#again not Abysmal just like. yeah its a sonic game. like you know how much fun it is to make fun of sa1 cutscenes. its like that

[beatcroc]

overall sonic frontiers opinion so far is the core game design is genuinely fantastic but they're also kind of weirdly awful at minor quality of life stuff

[spinningbuster98]

So...now that the initial hype (and bewilderment?) for the trailer has largely subsided I would like to give my own personal thoughts on Sonic X Shadow Generations

I'm not happy

In fact after the initial feeling of "holy shit they're actually doing this!?" wore off I got pretty goddamn furious if I'm gonna be honest

Putting aside the fact that I am not the biggest fan of Shadow's game, in fact I can quite comfortably say that I hate it, a sentiment that I confirmed for myself after replaying it for a marathon roughly 2 years ago, so much so that, if it weren't for 06 and Secret Rings existing (and maybe Chronicles as well), it would quite easily be the worst Sonic game to me.

Putting aside also the fact that it is very likely to be written by Mr Ian-I can't work with these Shadow mandates man!-Flynn, whose track record on not only the IDW comic but also Frontiers leaves... quite a lot to be desired, especially when referencing past games is concerned

Putting, once again, aside the fact that what little level design we've seen in the trailer seems to be roughly on the same level as Forces', which should make it at least a tiny bit more inspired than Frontiers' though that's not inspiring much confidence in ME

...why?

Really: why?

Why celebrate Shadow The Hedgehog of all games?

Generations is a celebratory game, a game that, very optimistically, looks back on Sonic's story, both the highlights and yes, even the lowlights, which is why Crisis City was included

However it's one thing to include a level from an infamous game that ruined your reputation as part of your historical celebration while also making it far better than how it was in its original iteration

It's another thing to create a whole seperate story campaign dedicated to revisiting one of the most embarassing entries of Sonic's history, one of the titles that is most responsible for Sonic's reputation going down the drain over the years. And no: I'm not claiming that Shadow's game is the biggest culprit, even before its release Heroes was getting a lot of flack, and as early as the mid 90s, after S3K's release, people were starting to dunk on Sonic a bit. But I think we can all agree that it's when Shadow first appeared with a gun in his hand while cursing like an edgy teen that people collectively agreed that Sonic was now washed out and unsalvageable.

And you know I don't wanna act like this thing is doomed before it's out: it is technically possible that they can deliver something decent both gameplay and writing wise and if they do then I'll eat my own hat and praise it like it deserves!

But I am very doubtful about this, given Sega's quite frankly abysmal recent track record with this stuff, especially in light of Frontiers

And I know: it's just an extra mode bundled with a preexisting good game. Why are you bitching so much?

I'm bitching because this is but a symptom of a larger issue that's been going on for over a decade now, which is Sonic as a series being absolutely dependent on revisiting its past in often half assed ways in an attempt to pander to nostalgic fans rather than, y'know, genuinely and fully moving forward! The actual attitude hasn't really changed in 10 years, it's just that now instead of pandering to the classic elitists they're pandering to the Adventure fans, who will gladly eat this up despite whining for years about nostalgia pandering themselves because all their rhetoric during the past decade was mostly bullshit that can be summed up as "Yeah but they're not pandering to the REAL Sonic aka the one I grew up with!"

There's a part of me that would almost like to praise Sega for "taking it on the chin" so to speak, for wanting to take their chances by revisiting an old, hated game and doing something potentially good with it

But let's be perfectly clear here: Sega's not digging up Shadow's game or SA2 for that matter because they want to redeem them or anything, there are only 3 reasons why they're making this

For the aforementioned Adventure-era pandering, Sega have no doubt noticed that the kids who played Shth back in 2005 have now grown up and love it, while the older fans who bashed it have now largely left the fandom so this game is now free to be used as nostalgia bait

It's Shadow and not only is he so popular that everything with his name attatched to it is bound to sell but his playstyle is 90% Sonic's anyway, so they'll mostly just have to make new animations for him

Sonic Movie 3 is coming and they obviously want to capitalize on it. This game is very clearly for newer fans to serve as a "who this guy is and what his deal is" history lesson

The last 2 reasons are especially obvious because honestly, if they're so adamant on pandering to the Adventure Era nostalgia, then why don't they draw from other, better and more deserving sources?

