What are your thoughts on the weird 1995-1998 era of Sonic where they outsourced games to Europe and everything was low poly and covered in neon with British R&B/breakbeat/rave playing in the background?
What are your thoughts on the weird 1995-1998 era of Sonic where they outsourced games to Europe and everything was low poly and covered in neon with ...
It destroyed Sega
This. Sonic Adventure didn't kill Sonic. Neither did the Saturn's and Dreamcast's failures. What killed him was that deathly silence between S3&K and Adventure. They had such a strong momentum that could have propelled the franchise to the fricking starts, but SEGA being SEGA they squandered it by doing frickall with the series for four fricking years. THIS was the true "Dark Age" of Sonic. Adventure came out too late to save it, and unfortunately takes the bullet in every heated debate between fans and "fans".
to the fricking stars*
So few people talk about this since zoomers can kind of only process game reception as the be-all-end-all but if you were there, you know. For 4+ years Sonic discussion was nothing but talking about shit comics and dead TV shows, plus the slow realization that X-treme wasn't good and wasn't coming out at all with only shoddy ports and iffy spin-offs to satiatate anybody. On the plus side it's also where fanworks really came into their own and the fanbase started to form its creative identity thats carried it through the years, but it can't be overstated how much momentum SEGA blew. Adventure could've been the second coming of Christ and it wouldn't have come back.
Imagine a world where Sonic Adventure came out the same year as Mario 64.
Sonic would still be a legitimate rival to Mario, and Sonic likely wouldn't have became the laughingstock of the vidya scene that he is now.
I fricking hate Sega.
I dislike the rivalry in general. That's what made Sonic a joke as much as anything. Just people feeling the need to pick a side and then go hard on it.
Laughing so hard at the obvious fanboy who made this pic. SA1 was made years after SM64 on significantly better hardware, but it still has a lot more meaningful flaws and roughness.
mario 64's reputation is entirely due to fanboyism. sonic glitching through a platform once is indication that the entire game is bad but being able to skip 1/3 of the game by jumping backwards a certain way? le such flawless perfection
You're vastly underselling how difficult that backwards longjump is to perform to begin with, nevermind that no casual player would have realised it was possible
I enjoy the SA games but they break when you're trying to play normally whereas SM64 does not, which makes the former look notably less polished/more buggy, even if it's still a fun as frick game
To glitch Mario 64 you have to do frame perfect jumps, to glitch out Sonic Adventure you have to hold the analog stick forward.
I played both Mario 64 and SA on release. I figured out with Mario how to jump up and climb stairs in a glitches way almost instantly while I can't recall ever doing this is SA. Might because you're constantly running in the same spots in Mario 64 as it has hardly any levels making it easier to find glitches.
Mario 64 has more levels than SA1. (You) for the creativity, though.
Have you played both Mario 64 and SA? Sonic isn't constantly running through the very first zone and travelling up and down staircases.
to glitch sonic adventure you have to arbitrarily stop moving in the middle of a loop de loop and then cry when the character realistically gets flung off somehow. not to mention the propinquity for aged snes fanboys to go out of their way to find glitches so they can prove mario's superiority or whatever
So you watched GameGrumps, congrats. Have you ever played SA1?
Those same issues totally occur and they don't involve just stopping still and getting thrown around by whatever they put in place to ensure Sonic kept his momentum - the exact same glitches can occur by moving your stick a little, which is easy to do when the camera moves and you're heading down a winding or looping path. The game has some genuine shit glitch moments that can really put a damper on the fun you're having at the time.
I love both series, and have been active in both communities for a long time, so I'll say that your comment about the Mario fanbase going out of it's way to show superiority is not untrue but the same applies to any game series with genuine history/medals of honour - and the Sonic fanbase is known for being the worst in it's raging autism. Surely you're aware of this? And that the last half of what you just said is entirely moot?
