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Daily video update 26/04/24
You can tell we're closing in on the end of this story, as the enemies and obstacles are literally everywhere...
It's stressful, annoying, and I'm gonna lose it if the last stage is a ballache.
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Archie Sonic Online review: Endangered Species pt. 1
In many ways, the Archie Sonic series "Endangered Species" was the end of an era, or at least the beginning of the end. I won't go into all the details of the Ken Penders drama or try to determine which side was 'right' (or at the very least, less wrong than the other), but suffice to say that due to Penders suing for the rights to 'his' characters, the arc was completely gutted of its original plan and most of its cast, leading up to the imminent reboot of the series to cut out any characters from previous writers that could prove problematic in the future.
Archie Sonic Online's Endangered Species rewrite, consisting of the last three issues of the four-issue series (the first issue remains canon), is likewise the end of an era, but also a new beginning. It wraps up basically every dangling plot thread from Ian Flynn's run of the echidnaverse (aside from the fate of the Brotherhood, but they have to leave some plot hooks if they want to keep making issues) and potentially opens the gates to a new age of echidna-dom that Ken Penders never would have given us. While it has its flaws and I will not be shy about pointing them out, writing-wise, it is still quite possibly the best conclusion we could've reasonably gotten to the long-running, contentious echidnaverse blood feud drama, even if we never got it officially.
And on that note, it's only fair to warn y'all: Archie Sonic Online spoilers ahead! I will be going into very specific detail in this review, page by page, so if you haven't read the issues, I recommend you read the issues before reading the review. I know, I know -- if you're reading the review in hopes of knowing whether you should read the comic or not, it's kind of not super great to have the review spoil the entire storyline... but honestly, I think you should read the comic first. It's a great comic, it's absolutely free, and it's what we should've had in a better timeline.
This series will be split into three articles, one for each issue.
SpoilerSo while the first issue of the officially licensed Endangered Species arc remains canon, ASO has still labeled their 'second' issue of Endangered Species as "Endangered Species #1," which is a bit confusing if you think too hard about it. In all honesty, I didn't even realize this one existed until I'd already read the other two, leading to some degree of confusion... but given that it's been ages since I read the Archie comics anyway, I just chalked that up to my not remembering what came before it and left it at that.
The issue opens up with the Freedom Fighters battling the Dark Egg Legion and Metal Knuckles to try to rescue Lara-Le, Knuckles' mother and the matriarch of Albion. Albion, in case any of you are a bit rusty on echidna lore, is the ancestral home of echidna-kind and currently home to the last remaining echidna civilization on the planet aside from the Dark Egg Legion, which is working for Dr. Eggman because Lien-Da is absolutely horrible at picking 'allies.' This issue opens with a bang in a snappy first panel of Metal Knuckles throwing Sonic several feet, which I appreciate (sorry Sonic). Metal Knuckles and Lien-Da have a short conversation to deliver some necessary exposition: Enerjak 'stole' the Dark Legion's cybernetics (honestly, 'destroyed' would've been a more accurate term), the Dark Legion went to Dr. Eggman to get them back, and as far as Metal Knuckles cares, the DEL shouldn't "forget [their] place" as Eggman's new flunkies.
Remington calls for the Albion army to retreat, but stays behind because he's a major enough character that he's got enough protagonist syndrome to stand a chance of surviving this story arc. (I may be reading my meta knowledge into this.) Lien-Da taunts Remington's perceived cowardice, comparing him to the Brotherhood of Guardians. Remington states that he's not running away, attempts to freaking shoot Lien-Da then and there (a perk of not being officially licensed is that ASO can entirely get away with this), and Lien-Da simply dodges, grabs Remington's arm, and COMPLETELY ELECTRIFIES HERSELF and Remington with her.
Yep. Those are some 'upgrades' Eggman fixed her up with after the Iron Queen blew her up.
(On that note, and this has nothing to do with the rewrite itself, but my brother had a headcanon that Lien-Da post Iron Dominion wasn't actually Lien-Da, but an Auto-Automaton that believed that it was Lien-Da, because that made a lot more sense than Lien-Da violating the Chunky Salsa Rule, a TTRPG rule in which if your character's head is reduced to the consistency of chunky salsa, they cannot be revived by any means whatsoever. While I absolutely agree with this, there's no evidence that the ASO team feels the same way, so we can reasonably assume that in their rewrite, Lien-Da is still Lien-Da, just with a lot of parts replaced.)
But seriously, Lien-Da's new power is freaking awesome. I'm not sure how either she or her cyborg implants survive the whole electric overdrive thing, but given that just Lien-Da still being alive is already stretching the suspension of disbelief even for a comic book about cartoon animal people with superpowers, I'm willing to accept it as Rule of Cool.
Sonic, Tails, and Amy get knocked out immediately afterwards, leading to the title drop of "Endangered Species part two: In Captivity," which further confuses the heck out of me because you can't have an issue be both issue #1 and issue #2 at the same time and expect people to understand that right off the bat. This is admittedly a minor quibble, but it's a quibble that led to my initially missing this entire issue's existence until I'd already read both issues after it, so for me it's not really as minor a quibble as you might think.
"A few hours later," a hooded Legionnaire named Syntar reports to 'Command' that they've finished rounding up the citizens of Albion. One of the echidnas (a female in a blue robe who's got a complex enough character design that she probably has a name but I didn't know it when first writing this and the issue hasn't revealed it yet at this point) tells off the Legionnaires, stating that the Avatar (aka Knuckles' prophetic title as alleged messiah of the echidnas as seen in Return to Angel Island) is going to save them all. When the Legionnaires state that Knuckles is probably too busy sitting on a certain pretty green rock, she snaps back that "The Avatar works in mysterious ways," after which a warp ring opens up and someone on the other side of it cracks a joke that I won't spoil if you haven't actually read the thing... but seriously, read the thing.
Knuckles, Julie-Su, and Saffron Bee appear from the portal, with some unidentified NPC stating "It's the Chaotix!" ...even though technically it's only three of the Chaotix. Julie-Su starts blasting, Saffron starts stinging, and Knuckles... throws what looks like his warp ring at a Legionnaire, knocking them senseless. This is somehow enough cavalry to turn the tide of the battle to where the abductors become the abductees and vice-versa (don't ask why), and then Knuckles asks for some necessary exposition.
The blue-robed echidna explains that Eggman sent the DEL to attack Albion, and while the Albionians had initially been able to fend them off, the DEL did manage to kidnap the matriarch and much of New Albion's population. Remington and a bunch of background echidnas went off to rescue them with the help of "Team Fighters" (the Freedom Fighter group responsible for field missions, iirc), but they haven't come back.
Meanwhile, Saffron tries to comfort a crying echidna child named Bimmy, stating that they'll rescue everybody. This leads to a poignant flashback where Saffron reflects on the genocide of Golden Hive Colony and her husband Charmy's permanent brain damage from his time in the Egg Grapes, leaving Saffron determined that they cannot leave these people to suffer the way her people have. NGL, that was one of the most impactful moments in not just the issue, but possibly the entire run of ASO thus far.
It's clear why the writers chose Saffron Bee as the one Chaotix member to accompany Knuckles and Julie-Su to Albion, even if strategically it makes no sense to leave half the Chaotix behind on a matter of preventing the de facto genocide of Knuckle's entire race. The real reason most likely being that this arc has enough characters to deal with as it is and neither the story nor the panel space had room for the whole crew, which I suppose is a reasonable meta explanation. It just doesn't feel like a decision the characters would've actually made under the circumstances, especially with the backstory of two Chaotix members already suffering from their entire civilization's destruction.
And while we're on the subject of hopefully constructive criticism, the artwork on some of these panels leave a lot to be desired. Saffron's face in the last panel on this page is hard to read emotionally, and the stiff pose and an emotionless expression on Julie-Su when she shoots at the Legionnaires on the previous page just doesn't do her character justice. There are a few other panels throughout the issue where one character or another should've been entirely redrawn, but this story is good enough that I'm not going to pause the action to point them out for the sake of criticism.
Getting back to the story, another visually complex and clearly named echidna woman whose name I don't know (she wears a purple robe and golden bands around her dreadlocks) states that the prisoners are likely at the capitol building awaiting legionization. Knuckles orders everyone who can fight to "follow me and Komi-Ko," who in context may be the blue-robed echidna or may be the golden-banded echidna. Honestly, both their names should've been revealed earlier in the issue and in a clearer fashion because while this arc's main audience is people who are actually familiar with the inner workings of the echidnaverse, I am not one of them, and quite frankly given who was initially writing the echidnaverse, I see no reason to go through the trouble of subjecting myself to anything that came before Tossed in Space's soft reboot of the series. But that's besides the point.
Knuckles, of course, is not thrilled about being called the Avatar, quietly brooding on how he 'ruined everything' -- an obvious reference to his time as Enerjak and its aftermath. Saffron asks Knuckles not to get upset, pointing out that the Chaotix are Albion's only hope, and Knuckles admits that they need to put on a brave face for these citizens, also calling out Julie-Su as the one who made the joke that I will not spoil because you should really read this arc for yourself. The Chaotix discuss how they shouldn't go to Lien-Da without a plan, wondering if that's what Sonic and his friends did, which serves as a good segue into Sonic and his friends regaining consciousness in furry jail.
Remington has survived (of course), and he apologizes to Lara-Le for failing to rescue her. Lara-Le remains confident that Knuckles will come to save them because of course he will, but Lien-Da doesn't share that sentiment, bragging that not only will she legionize the entirety of the remaining echidna race, but she'll also get to gloat over bringing the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog to heel. Sonic snarks off that technically it was Metal Knuckles that knocked him out, so it's not even her victory, to which Lien-Da expresses surprise that Sonic's kept his defiance even under the circumstances, but states that once he's legionized that won't be an issue anymore.
Remington points out that half of the Dark Legion had already joined the other echidnas to rebuild their homeland and 'start anew,' asking why Lien-Da and her remaining loyalists didn't do the same. Lien-Da points out Remington's history as the leader of the Frost Legion, a plot point that was mentioned once in a side story and then was forcibly resolved in the New Enerjak arc before anything could really come of it; personally I wish Flynn had actually done something with this concept instead of starting it with a line of exposition and ending it with a line of exposition with nothing whatsoever in between, but that's hardly a criticism of the ASO team -- honestly, I'm pretty darn happy they're showing that long-forgotten plot point actually had an effect on Remington's character arc.
