Sonic the Hedgehog Appreciation Thread

[LarryTyphoid]

Later Sonic games speed up more, but Sonic 1's initial slow pace is incredibly dull IMO. Fair fucks if you can be arsed to persist mastering the routes until they become fast. But I have no idea why anyone would bother with a game which is supposed to be about speed from the off, to only have to slowly plod your way through the levels before you can do that.

Yeah, Sonic 1 is pretty bad with that. Every other classic Sonic game is leagues better, except arguably Knuckles Chaotix, which has the opposite problem - it never slows down and is a constant clusterfuck of flying at 300mph. If you can't bother to learn Sonic 1 to go fast then fair enough, because neither have I.

Really? Mania pretty much hands you the super sanic form on a plate, very early in the game without trying much and the form invalidates so much of the content. I played it like twice and uninstalled because I found it extremely fatiguing, too long, way too fucking long for what it is, with too many retread of old levels. I can't bring myself to like Mania, if anything I hate it more than the classics because I see it as low effort nostalgia bait. Old levels, music, some tweaks here and there, with a few sparse new levels in between. Yeah, the old levels aren't 100% identical in layout but it doesn't change that feel of been there, done that, please stop.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of Mania for those reasons, but I did hear lots of casuals talking about how hard it was.

Sonic 2 had a few interesting levels, but overall it's not really a franchise known for being engaging mechanically.

Depends on what you mean by mechanics. I think the sprawling level design and all the kinds of different tricks you can pull off to gain speed (jumping on downwards slopes for big speed, loop-jumping, slope-jumping for big height, bouncing off badniks to maintain velocity (this one is actually necessary to reach the upper route of Hydrocity Act 2 which is fucking awesome), all kinds of exploits with the elemental shields, using Knuckles's glide to cancel your momentum and perform an instant spin-dash) put even Sonic 1 faaaar ahead of any Mario game in terms of mechanical complexity, except arguably for 64.

Personally, I found that the biggest sin of the classic Sonic games is the character's slow acceleration from full stop.

I used to hate this too before I really mastered Sonic's controls and momentum. Sonic 1 is a slower game in general so it's not much of a problem with good jump timing but Sonic 2 and 3 have the spin-dash and learning to come to a full-stop at a snap and drop into a spin-dash is a skill to learn. I don't blame you for not grasping that, though. I only really got this shit after playing Sonic 3K like 80+ times. In fact one day I played Sonic 3K 6 times in a row so everybody here should probably take my arguments with a grain of autism - this thread has awakened sonicfaggotry that I've kept repressed for a few years

 

[Falksi]

I love Sonic, i have no idea what you guys are talking about it, i think you guys are taking the "gotta to go fast" way too seriously, on your first playtrough you need to play the game carefully because there's a lot of traps and enemies you can't really avoid if you go too fast. However, the more you play on multiple playtroughs, once you start memorizing the level design, enemies and traps placement... you can play faster, lose less Rings, find secrets and improve your score.

I just tried doing this now, then as I come to post on here noticed LarryTyphoid's post above pointing out a glaring bullshit piece which I noticed as I tried to mimic it - there is no spindash in Sonic 1.

So it's not Sonic 1.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I just tried doing this now, then as I come to post on here noticed LarryTyphoid's post above pointing out a glaring bullshit piece which I noticed as I tried to mimic it - there is no spindash in Sonic 1.

So it's not Sonic 1.

This looks like the recent PC port of Christian Whitehead's official mobile port. It adds spindash to Sonic 1 with no option to disable it.

Spindash trivializes Sonic 1's level design and is basically a cheat code. Though, to be fair, in the video he only uses the spindash once, and he had the speed shoes so simply running at the wall and rolling would have been as fast if not faster. You can try that if you want to imitate the run.

 

[Lutte]

I love Sonic, i have no idea what you guys are talking about it, i think you guys are taking the "gotta to go fast" way too seriously, on your first playtrough you need to play the game carefully because there's a lot of traps and enemies you can't really avoid if you go too fast. However, the more you play on multiple playtroughs, once you start memorizing the level design, enemies and traps placement... you can play faster, lose less Rings, find secrets and improve your score.

