What's with the Sonic Team hate? WELL, let's start from the dreamcast.
Sonic Adventure is released. I enjoyed it at the time! I'm going to assume that happened to me just because I won a dreamcast from it and it was the first 3d sonic and the first sonic in a long time (I'm sorry, 3d blast doesn't count.) Too bad it is easily one of the worst aged 3d platformers to date. Horrible camera angles, terrible gameplay aside from sonic whose levels were SO bugged that it nearly ruined them. Sure, the graphics were nice and the soundtrack was entertaining, but that was about it.
Fast forward! Chu Chu Rocket released. I really didn't like this puzzle game, but I guess that's just a matter of taste for me. I didn't understand the interest and I didn't enjoy the way it worked. The only thing I liked about that game was the mouse and cat character designs
A little later, Sonic the Hedgehog Pocket Adventure comes out for NGPC. In my opinion, the last good Sonic platform game. No hate from me towards this game!
Ahhh, Samba de Amigo. I did enjoy this game, although the maraccas were quite expensive and didn't work as well as I would have liked them to. The song selection was average, but in total this game wasn't exactly a huge achievement in my eyes.
Their next game was Sonic Shuffle. To me, one of the worst board/party games of all time. It ranks down there with Crash Bash, and would be ranked even lower if it was not for the sonic team characters. The game was extremely hard in singleplayer, even at the easiest of difficulties, and the minigames were just not that fun.
Samba De Amigo 2000 is released! I don't think I've ever played this one, so I don't have much to say aside from it would have been nice to see this released stateside.
Ahhh... Phantasy Star Online released for the Dreamcast. An extremely overrated game that's complimented on it's "amazing" console achievements. Too bad it was just a full-3D Diablo that was extremely easy to hack/cheat. Combine that with there being absolutely no point at all to continue playing this game aside from the community (like most online rpgs) just put this game in a bad position for me. I guess it's just because I had been playing online RPGs where there actually was a point to level up high, and actually things to do once you got there. Oh, and this game easily had the worst music of any Sonic Team game I've ever played. I believe the only music I could stand from this game was the ending theme and a couple of the boss themes.
Chu Chu Rocket! released for GBA! Well, you know I already dislike this game and it on the GBA was no better for me.
Sonic Team then releases PSO version 2. Introduces some new things, but didn't fix any of the problems the previous version had. While some hacks and cheats may have been fixed, there were always many more around. New items, some new quests, a new difficulty and more levels, a few more little tidbits, nothing to really make someone who doesn't like pso like it. Add to that the new monthly fee and that just made me dislike it even more!
And next came, what I consider the death of Sonic, Sonic Adventure 2. This game was horrible in every way aside from it's cheesy tunes which I could still enjoy. Everything about this game seemed to bother me. The Sonic levels were pretty badly designed and there weren't enough of them, I liked tails better when he wasn't e-102, robotnik... I'd rather not play as him than play as him as e-102, knuckles/rouge levels were a COMPLETE load of trash; the treasure hunting was the absolute worst addition to sonic and the level design in these levels were TERRIBLE. Oh, I forgot to mention Goth Sonic, I mean Shadow; I didn't really like him as a character. The game was still completely bugged and the graphics weren't that much of an improvement from SA.
And here's where Sonic Team got, really, really lazy. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle... I can understand why they released it, heck it was one of the best selling gamecube games in USA for awhile, but that didn't make the game any better. More chao games and connectivity, a load of horrible multiplayer additions and nothing that really made this worth buying if you already had Sonic Adventure 2, or even if you didn't.
Sonic Advance came out, an okay game but didn't live up to ANY of the previous 2d sonic games, and I probably would have even preferred Sega to go the Nintendo route and just release the genesis games on GBA. Would have been more fun than this.
And then came some more shitty ports from Sonic Team. Phantasy Star Online for PC and Episode I & II for gamecube. At least they added some content for the gamecube version, too bad they forgot to give everyone a decent source of communication in the game. Eventually Datel did release a keyboard, but I put the blame all on Sega/Sonic Team for not releasing a keyboard for the gamecube. The good thing about the gamecube version over the dreamcast was it was not as easy to hack or cheat, and to this day remains the most secure version... if you want to call PSO secure. I didn't like PSO on dreamcast, I wasn't going to like it on gamecube either.