On the other hand, mainline Mario titles do not have bugs that throw themselves in your face, and in fact the entire speedrunning community behind it has struggled when going for the most optimised glitched records because of how specific the circumstances have to be to frick the game up. Mario titles generally have better polish and are comfy from start to finish regardless of skill level. Sonic titles have great music and faster gameplay that rewards repeat playthroughs. They both have merits and people who are nostalgia blind, shit at both games, or have never played one or the other (or both), should stop talking entirely.
i really just don't know what the frick you're talking about. are you glitching through platforms every five seconds or something? are you just crying about sonic's momentum being unhinged as if its a glitch? because it's not. maybe you grew up with one of the crippled dx versions but as someone who's always stuck with the Dreamcast version i almost never encounter any significant glitch at all.
The only bugs that weren't "you have to go out of your way to do this" type shit I ever got playing SA on DC was weird collision issues when spindashing, which you're likely to run into if you 100% the game because the time trials are strict and you wanna spindash a lot. I tried to look up if there were more that I forgot but all I'm getting is the DX version or stuff like, getting Tails into Emerald Coast. I feel its the DX version being the most accessible that has made people think SA1 is glitchier than it really was but I'm open to being proven wrong.
Main issues with SA1 is the bad camera and the fact that you only actually use Sonic for like 50% of the game, no else is near as fun to play. Imagine if SM64 made you use Metal Mario to collect 30% of the stars as opposed to like 1%, that's what SA1 is.
yeah man frick sonic adventure for making you deal with sluggish underwater gameplay sometimes. like what if mario 64 made you use sluggish underwater gameplay to collect a significant portion of stars or something
wait shit no cut the feed CUT THE FEED
You're obviously trolling but I'm not sure if you thinking I was referring to SA1's underwater levels is part of the bit or if you're actually that stupid.
what are you b***hing about then? the other characters suit sonic perfectly and were represented in other games. mario 64 makes you wade through slow underwater controls for like 15 stars if not more. that's certainly more time and effort to complete than big's entire campaign. and by a lot. i just don't understand the positive comparison. mario 64 is problematic by the same metric. not to mention the weirdness of the basic controls themselves like mario's unresponsive turning speed.
>or if you're actually that stupid.
The latter it is, then. Hope you find someone to give you that dopamine rush you're looking for.
so just asking the specifics of your opinion is trolling now. the underwater levels are "nowhere near as fun to play" in mario 64 so what's the big deal about sonic adventure?
Shit is worse than piss, butthole
NTA, but frick your homosexual ass fishing cat, homosexual ass RNG Emerald hunting, and frick your gimped ass Pink Sonic. Also fricking Tails, as he shouldn't have been playable in levels literally not designed for his flight.
Just because swimming in Mario is slow, doesn't make the trash in SA1 not shit either. The good of Mario outshines all of 3D Sonic period on a fundamental level
t.Robo Blast 2 autist. Offical 3D Sonic and its defenders can suck my unwashed nuts.
>feeding the troll
You're better than that, anon.
SRB2 is based though. It's my favorite 3D Sonic, and that's kinda sad since at heart its basically a DOOM mod, kek
so this is what you do now rob?
no wonder srb2 2.2 is actually good. all the old dev pedos eternally seething over green eyes got kicked out. lmao.
You must be a bigger fan of SRB2 than me if you're keeping track of drama with its devs, kek. Well, at least the game is getting the respect it deserves.
the adventure sonic mod really helps its lasting power. interesting, that.
Yeah, the modding scene is pretty good for the game.
>Imagine if SM64 made you use Metal Mario to collect 30% of the stars as opposed to like 1%, that's what SA1 is.
In fairness, Metal Cap is more fun to play than Big.
good thing big accounts for like 2% of the total game in reality
>Sonic had a rough transition to 3D...
Say what you what, but i really liked Sonic the Fighters. It's kind of like a shallower Fighting Vipers, but a fun 3D fighter. I love the Model 2 stretch and squash graphics. never played it on real model 2 hardware though. mainly emulation.
My local pizza hut had one back in the day and i remember being enamored with the attraction movie. Never saw the machine again beyond that one.
>local pizza hut
SM64 released years prior and they actually developed a game around Mario's moveset first and foremost, unlike Adventure where they didn't know what the frick they were doing and just crammed whatever garbage in that they could.
A Sonic Adventure that's basically like beta Windy Hill but finished and for a whole game? That could definitely beat the frick out of SM64. What we got though is not even close.