Lien-Da claims that without Remington's whole Frost Legion nonsense, she could've accomplished her goals to take Angel Island, put an end to Dr. Finitevus's evil plots, and "saved us with the Master Emerald myself." This last line makes me wonder: what exactly does she mean by this? Did she have plans to become the next Enerjak? Would she have acted on them, and would she have fallen to the same sort of mind control hex that Finitevus used for Knuckles? And would literally anyone have bothered to sacrifice themselves to break the hex? I suppose if the purpose had been to stop the super-powered mad demigod of chaos energy, that would've been easily enough for any of the heroes... but now I can't help but wonder who, in this hypothetical scenario, would've been the one to end it all (in more ways than one). Although honestly, I don't think I'd be against just using Locke's anti-Enerjak superweapon to stab her in the heart and be done with it. She would not be missed.
Remington admits that his time in the Egg Grapes left him "[not] of sound mind and body" when Finitevus manipulated him into joining the Dark Legion and starting the civil war between the Flame and Frost legions. But that period in his life did give him more empathy and understanding for the Dark Legion's perspective, and he states that "both sides just want the fighting to end," asking why Lien-Da doesn't realize this. Lien-Da writes this off as naivety, stating that the DEL can't leave Eggman's service, to which Tails innocently asks if it's because of the bombs in their cybernetics.
Just as a reminder, only Lien-Da and Dimitri out of the entire DEL were aware of the bombs in the DEL's cybernetics, and Lien-Da assumed that Dimitri must be dead by now. The only example the DEL have previously seen of a Legionnaire with an explosive in their cybernetics was when the Iron Queen made Lien-Da violate the Chunky Salsa Rule, and even then they could've just assumed that she'd hidden the bomb inside her cybernetics herself and intended to bring it out later as a grenade. So naturally this sudden revelation does not go over well with the Legionnaires who just found out they're essentially de facto suicide bombers. And anyone who knows what happened to Antoine with Metal Sonic (which I still feel sad about ngl) is fully aware that Robotnik won't hesitate to pull the trigger as soon as it serves his purposes.
"Meanwhile, in the streets of Albion..." we see a Legionnaire get captured by a hulking figure who pulls out one of the Legionnaire's quills (or hairs) and reveals himself to be... Thrash the Tasmanian Devil, who HAS been worked into the ASO version of Endangered Species despite not having originally been a part of what Ian Flynn planned before the whole Ken Penders drama happened. You can probably see where this is going, but it might not end the way the canon version did... right?
Meanwhile, back with the Chaotix (all three of them), we see Golden Bands trying to teach Blue Robes how to handle a blaster without shooting herself in the foot (which she doesn't actually do, but solely because she has no idea where the trigger is; she's a gun accident waiting to happen). Julie-Su decides that while Saffron and 'Komi-Ko's' group takes out the Legionnaire guards, she'll disguise herself as a Legionnaire and sneak in to free everyone. Knuckles's job is to take out Metal Knuckles, which leads to another humorous exchange that I won't spoil.
The fight itself isn't really much to write home about. We learn that Golden Bands is apparently Komi-Ko, with Blue Robes being Crystal-La, which is hard to figure out because she's colored inconsistently within the span of literally two pages; to be fair, character recolor debacles are not unheard of in the Archie comics (most infamously with Sally in the early issues), but I do think they could've done some more thorough proof-reading before releasing this. Metal Knuckles tells Knuckles that he's outclassed "in every way" and that he should run while he still can, to which Knuckles retorts that he's through running. Then Saffron blasts Metal Knuckles' head off with a mounted cannon, which admittedly is a bit anticlimatic but it comes with a really cool explosion scene. That's pink. For some reason. But it's hot pink, so it still looks awesome.
To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of miffed that Metal Knuckles was built up over the course of this issue as an actual threat, even throwing Sonic into the dirt in the very first panel of the issue because it's just that dangerous, then it gets taken out in a Big Kaboom before Knuckles really gets to properly fight it for more than two pages. But given everything the writers were leading up to in this storyline, I get why the Knuckles/Metal Knuckles fight sequence had to be resolved as quickly as it did. Admittedly out of all the aspects of this particular story arc that could've hit the cutting room floor, there were clearly several more important subjects to give attention to... but this is still an action comic, and I would've liked just a bit more action with Metal Knuckles if at all possible.
Going back to Sonic and company, Lien-Da has to face a room full of panicking Legionnaires who have just learned that Dr. Eggman has primed their heads to explode. Lien-Da of course denies it, in a dynamic panel that makes it clear she's threatening to hit and/or electrocute the poor shaking Legionnaire who's questioned her, and with that out of the way, the DEL is ready to start cyborgizing some poor innocent meatbags. Remington snaps that it's not enough that Lien-Da has allied with Eggman, but she's signing her entire species' "death warrants" by going through with their legionization. This leads to a stand-off where Remington rightly reprimands his crazy aunt for selling out their entire race to a megalomaniac who would happily exterminate them all on a whim, asking any echidna who hasn't lost one of their 'dearest' loved ones in this war to close their eyes.
No one does. Lien-Da is cornered by the truth.
It's a powerful moment, perhaps even more so than Saffron's flashback, and it's a big part of why this arc works so well. It's never too dark, but it's not afraid to address the grimmer aspects of the Archie saga and remind us all that these aren't just talking cartoon animals, they're talking cartoon animals with lives, with hopes and dreams and families to care for, and that they're all in mortal danger and some of them could really die out here.
And that's when Julie-Su shows up, gun blazing, and blows up something big and important in the center of the room that seems to be responsible for powering all the prisoners' restraints.
Seriously, the DEL should know better than to rely on something like that. It's kind of a trope that all of the most important technology lies behind a single potential point of failure, especially if its failure would lead to serious and immediate consequences. And right now, those consequences are entirely in the heroes' favor, since now that Sonic is free he wastes no time in beating the crap out of the DEL guards at the only speed he knows -- high speed.
The speed of light, of course, is faster than the speed of sound, so Lien-Da is fully capable of hitting Sonic with her electroshock attacks. We get more color confusion when a character that I initially honestly didn't know whether she was supposed to be Julie-Su, Crystal-La, or someone else entirely starts fighting Lien-Da, and her color scheme isn't even consistent on the same page. (I assume it's Julie-Su because of the cybernetic dreadlock.) I don't know if it's supposed to be the lighting or what, but this is definitely confusing; it doesn't help that Ken Penders originated the Planet of Clones thing where all the echidnas were for some reason supposed to look the same. But in this case I can't blame Ken Penders because nobody in their right mind would ask Ken Penders to work on an Archie Sonic continuation of the very arc he absolutely destroyed. But that's beside the point.
There's a fight sequence that, while still short and somewhat confusing due to the inconsistent coloring, is significantly better than the lack of payoff we got with Metal Knuckles. Lien-Da is taken down, the heroes have won, and just as they're discussing their escape route... the Chaotix's warp ring fails to activate.
Sonic, being Sonic, rushes out to find Knuckles without much of a plan in mind, despite the fact that rushing out without a plan is what got him captured in the first place. (To be fair, this is Sonic we're talking about. It's kind of his thing.) Knuckles asks if Sonic's rescued Sally yet, to which Sonic says it was save her, or save Albion, with the implication being that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. (Fair enough.) Sonic then tells Knuckles that his warp ring doesn't work and they need to get everyone to the docks as quickly as possible. Knuckles knocks out all the surrounding DEL with a ground-pound shockwave, but then...
...then is when Thrash and his Devil Dogs arrive, and Thrash announces the impending end of echidna civilization. Cliffhanger!
Overall, while this issue definitely has its rough spots, and I still wish Metal Knuckles had been given a more satisfying send-off, this first (or second) issue remains a solid continuation of the echidnaverse that isn't afraid to remind us that an entire civilization is at stake -- quite fitting for an arc called Endangered Species. And those stakes are only going to get higher in the next part...
(And also there's an Off-Panel about the Krudzu Hybrid Hydra, which apparently is something of a running gag in ASO's Off-Panels. At least, I remember it showing up more than once.)
Also, here's a preview of the article that was GOING to be this week's article before Knuckles Week happened, but has been shifted to next week (God willing):
SpoilerSo now that there's a weird trope going around of Game Freak making their most powerful legendaries somehow even more powerful so they can sell more merch of them and limit their use in VGC matches, let's go way back to an idea I had circa Gen 7 and give life stag and death birb their long-awaited final forms.
And by 'final forms,' I mean 'Venom symbiotes.'
NO WAIT REALLY I CAN EXPLAIN
Yes, I went there. Yes, I have an explanation. Yes, that explanation works narratively if I do say so myself, and yes, I can absolutely explain. Feel free to speculate.
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Hello there. I'd like to discuss something that's been brewing in my mind for the past week and it's about Rails. Oh rails, an alternative to the usual past pace acting with the rather slow and bare bones automation. But rails never used to be this way. Take a seat friends, as we discuss The History of Rails in Sonic the Hedgehog.
It all began June 2001, when Sonic Adventure 2 was released, the first game that featured Grind Rails. these type of rails functioned similarly to how they are today, except you can accelerate down the rail even faster, creating momentum allowing you to fly off the rails if you wish. Rails also had the caveat of the having any sort of "pull" for the player to gravitate towards it, meaning the player has to be very precise in order to proceed. This becomes heavily used within Final Chase, the second-to final act of the game. Rails are absolutely everywhere here, and utilizing them to reach far off distances, alternate paths, and crazy maneuvers throughout.
Rails appear once again within Sonic Heroes, functioning very similarly. The differences really come in the level design, specifically from the two levels that feature rails heavily: Rail Canyon, and Bullet Station. The level design here places greater emphasis on switching between rails to gain rings, powerups, and defeat enemies. Personally, I believe this to be the best incarnation of rails, relying more on the level design to keep them interesting, having more of a puzzle, or tactile flow to them.
After that, I believe that Sonic Colors is the first domino in Rail Decline, featuring rails as more of an automation section of each act rather then a more puzzle and tactile way of getting from start to finish. To be fair, Colors does feature some sections with you having to hop between 3 different rails to gain Red Coin and such, but those are very few and far between, being about less then a dozen of them throughout your experience.
Rails are a bit tricky in Lost World, since the majority of rails within this game are incredibly bare bones due to the level design doing nothing with them. However, Tropical Coast Zone 3, and Lava Mountain Zone 2. In those acts, Rails make up the entire act, featuring rails that slow down, or speed you up depending on which one your on.
