SEGAbits Forums
Gaming => General Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Sharky on November 25, 2014, 04:12:38 am
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I don't love the guy, but he's damn right here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY2HF4Lf9kI&feature=youtu.be
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Imma leave this here:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml
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Imma leave this here:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml (http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml)
LOL. This one is funny indeed.
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Jim Sterling seems more rational compared to the days of the colors review. Seemed to be more out looking for contreversy at the time. A bit of a dick mostly.
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See, heres the thing, Jim makes a good point... until he fucks up in thinking that Sonic Boom is a progression from Lost World. It is not.
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, as discussed in the main thread, was SEGA West (specifically Simon Jeffrey) wanting to develop a main series Heroes sequel. SEGA of Japan said no, the didn't have an interest in Adventure Fields and Sonic's friends, but the idea stuck around and eventually around 2009/2010 it was decided to make it a spin-off series. Sonic Boom, if anything, is SEGA's answer to fans wanting a Sonic Adventure 3. It has the adventure fields, the multiple play styles, and the deeper focus on story. The problem is, the end product is just not a very good game mainly for the glitches and graphical issues, but also because SA1 and SA2 and even Heroes worked because they still had those speedier Sonic sections that were quite enjoyable. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is like Sonic Adventure minus the Sonic stages, with the Heroes playstyle, and a gimped Werehog battle system.
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is the wrong game to compare Lost World to. 2015's Sonic Team game is the game to compare Lost World to. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, as I said, is SEGA trying to bring back play styles that a subsection of the Sonic fanbase enjoys, but the execution failed. And, to be honest, I'm kind of glad it did because I like Sonic Team's direction with the series. I was hoping that the return of Adventure fields and switching between characters did not take off, because it is not my favorite aspect of the franchise.
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Imma leave this here:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml
But wither he's right or wrong then is irrelevant, (he's obviously wrong then.) He is STILL right now, in this instance.
Even forgetting what Barry mentioned with Sonic Boom. Sonic Team do keep trying to reinvent the wheel, throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. Like new gameplay, bosses and all sorts because they have no faith that the original concept of Sonic vs Robotnik in a plain Sonic game with no gimmicky bullshit. And when they do get it right they SO FAR haven't built on that idea. Except perhaps more recently with Unleashed (day) > Generations.
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I think the problem is that Jim is looking at every Sonic release from a linear perspective, thinking that Colors impacted Generations which impacted Lost World which impacted Sonic Boom, but that is not the case. While reception to Colors may have impacted Generations a little bit, they (and the other games) were a year apart and by the time Colors released, Generations was far along in development. Another thing Jim fails to realize is that there are not only different dev teams with Sonic Team and Big Red Button, but Sonic Team themselves have separate teams. Here is the breakdown:
Sonic Team development team 1: Sonic Unleashed (2008) -> Sonic Generations (2011) -> Sonic's 2015 game
Sonic Team development team 2: Sonic Colors (2010) -> Sonic Lost World (2013)
SEGA West's idea for a new Heroes title (2007) -> hiring of Big Red Button (2009) -> after many delays and shifting of platforms game releases in 2014
When you look at it from that perspective, you can really see a more realistic progression. Unleashed team dropped the Werehog and implemented Classic Sonic stages for Generations, furthering improvements of the Unleashed Day Stages and implementing some things that the Colors team added.
Colors team presented a slower take on the Unleashed formula that still played very similarly, but emphasized a slower pace and powerups. Lost World continued this line of thought with an even slower pace, losing the boost and continuing to implement the power-ups (though to a lesser effect).
Boom was a SEGA West project that was aimed to be everything Sonic Team's games were not, focusing on aspects of the series that Iizuka no longer has interest in (Adventure Fields, friends). Like Golden Axe Beast Rider and Alien Syndrome, it was intended to be a massive reboot from an external dev. But unlike those, it had a longer development time and was relegated to a spin-off series.
For an idea of what 2015's game will be, look to the Unleashed/Generations team. They have been working on something since 2011, and had time to take input from Unleashed and Generations, as well as Colors and potentially Lost World. They might even be using some of Lost World's dev team.
