>>1564700 Sonic only survives because he lucks out in a good game after a ton of shit, before going back to shit. >Comics Are IDW's even good? Didn't they piss away easy shit like Transformers and GI Joe? >movies I'll never understand how they're doing so well while being so boring but it'll be interesting to see how they can figure out how to move forward, now that they've reached the last real bit of nostalgia bait. >various game tie-ins After everything you've said, everything else is just merchandising. >Sonic isn't just some nostalgia act. Much like Mario, he has actual staying power Sonic, like I said, was outright gonna die, with Sega betting the horse on Frontiers. Had they failed with Frontiers like the dozen of games before it, and Paramount kept the original design of Sonic, he'd be up in heaven with Crash, Mega Man, Banjo, and Conker. Mark my words, this moment in time is just a stay of execution and in a couple years, they'll be right back in the same place of failure. >>1564710 >I think it more had to do with corporate incompetence Activision even fumbled the 3+4 remaster of Tony Hawk. If they're gonna phone it in, it makes me fear what they'll do when or if they get to Underground. >>1564756 Tawna would be a lot more bearable if they got rid of the shit hair and the shit colored outfit. Surprising they didn't have her leave Crash to get porked by Tiny or a villain, or outright turn her gay. >Cortex Has any other villain actually stuck besides maybe Uka Uka? >>1565499 >Mario games (and most of their other first party games) are always top notch Were top notch, but even then, as much as I loved Nintendos N64 games, Goemon 64 was better to me like how Okami was better than Zelda. >but most of them are definitely better than most Crash games Not that hard with everything after the PS1 was companies who didn't know what to do with it, playing hot potato with the series. >Gex 1 isn't even a game anyone really remembers Because nobody played it and going back to try it out now, seems impossible. >when Sonic had two cartoons on at the same time Underground shouldn't exist. >Except Superstars. Did that bomb? I thought it was pretty good. I think I got that one mixed up with an infinite runner game. What qualifies Sonic games as mainline; felt like there might be two (3D and Sidescroller) but the ones that shift between the two and the various drastic changes between games muddies it up and makes me look at a lot of things as just side games. >Mania That seemed more like a disconnected one off that ended because Sega realized what furries were. >Boom (3DS) all did very well Sucks they wash their hands of characters after they're done with the games they were introduced in. The cartoon made me actually like Sticks.

>>1565860 >Are IDW's even good? Didn't they piss away easy shit like Transformers and GI Joe? IDW is a horrible company that went massively SJW over the last ten years or so, but their Sonic comics are alright. They have some stupid OCs that take up too much attention, but they seem to have been getting rid of them in the last few months. They're definitely the best Sonic comics, as they lack the absolutely retarded shit that the Archie comics did over the years. There are a few really cool arcs that the IDW comics have done, and no really terrible arcs. Just some issues have gotten a bit boring. But I think it's bouncing back a little bit lately. >>1565860 >I'll never understand how they're doing so well while being so boring Marketing. Fixing that horrible design from the first trailer bought them a lot of goodwill, and casuals knew about it and ate it up, even though the movie was still overall just as disrespectful to the source material as that original design would imply. And the second movie was better, but not by a whole lot. It has Tails and Knuckles, and that alone is a huge point in its favor, since at least there is something to focus on that isn't just lame human bullshit that has nothing to do with what people like about the series, but the movie cuts away from them for like 15 minutes so we can see a sassy fat black woman's wedding, which really undercuts all the good the movie tried to do. The third movie was actually good, though. It changed elements to make the story fit in the world the movies had established, and to let Jim Carrey ham it up as two separate Robotniks, but I think those are both reasonable changes to make, and overall it was actually an entertaining film. The human OCs from the previous movies are barely in it, so little that I almost would have appreciated a couple more cameos from them. (The main character of the Knuckles TV show wasn't Knuckles, it was Sonic's human dad's friend named Wade Whipple. He sucks and the show sucked, but given that he was the main character, I would have expected a cameo in the next movie. But no. Nothing.) The movie is about Shadow and Gerald, and Gerald acts different but it's because he's Jim Carrey and I think that's reasonable. He's also not so different that it really destroys anything. The movie focuses on him having a good relationship with Eggman, which gives the same impact as in the game, where Eggman admired him but seemingly never got to know him, only here we get to know him better, and focus on that relationship more. But mostly the movie is Shadow and the other cartoon characters from the games going around and doing cool action scenes, plus two Jim Carreys being wacky bad guys, and I think that's pretty cool. Plus it keeps the emotional core of Shadow's story, while the previous Sonic movies made up a completely new emotional core of Sonic being a sad lonely child, which is completely the opposite of what his character should be. Overall, good movie, which was unexpected since the first two (and the Knuckles TV series) sucked so badly. >it'll be interesting to see how they can figure out how to move forward, now that they've reached the last real bit of nostalgia bait. No they didn't. The post credit scene teases Metal Sonic and Amy. But I'm dreading it because they make Amy into a girlboss character in her ten seconds in the teaser, which is not at all what makes her character appealing, though it is what modern incarnations have slowly been leaning more and more towards for the last almost 15 years. But still, they're probably going to do some fucked up feminist adaptation of Sonic CD, maybe with some Sonic Heroes elements thrown in. Also, there were an army of Metal Sonics in the teaser, which happens in the UK's Sonic the Comic. Their Metal Sonic arcs were actually really good, though I guess I shouldn't be too confident that they're specifically trying to adapt those. They could also do a story about Chaos, which they simply skipped. They'd have to change it a bit since they changed the nature of the Master Emerald in the movies, but that's not an insurmountable problem. The Archie Comics also had to overcome that problem. Their adaptation of Sonic Adventure sucked, but still, it could theoretically be done. I also wouldn't be at all surprised if they do a Shadow the Hedgehog TV series, like they did with Knuckles, and hopefully with the positive reception to Sonic 3, they would actually make it a little bit accurate to the games. Now, maybe not as edgy as the actual Shadow the Hedgehog game, but they did bring Black Doom back in the latest Sonic game (Shadow Generations), so the idea that they could try to adapt that story isn't completely ridiculous. After that, though, then yeah, they'd have used up all the good Sonic games with good stories. Still, I wouldn't put it past them to try to do some version of Sonic '06. Silver is a somewhat known character, and to be fair, the story isn't why Sonic '06 sucks. People complain about the princess in it, but she's not that important to the overall story of Silver and Mephiles (and Blaze), which people seem to actually like. They could adapt them, leave out Elise (or at least leave out her weird semi-romance with Sonic), and maybe get a pretty cool movie. I don't think anyone wants to see a Sonic Unleashed movie where he turns into a werewolf, but maybe by the time they get to Sonic Movie 7 nostalgia for Unleashed might be high enough to do it. After Unleashed, it was basically all excuse plots, but if for some reason the movies were so successful that they were still going, I could see them adapting Sonic Forces. That sort of has a story, and it's similar to the Saturday Morning cartoon which already almost got adapted into a movie over 20 years ago, until Ken Penders fucked it up. And if for some reason they got to Sonic movie 8, then we'll have several new Sonic games by then, and Frontiers seemed to be Sonic Team testing the water with having a real story again. I don't think Frontiers has enough story to justify adapting it into a movie, but maybe the next game will. Or by that point they would be justified in adapting the comics, which are written by the guy who writes the games now. The Metal Virus arc might be a bit weird in a movie, but maybe they could do a cool plot about Surge and Kit. Starline could be replaced by Stone (since honestly they're both just Snivley anyway). Hopefully by that point Tangle and Whisper will be forgotten memories, because those characters get way too much focus in the comic, and have even been in a mobile game, and they fucking suck. And before some autist, like me, comes in and starts pointing to spinoff games, yes, I like them, too, but honestly the only ones I think even come close to having enough plot to adapt into a movie are Sonic Riders and its sequels (if you treat it all like one big thing and do a movie about the Babylon Rogues) and maybe Sonic Battle. But Sonic Battle's a mix of a fighting game and RPG and its plot shows it. Adapting it into a game would be tough. Also the main character is basically Emerl, but he can't carry anything because he barely is a character. Maybe by the time of Sonic Movie 9 Ken Penders will be dead and they can adapt Sonic Chronicles. >After everything you've said, everything else is just merchandising. Don't forget the TV shows. >Sonic, like I said, was outright gonna die, with Sega betting the horse on Frontiers. Had they failed with Frontiers like the dozen of games before it The two games before Frontiers were Forces and Mania, which released around the same time. Forces disappointed but Mania was a huge success. Lost World was disappointing (it was a Wii U exclusive, after all), but before that was Generations, which was a huge success. So was Colors before that. That covers the whole 2010s.

