Sonic Colours

[James McGeachie]

Sonic Heroes is the only 3D Sonic game I found fairly decent and enjoyed playing mostly as a whole. Well other than Secret Rings but it's not really a platformer.

 

Anyway I never understood the fact Sonic Heroes drew a lot of complaints at the time. It was closer to the classics than the Adventure games in my opinion, both in level design and the game's progression (2 acts per "zone", then a boss fight).

 

It was more polished than the Adventure games in terms of camera and controls and had none of the distracting gameplay of other characters, ie driving around in mechs, fishing or collecting emerald fragments.

 

The only real issue was that to do everything you had to play through it 4 times and some of the levels were extremely long, making this a tedious experience. At least there was some challenge though, which is far more than I can say for for Adventure 1 or 2.

 

Even the music I felt was closer in feel to the old school titles than the Adventure games, even if Adventure 1 had a lot of remixes of 3D blast tracks or whatever.

 

	Audio

 

Also one of the best last boss themes.

 

	Audio

Edited August 11, 2010 by James McGeachie

[mr_bogus]

Anyway I never understood the fact Sonic Heroes drew a lot of complaints at the time. It was closer to the classics than the Adventure games in my opinion, both in level design and the game's progression (2 acts per "zone", then a boss fight).

 

Agreed fully, and i remember wondering the same thing, until a bit of research revealed that the reviewers gave it the bad words, and Sonic fans generally had the same opinion of "closest to the 2D Sonics so far".

[James McGeachie]

^Not entirely true. Some reviewers actually praised it, but I remember strong words from some Sonic forums calling it a joke, mainly because some people thought the 3 character gimmick ruined the entire game I think.

[S.C.G]

Sonic Heroes...

 

Also one of the best last boss themes.

 

	Audio

 

This... the final boss battle made the whole game worthwhile, Imo the best thing about Sonic Heroes was the music and level progression, the only thing I didn't like was how awkward it sometimes felt when switching characters... like how you were controlling a 'tower' when you had Tails in front due to them all forming a chain so Tails could fly everyone up to higher areas.

 

That and the lack of variation in some of the enemies, I wanted to see more classic enemies in 3D rather than lots of multi-coloured generic robots... :/

[mcj metroid]

^Not entirely true. Some reviewers actually praised it, but I remember strong words from some Sonic forums calling it a joke, mainly because some people thought the 3 character gimmick ruined the entire game I think.

 

I remember the boss battles been pretty bad in heroes. Also you have to remember the ps2 version was inferior due to frame-rate issues

 

I used to wonder why nintendo magazines and such were giving this higher scores than playstation magazines until i played the ps2 version. not so sure about the xbox version.

 

Heroes just didn't improve on much of the little problems from adventure 2. It made things more straight-forward and old-school though.

 

3d sonic games just feel jerky to me. some of the moves look awkward and sonic seems to jitter around the place a lot. In secret rings this happens a lot actually even though it's a set path.

 

If they did "heroes" with SONIC and just sonic and THEN improve on that with a sequel by adding more characters and what not, it would work but sega team never stick to one idea and improve on it for a sequel these days.

[nekunando]

I always found the controls in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 to be a bit of a problem.. they just never felt precise enough It always felt like a battle to position Sonic accurately, particularly when moving at speed. It could have been a lot tighter..

[Ike]

I think people didn't like the fact you were playing 3 characters at the same time.

 

I found the game was pretty glitchy though.

[James McGeachie]

I think people didn't like the fact you were playing 3 characters at the same time.

 

I found the game was pretty glitchy though.

 

I certainly wont deny for a second it was glitchy, but so were Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and certainly Heroes wasn't as bad as Sonic Adventure 1 (which was a glitch, control and camera fucking nightmare).

[mr_bogus]

I remember the boss battles been pretty bad in heroes. Also you have to remember the ps2 version was inferior due to frame-rate issues

 

I used to wonder why nintendo magazines and such were giving this higher scores than playstation magazines until i played the ps2 version. not so sure about the xbox version.

 

The Xbox version was also smooth, but the cube version was better to play because the notches in the analog stick help you run directly forward.

 

I originally got the PAL cube version and it seemed to have a constant judder when i played it on 60Hz. But a friend had the NTSC one & didn't like it, so we swapped

 

3d sonic games just feel jerky to me. some of the moves look awkward and sonic seems to jitter around the place a lot. In secret rings this happens a lot actually even though it's a set path.

 

I think that's a trademark Sonic Team thing, Billy Hatcher had the same jitteriness, camera glitches & falling through the environment. Didn't stop me loving it tho.