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But wither he's right or wrong then is irrelevant, (he's obviously wrong then.) He is STILL right now, in this instance.
Even forgetting what Barry mentioned with Sonic Boom. Sonic Team do keep trying to reinvent the wheel, throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks. Like new gameplay, bosses and all sorts because they have no faith that the original concept of Sonic vs Robotnik in a plain Sonic game with no gimmicky bullshit. And when they do get it right they SO FAR haven't built on that idea. Except perhaps more recently with Unleashed (day) > Generations.
I agree, I don't get why every game had to have some kind of a twist in the last few years.
Sonic 06: Shadow Vehicles and Silver PHYSICS
Sonic Unleashed: Bad God of War ripoff
Sonic Colours: Wisps
Sonic Boom: Teamwork and battles etc
Sonic Generations looks to be the best of the lot simply because it was just sonic running and jumping.
I have so little faith in the series anymore but I do hope that there is a surprise for us next year.
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Imma leave this here:
http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml (http://www.destructoid.com/review-sonic-colors-187691.phtml)
So I take it you didn't watch the video? :V
I do agree with Jim Sterling. I also agree with Barry that different development teams make this somewhat harder, but even then the development teams should take inspiration from eachother's games. Both teams in Sonic Team have (or should have) access to the other team's work, like how Sonic Colours and Generations shared the same models for badniks and such and had the same kind of gameplay at its core. And they can still look at how well received the games are and take what people liked from those games. Nothing stopped the development team of Sonic Lost World to continue what was done with Sonic Colours and Generations. If they had used the same gameplay engine instead of trying to do something completely different again, they could have still looked at what people thought they did right with the two games before it.
The exception to that is of course Sonic Boom, with it being by a developer in a different country. And they seemingly started looking at what the game should be before Sonic Colours was released and was deemed to be the first good Sonic game in a very long time.
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Ideally, Sonic Team would have one team making Sonic games and they'd drop the leapfrog approach, but that would mean long gaps without main series games. But they could easily take the Mario route (which they already sort of do) and release more spin-offs like ASR and Riders games to fill the gaps. I'd be cool with 2 years between main series titles and good spin-offs like ASRT between those releases.
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Ideally, Sonic Team would have one team making Sonic games and they'd drop the leapfrog approach, but that would mean long gaps without main series games. But they could easily take the Mario route (which they already sort of do) and release more spin-offs like ASR and Riders games to fill the gaps. I'd be cool with 2 years between main series titles and good spin-offs like ASRT between those releases.
This probably would be for the best. If Sonic Team is given enough time to make a great Sonic game, instead of making them rush it like was done with Lost World, then Sonic would likely have more good games. There's also that SEGA doesn't seem to give Sonic the same amount of quality control as say, Nintendo does with Mario. Each Mario game, spin-off or not, is polished and gets at least decent reviews. Worst case scenario with a Mario spin-off game is that it's a kind of uninteresting sports game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Sports_Mix), unless you really dig deep and get one of the old educational games or Hotel Mario. SEGA however has the tendency to rush Sonic games out for holiday release (see Lost World or Shattered Crystal), make bad mobile games that try to get as much money out of the player as possible (see Dash or Jump Fever) or sometimes give them to an incompetent developer or team (see Rise of Lyric). While the general quality of Sonic games isn't nearly as bad as ten years ago, a big reason why they aren't as good as they could be is because SEGA wants to put out at least one big Sonic game each year like Ubisoft does with Assassin's Creed or Activision with Call of Duty.
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Iizuka mentioned that the Generations team was brought in to finish Lost World. So there is no leapfrog approach with Sonic Team. Just full production and planning phases.
They have slowed down at least. 2005-2011 had a game every year, plus Riders games.
The pace of now of a 2 year gap from Generations onwards, is reasonable. If anything Lost World was not a rushed game.
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Why does ST even have two teams any more? It doesn't make any sense. Just pool your resources and make a great game as opposed to releasing a game a year that never learns from the past entry.
The 2 team format is a relic from when they needed an SD option as well as an HD one. Guess what we don't have to worry about anymore?
