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All the S@nics - the end

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Grounder
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Grounder »

if this was 06, sonic's challenge would have been outright cruel
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by helucard »

wait, hold on, that's worrying - I've started recalling some similar unresponsiveness in the controls back in my experience. I assumed it was my PSP at the time though... Is this game just like that? Can anyone else here confirm that?
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by BobisOnlyBob »

I have always wondered why I've heard so little about this game and now I fear I know why.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by helucard »

BobisOnlyBob wrote: 2 years ago I have always wondered why I've heard so little about this game and now I fear I know why.
If you want me to be entirely honest...
It's probably because it's super short. We're talking a total of

6 stages

and

every character's stages are the same

, as well as

their gameplay, except their special move

. Along with that,

the unlockable after clearing the four stories doesn't even have a story option, so you're left with challenges and multiplayer, in which the maps do not change at all. The only incentive is gathering more cards, though they can, and will, throw duplicates at you. That said, very specific groups of cards unlock costume pieces for certain characters, but it's ultimately not a huge deal.

. I'd go so far as to say that if rao is even feeling up to playing the challenge stuff after the main game is clear, my opinion is that a single video to showcase the attempts would be reflective of the experience, and since the only reward

is more cards, potentially duplicates

, I am of the opinion that finishing them all would be a fruitless endeavour.
Despite that, I still firmly state that I enjoyed playing this game way back when. It was a fun way to pass the time when I was in a car or something, even if sometimes a little stressful.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Paragraph »

QTEs are the fucking pits, but maybe it would help you if you thought of them like normal parts of a Sonic level, just more...abstracted? After all, you're always pushing the jump button in time to clear pits, you've pushed the slide/action button to go under stuff without slowing down, you push the action button in time to zoom along ring trails, etc. - this is the same principle here, but in a one-size-fits-all package.

Also when you first scrolled through the level list, one could see that Act 3 only has two levels, now we know why.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by helucard »

Paragraph wrote: 2 years ago You're always pushing the jump button in time to clear pits
In the distance, you hear the reverberating echoes of ages passed. They call to you in four short words, shaking you to your very foundations as you internalise their meaning... "The jump didn't jump."
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Heavy Sigh »

Fun Sonic Facts!

Although Backbone enjoyed quite a bit of freedom in developing Sonic Rivals, Takashi Iizuka (who had been installed as Director of the title) had final say on everything in the game to ensure it would fit in with SEGA's vision for the current crop of Sonic games. Level design was a bit of a hassle, since many of the original games alternate paths ended at walls, making for terrible racing gameplay. Thus, designers had to plan every path to easily flow into and out of the main path to ensure that the game's competitive racing gimmick wouldn't break at a player's first mistake. The majority of development was handled by Backbone, with some occasional assistance from Sega Studio USA described as 'a guiding hand' by the team, although things like the story and much of the environment design were done entirely by Sega. SEGA actually chose to develop for the PSP over the Nintendo DS because the DS's hard limit of 2048 polygons per frame left the game looking too ugly to be acceptable as a multiplayer game.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Grounder »

i will say this game has some very nice-looking levels

but nothing else of note
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Leet »

"Nobody says the words 'the future'... except people from the future!"
Well it is a decent hack but sometime its just too repetitif there no level that actually pop in your face and your like oh yeah that level they all ressemble themselves and just monster along the way.
Blood Ghoul wrote:Sometimes it seems my blood spurts out in gobs, as if it were a fountain's pulsing sobs. I clearly hear it mutter as it goes yet cannot find the wound from which it flows. Before I met you, baby, I didn't know what I was missing.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by KobaBeach »

started watching this lp and i think its funny that raocow is just not getting any of the rules of the game while i got them first shot at the age of like 10? was it because i had the manual?
helucard wrote: 2 years ago
BobisOnlyBob wrote: 2 years ago I have always wondered why I've heard so little about this game and now I fear I know why.
If you want me to be entirely honest...
(spoiler)

Despite that, I still firmly state that I enjoyed playing this game way back when. It was a fun way to pass the time when I was in a car or something, even if sometimes a little stressful.
Pretty much. 2 is slightly better but still not by much. I'm glad I got this just to experience a strange obscure piece of Sonic history, but I really should have gone with Rush lol
Heavy Sigh wrote: 2 years ago SEGA actually chose to develop for the PSP over the Nintendo DS because the DS's hard limit of 2048 polygons per frame left the game looking too ugly to be acceptable as a multiplayer game.
just use sprites for fucks sake god damnit adsiofnskldfm
Grounder wrote: 2 years ago i will say this game has some very nice-looking levels

but nothing else of note
the saddest part is that this was my sole knowledge of psp games until like blazblue and castlevania dracula x chronicles because i used to play nothing but sonic. again, i wanted the megaman games but i couldn't find them

trying to become more informed on the rpg front now at least
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Grounder »

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together they can overcome all the odds

it's never as hard as it seems
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by Dragon Fogel »

"My goal is to just play badly and then Metal Sonic will be stuck on something stupid."

I think I found my nominee for raoquote of the year.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by helucard »

Dragon Fogel wrote: 2 years ago "My goal is to just play badly and then Metal Sonic will be stuck on something stupid."

I think I found my nominee for raoquote of the year.
Seconded

Also, this boss is like impossible to lose unless you literally don't try. There's a fair few obstacles, but largely it's a case of keeping active and repeatedly kicking metal sonic firmly in the visor repeatedly. It's enough to make a dog cry.

