are so well renowned and loved when there really doesn't seem to be much more to it than that?

First off, if you're playing a Sonic game made before 1999, you're not zooming through the stages as fast as possible.

Second, they're fun because they designed the stages well.

[Anonymous No.356723]

Growing up with a Megadrive rather than a SNES, probably. Sonic games are colorful as fuck, have a mascot, great music and are fueld by nostalgia.

The original isn't really fast at all. Marble Zone? I think the gimmick is that you can go fast once you know what you're doing.

[Anonymous No.356724]

>>356710
Right, the only game I really played through seriously and to the end was Sonic Heroes which just seemed to be run as fast as possible, the end.

[Anonymous No.356716]

It's a fun, colorful momentum based platformer. What's not to like?

[Anonymous No.356738]

Good music
good controls
clever level design

Not every level is designed around going 2fast2stop as well. Platforming is also very important. Marble Zone in Sonic one is probably the prime example. Going fast kills you quickly in lava.

[Anonymous No.356740]

GOTTA GO FAST

[Anonymous No.356731]

if you're talking about 2d you're not actually supposed to be going as fast as possible it was just marketed that way. It's a pretty slow platformer for the most part
if you're talking about 3d the moronic dev's actually fell prey to their own marketing gimmicks and built a game entirely around being fast and pulled it off horribly and you really don't have anything of decent quality coming out of the 3d until the very recent couple (I think color and the two sonics one are the current praised ones)
Now fuck off and replay the games
also they were never that great the character is just iconic

[Anonymous No.356743]

>>356697
>appeal for Sonic the Hedgehog games
GOTTA GO FAST

>>356710
>they designed the stages well.
Oh how I love the very first stage of Sonic 2.

>>356716
This is all the answer OP needs.

[Anonymous No.356764]

I always thought the games were poorly designed. You want to go fast, but there's always something stopping your momentum, usually something you don't see coming. Dying often feels like bullshit, as if you have to memorize the levels to get through them. I'm not saying I just want to go fast and nothing else, but it's not like the more slow parts are that enjoyable. Areas like Marble Zone, Labyrinth Zone, really aren't that great.

Playing Sonic feels more annoying than anything else. The constant sense of tension isn't fun. Sonic 2 probably did it a lot better because it had more of a focus on speed, though, but it's still not that good.

[Anonymous No.356770]

>>356716

So was Bubsy minus the fun

[Anonymous No.356786]

>can someone please tell me the appeal for Sonic the Hedgehog games?


A lot of different reasons. One is that it's just a neat character.

Another, he was the "cool" alternative to Mario at the time. Seen as the more "mature" option.

[Anonymous No.356797]

If you've ever actually played you'd know that going fast only comes once you've mastered it.

[Ark No.356801]

For the early games, the "Go Fast" usually manifested when you had to make a specific jump to get to a hard to reach area. Or for tubes where it was unavoidable. Otherwise, without a time limit (other than underwater, WHICH SUCKED, especially on Sonic 2 for SMS), I went through them very slow and methodically.

[Anonymous No.356795]

Op. Just do us all a favor and download a genesis emulator and Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Play trough them in order of release.
If you don't like them, fine, but at least you've tried your hand at the games most of us originally fell in love with.
A polite sage because these kind of threads seem to have become a daily occurrence I'm not sure is entirely genuine.

[Anonymous No.356817]

why are people acting like the game not being fast is a good thing? when the game slows you down that's when it's the most boring. there's a reason why everyone loves star light, casino night, green hill levels the best.

[Anonymous No.356815]

>>356795
A mistyped captcha removed my sage so here it is.

[Anonymous No.356826]

>>356797

Not really. It's not like you can zip through Marble Zone, it still totally stops your momentum to push blocks around and stuff.

[Anonymous No.356828]

For me, there are two schools of perfect platformer, and the Sonic school is the very gratifying, though not complicated, go fast variety, the modern equivalent of such being Rayman Origins

The other school would be the slightly more technical platformer, like Mario, or the newest Giana Sisters

[Anonymous No.356823]

>>356795
>these kind of threads seem to have become a daily occurrence

Seriously? I've been meaning to write this for a bit now and hadn't come across one before so figured I'd go for it.