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Why does ST even have two teams any more? It doesn't make any sense. Just pool your resources and make a great game as opposed to releasing a game a year that never learns from the past entry.
Having no game in 2012, and this year, things seem to have changed a bit.
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Why does ST even have two teams any more? It doesn't make any sense. Just pool your resources and make a great game as opposed to releasing a game a year that never learns from the past entry.
It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint, SEGA needs a big Sonic game, mainline or otherwise, every year or their profits get a major hit. Sonic Boom I'd imagine was going to be that buffer, just like Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed was in 2012. Besides it is the industry norm now, it's nothing strange having two major teams working in tandem. The Creative Assembly and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios have two major teams too but what they have is better communication between each other. I'd imagine department heads are more experienced/better than Iizuka is at the job.
We'll see what the future holds though, it might just be outsourcing a major title to be developed in the West one year and then a major Sonic game from Sonic Team the following year.
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It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint, SEGA needs a big Sonic game, mainline or otherwise, every year or their profits get a major hit.
Taking the time to put out a quality product makes sense as well; a fantastic game should garner more sales in the long run. They've written themselves into a wall with this one entry a year business model, and now have to rely on it while the brand slowly but surely dilutes.
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Taking the time to put out a quality product makes sense as well; a fantastic game should garner more sales in the long run. They've written themselves into a wall with this one entry a year business model, and now have to rely on it while the brand slowly but surely dilutes.
We are talking about a company that has made numerous fantastic games but they've almost all failed and an industry dominated by the likes of Ubisoft and Electronic Arts haha. But I don't think they need to pool so much resource to make one Sonic game. We'll be looking at a team the size of 150 - 200 developers, that's way too much for a Sonic game and outside of downsizing, they need to put them to use somewhere.
As for brand diluting, it already happened a decade ago, what they need to be careful with is letting it get damaged with badly received variation. Marvel super heroes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles et all can survive having multiple versions or canons as long as the majority of it's spinoff titles are well received or if the main universe at least is modestly good.
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I think the current model is a good one, each team getting 3 years to create a Sonic game... So long as they build on what they have learned and shoot for a quality title. I think both Japanese Sonic Team, teams are on the right track so long as they stick to their guns...
Generations was awesome, so if they can stick with that and build on it the next game can be too... Colours was also awesome and Lost World was at least a tight, well crafted platformer with issues. If they take what they have learned and hone it again they could come out with a winner.
Sonic Boom though was not a winner and I don't think much can be taken from that mess and built upon... I dread to see what they cook up next but it just doesn't seem necessary. Would be better to simply have a Sonic All-Stars spin off on the gap year... Either kart racing or fighting or whatever...
Then get Hardlight on the iSO spin offs, they seem capable enough and we're golden...
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There's no need for a 150-200 development team for a Sonic game, sure, but Sonic Team should actually take the time to finish their work rather than rush parts of their games to get them out in time for holiday. Their games being unfinished is one of the biggest reasons for why the brand is as damaged as it is.
While Colours and Generations fixed it up somewhat, they weren't good enough to stop people from people of being doubtful if the next Sonic game will be good or not. After that the mixed reception for Lost World and the horrendous failure that is Rise of Lyric only brought the brand back down again. Sonic Team's next game needs to be great, or Sonic will continue to be seen as "that crappy 20+ year old mascot that's just a mangled corpse held up by strings".
SEGA can't afford to rush their next Sonic game out for holiday release, they should release it in 2016 if they have to. If it actually looks and plays great, they could even hype it up as the big 25th anniversary game and get extra sales by doing that. Either way, they need to put out a game that's great. Not one that's filled with filler put in there to make the game longer, not one that's so short that it's hard to recommend for full price, but a full game that's at least mostly fun to play. Sonic Team can make a game like that, they proved that with Generations. But they need enough time to make a game like Generations that doesn't take two hours to finish.
It seems like the Generations team has had three years up to now to make next year's Sonic game if they started after they finished Generations, meaning that they'd have worked on it for four years when the game comes out. That should hopefully be enough, but it seems likely that they'll have made a new engine to take advantage of PS4/Xbox One hardware and that the gameplay will once again be different. If that's the case, they need to take all the time they need to polish that up.