Sonic Forces, some love it, some hate it, others think it's mediocre. Similar to last time, used purely for automation, nothing interesting going on, so there is nothing interesting to talk about.
Lastly, were at what I think is the most interesting era for Rails: Sonic Frontiers. Frontiers features more of the automation of Rails have been rocking for about a decade now...partially. See, it's this strange split down the middle where, half of this game features automation, while the other half is something different. Rails that are short and require jumping fast, rails where you hop between then similar to Colors, circle shaped Rails where you have to aim Sonic at the right angle to proceed, large circle shaped rails where you have to make a full circle 3 times to defeat a boss, all of these mechanics are making Rails, in my opinion, actually interesting again, with not just letting automation be Rails' secondary name!
To summarize: Rails used to be another form of transport featuring more of a tactile or in the case of Heroes, more puzzle-esque design philosophy, but afterwards, Rails got reduced to nothing more then wasteful automation, but hope seems to be on the horizon for our grindy friend, and Frontiers has been playing around with the potential of Rails, and perhaps we'll see more innovation with Rails in the rumored Frontiers 2 being in development.
So, that was Sonic the Hedgehog and the Decline (and revival?) of Rails in 3D. Feedback would be appreciated as I'm gonna try to make this a weekly thing.
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Let me give you all a piece of advice. Do not 100% this game twice in the one night. It is not a good idea.
Now that we've gotten that informational PSA out of the way, let's get into the thoughts on what is one of the most infamous Sonic games in the entire series, especially in a post Mania and Superstars world. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 was a unexpected game for me, completely unplanned, until I suddenly decided I wanted to finish up some unfinished business for this challenge.
Y'see, a few years ago, I had 100%'d Sonic Unleashed, and in a fit of pride, I decided I wanted to 100% and platinum every Sonic game on PS3/PS4 (and now PS5). However, Sonic 4 single-handedly ended that idea with the godawful Untouchable trophy. A trophy that wanted you to beat EGG Station without taking a single hit - which meant taking on five bosses, one of which has a pattern that's wildly unpredictable, and another boss that takes 36 hits to take down, has a lot of cheap shot attacks, and janky hitboxes.
Yet, I did it. I spent five hours doing it, but I did it. From there, it was full steam ahead.
When I first played Sonic 4 years ago, I - like many people not well-versed with 2D Sonic thought it was a fine enough game. I didn't notice the issues, likely helped by the fact that I hadn't finished many Classic Sonic games at that point, and wasn't at a age to notice physics and all that.
But this time around, I...honestly didn't have too bad a time with it playing the game normally. The physics are not remotely good at all, but it's still alright enough to play. At least for the first two zones. What I'm surprised doesn't get mentioned as much is just how terrible the level gimmicks are, and my god - they are really bad. Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear Zone are two really bad zones, probably up there with some of my absolutely least favourite zones in the entire series. They're slow, fairly boring, the amount of bottomless pits and do or die moments is really irritating, and when all of this is mixed with the terrible physics, it all cascades into a really bad time.
What didn't help with this is that the game spends too long just trying to ape Sonic 1 in the worse ways. Special stages are the same as Sonic 1 where you need to get to the end of a level with 50 rings to get into the special stage, and if you fail once, you do the whole thing from scratch to get another shot, which is really bad when you also take into account that you can only get one emerald per stage, meaning at least three emeralds will need to be gotten on the longer, tedious stages with easy death pits that can drain your rings right before the end of a level due to being blindsided. Power-ups is the same as what you get with Sonic 1, meaning there isn't much variety with them. Three out of the four zones are taken from Sonic 1, and two of them are terrible, and it's just because how do you mess up Green Hill Zone? You can't, really. So even that isn't really a point to it.
What they were thinking when they decided Labyrinth Zone of all things needed to come back? Spring Yard, Star Light, hell I would've even taken freaking Marble Zone over Labyrinth Zone. It was just terrible decision making, and the level design, mixed with shit gimmicks, with bad physics make it downright miserable on a fresh run.
I played the game 100% once on a completed save since I needed to do all of the time trials, and beat every level as Super Sonic anyways for a trophy, and honestly - when you can just use Super Sonic to cheese most everything and blitz the levels - it's not too bad a experience, honestly. I wouldn't say it's good. It's still pretty bland, and as SomeCallMeJohnny put it best - soulless - but it can be a alright time. Inoffensively mediocre, I suppose.
But since I decided it's short enough, and it had been years since I played Sonic 4 start to finish, I decided to do a fresh save file just so I could say I did it, and experience it fresh, and it was really bad. Unbelievably bad. The amount of bottomless pits, mixed in with the slow gimmicks and the bad physics just all collide together to make just a downright unjoyful experience. Getting to the end of a level only to lose the rings and need to do it over and over again, especially for the last special stage was just soul-crushing. I usually like to give games a fair shake and try to see the good in a game, but it is just really damn hard to see it here for Sonic 4. It screams budget mobile game, and that's exactly what it is. Even the graphics are just pretty bad, everything looking far too plastic looking to be really appealing, even if some level aesthetics can be nice.
Do I even need to get into the music? It's one of the most infamous aspects of Sonic 4, and while I do think that there's one or two decent tracks like Splash Hill Zone Act 3, or Lost Labyrinth Act 1, it's just a bad attempt to replicate the Genesis era music, something that would still appear by the time of Sonic Superstars.
The bosses are fine I guess. I did get a decent amount of pride when I got to grips with the bosses during the brutal hours of trying to get the Untouchable trophy. When I started shredding the bosses in record time and consistently, it was really fun, but I still wouldn't say they're memorable or even good. They're just rather bland remixes of preexisting bosses in the series. The Death Egg Robot fight while neat with the rage mode also just massively outstays it's welcome with taking 36 hits in total to beat, not helped by having a Egg Viper type surprise one hit at the end of the fight. Maybe if the Untouchable trophy wasn't there, I'd give these more of a pass, but that trophy has pretty much made me dislike all of these bosses.
About the one actual point I can really give to the game as a genuinely good thing is that the special zones are actually pretty decent. I'm not a huge fan of Special Zones in the series, but this one is actually pretty decent, with the simple change that you're rotating the stage around Sonic, rather than moving Sonic through the stage, although even at that, the spring physics feel overtuned to the point that the last few special stages are really irritating to deal with when you get cheap shotted into a end area and kicked out of the stage.
At the end of the day, what else can I really say? Most of the fandom knows Sonic 4 Episode 1's reputation at this point. While I was optimistic I could at least give it a decent impression as a average game when I played it as Super Sonic, the regular Sonic run just sealed it to me, it's just a kinda bad game, really. There's not much else to it. It has nothing of interest, it's so by the numbers that it has nothing unique, and the gameplay itself is just lame and annoying to play through.
That said, Episode 2 will be interesting when we get to it. While I never finished it, I do remember enjoying it a bit more compared to Episode 1, and I do think that at least has a good few improvements, so hopefully that has a better showing.
But for Episode 1? Nah, just avoid it. It's not worth it.
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GAME 61: FORTNITE CHAPTER 5: SEASON 2 (PS5): 100% COMPLETE
Another day, another Fortnite season. This time, the second installment in the fifth Chapter. Previously, the evil Society opened Pandora's Box, unleashing the Greek Gods... and Zeus isn't happy with humanity. Thus, a war has kicked off on the island between mortals, Gods, and the few deities who defect to ensure our victory over Zeus' wrath.
If you saw my previous post on last season, a major problem I had with Chapter 5 is its rather lame map. Many named locations are very samey, just being swaths of the same looking house, and the same looking villages. There isn't a lot of variety starting out. But the unleashing of Pandora's Box helped add some much needed variety to where you'll be dropping, boys.
Places like Mount Olympus and the Underworld provide not only a great sense of majesty, but a variety of unique boss battles that provide unique perks, replacing the Society bosses from last season. Additionally, new items were added to Battle Royale, some amazingly awesome mythics. Zeus' Thunderbolt, the Wings of Icarus, Hades' chains, all fantastic weapons that not only add to the theming, but are all spectacular in terms of their presence and gameplay potential.
It's too bad they got replaced with Avatar's Element Bending, but I digress. All these unique additions, on top of having more friends to play this game with means I've had a better time in Battle Royale than last Season. And I only hope that the more seasoned me and my group get at this game, it only picks up from here as the island continues to diversify.
This actually segues well into the crossover element of Fortnite. You know, the true reason I play this game. And this time... Well, I hope you like Avatar. Cause unlike the additions of Metal Gear, Family Guy and TMNT from last season which provided a strong variety of brands of varying tones... Nickelodeon shelled out hard to make sure Avatar is the only fictional franchise with any major presence this season.
Whether it's The Last Airbender or The Legend of Korra, take your pick, it's all you got. By all means, Avatar being in the game is not a bad thing. The representation is great with the ability to Bend, the attention to detail on the cosmetics and whatnot.
But the lack of variety here is really apparent here, and if you're not an Avatar fan, there isn't much for you here if you're looking to see what beloved character joins the squad of Reality Zero.
Will give an honorable mention though to the additions to Drax, Mantis and Young Adult Groot though. While they don't add new flare to the Battle Royale mode like Avatar, the addition of more Guardians characters, including the loophole to help Groot escape Battle Pass exclusivity hell helps make this season feel more standout by adding characters from one of my favorite movies into the mix.
Other than that, the only other franchises that has any new additions is Coachella and Nike. Uh... yaaaay?
Well, there is one other major crossover that happened in between Chapter 1 and 2, and that's Fortnite Festival Season 2. This time Lady Gaga joins the fray in the new Festival Pass... and that's about it. Aside from a few cosmetic changes to the mode, Fortnite Festival is still basically the same as ever. But there is some nice variety in the music added this time around. In addition to Gaga, we have music from Soundgarden, Gorillaz, Blink-182 and Selena Gomez that continue to ensure there will be music for almost every taste in due time.
In terms of LEGO Fortnite, a major addition to that game is the long awaited vehicle update, allowing for the implementation of steering wheels for controllable vehicles and even entire environments. I think this is a great addition that helps this game reach its full potential, especially with how wide and sprawling the open world is. If this keeps up, LEGO Fortnite can start looking less like a tech demo, and more of a fully fledged competitor to other sandbox games like Minecraft.