[Anonymous No.356845]

>>356697
Simple gameplay, great music, very nice visuals. Not too challenging and a good way to waste time.

[Anonymous No.356883]

>>356828
>newest Giana Sisters
wait, what did you say?

[Anonymous No.356896]

>>356697
Gameplay, music, level design, etc. Pretty much everything already listed.

Just keep in mind that games all rely on personal taste. I absolutely hate most jRPG's and will never understand their appeal, but that's alright, those games just aren't for me. Sonic just isn't for you.

[Anonymous No.356897]

>>356883

The newest Giana Sisters.

[Anonymous No.356910]

>>356826

Even in the first game, Marble Zone wasn't the norm. Several levels, like starlight and Spring Yard Zone allowed for continued high speeds. Levels like Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone were more puzzle based, sure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing; I think they actually compliment the speed levels rather nicely

[Anonymous No.356913]

>>356828
I feel like classic Sonic's level design is mostly superior to Mario's though.
True, the Mario games tend to have more pitfalls and enemies thrown at you but how that's approached is usually player driven, at his own pace.
Sonic is all about "flow", and to reach that you have to calculate exactly how the player might or might not react to a situation and reward or punish him accordingly.
Don't know if I'm making any sense or not, but I love both series.
That said, in recent years I've taken a bigger shine to Bonk over them both.

[Anonymous No.356925]

>>356896
That's what I was thinking, but I like to keep an open mind to things since I used to hate JRPG's except for Pokemon until I played FFVII and now they're one of my most favourite genres.

[Anonymous No.356954]

>>356697

I can understand the gameplay and music aspects. Certainly they're unique and well made.

But I never liked Sonic. I don't like the character, I don't like his personality, I don't like his design. Sonic is an irredeemably BAD character, and Sonic games are therefore bad simply on merit of featuring Sonic in them.

He doesn't even mesh with his own universe. It's not like he's a Pokemon in a Pokemon world. He's an ugly blue mutant in an otherwise pretty normal human world.

[Anonymous No.356974]

>>356913
>Bonk over them both
Bonk is so underrated. So much fun. I know it got a late NES release but was there a SNES version?

[Anonymous No.356985]

>>356974
Sure was.

[Anonymous No.356987]

>>356925
Keeping an open mind is great, but don't feel the need to force something on yourself simply because it's popular or spoken highly of. If you played the game and didn't like it, that's that, nothing more can be done about it.

[Anonymous No.356992]

i hate sonic's gameplay....it just feels cheap. the game seems constructed to prevent you from having too much fun.

[Anonymous No.357004]

>>356987
Yeah yeah, I'm seeing if there was anything I was missing from the POV of avid fans of the series as a last resort effort I guess.

[Anonymous No.357017]

>>356974
The ones on the Turbografx/PC Engine are the best, man. Go play them.

Too bad that new game got cancelled and Hudson Soft totally died.

[Anonymous No.357035]

I kinda understand the appeal of Sonic games, but I never could enjoy them. My eyes could not keep up with what's coming ahead, and I could never be bothered with memorizing the stages. The slower platforming stages were more enjoyable, but suffered due to the tanky controls. The 3D games seem like they'd be easier to get into, but I never had a change to play one. I've played the first 3 Genesis games and the GBA ones. Did anyone have the same problem? I think I'd like the games a lot if they were a tad slower and the camera was more zoomed out.

[Anonymous No.357039]

>>356974
>>356985
A long time ago a friend gave me his TurboGrafx with Bonk 1 and Ninja Spirit, which are both incredible games. I need to pick up more TG-16 cards.

[Anonymous No.357047]

>>357035
I completely agree with the tanky controls on the slower levels. It just feels kind of wrong to not be going fast.

[Anonymous No.357050]

>>356897
Did you play it? Was it as awesome as it looked?

[Anonymous No.357053]

As people have already said... you *don't* speed through levels as fast as possible. That's doing it wrong.