>Activision even fumbled the 3+4 remaster of Tony Hawk. If they're gonna phone it in, it makes me fear what they'll do when or if they get to Underground. Activision has killed Crash multiple times. They killed Tony Hawk like four times now. Let's count. >ending the original series to replace it with motion controlled gimmick games (which they can charge more for since they need accessories) >Pro Skater HD was a complete disaster so they just later did Pro Skater 1+2, which is a remake of the same two games anyway, and tried to pretend they didn't already remake it (actually they remade it twice because 2X on Xbox was the same thing, but that one is actually good). >Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 was so bad the disc only contained a demo and the actual game, still unfinished, needed to be downloaded through an update, which could only be downloaded on release day because Activision was losing the license on that day and that's they only made the game to get one last cash grab before they lost it. >3+4 removes the mission structure that was 4's big advancement in the series, making it a complete downgrade from the original How many times has Activision killed Spider-Man? But even once they lost the rights, Sony isn't doing any better with the license. I'm also still mad at Activision for killing the entire rhythm game genre with a zillion half assed Guitar Hero releases every year. Rock Band was great, and I blame Activision for making the entire genre a joke. >Surprising they didn't have her leave Crash to get porked by Tiny or a villain, or outright turn her gay. Tawna got porked by Pinstripe before Crash 2. That's actual Crash 2 lore. It's not in the original game or manual but it seems like an idea that came from the original team and made it into a few other forms of media, like manga and official guides. Still, if you're doing a Crash 4 and ignoring a bunch of the series, that's one thing to ignore. They should have brought Tawna back in her original glory, just to show that Crash is an awesome chad. Which is of course hilarious because he's a little cartoon critter, but that was the joke in the original anyway. Crash Bandicoot is the chad of cartoon characters. >Has any other villain actually stuck besides maybe Uka Uka? Crunch seemed to be a pretty popular character considering he was only in the post-ND games. Tropy was the main bad guy in N-Tranced on GBA. Too bad they also replaced him with a girl in Crash 4. Girl power! Coco was also a forerunner of the SJW influence on Crash. My first loli waifu since I was a kid, but I can admit in retrospect that she was a sign of things to come. >Not that hard with everything after the PS1 was companies who didn't know what to do with it, playing hot potato with the series. Yeah I agree. Crash is my personal favorite, but we just have to admit the situation here. >Because nobody played (Gex) and going back to try it out now, seems impossible. People did play it. That's why there are three of them. It's easy to try it out now. PS1 emulators have been easy for like 20 years, and wasn't there a Gex rerelease for modern hardware recently? Not as good as the Croc one, from what I saw, but it's something. And I know it was on the PS Store before. >Underground shouldn't exist. Underground was not one of the two Sonic cartoons that were on at the same time. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and "Sonic the Hedgehog" (which fans call SatAM because it aired on Saturday mornings) are the ones that were both on at the same time. That's how big Sonic was in the early '90s. Underground was like five years later. And if you think it sucks, you just need to watch beyond Episode 40. After the revival, it got really good. Just a year or two ago they released "Sonic Underground The Movie: World War III" and it was amazing. >What qualifies Sonic games as mainline; I'd just say any platformer except for the handheld exclusive ones. If you play them, they just feel more main. They are the genre the series has always been in, and handheld games in the series usually feel like side content to the main games (even though Lost World 3DS is a 3D platformer with gameplay extremely similar to the main version, but with totally different level designs). But Mania and Superstars feel like mainline games. Mania maybe wasn't supposed to be from Sega's POV, they almost treated it like a tie-in to Forces, but Mania was too damn good, so it's mainline. >That seemed more like a disconnected one off that ended because Sega realized what furries were. Sega knows what their fans are. But Mania obviously wasn't pushed by furries. It's not like Rouge or even Amy were in it. You need better graphics, to allow close-ups of the characters, if you really want to pander to the furries. >Sticks Well given what a disaster Boom for Wii U was, I can understand why Sega would want to wash their hands of it, even though from what I understand the cartoon did well, as did the 3DS games. But the main Boom game is a legendary Sonic '06-level disaster. That said, Sticks was mentioned in Frontiers, so even though Boom was a separate universe, they're treating her as canon. I bet writer Ian Flynn snuck that in without Sega noticing, but still.

