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All the S@nics - the end

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Mata Hari
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Mata Hari »

I'm getting the distinct impression that, if the neutral goals are mostly Get To The End, raocow might end up taking a neutral route first
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Paragraph »

Mata Hari wrote: 3 years ago I'm getting the distinct impression that, if the neutral goals are mostly Get To The End, raocow might end up taking a neutral route first
That is pretty much guaranteed. Finishing any other route is usually so much more work, and often hidden well/obscurely, that you'll probably never do it on your first go unless you really deliberately avoid Neutral.

raocow, the checkpoints are now those circle pads on the ground. You get some rings for activating them and then they glow green. You missed one twice and each time died with the car shortly after, setting you way back. Keep an eye out for them! You can also use them, as the game told you, to teleport back through the level to look for keys, missed enemies for your kill goal, or other mission objectives.

To reiterate what even a lot of defenders of the game have to say: yeah the controls are ass. It's hard to see from a video alone, but Shadow is not only slippery as hell, he also accelerates way too quickly and abruptly. Like, first he doesn't get anywhere, suddenly he flies off. I have the feeling they made it like that because the levels are huge, often feature long stretches where it's a bit "enemy corridor" style, and you have to re-explore to find the last foes often, so they wanted you to be able to traverse quickly. Unsurprisingly, it introduces way more problems than it fixes.


The level design in general is, imo, trash anyway. Anytime it's open, you get lost. Anytime it's linear, it's boring. You often have to stop and do pointless mini-tasks (kill all enemies to open a cage, but now they have superlong health bars, better hope you brought a good gun; hoist a bus/bomb; etc.), and it's way worse if it's a kill x things mission, or activate x switches, or...any mission, really. Because Shadow is both floaty/sluggish AND too fast, platforming is a bizarre chore, so whenever the levels get more demanding, you won't like the added challenge. Vehicles are pointless, dangerous to use, clunky and add nothing. The stage gimmicks are varied (that's a clear plus), but most of them are ass, so whatever. I think it's very telling that the blue bar lets you

skip vast swathes of level

, also showing how super linear most of them are - and it's a terrible idea to use it if you are looking for something, ofc.

Overall, there's little redeeming about this to me. Lots of varied content. Money's worth. It works the way it was intended, mostly. So bad it's good cutscenes/styling as a fascinating time capsule of early 2000's Zeitgeist. But playing this for fun, without nostalgia, in tyool 2021? I don't see it. I'd take even 2006 over it any time, that game at least has some fun levels with clever design.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by camwoodstock »

look at it this way: shadow the hedgehog is the absolute nadir of this series besides sonic shuffle (which has already been played), and depending on if you feel they're not qualified to be so bad it's good, sonic 06 and sonic boom. it can only go up from there
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Paragraph »

I started playing Forces recently because I discovered it in my Steam library on accident and it's a sheer endless string of boring, content- and substanceless, unmemorable 30-second-levels that mostly play themselves, so it's difficult to say really. I'd take Shadow over Forces with me on a desert island because it would at least give me something to do.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Blivsey »

Cyril wrote: 3 years ago this game is so funny and it also has a lot of good ideas it doesn't execute well
ironically enough, the guns themselves are done pretty alright
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by 10204307 »

God, the first level in this game really just hits you in the face with all kinds of stimuli right out of the gate, huh? I get that they wanted to start with a chaotic level in order to set the game's tone, but it's pretty hard to get your bearings when everything is constantly exploding around you.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by KobaBeach »

camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago look at it this way: shadow the hedgehog is the absolute nadir of this series
sonic blast: exists
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by camwoodstock »

as an aside from all the Shadow talk; will Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 technically count for All The Sonics since Sonic has been added to the game as a DLC character? (it's not the first time a puyo game with sonic in it was played for this series, just look at Mean Bean Machine)
Paragraph wrote: 3 years ago I started playing Forces recently because I discovered it in my Steam library on accident and it's a sheer endless string of boring, content- and substanceless, unmemorable 30-second-levels that mostly play themselves, so it's difficult to say really. I'd take Shadow over Forces with me on a desert island because it would at least give me something to do.
personally i'm more willing to give forces an edge for two reasons; one, the soundtrack is pretty good, and i don't care what anyone says, the boost song does indeed slap. secondly, forces does have cool IDEAS that sadly didn't really come through too well. the idea of a character creator in sonic is actually super dope, and also infinite is a really cool character design and concept. but sadly the gameplay itself is just. largely unremarkable and also they didn't really *do* much with infinite, and it kinda bums me out?
KobaBeach wrote: 3 years ago sonic blast: exists
i'll give you that one tbh. blast is at least technically impressive but MAN it doesn't translate into a fun game to play like... at all...
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Blivsey »

camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago personally i'm more willing to give forces an edge for two reasons; one, the soundtrack is pretty good, and i don't care what anyone says, the boost song does indeed slap.
so is pretty much every sonic soundtrack

yes, even this one

yes, even the one you're about to mention

unless it's

chronicles or boom

or one of the obscure ones you're pulling from just to counter me
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by ravenousbadger »

