SAGE Spotlight: Sonic Robo Blast 2

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Goldenhog

Wandering Protagonist
As a preface to this review, I will say that I am being particularly harsh in my criticisms of this game, because I feel no need to patronize this team or treat the game as “just a fangame,” mostly because of its enormous size, publicity, and history. I’m also sore because I get motion sickness from playing jerky 3D games and am being doing it for spite from all the physical pain it put me through. On to the review…Sonic Robo Blast 2 is a project that has been in development for over a decade and it shows. In the eyes of many fangamers, including this one, it’s in a class of its own. The volume of content and detail in this game is incredible. It is and it feels like a full game. However, it’s far from feeling like a complete game, as there are a large number of truly unfortunate glaring flaws with this game which keep me from really enjoying it.

For starters, the controls suffer from hyper-fluidity (something common in FPSes, but exacerbated by the fact that this is a high-speed platformer). Every time you press a button you feel like the fly in the windshield, effecting the momentum of the car you hit in imperceptibly low ways. There is no discreteness to the controls: no skidding, no sense of friction, or traction. The entire game’s a giant ice stage in space. Even jumping and rolling feels more like a nudge than a switch as you’re just shifting from one gliding motion to another.Though especially uncharacteristic when on the ground, this is particularly damaging when you’re in the air where it literally takes 5 seconds to alter direction when going at mid-speeds. In a platformer, this is unacceptable as it makes everything frustrating, even the otherwise wonderfully well-done belt gimmick in Arid Canyon Zone.The view is limited vertically and tied to movement horizontally, probably done for the sake of keeping the sprite-count low. This method can get a little frustrating when things are coming from above or you need a wide-angle view of what you’re jumping into. But this isn’t really so bad; at least you have substantial control of the camera contrary to some of the official 3D Sonic games.
Though you can really tell the difference between the graphics made eons ago and the ones done recently (the ones done recently being much prettier), this game is graphically impressive. The antiquated Doom rendering engine will test your sensitivity to aliasing and lack of bump-mapping and other modern rending techniques, especially in the spacious level design that SRB2 has on display. But if you can get past that, there’s a lot to enjoy in the later levels. The character sprites are immaculate and the use of pixel art techniques in the level textures of Arid Canyon Zone and Egg Rock Zone make them absolutely gorgeous.
Presentationally, the game has a unique and congruent style. This is such a rare thing in fangames and is so well-done in this game (though some of the old areas could use some going back to and retouching).
As with the graphics, level design quality is somewhat varied from section to section (attributed to the gigantic time this game has been in development, no doubt), but on the whole are conceptually wonderful. The look, the feel, and the scale of the levels show a real creative eye for design. There is a wonderful amount of variety in the later levels and a nice flow to the layout. However, somewhere in the transition from conception to player, all the fun and design of the level get rounded off by unreasonable (and probably unintentional) difficulty.
This game is simply frustrating and shows a lack of sympathy for the new player. Common with way too many amateur or independent game projects, SRB2 suffers from a lack of leniency, adopting a “the best is just enough” difficulty balancing policy. The levels are in many ways designed to be played through as Sonic, but playing through as Sonic is at all times frustrating and at many times next to impossible due to a combination of the aforementioned loose controls and the aforementioned lack of leniency. Far too often the only way to make a jump is to reach the platform right at the top of your jump. In my opinion, this is a cardinal sin, even for platforms which are right next to you and most definitely should not be practiced regularly with variable-distance long-jumps.
There was one “what the hell was the designer thinking?” moment in particular: in Deep Sea Zone Act 1, the game sets out to recreate the old “logs slowly flowing down a waterfall” scenario, but the “logs” come out randomly and are spaced 3/4 Sonic’s max jump distance apart with no downward leniency (if you lose any vertical footing, you have no chance of making it). The degree in which the planets must align in order for you to make that jump as Sonic is indeed cosmic. I say it again: What the hell was the designer thinking!? The game tries to sell you off of playing as Sonic unless you know the game like the back of your hand, but I get the feeling that this is a bit of a cop-out reaction to the fact that no-one could complete their game as Sonic.
Playing as Tails or Knuckles, you blast past all the entire level, segments at a time, without ever experiencing them. Until you get to the Egg Rock zone, where you’ll hit a brick wall anyway, made all the more insulting by the fact that they start you off with 1 life when if you try to play it after losing all your lives. It forces you to play the whole game over again, scavenging for extra men. Please, a little sympathy. I like being challenged, but I don’t like being toyed with.
Another area where the level design suffers is in a lack of direction. I know the developers are reluctant to patronize the player by planting arrow signs everywhere, but there is a lack of distinguishing landmarks indicating the direction you should or should not be going, often resulting in you going in circles. The game gets better about that later in the game, though that’s more of a product of the increasingly distinct graphical design and less of a conscious effort to make sure the player knows where he should be going.
To use an extremely over-used cliche, SRB2 is the proverbial diamond-in-the-rough, complete with rough. As I have no experience modding (much less Doom modding), so I won’t speculate as to what’s an engine limitation and what’s an unfortunate design choice or programming flaw, but I think it’s safe to say two things about using the Doom engine: (1) SRB2 will never be a modern game using the Doom engine and (2) it is possible to polish a very good game out of what is there already without having to recreate it in a non-Doom environment (maybe not as good as it could be, but very good nonetheless). In many ways, this game reminds me of my experience with Sonic Heroes, whose catastrophic implementation flaws get in the way of its legitimately impressive content. And like Sonic Heroes, I’m sure if I spent days and days playing SRB2 I’d come to love it even through its flaws, but that doesn’t change the fact that these flaws simply shouldn’t be.