>>1565860 >Surprising they didn't have her leave Crash to get porked by Tiny or a villain, or outright turn her gay. Well we almost get this shit

>>1565996 >and wasn't there a Gex rerelease for modern hardware recently? From what I understood, it was the ps1 games running through an open source emulator with no ability to increase the resolution scale.

>>1566100 Honestly that is less bad than what we got. If we're gonna run with the Pinstripe story, then you might as well have Tawna go full villain. But obviously her hair color shouldn't change (I get it's probably a reference to Pinstripe). But having her have a kid that ruined her body and made her not hot anymore could work, for that reason. They want her not hot anymore for political reasons, but if they at least came up with a good in universe reason, that would be a lot more tolerable. Saying it's a different universe where she isn't hot is not tolerable. If I was gonna try to work with this designer's basic idea, I'd keep the fucked up baby, but I'd have Tawna be a bit fat and saggy, as some women do after pregnancy, breastfeeding, and generally fucking up their lives. But she needs the hair to remain recognizable. I think the original outfit is needed, too. Basically, just take Tawna, but then emphasize that she really fucked up her life by leaving Crash. Because Crash is awesome, and of course leaving him would be a horrible decision, only made by a dumb bitch that would make tons of terrible decisions.

>>1565860 Sonic survives because Sega actually cares about him. You can make a ton of excuses, hate the comics, movies, etc. but all of those things have various levels of success because someone at Sega cares enough to make the deals in order for those things to happen and by extension, work. On the subject of Activision, did you know Skylanders had an IDW comic? It wasn't good but it did sell. Activision had it killed off because they couldn't be assed to go over the scripts to make sure nothing in it conflicted with the TV show. Despite all the financial success, they couldn't be assed to have ONE PERSON pay attention. All of the merchandising you see with Sonic's face plastered on everything only happens because Sega, objectively speaking, are a better publisher than Activision. By the way, did you know Activision didn't publish the Nsane Trilogy or Nitro-fueled in Japan? They pawned over the publishing duties (and all revenue from the Asia region) off to Sony and Sega of Japan. Something to keep in mind when anyone brings up sales cause Activision proper didn't make as much money off of that as you think they did. >Tawna They had Crash get cucked by "Smathen Trake" in Crash 4. And I wouldn't be surprised if that parody of Nathen Drake didn't turn out to be an Abby sized woman. >>1566143 I believe this iteration was meant to be an alt-Universe as well. I think it was in the artbook where they always intended her to be an alt-Universe as a general excuse to redesign her.

>>1566174 >a version of Tawna that continues the story of main universe Tawna was going to be an alt-universe anyway for no particular reason I fucking hate what modern multiverses have become.

>>1565996 >emoves the mission structure that was 4's big advancement in the series, making it a complete downgrade from the original 4's implementation of it was pretty shit compared to how THUG did it, though 3+4 (which apparently cuts the few good goals in 4) was hardly an improvement. Goal complexity or length in 4 rarely increased to match the more more easier structure, and when it did it was too often a dumb minigame or a session of "match the tricks" that went on for far too long in too easy an area (contrast with the areas THUG picks for this that demand more than just a safe bowl).

>>1566234 >4's implementation of it was pretty shit compared to how THUG did it Yeah, no shit the sequel took the idea from the previous game and improved upon it. That's not a reason to remove the main selling point of the game from said game's remake.

>>1563111 Ahem. >>1566241 4 is really bad about it though. It rarely ever justified the change having been made and it was pure downgrade for most goals.

>>1566100 Holy shit, they actually wanted her have a baby! >>1565995 >isn't just lame human bullshit that has nothing to do with what people like about the series At least they're more bearable than Chris. >Plus it keeps the emotional core of Shadow's story It and Generations really spiked Maria's art. >>1565995 >Metal Sonic How the fuck did I forget about him?! >Amy Remembered her but I don't see her contributing anything in the slightest. >Also, there were an army of Metal Sonics in the teaser, which happens in the UK's Sonic the Comic I see it being more from them being affected by Ultron and Iron Man 2. >They could also do a story about Chaos, which they simply skipped Like Capeshit movies, I don't see them properly adapting something big like that. It'll be some misunderstood animal that accidentally blew up a dam from fear of being captured. Emerl is out of the question since they're using Metal Sonic. >leave out her weird semi-romance with Sonic), and maybe get a pretty cool movie Damn, Sonic's that much of a ladies man? There's no way they'd adapt a furry, woke or not. >Don't forget the TV shows Why do you want anyone to remember those? >Forces disappointed I've been wondering how'd they fuck up an easy goldmine such as letting the furries make their own donut steels. I hope if they still want something like open world in the next game, I hope they go something closer to a pseudo open world that they can flesh out better because Frontiers felt boring and empty. >>1565996 >>Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 was so bad the disc only contained a demo and the actual game, still unfinished, needed to be downloaded through an update Is there any property they own that they haven't destroyed? >Tawna got porked by Pinstripe before Crash 2. That's actual Crash 2 lore. Damn, that's the main Crash game I played; little me must've never noticed. >it seems like an idea that came from the original team and made it into a few other forms of media, like manga and official guides Well that explains things. >Coco I just took her as a Penny Gadget inspired character that was made to help out when it involved technology that couldn't be solved by busting it up. >People did play it. That's why there are three of them Back then, you didn't need to go over 1mil sells to make even. >wasn't there a Gex rerelease for modern hardware recently Limited Run Games; so as expected it had their seal of quality, shit.