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I don't think it has anything with them being rushed and them just having bad ideas. Most of the development teams in the industry (let alone SEGA.) stick to a 2 or 3 year development schedule. For that reason I don't think it has anything to do with Sonic Team not having enough time (SEGA after all pumps out the Yakuza games just as fast.) and more to do with incompetency at the top. Sonic: Lost World aside, Sonic Generations, Colours, Unleashed, the storybook games etc all felt like complete titles but the problem was execution and poor level design rather than the buggy mess that was Sonic the Hedgehog 06 and the circumstances surrounding that isn't something that would happen very often.
I agree that with Sonic: Lost World it does feel like they gave up towards the end, if that was because upper management felt the need to cut their losses or not we might never know. But large development teams and excessive time on a title isn't the solution to the problem, good management is.
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But large development teams and excessive time on a title isn't the solution to the problem, good management is.
Agreed. The issue is quality control from the top; and since iizuka is still in charge I don't have much hope moving forward. That being said, it has always been abundantly clear that they rush these games out for the holiday. 4 years of "development" time usually means 3 years of building a test level and 1 year of serious nose to the grindstone development. That really needs to stop.
Also with the Yakuza games, they certainly don't reinvent the wheel with each new entry, but instead build on a solid foundation. It's the lack of that foundation that is absolutely strangling Sonic.
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I don't think it has anything with them being rushed and them just having bad ideas. Most of the development teams in the industry (let alone SEGA.) stick to a 2 or 3 year development schedule. For that reason I don't think it has anything to do with Sonic Team not having enough time (SEGA after all pumps out the Yakuza games just as fast.) and more to do with incompetency at the top. Sonic: Lost World aside, Sonic Generations, Colours, Unleashed, the storybook games etc all felt like complete titles but the problem was execution and poor level design rather than the buggy mess that was Sonic the Hedgehog 06 and the circumstances surrounding that isn't something that would happen very often.
I agree that with Sonic: Lost World it does feel like they gave up towards the end, if that was because upper management felt the need to cut their losses or not we might never know. But large development teams and excessive time on a title isn't the solution to the problem, good management is.
Generations didn't have enough stuff in it to justify the price tag, half the levels in Colours are filler, Unleashed made the game longer with pointless medal collecting, Sonic and the Secret Rings was filled with filler missions and Black Knight had rushed stage designs. In the case of Colours, Generations and Lost World at least it was clear that Sonic Team wanted to put more stuff in but couldn't due to time constraints. With each game they tried to make the game longer with levels or missions cobbled together out of stuff from already existing levels, with the exception of Generations where most of those missions were optional.
The small development times with Yakuza work because with that they don't try to make an entirely different game with each game and usually build on top of pre-existing engines and such. Also in Sonic there are big levels with varied designs, which take more time to make.
EDIT: Actually, your point about Yakuza games not taking so long also goes back to Jim Sterling's point. A big part of why Sonic games need to have longer development times is because they always try something new. If they just built on to the modern Sonic gameplay of Generations, Colours and Unleashed they could make a great game.
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With each game they tried to make the game longer with levels or missions cobbled together out of stuff from already existing levels, with the exception of Generations where most of those missions were optional.
To be fair, even Super Mario 3d World was teeming with reused assets and repurposed level geometry. It's how they were able to make 90+(good christ) stages.
I'm not against reuse if the content is still fun and varied.
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To be fair, even Super Mario 3d World was teeming with reused assets and repurposed level geometry. It's how they were able to make 90+(good christ) stages.
I'm not against reuse if the content is still fun and varied.
Sure, Mario 3D World also handles re-used content a lot better than Sonic games. With the exception of Lost World, levels in Sonic games are usually meant to look like they're part of a bigger world. This makes it harder to just re-use the level assets and geometry, as it'd have to be used with the same backgrounds and such. Meanwhile in the Mario Galaxy games and 3D World, it's basically levels in huge empty spaces. Sonic games didn't do that at all until Lost World, where it feels like they could have easily re-used assets well but instead they tried to create as many levels as they could until they realized they had to finish the game, at which point they quickly by making stages that look the same as previous levels and aren't as well designed.
