Positive impressions inside
Firstly, look away right now if you want to stay fresh. Spoilers are ahead.
That’s right – reviews are coming in for Sonic Generations! Courtesy of German publications Videogamezone.de and 360 Live, we can now begin to get a good idea of how Sonic Team’s latest title is shaping up.
Of course spoilers are ahead, so for that reason I won’t delve into the details. You can find the Videogamezone review here (translated for non-German speakers). Below are the mains points from the 360 Live review, courtesy of Sonic Stadium:
A couple days ago, I bought a magazine with the first German review. There’s a bit of kinda-new information in it, but first the score and and Pros and Cons.
Graphics: 7
Sound: 8
Controls: 8
Total: 8.5 of 10Pros:
-Fast paced
-Lot’s of unlockables
-Different paths
-Completely dubbed in German with the professional Sonic X actorsCons:
-The approximately 30 frames per second slightly slow the pace of the game
-Few Boss fights
-Camera ocassionally unreasonable
-Loading times could be shorter
——
Unlockables: 14 character biographies, 50 pieces of music, 130 concept-arts and 13 videos
A few skills: Run faster under water, lower loss of speed while going up slopes and 8 more
Sonic 1 will cost 7777 points
Chaos Emeralds seem to be obtained from bosses: “(…) Or the fight with Metal Sonic to get one of the seven magical Emerald-Crystals (lol)”Main game (9 Zones, 18 acts) will take about 4 hours, adding missions, Emeralds etc, 3 more. Not sure if this means collecting the Emeralds has nothing to do with the story. Might be that you have to recollect them to use SS in stages. But I dunn
And there’s a bit on the CE. The statue is 15cm and the ring is about 4 cm in diameter.
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Well, at least it got a score above 80%
Something tells me this is going to be like Sonic Colors was, it’s first score was an 8 and every review after was exactly the same score but got progressively lower as the weeks went on. Maybe I’m just a little paranoid but still.
Great score.
I’ve had it up to here today about people thinking 8.5 is a ‘shitty’ score. It isn’t, it’s 15% off perfect. I’m sure we’ll see some higher reviews, and I’m sure we’ll see some lower reviews.
Doesn’t matter anyway since everyone here will be buying it regardless.
To be honest I was a little surprised at the lowest rating for the category was graphics; I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the demo and Green hill looks fantastic. From trailers and other sources the bosses, and other stages look great too.
Two of those cons;
“The approximately 30 frames per second slightly slow the pace of the game”
“Loading times could be shorter”
Should no doubt be fixed in those picking up the PC version, myself included. I’m looking forward to spending a lot of time coming back for the unlockables too.
worried about frame rate :/. wanted good 60fps
Low score =/
So bad;
I want see 9.5 or 10.
That’s excellent news =)
Very few games get above 90 these days and, lets face it, Sonic doesn’t exactly have the depth to match them. For what it is, a testament to the strong design of a platformer, this is great news and I look forward to playing it through myself.
Nice score.
And none of the cons point out errors directly with the gameplay, just frame rates and an odd camera.
Looking good so far Sonic!
Graphics are a 7 and sound is an 8? These people are worse than IGN!
This time, I don’t care who says what, this game looks like it’s going to be amazing, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t. It’s what I’ve been longing to see in Sonic games since I was a kid, with solid controls and fun stages that provide good challenge to complete quickly. Not to mention missions and those cool unlockables.
The cons about the camera, loading times and 30 fps got me a little worried. Good review, though.
@Lucas Hinz
How does an 8.5/10 signal a bad score?
The demo loaded a level in 8 seconds. Is that actually bad?
and I thought they would lower the scores because of the character missions not being fun enough for them, but apparently not! I’m shocked that they gave such a number for the graphics, cause they’re absolutly beautiful!! and the score for the music could’ve been a 9. at least its not a bad score! I mean I really would like a 9.0 from at least one of these reviewers, cause SEGA and Sonic Team did a hell of job for this one!
@Stephan:
Better than Sonic 06.
@Stephan: That’s not bad at all, but a couple things should be considered. 1, the demo is read off the HDD, not a disc. 2, the other stages may be bigger, and may take longer to load. Like Sonic Unleashed for example. Take Apotos (forgot the stage name) act 2, the demo level of the game, and compare that load time to a much larger stage like EggmanLand. So I assume the stages will take longer to load in many other areas of the game containing larger stages.
lol, such whiny bitches. An 8.5 is great. If the loading is as fast as Unleashed, then it’s just fine. If the framerate is as good as Unleashed (which it is) then it’ll be just fine, barring any occasional slow down (a few levels in Unleashed had it). But the graphics getting a 7/10 is just wrong, damn it.