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>any platformer except for the handheld exclusive ones As much as I didn't care for them, I honestly see the GBA games as more mainline than many console games. >But Mania obviously wasn't pushed by furries. It's not like Rouge or even Amy were in it Aren't the brunt of furries gay for Sonic? >>1566143 If they went the route of destroying Tawna for leaving Crash, I'd rather have her steadily gain mutations or robotic parts throughout the series as Crash maim or blow her up like everyone else he ends up fighting against. >Sega cares enough to make the deals in order for those things to happen and by extension, work I've seen what Sega allows on tv and the big screen; they're only a little better than Crapcom. >Skylanders had an IDW comic For the most part I ignored Skylanders. >everything only happens because Sega, objectively speaking, are a better publisher than Activision You should never try to gloat about being better than absolute dogshit. >Activision didn't publish the Nsane Trilogy or Nitro-fueled in Japan? They pawned over the publishing duties (and all revenue from the Asia region) off to Sony and Sega of Japan That's not all that surprising since the original games looks like they had to go out of their way to get sales in Japan and I'm guessing publishing rights came with having to translate the games for Japan. >I wouldn't be surprised if that parody of Nathen Drake didn't turn out to be an Abby sized woman Aww shit, they're gonna take Crash clubbin' and leave Coco as the protag.

>>1566451 >It'll be some misunderstood animal that accidentally blew up a dam from fear of being captured. Pachacmac is in the Knuckles TV show. He's the best part of it. He only has like two scenes, but he's played by Christopher Lloyd. Now, him being seemingly a nice guy in that show would contradict the games, but they could just say he turned nice once he was already a ghost or something. Idk. But Sonic 3 did a pretty good job adapting Shadow, and I fully expected them to not even have Maria get shot. So I would be cautiously optimistic about them doing Chaos. >Emerl is out of the question since they're using Metal Sonic. Plus, Emerl is a much more obscure character from a spinoff of a spinoff. Character wise he doesn't really have much in common with Metal Sonic, he has a lot in common with Shadow, though, which is an intentional part of his story. Actually, if anything, I could see them adapting Emerl specifically for that reason, to tie him in with Shadow, since people like Shadow again. >Damn, Sonic's that much of a ladies man? There's no way they'd adapt a furry, woke or not. I think a very important part of Sonic, that has been forgotten over the years, is that he is supposed to be the coolest thing ever. In real life, he was designed by committee to be such, and while that is silly, in universe I think it's important that they play it straight. All women want him, and all men want to be him. But he's too cool to settle down and has no time for love. Sonic isn't just the fastest thing alive, he's the coolest thing alive, and I think that's even more important in adaptations, where story and character are more important. >Why do you want anyone to remember (the tv shows)? Several of them were very popular. Sonic X Season 3 was probably the coolest, and maybe they could try to adapt that to a movie. They already have their version of Chris Thorndyke (although they could just remove him entirely and everything would be much better). Plus SatAM was popular, but yeah they're not gonna adapt that. They should at least have Eggman nickname Stone "Snivley" because he acts like a snivilling little worm or whatever. The most they could do to adapt Adventures is to have Jim Carrey accuse Sonic of "SnooPING AS usual, I see!" That said, the Sonic movies won't be truly good until they adapt Bartleby in them. >I just took (Coco) as a Penny Gadget inspired character that was made to help out when it involved technology that couldn't be solved by busting it up. I took her as that when I was a kid, too. But really it was because a feminist marketing executive at Universal Interactive Studios was offended by Tawna being sexy, because she was such a stupid bitch that she didn't get Tawna was already a parody of the damsel in distress trope. It was already making a feminist point, but too subtly for a feminist to understand it. So instead she was replaced with a girl that wasn't supposed to be sexy, and was super smart and capable, and spends the whole game telling Crash that he's fucking up and shouldn't do what he's doing. >Back then, you didn't need to go over 1mil sells to make even. Back then the population was smaller. But a significant percentage of people playing video games played Gex. It was a well known property, even if it was a distant fourth or fifth (or sixth or seventh) place in the mascot platformer genre. But that was a pretty packed genre at the time. Sure, maybe he wasn't Mario or Sonic or Crash... or Donkey Kong, or Banjo, or Spyro... and maybe not Rayman... but he was a bit above Croc. And hey, people kind of like Croc. I'd definitely say Gex has way better games than Croc. Gex should have no shame for losing to such great mascot platformers. >As much as I didn't care for them, I honestly see the GBA games as more mainline than many console games. Maybe console games that are in other genres, but not more than the ones that are platformers. >Aren't the brunt of furries gay for Sonic? I have no stats, but gays are just loud and obsessive. But with Rouge's big titties and Amy's panty shots in Sonic Adventure, I don't believe Sonic Team didn't know what they were doing. But there's nothing like that in Mania. If anything, the gays would also like other games better than Mania. You can get better shots of their favorites in the 3D games than you can in the 2D games. >If they went the route of destroying Tawna for leaving Crash, I'd rather have her steadily gain mutations or robotic parts throughout the series as Crash maim or blow her up like everyone else he ends up fighting against. How many other times does that happen? I can't think of any, except for when N. Brio hulks out. And Tawna's already mutated. So is Crash. Maybe the way to go is to have her be a gangster first, more like Pinstripe. So now she looks a bit fat and saggy and pathetic (I'm imagining the gangster's mothers from movies like Goodfellas, but younger), but she pulls out a gun and maybe does a double boss fight with Pinstripe (and maybe their baby can participate and be a threat, too). But maybe after that she can show back up with some N. Brio style extra mutation, if they insist on making her even cooler than that. But of course we all know that these ideas would defeat the real point, which is to have the "damsel in distress" make a chump out of Crash. She could never be made to look like she fucked up. She could never lose. She can't be made a good hero or villain, because SJWs can't write good female characters at all, because being a character involves having flaws.