The only other major mode is Rocket League. Aside from making the game easier for certain ranked missions, there isn't much in terms of additions that I can tell in terms of official content and mechanics. However, the addition of UEFN user generated content allows for a stronger variety of creative maps from the community to endlessly diversify what to race in. From races where you travel through dimensions to goddamn Crisis City, there is no shortage of race tracks that get bigger and bigger by the day.
So yeah, that's Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 2 so far. In the end, a solid expansion to the Fortnite metaverse or whatever Epic wants to call it. But they really need to think of a better way to balance their crossovers for future seasons.
Coachella and Nike at once, really?
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Sonic: Soul (A Sonic Reboot AU)
SO, since that post of SSMB Blogs, everyone has been posting to catch people's eyes. Except me. but, I need a wonderful idea for any attention, sooo instead of taking the next idea that's on the list (Which is supposed to be a whole original idea, but no details), I'll bring you the Second-Best Idea in my list: Sonic Soul! its not a fangame (Yet), but I cant hold myself in keeping this as my 28th Game idea post, so Lets talk about what its about
This idea was Sprung Off of "The Artist Mark Flynn"'s Sonic Reboot Video. I recommend Watching that before trying to understand what I'm about to say here.
https://youtu.be/RXNd7s8X9uA?si=TzyL6K-rEiNjDnic
So, as the video States, The Game goes back to Sonic's roots as a character; a defender of nature (Hence the Soul/Spirit part of it all). It remixes the characters, and the world they call home. The Gameplay would be like your usual classic Sonic Experience, but there are a few changes. First, Sonic is the only playable Character (The others are Introduced later in the Series). There is a run button for precise platforming, and the peel out is here too, As well as the Spindash. There are two jumps; one big, and one tiny midair hop. Secondly, Boss battles are way different now. Instead of the sleek, modern designs the doctor makes, its more... Industrial. Clunky, Menecing, Unforgiving and huge. its more of a Escape sequence than a fight, but you can do damage when prompted. There is a scoring system, Encouraging the player to Get as many points as possible. One way is to get through the level as fast as possible. This is the Speed Bonus. Getting through in 30 seconds or less tally's to 10000 Points, and each additional 10 seconds makes the points fewer. this means 40 seconds is 900, 50 is 800, 1:00 is 700 and 1:3 or lower is 600. The Coolness Bonus from Sonic Mania is here, Giving Points the less they get hit. You start each act with 10000 IF you don't get hit. Restarting brings the count to 10000. The Ring Bonus is based on how many rings you end the act with. each ring is worth 100 points, so getting 8 is 800 points. Now that's explained, lets dive into the story more.
The only three people to note here is Robotnik, Metal Sonic and Sonic Himself.
SpoilerWe start in The heart of the madness; Eggbotnik Industries. Dr. Robotnik is charismatic, and happy to share his ideas and sales pitches. However, this is only the facade of what he uses to get where he is now. He has beaten everyone in every market. he is very interested in pushing the boundaries of nature to its sheer limits. under the happy-go-lucky additude, He is nothing but a madman. His recent product: Eggbotnik Speed Trainers are advertised to withstand the highest of speeds, knowing that nobody is fast enough to see if that's even true. That's when we see The Lab where Sonic, brown in color just like he was back then, on a miniature treadmill, with a little feeder for water. We can see that there are also other hedgehogs here, all wearing the Eggbotnik Speed Trainers. We then see that A vial of blue serum is infected into Sonic. his quills get a little more Blue, and gets a Speed Boost. the Serum is injected again, and this time, he is all the way blue, and he breaks the machine. He has no idea what he has done, but one this is already clear: he has to get outta there. This is where a tutorial initiates, and we learn that we can use Ziplines as a means of travel. he escapes, and a Eggbotnik Flag is ripped off of the building. Sonic Takes a peice, and wears is as a reminder of his true goal; Stop this madness. After traveling from Deforested Valleys, Pollouted beaches, OverMined mountains and a Bustling City, we finally make It back to the Building. its A normal stage until Sonic's Shoes get mixed up in the factory, leaving him with only socks, and switching it to a stealth level. after that, you finally make it to the head office of the facility, with Robotnik already waiting for him. he has another Pair of Trainers for him, and as soon as we get them, Metal Sonic Fights you. this isn't the first time you fight him, as he watches Sonic's whole journey from afar, Attacking when prompted by The Doctor. This fight you are ment to lose, and you are put under the blaster of The Metallic Brute. But, he remembers the serene places Sonic Raced in. how beautiful they were. Metal Sonic Bacically has a Gamma Story arch, where he cant bring himself to defeat him. Robotnik has had enough. he has surpassed his breaking point. he pushes a button on his desk that unleashes a swarm of copies that slices up Metal, leaving him as scrap. The other lifeless Copies Start chasing the blue blur as the final Showdown. racing through all the places we were just in, the doctor is desperate to bring the hedgehog with him in a Blaze of Glory. After running and dodging all the metallic madness, one last blow to the doc's Eggmobile, and he goes down in a huge explosion. afterwards, Sonic Knows his job is done, tossing away the dead Metal Sonics that immediately disengaged after Robotnik went down. After the event of the game, Sonic Is praised for his heroics. Animals in the lab are freed, and then we meet Tails, another Animal that has been taken away from his family. He was also being tested on, except for animal intelligence. he makes Sonic Shoes that are eco-friendly, and have his iconic Red and white then his Eggbotnik trainers, that were Red and Black.
And that's just the first game. no one speaks in this game, so its more show then tell. After this, Robotnik comes back, but he barely made the Explosion, so he is now a Cyborg. He comes back for round 2 in the sequel, and that's it. I had a timeline for the series too, where the classic era is the past. after the sequel, it would be CD, and as Sonic is meeting Amy in Little Planet, Tails Goes to a little island South of the West district (Where the sequel takes place) of The Jewel Isles because its being attacked by the bird armada. this is why Tails isn't here for CD, and Sonic For Tails' Journey (A metrovania and mix of Tails' Adventrue and skypatrol. Sally and the rest of the Freedom Fighters live here). then, they meet up again and go north for the fourth game, which is when Knuckles' and sticks joins in. And after Triple trouble, I would either end it there and get the attention of The original creator, OR I keep going, and do more.
So, what do y'all think?
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I'm an old SNES hat who grew up on Square's gift to Nintendo: Super Mario RPG. I remember banging my head agaisnt Valentina and Smithy and the ever looming bundt and raspberry cake. Scouring the world for Frog coins, and enjoying the number of mini games on offer. Lately I've been watching a friend play the remake of Super Mario RPG and guiding her along the way, and while I'm aware the game offers an easy mode this time around, I'm struck by just how easy the game is. I wonder how much is the tweaks like how perfect timed hits add splash damage, or the ever present team special attack, and how much is the simple maturity that makes the game so much easier.
It's probably the easy mode and additions, but I never considered the orignal SMRPG hard by any means. Here I find enemies melt away to mounting splash damage. It wasn't until the swift offensive magic wielding gouls of the sunken ship that we had to us our first pick-me-up, and even then only because Greapers are so ungodly fast with the crystal magic. We're coming up on Yaridovich or Speardovich if you'd prefer.
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I've had this idea in on my mind for a while. I've changed it from a status update to a blog post. Please tell me what you think, what changes I should make, and if you have any ideas for the it. Thanks!
Game Idea: Sonic Alpha
Style: 2D Side-Scroller/Platformer
Playable Characters:
Sonic the Hedgehog
Note: Sonic Alpha is set in an alternate universe, and takes place eight months after the events of Sonic Adventure 2.
Zones:
1. Emerald Shores Zone (2 Acts)
2. Crystal Plains Zone (2 Acts)
3. Crimson Desert Zone (2 Acts)
4. Mystic Ruins Zone (2 Acts)
5. Speed Hill Zone (2 Acts)
6. Hydro Mountain Zone (2 Acts)
7. Molten Isles Zone (2 Acts)
8. Bio-Mechanical City Zone (2 Acts)
9. Sanctuary Ruins Zone (2 Acts)
10. Death Egg Zone (3 Acts, Act 2 being a boss rush, Act 3 being the final boss, the Death Egg Robot.)
11. Final Blitz Zone (1 Act, All Chaos Emeralds needed, battle against a cloned Shadow. After you beat the cloned Shadow, it goes Super. Shadow comes in at the nick of time to save Sonic.)
Hidden Palace Zone: (1 Act, Secret Zone. All of the Chaos Emeralds must be collected.)
After all of the Chaos Emeralds have been collected, Tails will contact Sonic mid-act about a strange reading. When the act is completed, the option to go to Hidden Palace is unlocked. If chosen, Tails will fly Sonic to Hidden Palace. After Hidden Palace is completed, Super Sonic will be unlocked, and the next act will start.
Special Stages: The special stages are the special stages from Sonic the Hedgehog 2: The half pipe.
Shadow the Hedgehog:
Shadow the Hedgehog, also known as the Ultimate Life Form, was one of Sonic’s rivals. He sacrificed himself to save the Earth, as well as to fulfill his promise to his first friend: The deceased Maria Robotnik. Shadow has been dead for eight months, but there have been apparent sightings of him in the past four months.
Rings:
Rings are scattered across zones. The more rings you have, the faster you go. If Sonic is touched by an enemy while he still has rings, he will lose all of his rings, reverting his speed back to the default. If Sonic is hit without rings, he will die, and the player must start from the last checkpoint they hit. If the player has not hit any checkpoints yet, they will start at the beginning of the act.
Lives and Continues:
Lives are the number of tries Sonic has to complete the level. If Sonic loses all his lives, he will get a game over, and must restart the level, even if they hit a checkpoint. The exception is when Sonic has a continue. Sonic can get continues by completing special stages. Sonic can get extra lives by either getting 100 rings or finding a +1 Lives box.
Playstyle:
Sonic moves are: Jumping, Rolling, Boost, Sliding, Wall Jumping, Stomping, and the Spin Dash (Unlocked after Emerald Shores Act 1). Sonic’s speed will be tracked by an invention created by Tails known as the SpeedTrac. The SpeedTrac’s display will be shown on the bottom-left corner of the screen, and tracks Sonic’s speed. Sonic starts at mach 1, but the more rings he collects, the higher the mach! The highest mach is mach 6, but Sonic can collect more rings; up to 999.