>imagine a world where Duke Nukem 3D came out the same year as Wolfenstein 3D
this is how you sound
Not really as the Saturn could have made this a reality.
I like both games, but holy shit this is a bad image.
I love that aesthetic and vibe but yeah, it did kickstart Sega's demise.
Sonic wasn't as popular in Japan as the west which I think prevented SoJ from truly realizing what an asset Sonic was, so the less capable STI had to pick up the slack and...yeah. In STI's defense, Sonic is very difficult to do in 3D and many companies cracked under the pressure of shifting to 3D.
>Sonic wasn't as popular in Japan as the west which I think prevented SoJ from truly realizing what an asset Sonic was
It really does become crazy to think about, given how much US Mega drive sales blew the Japanese market out of the water. Hell EU pushed more than double the consoles JP did.
I remember seeing somewhere online that around the time of the Saturn, Sonic team started calling themselves Sonic team, but the Japanese consumers hardly knew what a Sonic was still lmao.
The main reason why the Mega Drive didn't do as well in Japan is that the PC Engine dropped first and the MD had a pretty weak launch library over there. I think if they tried to reintroduce Sonic for the Japanese market via the Saturn (and not through ports, as in a new game) then maybe things could've been a lot different. But who knows?
Sega always struggled to get developers onboard because most of the arcade giants like Konami et al weren't interested in working with one of their rivals.
>Sonic Adventure didn't kill Sonic. Neither did the Saturn's and Dreamcast's failures. What killed him was that deathly silence between S3&K and Adventure
I think this is correct. Sony had Crash fricking Bandicoot and Spyro and FF. Nintendo had 3D Mario, 3D DK, 3D Zelda. Both had 3D Mega Man. Every Sega consoles ever launched was a mistake. Even bubsy got a 3D release.
They let a ton of series die out: Phantasy Star, Nights, Golden Axe, Alex Kidd, Altered Beast, Panzer Dragoon, Shinobi, Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio, ext
Now Sonic will rest another half decade with the inebitable failure of breath of the wild sonic.
How did Sega manage to create almost all of my favorite game series, but immediately destroy them too?
Sega giveth, and Sega taketh away
>What killed him was that deathly silence between S3&K and Adventure
>S3&K
sonic was already losing steam by S3. anyone who had a mega drive had S2 but it was rare to see S3 about. although oddly you'd see a lot of S&K carts
>This. Sonic Adventure didn't kill Sonic. Neither did the Saturn's and Dreamcast's failures. What killed him was that deathly silence between S3&K and Adventure
what the frick is this bizarre historical revisionism. People were starting to get tired of Sonic by S3.Sonic Adventure had a lot of hype before release and was the best selling game on the DC, which later got a new lease on life when SA2 and SA were released on the Gamecube. How the frick did that kill Sonic.
SA couldn't be done the same year as Mario 64.
>People were starting to get tired of Sonic by S3
I thought the reason Sonic 3 and S&K had less sales was because it wasn't packed with the Genesis like 1 and 2 were. I think a Sonic Saturn would have been good in 1996. The only problem with Sonic Jam is that we don't know how fast they can really program Sonic to be.
Yeah using sales is kinda fuzzy for that reason. Sonic definitely had a decline in popularity but I think it still had a huge following that could've been tapped into. It still had a comic book running when all other video game comics at that time bombed. That being said yeah it is weird to say Sonic was ever really killed, SA2B is one of his best selling games.
>It destroyed Sega
Sega destroyed Sega.
Sonic peaked with 2 and has never come close to its greatness ever again.
3&K destroys 2. Sorry.
Takes 5 seconds to figure it out. Also, Oil Ocean and Metropolis are worse than any zone in Sonic 3.
Wrong again. Also Chemical Plant is better than any zone in Sonic 3.
Sandopolis Act 2 is still less cheap than Metropolis and less boring than Oil Ocean.
Chemical Plant is a classic but it's somewhat overrated and is outdone by
>Hydrocity
>Ice Cap
>Flying Battery
>Lava Reef
To name a few.
Hydro City is better. Act 2 has one of the best tracks in the franchise.
>Hydro city
More like cut zone city.