>>1566580 >complains about bloat >uses Sonic Frontiers as a positive example I had fun the whole time I played Sonic Frontiers, but the fun per minute ratio was way lower than many other games, including Mario Odyssey. If I wasn't so damn autistic for Sonic, I'm sure I would have gotten bored of running around barren landscapes with nothing to do but collect so many random collectables that it makes DK64 look small time. Mario Odyssey has much more intricate challenges. I haven't played Wonder yet, but clearly the game to compare that to is not Frontiers, it's Superstars. That said, I liked Superstars and wasn't interested enough to play Wonder, so I'm not sure how I'd compare their quality. The only Sonic games I'd say are really as good (or at least come close) as the mainline Mario games are Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure, and Sonic Adventure 2. Sonic 1 is pretty good, and Sonic 2 is a lot better, but these came out after Super Mario World. Neither one even really compares positively to Super Mario Bros. 3. They compare positively to most platformers, but Mario 3 and World are some of the greatest games of all time. I'd say Sonic Adventure compares positively to Mario 64, but I know I'm in the minority with that opinion. I can understand why other people might not appreciate the ambition, and might be put off by some of the less refined elements. Sonic Adventure 2 might be my favorite game of all time, and I like it better than Mario Sunshine, but I respect Mario Sunshine and could understand if people disagreed with me. It's definitely a great game. I defend Heroes, Shadow, and Unleashed. I even defend '06 a bit. Obviously '06 is an alpha prototype that sucks (but maybe could have been good if it was finished). Heroes and Shadow are half baked and mediocre, and if you're not a fan of platformers in general and Sonic in particular, I can see why you wouldn't like them. They're obviously no Mario Sunshine or Galaxy. Not even in the same league. Unleashed isn't half baked, it's just retarded. I love it, but I can understand people not wanting half the game to be a God of War clone, and I never loved Boost Sonic's gameplay that much. It's more a single player racing game than a 3D platformer. The 2D sections are nowhere near as fun as the Genesis Sonic games. My opinions on Unleashed's day stages extend to every game up to Forces. Boost Sonic is alright but it's no Mario. The 3D is meh and the 2D fails to live up to the good 2D Sonic games. Mania and Superstars are the only ones that do that. Even "Classic Sonic" in Generations and Forces, which gets closer, is still not really the same thing.

>>1566728 Frontiers' gameplay consists of big open areas that are actually just hub worlds for a bunch of disconnected short Boost Sonic platforming challenges that all look the same. Look, I liked the game, I played it for well over 100 hours, which I think was a lot more than I spent 100%ing Odyssey, but the amount of fun per minute isn't even close. Odyssey having filler moons (mostly in the postgame) isn't a problem when comparing it to Frontiers, which is practically all filler, with very few extremely important or memorable setpieces or challenges.

>Mentions Sonic >Discussion immediately blows the fuck up And that is why Sonic is Immortal while clones like Jazz Jackrabbit simply died. No disrespect to Jazz (he got his shit together with Jazz 2) but Sonic the Hedgehog is the John Cena of platformers. Whether you're chanting "Let's go Sonic" or "Sonic Sucks", you're just feeding the beast. On an unrelated note: Is it me or is the perception of Crash in the west based heavily on the commercials? I think Crash suit guy was believed to be Crash's actual personality by most even though he's completely different in game. Would it have been better if Crash actually had that edgy asshole personality instead of being a Mute dumbass Looney Tunes character? Also funny how Crash suit guy wasn't in Nitro Fueled. Genuine missed opportunity there.

>>1566786 >Jazz Jackrabbit I mean full disrespect to Jazz Jackrabbit. That fag wasn't even as cool as Aero The Acro-Bat. He was Bubsy tier at best. (That said, I don't think Bubsy deserves just how poor his reputation is these days.) Sonic simply has so much content in so much media that there is so much to talk about. I'm saying Frontiers sucks compared to Odyssey, but I played it for over 100 hours Sonic is my favorite thing in the world (even though I think only one or two Sonic games are as good as the good Crash games). Sonic is a whole world you can get lost in. And there are a few excellent Sonic games, and a bunch of others that are at least pretty fun. You raise a good point about those Crash commercials. Those commercials are why I bought a PlayStation. I think they should have kept with those commercials for every Crash game. They should have included them inside the games themselves. It's hard to imagine that being Crash's game personality, because the type of stuff he does is so different than in the commercials, but having a few joke live action cutscenes, like going up to Cortex's castle and harassing him with a megaphone? That could be pretty funny. And yeah, CTR should have had that guy as a character all along. Did Nitro Fuelled add him as DLC? I see your pic there, but I stopped paying any attention to that game the moment they added microtransactions.

>>1566822 Bubsy is still alive you know. He's getting a new collection this year after getting two new but poorly received games not too long ago. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3039890/Bubsy_in_The_Purrfect_Collection/ Atari is actually making money off of him. Think about that while you wonder why Crash is dead. On that note, they were still using the Crash suit guy for ads. Hell, they had him in Creator Clash in order to promote Crash Team Rumble. https://youtu.be/qzTlOUs-FWI?si=iRIDGUFm9BQEUVp6 A lot of it was on twitter and facebook. You can search that shit yourself.

