ROSS’S GAME DUNGEON: SONIC HEROES

31 minutes ago, steviewonder322 said:

Because of this comment I've been watching his reviews all day. I quite enjoy his breakdowns but wow is he harsh on Heroes. I'd heard nothing about this game before yesterday. Ross made me love it, now I don't know what to think.

I kinda get where TGC's coming from when it comes to Heroes, tbqh. I myself kinda struggled with liking Heroes (and indeed, other games such as Shadow the Hedgehog); albeit for me it was less because of the new action-ish gameplay and team mechanic (even if the two were rather subpar and could've used tweaking/added more "Sonic-y" elements) and more due to the many, many bugs and glitches I came across with where stuff just. Wouldn't. Work properly. (This was especially an issue in another game of Sonic Team's, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.)

 

Also, I'd generally like people to try to form their own opinions instead of trying to take others' opinions at face value.

34 minutes ago, steviewonder322 said:

Luckily people have ported most if not all of the maps for it, Unleashed, and more to Sonic Generations on PC. That way you can experience the nice level design without the glaring flaws.

You... do know there's an unofficial Sonic 06 PC "remake"/"remaster" called "P-06" that attempts to fix the game as best as it can, right? I feel that's better than just grafting 06 (Adventure-esque gameplay) onto a different gameplay style (Boost (Unleashed, Colors, Generations) gameplay).

Hi Ross, got a quick question for you...

 

Did you play Sonic Heroes with a keyboard? I had a hard time, particularly in that stupid Haunted Mansion "gauntlet" bullshit.

 

However, later I plugged in a 360 controller and that section was extremely easy for me.

 

My theory is that a lot of the jumping/homing logic has something to do with the stick direction, and the arrow keys give very imprecise input.

10 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

i would find it pretty challenging to land a plane in the middle of a canyon or in the middle of space, without dying

also the sonic world is not the real world, we can't just apply earth style geography logic to a videogame mostly set in mid air lol

 

the plane is mostly there to make tails look less useless than he is and, to look cool in the cutscenes, otherwise the rest is just your usual videogame logic lol

 

anyway i just noticed that the hud is always in 4:3 mode and it kinda pisses me off LOL, but i blame the developers for not thinking ahead of time, they could've anchored the hud differently if they wanted to, there was no need for them to be this lazy, but... eh, whatever

 

 

 

OK, this left me with a lot of things to talk about, so going down the list:

 

First off, I didn't even know this game existed. I mean, I had heard the name in passing, but I never knew anything about it, including when it came out. I never realized there even was a console Sonic game made between Adventure 2 and 2006, which I'd heard people nickname "Sonic Adventure 3". So I wonder what that makes this.

 

You mentioned the game occasionally continuing to accept input during what's supposed to be a scripted sequence. 2006 had that problem too, in a big way, and it's interesting to learn that it was an ongoing issue that Sonic Team struggled with. Same with camera changes that send you flying off in a direction that was correct before the camera changed. Crisis City was especially bad with that. I'm interested in hearing from people who worked on other platformers and what they did to get around this issue. My theory is that you'd want to not just temporarily ignore the inputs and let the character coast on momentum, but then continue ignoring the input until the stick is shifted to a significantly different angle, similar to how "flick stick" differentiates a flick from a turn.

 

On skyboxes: This is cheap, but if nothing else works, you might consider upscaling them and then running them through a lens blur filter, to hide the crust and make it look like the product of limited depth of field?

 

By the way, what control scheme were you playing this with? The HUD suggests the existence of a Z button, which I've never seen on any controller other than the GameCube. And I feel like the GameCube version would have made X and Y actually look like the kidney bean shapes that it had.

 

On the subject of Tails flying: Physics violations of the attachment points aside, can we talk about how that's just not how helicopters work? Seriously, there's a reason they have a sideways propeller on the tail that's always spinning: because otherwise, the whole helicopter would be. You can also get around this by having two or more rotors that spin in opposite directions, like Chinooks and quadcopters. The turret drones in BioShock have two opposing rotors mounted on the same stalk, which might be possible if you had one post inside a hollow one separated by bearings. Someone'll have to check the engineering on that one.

