Paid Members Jazzy G Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Sonic Forces is being lauded as a follow-up to Sonic Generations with a mixture of the 2.5D and 3D gameplay from that. Sonic Mania is some great old school Sonic fun, I've been having a look at Turing Test. I hear it's not bad if you're into your Portal and the likes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 I think what Mario does very well (though I'm doing a disservice to the genuinely excellent game design that goes into each new Mario game by focusing on the characters and presentation) is not exactly when to play it (reasonably) straight, when to play for laughs, and when to aim for nostalgia. There's no ongoing story, and the characters are all one-dimensional, so they can be thrown into just about any situation without giving fanboys cause to object, and offshoot games like the Mario & Luigi RPGs on the DS/3DS, Paper Mario, and the Rabbids thing on Switch, do a great job of poking fun at the tropes and conventions of the series, so that when you play a more conventional Mario game, it's at the back of your mind that you know the developers know full well what they're doing. And familiarity's lovely, isn't it? No matter what new features a Mario game gives you, you still want to start out collecting coins, stomping on Goombas, and so on. It's like the game's holding your hand until the new bits feel like they belong there just as much. Sonic - from someone very much outside of their target demographic now - often feels like the development team are changing things for the sake of changing them, or rather cynically trying to come up with a new twist or marketing opportunity, it feels so much more forced. Mario games almost always feel like a labour of love - there was a story about the WiiU one, where the team were basically told to suggest absolutely everything they'd been told in the past that they couldn't do in a Mario game, and see how much of it they could fit in and make work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Ya, that's absolutely the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merzbow Posted October 18, 2017 Share Posted October 18, 2017 (edited) 57 minutes ago, BomberPat said: And familiarity's lovely, isn't it? No matter what new features a Mario game gives you, you still want to start out collecting coins, stomping on Goombas, and so on. It's like the game's holding your hand until the new bits feel like they belong there just as much. And this may be why Mario Sunshine doesn't have quite the legacy as the others, from the very start it threw out all you knew about Mario and plonked you into this new world with brand new alien mechanics. It's sad as Sunshine is one of the best platformers ever made, it even reviewed as that with critics but the "casual" audience wasn't having it at the time. Edited October 18, 2017 by Merzbow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Perhaps, but then again Super Mario Galaxy is very different to the other games in terms of mechanics and that was both a commercial and critical resounding success. What an absolute dream of a game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Galaxy 2 is, for me, the perfect 3D platformer. It's never been done better. The mechanics of Galaxy are different, but it's still quintessentially Mario - gameplay, in essence, isn't a million miles away from Mario 64, you're collecting stars and coins, and the first level is all grassland and Goombas. Sunshine didn't even have Goombas! It's interesting, working out where the line of what makes a game feel like a Mario game actually lies, considering how many drastically different games he's appeared in. Odyssey doesn't look or feel like Mario at all, but looks bloody brilliant all the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Mario tends to keep it simple and to the point. With the 3D games there's an element of sandbox. Where as sonics never happy unless he's running ahead of the fucking screen. You feel like your moving through a level made of complex meccano. Marios world actually looks fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members PunkStep Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: Sunshine didn't even have Goombas! Ahh, so a bit like how Mario 2 is considered the ugly stepsister of the earlier games, as it is so different. Of course, there's a good reason for that- what with it not originally a Mario game, and never was in Japan (where the 'Lost Levels' is the true Mario 2 over there). It was still a decent little platformer though, just not really a Mario game in its true form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 There's something about the logic of game design in there; a lot of even the best Sonic games are "wrong" by the standards of conventional level design. All video games, ultimately, come down to problem solving, or puzzle solving. The key to solving a good puzzle is to ensure that the player has all the available information to hand - think of it like a cryptic crossword clue; utterly incomprehensible at first, but eventually comes into total clarity, and makes total sense in retrospect. It's part of the reason so many early 3D platformers were so frustrating - there was a gap between "total clarity" and pulling off the actual solution; you'd figure out what needed doing, but between dodgy camerawork and fiddly controls, it was too easy to mis-time a jump, so you'd know what you had to do, but the game's failings would prevent you from doing it. To me, the sign of a great game is if you can enjoy it even when you're bad at it, and if you can always recognise that failure is your own fault (and therefore you can try again and get better), and not because of a flaw in the game mechanics or design. I can only think of one or two examples of a Mario game failing on that last count. In Mario, you see everything in front of you, and you have the opportunity to figure out what's expected of you. So much of Sonic is just spent hurtling forwards, with too much speed and too little control to possibly have the chance to take it all in and figure out what's expected of you. You get blind leaps of faith, or run headlong up a ramp, through a loop, get