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2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 17th, 2020, 10:21 am
by VideoGameCritic
I'd like to hear your thought on my latest Nintendo Switch review.

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 17th, 2020, 12:13 pm
by C64_Critic
Typo: "Batant" should be "Blatant".

It's about time a GOOD, modern Sonic (like) came out. How long has Sega allowed that franchise to suffer and languish with various attempts to try and do new and different - and bad - things with it, rather than just get it back to it's roots?

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 17th, 2020, 12:29 pm
by VideoGameCritic
C64_Critic wrote:It's about time a GOOD, modern Sonic (like) came out. How long has Sega allowed that franchise to suffer and languish with various attempts to try and do new and different - and bad - things with it, rather than just get it back to it's roots?


Yeah Sonic Mania was the lone exception, but you could argue Sega only reluctantly released that after getting extreme pressure from the gaming community.

I suspect those in Sega's upper management chain actually know very little about video games.

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 18th, 2020, 5:59 am
by LoganRuckman
To be fair, Sonic Generations was wonderful, and possibly my favorite game in the entire series.

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 18th, 2020, 8:24 am
by VicViper
C64_Critic wrote:Typo: "Batant" should be "Blatant".

It's about time a GOOD, modern Sonic (like) came out. How long has Sega allowed that franchise to suffer and languish with various attempts to try and do new and different - and bad - things with it, rather than just get it back to it's roots?


I'm in the opposite camp: I'd argue Sonic hasn't tried to be ambitious enough during the decade, even though there were more good than bad (there just wasn't a lot).
And the reason why they've stopped being ambitious has to do with overblowing the negatives out of proportions though and overlooking the actual good games (or good elements), almost none of the criticised games are as bad as a lot of critics make them out to be. I believe out of the post-2000s games, only Forces and Sonic 4 EP 1 are worse than how they've been rated (it's saying something when Lost World is the most ambitious and original game we've gotten out of a lot that has been mostly tired regurgitation/nostalgia pandering, yes, even Mania).
As a result: Sega chickened out and killed the Adventure style gameplay because of Sonic 06, even though it was a proven formula and entirely their fault and not Sonic Team's why Sonic 06 turned out so unfinished.

But for stuff like Unleashed for example: it was slammed at release by critics, but reevaluation happened rather recently, and a lot of players came to terms with the Werehog as both concept & execution, some even liking them better than the day stages. For having played the game for the first time like a year ago on 360, I'm personally on that boat; the night stages have legitimately good platforming and combat imo, and aside from the length and the music track frequently changing when going from "calm" to "fighting", I don't think there's anything wrong about these levels.
Even if it had been all that bad, it's still flavour that this particular title possesses and that most of the 2010s games sorely lack. The day stages were seen as "good" so they were kept, but the night stages were killed due to rather vitriolic and reactionary criticism in retrospect.

Unpolished? Yeah, but even the classics had some very chaotic & conflicting game design in parts, and themselves were all about trying to be ambitious and throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, they're not so different in essence.
Sonic 1's a good game, but it doesn't exploit the idea of a momentum/physics based platformer at all outside of Green Hill Zone and snippets of Star Light & Spring Yard (there are even a bunch of moments where you just wait around in Marble/Spring Yard/Labyrinth/Scrap Brain), even though it was supposed to be the concept it was built on, heck a bunch of new players would even argue that Sonic 1 & CD aren't good for those reasons (and CD has very messy level design).
Which makes perfect sense for Sonic 1, cause Yuji Naka admitted that they've spent half a year on Green Hill alone and the rest didn't receive as much work. I think it's good, but it's in spite of not using its potential.

On the topic of overlooked games, I'm still shocked that almost no one seems to remember the Sonic Advance & Rush/Colours DS games while tons of guys are swooning over Mania and claiming how there seemingly hasn't been a good 2D Sonic game since 1994.
They might be "old", but two of those games are more recent than Sonic 2006, which is almost 14 years old already, and yet there are people who still won't shut up about how broken and unfinished it is.

I'm honestly chalking it up to people just having very selective memory when it comes to Sonic games.
And while I ramble on how unoriginal most of the decade has been, Colours & Generations are still at least very good games, Lost World's divisive but the consensus is more on "decent/goodish" than "bad" (the tutorials are terrible though), and afterwards... there just has been 2 big games released in the 2010s: Mania & Forces, unless you count the Boom games which aren't made by Sega (and the phone games, which you shouldn't).
It wasn't a very big decade in terms of quantity at all.