Mach 1: 0 rings
Mach 2: 20 rings
Mach 3: 40 rings
Mach 4: 60 rings
Mach 5: 80 rings
Mach 6: 100 rings
Depending on how fast Sonic makes it to the goal, he will receive a rank. The ranks are:
S Rank
A Rank
B Rank
C Rank
D Rank
The time you need to get for each rank varies from Act to Act. For every S rank you achieve, you are rewarded with one of Tails’ journal entries, viewable from the SpeedTrac.
Each one of these tell a story about apparent sightings of a revived Shadow…
The Skill Ring:
Every time the player completes an act, (with the exceptions of Death Egg Acts 2 & 3 and Final Blitz), they can use Sonic’s SpeedTrac to access the Skill Ring before the next Zone or Act.
Using Red Star Rings scattered across acts (Five in each, with the exceptions of Death Egg Acts 2 & 3 and Final Blitz), the player can purchase additional skills for Sonic! The unlockable skills are:
The Spin Dash from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Granted to the player for free after Emerald Shores Act 1 is completed)
The Insta-Shield from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Costs 15 Red Star Rings)
The Super Peel-Out from Sonic CD (Costs 20 Red Star Rings)
The Drop Dash from Sonic Mania (Costs 20 Red Star Rings)
The Homing Attack from Sonic the Hedgehog 4 (Costs 20 Red Star Rings)
The Double Jump (Costs 20 Red Star Rings)
The Super Sonic Transformation (Granted to the player for free after Hidden Palace Zone is completed)
Power-Ups:
The power-ups give Sonic an advantage in zones. The power-ups are:
The Shield
The Fire Shield
The Water Shield
The Lighting Shield
The Speed Shoes
+10 Rings
Invincibility
+1 Extra Life
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Welcome to the fourth, and final episode of the Road to 4! Only fitting we end on the fourth installment, don't you think? These past few weeks, we've been looking at different aspects of what makes the Skylanders Dimensions roleplay so memorable. We analyzed the vast, expansive lore, we looked at our favorite episodes, and we praised our favorite character combinations.
But now, with this final subject, I wanted to be a bit more broad. I wanted to ask my community what Skylanders Dimensions means to THEM. What has kept them around for so many years? What has it stand out from any other roleplay on the forum? How did it help people not only become better writers, but also better people? What exactly DID we create, here?
And I got an outstanding amount of responses, from members new and old. And I couldn't be more proud than to share it all with you today.
So without further ado... What does Skylanders Dimensions mean to you?
QuoteWhat the RP means to me after all this time is really a shining example of community. A ton of writers who came together with different beloved franchises, series, characters, and stories to tell, who created brand-new friendships that's stood the tests of time, and have created this whole grand universe together. Every writer had a impact, every writer contributed something to the RP's universe.
Many of us only became introduced to each other through the role-play, and now a lot of us are good friends. A lot of us spend time together, a lot of us have moved past just writing, and do other activities like playing games together. The RP has allowed this tight-knit community of friends to come together and make something they enjoy and are proud of, and I think that's something very special.
QuoteThis roleplay, to me, helps allow members from wide across, their chance to spark and shine. Essentially, one of the bastions of creative story-telling.
The roleplay has helped me hone writing skills, even to an extent that such has been able to be incorporated into a job in real life.
It's also a means of meeting new people, and ideally blossoming a new relationship out of the interactions that one is granted to in the RP.
This RP is the site to a whole new avenue....and arguably, it is growing to be the same, but always changing for the better.
At the root of my praise for the RP is that it really showcases many, if not all, the ways upon which we can do everything. From potential to execution, the RP being a means to cheer folk up or even fight news challengers on it. This does in turn, tend to give people new to the fray, a good running start, and brings them into the community. And consequently, it all tends to work out in the end.
Therefore, in conclusion, I can say that the RP is a tool, but a highly valuable one rich with culture and history. It's a place we can all feel like we have no limits to our potential, and boy, when we succeed, we truly do.
QuoteI am typing this on my phone, the device I used when I first discovered this RP all the way back in high school. Soon after, it took me a little bit of time before deciding to take the plunge by joining this RP. This decision was one that I do not regret making one bit.
The Skylanders RP had helped me so much, not just as a roleplayer and a writer, but also as a person. The praises and criticisms from my fellow roleplayers had helped me learn everything that I should do and everything that I should avoid when writing a story, whether it be a standalone novel or a collaborative roleplay. And being around so many positive influences in the form of the roleplayers here had helped me become much more extroverted online, while also helping me through the tough times associated with the internet.
Regrettably, I had been neglecting this RP a little closer to the end of the third season, largely due to me becoming a full-fledged college student and branching out to other roleplay communities. But no matter what, I will never forget the Skylanders RP that helped me become the person I am today. And I cannot wait to see what everyone in the roleplay has to offer for season four.
QuoteThis rp was something that introduced me to several new people that I'm proud to call friends, united together to tell a story. To me, it's a place where I can nerd out, and at the same time, improve my own skills as a writer. It's a place that's had me laughing till my sides ache, and a place that's broken my heart. At the end of the day, it's a story I'm glad to have been a part of, and so long as I'm welcome, a place I'm excited to come back to.
QuoteI touched on this a little in my last entry on this series, but to me, the RP has been a place where I have an opportunity to write with my characters outside of their original context, and define exactly who they are and how they think in a given story or situation. That this happens through interactions with other writers (some using established characters, others with their own creations) has been a great boon since aside from seeing the creativity of other people on display, it means things might develop in a positive way that I never initially intended. A character who was intended to be a guest star in one episode I helmed before being killed off (as part of what you might call a "canon event") ended up surviving/cheating her fate because people really liked her - and I hadn't really fleshed her out until that appearance. Even today, while Trinity may have supplanted her as the "babey" of the Skylanders, she's still a popular and beloved character who has her devoted fans, even with those who weren't there for that initial story.
In general, the RP has been a chance to flex my writing muscles and find my "voice". I've only helmed a handful of stories over the years, and most of the older ones I don't think too highly of these days. Every time I think of them, I often find myself going, "Ugh, why did I do this, what possessed me to thing THAT was a good idea?" or, "I should've had X say/do Y instead of Z." Which I guess in some way is a sign of improvement on my part, from the days when I was a college teen who had to rush through a story in a half-term week because that was the only time I was able to do it because of timezone differences.
More than that, though, the RP has been a way of connecting with friends I doubt I would have ever made without it. Failinhearts is the big one, obviously, but there are others, too - from long time members like Ryan and Robrainiac, relative newcomers like Morganoire and Lady Marie, and many others who've come and gone over the years. While at times I feel like I might have made mistakes in one form or another with my contributions to this saga, on the whole I can easily say that this little thing I joined on a whim years ago has had a positive effect on my life. While I doubt the quality and "validity" of my own project almost every day, there's no doubt in my mind that whenever it takes form, however long it might take until then, it'll be better for how this RP has helped shape it than it would be if I hadn't joined.Thanks for being here for all these years, and I hope I'm with you all for many, many more.
QuoteI feel like it's an opportunity to outgrow old habits and make myself better, all the while finding friends and new interests along the way. Even if writing things started rocky, it's just a minor blip in the grand scheme of things.
QuoteYou know, when it came to the previous questions, I had to ponder which episodes or which character duos I enjoyed the most, as there were plenty to choose from… it was hard to pick! But for this one, I know exactly what the RP means to me.
To me, the RP is a place where people can freely express their love for their favorite franchises through a creative means. With a wide variety of writers, we all have our own interests, and with that wide variety, not all of us are going to share the opinion or be too interested in everything that’s represented in the RP.
But the great thing about taking part in Skylanders? We don’t need to research every character or where they came from to get to know them. I can guarantee the characters that show up here are written by people who are passionate about said characters and through their writing can express why they love them.
Another great thing… Have a character you love, but you’re not happy with how they were written or felt they were underutilized? This is the place to write them in a way you would like to! Just look at characters like Sayaka from Madoka or Trinity from Mighty no 9, characters who were given new interpretations due to (at least in the opinion of some of us here) unsatisfying conclusions or executions.
And not only are characters from your favorite franchises welcomed, but you also have tons of creative OCs in addition to that! Sometimes it’s fun to see a well written OC interact with well known characters, and to me it’s awesome seeing how my OCs crossover with all sorts of franchises I love.
Overall, to me, the RP is a very unique way of showing off the movies, games, shows, cartoons, and anime that we are all passionate about. Whether it be making our own adventures after their official stories ended, giving them the justice they deserve by giving them another chance, showing off the original characters and seeing them shaped up through their interactions and adventures, and just making memories and bonds by sharing what we love with each other.
And hell, I can safely say by being in this RP, we’ve gotten into games, movies, shows, ect that we never thought we would get into. I can safely say my interest in stuff like Xenoblade, Ninjago, and My Hero Academia all came from this RP, and I’m really excited to meet more characters and learn more about where they came from!
QuoteWhat does the RP mean to me?
I'm gonna resist the temptation to start by replying with the obvious joke answer and jump straight to saying, as the years have gone by, that has changed.
I'm not even sure what I was thinking when I first decided to join. So much has happened since then. But I can recall seeing it as potentially a fun diversion. I'd always been interested in telling stories, sometimes getting lost in my own head. It had never really occurred to me to explore those feelings before. It even helped my socialize in a new way, having not much success with other attempts around SSMB.
Sure, sometimes issues would surface, but I'd gotten too invested to give up now. As the years go by, I find myself disliking the environment that SSMB fosters. Obnoxious cynicism, pessimism and sarcasm fester to the point that I hated being there. The RP became the only reason I even showed up at all. In a way, that is still mostly true. I can't confidentially say the attitude at SSMB has improved because I successfully learned how to block it out by complete accident.But then, my worst fear came to pass and everything changed for me in real life. I lost my hero and with him, I lost my drive, my motivation, my inspiration, my will to carry on. Yes, I'm saying what you think I'm saying, it's all relevant, trust me. As broken as I was, he asked me to do something and that became my primary goal. While working on that, I figured I'd be far too damaged to RP anymore. While I tried to tolerate each day as it comes, I'd notice that I still had a desire to create. To entertain. Modern entertainment had become sewage water, likable characters had become super rare and everything was a damn remake or sequel to something else because new and creative ideas are hard. In short, what used to be effective escapism for when things were getting difficult, no longer was.
My new projects were also taking longer than expected so I thought, since my drive resurfaced, I'd go back to the RP.