I just tried doing this now, then as I come to post on here noticed LarryTyphoid's post above pointing out a glaring bullshit piece which I noticed as I tried to mimic it - there is no spindash in Sonic 1.

So it's not Sonic 1.

I was curious and looked up the comments in case this was mentioned. The video author just gave me cancer with his answer :

>It's the Android/IOS version played via Bluestacks emulator. :3

This is so many levels of autism in a sentence. Playing a modified version of a retro game launched on shitty mobile platforms through a mobile platform emulator on a PC. I bet this guy also faps to sonic porn and owns fursuits.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

This is so many levels of autism in a sentence. Playing a modified version of a retro game launched on shitty mobile platforms through a mobile platform emulator on a PC. I bet this guy also faps to sonic porn and owns fursuits.

The mobile ports are considered by many to be the best way to play Sonic 1 and 2, since they run at 60fps with no slowdown and have widescreen, that second point being a big deal for many since it supposedly prevents you running into enemies as much. There are better ways to play those versions on PC since the video was released due to a decompilation releasing awhile back. I wouldn't touch Bluestacks with a stick. As for me, I stick to the good old Genesis emulator.

You're probably right about the sonic porn and fursuits besides, though. The title of the video is a tired reference to when some IGN guy talked shit about Sonic and sonicfags simply cannot stop bringing it up. Whenever you see someone repeating "sonic was never good" "rough transition to 3D" etc, all these shitty memes sonicfags toss around in their 5 hour apologetics routines on YouTube, dunk their head in the toilet for being a fucking nerd.

 

[Morenatsu.]

It's true, Sonic was never good. Tails is clearly superior.

 

[Jacob]

I only recently realized that this exist. Starring veteran Sonic voice actors, too.

 

[Tavar]

I just tried doing this now, then as I come to post on here noticed LarryTyphoid's post above pointing out a glaring bullshit piece which I noticed as I tried to mimic it - there is no spindash in Sonic 1.

So it's not Sonic 1.

This looks like the recent PC port of Christian Whitehead's official mobile port. It adds spindash to Sonic 1 with no option to disable it.

Spindash trivializes Sonic 1's level design and is basically a cheat code. Though, to be fair, in the video he only uses the spindash once, and he had the speed shoes so simply running at the wall and rolling would have been as fast if not faster. You can try that if you want to imitate the run.

The spindash can be turned off in the settings of the android port. It's just enabled per default.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I only recently realized that this exist. Starring veteran Sonic voice actors, too.

You have to be a special kind of autistic to listen to a Sonic the Hedgehog radio show. Ryan Drummond's Sonic voice is shit now anyway, he completely forgot how to do it. Sonic talking was mostly a mistake in the first place, but whenever he does I turn on the Japanese voices cause I can't understand what they're saying and so it doesn't make me cringe. Plus, Sonic's JP VA drops loads of Engrish, which is always funny.



Emi Jones's Tails voice is fine, I guess. I haven't heard her name in years, but I remember her being pretty autistic about Tails (Unreal 's alt?)
You ever heard about the time where she did a collaboration with the dude who did the rapping for Sonic Adventure 2? That nigger got mad about not being paid as much as he wanted so he tried to get her to have sex with him as a fulfillment of the contract. Besides that, there was always some JewTube drama fags talking about Emi Jones having sex at Sonic conventions or some shit. Brings back memories - horrible, awful memories.

 

[Morenatsu.]

If you truly knew me, you'd instead be saying that my alt were a kemoshota artist.

 

[Jacob]

You have to be a special kind of autistic to listen to a Sonic the Hedgehog radio show.

At least within the context of modern franchises, radio shows are targeted at the most hardcore fans. See whatever radio drama of the various anime series. I was surprised to find out Digimon has some. I tried listening to it because I have a strong nostalgia for Sonic Adventure games and the Sonic X anime, but even then it's still too niche for me.

Sonic talking was mostly a mistake in the first place, but whenever he does I turn on the Japanese voices cause I can't understand what they're saying and so it doesn't make me cringe. Plus, Sonic's JP VA drops loads of Engrish, which is always funny.