That death pit sucks but you instantly know what the deal is. The barrell does nothing but slow everyone who ever played the game down trying to figure it out. This isn't a shitty Nintendo game like Super Metroid where you're constantly trying to figure out the basic game mechanics, it's a Sonic game.
>More like cut zone city.
Huh? Sonic 2 is the one with a million cut zones. Hidden Palace, Cyber City, Sand Storm, Wood Zone, Rock Zone, Gravel Zone...
Sorry, I meant to post Cut scene city as Hydro city makes you watch Sonic run a lot removing your ability to control him.
I wouldn't say that. It's as momentum based as CPZ. None of the levels really felt like cinematic cutscenes until they automatic loop de loops and boost pads in the later games.
why is the chemical plant fanboy crying about watching sonic run. both hydro city and launch base are superior versions of chemical plant in every way.
The barrel is a problem until you figure it out. Then it won't make a problem anymore.
Pit is something you can always forget about or, if you're playing as Super Sonic, just be too fast to avoid it in time. There's always some amount of risk.
Both of these are huge design flaws, but I consider barrel to be lesser evil. It's just some weird case of mass autism that makes everybody forget that you pass several barrels before that one and they actually teaching you to press Up and Down.
No, none of the earlier barrels require up/down presses. They can be passed with momentum alone. In a momentum-based platformer, this was a cardinal design sin.
The bottomless pit represents a significant risk when playing as Super Sonic, but most players able to achieve Super Sonic will have familiarity and advanced warning so it won't come as a surprise when you encounter the pit again.
>Doing the Cow & Chicken dance to unfitting music
YouTube is painful.
>chemical plant
>hold right to win until the water section
no wonder sandopolis 2 is such a pleb filter. literally all the block pushing is skippable in sonic's path and the slide "puzzle" zoomers are so baffled by is something you already did earlier in ice cap anyway. its braindead easy to figure out that the correct slide is the one with the easily missable platform you'll inevitably try to jump on. the ghosts can be easily insta-shielded, etc. git gud 2tard and stop getting your taste from marketing.
>stop getting your taste from marketing
I actually played these games when they were released. Not sure how that makes me filtered when I point out flaws in Sonic 3.
Still better than death pit in 2. At least you have a chance there.
>Fixed in Origins
Cope.
The MD was my first console.
Played all the mainline Sonic games as a kid, besides S&K (so only S3).
Sonic 2 will always be my favorite. The art-style introduced in S3 just looks like shit tbh. The angular palm trees, checkerboard pattern scenery and flat character designs in the prior games had such charm. S3 ruined that for me, even if the stages themselves often are more interesting.
Music is another thing. People rave about the whole "Michael Jackson in Sonic 3!!!1!1" thing, but the heavy use of compressed samples, charming as it is, will never beat the themes for Metropolis Zone and Chemical Plant Zone for me, absolute FM-Synth bangers, without samples.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles is better in every way.
Traveller's Tales made absolutely beautiful Genesis games. I was excited as a young teen to see that they made Sonic R. I still enjoyed it even though it was pretty lackluster.
The game itself features the older design but the album came out 7 months before Sonic Adventure. Sonic R is probably the last game before they redesigned him.
>better in everyway
sounds like someone got filtered
Yes.
Well, it was an era that contributed to SEGA's eventual demise in the console industry, but I'm still fond of Sonic R, especially the OST for some reason, and Sonic 3D Blast plays fine, I've always held Traveller's Tales in good regard because they can make solid video games when given the time, and even in tight schedules like the ones SEGA used to give them they'd still make something at least competent every time. Just a shame that SEGA couldn't release Sonic X-Treme, too many mistakes to count in that development cycle, it's interesting to think about how things could've been if this had come out, how differently history could've gone.
Sonic Xtreme did not look good, especially in the plotline department.
>Tiara Boobowski
Interestingly, Chaos and the Deadly Six and something very similar to Sonic Colors were some of the considered plotlines.
Every single prototype of Sonic Xtreme looked and played like dogshit and it would have been a laughing stock for the ages had it been released. The real question is, how could Sega of Japan let things get that much out of hand.
Sonic Team was working on Nights at the time.
So? Why would that justify that their management was unable to keep any sort of control over the American developers?