@Chocoburger
Wasn’t whining, just slighty concerned. I’m sure loading times and the framrate will like Unleashed with a few amounts of slowing down. But I agree, they could’ve given the graphics at least an 8/10.
The framerate in Generations seems to be locked around 45fps in the demo, but in Unleashed it’s unlocked, pushing 60 whenever possible, dropping whenever it had to, at the very lowest, about 25fps. On PS3, anyway.
@Lucas Hinz.
If 8.5 out of 10 is a bad score, then I guess 9.5 out of 10 is just an “ok” score right? If it were 5.0 and under, I would understand your complaint, but complaining about 8.5 is a little silly. That’s a pretty damn good score as far as I’m concerned. Not every game will get a perfect 10 (in fact, I don’t believe any game TRULY deserves a perfect 10, as there’s faults with everything and there is no “perfect” experience for everyone. Everyone has different tastes, but this is getting off topic).
Not a bad score! Keep in mind these scores are mostly a guide for general gamers. I’m sure we’ll love the game regardless of what grade its given.
My chief concern is that the review mentions unfair difficulty spikes aka bad level design later in the game.
“The whole thing is so perfect but not for long. Especially in the last three to four stages precise jumps are often crucial for survival, but almost impossible to Timing. Here only the principle of trial and error, but the series is, admittedly, been around since the beginning an integral part of the Sonic gameplay.
Really unfair what is happening but is never heavy and even passages which at first perhaps a little frustrating to go with a little practice and the correct timing embossed loose from the hand.”
Obviously this is google translate at work but you get the idea. It was these kinds of design choices that ended up hurting Colors the most review wise so i’m expecting a similar metacritic for this game (75-80 range).
What moron said this was a low score?
Nice score. Sounds like they’re mostly praising the games and saying the only cons are little things and nothing to worry about. For me personally that means no real problems.
@DoctorEggman
rofl
Character bios counts as a cool unlockable?
Excited about those upgrades though.
Wow. That’s lower than I expected.
Not an awesome score (reviewers give 90+ to masterpieces, 80+ to nice games, anything lower usually is not that great for them), but better than most of the recent games
Anyway, I don´t care about the reviewers, 7/10 on graphics is just wrong, although I agree with the 60fps thing. I would have prefered worse graphics with constant 60fps. Sound and Control 8 seems low for me too, specially sound.
Maybe I´m biased for being a Sonic fan, but there aren´t many platformers out there with these graphics, and the music is outstanding. It´s one of the first Sonic games to get dubbed in most languages, the camera is a lot better than previous titles (although I mish being able to control it), and the controls are better than Unleashed and Colors. So this should get great scores, between 85-90. I don´t think it will get pass 90, but I sincerely hope it doesn´t get lower than 85.
Hey, I like character biographies, especially if they go into some of the lesser-known characters. It gets people curious and interested.
@Ophelia
It’s just that you can guarantee these “biographies” will be short little three paragraph summaries with a picture attached to them and maybe a d.o.b. slapped on there. Nothing that hasn’t been available to us on the internet since the dawn of time. Hardly something I’d consider a substantial “reward”.
“Sonic is a 15 year old supersonic hedgehog who made his video game debut in 1991 – he loves chili dogs and running and is loyal to his friends because he has a good heart and a carefree attitutde”
Derp.
@ChaoticFox:
Yeah, I know it’s not revealing to a Sonic fan, but it makes it more complete for those who are new to the series. Like in Batman for example, I only ever watched a handful of movies, so it’s cool to see who’s who when I look up bios in Arkham Asylum. (though Batman characters are more interesting than Sonic characters, lol) Upgrades and stuff are the coolest unlockables though!
@Blues
…Are you fucking serious?!
I wanted to see a score 10/10 because that is how great I think this game is. Currently I am so impressed that I will be buying both the PC version in order to get the HD experience and the 3DS version to get the portable experience.
@Stephan
er. . . yes?
4 Hours to go threw all the Levels, Missions, and Boss Fights ???
They must have a Pro Playing or something xD
@Eggman
Even so, people who are new to the series are probably even LESS interested in the backstories of non-playable tertiary characters.
I guess I just feel like unlockables should feel special and rewarding, and not just like waste-of-space filler. Alternate skins, new abilities, new levels… etc. Anything to enhance the game experience itself, rather than just a collection of stuff I’ve already/seen/heard/have/can easily find elsewhere.
I sincerely hope some S ranks or side missions are actually hard. I understand main story being short, but I don´t want to get 1000/1000 on the first weekend :S
It would be strange too, as all Sonic games has been hard to complete since Sonic Adventure. Each and every main Sonic game has been hard to complete from there. And I like it that way, as you can keep playing a lot after finishing it. Bringing again the chaos would be cool, they added so many more gameplay hours
I got more than 180 hours in SA2 in Dreamcast, and another 180 hours on GameCube version, but I haven´t replayed fully any Sonic game from that one (and when I say fully I mean get everything again).