Yes, Sonic was fast. No, the original games *weren't* based on speed and nothing else. That came with post-Dreamcast Sonic games - and, not conicidentally, it's precisely when Sonic games in general became shit.

[Anonymous No.357054]

>>356697
Levels are designed well so that players with skill can gotta go fast and take the upper path. Shit players can take the lower, safer, slower path. The multiple paths dependent on skill create a lot of replay value. And dem physics.

[Anonymous No.357057]

>>357017
What system was the new game going to be on? I can't really imagine a 3D Bonk game working very well.

>>357017
Oh I have one. Love that the controllers had turbo built in, almost like they made it just for Bonk.

[Ark No.357072]

>>357035
>>357047
I wish for: Mario with powerups from SMB3 playing 16 bit Sonic levels.

[Anonymous No.357078]

>>356897
>>357050
Yes, I'm curious about this one as well. I remember laughing at the original back when I grabbed a C64 megatorrent.

[Anonymous No.357086]

>>357053
To be fair the day stages in Unleashed and the Modern stages in Generations were gotta go fast and still maintained not being shit. Hell, Colors slowed it down some and felt a lot like a classic Sonic game with a very small amount of 3D thrown in because why not.

Nothing excuses the werehog though. It's literally God of War minus the fun, which doesn't belong anywhere near a Sonic game.

[Anonymous No.357092]

>>357050

It's very very good, actually! And it goes on offer nearly all the time - grab it next time it goes 66% off, it's a gnarly as fuck platformer and you won't be disappointed. It feels very retro in a surprising number of ways so fans of the originals will be pleased.

[Anonymous No.357109]

>>357053

The only reason why they were shit is because of all the extra characters and superfluous stuff like that. I guarantee if we got a 3D sonic game with just Sonic levels like City Escape or Green Forest or Metal Harbor, it would be the best Sonic game ever made.

[Tensnake !S/BuDDdVmc No.357146]

The original 2D Sonic games weren't like that.

The newer ones are like that and I hate them for it. I don't understand what all the praise of Generations is about other than it having tons of nostalgia fare. Game feels like a racing game without other cars and you're just using a blue hedgehog instead.

[Anonymous No.357152]

>>357109
Also I'd like to add, Sonic was better in 3D because you could actually see what was ahead of you. What made the classic games shitty was that you were stopped by something you couldn't see coming (an enemy, spike pit). At least in 3D you could see and react. You weren't constantly worried that going fast would get you killed.

[Anonymous No.357159]

>>357092
Yeah, it looks damn good. A classic-style platformer with a very innovative twist, and it looks gorgeous. Not to mention that it's one of the only Kickstarters that was done right, with a tech demo, an exact detail of what is promised, guaranteed returns, etc. It's supposed to be a replacement for publishers, not a donation grab-bag. Maybe the public will realize this when they get burned on a few bad returns.
I'll have to get ahold of it next time I see a sale.

[Anonymous No.357171]

>>357109
Or just anything around the quality of the Adventure titles without being horribly aged would be a godsend. That being said, I don't mind the Generations style and found it pretty fun. As for their recent attempts at 2D Sonic, it hasn't gone well. They should take the engine done for the Sonic CD remake and use that to make a new game. It would be glorious.

[Anonymous No.357182]

>>357086

I meant as far as the Genesis games go.

I often see people who obviously only played post 1996 or so Sonic games go back to the originals and go "wtf, you can't just press right and zip through everything, what a poorly designed shit game lol".

It kinda irks me, is all.

[Anonymous No.357195]

>>357182
That's true. But those people were probably only looking for speed and nothing else. They didn't want to have to get good to go fast.

[Anonymous No.357226]

I was thought Sonic was one hell of an annoying mascot, like so many others in the 90's.

The only reason I kept playing was to see what kind of crazy machine Dr. Eggman would come up with in the next stage. That guy is awesome.

[Anonymous No.357232]

>>356697
People who were 2cool to buy a Nintendo back then and had a Sega instead, and now like the games because of nostalgia in the same way a normal person likes the Mario games.