Why not recreate levels from SA1 and 2 or even Heroes? You can even recreate story scenes from them if you truly want, it would still be pandering but at least stuff like Tails and Amy's character arcs in SA1 are far better written and more respectful to their characters than anything from Shadow's game is towards its own protagonist! Hell why not do something TRULY cool, something that is ACTUALLY unthrodden ground and maybe give us for the very first time 3D versions of levels from the Advance series? Cyber Base and Chaos Angel in 3D anyone? Or maybe the Rush games? With a playable Blaze for the first time since forever? I mean Shadow already had his own DLC episode in Forces and it was pretty ok, why not give someone else their own Episode?

Look: if you like Shadow's game and you like what you see? Good for you, I honestly, genuinely hope that you have a good time

But as for me? A (former?) Sonic fan who hasn't enjoyed anything Sonic related to come out of this entire franchise since 2013 (with the semi exception of Mania and maybe Superstars though I still haven't gotten around to playing it), and who's been extremely cynical of Sega and Sonic Team's way of handling this series? This is just the latest in a long list of nails in the coffin

[justarandomsideblog]

So when I was younger, I was an absolute Sonic nut. It was the first fandom I ever got involved in, the fandom I began making OCs for, fanfics for, the fandom that made me start drawing and discover I loved it. But sometime in the last few years I fell away from it, not because I looked back and “cringed” but simply because the modern games just weren’t... it.

You know what I mean, right? Like there were some good ones, at least good for the 3D games (because let’s be honest, we all love Adventure 1 and 2 but overall they’re not exactly one you play because they’re fun, you just replay them for the nostalgia). Then there have been some abysmal failures. I stuck around through most of it, and then we got to Boom and everything went downhill.

Now keep in mind these are just mine and a few others’ feelings on the matter and if you disagree that’s all well and good.

I tried to give it a chance, I really did. I promise I did. I went into it with an open mind, but I just couldn’t stand Knuckles’ character assassination.

I’m gonna get people mad about this, but I feel like Boom did Knuckles wrong. They looked at him and decided he was just a kind meathead with zero braincells. Some people who watch Boom love it. I despise it. They erased everything that made him, well, him. Is his backstory even mentioned in Boom? The Master Emerald? Angel Island, the Knuckles Clan that he was named for??

For those of you who might not know, Knuckles was introduced as Sonic’s rival back in the 2D games, when Sonic ended up on Angel Island. Robotnik had tricked Knuckles into believing Sonic was after the Master Emerald that Knuckles had been raised with the sole purpose to protect. He is the last guardian of Angel Island, so it was his job.

How did Knuckles fall for it, you ask, if he isn’t a moron? Easily. Because Knuckles grew up alone and isolated on Angel Island, with no other children his own age, and by the time he’s 17 his parents are gone (presumed dead). He has never met people except maybe his parents before they died before. He has no reason to believe Robotnik would be evil or lie to him, because the only evil he’s ever heard of are in the stories passed through his clan- and Robotnik doesn’t match up with those stories. On top of that, Sonic already had the seven chaos emeralds, and the only people who went after the emeralds in Knuckles’ minds were the people intent on using their power.

Now let’s look more at Knuckles’ backstory. He grew up on a floating island, which was once part of a larger landmass that was attached to the ancient echidna’s city. That city? Was heavily Mayan based.

Its king was Pachacamac, which is an ancient city in South America that predated the Inca, and named after a deity. His daughter was Tikal, which is an ancient Mayan city. The architecture of the few parts we see are Mayanesque. In Sonic Adventure 1 we get to explore the Knuckles’ clans city, or what remains of it, and it is the ruins of a city surrounding a pyramid in a roughly squared shape- but that is only what we can see, the city itself used to be much much bigger before it was destroyed.

The emerald shrine, the pyramid, the way the ancient echidnas dressed, their names, the rainforest- yeah. Mayan. They’re the Sonicverse’s equivalent to the Maya people. They were called the Knuckles clan, and Knuckles was (in-story_ named after the clan that his family is descended from. And he’s the last echidna of the Knuckles clan left. He protects the Master Emerald so what happened to his ancestors will never happen again.

He has an inherently tragic backstory, and he is the only character to my knowledge who is canonically confirmed to be (non-Japanese) POC-equivalent- he’s Native South American, and one of the only ones left at that.

