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In 2006, a little developer you might have heard of called BioWare was coming off a string of successful titles and wanted to try their hand at developing a game for a handheld console, so they decided to get a well-known IP to help boost sales. And what do ya know, a certain well-known gaming mascot just happened to hit rock bottom in 2006. So it was that Sonic Chronicles came into being. Sonic Chronicles is a mess. It was BioWare’s first crack at a DS game and it shows. It’s also a rush job. Producers have flat out admitted in interviews that they weren’t used to a shorter production timeline or working with a smaller team. The game looks, sounds, and at times even plays like an unfinished product. We’ll get more into why later. But still, I can't bring myself to call the game bad. The gameplay is serviceable, the combat’s actually pretty enjoyable, and it has a charm to it that I can’t quite describe. There are references (some hidden, a great deal overt) to nearly all of Sonic’s history throughout the game, and it all comes off feeling like a real labor of love. Maybe they would’ve cranked out a really quality product if not for production deadlines. Or maybe the references are just pandering to fanboys, the game was destined to fail, and I have Stockholm syndrome because Chronicles was one of my first DS games. I guess we’ll see along the way. On to the important parts. I’ll be a doing as close to a 100% run as can be considered possible for this game. I’ll complete all the sidequests, find all Chao eggs, recruit all the hidden characters, and for what it’s worth, collect all the rings. If I’ve left anything out, tell me and I’ll try to do it. Thread Participation This is an RPG, so spoiler alert, we're gonna have a party of 4 and a cast of... more than that. Once our party gets big enough that we start leaving people behind, I’m going to let the thread choose who our active party is between updates. Of course, sometimes game events necessitate certain parties, so you might get overruled. I might also start letting the thread vote on character abilities at some point down the line once I make sure you sadists won’t get me killed.  SPOILER POLICY :I don't care if you post things about the plot of this game, just please use spoiler tags. This includes talking about characters we haven't unlocked yet. Yes I know there aren't that many Sonic characters and so the character list is pretty predictable, but that doesn't mean you should post "Oh man I can't wait until you unlock [insert character] in the next area!" Predictions are fine. If you want to hope aloud for the triumphant return of Bark the Polar Bear, that's your own business. One last thing that only applies to people that have actually played this game to the bitter end: I know the Marauders/Nocturnus are knockoffs of Archie comics characters, but try not to give away the only actual interesting plot twist in the story. I mean, you can talk all about how the comic is bonkers and Ken Penders is out of his mind and stuff but don't go giving it away by saying stuff like "the villains in this game are an awful lot like some of the characters in the comic WINK WINK". We'll get there, I promise. Let's roll! Table of Contents  Chapter 1: Rolling Around At The Speed Of... average walking speed Bonus Update 1 Bonus Update 2 Bonus Update 3  Chapter 2: Trust Me And We Will Escape From The City Chapter 3: We Meet Up With The Worst Character in Sonic Adventure (by which I mean Knuckles) Bonus Update 4 Kinda-Sorta-Bonus Update 5 Bonus Update 6  Chapter 4: E.G.G.M.A.N... H.U.N.T Update 5: Define "Completely" -or- Dr. Eggman's Carpet-Bombing Extravaganza Update 6: Finding Frogs and other adventures (sidequest roundup)  Update 7: Tails and Eggman's Excellent Adventure  Update 8: Error 404 Emeralds Not Found -or- Knuckles Really Needs a New Job Bonus Update 7  Update 9: Mad Space Bonus Update 8 TwoPair fucked around with this message at 09:40 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Aug 20, 2013 07:56
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Reserving this post for future use
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Aug 20, 2013 07:56
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Update 1: Rolling around at the speed of... average walking speed. We start with this quote from Professor Gerald Robotnik.  If you don’t remember Professor Gerald, you can’t be blamed, he was in all of 5 minutes worth of Sonic Adventure 2 and then pretty much never mentioned again. He is Dr. Eggman’s grandpa and is responsible for making Shadow the Hedgehog. For that, he is a terrible person. Anyway, on to the present. Well, not the present, but the more recent past. Dr. Eggman is trying to take over the world again…  We open on fighter jets attacking Eggman. Man, don't remember having that kinda backup in a Sonic game before.  And apparently Eggman's latest scheme involved stealing a SHIELD Hellicarrier from the Avengers.  Again, drat! They are doing some damage (and Eggman doesn't really seem to be firing back at all)  Oh I guess that's why     And so Tails yanks out a bunch of wires. Pretty anticlimactic compared to fighting a giant robot or escaping an exploding ba-  drat!  Whoa.  Well at least we made it out alright.  What? Did they just straight up kill Eggman? Sonic has a signal watch? Sonic has a watch? Whatever. Here's that whole scene in video form with what Chronicles calls music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHYfXa4Q6x0 And with that, we start the game proper.  