They did keep a bit of a leash, but only in regards to using the Nights engine. Maybe they didn't care as much and expected Nights to be more of a killer app than Sonic? Sega wanted to appeal to the Jap market more around the time of the Saturn, and figured Nights would be that character. They didn't really seem to care about making a truly 3D Sonic game until Sonic Adventure entered development in 1996/1997. Sonic Xtreme reeks of being a weird Mobius off-brand spin-off.
>The real question is, how could Sega of Japan let things get that much out of hand.
1. Not having Sonic Team work on the next main line Sonic game which would be his transition into 3D and a crucial system seller for the Saturn in 1996's holiday season.
2. Choosing STI for it even though they had little to no experience whatsoever with developing in 3D and didn't even have a Saturn development kit when they got chosen.
3. STI choosing to use the development kit for the boss engine instead of using it for the main levels, doing the latter without it and then porting it over to the Saturn further.
Damn, Robotnik looks like THAT?
STI wasn't "chosen", they were a think tank unit whose task was to frick around with new hardware and get game concepts out so In 1995 alone they were doing shit on the Genesis, the 32x, on PC, on the Nvidia NV1, and on the Saturn.
They were brought in to do a Sonic game because they were the resident geniuses and they at least had a plan for a game, and SoA needed one badly..
Unfortunately they had to code the game engine from scratch and never actually got as far as level designs. Xtreme (the initial concept with the BUG!-like levels) could've been made good if it had good level design, but the ones they had working were insane mazes with no clear idea on where to go. They actually had a level editor where you could edit and play the level in real time, the kind of shit you'd see only like 10 years later in the industry. That's the reason the game had to be PORTED to the Saturn anyway, because it started out as an interactive level editor on the PC.
And then SoJ saw the initial work-in-progress, several month old port of their engine that ran at 5 fps, flipped the frick out, and told them to restart the project on the boss engine, with only 4-5 month before release.
TT made visually beautiful games and were brilliant at finding compromise between game requirements, graphics and time available. Their Sonic 3D Saturn port is exquisite. However, the core gameplay is frequently lacking and their fundamental game design choices leave too much to be desired. Sure, there is major novelty factor behind the two titles and that continues to generate curiosity to this day. But that is not enough to make them a core gaming classic.
Technically speaking, Sonic 3D pushed the Mega Drive to its absolute limit, so there wasn't much more that could realistically be done to enhance the gaming experience without the whole game breaking or having to be letterboxed. The entire point of Sonic 3D was to produce some amazing visuals and they absolutely delivered. The MD title animation is amazing to behold and would have been mind-blowing in 1996, the introductory cutscene look gorgeous, the sprites are detailed and also look incredible. Where is falls down is the Flickies. Having to defeat every badnik and catch every Flicky gets annoying. However, the zones are not large enough to be run-through events without the padding the Flickies provide.
Personally, I would have opted for a larger cart and used bank switching for the latter half of the game. This could've allowed for a greater number of larger levels. However, this would've increased development costs and time - every sprite in that game was drawn from a 3D model built using a very, very expensive IBM computer. Adding in two more levels would have created a significant additional burden of work for the developers. The alternative would have been to give each level three full acts with a separate boss act / area.
The Saturn Sonic 3D port is amazing as well. Some of the music tracks are not as good as their Saturn counterparts. Some of them are better on the Saturn. Special stages are also loads better on the Saturn.
Playing Saturn Sonic 3D with the analogue controller used to be the definitive way to experience this game, now the DX version might have the edge over it but I think both have their merits. There is no excuse for playing the Mega Drive original.
>Technically speaking, Sonic 3D pushed the Mega Drive to its absolute limit, so there wasn't much more that could realistically be done to enhance the gaming experience without the whole game breaking or having to be letterboxed.
I actually really liked Sonic 3D Blast on the genesis, and I still have the cart, somewhere. It was like a side game, and not a sequel. It also is like a cross-over flicky game, as the birds follow Sonic like in the arcade game flicky. I thought the game looked visually good with its pre-rendered isometric graphics. When I first heard about the game in Gamefan magazine, they were calling it "Sonic RPG", like it was suppose to be Sega's answer to Mario RPG.