launched into the air....and collide with a robot wasp thing and lose all your rings, and you had no way of knowing that enemy was there. It's a testament to how good the first 3 Sonic games were that they're still brilliant games not just in spite of that, but sometimes because of it - a case of needing to know what the rules are to know when and how to break them to positive effect. If Sonic Mania gets anything wrong, I'd say it's that it's over-reliant on situations in which you're launched all over the level with absolutely no control over where you end up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 9 minutes ago, PunkStep said: Ahh, so a bit like how Mario 2 is considered the ugly stepsister of the earlier games, as it is so different. Of course, there's a good reason for that- what with it not originally a Mario game, and never was in Japan (where the 'Lost Levels' is the true Mario 2 over there). It was still a decent little platformer though, just not really a Mario game in its true form. That's a good comparison, yeah - both Mario 2 and Sunshine are great games, just lack a little of that Mario "feel". I didn't really notice as a kid - back then, if it had Mario in it, it was a Mario game, whatever - but I can see why a lot of people were confused or a little thrown off by Mario 2, and maybe put off by Sunshine at a later date. I think Mario 2's a fun little game - nowhere near as good as Mario 1 or 3, but still good - and introduces a lot of concepts and baddies that pop up through the series beyond that, to the point that I'm actually surprised they haven't attempted another game attempting to revamp the same gameplay mechanics for the 3DS or something. It's about the only furrow of Mario nostalgia they don't seem to want to plough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Kaz Hayashi Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 Interestingly (not really) I actually find Sonic 3 and Mario 3 to be the best from each franchise. They are both perfect versions of what I want from each one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Briefcase Posted October 18, 2017 Share Posted October 18, 2017 (edited) So I need some new games so has anyone played or have thoughts on the following? Crash Bandicoot (reboot) - I know its a remake of the three originals but is it worth picking up? I had the originals back in the day. Gran Turismo - I know the new one came out today, but any good? I loved the originals back in the day but do kind of feel it can be repetitive. Pro Evo - Always was a Pro Evo guy growing up, heard the latest is heading in the right direction, is it quite there yet? Edited October 18, 2017 by Briefcase Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted October 18, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted October 18, 2017 I agree. Sonic 2 usually gets mentioned as the best, but 3 was always the one I loved - it was the first I was in a position to really invest a significant amount of time, and it allowing save games meant that I was able to keep going back to it, exploring, trying to get all the Chaos Emeralds, and then running around as Super Sonic. The levels were the right mix of fast-paced Sonic stuff and intricate, complex design, without ever quite feeling as tedious as the Marble Zone in Sonic 1 (because, in a game about speed, you want the second level built around slowing nudging cubes into lava, then standing on said cubes as they edge at a snail's pace across said lava), or the Labyrinth Zone. The addition of the fire, water and lightning shields was a great, simple twist to the formula too - it seems like every attempt to add something new after that just felt forced, or like change for change's sake. Some great boss fights, too, and some neat graphical touches that make it feel like a more fleshed out world than the previous games ever did. A mate of mine once said that he never got on with Sonic 3, because "you need to go left too often", which I've always loved as a criticism.  Mario Bros 3 is superb, and I'd probably agree that it's the pinnacle of Mario, as great as subsequent games in the series have been. It feels like pretty much everything that makes Mario great stems from that game, it's the codifier of how to make Mario work - maybe this game was, for me at least, the benchmark for the "what makes Mario Mario" feel I was talking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FailedPromoter Posted October 18, 2017 Share Posted October 18, 2017 9 minutes ago, Briefcase said: So I need some new games so has anyone played or have thoughts on the following? Crash Bandicoot (reboot) - I know its a remake of the three originals but is it worth picking up? I had the originals back in the day. Gran Turismo - I know the new one came out today, but any good? I loved the originals back in the day but do kind of feel it can be repetitive. Pro Evo - Always was a Pro Evo guy growing up, heard the latest is heading in the right direction, is it quite there yet? Played the hell out of the Crash remake, still as addictive as it was back then. GT: Sport beta was enjoyable, though will never hold a candle to the majesty of GT3. Still worth picking up though for sure. As for ProEvo, gameplay is always improving (going by demo as not picked it up yet) and they really have put some work in between releases unlike Fifa which feels just like last years' bar new kits and league licenses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator Onyx2 Posted October 18, 2017 Awards Moderator Share Posted October 18, 2017 1 hour ago, Briefcase said: So I need some new games *lists three ancient series* 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: All video games, ultimately, come down to problem solving, or puzzle solving A well-argued, coherent post but this is too much of a simplification. You might as well say every wrestling match is good v bad which just doesn't apply in every circumstance. What problem are you solving in Everybody's Gone To The Rapture? Mario Party? Singstar? These and the Sonic example are far more about dopamine satisfaction than working towards a goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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