I will say this about Shadow the Hedgehog: I was 13 when this game came out, and if you can put yourself in the mindset where you take the game seriously and without a hint of irony, you will understand what it was like being a teenager in the mid-2000s.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Zarcyne1 »

First DK64, now Shadow, rao's playing all the terrible games from my childhood. rao getting spooked by the first sound of the game is great. As a stupid kid it took me a long time to get the premise of this game. This will be fun.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Grounder »

wow lois this is worse than the time i launched an alien invasion in westopolis
Why don't you eat me?

I am perfectly tasty...

AND I'LL STEAL YOUR SOUL! :twisted:

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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by camwoodstock »

Blivsey wrote: 3 years ago
camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago personally i'm more willing to give forces an edge for two reasons; one, the soundtrack is pretty good, and i don't care what anyone says, the boost song does indeed slap.
so is pretty much every sonic soundtrack

yes, even this one

yes, even the one you're about to mention

unless it's

chronicles or boom

or one of the obscure ones you're pulling from just to counter me
...i was gonna say eraser tbh
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by TiKi »

Paragraph wrote: 3 years agoTo reiterate what even a lot of defenders of the game have to say: yeah the controls are ass. It's hard to see from a video alone, but Shadow is not only slippery as hell, he also accelerates way too quickly and abruptly. Like, first he doesn't get anywhere, suddenly he flies off. I have the feeling they made it like that because the levels are huge, often feature long stretches where it's a bit "enemy corridor" style, and you have to re-explore to find the last foes often, so they wanted you to be able to traverse quickly. Unsurprisingly, it introduces way more problems than it fixes.
oh i see we're using physics like those the games factory/the games factory 2/click & create/multimedia fusion sonic fangames you'd find on SFGHQ and caiman.us before anyone created an actual good reusable sonic template for those
camwoodstock wrote: 3 years agoi'll give you that one tbh. blast is at least technically impressive but MAN it doesn't translate into a fun game to play like... at all...
it's bizarrely impressive given that the game boy colour couldn't make games that looked like this even five years later in 2001. too bad that made the game gear guzzle batteries and that the game part is mostly horrible
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Chirei »

despite the emphasis on realistic looking guns, I think the most common gun in this game is that weird alien gun that looks like a toilet seat cover, so really the cover art should look something like this

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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by Leet »

camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago as an aside from all the Shadow talk; will Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 technically count for All The Sonics since Sonic has been added to the game as a DLC character? (it's not the first time a puyo game with sonic in it was played for this series, just look at Mean Bean Machine)
the all the sonic rules were all outlined very clearly in video number zero! well at least theyve always seemed very clear to me (and presumably raocow)

"Puyo Puyo Tetris 2" does not contain the name of a sonic character in it. games like "flicky" and "dr. robotnik's mean bean machine" do. there are a LOT of games that sonic appears as a character in - to add puyo puyo tetris 2 would also entail adding smash bros brawl, super monkey ball banana blitz hd, lego dimensions, billy hatcher, christmas nights, a ton of mobile games etc
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.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Heavy Sigh »

Fun Shadow Facts!

Now, Sonic Team USA, having renamed themselves Sega Studios USA after the completion of the absolute trial that was Heroes, were not so foolish as to begin development of a game based solely on an official poll. In fact, the poll was made simply to gauge potential fan reaction for the unveiling. Honestly, something like Shadow the Hedgehog had been gestating ever since Sonic Adventure 2, where Takashi Iizuka had come up with a plethora of angles to tackle using the character during development, and he hadn't managed to use them all to his liking. After wrapping up production of Sonic Heroes, Iizuka had become a bit bored with how the previous titles has been aimed at a younger audience, and was wanting to appeal to an older demographic, and attract those who might not otherwise play a Sonic title. With an older demo in mind, he was also wanting to capitalize on the story elements of the previous games, putting a focus on the mysterious nature of Shadow and his origins, answering the many burning questions fans had been asking over the previous two games.

