How SA2 got away with... pretty much whole story?

[Dr. Mechano]

Just now, Kuzu said:

Stages like the Death Egg and the Ark levels are virtually indistinguishable.

Sure, and I'm not arguing that SA2's locales don't belong. Besides, it still has wacky cartoony levels like Pumpkin Hill, so it doesn't entirely abandon the idea that Sonic's world is a geographically weird place.

But yeah. Even the classic games had fairly ordinary-looking modern cities like Star Light Zone, the background of Chemical Plant Zone, etc. Station Square isn't really out of place next to these zones in my opinion.

I think Sonic is best when it mixes and matches these kinds of locales, rather than trying to go "all in" on either totally realistic or totally fanciful.

[Zaysho]

I was 17 when Shadow came out and I honestly don't remember really taking anything the game did seriously. Even at the time the only thing that struck me about the game was that it was biting Jak II's style. It never felt like it was trying to be anything but an alternative game so it was their opportunity to go a little crazy with it even though they just copied the most surface level things Jak did but try to still make it marketable to kids (the guns/weapons and the incredibly mild swearing). It was honestly just kind of funny how they did it and it's why I find the game just fun.

Stuff like the OP ambiguously knocking Sonic out or Shadow karate chopping Eggman in three reskins of the same ending or gloating over Sonic in another couple of them mostly just come across as goofy what-ifs and the game leans pretty hard into that for those endings. They don't feel nearly as bad as '06 having Mephiles take Sonic out on-screen and make that an integral part o the story.

[Rabid-Coot]

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I'm actually really surprised about this because the PAL GC version of Battle is how I first played Adventure 2 as a kid and I don't recall that being a thing. Granted, I played it on Wii, but I doubt that would have much of an effect unless I was playing on a 60hz TV at the time, which I can't for the life of me remember. That said, I remember later levels of SA2 being a nightmare for me, in particular - Crazy Gadget, Final Chase, and Final Rush, which thinking about it - are levels that heavily utilise the homing attack in particular. Imagine trying to jump rails and such only for a homing attack to suddenly activate and send you flying to your death. This bug would be a really easy way to chalk up why those levels were far harder back then.

And I would chalk it up to normal "not being as good at the game as a kid", but I never had any problems with DX from what I remember, nor did I have anywhere near the same trouble when I finally got the PS3 port of Adventure 2. Makes me wonder if I was being hit by this or not.

What's more bizarre is I always thought SEGA was one of the companies more forward thinking with this stuff. Heroes for example was my very first Sonic game as a kid, and right out of the box on our side, that comes with the option to choose between a 50hz mode, or a 60hz mode, along with a testing functionality to see if your TV can support 60hz or not. To hear that they managed to screw the pooch this bad is insane.

60hz was a sort of secret option on a bunch of GC games something like hold B on start-up.

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Sure, and I'm not arguing that SA2's locales don't belong. Besides, it still has wacky cartoony levels like Pumpkin Hill, so it doesn't entirely abandon the idea that Sonic's world is a geographically weird place.

But yeah. Even the classic games had fairly ordinary-looking modern cities like Star Light Zone, the background of Chemical Plant Zone, etc. Station Square isn't really out of place next to these zones in my opinion.

I think Sonic is best when it mixes and matches these kinds of locales, rather than trying to go "all in" on either totally realistic or totally fanciful.

It depends on the game for me; a game like SA2 benefits from a more "realistic" aesthetic while a game like Colors doesn't.

[TailsGotTrolled]

“Because you just told me, fox boy!”