I do like these pretty title cards that come up at the start of each “chapter” of the game. Let’s see what our watch wants:   : We’re in big trouble, Sonic. I don’t know if you heard, but Knuckles has gone missing. And so have the Chaos Emeralds! As you can see, we have ~dialogue options~ because this is a Bioware game. The Sonic head is the “gently caress this, let’s get the game rolling” choice, while question mark options serve to get more chatty and flesh out the plot/world. We’ll be clicking them whenever possible. : Knuckles was fighting against the Marauders when he disappeared. We’re not really sure who they are, but they’re big trouble!: Please, Sonic. I’ll tell you more when you get here! : Why would they take the Chaos Emeralds?: The Chaos Emeralds are powerful gems, Sonic. Someone who knows how to use them could do just about anything with their power! The winking Sonic dialogue option appears when we have the option to be snarky. Because being dismissive of your friends’ concerns is WAY PAST COOL. : Without knowing who the Marauders are, there’s no telling what they’ll do with the Chaos Emeralds. We have to stop them! : Right. Let’s go! NO GIRLS ALLOWED  : Well, you know how she is. She wanted to meet you halfway and make sure you got here safely.: I’ll wait for you in the workshop. With you on the team, I know we’ll save Knuckles! : Let’s go!Finally, some PLAYING in this game. Let's add some music to set the tone:  Welcome to Hell  . Chronicles' music is panned pretty much across the board as far as review sites go. Rumor has it that the game had an entirely different soundtrack but due to some sort of copyright issue, BioWare was forced to scrap it at the 11th hour and replace all the overworld themes with stuff like... this to make launch. Things like the battle themes were supposedly unchanged, but the sound quality is still piss-poor, so it makes one wonder. Back to the game: The game starts you on top of this ring. Which is weird in my opinion, but whatever, it's just something I wanted to note. Anyway, we run a little to the left and we find  …this. And now, a quick rant about the controls. The game controls entirely through the touch screen. You drag Sonic around the screen, he controls poorly, and then we have action commands here. To hop up small ledges, you tap the context-sensitive jump button. To run through loop-de-loops, you tap the dash symbol.  weeeee Okay, you can press L or R to perform the action commands, but… why L and R? Why not just let me move through the screen with the goddamn d-pad, Bioware? It’s a hassle, and it makes the game physically frustrating to play for extended periods of time. Anyway, back to the game. If we walk back behind the loop-de-loop when we’re through it, we find…  …an egg! We’ll see what this actually is later. Moving to the west, we find…  …an old man! Oh, that wasn’t near as good a find as the egg… Oh gently caress me that speech bubble means we’re gonna have to talk to him aren’t w-   : Oh! Hey! You’re Sonic the Hedgehog!: What are you working on out here? : Oh, I won’t burden you with that, Sonic. I’m just an old man trying to chop some logs. The thumbs down icon would let us turn down the sidequest. But why would we ever turn down easy experience points? I cut out a little bit of extra dialogue where the old man explains action commands 5 seconds after the game explicitly explained in case somebody’s playing this game after a head injury. Anyway: : The wood is just right there. Thank you so much!This sidequest is pathetic. You walk over to the woodpile, hit the action button 3 times, and then walk back. Badda-bing, badda-boom. The silly part is that Bioware didn’t really animate Sonic doing anything when he’s chopping, so it looks like he’s just using his Force powers to be a lumberjack. Look:   : I won’t keep you any longer. Take this… I’m too tired for even POW Candy to help me!Jesus, how depressing does that sound. “Not even candy eases my constant suffering, Sonic.” : Nice job, Sonic! It’s always good to take a little time and help people out!: Let’s get going. We have a lot of work to do! Nifty. Wasn’t there a box a little bit to the north of the old man’s woodpile? Let’s loot that!   Man, item boxes look weird in this game. Anyway, speaking of items, since Sonic doesn’t really eat anything in his games, Bioware pretty much invented all the consumable items in the game whole cloth to stand in the stead of mushrooms and such, and some of the later power-ups get pretty inventive (by which I mean weird). However: there are no chili dogs to eat in this game! What a missed opportunity.  Moving further south, we come to this little dock with a red button. Stepping on it turns the button green and pulls a raft over to us. (Also, there is a checked off star above Sonic’s head because we did that sidequest. It just… hovers there for a bit)  We step off the raft, move 2 inches and… Sonic stops to talk to Tails. On a side note, it may seem from the way I've been writing, like I hate all the talking in this game, but I really don't. It's just the beginning part here that drives me up the wall. It has sooo much dialogue at the start, and we were sooo close to progress…  So yeah, this is Green Hill Zone, by the way. You wouldn’t know unless you’d checked the map. You remember the part in Sonic 1 when you ran past the old man chopping wood, right? : Good times? Like Eggman turning our animal friends into robots and pitting them against us?: Yep! Good times! : Well, I wouldn’t take too much time sightseeing, Sonic. We have to save Knuckles!: Don’t worry, Tails. What could go wrong in Green Hill Zone?Ha ha! What indeed…   HAHAHAHA Jesus Tails, this is why no one respects you.  : I’m on it! Enraged Armadillo HP: 30 Special Attacks: None Difficulty Level: 1/5 Notes: Armadillos are a joke, plain and simple. They don’t have a lot of health, they aren’t very fast, and they don’t hit very hard. The only reason they pose even a slight threat is because they don’t have any special attacks. Also we are Level 1 and our Defense stat is pretty low. Okay, let’s go ahead and do a combat tutorial. Since this is babby’s first fight, it consists of clicking “Attack” and clicking our target. Then:  Sonic’s basic attack is his spindash from every game since Sonic 2. He does it 3 times a turn (because he is fast, you see). In Chronicles, characters get multiple actions per turn based on their speed. So for example, Sonic gets 3 moves while Tails (who will of course be a playable character later) gets 2. Unfortunately, no matter how much you level up your speed, you never get more moves. Anyway,  I beat the armadillo. And hey, whaddaya know…  … A prize! Chronicles gives out prizes after every single fight, generally crappy stuff like Health Seeds and POW Candies. You have to really blow at this game to run out of Health Seeds. Also, note our sweet, sweet XP.  : Be careful out there, Sonic! Finally, movement! Also, you’ll note there’s another egg to our right. I grab it real quick, then head south and  gently caress  : Sonic! What happened?: Someone’s trying to block my way.: Why would someone do that? I’m getting a bad feeling about this, Sonic.: Don’t worry, Tails. I’ll find a way through this.: Good luck, Sonic!Man if only this platforming icon could JUMP? I mean, it’s not like they’re that high and HEY suddenly the camera jerks away from me:  Well speak of the pink haired devil.    Alright, weird transition, let’s move on…  It usually doesn’t matter which of the question mark dialogue boxes you pick actually, the early ones in the game usually all lead to the same information, generally by having the next dialogue “choice” be the same options as last time, just with one less choice. Anyway, you see which one I’ve picked, let’s continue.  : Oh, I’ve been just wonderful! Dexter is so sweet. He always buys me flowers, and he is always nice to me, unlike SOME people I know. : Oh yes, my Dexter...: When can I meet this “Dexter”? : Oh, he doesn’t live around here. And he’s very busy, you see. So I’m not sure when he could meet you.And Amy Rose finally hits rock bottom, inventing a fake boyfriend.  : I’m not exactly sure. The animals around here are usually so cute and nice, but they attacked me on my way out here! : Tails says the Marauders got him, but no one knows who they are. Yes, there’s no time to waste!  Wait what. The game stops you here to have Tails to tell Sonic that sometimes he can be a little impatient, so maybe you should take some time to not speed through dialogue so much and appreciate these dialogue options that the writers went to the trouble of giving you. The game stops you regardless of if you’ve sped through the conversation with Amy or if you talked to her about literally everything. ANYWAY, once you get done with that:  : Tails’ workshop is still in the northeastern area of Central City. Let’s go! : Just don’t get any ideas! I have a boyfriend now, you know. After that little infodump, we get back to playing the game and collect another egg. Almost immediately after collecting the egg, our previous egg hatches.  It’s a Chao! You may remember them from the Sonic Adventure series. I’ll talk more about them later, but all you really need to know is that Chaos (What’s the plural on “Chao”? Is it like “deer” where the plural is just the same word?) in this game work like equipment/gear in other RPGs. Also they hover behind Sonic and Company in battle. That’s really the only reason I showed this, just so nobody will be confused why a tiny ghost is haunting Sonic. Moving down, we trigger yet another cutscene.   : Hey, that looks like a security drone! I wonder what it is doing out there! : NEMESIS DETECTED. MUST ALERT COMMAND.: Oh no! I don’t know who “Command” is, but if the drone alerts them, we could be in big trouble! You have to smash it before it gets away!: Gotcha. This’ll be fun.Sonic runs up to the drone and…  Welcome to the running minigame. The drone’s trying to get away, of course, so we gotta catch ‘em. The meter on the top screen is the chase. If the drone’s red line reaches the top of the screen, it gets away and you lose.  Touchscreen gimmicks! You have to tap Sonic to make him jump the box. Failure to do so will make you fall behind and lose a little health. Not that falling behind is a concern here, since this a tutorial, and is thus un-losable. There will be boxes in the path of each character. This is easy now, but can make this minigame bitch to handle when we get a full party.  Speed boosters are the only way to actually catch up to enemies. If you catch the red line, you win and then enter the battle. Oh, and occasionally there are rings in midair you can jump for. Finally let’s wreck a loving robot!  