All the S@nics - the end

[Bean]

You know, the game itself doesn't do a whole lot for me, but I appreciate the level of detail they try to put in to the characters' expressions. I mean, this game released in Japan the same year as Metal Gear Solid. Sonic Adventure clearly has the advantage over that game in terms of trying to make the cutscenes more emotive than Solid's stationary characters.

It's like the exact opposite of when we were in the whole Super Mario 64 vs. Crash Bandicoot vs. Sonic 3D Blast deal. Adventure holds up in some regards without a doubt.

[BobisOnlyBob]

You know, the game itself doesn't do a whole lot for me, but I appreciate the level of detail they try to put in to the characters' expressions. I mean, this game released in Japan the same year as Metal Gear Solid. Sonic Adventure clearly has the advantage over that game in terms of trying to make the cutscenes more emotive than Solid's stationary characters.

Try is the operative word here - the expressions snap and distort in quite alarming ways, doing less conveyance and more "what the fuck even was that?!" to my eyes - so sure, it''s an improvement over the mouthless face of Mario in 64 or Snake's completely faded-out face (a vast 644 polys for his entire model!), but I find that those games have held up better because the expressions remain consistent and more is done with reliable and repeatable body language (primarily arms and posture), instead of a toon-flapping mouth, or arms that bend one moment and then snap back the next. In Sonic Adventure, characters transition through some scenes normally, and other times they snap from offscreen to a new location with zero fluidity or grace, like Sonic "boarding" the Tornado in last episode, or Sonic and Tails disembarking today. But I can still respect their ambition, even if I can't help but criticise the implementation... that's kind of how it goes with Sonic games all too often.

[Heavy Sigh]

Fun Sonic Facts!

The Egg Carrier was actually not originally a flying carrier! During the concept art phase, both designs of it as a train and as a submarine were produced before its final design was chosen, as well as a design where the laser cannon on the front was replaced with a giant blade.

[Blivsey]

Sonic's definitely supposed to jump off that cliff instead of suddenly teleporting to the Tornado, but sometimes the game forgets

[BobisOnlyBob]

Sonic's definitely supposed to jump off that cliff instead of suddenly teleporting to the Tornado, but sometimes the game forgets

[Heavy Sigh]

Fun Sonic Facts!

Though Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (plus a fair bit of Amy's) core gameplay concepts had been easily hammered out by the team, Iizuka felt that without something to really shake up the games pace, they wouldn't attract any new buyers to the Dreamcast at all. Therefore, they needed new characters and new playstyles to reel in new players, with the first of these new characters having the most marketable change of all.

A gun.

This was something none of the previous established cast could believably use, and so the team drafted up E-102 Gamma, a robot warrior of Eggmans that could shift the plot off Sonic and friends whenever needed. More importantly, his run'n'gun gameplay was actually a direct result of people writing in to Sonic Team asking for gunplay to be added to the Sonic series, and thus would be sure to get their dollars into SEGA's hands.

[kitikami]

I'm not sure if i'm more baffled that multiple people wrote to Sega asking for gunplay to be added to Sonic, or that Sega responded with, "You know what, sure."

[Arctangent]

I'm not sure if i'm more baffled that multiple people wrote to Sega asking for gunplay to be added to Sonic, or that Sega responded with, "You know what, sure."

shadow got a game solely because people really wanted sonic to have a gun, and sonic team rightfully thought that was ridiculous



not a sonic hedgehog using a gun. just specifically sonic. otherwise, y'know, shadow the hedgehog the game would not exist

[xnamkcor]

Sonic launches the rocket as a distraction, then teleports.

[Heavy Sigh]

Fun Sonic Facts!

With runnin'n'gunnin sorted out for new character E-102 Gamma, Iizuka still wanted something to really change up the core gameplay loop, but was at a loss for what to do. That's when one of the SEGA chairmen dropped by one day, raving about his idea for a fishing rod controller. Struck with the idea, the second of Adventure's new characters was born. Big the Cat was created to be a character that "went at his own pace" and broke up the intense nature of the other five. As well, fishing made perfect sense for Big since he was a cat.

And as for the controller idea that kicked it off? In a twist that could only happen to SEGA, the fishing rod controller took too long in development and thus could not be used to fish with Big.

Fun BIG Facts.

Big the Cat is voiced by Jon St. John, voice actor of DUKE NUKEM.

[thatguyif]

Uh, raocow? The game doesn't use the letter G to reference Gamma.

It uses the letter E to reference E-102 "γ." (You see that in the opening of the video...the E is clearly visible at the end of the letters listed)

I suspect this character was meant to be a one-off dealio, and when it became popular, they decided to make Omega.