And.... they did THIS to him;

Mind you there are other strong bruiser-types in Sonic, and Big was already the strong idiot of the story, so them doing this to Knuckles doesn’t make sense even overall, but it leaves a really awful taste in my mouth that out of everyone, they chose to do this to the confirmed Native American (equivalent) character.

It just. Makes me so sad.

I really hope the movie treats Knuckles better than Sonic Boom has.

Also, and I know the wiki isn’t necessarily canon, but I’d like to point out...

I guess the wiki summed it all up better than I did lol

[scithemodestmermaid]

I’m going to talk about Pokemon Sword a bit, and you know I’m serious because I’m actually using proper capitalization.  Warning: it’s a pretty long review.

I’m several hours in and up to Route 5, and while the game does have flaws it’s still a good game.  That’s the short version.  The long version is going to be pretty long.

Now I’m going into this game a despiser of Dexit.  The only reason I bought the game is because this is the first gen where I’ve been at the very least content with all the new designs and because I wanted to see if Gamefreak could put out a good game without all the Pokemon before decrying them for being unable to do so.  And I know a lot of people have been attacking the game and every positive thing said about it, saying that the devs are lazy, and there’s no soul in the game, and the people who buy the game should just kill themselves because they alone are what’s wrong with the world, etc etc etc.

And let me just say, if you’re one of those people telling others to kill themselves because they did or did not buy/like the game....shut the fuck up.  You are not helping your side, whichever side it may be.  And don’t ever, ever, tell someone to commit suicide.  Especially over something as trivial as a game.  This is not singling out Pro-Dexit or Anti-Dexit or whatever; I’ve seen some pretty abysmal things said on both sides towards both sides.  And that needs to stop.   If you can’t discuss your side like a mature human being, then go back to your playroom and let the grown-ups talk.  

Now that THAT’S off my chest, to discuss what I like and dislike...

What I Like:

Visuals are leaps and bounds ahead of USUM, and there have been several spots where I’ve just been impressed with how pretty everything is.  Granted, the Wild Area visuals are a step below the traditional routes.  The trees in the Wild Area do, indeed, all look like the infamous N64 tree that was floating around.  But here’s the crazy thing, I didn’t really notice unless I was specifically staring at it.  Otherwise, it all just blends into the background and doesn’t matter in the end.

The new Pokemon designs.  Like I mentioned, this this the first gen where I have been okay with the newly-introduced mons, if not outright adoring them and calling them my new faves.  Impidimp line, Toxel line, Hattena line, Yamper line, Nickit line, Rolycoly line...all have stolen my heart.  The Galarian forms bear mentioning, as well; so far I’ve only encountered G. Zigazagoon and G. Meowth and technically Giga Meowth (I mean, I’ve seen all the leaks, but still, it’s honestly different finding them yourself), and they are just so fun.  The design team absolutely knocked it out of the park this time around.

The new Mons’ animations.  Yes yes, I know I know, all the crap animation memes.  But, talking specifically about the new Mons...they move really nicely.  An example would be Nickit’s attack (as seen here): after the attack, it deftly brushes away its tracks before settling back into its idle animation.  It’s such a small little detail that adds so much to Nickit’s personality.  There’s several other mons with little visual details like that: Yamper’s little jump after a tackle, Drizzile pulling water balloons from its tear sacs and tossing them, Toxel’s lil temper tantrum, and the list goes on.  The new guys look and move great.

The Wild Area.  Now, if you go in expect the entirety of Breath of the Wild, then yes you will be disappointed.  But the Wild Area is definitely a step in a neat direction for Gamefreak.  There’s a variety of Mons to find, Raid Battles to participate in, and things to just uncover.  So far, most of my time with the game has been spent running around to see what new Mon I’d find.  The area is a bit small, but there’s so much to see that it feels a lot bigger.

Camping.  There’s something so charming about sitting down and seeing all my Mons walk around and interact with each other.  Calling one or two over to talk to them and play fetch.  Enjoying curry together.  It’s so cozy and comfy, and honestly the only thing that would’ve made it better was if they kept actual patting in (but honestly, that’s such a minor thing compared to what all they did add).  But as it is, it adds such a nice, relaxing atmosphere to the game.