Sentry Drone HP: 20 Special Attacks: None Difficulty Level: 1/5 Notes: Drones are also chumps, though less so than armadillos. They have less health, but attack harder, so if they attack you in a big swarm, you can lose a good chunk of health if they get a bunch of shots in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoibipuCCBs Not a good debut performance, Amy. A funny thing about combat in this game is since most characters’ attacks involve them running right up to the enemy, a “missed” attack results in them just getting SMASHED backwards like they got with a baseball bat. Alright, since that went a little fast (alright very fast), I’ll break down how combat works too.  You have several options: Attack is exactly what it says it is. Short, sweet, and to the point. POW Moves are your special attacks. We don’t have any yet, but we’ll get some when we level up. They eat your POW meter (the blue meter at the top) every time you use them. Defend is, again, exactly what it says. One other bonus to it, though, is that every turn your character defends, they regenerate some POW points. Items are around in case you need healing. More often than not though, you’ll just be regenerating your POW points because you’ll be using those a lot. Flee is… well, it’s running. You don’t want to do this, not only because IT IS COWARDICE, but because to flee, you have to play that dumb running minigame again, only with the enemies chasing you. You choose your action (obviously Attack in this case), then your target, then it's go time. If, for some reason, you want to choose your other party members’ actions first, then you can hit the arrows on the side.  Something you may notice is how the top screen promptly filled up with attack icons immediately. This is one of the things that bugs me about Sonic Chronicles’ fight system. If you want to do anything other than attack or defend in a turn, you have to do it first. You can’t mix things up, like Attack-Item-Attack or anything. The reason this is a real pain in the rear end is hard to get across in screenshots, but suffice it to say it is very annoying and I hope I can convey my annoyance with it to you.  After the fight the characters turn around and do a victory pose (Amy’s got cut off in the interest of  AND CANDY!  : You said stop it. You didn’t tell me to keep it in one piece! : Whoever sent that drone probably knows you’re here, Sonic. You had better be careful!And we’re off to the races again.  Oh look, an armadillo. This one's special though, because it's an actual, non-tutorial, random encounter armadillo! Beautiful. We are gonna murder the gently caress out of it.  Oh, and he’s got a posse too. Wasps are dicks, but very weak. Much like in real life! Wasp Swarm HP : 15 Special Attacks : Buzz Swarm Difficulty Level : 1.5/5 Notes : Wasps swarm you. They are dicks. Also, even though they have the least HP so far, at the start of the game when you’re a low level, they’re pretty adept at dodging your attacks. You’ll notice they actually have a special attack. It does a fair amount of damage and it poisons you. I couldn’t get one to do it for this update though. What I could do is a get a better image of Sonic and Amy’s post-game victory pose.  It’s… pretty weak. Anyway, after a sound thrashing, we get an Antidote, which cures status effects and 50 XP and HELLO  We leveled up! Stats in this game are easy to understand and automatic, except for the one bonus point you get per level to assign where you want to feel like you have a sense of control. What we really want is right here though  Here’s where the fun’s at. POW moves come in many exciting varieties, and you get 5 points towards buying them per level. You can burn them all and get level 1 of every attack, or conserve them and upgrade several attacks to their most powerful. I’m gonna be giving Sonic the level 1 Axe Kick here. It’s generally a good idea to give every character a move they can do on their own so you can mix and match teams later. One thing you want to keep in mind for this game is that your party will be changing a lot, so using any points on a move that requires another character means you better be committed to having that character around, or you’re screwed out of a move when they’re gone. Anyway, once we’re done there, we move on collecting all these rings  Then plundering this item box…  ...to get the sweet reward of...  Prune Juice.  I told you we’d see some weird power-ups. Anyway, we could go straight down and close out the area, but instead I get adventurous and head up the rock hill to the left and find this little fella Well, let’s get it on  Wild Boar HP: 45 Special Attacks: None. Well, okay, GameFAQs swears up and down they have something called Parry but I have never gotten one of them to use it. Difficulty Level: 2/5 Notes: Boars are pretty much just Armadillo 2.0s. They have more health, take more hits, and hit harder. In fact, with Sonic only at level 2 and Amy still at level 1, they can be a significant threat. Although still not much of one, now that Sonic has POW moves. In fact, let's see that new POW move in action! ELITE BEAT HEDGEHOGS ARE GO!  I love that Bioware thought "It's a special move right? We should do something with the top screen. Character art? Character art." Well, alright, now that we’re done with that, let’s move south a little bit and…  Is that…  Wheeee Well, that was fun.  We collect all these rings, fight the armadillo here, and keep moving east.  We keep moving past this ruin with some sort of mysterious symbol indicating that maybe we could go up it. If only there were a Sonic character that could climb poo poo! We grab the chest there (just another POW Candy and a Health Nut) and come to a little rock formation. Time for some parkour!   Now that’s how you grab an egg in style, son.  