(also PS: Freedom Planet's been around since 2014)

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 19th, 2020, 6:49 am
by ThePixelatedGenocide
VicViper wrote:On the topic of overlooked games, I'm still shocked that almost no one seems to remember the Sonic Advance & Rush/Colours DS games while tons of guys are swooning over Mania and claiming how there seemingly hasn't been a good 2D Sonic game since 1994.


The Advance games would be more fondly remembered if Dimps didn't hire this guy as their level designer.

Image

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 19th, 2020, 7:09 am
by VicViper
ThePixelatedGenocide wrote:
VicViper wrote:On the topic of overlooked games, I'm still shocked that almost no one seems to remember the Sonic Advance & Rush/Colours DS games while tons of guys are swooning over Mania and claiming how there seemingly hasn't been a good 2D Sonic game since 1994.


The Advance games would be more fondly remembered if Dimps didn't hire this guy as their level designer.

Image

Pfffthahaha, that's true to an extent.

To be fair, I can see some fans' argument of Sonic Advance 1 having better level design (or better everything) than Sonic 1 overall. Advance 1's more hurt by unfortunate screen crunch than shoddy level design (though the last levels have some questionable moments, the game overall doesn't fool you that often).

As far as Sonic Advance 2 & 3 are concerned... yeah I got nothing. Actually no, Sonic Advance 3 gets better at not throwing "GOTCHAs" as it goes along at least, Route 99 is the most hurt by poor design, and it helps it's not as fast and linear as Advance 2. Sonic Advance 2 though I feel is not very good at all even with its relatively positive reputation, screen crunch + boost gameplay + true ending being exploration based is just a terrible concoction in my book, and then you add those "GOTCHAs" and eeeeeh I just tune out.

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 19th, 2020, 1:11 pm
by VideoGameCritic
It's true that some of Sonic's 3D outings were fun, but Sega's disdain for the classic 2D formula was evident. They relegated all the 2D games to the portables. Like Sony with the original Playstation, they would never lower themselves to producing 2D games for their console. It was beneath them. Or at least that's how it looked from the outside.

Re: 2020/4/17: Nintendo Switch: Freedom Planet

Posted: April 20th, 2020, 3:18 am
by VicViper
VideoGameCritic wrote:It's true that some of Sonic's 3D outings were fun, but Sega's disdain for the classic 2D formula was evident. They relegated all the 2D games to the portables. Like Sony with the original Playstation, they would never lower themselves to producing 2D games for their console. It was beneath them. Or at least that's how it looked from the outside.

Considering the boost games and their overabundance of 2D sections now, it's pretty ironic, because now it's been feeling the opposite since around 2010.
Sonic Colours on Wii is like around 70% 2D sections, 15% linear side-stepping sections, and 15% actual 3D. It got more balanced as it went along, but even Modern Sonic in Generations & Forces has a lot of 2D sections, and if you include the Classic Sonic gameplay that makes for a lot of 2D. And geesh, Generations 3DS is entirely 2D. I don't even need to mention both episodes of Sonic 4 or Mania.
Once again the game that was the most 3D in the decade was... Lost World, both on Wii U and 3DS, and there were still a bunch of 2D in there.

And as far as handheld games go in the 2000s, I'd at least give credit to Sega for putting out new 2D platforming Sonic games on GBA as opposed to Nintendo's recycling of old Mario games, cause all new 2D Mario was in hibernation between the end of SNES and New Super Mario Bros. on DS.
Seriously, on a console that has the unfortunate reputation of having a library filled with ports of SNES games, stuff like the Sonic Advance trilogy, Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, etc. shine brighter in retrospect. I'm glad they didn't fall in the trap of porting all the classic games on the console (they tried once with the first game, and it was such a disaster it wasn't even released outside of America, nope not even in Europe).

At least 2D fans had a lot of strictly 2D adventures to sink their teeth into in the 2000s; Advance games, Rush games, the alternative was there, even if it felt like Sega showing disdain to the Classic 2D formula to you.
3D fans saw the beloved Adventure gameplay type die, and then we got the boost games that promote both 2D & 3D but can't focus on 3D specifically for very long (and Lost World that still has a bunch of 2D sections but this time in the minority).
Add to that that the games with 3D gameplay vary a lot in quality, and I really can't say the 2D fans are the biggest victims here. Pure 2D Sonic has never been absent for longer than a couple of years. Pure 3D Sonic pretty much died with 06.