The fact that he was wanting to appeal to an older demographic with what was still at heart a children's cartoon mascot never seemed to merit any closer examination from SEGA leadership at the time, even when he started having the staff watch films like Underworld, Constantine and Terminator for tonal guidance.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by CrispyMWHC »

Evil Peter is my newest favorite character rename.

Also
raocow wrote: 3 years ago 4:52 "those guns are like straight out of Halo"
Now that's an LP I'd like to see one day.
raocow wrote: 3 years ago oh SHIT

THE PROCEDURES
raocow wrote: 3 years ago I can't believe my mystical wizard friend told me to touch grass.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Paragraph »

This level is absolutely hilarious when you get your blue bar full, because:

the zoom-ahead-meter doesn't drain while you're in an area it can't set you down after it's run out, so you'll skip ahead through aaaaall the tornado and loop parts. Then, it also kills all dark enemies that get in your way, and there's a lot of them, so it constantly gets refilled. That means you can skip a WHOLE lot of it with just one bar.

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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by SAJewers »

Leet wrote: 3 years ago
camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago as an aside from all the Shadow talk; will Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 technically count for All The Sonics since Sonic has been added to the game as a DLC character? (it's not the first time a puyo game with sonic in it was played for this series, just look at Mean Bean Machine)
the all the sonic rules were all outlined very clearly in video number zero! well at least theyve always seemed very clear to me (and presumably raocow)

"Puyo Puyo Tetris 2" does not contain the name of a sonic character in it. games like "flicky" and "dr. robotnik's mean bean machine" do. there are a LOT of games that sonic appears as a character in - to add puyo puyo tetris 2 would also entail adding smash bros brawl, super monkey ball banana blitz hd, lego dimensions, billy hatcher, christmas nights, a ton of mobile games etc
iirc raocow did actually state he was considering playing the sonic campaign for lego dimensions.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by LunarRainbowShyGuy »

I was expecting raocow to just take the neutral route his first time through, but he actually did the dark mission in this level. I guess it's a lot easier to find 5 things than it is to find 50. The first time I played this game I tried to do the hero mission in the first level, but I couldn't find all the enemies, so I decided "if the missions are going to be like this then I'm not going to bother with them". Then I proceeded to just do the normal mission in every level for my first playthrough.

Much like in Sonic Heroes I like how the characters that are with you give the tutorials. Although one strange thing is that sometimes some characters will give you more information than others. For instance, when talking about how you can change mission characters in the pause menu, Knuckles is the only character so far that will tell you that you can also use the control pad. That would have been nice to know the first time, but I went through several playthroughs without knowing about that. Anyway, my favourite part about the tutorials is that if you don't have anyone with you Shadow will just monologue to himself about the game mechanics, which I find funny.

Speaking of funny dialogue, I like how the characters, upon reaching a dead end, decide that they have no choice but to jump into the tornado.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by xnamkcor »

I don't care what path or ending he gets as long as he kills the president.
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by KobaBeach »

xnamkcor wrote: 3 years ago I don't care what path or ending he gets as long as he kills the president.
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camwoodstock wrote: 3 years ago
KobaBeach wrote: 3 years ago sonic blast: exists
i'll give you that one tbh. blast is at least technically impressive but MAN it doesn't translate into a fun game to play like... at all...
the anti donkey kong land, even if i didnt much care for donkey kong land other than its creativity

forces' avatar stage soundtracks own. space port and park avenue fucking rule
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - In My Remains

Post by Blivsey »

LunarRainbowShyGuy wrote: 3 years ago Speaking of funny dialogue, I like how the characters, upon reaching a dead end, decide that they have no choice but to jump into the tornado.
To be fair, Sonic characters have been gleefully leaping into tornadoes since Windy Valley at the least
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Re: All Of Sh@d@w - 1 - Burning In The Skies

Post by FourteenthOrder »

Leet wrote: 3 years ago "Puyo Puyo Tetris 2" does not contain the name of a sonic character in it. games like "flicky" and "dr. robotnik's mean bean machine" do. there are a LOT of games that sonic appears as a character in - to add puyo puyo tetris 2 would also entail adding smash bros brawl, super monkey ball banana blitz hd, lego dimensions, billy hatcher, christmas nights, a ton of mobile games etc
But are the Puyos mentioned in the title "Puyo Puyo" not just as major in Mean Bean Machine as the Flickies are in the Sonic games they appear in? Clearly the Puyos are important Sonic characters and thus every Puyo Puyo game belongs in AtS.
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