It was cool on the Genesis. Kinda felt like a slap in the face on the Saturn. The port is fine, and has some cool bonus stages and new CD soundtrack and some CG cutscenes. But after being promised a '3D' sonic game on the Saturn and getting this was weird. Especially when Mario 64 was on the market and Crash Bandicoot. You could tell it was always a Genesis/ MD port to the Saturn with enhancements. Sonic R was neat, but a bit short. cool, though. I really do like Sonic Adventure, despite some of the minor control issues that I have with the game. For its time, it was impressive looking. Especially in the texture department.
Sonic 3d would've been mind blowing if it came out in 1994 next to Donkey Kong Country. As it is, the only good thing about it was the intro and some of the music tracks. By the time it came out, the SNES had Yoshi's Island and DKC was up to three games.
Sonic R would've been great if it had more development time. Even as a racing game. Just give it twice the levels, and tweak the levels so they have traps that affect different characters, making it so Sonic/Tails/Knuckles are at a disadvantage and have to dodge crap like traps built into the level which Amy and Robotnik would be immune to.
And optimize the engine so the view distance is larger, especially in split screen. Maybe if they had 6 more months for that, it could've worked. From what I followed of the development time, they already had a basic engine working to demo for Sega, and everything else after that was just creating the levels/art/music.
(cont)
Sonic R was way behind Mario Kart 64 in terms of content. Four tracks instead of four cups was a big problem. The disc size was 580MB, so there was definitely another 120MB of space for more content.
Sonic R had everything modelled in 3D, Mario Kart 64 did not. There were very few offensive weapons in Sonic R, reducing the novelty factor in a novelty racing game, but there was a ring loss mechanic built-in.
This was as much an exploration game as it was a racing game. However, the controls needed a bit of tightening up and collision boxes of environmental items were janked to the point you could not jump over even small obstacles.
Super Sonic is fun to play with but is too OP. Need to be able to mix-and-match Robo-characters with the core roster in races.
Sonic R's visuals are again great. The environments are excellent. The models are find for the time, probably a little light on polygons even for the mid-90s but understandable given that its a racing game and the system has to process the model's movement quickly.
If Sonic R's controls were better, item / racing system was touched up, it had better collision management and had more content then it would've been a beast of a game and probably an all-time great of the franchise. Really was a shame, but they were against a deadline to make it for the last Xmas before Dreamcast. Unfortunately, TT had rescued Sonic 3D the year before so its not like they had any time to start Sonic R earlier. So ultimately, the basic mismanagement and development hell of Sonic Xtreme by STI, SoA and SoJ collectively condemned the Saturn to slightly suboptimal products branded with their central mascot character.
The beggining of the end for sonic
You are now manually aware that Sonic R is the first game to feature Modern Sonic.
The OP image is older than Sonic Adventure 1 by a year.
What stopped a 2D Saturn game? Embarrassment?
It wouldn't have been able to compete with Mario 64 or Crash. Maybe they could have tried 2.5D?
>the virgin classic sonic
>the wizard modern sonic
>the ultra giga thad hybrid sonic
>What are your thoughts on the weird 1995-1998 era of Sonic where they outsourced games to Europe and everything was low poly and covered in neon with British R&B/breakbeat/rave playing in the background?
This was the "sonic is dead era". More people probably played Sonic R on the PC or gems collection, than they did on a real Saturn. Though, I had Sonic R for the Saturn. It came out in such a bad time in 1997 that the Saturn was real dead in the market and everyone was entranced with Crash Bandicoot on the PS1. Sega tried a big comeback for Sonic on the Dreamcast with Adventure. They went through the first major redesign/ reboot. But the Dreamcast didn't take off.
I still say sonic R would've made for a decent 3D sonic game, but by the time it actually came out it would've been pointless. If they got Sonic R's engine up in like early 96 to get a Sonic platformer in late 96/early 97 it would've gone a long way. Past that they might as well just wait for adventure.
Ive always felt this as well. Something like Sonic Rivals did. It wouldn't have been too much work to redesign the courses into linear stages, maybe make it an auto-runner and you focus on attacking, dodgin incoming hazards and skidding around tight turns. Boss fights could have been against other characters and been a normal looping track, kinda like the Sonic/Shadow final race battle in SA2.