 

On Shadow: I think he would work better if they intentionally wrote him as someone who's trying too hard to be cool. And maybe played up the rivalry with Sonic more—basically making him a Gary Oak with delusions of gothhood. Dark Pit in Kid Icarus: Uprising is a good example of how that dynamic could work, and I think one of the writers for that game said they specifically were trying to parody Shadow.

 

And finally, the True Ending: That's an insane amount of hoops to jump through to unlock that looks like a significant amount of content. People complained about Sonic 2006 making you play through all three stories to reach the end chapter, but at least the gameplay was different enough that you're not just playing the same game three times, there's a story that unfolds as you play from different perspectives, and

21 hours ago, Ross Scott said:

For anyone critical of fraps, feel free to recommend software for recording DirectX 5-8 content with hardware antialiasing enabled (it may not behave how you think).

I take it this is your way of saying you tried OBS and it has problems?

9 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

that's not an excuse, these guys are just lazy programmers, i have plenty of older games which scale perfectly fine at 16:9

I guarantee that if a game this old looked fine in widescreen, it was by accident. Attaching individual HUD elements to opposite corners tends to be the easier solution, not something you do because you're trying to be forward compatible.

 

Also, yes, they probably did use Flash. It's vector-based and therefore infinitely scalable; more recent games disguise it by calling it "Scaleform", but it's pretty close to an industry standard.

Honestly I'm not only surprised Ross did an actual Sonic game and didn't pull another Wolfenstein (like maybe he'd play Jazz Jackrabbit or an unrelated game with the term "Sonic" in the title) but the fact that he played the one I played as a kid is amazing.

9 hours ago, ScumCoder said:

@Ross Scott this was one of (very few) videos I've ever seen that made me literally put it on pause to stop laughing. A couple times I laughed so hard that my diaphragm went into spasm and scared me that I won't be able to breathe.

 

Wow, thanks, that's pretty much the highest compliment.  This actually got me thinking I should definitely do a Game Dungeon on another game I was thinking of that I was borderline about, but I think it's one that will half-write itself.

3 minutes ago, Ross Scott said:

Wow, thanks, that's pretty much the highest compliment.  This actually got me thinking I should definitely do a Game Dungeon on another game I was thinking of that I was borderline about, but I think it's one that will half-write itself.

If uncontrollable laughter is the highest compliment for you, then I want you to know you cause these pretty regularly with me as well. You manage to find, show, and create some of the funniest damn things.

4 hours ago, steviewonder322 said:

Because of this comment I've been watching his reviews all day. I quite enjoy his breakdowns but wow is he harsh on Heroes. I'd heard nothing about this game before yesterday. Ross made me love it, now I don't know what to think.

Well I tried to warn people I'm a casual fan of Sonic.  I don't have the palette to be offended by the finer nuances of the game, but I definitely noticed being dropped to my death a lot, that part wasn't subtle.

 

1 hour ago, Steve the Pocket said:

You mentioned the game occasionally continuing to accept input during what's supposed to be a scripted sequence. 2006 had that problem too, in a big way, and it's interesting to learn that it was an ongoing issue that Sonic Team struggled with.

I may have explained it poorly (I realized late in editing, the camera angle wasn't the problem, it was the TIMING of when it switched the controls.  Basically, if you hold down forward for a loop de loop (which you NEED to for some of them), when it's almost finished it will IMMEDIATELY switch the direction that takes you. In my death in Metropolis, I didn't change anything, the game did.

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On skyboxes: This is cheap, but if nothing else works, you might consider upscaling them and then running them through a lens blur filter, to hide the crust and make it look like the product of limited depth of field?

I hate depth of field for anything except cutscenes or scoped view, etc.  I'd rather drop the whole resolution than do that.

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By the way, what control scheme were you playing this with? The HUD suggests the existence of a Z button, which I've never seen on any controller other than the GameCube. And I feel like the GameCube version would have made X and Y actually look like the kidney bean shapes that it had.

I tried both gamepad and keyboard.  I actually had less issues with the keyboard.

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I take it this is your way of saying you tried OBS and it has problems?