I prefer the Japanese voice acting as well. The Sonic Adventure games' plot are basically cheesy kids anime (Not shonen, I mean, anime aimed at kids like Digimon I mentioned above), so the Japanese VA sounds more fitting.

You ever heard about the time where she did a collaboration with the dude who did the rapping for Sonic Adventure 2? That African American got mad about not being paid as much as he wanted so he tried to get her to have sex with him as a fulfillment of the contract. Besides that, there was always some JewTube drama fags talking about Emi Jones having sex at Sonic conventions or some shit. Brings back memories - horrible, awful memories.

Funny you mentioned it. I was wasting my time watching Sonic videos when I stumbled upon this internet drama, which lead to me discovering the Sonic and Tails Radio shows.

 

[Jacob]

Man I sounded like a weeb furry. But I'm just a weeb, I swear!

 

[Morenatsu.]

Children's anime is the best!

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I've also 100%'d Sonic Adventure four times and Sonic Adventure 2 three times

 

[Jacob]

I've also 100%'d Sonic Adventure four times and Sonic Adventure 2 three times

But have you creamed the rabbit?

 

[Morenatsu.]

No, I don't think anyone here has done such things with Jasede.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Beat Sonic 1 again today. Still a good game, better than I remembered. Only real shitty part is Spring Yard Zone with those retarded moving block segments that bored me to tears. Sonic 1 puts more emphasis on the pure mechanics of Sonic's movement than later games due to the lack of a spin dash. Rolling down a hill and jumping at just the right angle to unroll while maintaining momentum in order to run up an incline - that's the good shit.

 

[Zerth]

Back in the late 90's during big family reunions, I recall a cousin of mine used to bring his megadrive to play Sonic 3 &Knux multiplayer, It was awesome and as a kid that was my first contact with both the Sega console and Sonic franchise. I didn't play anything related to sonic until adventure 2 battle on gamecube and heh, Sonic skysurfing + Jun Senouse was the most dope shit ever as a teen.

However, after beating SA2 and the SADX on PC, I had to admit even as a teen that the only saving graces were the Sonic Stages, Senouse and some amusing cheesy moments. Everything else was either lame or embarrasing:

• Tails monologues and his whole self-confidence arc was shit and annoying. Considering in-gameplay was already able to beat the crap out of Chaos 4.
• Same applied to amy in both games, and Gamma's melodrama sucked.
• Shoehorning Big the Cat.
• Modern knuckles is lame, and his stages gets boring pretty fast. same with "Bulge" the bat.
• Chaos backstory execution was awful, which most of its exposure was conveyed through Tikal. Whether Tikal harassed you with her inane flashbacks or acted as a tutorial/hint globe, She was an amusingly pointless character. Also, hitting chaos brain as Supah Sanic until He got a concussion in order to tame it, then immediately after attempt to teach a lesson of friendship and faith to the audience was incredibly silly.
• Drawing parallels between Shadow and Chaos, the former stood in a more favourable light when He was introduced as the newest Sonic Nemesis. Maria was just a haunting memory to add more layers of angst to Shadow's backstory, and nothing else, unlike Tikal. Overall, Shadow ended up as better antagonist because the shallow writing of his "tragic" backstory allowed to move on and get straight to business quickly (also that turned out into a misguided retribution was a bit more). Although the GUN army taking over the Station Ark was decidedly as arbitrary as the knuckles ancestors thrashing a bunch of harmless pet chao to get the emeralds. Anyways, Still dumb crap, but waste less your time.
• At least Eggman is pretty consistent as a wacky villain. Although He finding inadmisible that his grandfather Gerald intended to destroy the world was idiotic.

Yet, SA Sonic gameplay is a bit more compelling, albeit the jank, in comparison to the modern boost system. Furthermore, despite that I think the overreliance of cinematic storytelling sucks in general, specially on Sonic's, the voice acting for both Sonic(Griffith) and Eggman (Mike Pollock) are top notch.


