Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I never liked the 2D Sonic games. I was spoiled by the much tighter controls and less crazy level design for the Mario platformers. I know Sonic's whole shtick is to "just go fast," but I always found the floatiness of his jumping combined with the speed to just be frustrating when put in a platforming environment.

I did kind of like the first 3D Sonic on the Dreamcast. It's just that Sonic games have always felt... I don't know, slightly low budget for 1st-party games. They've always lacked the absolute polish from Nintendo's 1st-party stuff and even some Sony's 1st-party games.

@WaveWitch Glad I'm not the only one who dislikes the gameplay of classic Sonic. I also played Mania hoping it'd sell me on that style of game design, but it still just feels like a broken balance of speed and precision platforming to me with insanely annoying level design and stage hazards.

Thankfully, I played it for free on PS+, so no wasted money on my part.

I had a similar experience when I revisited Crash Bandicoot: Warped a few years ago. I thought I liked those games, but the level design and vehicle controls were just the worst things ever.

Its weird.

Now, in hindsight, I play Sonic and realize how ill-designed the levels are, the mechanics, speeding you right into enemies and traps...

But there's no denying that when I was a kid, it was the most fun game of all time to me. I was a Sonic fanatic in 2nd and 3rd grade.

And as such, I still enjoy the games because of that impression they made on me as a kid. Even though I never really feel like playing more than a level or two now before moving on.

@Dezzy Hope they take the Torna route instead of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe route, which has online multiplayer and, like, one small gameplay change. Give us that 40 hour DLC baby! Or, ya know, just do two to five worlds?

@Ralizah
Yea, although I definitely like Crash waaaaaaay more than Sonic, it still doesn't hold up super well in my opinion. The 3D perspective and hit boxes are just not quite there enough to make things frustrating. I think the Crash games were products of their time. I think they got really good review scores back then, but today I would knock a bunch of points off. They just haven't held up as well as something like Mario 64 (which I also think has lost a few steps but is still fun to play).

@WaveWitch the thing is Sonic games contrary to popular believe is not about "gotta go fast!!". The first playthrough you should take your time, explore the levels to get power ups, coins, special stages, etc. And when you beat the game you start doing it faster and faster as you learn the levels (basically the first true speedrunning games, well apart from Sonic 2 which sucks...)

@theJGG
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe added a proper battle mode with Battle Mode stages. It was actually a pretty significant addition, on top of including all the DLC (though that was a given)

So, I'm just gonna say it: in terms of single-player content and modes, Crash Team Racing curb-stomps MK8D. It's not even close.

MK8D wins out in terms of performance and presentation, though. I also prefer the kart upgrades to the customization options in CTR.

Somewhere in-between the two games is a perfect kart racer.

@rallydefault I dunno, man, levels in Crash Bandicoot are literally claustrophobic hallways. The series has some of the worst level design I've ever seen in a 3D platformer. And the boulder levels in the original? UGH.

In regards to Nintendo buying NLG, would I rather see a new Strikers or Punch-Out?

A new Punch-Out, please and thank you.

@theJGG In addition to what JaxonH mentioned, there was also 6 new characters, two new items (Boos and Feathers), reworked boosting mechanics, double item slots (which I assume is what you were referring to), 3 new sets of vehicle parts, and the accessibility features (Auto-gas and Smart steering) added. Oh, and 200cc is now properly integrated with time trials, better AI, etc.

All that, plus the 8 new stages in Battle Mode, actually added up to a small but still decent sized chunk of content beyond the included DLC.

On the other topic, if we're talking (non-Mario) 3D Platformer series, I'll hold to this day the best one of the era was Spyro, followed by Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. Crash and Sonic were... well, y'all know. Tak was fun but frustrating, Rayman's far better in 2D, and I could never get into Ratchet and Clank. I did enjoy the Jak & Daxter, but Jak II turned me off from that series, hard.

Absolutely agree with the criticisms of Crash. It's enjoyable enough (I still occasionally like to play the N-Sane Trilogy on Switch), but I find the controls and level design to often be quite frustrating, and I don't believe the series did anything remarkably better than what came before it (although I guess the 2D/3D hybrid thing was new at the time - but I don't necessarilly think it was a good idea). It certainly was never a serious competitor to Mario imo. I absolutely agree with @link3710 that Spyro is underrated, and feel that if Spyro came first Crash would've been more easily overlooked.