All this build up is to show how my feelings towards the RP had changed. In the timeline of events, we have now caught up to the present. Modern entertainment is still awful and is now visibly spreading to video games. We still have old stuff that is just as entertaining as ever, but if it's brand new and provides escapism? That's the RP and not much else.
What started as a little bit of fun, has become an anchor to cling too. A last straw to remind me that the world doesn't totally suck and fun ideas are still out there. It's just us small folk that have them while the narcissistic and overpaid just waste money rehashing the same old crap that always turns out inferior because the original was made by talented individuals.I am truly grateful for what this RP has provided. Sure, it's only a small group of us, but that's what makes it feel so intimate. Not to mention the friendliness of the people involved.
QuoteThis RP has been a great experience, sure I wasn’t there all that much for Season 3 due to life reasons which is why I’m gonna do my best to be there for Season 4.
I think this RP has really challenged me as a writer, in some good and bad ways but mostly good. I genuinely think my writing has improved ever so slightly since joining the RP.
And the RP has led me to make such great new friends even I’m still slightly nervous around them. But they’ve all been so kind and accepting to me and, it makes me really happy to have joined.
So, what does the RP mean to me? Joining something truly unique and special and slowly growing more and more as a person, a friend and a writer.
So with all my heart: thank you all for letting me join this wonderful community.
Stay true to yourselves, at the end of the day, we’re all alive in some way.
QuoteI’ve enjoyed my time here quite a bit in this roleplay. I’ve been a part of roleplays in the past and they were never the best experience. I took about a decade or so break from it, never really expecting me to ever come back into it, until Ryan and Failin talked about it during Game Night. I brought up some interest during a game, messaged Ryan, and was set up to go soon after.
The difference between a lot of the roleplay communities I’ve been in the past and this one are rather huge. Everyone here is very welcoming and kind to me. They don’t insult my characters, and are always very helpful in the process of creating them. I have some oddball choices here and there, but they’re always really excited to see them come to life and it makes me feel good to see characters I have entertain people. It is a stark difference from role plays I’ve been a part of in the past.
Failin is an extremely nice and helpful leader to be behind. He cares for the community and the characters we’ve all created, giving us pointers when we ask for them and always encouraging us to partake in fun activities, much like this one. That goes the same for all the other staff too, both of Dead Zone and Skylanders.
Ryan has been an inspiration for many of my ideas and characters coming in, so I wanted to give him a special shout out too. I wouldn’t be here without him.
I love the creativity of everyone here, Table, Bloxx, Spin, Morgan, Marie, LEGOMAN, Carmen, Dan, Crow, Char, Polkadi, Grammy, Robrainiac, Jovah, Orpheus, and everyone else. If I didn’t list a name here, I apologize, there’s just so many people here that I enjoy interacting with.
I wish I could’ve said more for prior ones for this whole retrospective, but I just simply didn’t have the time.
But what this roleplay means to me is that it gives me a sense of belonging. As someone that has had a rough time with roleplays in the past as said before, it means a lot to be welcomed by so many. Seeing people bring up Louie or Eustace as someone they like seeing or interacting with fills my heart with joy, and I hope to remain here for many more years. Thanks for all the fond memories thus far!
QuoteWhat does the roleplay mean to me? Hmm, well that’s a tough question, and one that I’m not sure how to answer. I feel like I could give a really short answer or a really long-winded one, but both would be genuine. There are a lot of reasons I enjoy the RP for sure though, so I will do my best to convey what the RP means for me. It could be scattered though, so I apologize in advance if that ends up being the case.
The first thing the RP means to me is belonging. That probably doesn’t make sense, or maybe I didn’t word it right, but that is just how it feels for me. I was still somewhat new to the internet and social media when I joined the RP, and was still trying to find a place where I belonged. We met in a separate community, but Failin did some writing for me with my Pokémon trainer OC and his going on a fun little search for his trainer’s Scorbunny, and it just made me happy that someone had felt inspired enough to write something about a character I made. The two of us talked for a while, and eventually, the topic of the Skylanders Dimensions roleplay came up, and Failin encouraged me to join with my Pokémon trainer as well as Dimitri and Byleth. I was beyond nervous, seeing the rules and templates (even though it really wasn’t that bad once I just sat down and filled out the thing), and I was worried that I wouldn’t fit in or people wouldn’t like my characters. Thankfully, right from when Failin first brought me aboard, the community was very welcoming and inviting, and helped me work through the mistakes I made early on. Seeing people sharing the characters and franchises they loved this way was something I had no idea people did, especially as adults, but it made me very happy to find people who do appreciate fiction and share what they love. Ever since then, I’ve gotten to know everyone more, learn about people’s preferred movies, games, and other things, and I’m just happy to have found a place I belong! It came at a time in my life where I didn’t have that much irl, so it meant a lot and still does even as I am improving with my social life irl and am getting busier.
Somewhat linked to the last point, the RP is just a way to share the characters I love with others, and interact with the characters they love as well! The stories everyone makes really run so much deeper than I could have thought, and seeing everyone’s connections between their characters and each other, it’s just something I enjoy being a part of. As you probably gathered from last week’s post, there have been a lot of meaningful and fun dynamics that writers have been able to have with the characters, and I just think it’s cool that the stories and characters can bring us all closer together in a way, too. I’ve kind of always gotten maybe a bit too invested in fiction for my own good, and when it comes to the RP, things aren’t any different. There are so many characters, whether preexisting or original, that I’ve come to love that I probably never would have even known existed if it wasn’t for the RP and the community. And hearing that people enjoy my writing and that what I’ve done has helped them to like the characters that I like really warms my heart and makes me smile. In the wise words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, it’s been “a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one,” when it comes to seeing how supportive people are of my own interests and how the love the writers has for their characters shines through, making me interested in other franchises that again, I might not have looked at otherwise (Madoka, Neptunia, and Kingdom Hearts, to name a few). They even accept my almost-daily Beauty and the Beast fangirling without complaint and without judging me for it, which I greatly appreciate and also still feel a bit bad about So thanks to the RP for just being a place where I can share the characters I love and enjoy the characters that others love, too!
And finally, the RP means being part of something that’s bigger than myself. Sure, I know there are other things to be involved in that can also be described that way, and I am involved in at least one other such thing with my faith. But seeing this giant, overarching story being written by many different people coming together, is just incredible. Reading the recap for Road to 4, it really is amazing seeing how long some of these writers have known each other and been writing together, with characters old and new coming and going through the years. Through thick and thin, they’ve been with each other, and I hope to forge friendships that also stand the test of time in such a way. I joined in kind of late season 3, so while I haven’t been around too long compared to many of the others, I’m still very happy overall with what I’ve been able to contribute, and feeling like the characters I love and I are part of this really big, long-lasting crossover just makes me feel good, especially with the characters being as generally well-received as they have. When I first joined the RP, I was certainly intimidated at first by pretty much everyone, if I’m being completely honest, though it wasn’t because you guys did anything wrong, I promise! But now I can feel pretty good about calling you my friends, and to have played a part in all of this really just means a lot to me! As I said in the second road to 4 blog, I’ve really loved all the stories I’ve been part of so far, and I can’t wait to see what will come in the future! So yeah, I think I got a bit derailed and scattered there, but oh well, hopefully it makes sense.
I just want to end this by thanking Failin for giving me a chance about 3 and a half years ago now to be a part of this community. It’s been a joy to be able to share the characters I love with everyone, and to be able to see the characters you all love as well! Thanks for letting me be a part of something so big and so important to you, and for letting me be a part of this larger community. I’m happy to have made the friends I have here, and hope to share many more fun times and make more memories together in the future, too!QuoteWhat does the RP mean to me... I think the easier question would be what DOESN'T it mean?
Starting off, I was a depressed teenager who developed some parasocial relationship to some blue haired anime girl with a LOT of things to vent about. I had no real friends to speak of, no online community to turn to, not even a faintest clue where I wanted to be in life. All I had was this silly fanfic idea of Sayaka Miki, and some weird OC version of Sonic I made when I was 5.
I joined SSMB, saw some RP going, bit my lip, and dove right in with my admittedly very melodramatic storyline.
But that's where I met Crow, Ryan, and Spin. Who... endured my "quirks", my meltdowns, the wonderous concoctions of unstable teenage hormones. But it was also they who not only put my life back in order, practically SAVING it on too many counts. But it made me realize something.
I loved to write. I loved to make stories. I always had a vague idea I wanted to make something when I grew up. But I didn't know how to go about it. A director? An animator? Designer? Artist?
But it was now clear as day as I decided my path in University: Screenwriter. And it's all thanks to me deciding with Crow one day to take what we wrote in this smaller RP, and make it our own. To make Skylanders Dimensions.
And with it, my life would never be the same.
I honed my craft, while also working on myself as I go from an insecure teen, to a learning adult. I made more and more friends, as I slowly gained my confidence to venture out further. Make friends in real life, embrace my talents in other mediums and avenues, I've developed lifelong relationships that span a decade now on this very site.
And now, I have fostered this tight knit, strong community on not just SSMB, but on Discord where I can get to know the people I have come to love so well on so many other levels of discussion. To play games, to pull us through during tough times. It's been a blessing from God that I have been given this opportunity, and this power to maintain this... frankly, support group for so long. (Join the RP, and you too can join us!)
And now, I'm even staff on this very site. All thanks to the writing and the community I've worked so hard to maintain with my wonderful team. But just because I am now a member of the SSMB team, doesn't mean Skylanders will ever be an afterthought to me.
Even through all this evolution, all the change, it's comforting to know that this RP is always around. To give a sense of familiarity, a place where I am welcome to pursue whatever wild idea comes to my head and people... GET it.
People appreciate my weird ideas, my themes, my meta commentary, the characters I chuck into the fray that seem like such odd additions. The subversions I make, and the absurd takes on franchises people thought they knew. Even if other fandoms would condemn what I do, I knew I always have a community of people who see my vision for what it is, and love it. Maybe even more than the source material itself.
Who wouldn't be proud of that?
And now, I am finally able to dig back to one of the earliest ideas conceptualized in 2017: Season 4. It's been a long time coming, but its like I'm popping open an old bottle of well-aged wine. I may be a very different person than I was back then. I may have very different responsibilities now. But some things will always taste good after all this time. And I think Season 4 is going to taste very, very sweet.
And I can't wait to share it all with you.
Thank you for going on this long road with me.