After jumping down off that cliff, that boar ambushes me. It’s a quick, easy fight, and not too notable except for two things:  Oh BioWare, you and your (literal) crazy items… and the other thing that happens :   Amy finally levels up! Good for her. We give her the Low Blow move, both because of the basic reason I said before of all characters needing a solo move, and because pretty much all of Amy’s other moves SUCK. Most of her best attacks are actually other people’s good attacks that happen to be combo attacks involving her. Anyway, getting back to the game, we get moving and find another rock formation to jump on to the right.  The chest just has the usual Health Nut. Going further down and to the right we hit the shore and…  …what is that? I’ve looked long and hard at it and I can’t figure it out. Is that plane wreckage? I just don’t know. Over to the left of… whatever that is… there’s this hill full of rings   and at the end of the rainbow…  Bet you didn’t see that coming. Amy gets the gloves because she hits harder than Sonic, and we move on along. (Feel free to contemplate how in the world Amy carries that hammer with boxing gloves on)  Finally, we reach this bridge and the end of Green Hill Zone. (Where’s the signpost?)  The game stops to warn you to save at this point.  : Sonic! It’s a Marauder!  : I’m not here to answer questions. Shade sent me here to stop you.: Who is Shade?  : Sonic, this Marauder is one of the strongest foes we’ve met yet! Are you sure we’re ready to fight him?The game chimes in for one last “Hey, maybe you should save here” message, in case you missed the one that popped up literally seconds ago before you stepped on the bridge. : Maybe you should explore Green Hill Zone and make sure we’ve got everything you need to beat him! ‘TUDE LEVELS SPIKING : The Marauders are powerful, Sonic. Much more powerful than a few armadillos and boars!And wasps, Tails! Did you see me beat up those wasps?  BRING THE HEAT : Good. Shade told me just to stop you, but I’d much rather knock you out.Wait a minute, how were you gonna stop us without knocking us out before? Whatever, let’s kick some heads and listen to that –snicker- lovely boss music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaPHwFb6JwM Marauder Scout HP : 80 Special Attacks : Stasis Grenade. If you don’t hit the prompt to dodge it, it’ll put your character to sleep for multiple turns, allowing every attack to hit. It’s a real bitch, but luckily the prompt to dodge it is really easy. I must confess though, my first time playing the game, I missed it so many times, I barely scraped through the fight. Difficulty Level : 3/5 Notes : This scout actually has 10 more HP than others we’ll be seeing. And we will see others. Oops spoiler alert I guess. Hitting a couple of high points of the fight:  You can actually start fights multiple ways other than the standard way I’ve been showing in the other videos. If the opponent’s speed is much higher than yours, or if they sneak up on you, it shows up as “Ambushed” on the bottom and the opponent gets a free shot in. The "TRAPPED" just means I can't run. It'll always show up in a boss fight. Also, you’ll notice that the Marauder is leeching my health throughout the fight. Also, the rear end in a top hat’s stealing my POW points. YOU DON’T EVEN USE THOSE YOU PRICK.   Since I move through menus fast and there’s no real cursor to see what I'm clicking on, I figured I should show you that I’m healing Sonic since I was kinda dumb and went into the fight half-cocked. Also, because there's no animation for healing or dodging it produces the funny effect of making it look like this Stasis Grenade attack that I dodge heals me.  Oh and since it just popped up, here’s what Amy’s Low Blow attack looks like since I showed off the Axe Kick:  BONK And one more thing you may have noticed  Unlike our animal pals from earlier, these guys don’t leave bodies. Weird.  That's what I was just saying! : I’m detecting an energy signature, like he teleported away!: Well, that’s just not fair!: Please hurry and come to my workshop, Sonic. We have to find Knuckles, quickly! I love this Sonic face. He’s just so pissy for no apparent reason. Jesus, Sonic, what crawled up your rear end? Are you mad that Amy got the kill shot on the bad guy? Do you secretly really not want to see Tails? It’s great.  Anyway, we finally move down the bridge and…  And so Sonic takes off for Tails’ workshop at Central City with an Indiana Jones-style line on the map. What will we find in Central City? Will Sonic & company find Knuckles? Will we uncover the secrets of the Marauders? Will Central City have lovely music? Tune in for 1 out of 3 of these things next time on Sonic Chronicles! TwoPair fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 07:57
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Aw yeah, Sonic Chronicles. I had a lot of fun with this game, really. The battles were OK. The BioWare Dialogue was OK, too (it benefitted a lot from the next most recent Sonic title being Sonic 2006 but hey). For a Sonic fan at that time, anything better than mediocre would've gone over quite well. Hell, even the first bit of music there, while obviously and glaringly being a loving MIDI, was still actually kinda pleasant to listen to. The world needs to see this game. It went over about as well as "DS Sonic RPG" could possibly have gone over, which is to say, generally ignored and sometimes panned. But there's some good poo poo here, and if nothing else the soundtrack has to be heard to be believed. Let's loving do this.