Sonic R is the only decent Sonic game other than Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (and Shadow the Hedgehog). Sega deserved to die for inventing Sonic in the first place.
At least Sonic Team gave us Sonic Jam
Even Sonic Jam was criticised at the time for just being a repackaging of Sonic 1, 2, 3 & K without any meaningful new content. However, in Japan Sonic was not well known or embraced as a gaming icon. Sonic Jam was an attempt to get the Japanese audience excited about Sonic and give them a chance to play his original adventures where otherwise these would not have been available. The lack of Sonic's general popularity in Japan probably also made SoJ a lot more sanguine about his absence from the Saturn software lineup.
The actual games themselves were basically no fun to play but the aesthetics and music were off the charts as far as quality goes. Basically the most soul that this franchise could ever hope to have
Soundtrack and artistic visual design language are so kino af.
>start production on nights into dreams after a true 3d sonic by sonic team is finished for the saturn
>localize more japanese titles
>tell developers and retailers about saturn announcement at e3 ahead of time, with a price reduction
Would it have helped SEGA?
They were already selling the Saturn at a loss, I'm not sure if selling them at an even bigger loss was viable.
Sega hastened their own demise but I don't think there was any way to ever avoid dropping out of the console race.
>SoJ/SoA bickering
>alienating many arcade devs by virtue of also being an arcade dev
>Sony having infinite money + vertical integration allowing their consoles to be cheaper
>unlike Nintendo, no dominant portable line to help cushion console losses
>They were already selling the Saturn at a loss
Pretty much every video game console is sold at a loss (Nintendo's pretty much the only one who doesn't do that), with the difference being made up via software licensing. Granted the attach rate for the Saturn was abysmal, so that definitely contributed. There was also just the fact that Sega screwed themselves with their Mega Drive add-ons.
>What are your thoughts on the weird 1995-1998 era of Sonic
Literally 1995 to 1998 was basically the 'Sonic who?' era. It was almost like the character was forgotten, because the Saturn just didn't sell well and there wasn't much Sonic representation on the console. At least not as far as original games go. Everyone was paying attention to the Playstation and N64.
As far as I'm concerned, Sonic's biggest contribution to the world was CWC.
Since Sonic 1, these games which are about "going fast" are more often about gaining momentum and then suddenly coming to a screeching halt. You could only "go fast" through rote memorization of the stages after hundreds of attempts that you would do in order to get a certain time or score or whatever -- this game design is perfect for autistic people (no offence).
Pretty cringe that it was Sega's "answer" to the Mario games which were vastly superior. That's really all Sega ever is/was/will be, sort of a footnote in the history of Nintendo. Now excuse me while I play Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
classic sonic's pinball platforming is directly superior to mario. if sonic never existed (and they continued making 2D mario) the hills & wall running from SMW could've turned into something like it pretty quickly.
sonic autism & CWC are from the decaying adventure era and weebshit occurring at the same time as living online 24/7 became possible.
>Mario would eventually become Sonic
Not a chance in hell. They instead chose to go with Yoshis who slowly collect eggs then slowly aim a cursor to shoot said eggs and later they came up with FLUDD which could have been fun and action packed. But no, it was a disaster.
>Yoshi's island
spinoff but the foundation was set in that game with the caped baby mario segments and a new 2d mario would've been able to expand on it at a faster pace.
>spin-off
It's actually not. It's a legitimate Mario game as you play and control Mario and the game is called Super Mario World 2.
>sonic autism & CWC are from the decaying adventure era
complete and utter cope. the real autists in the sonic fandom have done nothing but scream and cry about the adventure era because they changed sonic's eye color/ cwc was deep into it long before sonic adventure even existed.
Mario 3 is a better platformer than any Sonic game ever and came out 3 years before the Sonic series even began. Like I said earlier, Sonic is literally only remembered because Sega propped him up against Mario (I'm using the word literally in the literal sense). Otherwise, Sonic would be in the same league as Bubsy or Gex or Conker or ...
Is there a single game other than Sonic R that fits that description?