Our destination is coming up soon.
...And thank YOU for reading this far! Yeah, you! I dunno if you're a roleplayer, or some SSMB member, or maybe some dude lurking as a guest! Trust me, I'm looking at the online users. I know who you are. And I'm grateful.
It has been truly a joy hearing from everyone, and looking back at every aspect that made not just this RP, but my entire life online such a joy. And I can't wait to look towards the future. Here's to Season 4, Dead Zone, and whatever may come next!
Remember, the journey with your Skylanders is only just beginning.
SEASON 4 BEGINS APRIL 28TH! JOIN NOW, AND GET A HEADSTART FOR THE BIG DAY!
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[COMIC ISSUE REVIEW] Sonic the Hedgehog IDW: Issue 3
Title: Sonic the Hedgehog
Issue: #3
Writer: Ian Flynn
Artist: Jennifer Hernandez
Series: IDW
Previously Reviewed: Issue 1 | Issue 2
So, now that we are introduced to Amy and Tails, here's the issue where we are finally introduced to Knuckles the Echidna; you know, that red Echidna who happens to be one of Sonic's rivals (or former rival, depending on how you look at it)? Well, I must say that I was quite excited to check out this issue, especially since Knuckles is in this issue! But, before we go into my thoughts about this issue, here's a brief summary of the issue.
The issue begins with Sonic the Hedgehog rushing over to a new town and it was there that he meets up with Knuckles the Echidna, who is busy smashing up some robots. It turns out that Knuckles is still the leader of the Resistance, but he's clearly not enjoying the job. But at the same time, Sonic and Knuckles discovers that the town that they came to has been taken over by two skunk mercenaries named Rough and Tumble and the skunk brothers also have a supply of Wispons to help them keep control over the city. It's up to Sonic and Knuckles to stop these skunk brothers!
So, when I saw Knuckles come into this issue, I was really happy! Knuckles is one of my all-time favorite characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, alongside Tails, and I always wanted to see how he would be portrayed in the IDW comics. So far, I'm really liking Knuckles' characterization in this series as he does have a tough exterior, like he does in most interpretations of his character; but he also respects Sonic enough to work with him and will always do the right thing in the end. Also, I'm just glad that Knuckles is not portrayed as being unintelligent in this series like he has been portrayed lately in the games (or at least in the Sonic Boom games). I always had an issue whenever Knuckles was being portrayed as unintelligent because the Knuckles that I grew up with was pretty cunning in his actions, even though he can be pretty gullible at times. Heck, there was a brief moment in this issue where Sonic was laughing at the Skunk Brothers and made a joke about them and Knuckles took what the Skunk Brothers were saying seriously. This is another aspect of Knuckles that I appreciate because there are times where Knuckles doesn't have the best social skills in some games and there are times where he doesn't get the joke that the other characters would tell. That scene actually reminded me of myself as I tend to get a bit confused whenever people are joking about something. Like I would go like, "Are you actually joking or are you being serious?" Anyway, I really liked Sonic and Knuckles' relationship with each other in this issue. Even though they've been rivals for many years, they are still pretty friendly with each other and I just loved seeing how close Sonic and Knuckles have become with each other over the years.
The story in this issue was pretty fun! While it's the typical "Sonic and Friends fight off the bad guys" plot, it was fun seeing Sonic and Knuckles fight together against the newest foes, Rough and Tumble. Also, it was interesting seeing the Wisps make an appearance in this issue (even though as of this post, I still haven't played "Sonic Colors" yet and I'm not too familiar with their characters or their abilities).
One of the problems that I have with this issue is Rough and Tumble themselves. While they are new villains created for this series, I felt that they were pretty generic villains compared to some villains like Metal Sonic or even Snively as they were portrayed as just being mere bullies that Sonic and Knuckles could easily take down. Another problem that I had with this issue was the artwork. I felt that the artwork in this issue was a bit weak compared to the artwork in the previous two issues and it just felt too out of place in this series.
Even though the artwork was a bit weak and the main antagonists in this issue, Rough and Tumble, weren't that interesting as characters, I still enjoyed this issue! I just loved seeing Sonic and Knuckles fighting alongside each other again and it was great seeing Knuckles be portrayed in a better light in this series so far. Now, it's time to get to the next issue, where we are introduced to the newest character in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Tangle the Lemur!
Taken from my book blog: RABBIT EARS BOOK BLOG
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Got a bit carried away today. There I was, minding my own business restoring a bunch of ancient site content from around 2003, and I come across some news articles for the Sonic Amateur Games Expo in 2003. Including a story about the debut showcase of plucky UK fan gaming studio, SHADOWTEAM.
I could have just restored the article. I should have just restored the article. But boy, oh boy, seeing those screenshots of our fledgling fan game, Sonic Avalanche, on that ancient microsite I made twenty years ago, just gave me intense enthusiasm to bring as much of that back as I could. It looks a bit bum by today's standards, sure, but forgive this old man for getting an attack of severe nostalgia.
THIS GAME IS OVER TWENTY YEARS OLD.
That's actually mad to think about.
Anyway, it has been a million years (well, twenty) since any of this was relevant in the community, so allow me to explain. SHADOWTEAM was The Sonic Stadium's in-house fan gaming crew, with a core UK-based unit consisting of myself, @Roareye Black and a chap we were both pals with called 'Anarchy Rat' (that wasn't his real name. Obviously...). Together, we felt like we could take on the fan gaming world with some unique and interesting concepts.
Sonic Avalanche was our first project, and became a bit of a cult classic (even if it was a little simple). It's a score attack game for up to four players at once, where characters had to avoid fireballs that fell in waves of ever-increasing speed. You could 'wall-grind' to gain points, and wall-jump to escape various traps, but it came at the risk of getting hit by flames. Green fireballs would restore health, but would appear at rare intervals - and only one at a time, meaning players had to fight over who got it in multiplayer.
It was a fun little game to make, and thanks to @Rlanthe entire game is still available via the Internet Archive (although I still have the zip here too, maybe one day I'll add it to this site - but the archive link works for now). You can visit the restored website by clicking here (warning, it might not be friendly to mobile devices!).
Bringing that micro-site back made me look back through the long lost archive of the SHADOWTEAM 'studio' website itself, too. There were some other great projects we pulled off - from Game & Watch-inspired micro-games to a hilarious tug of war game starring Eggman. Our big flagship project was 'Sonic the Fighters 2', and the engine Anarchy Rat had developed was insane for the time... but sadly we never got to finish it. As is the case with most community fan game teams, things fell apart and people went their separate ways.
A lot of stuff has been lost to time, but I'm keen to pull as much back together as I can. Maybe once I'm a little further in with the main site restoration than bloody 2003, I'll give SHADOWTEAM my full attention. In the meantime, I've made a wee landing page for people to find the logo (and a link to Sonic Avalanche) in case they're as old as me and fancy a trip down memory lane.
Conceptually, SHADOWTEAM was formed in late 2002, but I'm going by our site launch in June 2003 as our real starting point. So, as we're nearly 21 years in, let me get in there quick and say a late, "Happy 20th Anniversary" to the old crew.
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Trapt Review (PS2) [Feb 2006]
What would you do if you were stuck in a mansion, trying to survive execution for a crime you didn't commit? According to Tecmo, get possessed by a demon and rip the crap out of the guys after you, naturally. That’ll show them. Continuing the development studio’s love for the dark, moody and gothic, Trapt is a rather interesting action game that involves a unique puzzle twist.
Set in a suitably gothic medieval world, you play the role of framed Princess Allura, who is evading capture (and thusly, death) after the murder of her father – a killing that her 'German S&M' inspired stepmother blames her for. Fleeing with her maid Rachel, Allura discovers an abandoned mansion that she can hide in. Upon entering however she becomes cursed with a demon known only as the fiend, who turns her into a sorceress of traps. Using these traps, you can defeat the armies of soldiers who are hunting you down, and then sacrifice them to the fiend, making it stronger.
So she’s a trapper keeper then? Hyuck hyuck.
Oh, that joke wasn’t funny when we said it the first time, and it’s not even funny in text.
A shame, we were going to base the whole review on that.Mind you, what isn’t funny is the power of the traps themselves that you get to control. The game is broken down into missions – that are in turn broken down into little mini battles where you face various pursuers, from soldiers to magicians to even tramps. News of your possession must have gotten round, because it appears everyone wants a piece of Allura, be it for a reward for her capture or plainly to stop the fiend from sacrificing any more victims.
These battles take place in a room in the mansion, and you can do nothing but run away, avoid the enemy’s attack or place traps down. The traps are effectively your attack and defence, since you can’t do anything else. Hitting Circle will show an overhead view of the room you are in, with a grid covering it. You can then assign different traps to different face buttons. Triangle is used for executing traps from the ceiling, Square activates traps set in the walls and X is for floor traps. You get a choice of three of each type of trap, but you can only put down one ceiling, one wall and one floor trap at a time.
Once you’ve set them, markers will appear on the spots you placed each trap, but you’ll need to wait until they’re charged up before you can use them. Then it’s simply a case of luring your victims to the right spot and letting loose by pressing the button that corresponds to the trap. You can even do combos, where using one trap may lead to them being hit by another, and so on. It’s fun to experiment with the different traps till you get to make an unbeatable combination. We found that catching foes in a bear trap, impaling them on a wall of spikes and then having them smacked in the face by a rolling boulder can work wonders for your combo count – but not for your victim’s head, obviously.
The graphics are pretty good, with character models in the cut scenes being quite… voluptuous. Yes, let’s put it like that. The atmosphere and foreboding of the game is created effectively with moody browns and greys inside the mansion, and Allura almost an entire figure of white in contrast. An angel amidst all of the chaos surrounding her, if you want to get metaphorical.
Despite the fact she is possessed, she is still pretty much in control of herself but, understandably, doesn’t really want to be beheaded by her rather horrible stepmother Queen. A good natured girl, driven to murder simply to survive, yet at the same time feeding the very demon that is to bring destruction to the world. Not the best of situations to be in really, is it?
The music is all very gothic as well and there’s a great selection of tunes that will keep you on your toes, while the Japanese dialogue during the cut scenes and in-game is quite emotional. Shame about those sub-titles mind. You can’t get more emotional for a bloke than your nads being shaved off by a zooming buzzsaw, and hearing your enemies groan in pain is almost illegally satisfying.