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Aug 20, 2013 08:19
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I've never heard of this game before until now. It's a bit strange to see a character like Sonic in something that doesn't involve platforming. Can't wait to see more. 
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Aug 20, 2013 08:34
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Awesome! Never got a chance to pick up this game so I'm really interesting in seeing the LP. TwoPair, good job using the images + animated .gifs combo - it works really well the the comic-style imagery the game uses. And the videos were a nice touch too (if only so we can hear how terrible the music is). I hope you'll get a chance to go into more detail about some of the gameplay elements, like more about Chao or what the hell Crazy Beans do. Speaking of which, if this update is any indication you were spot-on about Bioware using really weird items. Looking forward to the rest of the LP!
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Aug 20, 2013 08:37
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I didn't actually mind this game, but it always felt like a large chunk of it was missing or unfinished. Which apparently it was! With a bit more work and a few less annoying mechanics, this could've been very interesting, in the vein of Mario RPG.
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Aug 20, 2013 08:39
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Oh the Music! The Sound effects! The Horror!  I had never heard of this game before it showed up in the Sandcastle, I this looks like it's going to be an interesting experience! This is going to be a wonderful LP I think!
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Aug 20, 2013 08:41
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Between the MIDI music and lovely stock sound effects it feels like something off of those early 90's 100 Shareware Games discs.
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Aug 20, 2013 08:52
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Oh, hey! I read a walkthrough for this once, I believe. ...And then proceeded to not play past the initial fights, because of action commands.  There's a reason I rarely play games with them (except Gladius).Because I have the reflexes and timing of a dead man. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes. Your first update looks pretty solid to me. 
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Aug 20, 2013 08:54
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But bonk.wav and kidscheering.wav are the sign of a big budget production...
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Aug 20, 2013 09:11
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I actually really liked this game when I played it a few years ago, but I've always heard people say it was terrible. I'm looking forward to seeing whether I was just a dumb kid when I played it or if it really is at least pretty alright.
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Aug 20, 2013 10:16
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I can't get over just how horrible the game sounds. The jumping sound effect while you were chasing the drone made me die a little inside, and then that boss music. It certainly won't get obnoxious over the course of the game! Do grabbing the rings actually do anything? I would assume they're currency, but you don't get any after battles.
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Aug 20, 2013 11:27
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Rings are currency. Yes, this means the game has a finite amount of currency in it. Of course, you can always sell the ever-present healing items. Also, are you ever going to explain the stats? Because they are not self-explanatory in the slightest, you liar. Also also, a text dump of the Mandatory Bioware Codex wouldn't be bad.
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Aug 20, 2013 12:10
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Please tell me that this game isn't so predictable that Dexter's going to be the villain. I've heard of this game before but never seen it, and I guess it's looking okay. Doesn't seem all that spectacularly fun to play, though, especially the touchscreen stuff. Still, apart from that and the music it does seem mostly competent. But I do have a weakness for Sonic games, so if it were a different IP then I doubt I'd be saying that. Also, prune juice that raises your attack power? Sounds like a warrior's drink.
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Aug 20, 2013 12:56
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Yeah, the plural of chao has got to be chao. Otherwise it just gets confusing with all the other Chaos stuff in this series.
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Aug 20, 2013 13:29
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I played this game for about 15 minutes before muting the sound and never turning it back on. Then I played for another hour or two before getting bored and never playing again. I look forward to seeing the rest of the game! And do the white outlines around the mugshots remind anyone else of JPEG images shoddily cut out of a white background? Because that's all I can think when I see them, even though I'm sure the outlines were a stylistic choice.