Hop.  Lots of folks say that he’s Hau 2.0 (and if we’re talking about a tendency to interrupt the story with cutscenes, yes he is (more on that later)), but I disagree.  Where Hau was easygoing to the point of aloofness, Hop is driven and determined.  He pushes himself and the player character to their limits, trying to become greater than everyone else and make a name for himself.  So strangely enough, Hop shares a lot in common with Blue: aggressively pushing himself and the player forward.  Only difference is that Hop tries to be polite about it.  I’m interested to see where he ends up.

Leon.  Yeah, I’m not beating around the bush here, he’s handsome.  Hot dang.  Bravo.  And even though I know it’s cool to hate on the fact that he uses a Charizard as his ace, the fact that he absolutely adores his Charizard is something I can respect.

What I Dislike:

The old Mons’ animations.  Yes, it turns out that they lied about the remade models (a AAA company lying?  shocking!).  But I was hoping they would’ve updated more of the animations like the other excuse they’d had for cutting Mons.  Honestly, I think I saw just one new animation, and even then I don’t know if it’s genuinely new or new to me (Nuzleaf’s Tackle animation is different than I remember).  The rest of it is the same old, same old.  And it makes the old Mons stand out from the new ones, and not necessarily in a good way.

CUTSCENES.  OH MY GOSH NO PLEASE.  WHY.  Why did Gamefreak decide to bring back the cutscene-heavy storytelling from Gen 7?  Nobody liked getting stopped constantly to read pages of text.  NOBODY.  LIKED.  IT.  And yet, here it is again.  And this time, if the spoilers I read are to believe, the story doesn’t go down dark corridors like Gen 7 did.  Heck, if those spoilers are right, the story doesn’t go anywhere (can’t confirm until I’ve beaten the game myself, so I’ll probably talk more than that in another review)!  So why these cutscenes?!

Dynamaxing.  When I was fighting the Dynamaxed Eldegoss during the first gym, and she used a move that did huge damage, added Grassy Terrain and healing to everyone on the floor, and did that several times in a row...the thought popped into my head, “Wow, this is stupid.”  How is what I just described more balanced than Mega Evolutions or Z-Moves?  Because it’s only three turns?  And why is the sound effect SO LOUD when they Dynamax?  Genuinely, every raid battle that I did, I’d get jumpscared by the Dynamax’d Mon’s cry.  Honestly, instead of adding a new gimmick every 3D gen, they should’ve chosen one and stuck with it.  Improved on it.  Not replaced it.  And especially not replaced it with this.  (As implied earlier though, Giga forms are neat...would’ve made great mega evolutions, oh but what do I know)

Music.  Now, usually when I play handheld games, I’ll listen to music on my computer.  But for the heck of it, I decided to listen to this game’s music.  And it’s...well, it’s no Splatoon 2 soundtrack, that’s for damn sure.  A lot of it is this really bland and forgettable trance beat, or it’s a calliope of sound effects mixed in with the music (case in point: the music that plays when Zacian meets you in the forest).  I know that Toby Fox did a song for the game, and hearing the song it’s honestly the best song in the game and he should’ve just done the whole soundtrack.

Pop-in.  The draw distance is a bit weird, and NPCs will just pop into place once you get close enough.  This can get a little distracting, especially if you’re like me and your reaction to pop-in is to go back and forth and watch them appear and disappear over and over.  To be blunt, though, pop-in is a problem many beloved Switch games have (I’ve seen it several times while playing Breath of the Wild), but I suppose it’s still worth mentioning.

Also, you can’t actually pat any of your Pokemon anymore and Rotomdex is no longer a character that you interact with it’s just a phone.

And there’s other things in the game that aren’t a problem now but who knows what will happen later on (story-related issues, Exp. Share, long-term Y-Comm usage, etc), but I guess that’s a ramble for another time.

As it stands so far, Pokemon Sword is a fun game.  It is no Sonic 06.  It is no Breath of the Wild.  It is Pokemon.  It is nice.  It is fun.  It is better than the entirety of Gen 7 in my humble opinion.  I enjoy it.  I think it’s a nice looking game, and it’s a nice time playing it.  And at the end of the day, that’s why I play Pokemon.  To have a nice, fun time with virtual critters.