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Sterling always seems like a YT video away from a stroke, but he does make a couple of OK points. He should've also stressed out that SEGA kinda dropped the ball when they never fully explained that Sonic Boom was a seperate Sonic franchise. Basically, like Activision with their Team A and Team B for their seperate Call of Duty series.
The fact that it was a licensed game (TV show tie-in) and that Big Red Button might not have been the ideal developer for this title, were also important aspects that could be brought up only because they are so obvious that they should have been addressed.
I'm fine with Jim Sterling enjoying Sonic: Lost Worlds, but I still cannot understand that game in any way, shape or form, so to each, it's own. The thing is, had Sonic Generations 2 been announced we'd more than likely wouldn't be having this conversation right now. But that would have never happened since SG was indeed an Anniversary Thing and a sequel would only diminish it's value (maybe, I don't friggin' know) and Nintendo's deal would almost sideline whatever plans for something like this, since having the Wii U as your main console, a change in direction would have to ensue.
Still, for how many times we've had this talk about "Sonic should be X instead of Y", I am still convinced that the character is a blank slate.
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Jim actually made a response to people pointing out that Boom was developed by a different studio than Sonic Team: https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/536931767295684608
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Glad he did, but I wasn't trying to undermine his point. Still, I wonder how those people who are constantly spouting things like "Nintendo should develop Sonic games HERP DERP" would react to this information?
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Jim Sterling is a fucking stub. No credibility whatsoever, even when he (accidentally) says the right thing.
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It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint, SEGA needs a big Sonic game, mainline or otherwise, every year or their profits get a major hit. Sonic Boom I'd imagine was going to be that buffer, just like Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed was in 2012. Besides it is the industry norm now, it's nothing strange having two major teams working in tandem. The Creative Assembly and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios have two major teams too but what they have is better communication between each other. I'd imagine department heads are more experienced/better than Iizuka is at the job.
We'll see what the future holds though, it might just be outsourcing a major title to be developed in the West one year and then a major Sonic game from Sonic Team the following year.
I don't know if you can call SASASR:T a buffer title anymore considering how much the first title and the sequel made for Sega. SONIC BOOM and SLW didn't deliever as abuffer or main sonic game..so its definatly back to the drawing board and create a new plan..whether the serie on console remains exclusivly tied or create a two main MP Sonic games and create a spin off/bufer game for WiiU..if that's even valid anymore..similar to what happened during last gen...
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Jim Sterling is a fucking stub. No credibility whatsoever, even when he (accidentally) says the right thing.
He actually has improved a lot of the past couple of years. While he can be an ass, he's usually at least right and does a decent job calling out publishers like Ubisoft or Warner Bros. Games on their bullshit
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Agreed. The issue is quality control from the top; and since iizuka is still in charge I don't have much hope moving forward. That being said, it has always been abundantly clear that they rush these games out for the holiday. 4 years of "development" time usually means 3 years of building a test level and 1 year of serious nose to the grindstone development. That really needs to stop.
Are you saying SEGA acts different from other developers? We know that 3 years is plenty of time when the industry norm is 2 years. Mario Galaxy was developed in the same amount of time with around the similar sized team as Sonic Generation. The problem isn't time or man size, it's about what people at the top think is a good idea. Nothing wrong with sticking to a release date you just have to make sure you have the management that can deliver it.
Also with the Yakuza games, they certainly don't reinvent the wheel with each new entry, but instead build on a solid foundation. It's the lack of that foundation that is absolutely strangling Sonic.
Binary Domain was built within 2 years, ditto Yakuza 5 which between the taxi gameplay, Saejima's hunting sections and Haruka's dance battles, might as well be a reinvention of the of the wheel.
Generations didn't have enough stuff in it to justify the price tag, half the levels in Colours are filler, Unleashed made the game longer with pointless medal collecting, Sonic and the Secret Rings was filled with filler missions and Black Knight had rushed stage designs. In the case of Colours, Generations and Lost World at least it was clear that Sonic Team wanted to put more stuff in but couldn't due to time constraints. With each game they tried to make the game longer with levels or missions cobbled together out of stuff from already existing levels, with the exception of Generations where most of those missions were optional.