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Aug 20, 2013 14:33
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A bioware sonic game?  This I have to see.
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Aug 20, 2013 14:46
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Hyperman1992 posted:A bioware sonic game? People say that the Sonic Curse was gone when Sega made Sonic Unleashed and basically moved forward from there never stopping, but I don't believe that. I think the curse was just passed on to Bioware. Also there's some wonderful behind the scenes talk about the story and what legal drama's it's caused that I could get into but I'll hold off on it and just say this. This game is terrible. Horrid controls, slow, bad music, boring battles, bad writing. And you may be thinking "But it's Sonic, it always has bad writing" but that doesn't excuse it. You can write good sonic. Ask Tracey Yardley or Ian Flynn. So of course I nearly beat it, and was curious to see how it ended. Let this train roll.
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Aug 20, 2013 15:09
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Onmi posted:This game is terrible. Horrid controls, slow, bad music, boring battles, bad writing. And you may be thinking "But it's Sonic, it always has bad writing" but that doesn't excuse it. You can write good sonic. Ask Tracey Yardley or  Unfortunately, Sega apparently doesn't want to acknowledge any of the content from the SATAM series or comics. I'm not entirely sure why. I don't think it's a legal rights issue there are apparently references that haven't caused any issues, and presumably Sega would retain the rights to works using their license. It's a shame, because both the show and the comics had some good storylines that could have been adapted into an RPG.
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Aug 20, 2013 15:46
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CatsPajamas posted:
No they didn't. The comics from pretty much the moment it stopped being a gagbook to 160 were pretty loving terrible. They've gotten good NOW, but make no mistake they were horrid beforehand. As for why they don't wanna acknowledge it, well we'll get to that when we get more into the story of this game, because it actually was influenced by a (very horrible) set of characters from the comic book. And said writer, who is both a hack and completely insane, tried to sue EA and Bioware, and by extention Sega, over what he viewed as "Copyright infringement" It isn't. He's a complete lunatic. But Sega would have a very good reason to want nothing from the comics and the regrettably poorly aged TV series to have anything to do with the product. That doesn't mean they shouldn't bring in the current comic writer because he accomplished the amazing goal of making Silver the Hedgehog a likable character that people like to see show up. Also Amy Rose. Onmi fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 15:55
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I never managed to finish this game, even though I wanted to, but I can't really remember what the last straw was. I guess we'll all find out together!
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Aug 20, 2013 16:07
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Graceful Graveler posted:I never managed to finish this game, even though I wanted to, but I can't really remember what the last straw was. If you're anything like me, it was the absurdly bullshit enemies the final area has.
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Aug 20, 2013 16:13
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Fedule posted:Hell, even the first bit of music there, while obviously and glaringly being a loving MIDI, was still actually kinda pleasant to listen to. Spikey posted:Between the MIDI music and lovely stock sound effects it feels like something off of those early 90's 100 Shareware Games discs. The music is loving terrible, but calling it midi music is a clear misunderstanding of what midi is. Midi is data that doesn't contain any sound: midi 101 E: I've also never heard someone call music "a MIDI". I'd love to know what you were going for. gatz fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 16:16
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gatz posted:The music is loving terrible, but calling it midi music is a clear misunderstanding of what midi is. Midi is data that doesn't contain any sound: midi 101 It's like reading my own posts! People always assume flat sounding things with terrible instruments or even beeps for some reason are automatically midi, regardless of source. Nevermind the fact midi can sound like anything and have any quality based on the output and the person crafting it.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:08
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TwoPair posted:
I think it's just driftwood, like a tree branch that washed up on shore, and the water effect is so lazy that the waves just render on-top of it, and then they coloured it blue for some reason. Weird that Bioware made this. Do the dialogue options ever make a difference in this game, or are they always all irrelevant?
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Aug 20, 2013 17:22
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infinitycanvas posted:I think it's just driftwood, like a tree branch that washed up on shore, and the water effect is so lazy that the waves just render on-top of it, and then they coloured it blue for some reason. If your nice to Amy she'll reveal that she made Dexter up to get Sonic jealous and then he can accept her feelings sorta? I'm not spoiling that poo poo because "Dexter isn't real" is god drat obvious. Also there's something with Tails, that I wont go into, but again it's very minor.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:48
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Aw yeah, I have a soft spot in my heart for this game, to the point where I was considering LPing it myself. But you're doing a better job than I could! One thing of note is one of Amy's POW attacks, Tarot Draw. This is a reference to the fact that one of the older games (CD, I believe) mentioned Amy's fondness for Tarot reading. Clearly, someone who actually gave a poo poo worked on this game; it's just a shame it turned out the way it did I'd still love to see an improved sequel someday, but it's never going to happen.