Speaking of crying dogs, have you seen the artwork for the Metal Hound in today's stage?
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by helucard »

So I gotta say, this has been my first time Properly hearing the music for this game because, shocker, the PSP's actual speaker is made of tin foil and prayers. I knew the basic beat, but this marks the first time I've seen recorded gameplay with the music in its highest quality form. Which I gotta say, especially for these last stages, it's pretty decent.

Also, I support the decision to try to speed through the remaining stories at doublepace for the sake of documentation, especially due to, as said in the video, the profound LACK of documentation on this game - to the point of blatant playground-tier garbage when you look up tips online.
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Re: All the S@nics - Rivals - Blue

Post by KobaBeach »

raocow wrote:it would not take a lot of effort to find [someone who only has a base knowledge of sonic as a concept]
carol brutal mario.

as of like, the weird impromptu pm exchange """""""""interview""""""""" roberto did back in like 2013, they literally stated "they don't know much about sonic" which is understandable as they live in japan and sonic never really had a foothold in japan

and as someone with near encyclopedic knowledge of the brutal mario demos, demo 6 notwithstanding, i could seriously believe sonic rivals is sonic 4, as you truly imagined it sonic, as carol imagined it
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by Grounder »

"grr, i am angry that i won" - knuckles

also, while red would technically have been acceptable for this gimmick... yeah, it's kind of cheating
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by helucard »

raocow wrote:this is probably the fastest I've ever regretted something. not the most intense regret though, like I'll get over it but... uhm. hm. yeah.
Honestly, I was maybe a little too enthusiastic about the 2 zones per day thing.

I mean, thinking about it,
--- Everyone gets a regular 1 zone/day video series (3 levels per video, requires the same amount of time and effort as normal, 18 vids total)
--- We do this 2 zone/day setup (6 levels per video, twice the normal effort, half the total videos)
--- We do Knuckles, Shadows and Silver's zones simultaneously, 1 zone per vid 3 times over (9 levels per video, three times the effort, 6 vids total)

And honestly, if the middle ground is not feeling too great, I'm not sure what to suggest to help. Whatever works best for you.
If you just wanna get this one over and done with, then the faster approach might be better for you, but if two zones / day is too much, then returning to the prior format is always an option.

Best of luck either way.
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by KobaBeach »

Grounder wrote: 2 years ago "grr, i am angry that i won" - knuckles

also, while red would technically have been acceptable for this gimmick... yeah, it's kind of cheating
i think i know who you're gonna pick for silver's campaign and i forgive you just for that pun

i wish we could put may in one of them even if she wasn't very big a rival

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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by Kleetus »

As it turns out, echidnas don't have fangs, they don't even have teeth. They grind their food, termites, using their tongue. Small or no teeth are pretty common among mammals that feed exclusively on termites.
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by Paragraph »

Despite the obvious fatigue, raocow has gotten a lot better at the game. I think the big problem with Rivals is that your skill doesn't matter too much because of the absurd rubber-banding. He's having the same amount of success as he had when he was missing all the QTEs now that he intuits most of them.

In an ideal world, this game would make you lose if you get hit too often, or make you work to catch up by clever application of the power-ups, and the pushing-blocks-obstacles, and so on. Instead, they couldn't figure out the enemy AI, so terrible obvious rubberbanding it is.

In a vacuum, I think these levels could be rather fun. Yeah, there's a lot of automated setpieces, but it looks like some of the chain-bouncing segments, or where you have to go circle-circle-X for an optimal path through some QTE boosters, would be really cool to pull of perfectly. But there's no reward, so whatever. Even S-Ranking seems to mostly boil down to getting as many rings as possible, though I haven't tried the game myself to see (honestly, don't feel like it, that's how mediocre the whole affair seems).

It's a bit of a shame. With a bit more care put into the mechanics and - honestly - the presentation (why are there no level title cards? Just sloppy), this could be a fun handheld arcadey title, where you can spend a ten minute car ride to blast through three levels, like "oh I still want to get the S-Rank with Silver in this one, and it's honestly just fun playing the ice stage as Knuckles so I'm gonna". I'm sure it can still work like work especially if it's, like, one of the few games you have on PSP and you still have the uncritical mind of a child, but with adult perspective in the context of all the other Sonics, well, uh
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by helucard »

So yeah, as you noticed with Silver's race at the first act when Silver left a tornado and shock-rings in the same spot, the AI can just... use items whenever. It has no inhibitions about chaining them, regardless of whether or not they've collected them. It's like Mario 64 in Toad's Turnpike, you're the only one who dips into the pockets on the side of the road for the item boxes, but other racers are using items anyway.

The downside to this is that your rival can and will collect items on the track for the sole purpose of preventing you getting them. Even if you put aside the noneuclidean rubber banding, the AI is straight up just a cheating trashfire.

... And yet I still remember enjoying this game o_o
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by KobaBeach »

helucard wrote: 2 years ago ... And yet I still remember enjoying this game o_o
That's because the game isn't really that hard, input lag aside. The hardest things about most Sonic games is reaction times and like The Barrel. Or Sonic 1 16bit and Sonic 2 8bit just being Sonic 1 16bit and Sonic 2 8bit. Also Sonic 06 and Unleashed PS3/360 those are also stupid.
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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by Grounder »

looking forward to eight(!) playthroughs of rivals 2
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by KobaBeach »

Grounder wrote: 2 years ago looking forward to eight(!) playthroughs of rivals 2
oh no. i forgot about this

i thought it was just tails and rouge but no it's espio too with a campaign for metal

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Re: All the S@nics & Knockles - Rivals - Bede

Post by Grounder »

yeah the easier explanation here is that knuckles was just lied to
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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