And yet, here comes another group of ports from Sonic Team. But, at least this time it was for some good games. My main problem with Sonic Mega Collection was that it offered VERY little more than Sonic Jam, and to me Sonic Jam was a MUCH better compilation of the sonic games. The least they could have done was actually give us Sonic CD (I don't care about any of the bullshit excuses they gave for not putting it on there, they should have done it) I also didn't like the way you unlocked the games, and I'm pretty pissed for just finding out that the japanese version of Mega Collection included Comix Zone and some other shitty master system game.
And now we're basically at the present! PSO EP1&2 for xbox finally comes out. I have no idea why this game took so long to come out in USA, and I always wondered what happened to the extra classes that I heard about it earlier. The only reason I can say I play(ed) this game is because of the voice chat. XBL easily saved this game, but Sonic Team's problems just couldn't keep me and many others interested in this game. As of today the game has one online quest, one downloadable quest, only a small handful of the battle and challenge modes, and only RECENTLY have we been able to actually use our photon drops. Oh, and this was also the EASIEST and most SIMPLE version of PSO to hack, not to mention there was a very simple duping bug that you could even do online that Sonic Team took a humongous amount of time to fix. Custom soundtracks could have made this game a little more enjoyable for me too, seeing as though I can barely stand the soundtrack. Not to seem like I'm jumping all over the place, but it really seemed like this game was put on XBL as an afterthought. The friends/guild card system worked terribly with this, and it would have been much better if you could find your friend on PSO if you had just their gamertag on your friendslist, rather than also needing their guild card.
All I have left on their currently released list is Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Pinball Party. Sonic Pinball Party is a decent game. It's a normal pinball game with a lot of very cool gba-sonic team music along with a few neat boards. It's really too bad that Sega screwed it up by making it only available at Target in USA... why? I don't know. And now to another pile of trash... Sonic Adventure DX. Probably the worst port Sonic Team has EVER done. I knew Sonic Adventure didn't age well, but I didn't know that meant it also couldn't be ported to other systems without making it technically worse. It runs like absolute shit on the gamecube. The framerate is terrible, and there's not one instant where I could say the framerate was at a steady and/or high rate. The only thing that had a chance of saving this game was them including the game gear games... but they gave you the absolute worst way possible to unlocking them all. Emblems. Sonic Team should have realized that at least half the people picking this game up were only picking it up for the game gear games, and making people play through and get EVERY SINGLE emblem if they want ALL the game gear games is an absolute load of bullshit. I would have much preferred the game to be Sonic Game Gear DX or whatever, with no mention whatsoever of Sonic Adventure.
All that's left now is a look to the future. Phantasy Star Online Episode III, Billy Hatcher, SonicN, Sonic Battle, and Sonic Heroes. PSO Episode 3 looks terrible to me. I am a big fan of card games but looking at the previews for this game doesn't give me any hope at all. Billy Hatcher looked interesting to me at first, because I'm always excited when I hear Sonic Team is working on something new, but after playing the demo I was just disappointed. Sure, I don't want to judge the whole game by the demo, but the demo didn't give me any hopes for it. Horrible character design, marginal graphics, and a soundtrack in the ranks of the PSO soundtrack (at least of the demo) combined with gameplay that's basically sonic+monkey ball+crap doesn't make a good game. SonicN.... I don't think I even should bother commenting on this but a port of one of the worst 2d sonic games isn't going to tempt me into bothering with the n-gage, but that's another story. Sonic Battle looks semi-interesting, reminds me of power stone... but I think it'd be better suited on a console rather than a handheld. I'll still try it out though.
Lastly, we arrive at Sonic Heroes. I am pleased and displeased with what I see and hear about this game. I'm glad they're doing away with the adventure routine and trying something different, but I've heard from friends and previews that the gameplay is everything but stellar. I can't say I'm glad about the return of the Chaotix, Rouge the Breasts, and Shadow the Goth.
So in the end, while Sonic Team may have a very glorious history behind them, their recent past and present do not show me that they're going to have a very pleasant future.
Originally Posted by Mairu
What's with the Sonic Team hate? WELL, let's start from the dreamcast.
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