Thanks to emulation and ports, I was able to get into classic Sonic (II,CD, III again, mania). And finally enjoyed the franchise without feeling the sting of indulging into a guilty pleasure.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I used to defend Sonic Adventure but it is certainly decline from 3K. I agree with most of your criticisms except that I like the SA2 treasure hunting (SA1's is too fucking easy). The emphasis on cinematic storytelling is awful. S3K is such a tight game with no fat at all and to go from that to the flabby adventure games definitely shows the excesses of Japanese game developers during the 3D boom of the 90s.

Genesis Sonic feels like anyone can play it while Sonic Adventure onwards feel explicitly like kids' games. This got worse after Sonic Unleashed where Sonic became a series for toddlers and autistic manchildren exclusively - and I include Mania in this.

 

[Ash]

Top 5 Sanic stages?

Spring Yard (Sonic 1) - aesthetics and music are OK, but the gameplay really shines here I believe. Going UP is peak sonic, not sidescrolling so fast you can't see a damn thing. Still, love the flow, aesthetics and music of Green Hill.
Casino Night (Sonic 2): once again I wish the music were better on this stage, but a whole bunch of cool shit going on with the pinball and gambling mashup. And again, lots of ascension and descension. No doubt the inspiration for the almighty Sonic Spinball!
Chemical Plant (Sonic 2): nostalgia, music and aesthetics plays a large part since act 1 is largely doing nothing but running into red springs and going through pipelines mindlessly, yet the initially brutal second half of act 2 with the drowning and moving platforms is worth noting. However, the game sets you up for failure by making you go through mindless motions and then springing a bunch of harsh death traps on you so abruptly like that. Not great design but whatever. Cool regardless.
Lava Powerhouse (Sonic Spinball): everything about this level is cool as hell. Except those damn flying clucker robots you have to jump on. The Machine is also really good but Lava Powerhouse is what initially sold me on Sonic Spinball.
Flying Battery (S&K): another all-around cool stage. Crazy machinery, constant ascension, tricky bits segmented with high speed speedways, and badass music that as usual for sonic shows how music can elevate even a relatively simple game experience. Too bad next to none of the modern industry cared for that, only what could possibly target the whole world without excluding anyone. Why, ambient music is the key of course!

Sonic 3 is my least favorite of the classics, though still cool. Introducing save games and powerups was a plus.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Back in the late 90's during big family reunions, I recall a cousin of mine used to bring his megadrive to play Sonic 3 &Knux multiplayer, It was awesome and as a kid that was my first contact with both the Sega console and Sonic franchise. I didn't play anything related to sonic until adventure 2 battle on gamecube and heh, Sonic skysurfing + Jun Senouse was the most dope shit ever as a teen.

However, after beating SA2 and the SADX on PC, I had to admit even as a teen that the only saving graces were the Sonic Stages, Senouse and some amusing cheesy moments. Everything else was either lame or embarrasing:

• Tails monologues and his whole self-confidence arc was shit and annoying. Considering in-gameplay was already able to beat the crap out of Chaos 4.
• Same applied to amy in both games, and Gamma's melodrama sucked.
• Shoehorning Big the Cat.
• Modern knuckles is lame, and his stages gets boring pretty fast. same with "Bulge" the bat.
• Chaos backstory execution was awful, which most of its exposure was conveyed through Tikal. Whether Tikal harassed you with her inane flashbacks or acted as a tutorial/hint globe, She was an amusingly pointless character. Also, hitting chaos brain as Supah Sanic until He got a concussion in order to tame it, then immediately after attempt to teach a lesson of friendship and faith to the audience was incredibly silly.
• Drawing parallels between Shadow and Chaos, the former stood in a more favourable light when He was introduced as the newest Sonic Nemesis. Maria was just a haunting memory to add more layers of angst to Shadow's backstory, and nothing else, unlike Tikal. Overall, Shadow ended up as better antagonist because the shallow writing of his "tragic" backstory allowed to move on and get straight to business quickly (also that turned out into a misguided retribution was a bit more). Although the GUN army taking over the Station Ark was decidedly as arbitrary as the knuckles ancestors thrashing a bunch of harmless pet chao to get the emeralds. Anyways, Still dumb crap, but waste less your time.
• At least Eggman is pretty consistent as a wacky villain. Although He finding inadmisible that his grandfather Gerald intended to destroy the world was idiotic.

