Difficulty with other characters

[Rex The Kitsune]

Is it me, or is this game made for Sonic?
For instance, most levels have platforming challenges that can easily by bypassed by abusing Tails and Knuckles's abilities, while other levels like ER1 and ER3 require Sonic.
For instance, in ER1 you have to quickly escape a room before your character suffocates. With Sonic, this is no problem. But if you're playing as Tails or Knuckles it feels like you're trying to do a speedrun.
And in ER3, the race is extremely difficult if you aren't playing as Sonic. Metal Sonic gets ahead of you very quickly and you can't catch up. I've tried shortcuts, speed monitors, and everything, but I can't beat the damn level as either of them.
So what I'm asking is, have some level balancing for people who don't play as Sonic, okay? Not everyone is playing as the blue hedgehog.

 

[Burning-Fox]

The Egg Rock Zone 1 thing is easy. You simply fly up the staircase area. (I'm sure you mean that one.) If you mean anywhere else, well... I've beaten the entire game as Tails. :v (Besides the Metal Sonic boss and the new Brak Eggman. I meant in version 2.0, but yeah.)
I need to get down to playing 2.1 as Tails and Knuckles, actually.

 

[Puppyfaic]

Quite the contrary. Every single level in the game is a piece of cake if you're playing as Tails. There are a lot of shortcuts he can abuse in ERZ3. Tails can still spindash-fly to an extent. Just don't mash the jump button.

 

[Unknownlight]

In ERZ3, ignore the gravity reversal sections and just fly/glide to the exits. Also, in the final hallway, fully charge your spindash instead of running. The race becomes a piece of cake.

 

[Cirom]

The way I see it, the character select is more a "difficulty select" than anything..

Tails is "Easy Mode", being able to bypass a lot of stage hazards, though he has a rather slow speed and an inexperienced player can get confused if they abuse fly too much.. ("Which way am I supposed to be going?")
Knuckles is "Normal Mode" (until ERZ, hahaha ow), his gliding and climbing being useful to bypass SOME stage hazards (others just have non-climbable walls), his speed is also pretty good. Though beware that his low jump height forces him to often take more difficult sections of levels..
Sonic is "Hard Mode", his speed and thok often being too much to handle for inexperienced players, and providing little vertical agility to boot. If you seriously mess up as Sonic.. good luck getting back on your feet without expending a life or falling down into an inconvenient area.

I will say though, my fastest run of ERZ3 is as Tails, mostly due to abuse of spin-fly (spin-glide? ;D) and taking MASSIVE shortcuts through the power of flight.. though Tails' low speed made the Metal Sonic fight more annoying than it should have been :T I'm too used to Sonic!

 

[Tyrannic]

The Metal Sonic race has a huge shortcut for Knuckles and Tails where you can simply bypass a gravity switch in the one room with the different gravity platforming. Beating Metal on the normal track is insanely difficult, but that shortcut makes it much easier.

Regarding the character difficulties, I think that a lot more walls need the "Not Climbable"-flag for Knuckles (but also need to be properly indicated).

 

[clairebun]

Tails is easy-mode by intention. Knuckles is more of an "alternative" experience with his path-opening ability.

 

[Netro]

Egg Rock Zone 3 hard for other characters? Are you joking here? When playing as Knuckles or Tails, he is never ahead of me except for the one exception to where he is required to break the spikes.

 

[Rex The Kitsune]

Egg Rock Zone 3 hard for other characters? Are you joking here? When playing as Knuckles or Tails, he is never ahead of me except for the one exception to where he is required to break the spikes.

After that point, it just goes downhill for me. I can get past him and make it into the red hallway, but the timer kills me long before I can reach the end. Spindashing doesn't help either.

I also noticed another thing. I was replaying the single player campaign today, and I realized I could not pass DSZ3 with Tails.

Basically, in the second phase, there are three Eggmans popping out of pipes. They shoot missles at you, right? Well, if you're playing as Sonic, you can locate the correct Eggman and simply thok him. But if you're playing as Tails or Knuckles you have to dodge the missles, find the correct Eggman, get to a platform where you can hit him, and then hit him without getting hit by missles. But Eggman is gone by then. I also don't really like how fast they electrocute you. Once I missed an Eggman by an inch, and I skimmed the top of the water. I was about to fly out, but I got shocked and sunk to the bottom. All in 2 seconds.

There's also CEZ3, my favorite boss in the game. His spinning spikes are a terror to avoid as Tails and Knuckles, but Sonic can outrun them easily. With Tails I have to break sequence by flying up to the stands, waiting till he opens his cage, and then hit him.

I just don't understand why this game is so hard to beat as Tails or Knuckles.