I've had issues with frame pacing on OBS, but maybe that will get fixed when I move to Windows 10.  Beyond that, I've run into games obs CAN'T capture.  That happened to me in Deathtrap Dungeon, I was only able to stream that because I ran it in a virtual machine.  Running games that way means you lose out on speed and hardware AA options.

https://v.redd.it/bs9kg54gjns41/DASH_360

16 minutes ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

the checkpoints

 

why the hell are the checkpoints, something which you need to PHISICALLY touch, in most games, they are invisible, and you often can't even tell that you got past one, that's just a game design fuck up, period

Sonic games have always had visible checkpoints you needed to physically touch, so I don't know where your complaint lies here. Should they have made the checkpoint itself in Heroes wider or bigger? Probably, but it's right in your face, even if Ross completely skipped it quite a few times. I never had a problem touching those checkpoints myself even when I played Heroes as a kid, so.

 

16 minutes ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

the grind sections

 

ratchet & clank never had any of these issues, here's a rail section from the new game (what do you know, IT WORKS PERFECTLY FINE)

[video example]

I will concede that Heroes' rail grinding mechanics (more specifically, it's rail switching mechanics) are rather crap. However:

 

1. You're comparing the rail grinding mechanics of a 17+ year old game by devs who, regardless of their talent or lack thereof, may have been crunching to get the game off, to a modern game with better time and budget and a better handle on game design due to years of experience.

2. Ratchet and Clank's rail grinding mechanics are more automated than that of Sonic's. From what I can see of the video example, you don't really control the speed or momentum of how fast you grind, unlike in most Sonic games that feature rails.

3. More importantly, later Sonic games would handle rail grinding (and specifically rail switching) much better, as early as fuckin' Shadow the Hedgehog. (06 doesn't count, obviously.)

I am very happy Ross recognized the greatness that is This Machine

 

I looked up Amy's bio and come to the conclusion that the reason Sonic isn't that into her isn't because she's prepubescent (I couldn't find her age tbh) but that's she's an over obsessed fan who is stalking him.  From https://sega.fandom.com/wiki/Amy_Rose

 

 

Sonic the Hedgehog is Amy's love-interest as she cares very deeply for the blue hedgehog and marvels at all his personal traits. Most often, Amy gets involved in the story while searching for Sonic or trying to find information about his whereabouts. She tends to plunge ahead at first glimpse of his figure, this prompting unusual confrontations as she embraced both Shadow the Hedgehog during the events of Sonic Adventure 2 as well as Silver the Hedgehog in Sonic '06, though the latter was dissolved as part of the storyline.

 

Post edit: The next dungeon will be on System Shock 2. It has a great soundtrack, it has a great story and not a lot of people have covered it.
 

Ross probably already has plenty of answers to the questions by now, but I'll throw in my own. I'm a die-hard fan of the 2D games to this day and loved the Adventure games and Heroes when they came out, but everything afterwards kind of lost me, so my answers are gonna be molded by those games and not really anything afterwards.

 

1.) In CD and Adventure, Amy was more portrayed as a "fan girl". The kind that'd obsess over a boy band, fantasize about a relationship with the members in it but not really think about it seriously. In Adventure 1 a moment that solidifies that is that she uses Sonic to get into the theme park level for free when he's supposed to be protecting her, then runs in so fast Sonic loses sight of her, and then when she realizes she lost Sonic afterwards she doesn't care that much. Heroes is the game that fully Flanderized her into practically a stalker and it became her only purpose in the plot. I've heard this has been at least partially reverted in newer media, dunno how true that is.

Additionally in CD I get the feeling they don't even know each other at that point, and there's not really a mention of marriage. It is kinda weird in Adventure just because they clearly know each other by that point, but generally I think "star struck romance day dream" is more accurate to her old character.

 

2.) The Liquid Metal Sonic is a lot of very weird specific, convoluted lore just to explain that one cutscene, but it is actually explained! Chaos' DNA (from Adventure, he is a water god thing) is on the Team Rose's Chocola and Froggy. Chocola because Chao are like strange off-shoot breeds of Chaos, maybe his children? And Froggy because in Adventure 1 he swallowed Chaos' tail. So they just both have Chaos DNA. Sonic kidnapping the two in a newspaper was actually Metal Sonic, infusing the DNA let him use Chaos' powers (becoming liquid, and I guess shape shifting). The DNA is also what makes him go rogue and rebel against Eggman and then pretends to be him.