>>1566898 I disagree with literally everything you said except for how you're mad about Mario getting cucked. You're definitely right about that. That agreement is enough for me to consider you my friend. I hate Peach in the movie, but really that shit started in Odyssey. Also, it should be noted that Odyssey was actually finished when it released. Frontiers had to have its real ending released much later. You talk about S Ranks, but Frontiers' "levels" are designs from previous games but with worse visual design. The real meat of the game is a bunch of floating platforms, and the challenge consists of spotting some glowing object, then guessing which random spring will shoot you on the rail that eventually roundaboutly gets you to that object. I 100%ed all the combat challenges, but they fucking sucked. Sonic's never been good at combat, and while this might be the best attempt at it in the series, I'd rather they just didn't try. The Super Sonic boss fights were pretty cool, though. I'll give those some credit for being better than most 3D Sonic boss fights, especially Super Sonic boss fights. All I want from Sonic is Sonic Adventure 2's Sonic stages, but more of them. Shadow Generations got the closest to that in a long time. I'd say Shadow Generations was a lot better than Frontiers, despite being much shorter. That said, it gives me hope for the next Sonic game. Shadow Generations did build on ideas from Frontiers, so if the next game continues building on these ideas, it can be really great. Actually I would say Shadow Generations was pretty darn great. Definitely my favorite 3D Sonic since Adventure 2, by a pretty significant margin. Frontiers was Sonic Team trying an ambitious new idea and then having to push it out the door a bit half baked, which has happened several times with various levels of success (including Sonic Adventure, one of my favorite games of all time). If they keep refining that half baked idea, then I look forward to their next output. But that's a big IF, because Sonic Team is known to just make weird (albeit ambitiously weird) decisions sometimes.

>>1566920 >I hate Peach in the movie, but really that shit started in Odyssey. Just their attempt at giving Peach some kind of personality after being a brainless doormat macguffin for 35 years. She is nothing more than a screaming clear area, like some kind of horrible pre-assembly line barbie doll that is made of clear plastic. But now they're trying to force this square peg in a round hole that she's actually a badass queenslayar type who wields a battle axe. Yeah, whatever, fuck you Nintendo. >Also, it should be noted that Odyssey was actually finished when it released. Frontiers had to have its real ending released much later. You talk about S Ranks, but Frontiers' "levels" are designs from previous games but with worse visual design. T Yeah, okay, fine. You're talking mostly about production hangups, it's true that Frontiers had less of a budget than they allocated towards Mario Odyssey, but Sega doesn't have Nintendo money. Sonic Team has only 50 people compared to the 350 man team that worked on Odyssey. I think if their budgets and staff were the same Frontiers would be clearly superior but as it stands I just can't say I had nearly as much fun with Odyssey as I did with Frontiers. Like I'll admit Mario is full of "aww that's cute" shit like him turning into a Moai or him going 8-bit to run around in 2D sections but that's all Mario is these days, just aww that's cute moments that eschew tight arcade-inspried game design. I like going fast and I like blowing up huge robots so maybe that's why I just vibe with Sonic Frontiers more. Once you get the hang of the combat system it does feel a bit like Devil May Cry Jr. which I did enjoy. Got even better once they added the spindash which should have been in since the beginning but they're realizing what they did right and hopefully all the good aspects carry over to the next game. I also appreciate that they made the entire DLC chapter balls-smashingly hard, that's something you don't get with Mario anymore, they never have any hard levels except maybe the very very last level once you've beaten literally everything else.

>>1567402 >Just their attempt at giving Peach some kind of personality after being a brainless doormat macguffin for 35 years. She is nothing more than a screaming clear area, like some kind of horrible pre-assembly line barbie doll that is made of clear plastic. You're a filthy casual eating up feminist assumptions. Peach had her own game on the DS, as well as several other playable appearances, including in RPGs. Granted, no Mario character has the deepest characterization ever, but Peach is just as deep as any other. But feminists don't play video games so they don't realize that. They weren't attempting to flesh out her character, they were deliberately spiting their false assumption by replacing it with outright feminist propaganda. If they wanted to flesh out Peach further, then obviously she should be a super fancy, super girly magical girl. But that wouldn't make a hamfisted feminist point for them, so they couldn't do that. >You're talking mostly about production hangups I'm talking about the final product of the game. I love Sonic, and I appreciate the ambition that a lot of the games seem to have, but few games get even close to realizing the ambition. Sonic '06 could have been amazing if it was finished, but it wasn't even close to finished. I'm not trying to say Frontiers is as bad as Sonic '06, I like Frontiers, but it still comes across as a rather basic test of some ideas that never really got to be fully realized. Even Sonic Adventure comes across like that to a degree, but it got a lot closer to what they wanted. Still could have been a lot more polished, though. And ultimately, we have to judge the game that actually gets released, not the game that was imagined and could have been. I also disagree with you saying Mario is just a bunch of cute moments with no difficulty. Mario games tend to get extremely difficult by the end. You can get the bad end and watch the credits before then, because kids want that, but then you can continue and the game gets crazy. I'd say 3D World gets much harder than Odyssey, but they both get pretty hard by the end. And I don't just mean at the very last level. There's usually at least a whole world or more worth of content that's pretty hard. 3D World has multiple super hard worlds. Odyssey is structured differently but there are plenty of very difficult areas and challenges. All that said, Sonic and 3D Land/World are obstacle course games, while the rest of the 3D Marios are mostly exploration collectathons with platforming challenges scattered around. The thing is, that's what Frontiers is, too. And Frontiers didn't do it as well as most Mario games. The open world is barren and all looks the same, the platforming challenges are largely random and much more on rails (often literally), and the areas where you go to an obstacle course (which all 3D Marios also have) are obstacle courses from previous games. Frontiers' DLC was a lot harder, and I mostly like that, but I don't enjoy the combat enough to appreciate it. The Master King fight wasn't very fun, because the combat isn't that fun. And I 100%ed all of it. I'm not saying that I just couldn't do it. But this type of combat isn't why I play Sonic. It's better than when Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog tried to start giving enemies health bars, but it's not that much better. I hope in the next Sonic game they have Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy all playable (and not just as DLC), but that they're all refined further. Hopefully Sonic is adjusted to play a lot more like Shadow in Shadow Generations (the whole game should be adjusted to be more like that), and the other playable characters should be variations on Sonic. Also, the world can't be a barren wasteland, and the levels can't be levels from old games but with worse generic visuals. Obviously if you have an open world Sonic game, you want to run around a variety of Sonic-esque biomes. Just let me run around all of Angel Island or whatever. That's already a well defined location that has a bunch of different cool biomes to explore, and could have cool landmarks and setpieces that would be fun to check out. They could do another new island, I suppose, and just have the same collection of biomes anyway, but that's a bit lamer. Actually, if they did Angel Island, they'd be justified in using old levels, like Icecap and Red Mountain from Sonic Adventure, but it would be a lot cooler if they did new 3D levels that were meant to be the same locations as ones from Sonic 3 & Knuckles (like Sonic Adventure did with Icecap and Red Mountain).