Taken from: http://sonicstadium.org/articles/reviews/sage-spotlight-sonic-robo-blast-2
 
lolhai

i get sick while playig games btu im gonna b a game reveiwer.
 
I really need to be able to infract administrators for excessive sarcasm =P

Honestly, most of his complaints are pretty accurate. SRB2 has slippery controls if you don't play it like an FPS, and our difficulty curve is really uneven. I certainly don't find SRB2 "jerky", though. 35 fps isn't THAT bad.
 
Personally I find only CEZ2 to be particularly offensive in that regard. Honestly, I think the reason some people find SRB2's controls slippery is because we make the player hit the back key if they want to stop, unlike SEGA's Sonic 3D platformers where if you stop holding forward you stop pretty quickly.
 
Last time I checked, you can ADJUST the controls, that's exactly what I did.

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't know that was copy-pasted.
 
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Honestly, I think the reason some people find SRB2's controls slippery is because we make the player hit the back key if they want to stop, unlike SEGA's Sonic 3D platformers where if you stop holding forward you stop pretty quickly.

Bingo. In fact, the movement was originally modeled after something else.

Play Sonic 1/2/3. Get running. Let go of the controls. Oooh, look, he's still moving!
Really, if you want "Sonic Physics", you're going to get exactly what you asked for. If we had it any differently, we'd probably get blasted for "It's just a Mario game with Sonic sprites".
 
I love Sonic's physics in SRB2. It gives you that feel of unparalleled speed - just like in the originals.
 
The game just never really felt fast-paced for me. The controls just felt annoying to deal with (it took me a pretty long time to get used to them) and I just don't like the extreme character inbalances, regardless of the intention. "It's meant to be that way" isn't really an excuse for something as ridiculous as this.

I can't wait until Luminous gets here.
 
SRB2. Where do I begin? Originally, I used to love SRB2. Well, that was probably just for the fact that I was blinded by the fact that the game is 3D. Being older and have been playing this game for a year, I noticed all the flaws it has.
The default levxels (most of them) are pretty bad. The first two zones are very short, so you only really have a small amount of zones to play. They are gimmickless, (mostly) flat, and very easy. Of course, when you first play this game, GFZ1 seems like it lasts forever, but that charm goes away right after the first time you play it. Some of the new levels seem like they are made just to show off the new gimmicks (Arid Canyon first comes to mind), which means that the level design greatly suffers. Eggrock Zone, while a decent zone, makes the assumption that you are an expert at SRB2. It pulls off plenty of gimmicks (some which are cheap) and expects you to now how to survive. Once you get past one gimmick, it's straight to the next soon after. There's a pretty notable difficulty spike in the game, which is a pretty bad thing for beginners.