As a lifelong Sonic fan...I also kinda understand the criticisms of the 2D Sonic games. I find the 2D experience really hit or miss, not just between entries (CD has terrible level design IMO, and some of the handheld games just feel like your'e holding down "right"), but sometimes sections within the same game (the notorious example is the strength of Green Hill Zone relative to the rest of Sonic 1). I suppose a lot of my enjoyment comes from the characters, the graphics, the music, and the dazzling setpieces, rather than the gameplay itself.

@Balta666
But that's just the thing - Sonic's physics don't lend themselves to going slowly/carefully, at least not with accuracy you would expect in a platformer. Changing his walking direction is way twitchier than something like Mario. It feels like he's not supposed to be on the ground unless he's rolling. His jumping is super floaty which does slow things down, though. The way he kicks off from any kind of slope is just cray cray, too. His momentum physics are...certainly a choice lol

But then a lot of the level design also doesn't lend itself to finding stuff. A bunch of the starting levels, a player's first impression obviously, have you going through all those loops and underground squiggles at mach speed. It's annoying to stop and backtrack or jump on top to find stuff. At least for me it's just a complete break in what the game feels like it's pushing you to do. Take Mario again, and you can do the same thing of just rushing to the end of each stage without finding stuff. But in Mario it doesn't feel like you're upsetting the level and the character moves to go off the beaten path and look for stuff.

For me, a good platformer combines moveset and level design that lend themselves to whatever the developer's intention is. If they wanted Sonic to be about exploring and finding stuff, it's just crazy to me that they came up with the level designs and character physics that they did.

@link3710
I agree. Spyro rocks. Sly Cooper is also very good, but I think that came a bit later. Not sure.

Ok. Question here.

How can I tell what's new on NSO?
Every time the NSO icon has a green dot on it, indicating news, I open it up, and I can never tell what's new. What am I missing?

Horace doesn't have a thread, so I'm just gonna go here with it. I don't think I've ever experienced a quicker swing in perspective on a game.

I started playing it later last night and was quickly charmed by the narration, the humour and the pixel art and felt really positive about it.

Was looking forward, therefore to continuing with it tonight, so I don't know if it's my mood or what but almost immediately I was changing my mind. Just seemed to coincide with it becoming cutscene heavy - felt like minutes were going by between any play, and then almost as soon as I was back in control, it jumped to a cutscene again. And this is a platformer!

I'm now seemingly out of the cutscene phase, and find myself in a really tedious 'tidy up a million things' section which just involves navigating Horace from platform to platform littered with a boring and limited array of bland objects. I'm just a couple of minutes into it, on about 10,000 objects, and I'm feeling totally deflated. Horace has gone from hero to zero in about 15 minutes.

Does anyone have a reason for me to go on playing?

@rallydefault if you go to Sonic 1 you have a total of one loop and two slides and each one takes less than 2 seconds of animation, also it is not possible to do all of them in a single run as all levels have different ways to go. If you compare it to with SMW everything is super linear apart from secret pipes/keys.

But I am definitely in the minority as I do not enjoy 2d Mario physics but adore 3d ones (hell SM64 is on my top 3 games ever)

@theJGG

Don't forget MK8 also got all the extra tracks in the DLC too. Many Wii U players will have already bought those, but they were an additional cost originally.

@Dezzy Very true. But just "adding all previous DLC" is honestly quite lazy, and new additions always expand the game and make it much better for it. If a port has "all previous DLC" and that's all there is to that port, there's no incentive for double-dippers.

@theJGG

Well it's an incentive for those people who didn't buy the DLC the first time around!

Confirmation that Microsoft did indeed try and buy Nintendo. That was after the previous offer fell through in which they wanted to partner with them, Microsoft make the harder and Nintendo do the software, according to the article.

Man imagine a world where Nintendo was an Xbox first party studio

There's just something that feels so wrong about saying the words "Mario on Xbox" lol