Naturally, since this is pretty much the whole of the game, the extent of the traps and how you can use them is quite vast. By killing your enemies you earn money, which can be used to purchase more traps. Before each level begins you are greeted with an ‘Intermission’ screen, where you can buy more traps, equip some attacks to your inventory so you can use them in battle, and read up on just who you will be fighting. And depending on who’s after your blood this time, certain traps will not work on them effectively.
For instance, a chunky samurai warlord with heaps of armour isn’t going to be affected by a well-shot arrow. So crack a meteor into his skull and you soon remove that problem. People you kill are quite ceremoniously added to a museum of deceased victims, with specifics on how they died. You can also buy keys, which will open up new rooms in the mansion – at first you are limited to the one room to battle in, but soon you can run from one area to another if you fancy taking the fight elsewhere.
When you start a battle, you’re given a rolling introduction to your enemies. It’s polite to get to know them before you start garrotting them, you see. Even though you may fight as many as five people in any one round, you will only ever see two foes at a time. Likely due to how much the PS2 can handle, but as you get to the later stages it all starts to feel a bit artificial. Well... obviously it is, because it’s a video game, but perhaps more than two people to battle at once would have added a bit of adrenaline to later levels.
And speaking of which, although the gameplay is original for the type of game it is, you might end up feeling bored with it after a while – the trap-placing and the running around does get a little repetitive, and you will likely stick to a select few traps that you know will work best instead of experimenting after a short time. It appears that once you get to the stage of taking on five enemies, almost on a one-after-the-other basis, you’ve hit the top of the learning curve.
The AI of the enemies are quite good, as we found ourselves rather frustrated when we set off traps too early, and the enemies simply stepped around our bodged attempt at beheading them. They do tend to be a little bit cheap though, particularly the magicians that will gang up on you with spells even when you’re on the floor and have yet to recover. You may also have problems adjusting to how slow the game is in action – the framerate is quite low and as a result everyone runs around almost as if they’re in slow motion, particularly the enemies. Not very exciting to have to wait for ages for a slow-witted opponent to be lured into a bomb trap.
Longevity is a bit of an issue as well, although the game does try its best on this one. During the story mode there is a ‘Side Story’ that consists of one extra battle, which adds an alternative side to the main game. You also have a Survival mode, but considering the issues with repetitive play, it’s unlikely you will head here too often. It's the bizarre story that keeps you playing, with multiple twists and possibilities being uncovered in almost every scene, but once you’ve seen it all you will probably come back to it every now and then to indulge in the interesting gameplay and to mutilate people in various fun and nasty ways. For as long as it does last though, there is a lot to appreciate from gamers who are looking for something new.
Score: C+
It has its shortcomings, but this is interesting enough to hold your attention until you complete it. No doubt we’ll get the Daily Mail and the other media telling us that Trapt will encourage youths to get possessed and use magic traps to kill their mates or something – Trapt is a unique and gloriously gruesome puzzle-fest. One to rent.
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This review was originally published on SPOnG.com on 24 Feb 2006, at:
https://spong.com/feature/10109341/Review-Trapt-PS2
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Sonic The Hedgehog has a lot of games. And in these games, are boss battles. Boss battles are designed to be a test for the players skills with the game's mechanics, and controls. Games series' like Mega Man and Donkey Kong I believe have perfected this design philosophy. Such as Captain K. Rool, and Shade Man to name a couple examples.
However, with Sonic The Hedgehog, it's always been two sides of a single coin: It's either Case 1: The Boss is too easy and goes out too fast due to Sonic's sheer speed. Or Case 2: This boss is incredibly frustrating I can't even attack half the time due to the boss moving elsewhere.
With that, I've noticed with Sonic Team's bosses implemented within all of Sonic's classic entries, they seem to lean towards Case 1 for the majority of it's bosses. Other developers like Arzest and the team behind Sonic Mania lean a lot more into Case 2 with their entries. From my perspective, it's this swaying pendulum between the two different philosophies that seem to have the need to sacrifice one for the other.
What's the solution? Well, I believe that solution is found within a little game called Sonic 3 and Knuckles, Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2:
This particular boss boils down to this: Spin Dash into the Egg Scrambler whilst dodging the logs coming in at a decent speed. There isn't anything halting what Sonic has been doing this entire game. Running. Running and jumping. This boss takes these two common actions taken by the player and makes them the focal point of this boss. Sonic is running at top speed and is not likely to slow down at any point during the fight. There's enough time to react to the spike balls due to the spike ball appearing moments after the intro has ended. And lastly, Sonic looses momentum when striking the boss, leaving a high chance for a sizable amount of time to happen between the strikes.
The only problem to this boss is it's rather short HP bar during the fight. A simple tweak with the amount of HP and you have yourself the perfect boss for Classic Sonic gameplay. It asks of the player to take it's lessons learned throughout and puts them to the test. Without too much spamming of the A button, and doesn't rely on invincibility frames to make sure the fight doesn't end in two seconds.
This has been my Classic Sonic The Hedgehog and Boss Design discussion. This all just my opinion and am by no mean a Classic Sonic Design Master.
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2/25/24 - Side Order review (Spoilers)
Welcome back! It's been a while, hasn't it? Oh, I have so many games to review now, so you'll hear from me again soon. Today's topic: Splatoon 3's Side Order. I'll get this out of the way first: There will be spoilers here. Also, fair warning: I suggest not playing this DLC if you are relatively new to Splatoon. Click to unhide spoiler to see review:
SpoilerThe story is kinda underwhelming, but it's not the biggest deal. I haven't unlocked all of Marina's dev diary, so, there are little tidbits I'm missing. The story is fairly simple, but there are cute little dialogue sequences between floors that reveal some more of the story and are entertaining.
My big issue is the gameplay. Sure, the whole "run" thing is neat but it can cause issues. One, in order to complete it, you have to beat the entire spire (30 levels) WITH A DIFFERENT WEAPON each time. This can become highly time-consuming. You also can't choose a specific level, you just have to pray you got the one you want when selecting the next floor, which hurts replayability (in my eyes, at least).
The level design is also plain. there's not much variation, and the levels are basically just arenas with a few differences. The game doesn't have many objectives to offer, so the gameplay just consists of playing similar levels and the same missions for 30 floors. Oh, by the way, if you die once (excluding Marina's hacks) you have to start all over again. From floor 1. Thankfully, I beat order on my 3rd run, but I don't want to imagine being a new player and trying out side order.
There aren't many bosses (about 3-4, I think), and their encounters are random (1 per each 10th floor, but the boss itself is randomized). So, you have to fight each boss lots of times, which gets tedious and sucks the joy out of them. By the way, do you remember that you can't manually choose a specific level/boss? Only the major story ones (2, to be exact) can be manually chosen... after you beat the game. Speaking of which, let's move on to the endgame.
The final boss resembles the first boss (Marina Agitando), where you have to destroy some portals to break the barrier so you can ink the boss itself. After you beat it, a cutscene plays and you have to spam ZR for a little. Then the fight repeats, but you have to destroy portals that hold color chips since yours were stolen. Once you break the barrier, you just have to attack Order. it took me at least 5 minutes because OH MY GOD HE HAS SO MUCH HP. I was using the roller and just circling him and spamming ZR. I kid you not when I tell you that I started drifting off. The song in the background started getting annoying because it's not very interesting musically. Oh, Pearl booyahs again but it lost the awe because it's not a killer wail and that idea was already used back in Octo Expansion.
The color chips are a neat system, though. They were probably one of the few reasons I tried to keep playing. It is fun trying to choose which upgrade you would like/need the most. The bonus and danger levels add a bit of spice, but they are far too in between. They made the game feel less bland and repetitive....But oh my god I hate the progression of side order. The gameplay gets boring after a long time due to little variation.
That's not to say there ISN'T any difficulty. The farther you progress, the tougher the Jelletons become. (Or, really, they just spawn in higher numbers, have more HP [I think] and spawn stronger ones.) The missions also require more to be done, going from just needing two portals destroyed to four. However, with the tension that comes from increased Jelleton spawn rates, the missions are still very similar and don't offer much in terms of variation.
So, if you are a new player, WAIT until you play this or you will suffer, because it is difficult.
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Reala is who NiGHTS would be now if Wizeman succeeded in keeping NiGHTS obedient: if NiGHTS had the good and the rebellious spirit crushed out of him by Wizeman's brainwashing, cruelty and persistence.
Reala is what NiGHTS fears in himself becuase Reala represents what would happen to NiGHTS if Wizeman really got a hold of him.
NiGHTS is what Reala fears in himself becuase NiGHTS is a living reminder of what he could be- the things he's too afraid to pursue for himself.
Either way, I do believe the importance of Reala's role is a reason why the appearance of a pre-rebellion NiGHTS might potentially be a harm rather than a benefit to the NiGHTS series. Reala seems to be the avenue from which the life NiGHTS would have lived under Wizeman's rule is explored, and it's the avenue from which NiGHTS is forced to confront that part of himself.
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Latest Entry
Test Blog
So, I guess this is a new feature that was added.
I'm not really sure if I'm gonna use it much but hey, it's nice to have, I suppose. I never really ran a blog before so this is gonna be interesting.
If I keep using it, I'll probably just post whatever is on my mind, be it opinion pieces on stuff or general random thoughts that I feel like are blog worthy.
So yeah....uh.....bye for now I guess
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By Lorekitten in Don't Get Me Started: A Pokemon/Fandom Blog0 comments
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By TitansCreed · Posted
Thanks friend. It's become a routine to check in daily these days, so with the daily uploads I thought I'd get around to doing a content creator focused blog. Thanks for the highlight. Let's catch up soon! -
By Dreadknux · Posted
Wheey! Great to see you on here, Pete! Looking forward to catching up on your blogs and videos! -
By Lorekitten · Posted
The tragedy of Sonic 4 is that it was supposed to be this whole big return to form for the hedgehog, but what we actually got was... well, what we actually got. Sega never even concluded that series, and I don't blame them. -
By Iko · Posted
I... think Lost Labyrinth and Mad Gear are decent, I mean, all things considered, precision platforming is a pain because of the weird inertia of the character, some gimmicks are too slow (like rotating that gear), and the minecart level sucks, but everything else IMO is fine, those levels would probably be fun in a better gameplay formula and with some of their bottomless pit replaced by a secondary route. Splash Hill Act 2 is the most enjoyable level in the game in my opinion, especially if re -
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