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Aug 20, 2013 17:53
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Amppelix posted:Also, are you ever going to explain the stats? Because they are not self-explanatory in the slightest, you liar. Holy poo poo, they're actually not! Yeah, I'm gonna do a bonus update a little later on in the week (possibly today) going more in depth with Chao stuff and POW moves and that kinda junk. Also you blew my mind about the stats, I had to go to GameFAQs to double check! I'll cover that too. I'll probably start dumping Codex stuff after Chapter 2 when we have a because right now we just have little more than just character profiles and stuff about Green Hill Zone. I should go ahead and mention right up that I had originally planned for this LP to update weekly, but I recently got a job with weird hours so any notion of a regular update schedule is out the window. CatsPajamas posted:
I don't want to spoil my own LP, but I think you'll be pleased next update. infinitycanvas posted:Weird that Bioware made this. Do the dialogue options ever make a difference in this game, or are they always all irrelevant? They pretty much all just serve to give more exposition. IIRC, sometimes the winking Sonic "be an rear end in a top hat" option has repercussions, but it's been a while since I've played the game, and I haven't recorded footage past the end of the next chapter.
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Aug 20, 2013 18:20
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majormonotone posted:Aw yeah, I have a soft spot in my heart for this game, to the point where I was considering LPing it myself. But you're doing a better job than I could! Amy's backstory in Sonic CD, hell the entire reason she follows Sonic, is that she did a Card Reading and it said she would meet her true love if she went to the Little Planet, her stage in Sonic the Fighters is very Occult based as well.
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Aug 20, 2013 18:23
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I played this game for about two hours before the crappy touch screen battle controls drove me off it. I'm happy to see it LPed out of curiosity.
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Aug 20, 2013 19:35
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I know I played through this game. Hell, I remember beating it. But that's like... all I remember. Oh well, this will be an amusing refresher.
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Aug 20, 2013 20:05
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Onmi posted:Amy's backstory in Sonic CD, hell the entire reason she follows Sonic, is that she did a Card Reading and it said she would meet her true love if she went to the Little Planet, her stage in Sonic the Fighters is very Occult based as well. Oh God, Sonic the Fighters, what an awful fighting game yet at the same time I really enjoyed it
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Aug 20, 2013 20:13
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Gerald was actually a central character in Sonic Battle, and that quote in the intro might be a direct quotation from Battle (but don't quote me on that.) Glad to finally see an LP of the actual worst Sonic game ever, but you should post some of the battle music. It's a special kind of magic from a special kind of guy.
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Aug 20, 2013 20:37
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alcharagia posted:Gerald was actually a central character in Sonic Battle, and that quote in the intro might be a direct quotation from Battle (but don't quote me on that.) He was also fairly important to the backstory in the Shadow the Hedgehog game, albeit in a really silly way. alcharagia posted:Glad to finally see an LP of the actual worst Sonic game ever Is it that bad? I would think Sonic 2006 would be the bearer of that title. Or one of those older games like Sonic Schoolyard. Never mind, I think you had it right.
Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Aug 20, 2013 |
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Aug 20, 2013 21:12
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:Is it that bad? I would think Sonic 2006 would be the bearer of that title. Or one of those older games like Sonic Schoolyard. It's certainly my least favorite.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:14
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gatz posted:The music is loving terrible, but calling it midi music is a clear misunderstanding of what midi is. Midi is data that doesn't contain any sound: midi 101 Early MIDI-capable sound cards came with pretty cheesy-sounding inbuilt sound sets leading to a somewhat elevator music-ish listening experience in games that supported them - maybe this has something to do with it. I'm pretty sure I've come across quite a number of games where you were better off selecting SoundBlaster chiptunes for music if you didn't want your ears to bleed. Yep, those were the days.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:32
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Meh, I still think Sonic 2006 is worse, at least Sonic Chronicles' battle system was kind of interesting with the Elite Beat Agents type controls for moves. I got this game hoping it would be actually good like any Mario RPG, but I was pretty disappointed. I don't think I ever finished it either. If I remember correctly, the story gets pretty weird too, but I dunno, I don't remember what happens in the second half of the game.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:37
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Sonic Chronicles is almost fun. Sonic 06 and Sonic Labyrinth don't even begin to approach that level.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:41
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 23:38 |
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This game. This game is a very strange thing. It's not a bad game flatout, but boy does it have its problems. I am very much looking forward to the thread's reactions to everything this game has to offer.
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Aug 20, 2013 21:42
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