[Ike]

I certainly wont deny for a second it was glitchy, but so were Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and certainly Heroes wasn't as bad as Sonic Adventure 1 (which was a glitch, control and camera fucking nightmare).

 

Yeah, I remember being more annoyed at the glitches in Heroes though. Particularity in the special stages.

 

I'm hoping they'll fix the problems in the XBLA version of Sonic Adventure, but this is SEGA.

[mr_bogus]

...but this is SEGA.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

I think that's a trademark Sonic Team thing, Billy Hatcher had the same jitteriness, camera glitches & falling through the environment. Didn't stop me loving it tho.

 

:bowdown:

 

Billy Hatcher was a godly game! I wish we could get another from Sega but I can't see it happening.

 

Thinking about it there are a bunch of sequels for franchises that fans want but Sega seem to be sitting on them. Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon...

[mr_bogus]

:bowdown:

 

Billy Hatcher was a godly game! I wish we could get another from Sega but I can't see it happening.

 

Thinking about it there are a bunch of sequels for franchises that fans want but Sega seem to be sitting on them. Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon...

 

Jet Set Radio & Panzer Dragoon had Xbox sequels... but after what they did to NiGHTS: Journey into Anti-Framerate Kingdom, i'm happy for them to leave old classics alone.

[tapedeck]

Billy Hatcher looked and, at times, played brilliantly. Loved the mechanic and the bat-shit insanity of it all. The music and setting were pure SEGA at their best. All of their games are generally OTT and arcadey and that's what I'd love this title to evoke.

[mr_bogus]

Surprised no one's posted the theme music yet

[Hero-of-Time]

Jet Set Radio & Panzer Dragoon had Xbox sequels... but after what they did to NiGHTS: Journey into Anti-Framerate Kingdom, i'm happy for them to leave old classics alone.

 

You saying you wouldn't want Shenmue III???? Wow.

 

I loved Panzer Dragoon Orta, more than the Saturn Panzer games, so I would love a return to that franchise. I mean its been like 8 years since that and JSRF came out so we are due another entry for both of them games.

 

Sega have a rich back catalogue of franchises and characters that they can dip into. Its not a question of leaving them alone, its a question of Sega getting their act together to make a decent game or at least out source them to a developer who can.

[Guest Captain Falcon]

I loved Sonic Heroes, though I loved the Adventure games too.

 

I never recall seeing all these glitches people comment about though. Sure I had one or two, and the double hit of the jump button in SA2 (which always seemed to happen particularly badly during the Egg Golem fight) was annoying, but on the whole they never bothered me.

 

SH has that whole upper, middle and lower route thing going on like the old and portable games. And as mentioned, the music was a lot closer to the Mega Drive games too. Some of the levels were long to the point I thought they could have split Zones into 3 acts with the middle act transitioning from one background type to the next.

[Retro_Link]

New Interview:

 

 

 

Mentiones co-op gameplay... I guess that's just player 2 using the pointer in a Mario Galaxy fashion?... as they keep stating on Sonic is in this game.

[Cube]

Mentiones co-op gameplay... I guess that's just player 2 using the pointer in a Mario Galaxy fashion?... as they keep stating on Sonic is in this game.

 

Nope, it's a separate mode:

 

 

Don't worry - the red hedgehog is just a red Sonic and not a new character. NGamer mentioned that you could unlock characters to replace red hedgehog in co-op.

[Retro_Link]

haha, I think they could have been excused for using other Sonic characters from the start in that mode!... I don't think anyone likes cloned characters like that in games do they!!

[James McGeachie]

For the record for people not following the game outside this site, there has been tons of media, loads of hands-on time, etc.

 

Almost all of it has actually been positive. There's been barely any negativity at all. It does seem like a completely refined version of the best parts of Unleashed.

[Zechs Merquise]

For the record for people not following the game outside this site, there has been tons of media, loads of hands-on time, etc.

 

Almost all of it has actually been positive. There's been barely any negativity at all. It does seem like a completely refined version of the best parts of Unleashed.

 

Yes, I have actually been shocked about how well this game has been recieved - so well in fact it seems to be exlipsing Sonic 4 Episode 1. Not only does it look great, it actually seems to play well.

 

It's still not finished yet, but so far it looks like I might actually end up getting this.

[Cube]

I'm still waiting for them to announce a second half of the game. Perhaps this time it'll be an awful roller-coaster tycoon rip-off.

[LostOverThere]

I'll make up my mind in November.

[mr_bogus]

Nope, it's a separate mode:

...

 

That co-op mode looks ace! My excitement level for this game just went up another notch i didn't think was there