 

[Liliam]

Basically, in the second phase, there are three Eggmans popping out of pipes. They shoot missles at you, right? Well, if you're playing as Sonic, you can locate the correct Eggman and simply thok him. But if you're playing as Tails or Knuckles you have to dodge the missles, find the correct Eggman, get to a platform where you can hit him, and then hit him without getting hit by missles. But Eggman is gone by then. I also don't really like how fast they electrocute you. Once I missed an Eggman by an inch, and I skimmed the top of the water. I was about to fly out, but I got shocked and sunk to the bottom. All in 2 seconds.

This, guys. This right here. One thing is making the pinch phase actually interesting and challenging, but I think the bosses in general, particularly DSZ3, went a bit overboard.

The spinning chain in CEZ3 also gets WAY too fast at times, and with no choreographed way of telling you when it's about to speed up or change directions. These are amazingly fun concepts here that put the old versions of SRB2 to shame, but a little moderation is in order.

 

[Cirom]

This, guys. This right here. One thing is making the pinch phase actually interesting and challenging, but I think the bosses in general, particularly DSZ3, went a bit overboard.

The spinning chain in CEZ3 also gets WAY too fast at times, and with no choreographed way of telling you when it's about to speed up or change directions. These are amazingly fun concepts here that put the old versions of SRB2 to shame, but a little moderation is in order.

While I WILL agree with the DSZ3 stuff (though spin-jumping REALLY helps!), for the CEZ3.. there is a very distinct pattern, explained in the following spoiler:

Spoiler

Notice that the "whoosh" sound occurs roughly every ~3 seconds or so (I can't remember exactly, but it's the same duration for each "whoosh"). When the level is started at first, there's only 1 whoosh until Eggman opens up, while after that there's always 3 whooshes.
Also, if it IS about to change directions, it will always change into "slow" mode.. just don't go too close to the spike balls, and you'll be fine. Basically, three possible options for each "whoosh":
1. Eggman does the same thing he did before.
2. Eggman goes the same direction, but the balls move in "fast" mode instead.
3. Eggman changes direction, and the balls move in "slow" mode.

 

[JTE]

no choreographed way of telling you when it's about to speed up or change directions.

He lifts up his left hand if he's going to speed up and his right hand if he's going to change directions... buuut you can't really see that through all the thick bars blocking your view almost completely. and it's a little counter-intuitive to think that sometimes he'll put up his right hand to go left and sometimes he'll put up his right hand to make it go right, and such, instead of speeding up in that direction if he does the same hand twice... @_@;;

Sorry for that. (Totally Mystic's fault that it tries to trick you into running into it by instantly changing directions, btw. It used to be worse, though -- originally he could switch into speed-up reverse, and there were constant arrow showers and chaos enemies spawning and everything, it was an amazing clusterfuck.)

 

[Rex The Kitsune]

It used to be worse, though -- originally he could switch into speed-up reverse, and there were constant arrow showers and chaos enemies spawning and everything, it was an amazing clusterfuck.)

Holy crap man! That would be a heck of a boss to beat!

 

[Netro]

After that point, it just goes downhill for me. I can get past him and make it into the red hallway, but the timer kills me long before I can reach the end. Spindashing doesn't help either.

I also noticed another thing. I was replaying the single player campaign today, and I realized I could not pass DSZ3 with Tails.

Basically, in the second phase, there are three Eggmans popping out of pipes. They shoot missles at you, right? Well, if you're playing as Sonic, you can locate the correct Eggman and simply thok him. But if you're playing as Tails or Knuckles you have to dodge the missles, find the correct Eggman, get to a platform where you can hit him, and then hit him without getting hit by missles. But Eggman is gone by then. I also don't really like how fast they electrocute you. Once I missed an Eggman by an inch, and I skimmed the top of the water. I was about to fly out, but I got shocked and sunk to the bottom. All in 2 seconds.

There's also CEZ3, my favorite boss in the game. His spinning spikes are a terror to avoid as Tails and Knuckles, but Sonic can outrun them easily. With Tails I have to break sequence by flying up to the stands, waiting till he opens his cage, and then hit him.

I just don't understand why this game is so hard to beat as Tails or Knuckles.

For DSZ3, simply glide/fly around the missiles and just jump into him, it wasn't all that hard there either.

CEZ3, climb/fly into the audience stands and wait until he's ready to be attacked. Not that hard. I actually beat the game with all emeralds with Knuckles first.

EDIT-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPpdXMuf17I&feature=youtu.be Here's a really terrible run of Knuckles racing Metal Sonic (was tired and my screen recorder broke midway)

 

[clairebun]

He lifts up his left hand if he's going to speed up and his right hand if he's going to change directions...

Shouldn't he just lift whichever hand correlates to the direction the chain is going to move in next?

 

[Monster Iestyn]

Shouldn't he just lift whichever hand correlates to the direction the chain is going to move in next?

What about speeding up the chains though?

 

[clairebun]

He's moving it faster in that direction, isn't he?