The game is horribly unbalanced that it isn't even funny. In nearly every single SRB2 level, Tails always comes up on top. In match, Knuckles usually comes up on top. In race, there's no contest that Sonic will come up on top. While I do admit that variety is nice, there's really only two difficulties in SRB2: piss-easy or moderate. I realize that one of the creators stated that Sonic's brokenness in race is what makes him unique, but race just ended up being a boring thokfest the majority of the time. In CTF, Knuckles is basically unstoppable. He can climb just about any wall, something that no other characters can do, which limits Hide and Seek to only one character.

Most modes (besides Tag, as I never played it before) in SRB2 are really boring. Race is nothing more than a boring thokfest most of the time, Coop is just singleplayer with more people, and Hide and Seek (with the levels that are poorly designed for the gametype) is really easy and boring. Match and CTF are the only interesting modes, but they are decent at best. They are complex, yet. If I ever play SRB2, I'll be playing these modes. While I only play with one hand, I can still have decent fun. Though, I was never fond of the level design. Nimbus Ruins and Meadow Match are really the only good levels in these modes.

While the customization is nice, there really is never a chance that there's any good quality of the downloadable stuff. Most are laughable. Character's are near-worthless because their abilities hardly change the game. Graphic packs are worthless to me and so are, for the most part, SOCs. There is simply never anything of interest. It's a bit limited, what with character editing being nerfed and all and level editing being tedious and monotonous.
The community adds to the awfulness of the addons. The community often times makes worthless additions, such as hangouts, Chao gardens, and levels made solely for their, not anyone else's, enjoyment.There are some wads, like Reunite's Oceanic Cave (?) and a few of Mystic's maps, but most of them are just mediocre. There are some people who actually listen to criticism, and they may become good mappers some day. Reunite is probably the only person to surpass being a good level designer.
The community is pretty bad here. Servers are filled with roleplayers. People never seem to listen to criticism, and people that are simply annoying. They simply ruin the entire SRB2 online experience. Though, this being a Sonic fangame, this was really expected.

So really, I agreed with just about everything in the review. SRB2 is a mediocre fangame in my opinion, with very few positives.
 
...So remind me again, why did you play a "mediocre" game for a whole year? And possibly still do? Do you have nothing better to do or something?
 
...So remind me again, why did you play a "mediocre" game for a whole year? And possibly still do? Do you have nothing better to do or something?
I strictly only play match and CTF. These two modes are what makes me still play the game.
 
I have a feeling that you two dislike the classic Sonic series of games (basically, anything pre-Sonic Adventure) since most of the 'problems' you list come from those games.

One other little thing that caught my interest:
level editing being tedious and monotonous
Hah, I beg to differ. Compared to level editing for more recent 3d engines (ex: the Source engine), SRB2's level design format is a cinch. Seriously, (assuming you own any Source game; if you don't, just ignore this line) I dare you to open up Source SDK and just try to make a simple level in it. It's infinitely more complex than anything you'll see around here, trust me.
 
We actually like the classic games.
I don't really see how you can prove that SRB2 level building isn't monotonous by comparing to something that's worse. Sure, it's easier than most other level design programs, but it's still tedious.

What problems that I mentioned were also in the classics? The only one I can really think of is the character inbalance.
 
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The controls and handling for SRB2 did indeed irk me when I first picked the game up, but after playing the game for awhile, such complaints have all but diminished. Sonic in particular lends himself extremely well to platforming - whether it be close range or far away - with the utmost precision.

There is a bit of a curve, don't get me wrong, but after playing for a bit, everything just becomes second nature.