[AlchemistHohenheim]

A recap of Chaos' forms up to this point:

0: Vaguely humanoid water creature
1: Vaguely humanoid water creature with one over-sized arm
2: Vaguely humanoid water creature with two over-sized arms
4: Weird shark water creature
6: Weird...scorpion crab thing water creature

[KobaBeach]

I suspect this character was meant to be a one-off dealio, and when it became popular, they decided to make Omega.

They actually planned to bring him back for Heroes along with Chaos 0, Fang, Bark, Bean, Mighty and Ray but they all got scrapped. Source (spoilers for Adventure 2).

The

Shadow

discourse gets me every single time

[Blivsey]

I suspect this character was meant to be a one-off dealio, and when it became popular, they decided to make Omega.

Omega ends up being a more fun character anyway.

Significantly more shallow, yes, but significantly more fun.

[Zummorr]

So when can we expect a reading of this 1953 book about our favorite Hedgehog and Fox.

[KobaBeach]

i dont want to bully cuz this might be ronco being rusty with age and having not played adventure in A While but like

seeing him refrain from using the homing attack when it would be useful to get away from danger or to more easily get an item/badnik is kinda sorta making me wince

[thatguyif]

The

Shadow

discourse gets me every single time

I'm more concerned about that poster's avatar

[Piesonscreations]

oh no, why is this megaman an emote now.

Also, very out of left field for SEGA to add Biggie Smalls into the game.

[KobaBeach]

I'm more concerned about that poster's avatar

She's from Kaiji, they're a fan

[thatguyif]

But those teeth tho D:

[thatguyif]

You know, the game itself doesn't do a whole lot for me, but I appreciate the level of detail they try to put in to the characters' expressions. I mean, this game released in Japan the same year as Metal Gear Solid. Sonic Adventure clearly has the advantage over that game in terms of trying to make the cutscenes more emotive than Solid's stationary characters.

I think that's an unfair comparison to make, Bean. For one, you're failing to take into account that Sonic Adventure was on the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast's hardware was much better than the Playstation's. I mean, in terms of raw power, PSX was the weakest of three consoles of its generation. It was made essentially at the start of the 3D gaming era, so it was highly limited in terms of what it was capable of doing, such was the case with other consoles of the time. Those limitations were most evident when creating realistic human models. With a few exceptions, faces were limited to a handful of textured polygons back then. To even emote would mean using different textures, which most games didn't do. Hell, the only real way to show any sort of expression with those consoles was to NOT use realistic human models (as was the case with most Nintendo games of the time). On the other hand, the Dreamcast had much more power to work with, and thus could actually pull off facial expressions using rigging (the technical term for muscular/skeletal placement in 3D models) instead just textures.

Secondly, and this is extremely important, 3D modeling had yet to advance to the level where humans could emote effectively in 1998. This was a combination of a lack of powerful enough hardware to do this and continuing development of a process to do so. While Sonic Adventure was a major advance in terms of applying rigging to facial expressions, this had yet to be extrapolated to human characters in any significant way. Techniques and processes were still being worked on, and the hardware wasn't quite there (yet). So, much of the early period of the subsequent console generation (say, 1999-2000) relied heavily on textured polygons (see: Grandia II, Skies of Arcadia, etc.) Metal Gear Solid 2 was actually one of the first big games that applied rigging to facial expression, but the functionality was limited. (Final Fantasy X did a better job of it) And even then, 2001-2002 was a transitional period. It's not until 2003 onward that games that used realistic humans capable of the level of facial expression seen in Sonic Adventure became a norm. I recall there being a YouTube video made last year that discusses all this at length.

[FPzero]

i dont want to bully cuz this might be ronco being rusty with age and having not played adventure in A While but like

seeing him refrain from using the homing attack when it would be useful to get away from danger or to more easily get an item/badnik is kinda sorta making me wince

While I generally agree with you, the homing attack in 1 is definitely a little more finicky than in future games, especially when it comes to quick, repeated use of it to chain jumps. And unlike SA2 it doesn't really have a lot of horizontal distance to it. It's more affected by gravity, where future games let it extend your distance without losing height.

[Kilgamayan]

oh no, why is this megaman an emote now.

viewtopic.php?f=12&p=443751#p443726

[Crow]

I'm sanic

[Piesonscreations]

oh no, why is this megaman an emote now.

viewtopic.php?f=12&p=443751#p443726

You have gone out of your way to unleash this blue devil into this forum. how dare you.