Wipeout maybe? Same years, british devs, electronic music, it's even a racing game
Graphics are a tad better though (image is from an emulator I think so may be less than this)
Sadly these anti grav racers are basically nonexistant, though Redout 1/2 (not /vr/) are pretty good modern takes if anyone has that itch
I think the sub genre is called pod racing. A hidden gem in the genre is Quantum Redshift for Xbox. But I guess F Zero GX and Star Wars Pod Racer (N64) are considered the best.
>I think the sub genre is called pod racing
lmao what an amazing ass pull, there are only 2 "pod racing" games and one of them suck. They are futuristic racing games, not necessarily anti-gravity since not all of them are floating off the ground (Extreme G, Rollcage, etc)
Kek you're right, I guess I made it up a long time ago and thought it was real
Don't do drugs or play Sega, kids
Check out Ballistic NG for some proper wipeout vibes.
3D Blast (Saturn). Jam doesn't have the Euro devs I don't think or music, but it definitely has the same tone this era had.
Chaotix is very neon.
>Sonic 1 comes out
>Old Mario platformers had a world map already
>Older Mega Man platformers had stage select
>Even the worst, oldest NES abortions had password systems
These difficult concepts eluded the Sonic devs for many years, which was alright because autistic people enjoy playing stage 1 over and over again anyway. So overall it was good game design.
sonic 1 totally works without any save system. its short as frick and the chaos emeralds do nothing. its 2 that really needed a save system to make getting the emeralds worth while not to mention how lengthier it is
>The game is really short, therefore it's also ok to not have any basic features
This is the Segacuck mindset
>i'm too moronic to input a piss easy level select cheat, therefore it's ok i b***h about not being able to save in a very short game all about replay value
So they actually implemented 90% of what I'm asking for in their code, but didn't bother to finish, and then just hid it behind a cheat with a lame menu? That's even sadder.
yeah you shouldn't be able to just immediately go to the final boss playing the first time. makes perfect sense to hide it only for returning players who would want it.
Well, obviously I am talking about some kind of save system as well, but Sega was too cheap for that too.
and it would've been pointless. the execs would've never agreed to paying for s-ram for a six zone game. total waste of money back then. just play the taxman version or sonic classic heroes if you want saves. not to mention the both of them have super sonic which gives it an actual purpose.
You must be the first and only person who's ever complained Sonic 1 didn't have a world map, the game is meant to be blasted through in an hour
Living in the corner area of Europe where my country wasn't the richest and a bit behind the times, a lot of people still really really liked Sonic and not that many people even cared for the N64.
It was Sonic>Crash>GTA>Mario by each generation jump. Sonic was still and still is pretty well liked by a lot of people here alongside Crash but Mario only started turning heads sometime around the GBA era, which, funny enough, around the time Sonic was also jumping to other consoles.
People here were never "wowed" by super epik 3D graphics to the same vein other places were with the likes of Sonic Adventure or Mario 64 or other games.
If the games were good, they were good, but they had to look good as well. And a lot of people really didn't think Mario 64 'looked' that good. But a lot of them liked the 'look' of Sonic Adventure but were only moderately interested in the gameplay. Both games didn't have high attachment rates either. It was just seen as a weird pause before games were to really take off.
The revionism I don't like seeing is that of the console wars being a huge big deal. It really didn't matter that much where I was living. You would think with the way the internet and marketing companies behave people were frothing and gaslighting each other similar to that of /v or Twitter when it wasn't the case at all. If it was, it was usually between GameDevs from the US and that was it.
Everyone else couldn't really care. They just wanted a game that looked cool and played cool at the same time, and if it didn't deliver on either side, nobody cared. None of us got duped by marketing as heavily as people you see now.
1965917 Gen/MD Sonic 2
i think metal knux is the entire reason why i consider sonic r a decent game.
Tremendous cringe and soul.
>Sonic doesn't have bloat like Nintendo games. Check mate
You can keep your world maps and all that other useless shit buddy.
>useless shit
That other guy just doesn't understand that Sonic is STREAMLINED for BLAST PROCESSING and GOING FAST. Industry standard basic features need not apply.
3D Blast was my first Sonic, so if anything this era feels the most authentically Sonic to me. Not that the games are much good.