I just want to shill Spark the Electric Jester 1 and 3 I would have shilled 2 but considering the creator ported every level from 2 into 3 for free. He'd made that pretty redundant. So the only reason to do 2 is to experience that engine and its old design and its cutscenes. Unironically, I'd suggest looking into his old fan games too. Sonic Before and After the Sequel, he still updates occasionally (his Sonic Chrono Adventure game I still find fun even if a bit silly). It'll be a while before he works on a new platformer, however. He's turned his attention to another genre he loves. Arcade style Racing games. Pretty insane that the Sonic Frontiers devs looked to this guy for inspiration. My only criticism is his storytelling is kinda shit, and the action combat aspect still needs improvement, especially integrating it with platforming. Needs some more megaman less kirby in its inspiration diet now that it's 3d.

>>1568080 While Spark 2 is kind of a disappointment, I still think its worth playing as IIRC the levels from 2 don't work 100% the same as Fark has a slightly different move set. Again, if I am remembering things correctly.

>>1568485 That one is a lie. Spark 2's physics are so shit, you can just jump through everything if you go fast enough, which is crazy easy to do. If anything the new physics made the old levels much more satisfying

>>1567969 >You're a filthy casual eating up feminist assumptions. Peach had her own game on the DS, as well as several other playable appearances, including in RPGs. It is not at all a "feminist assumption" to say that Peach fucking sucks as a character and she had the personality of a doormat for 35 years. Yeah I know she had her own DS game. I owned it. It sucked shit. I find it hilarious how you sing the praises of Mario's "difficult" games and then toot the horn of Peach's own absolutely horrendous, pointless DS game that was made to be so effortlessly easy that a 3 year old girl could beat it. Peach has never had any agency or personality when she wasn't teaming up with Mario. Even in the adventures when she was tagging along with Mario, she often hid behind him to protect her. This version of Peach where she still needs Mario to give her confidence ironically has more personality than her stupid ass girl boss persona. >I also disagree with you saying Mario is just a bunch of cute moments with no difficulty. Mario games tend to get extremely difficult by the end. No they don't. Mario Wonder and Odyssey were both pathetically easy and they only reserve the actual challenges for the absolute tail end, the very LAST tip, of the postgame. Mario 3D World was a bit better about this, but not by much. I already said my piece and I don't want to harangue too much longer about how the latest Mario games were gimmicky pieces of garbage, but I actually liked 3D World quite a lot and it's my favorite of the 3D Marios by far. What I hate though is the fact that they eschew tightly designed levels for just scavenger hunt esque design or cutesy gimmicks where Mario turns into a toad and then you briefly hop him up some high platforms. It's like they're saying they are not confident enough in building a game around Mario's core abilities that they have to force him to transform into some other distracting shit in order to make the game interesting. The suits/powerups in the original SMB games didn't outright throw entirely new gameplay modes at you every single time you ate one but with these latest games that seems to be the entire point and I fucking hate it. I think this is why I prefer SM3DW, it's more of a 'pure Mario experience' instead of all that gimmicky crap they keep shoving into the new ones.

>>1568801 Saying Peach doesn't have much of a character is just saying that she exists in the Mario franchise. They could have expanded upon the character that already existed, but instead they did the complete opposite so they could push feminist propaganda. I agree with you that I in general don't like exploration based platformers as much as obstacle course style platformers, so I prefer 3D World over Odyssey. But a game being much more polished and doing what it does more effectively counts for something. It's why I like Sonic Unleashed more than Sonic '06 despite preferring Sonic '06's gameplay style. I like what Unleashed was trying to do less, but at least it did it very well. Of course there's a balance. I wouldn't say Sonic Adventure is super polished, but it's polished enough that I can appreciate everything it does, so I love it way, way more than Unleashed, which is way more polished.

>>1564710 Alt Tawna is just a symptom of a bigger issue which isn't corporate incompetence. Its corporate maliciousness or apathy. Activision does not understand the value of talent and niche interests. They think Crash needs to rival CoD, Candy Crush or bring in at the very least, Blizzard MTX money. Even if N. Sane, CTR and Spyro sold well they don't think thats enough. You NEED to be selling over 50 million units and have 20 dollar MTX's for each skin or kart paint or character. You wanna play as Beach Coco? 20 bucks. You want to see that new track or level? 20 bucks. It made them absolutely livid that they couldn't milk CTR NF on that level, and everything in it had to be earned by playing the game. Crash 4 iand Rumble s a similar thing. They didn't think or care if Vicarious Visions and Beenox did good enough, hell they didn't even care about a PC port for NF. They disbanded both of their companies and sent them to work on WoW or CoD. Then handed 4 off to a company they knew was inferior and when they failed just used the excuse of "well nobody wants anything new anyways shut it down." They set up the IP's to fail and can now gaslight people into thinking its their fault for doing so. Because they want more revenue. There was never an outcome where this wasn't going to happen either. Activision destroyed the IP's once before. It was fun to become briefly invested in something, even if it was just remakes but theres no scenario where Crash or Spyro return. An entire upheaval of the industry would need to happen for that to become a reality.