It's a weird plot point. It can't really be called lazy writing because of how takes a ton of really obscure minor details and ties them together kinda coherently? But it's simultaneously just an excuse to make Metal Sonic T-1000 between places and have a bigger eviler bad guy at the end while keeping Eggman through the rest of the game. I dunno, it's weird.

So yeah if I had to guess, Eggman doesn't make more robots like that because he doesn't want Sonic Heroes 2 to exist 
 

 

3.) Tails is based off kitsune legends, so that's why he has two tails (and also probably why he's super intelligent). So while the anatomy question is legit... if we go by the logic that Tails is a literal kitsune, then you're also questioning the supernatural and the unknown. (...Basically, this is an excuse to skip this one :V)

 

4.) You're spot on with your assessment: ever since Adventure 1 he's had dialogue talking about destroying cities to make room for Robotnikland. (A level in Sonic Unleashed even takes the idea and turns it into a level). So his end-game is literally just to rule so he can put his face on everything and be able to say he owns the planet. He definitely doesn't seem that interested in governing, but he does want people to follow his every command too.

I wanna add Eggman also is the sole proprietor of the Death Egg. That makes your point even crazier; he matches the raw power of the Empire from Star Wars (or arguably exceeds, with how fast he repairs the Death Egg twice in Sonic 3 & Knuckles) ... as one single man. The Sonic universe would honestly not be able to do anything without Sonic there to stop him, this one hedgehog is the sole reason he isn't able to get away with doing literally anything he wants.

 

Even more, his dialogue in Adventure 1 differs between each character. When you're Sonic, he has his absolute cheesiest lines and goofiest deliveries, and Sonic just makes fun of him the whole way through. As any other character, even during scenes that they witness with Sonic, you get different dialogue with way more intimidating delivery. It paints a picture that Eggman is a terrifying force, just that Sonic is only one who doesn't take him seriously.

 

5.) I think the main argument for Knuckles not being a vampire is that he can exist in the sunlight, but then again, there have been stories where they just get weaker in sunlight. But then again again, that means he probably wouldn't be able to maintain his Super form like that outside if it weakened him. Data inconclusive.

You don't get to see Vampiric Knuckles in 3D unfortunately because Super forms were retconned to be "only male hedgehogs can do it". Which is super (tee hee) lame.

Also I mentioned this in the YT comments but I very much appreciate Team Chaotix's theme song too

Makes me want a standalone game about them that isn't weird or trash like Knuckles' Chaotix (this title is grammatically incorrect)

5 hours ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

i stumbled on this instrumental but the quality is kinda bad? i swear i feel like i'm still hearing the voices

 

 

 

Someone made a good instrumental using a Midi soundfont

 

I played this on the PS2 and remember it not being that good.

what's the difference between eggman and dr robotnik

26 minutes ago, Icebox said:

I played this on the PS2 and remember it not being that good.

The PS2 version is also the worst version of the game, as the game wasn't originally going to be on the PS2. But Sony told Sega that if they didn't release Sonic Heroes on it, they wouldn't be allowed to release any other games on it. So they had to use the Renderware engine so that they could easily bring the game to the PS2. And the games weren't well optimized for the PS2, which is why Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog are really bad on the PS2.

36 minutes ago, Chrisfratz said:

[Sonic Heroes] wasn't originally going to be on the PS2. But Sony told Sega that if they didn't release Sonic Heroes on it, they wouldn't be allowed to release any other games on it. So they had to use the Renderware engine so that they could easily bring the game to the PS2. And the games weren't well optimized for the PS2, which is why Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog are really bad on the PS2.

I'm pretty sure that whole thing irt "Sony forcing SEGA to port Heroes on the PS2" is a baseless rumor (and was created to defend Heroes as a game); as far as I can tell, Heroes was always meant to be on the GameCube, [OG] Xbox and the PlayStation 2 - if this and this are of any indication. I think the PS2 ports were just rushed or poorly implemented on their own terms (especially given other Renderware engine titles that were also multiplatform).