This doesn't really mean they're rushing it, just that they need to add better filler to the game. Looking back at the original games, Sonic was a short title compared to the likes of Monster World or Mario, nor was it hard enough like the Shinobi series that forced people to overcome multiple game overs. Back then multilayered levels, collecting the Chaos Emeralds, multiple character types, multiplayer etc all added to the replayable nature of the game and I think they need to go back to that.
I don't think it would be a good idea making a Sonic game with 40+ levels, but something close to 20 core levels with 8 bosses plus a couple of secret levels and bosses with multiplayer would be more than enough.
We know for a fact there was a lot of extra content that was made for Sonic Unleashed during development. The DLC levels for the most part (I believe?) layout are all accessible in the game so I don't think a shortage of manpower or development team was at fault but SEGA wanted to have some form of DLC available for the game.
The small development times with Yakuza work because with that they don't try to make an entirely different game with each game and usually build on top of pre-existing engines and such. Also in Sonic there are big levels with varied designs, which take more time to make.
That is true, the length of the stages are incredibly long. But then this a fault of the people at the top who think long stretch of meaningless boosting is a good idea.
EDIT: Actually, your point about Yakuza games not taking so long also goes back to Jim Sterling's point. A big part of why Sonic games need to have longer development times is because they always try something new. If they just built on to the modern Sonic gameplay of Generations, Colours and Unleashed they could make a great game.
See the second quote I replied to with Radrappy.
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This doesn't really mean they're rushing it, just that they need to add better filler to the game. Looking back at the original games, Sonic was a short title compared to the likes of Monster World or Mario, nor was it hard enough like the Shinobi series that forced people to overcome multiple game overs. Back then multilayered levels, collecting the Chaos Emeralds, multiple character types, multiplayer etc all added to the replayable nature of the game and I think they need to go back to that.
I think this the point which Generations go it right at least from the Sky Sanctuary level to the end of game...except the last thing obviously.
When you start an act in Speed Highway, for ex., you have 3 routes to choose from. Plus, if you wanna play with extra abilities or whatever style or preference for playing the game, you can do it.
Adding more playable characters, eliminating the boost and change it for a most frantic version a la SA2 or Heroes, make more levels like that and multiplayer capabilities are things I want to see for the next game.
Reverse the function of the speed button or making it as a trot button could be good also.
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Regarding the two teams within Sonic Team, one should just make other or new IPs other than Sonic, with the occasional chance to make a spin off Sonic game (so they'd make a sequel to Chu Chu Rocket or something), whilst Sonic Team have 3 years to make the Sonic game they wish to make, with aspects fans and gamers liked intact.
The problem seems to be a lack of focus from Sonic Team to iron out the bad and keep the good.
Jim Sterling makes a very good point despite comparing a spin off to the main games. Regarding his Colours review, from what I read the issues he had with the game are valid points. I enjoyed Colours myself but I personally understand the issues he had with the game, the quality standard of Sonic's pretty low so Colours felt like a step in the right direction regarding mechanics that worked rather than something that doesn't (not a fan of the homing attack, but I guess it's there for platforming reasons).
Given the information around Sonic Boom, he's correct that SEGA clearly doesn't care about the quality of the franchise despite apparently SoJ saying "No". (because let's have it right, SEGA west shouldn't have had this idea in the first place without at least some quality assurance)
Overall, I do inspect that Sonic Boom will result in even less Sonic sales for Sonic Team's own Sonic game, because despite everything, people DO judge Sonic Boom as an additional entry and not a spin off by a Western Developer (since SEGA's name is on the box)
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Regarding the two teams within Sonic Team, one should just make other or new IPs other than Sonic, with the occasional chance to make a spin off Sonic game (so they'd make a sequel to Chu Chu Rocket or something), whilst Sonic Team have 3 years to make the Sonic game they wish to make, with aspects fans and gamers liked intact.
All that would lead to is more smartphone games, and Sega does plenty already.
I'm sure some games are by members who have these quirky games in the past.