Anyways, as it's been said, this review is months old. Hell, it doesn't even have any significance whatsoever, so why was it posted? Who is this schmuck, and why should anyone care?
 
The first two zones are very short, so you only really have a small amount of zones to play. They are gimmickless, (mostly) flat, and very easy. Of course, when you first play this game, GFZ1 seems like it lasts forever, but that charm goes away right after the first time you play it.
Just recalling Sonic 2 off of the top of my head, Emerald Hill was exactly like this. Short, easy level with hidden stuff around a few places, very few real gimmicks or anything of note. Flat is disputable; but then again... remember that there's one less plane for to deal with, so it's hard to make comparisons regarding that.
Some of the new levels seem like they are made just to show off the new gimmicks (Arid Canyon first comes to mind), which means that the level design greatly suffers.
Well, to be honest, what would you expect? For us to completely ignore the new gimmicks and make more levels that looked like they could've been in 1.09.4?
(Not a rhetorical question, by the way, I am slightly curious.)
Eggrock Zone, while a decent zone, makes the assumption that you are an expert at SRB2. It pulls off plenty of gimmicks (some which are cheap) and expects you to now how to survive. Once you get past one gimmick, it's straight to the next soon after. There's a pretty notable difficulty spike in the game, which is a pretty bad thing for beginners.
As I'm sure has been mentioned countless times, the difficulty spike only exists because there's an entire zone and a couple extra acts missing because they aren't done yet. We're basing the difficulty curve based on what's going to be there, not what is there. I'm not disputing the "gimmick-after-gimmick" style, but personally I like it. To each their own, I guess...

Skipping character imbalance, you already noted it.

Gametype stuff is nothing more than personal opinion, I'm not even going to try to harp on it. Just one thing to note: Tag and H&S haven't got, and - outside of external mods - will never get, levels of its own. It's a thrown-in gametype still around simply because people still want it. Originally it was slated for removal altogether, so...

While the customization is nice, there really is never a chance that there's any good quality of the downloadable stuff. Most are laughable. Character's are near-worthless because their abilities hardly change the game. Graphic packs are worthless to me and so are, for the most part, SOCs. There is simply never anything of interest. It's a bit limited, what with character editing being nerfed and all and level editing being tedious and monotonous.
The community adds to the awfulness of the addons. The community often times makes worthless additions, such as hangouts, Chao gardens, and levels made solely for their, not anyone else's, enjoyment.There are some wads, like Reunite's Oceanic Cave (?) and a few of Mystic's maps, but most of them are just mediocre. There are some people who actually listen to criticism, and they may become good mappers some day. Reunite is probably the only person to surpass being a good level designer.
The community is pretty bad here. Servers are filled with roleplayers. People never seem to listen to criticism, and people that are simply annoying. They simply ruin the entire SRB2 online experience. Though, this being a Sonic fangame, this was really expected.
I pretty much agree with a bunch of this (yes, our community DOES suck, this is not anything new); but bashing a game for the people it gathers and the things that they make/do/etc is pretty low, in my opinion. It's not like we can help the fact that most people around here are 11~13 year olds with no idea what they're doing.

please don't go after me for stupid logical fallacies, just kindly point them out if they exist; it's 2 in the morning and i'm pretty much half asleep at this point
 
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I enjoy SRB2 for the most part, but I agree with Luminous on the community- most addons being worthless, etc. It's too bad we really only most of the good levels in the OLDC. The levels section is mediocre, or worse (although much less because of the judging system)
 
I beg to differ with CTF imbalance. A Knuckles player (such as myself) is overall strong, but just outpaced, outsped and out-dodged by a comparable Sonic, and Tails has far superior mobility anyway (climbing basically makes you an easy target. Gliding is better as you can crazydodge, but also comparatively slow vs. thok and spindashfly.)

Basically, Knuckles is for people who have problems with the controls, such as me. He's a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. And yes, I have good results, but I'm outdone by players with just about every character. But [/rant] now.

I liked ERZ. The difficulty kept me interested, and made me feel rewarded when I finally beat it.
 
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