@ChaoticFox
Personally, I love character biographies. I only remember Soul Calibur games, Smash Bros ones and Batman Arkham Asylum with them, but I think they are a nice extra. Specially when you don´t know every character in the franchise. In fact, that´s what makes me more interested in trying more products from the franchise (for example, I got some Nintendo games after seeing their characters on Smash Bros and I got some Batman comics after finding some cool baddies I didn´t know).
Maybe it´s me, though
@KMetal
I can see that, but I think the case is totally different here.
Smash Bros. offered bios on dozens of obscure characters, each with their own individual games/franchises. Generations will offer bios on side characters from the SAME series, most of whom are completely inconsequential in whatever games they may or not be included in. Sure, they might be fun to read – but that’s hardly a worthwhile “unlockable” – more like something that belongs in the instruction manual.
Also what DoctorEggman said about Batman characters. There’s a lot more info and history for those characters. Here, we’re not likely to see much more than what I quoted above for Sonic. Best case scenario, we’ll get a list of their appearances, but I hardly see that being particularly valuable information to most people, given the limited nature of their playable appearances.
It’s not like we’re gonna find out that Vector had his own unique game where he starred as the main character. You’re just gonna be reminded “oh, he was in Chaotix and Heroes, and maybe he had a line of worthless dialogue in one of the handheld games”
I could be wrong, maybe these will be more substantive, but given Sega’s history with these things, I’d expect something SUPER short and pretty uninspiring.
But hey, don’t let me stop you from enjoying that stuff. You guys find that a worthy reward for your efforts, then more power to you.
Maybe I’m just greedy.
I’m expecting the Metacritic score to be about 85 when the game gets released, which is fine.
I’m sure Destructoid and some others could bring it down like they did with Colors, (4.5 from what I remember).
On the topic of loading screens, I don’t think they have the finished version here, because the demo loads insanely fast. The difference between a game running of a hardrive and a disk is usually very minimal in most cases, usually not noticable most of the time.
Try it with Unleashed, because I have, and it seems exactly the same.
Guys don’t let it get to you. We seen so much positive feed back from graphics and sound and etc. I’m sure there will be higher. I think this reveiwer has no taste for music and probably very nit picky. Loading screens are perfect. I seen almost every level and I haven’t seen frame rate drops. Most perviewers say that high frame rate was a pro. I think this reveiwer is crap and deserves a higher score.
>graphics lowest rating
What the fuck, Germany
Has there ever been a 3D Sonic game that hasn’t been criticized for its camera? 85% is good and all, but this makes me worried for the IGN/GameSpot score….
The Sonic Stadium forums has a review topic thread! (sorry I can’t give you guys a link to the thread since I’m using my IPod Touch) And soo far it’s about 4 reviews, 3 of them rated Sonic Generations a 8 to 8.5 ratio and one of them gave Sonic Generations a 4 out of 5. Most of their complaints were basically with the story, everything else is perfectly fine
Oh come on! You can’t rate a game 8.5 because of a not-SMG quality camera, a lower-than-normal boss amount, slightly long loading times, and it being 30 FPS! That sounds like a 9.5 game!
Sonic 1 should be 1991pts hehehe….
RaggtimeSonic No it isn’t Colors was a shitty game with less Unlockables and it didn’t use the Hedgehog Engine.
ChaoticFox you just can’t stand a sonic game having tons of unlockables so much till you just make up stuff about it
Manic, once again your sentence structure makes a complete and utter lack of sense. Go choke yourself on an English textbook and get back to me.
The sound was better than the graphics? After hearing the slightly auto-tuned poorly remixed beats, that’s got to be sad. I mean, from what I’ve seen, Perfect Chaos looked like absolute crap compared to what I expected, but who knows.
Once again, November, why do you tease me so~
@Lucas & Manic: Both of you, shut up. -__-
I like to get as much information of what I’m experiencing as psosible–the background details. That’s why, for instance, commentary tracks are a make-or-break deal when I buy DVDs. I’m sure there’s nothing in there I don’t already know, as I’m pretty sure I know as much as I can know about the Sonic characters.
But if they mention some rare facts, such as Vector’s first appearance being even earlier than Tails’s, that’d also be interesting. (And that’s true.)
I was actually expecting a solid 9 for the majority of the reviews. This is around the same ratings as Colors got last year. Colors was great, but wouldn’t Generations be a whole lot better? Oh well, it doesn’t matter much to me. 85/100 is still a good score.