aka "that Bioware Sonic RPG for the DS". This game is great.

I'm almost 100% unfamiliar with any Sonic the Hedgehog game past StH3 on the Genesis (I played one of the 3D Sonics on the GC for about 1 hour, all I remember from it was "Knuckles, you escape through the sewer while Amy and I distract the cops!") so the corniness and high-school drama of the characters is a bit new to me, but the interactive dialog grants me the power to decide whether I just wanna get through the text, ask more info, be supportive, or tell everyone to suck my dick which makes it more involving and enjoyable. If that makes me gay, suck my dick (I'm Super Sonic!).

Yeah, there are EBA elements in the battles (reminds me of a certain PC game called osu!RPG that never saw fruition...yet) and while starting sliders is pretty picky, it does make the game somewhat easy for osu! veterans. It's still fun, though, and may even be purchase-worthy.

Soundtrack's pretty good, too.

Note: I have not finished this game yet, so if there's a totally awesome revelation besides what I've already spoiled for myself, that Eggman finally conquers the world and that Super Sonic is involved in the ending somehow, these arguments may lose their luster, especially if the impending sequel fixes a lot of these problems.

awp wrote:

aka "that Bioware Sonic RPG for the DS". This game is great.

(...)

Soundtrack's pretty good, too.

Huh.

The Sonic fandom (myself included) have pretty much the polar opposite opinion of that.

Maybe your perspective's more objective or what BioWare was intending, but being a fan since Sonic came to the Nintendo consoles, there's a lot of contradictions that make me feel like they just took these characters and placed them in a fangame world. Sure, the characterization is good - Knuckles is no longer just another one of Sonic's lackeys, as he has been recently - but the game overall lacks polish.

Why anyone, especially the RPG giant BioWare - would label Accuracy and Evasion as "Attack" and "Defense" and leave the actual attributes hidden just boggles my mind. The same goes for the abrupt story drop-off in the second act (no more romantic plotline as hinted earlier, at least), the corny Casio-esque music that permeates the overworlds (that has to take several seconds to reload - on a CARTRIDGE), and the looks-like-we-just-cut-this-out-of-Sonic Advance 1 character icons upsets me. Why create all this cool render art for Chapter intros, boxart, and promotional work but reuse images from other games and the anime for the battle system? Like I said, if you haven't played since 1994, you wouldn't know this, but I would hope that they look a bit off model to an outsider, to say the least, especially with the lack of anti-aliasing.

I can't place my finger on it, but this just doesn't feel like a Sonic game. It feels like Sonic in someone else's game, which is what I thought about the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog (although that was way worse in terms of crazy story and glitches). It pains me to see so many people reacting as if this is the savior of the franchise, when I feel that the Sonic Rush series, though a bit more linear than games of old, are the most entertainment I've had from the series.

It also feels rushed, especially when I had to rely on the Journal to figure out what the characters were talking about and, as I mentioned, the reused art and loss of character interaction in the latter stages (usually just Sonic and the two other plot-important characters talking to other characters trying to get their next task).

tl;dr version: If you're a Sonic fan, you'll probably have too many nitpicks to enjoy this game, though it's still part of the "better, but not the best" group of games that have grown since 2006. If you're not a Sonic fan, this shouldn't limit you as much. If awp's comments are anything to go by, it might even be an enjoyable experience.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

I'm at the third chapter. Gameplay is boring and the Ouendan-like elements are fail (Pro-tip: They're dependent on rhythm, Bioware), the soundtrack is desperately trying to kill my ears, and the graphics are pretty bad (Hate the 3D style and the overworld is weird-looking and confusing (No matter how high or low a level you're on, the characters still have the same size), but the character portraits are good). The story is also very corny so far, so the funny dialogs are the only reason I'm still picking it up every now and then. Not my cup of tea, in other words.

Loginer wrote:

I'm at the third chapter. Gameplay is boring and the Ouendan-like elements are fail (Pro-tip: They're dependent on rhythm, Bioware), the soundtrack is desperately trying to kill my ears, and the graphics are pretty bad (Hate the 3D style and the overworld is weird-looking and confusing (No matter how high or low a level you're on, the characters still have the same size), but the character portraits are good). The story is also very corny so far, so the funny dialogs are the only reason I'm still picking it up every now and then. Not my cup of tea, in other words.

This. I played up through chapter 5 and just stopped.

Am I the only person here unaffected by the sodomization of the sonic series having not played a sonic game on anything other than the genesis?

Most games are fine, people just enjoy bitching about them. The only really bad games are Sonic 06 and Shadow.
Also, the dialogs are almost good enough to make up for the rest of the game. Besides, I'm already half-way through, so I think I'll just clear this. :/

Amy: "Not even Sonic can defeat a whole robot army by himself!"
Sonic: "Hi, I'm Sonic. Have we met?"

I like this game, so I'll be quick about the parts I do and don't like.