Yet, SA Sonic gameplay is a bit more compelling, albeit the jank, in comparison to the modern boost system. Furthermore, despite that I think the overreliance of cinematic storytelling sucks in general, specially on Sonic's, the voice acting for both Sonic(Griffith) and Eggman (Mike Pollock) are top notch.


Thanks to emulation and ports, I was able to get into classic Sonic (II,CD, III again, mania). And finally enjoyed the franchise without feeling the sting of indulging into a guilty pleasure.

sounds like you dont like anime

 

[Falksi]

I'll say this, I've just finished replaying all the SNES Donkey Kong Country games, and I'd take Sonic over all those any day of the week.

DKC2 was enjoyable in parts, but 1 & 3 are fucking atrocious. Full of gimmicky shit.

I'll be glad when I get around to replaying Sonic 2.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Well, you know. Japanese games are superioriest!

 

[Ash]

I'll say this, I've just finished replaying all the SNES Donkey Kong Country games, and I'd take Sonic over all those any day of the week.

DKC2 was enjoyable in parts, but 1 & 3 are fucking atrocious. Full of gimmicky shit.

I'll be glad when I get around to replaying Sonic 2.

You joyless fuck.

DKC games are pretty good and most of the time the "gimmicks" are just a modifier of the core gameplay, you know, just like in SMB which you like: ghost levels where you avoid the enemy instead of touching, ice levels which adjust movement, forced side scrolling screen levels forcing a certain pace, swimming levels...all the same shit so I am not understanding your argument at all. The real problem with DKC is the low FOV hindering gameplay a bit, but they're still pretty solid games.
DKC3 is a bit too gimmicky and goes off the rails with silly minigames, don't recommend (though it's not terrible) and whoever recommended that you should probably not take recommendations from in the future, but DKC1 & 2 are good.

 

[Falksi]

I'll say this, I've just finished replaying all the SNES Donkey Kong Country games, and I'd take Sonic over all those any day of the week.

DKC2 was enjoyable in parts, but 1 & 3 are fucking atrocious. Full of gimmicky shit.

I'll be glad when I get around to replaying Sonic 2.

You joyless fuck.

DKC games are pretty good and most of the time the "gimmicks" are just a modifier of the core gameplay, you know, just like in SMB which you like: ghost levels where you avoid the enemy instead of touching, ice levels which adjust movement, forced side scrolling screen levels forcing a certain pace, swimming levels...all the same shit so I am not understanding your argument at all. The real problem with DKC is the low FOV hindering gameplay a bit, but they're still pretty solid games.
DKC3 is a bit too gimmicky and goes off the rails with silly minigames, don't recommend (though it's not terrible) and whoever recommended that you should probably not take recommendations from in the future, but DKC1 & 2 are good.

Bah fucking humbug.

1 is some of the most basic, one-step, god-awful shit going. How can you make a game based around monkeys and have little/no verticality in the game? It's daft.

And barrels. Fucking barrels everywhere throughout. You can complete one stage in DKC2 by literally pressing 1 button for 90% of it. It's boring as fuck and not far off a QTE.

And the problem with the gimmicks is that they fucking DROWN the stages in them with little break between. Whatever idea you get presented with from the start, well they usually pretty much recycle that from every angle going 10-15 times over.

For example, this stage below.....

.......sees you replay the same idea of dodging-whilst-climbing 5 times in a row, then into a bonus stage which is dodge-climb based, then some more dodging-whilst-climbing 4 times in a row. Here you actually get to take a swift break from that by being able to nab a secret token. Then shortly afterwards they repeat the same dodge-climb gimmick for a final 3 times. That's 12 times over if you don't include the bonus stage to essentially form 1 stage. The lack of variety is truly fucking mind-numbing. So it's not just what's done, it's the way that it's done.

And fucking Dixie and Kiddie Kong look like Harvey & Katie Price too.......