Metal Sonic MRK II
Member
Here's my(brief) opinion of the game:
Let me state this first: The weapons are almost entirely unecessary to beat the game. Shadow still carries the standard arsenal of homing sttacks as well as the return of the spindash and slide tackling, and even has the new ability to kick and punch ala Knuckles when he has no weapon equiped. The person(Not bothering to specifically name him/her) who said earlier in this topic that the homing attack is worthless because of enemy HP was in essence either misinformed or lying. The homing attack will defeat a human being instantly along with GUN beatles and the smaller bird creatures of the Black Arms. Others, like Eggpawns and standard Black Arms soilders require two attacks to defeat. The preceeding are most of the enemies you are forced to face throughout the levels. There are, however, a select few a bit later on such as Chaos experiments, giant Black Arms soilders, and Big Foot mechs(Which incidently take the exact ammount of hits to destroy as their SA2 boss counterparts) that take a bit more hits to destroy, but still far less than some of the enemies in Sonic Heroes when homing attacking on the lowest level.
Weapons are pretty basic in themselves, and not as overpowered as one would expect. A handgun does damage equal to a homing attack, and so does a basic Black Arms hun. A machine gune does the same damage as a handgun, but at a much higher rate as well as the rapid fire Black Arms weapon, etc. The game's lock-on system is rather easy to use, as Shadow will automatically shoot at the nearest enemy he is relatively pointing at when the fire button is pressed down, whether the nemy is higer or lower than he is, allowing you to keep moving fast and yet eliminate the lower HP baddies without stopping, since Shadow can run at full speed and still shoot at the same time. As the game progresses you naturally gain stronger weaponry to tackle the enemies with larger HP, making people who rely on homing attacks have to use weapons a bit more. A weapon is picked up merely by running over where it is indicated by a ring of green light and carries a fixed ammount of ammo. Additional ammo is also picked up merely by running over it, like any other ring. Unfortunately, to switch a weapon you must stop and stand over the new weapon and press a button to switch with it. Black Arms and Robots explode the same when hit by either homing attacks or weapons, but humans luckily just fall down when their life-meter is depleted, continually saying sorry to their men or asking Shadow to spare them(of which it is impossible to NOT spare them as they can't be "killed", although by throwing them special heal units they can be revived). Oh, and if you're wondering, Big Foot mechs merely explode and don't leave behind their pilot for some reason.
Swords were slightly dissapointing. While you can swing them infinitely in open air, if they hit any breakable object or enemy their ammo meter depletes, making cool weapons like the Samarai blade short-lived.
The graphics, while argued to be equivalent to Sonic Heroes, are in fact more like those of an Adventure game except for the models which were made to look a bit better. While this allows for more interactive/breakable enviroments, it is a slight put-off for both reviewers and people who are fans of next-generation graphics. I myself had very little problems with it though.
The multiple paths, while cool in theory, isn't as good as it could be. I managed to kill almost all the GUN soilders in several levels and still obtain a rank A and fullfill the hero mission. While getting dark points while fullfilling a hero mission will subtract from your score and visa-versa, the time bonus you nearly always get overshadows your score. Missions themselves contain alot of destroying a certain number of something or collecting something, but usually those are placed directly in your path to achieve. If you need to backtrack, there is the ability to warp from savepoint to savepoint which makes the process much easier. There are some exceptionally fun missions, like racing Sonic to a goal ring, or hunting down and destroying a black tank before it gets away, which add alot to the mix of both speed and gunplay at once. But if all else fails, you can fullfill the nuetral mission by running to the goal ring.
Depending on what enemies you destroy your blue and red meters fill up, turning you into Dark Shadow or Hero Shadow respectfully, which allows you to be invincible and have unlimited ammo for a period, as well as allow you to execute Choas Blast or Chaos Control techniques(Truly the closest thing we've had to an in-game Super Sonic/Shadow). The DArk Shadow or Hero Shadow forms can be extended by defeating more good or bad enemies, much like the rings of Super Sonic. The chaos control technique is unfortunately useless unless you are in a boss battle or want to warp to the end of a level quickly, as it often causes you to bypass some mission objectives. Chaos blast is also annoying as it doesn't descriminate between enemies.
I'd go on(You know, Voices, music, characters and all that), but I think I'm getting quickly side-tracked. Really it's a mixed bag. In truth it's a medeocre Sonic game, but a pretty neat Shadow game. :)
Let me state this first: The weapons are almost entirely unecessary to beat the game. Shadow still carries the standard arsenal of homing sttacks as well as the return of the spindash and slide tackling, and even has the new ability to kick and punch ala Knuckles when he has no weapon equiped. The person(Not bothering to specifically name him/her) who said earlier in this topic that the homing attack is worthless because of enemy HP was in essence either misinformed or lying. The homing attack will defeat a human being instantly along with GUN beatles and the smaller bird creatures of the Black Arms. Others, like Eggpawns and standard Black Arms soilders require two attacks to defeat. The preceeding are most of the enemies you are forced to face throughout the levels. There are, however, a select few a bit later on such as Chaos experiments, giant Black Arms soilders, and Big Foot mechs(Which incidently take the exact ammount of hits to destroy as their SA2 boss counterparts) that take a bit more hits to destroy, but still far less than some of the enemies in Sonic Heroes when homing attacking on the lowest level.
Weapons are pretty basic in themselves, and not as overpowered as one would expect. A handgun does damage equal to a homing attack, and so does a basic Black Arms hun. A machine gune does the same damage as a handgun, but at a much higher rate as well as the rapid fire Black Arms weapon, etc. The game's lock-on system is rather easy to use, as Shadow will automatically shoot at the nearest enemy he is relatively pointing at when the fire button is pressed down, whether the nemy is higer or lower than he is, allowing you to keep moving fast and yet eliminate the lower HP baddies without stopping, since Shadow can run at full speed and still shoot at the same time. As the game progresses you naturally gain stronger weaponry to tackle the enemies with larger HP, making people who rely on homing attacks have to use weapons a bit more. A weapon is picked up merely by running over where it is indicated by a ring of green light and carries a fixed ammount of ammo. Additional ammo is also picked up merely by running over it, like any other ring. Unfortunately, to switch a weapon you must stop and stand over the new weapon and press a button to switch with it. Black Arms and Robots explode the same when hit by either homing attacks or weapons, but humans luckily just fall down when their life-meter is depleted, continually saying sorry to their men or asking Shadow to spare them(of which it is impossible to NOT spare them as they can't be "killed", although by throwing them special heal units they can be revived). Oh, and if you're wondering, Big Foot mechs merely explode and don't leave behind their pilot for some reason.
Swords were slightly dissapointing. While you can swing them infinitely in open air, if they hit any breakable object or enemy their ammo meter depletes, making cool weapons like the Samarai blade short-lived.
The graphics, while argued to be equivalent to Sonic Heroes, are in fact more like those of an Adventure game except for the models which were made to look a bit better. While this allows for more interactive/breakable enviroments, it is a slight put-off for both reviewers and people who are fans of next-generation graphics. I myself had very little problems with it though.
The multiple paths, while cool in theory, isn't as good as it could be. I managed to kill almost all the GUN soilders in several levels and still obtain a rank A and fullfill the hero mission. While getting dark points while fullfilling a hero mission will subtract from your score and visa-versa, the time bonus you nearly always get overshadows your score. Missions themselves contain alot of destroying a certain number of something or collecting something, but usually those are placed directly in your path to achieve. If you need to backtrack, there is the ability to warp from savepoint to savepoint which makes the process much easier. There are some exceptionally fun missions, like racing Sonic to a goal ring, or hunting down and destroying a black tank before it gets away, which add alot to the mix of both speed and gunplay at once. But if all else fails, you can fullfill the nuetral mission by running to the goal ring.
Depending on what enemies you destroy your blue and red meters fill up, turning you into Dark Shadow or Hero Shadow respectfully, which allows you to be invincible and have unlimited ammo for a period, as well as allow you to execute Choas Blast or Chaos Control techniques(Truly the closest thing we've had to an in-game Super Sonic/Shadow). The DArk Shadow or Hero Shadow forms can be extended by defeating more good or bad enemies, much like the rings of Super Sonic. The chaos control technique is unfortunately useless unless you are in a boss battle or want to warp to the end of a level quickly, as it often causes you to bypass some mission objectives. Chaos blast is also annoying as it doesn't descriminate between enemies.
I'd go on(You know, Voices, music, characters and all that), but I think I'm getting quickly side-tracked. Really it's a mixed bag. In truth it's a medeocre Sonic game, but a pretty neat Shadow game. :)