>>1570109 >It made them absolutely livid that they couldn't milk CTR NF on that level, and everything in it had to be earned by playing the game. But they did add tons of microtransactions. They said you could earn it by playing the game, but that was not true. My little brother bought it because they said it wouldn't have mictrotransactions, but then a month later they added them, and he only had a month before the items cycled. CTR is one of my favorite games and I've 100%ed the original multiple times, so I tried to help him earn everything. I played that game in all my free time for the whole month. On the last night, I got the last item for that month. Then I told him that I would never play that game again, and he'd be screwed getting all the other items. The amount of grinding you need to do to get everything is absolutely insane. And nothing you said had anything to do with SJW Tawna. That wasn't to make money. It's not like they offered paid DLC to fix the character (which would require changing a lot more than just her visual design). That was pure propaganda. Some feminists were mad that Crash had a sexy girlfriend, so they made her as unappealing as possible to own the shitlords.

>>1570109 >An entire upheaval of the industry would need to happen for that to become a reality. Here's hoping.

Andy Gavin decided to call out the Nsane Trilogy's bad controls on Linkend. This is nothing new but for those who just want the TLDR; The original Crash trilogy on PS1, while each game had slightly different physics, had the same precise controller input code i.e. Crash's jump height is entirely dependent on how long you hold the button giving near infinite control (heh) and precision. In the Nsane Trilogy, you have only TWO jump heights making platforming and precision a great deal harder than in the original games. VV tried to spin this as claiming all the physics were made to line up with Crash 2 but truth be told, it had nothing to do with physics. Dark Souls of Platforming = Bad controls.

>>1573438 >The original Crash trilogy on PS1, while each game had slightly different physics, had the same precise controller input code i.e. Crash's jump height is entirely dependent on how long you hold the button giving near infinite control (heh) and precision. I have been following a Crash autist on Youtube for a while and the whole discourse around the hitboxes is a lot more nuanced. I am not gonna link the videos since they're extremely long and deal with the topic only off handedly at odd minute marks, but the tl;dw: >Almost all the issues, as well as the features (the way characters are handled as entities, the ability to easily mod stuff in and out, down to the game mechanics for the gimmick levels of Crash 2 and 3) are a direct consequence of the game being a glorified Skylanders expansion, based on the same engine >The levels of all three games are NOT a faithful recreation, as the devs had to rework jump height, speed and platform magnitudes in accordance with the Skylanders physics >Pill hitboxes are a direct result of that Also, the reason why people have such a hard time with pill hitboxes may indirectly have been caused by none other than game journalists. I have never noticed this because it's something that's ingrained in my muscle memory, but apparently the very first level of Crash 1 (N. Sanity Beach) modifies the player character's properties so that it's always jumping at the maximum height, the taller of the two jumps you mentioned. This was done because of the large staircase section where the original game expected you to experiment with the controls until you could figure out that holding the X button would make you jump higher, but the Nsane Trilogy devs had no faith in the gaming press and modern tourists actually clearing the demo level and made it stupid easy for them. In turn, it's likely they never had enough feedback on the actual jumping mechanics, resulting in Crash 1 (the only game that has objectively difficult and precise platforming) having a difficulty spike due to the different hitbox. Additionally, all three Crash player characters are their own individual Skylander player character, meaning they have different properties, which probably resulted in a lot of mistakes during development.

Decided to try this game, Napple Tale, out on a whim because the soundtrack was composed by Yoko Kanno This game is surprisingly really fun and I'm surprised I had only seen it mentioned once in halfchan, it's a 2.5d platformer with cute graphics which also has you collecting mascot creatures that can help you on levels or decorate the hub world town I just have the final level left but I've put off beating the game because one of the city creatures, a weathebane, has yet to be used and the instant I finished the first section of the final level the city reached a point of no return so I decided to reload my safe to try find the sidequest I'm missing but so far I've had no success, I have no idea which citizen is supposed to request this or how to trigger the event, and I couldn't find anything about the sidequest on the official guide on e-hentai but admittedly I don't know Japanese so maybe I'm misreading it.

>>1878596 Finally managed to progress the weatherbane sidequest, I don't know what exactly triggered it but you need to talk to the principal but I swear I had spoken to him, maybe one needed to talk to the mayor prior speaking to him or enter and exit a level for him to request it, either that or I fucked up by loading a save. Either way with that I finished the sidequest and finally finished the game, it had surprisingly kinda sad ending because of how attached you become to the game's cast but overall this game is really solid and I'm surprised that it's not talked about much. The presentation, music and hub are really great, the level design is decent. Really my only gripe with the game is how you occasionally have to repeat levels because they forcefully make you exit or sidequests, the final level is also underwhelming since it's just a bunch of vague shapes and you have to do it twice, then there's a new segment that's mostly a straight hallway. But regardless I loved this game, although I'm worried that I didn't see this bishounen in the final time where you allowed to roam the hub world freely where every NPC has an unique dialogue, I don't know if the guy is intended to dissappear or if it's a glitch that occurs on emulation. I highly recommend this game if you like 2.5D platformers like Klonoa, also remember to check Synap's diary in the main menu once you finish the game.

>>1921320 Low budget undermarketed game with a really dumb dev setup used to pitch it, it doesn't look bad but I'm sure people gave it leers in Japan when it released.

Who thinks hubworld in 3d platformers are useless? They seem like a waste of time and slow down the time to pick the levels

>>1924027 Counterpoint: Go fuck yourself.