Do:

-Battle system
-Dialog
-Writing
-Character selection
-graphics
-Equipment, Chao, and some other things.
-New Game +. 'Nuff said about that little bit?
-Length. 15-20 hours is just about perfect IMO. 30-40 RPGs are alright, but unless it's a Tales game, I don't feel like going through it again because it's too long for me to try silly 'challenges' on, plus turn based ones usually bore me after an hour or two. (This didn't though)
-Vector appearance.
-How you get currency

Don't:

-Music (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
-Game brokeness (by that, I mean if you're someone like me, who was able to "PERFECT" almost every POW move, both yours and opponents, after you figured out how to do sliders [took me a while to realize that you had to put the stylus in the blue ring BEFORE the blue circle went into it], you can get both A. infinite PP if you have both Cream and Tails in your party, with Medibot and Refresh at at least level II, level III preferred), B. hope your opponents do POW moves over regular moves. Hoping your opponent do their BETTER moves is sometimes a sign that something's wrong. :X)
-Some side quests. Some are decent, others are bleh. A few of them are kind of funny though. "What are you talking about? Everybody walks around on roof tops!")

Of course, 'Game Brokeness" doesn't apply if you can't do POW moves consistently, though they're kinda easy if you've played EBA a bit, and know how to do the sliders correctly (should've explained it better IMO, it wasn't clear to me that you had to put the stylus on the blue ring ahead of time, so I kept on trying to do it like in EBA, which doesn't work well at all here and gives you misses. Once I figured it out, I was fine).

I like the game quite a bit, though it's not the best ever. Thank God that it wasn't Sonic Team making this, really. =P Although I prefer PMD, Pokemon, and TWEWY over this by a bit..and a certain other game that will go unmentioned. And EBA.

...Though it could've used a better soundtrack, and you all know it. :X

EDIT: I mean near-infinite PP, close enough, it pretty much lets you max out your PP every turn and stuff.

Ekaru wrote:

-Equipment

Yeah, about that: How in the world do you get enough rings to actually buy equipment for your whole team? I'm having enough trouble trying to buy enough health/POW items. <_<

Sell the Health/POW items and use Tails for recovery~ Limited money is kinda dumb though.

Also, I forgot to mention:

Loginer wrote:

Gameplay is boring and the Ouendan-like elements are fail (Pro-tip: They're dependent on rhythm, Bioware)

That's a low blow.

And I also have no intention of playing a sonic game that isn't for sega genesis. I don't think furries existed around the genesis era.

awp wrote:

Sell the Health/POW items and use Tails for recovery~ Limited money is kinda dumb though.

Tails dies every now and then when fighting new enemies, and I'd still need POW items, unless he gets a POW bot move later on lol wait

awp wrote:

Loginer wrote:

Gameplay is boring and the Ouendan-like elements are fail (Pro-tip: They're dependent on rhythm, Bioware)

Paper Mario involves pressing a button just before the enemy attacks. Sonic Chronicles involves tapping/pressing buttons in a certain BPM without anything indicating the correct BPM with some halfassed music playing in the background confusing you.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

RemmyX25 wrote:

OK, being a major Sonic fanboy I must correct each and everyone some of you. When you mention Sega the Genesis' Sonic games, you all both mention StH3. But for Mobius's Earth's sake, don't leave out S&K, and the combined über game S3&K!!!!

OK, being a major asshole I must correct you.
Sorry, I had to do that. Also, you're not a fanboy if you hate '06.

Loginer wrote:

RemmyX25 wrote:

OK, being a major Sonic fanboy I must correct each and everyone some of you. When you mention Sega the Genesis' Sonic games, you all both mention StH3. But for Mobius's Earth's sake, don't leave out S&K, and the combined über game S3&K!!!!

OK, being a major asshole I must correct you.
Sorry, I had to do that. Also, you're not a fanboy if you hate '06.

You were bored, weren't you?

Anyways, I wanted to play Sonic 360. It looked amazing!.... until I saw reviews. I'm not a big fan of cheap glitches and my ADHD will probably loathe extremely long, unnecessary loading times.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

I still enjoy it. It's not as good as my third time through TWEWY, but it's currently going back and forth with PW, which I FINALLY picked up again, depending on my mood.

The point with Paper Mario was: it's about timing. The noises the game makes when you tap the hitcircles is sufficiently distinct enough to take priority over the music and it's very easy to pick out the right timing. At least for me, because I can follow an internal rhythm. The Multi-bounce attack in Paper Mario worked on more or less the same principle: tap A at the right time every so often to keep the attack moving - there are just less prompts.

And yeah wtf that is terrible beatspacing. Thank god it's consistent or I'd never rank those POW attacks.

Download: TAG - SABER WING (ouranhshc) [Kiddo's Wing].osu

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

it makes a different noise if you tap out of the bracket of acceptable time. That combined with the approach circles makes it extremely easy to follow. The only time I miss POW moves is when I'm scratching an itch or drinking with one hand and holding the DS with the other.

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

Download: Cascada - What Hurts The Most (Nightcore Remix) (Lunah) [ARCESC].osu

This map has been deleted on the request of its creator. It is no longer available.

Finally cleared the game. Crappy ending is crappy. D: