Chezi
Chili Dogs
He’s only proving my point lmao
Sonic Robo Blast 2 Pet Peeves
- Thread starter Pyrakid Wolfo
- Start date
Andres_Craft
the brainrots are too fast, murder drones good
BTW, it was this one
*Artist's reprensentationt*
(it goes fast because my laptop is bad(I guess that's a new pet peeve))
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*Artist's reprensentationt*
(it goes fast because my laptop is bad(I guess that's a new pet peeve))
Shaddy the guy
Professional ass-merchant
Shields are a legit grievance with the game. I'm pretty sure I've seen the attraction shield placed underwater somewhere, which is pretty self-explanatory. More than that though, a lot of their active abilities just aren't extremely useful. The armageddon shield is good for clearing out large amounts of enemies bunched together, but that just doesn't happen very often, and it only does one point of damage, so it'd be no use against bosses or 2-hit enemies. The force and elemental shields both stop you in midair, with the latter doing a kind of slow and unsatisfying stomp that isn't really useful against any enemies. The Sonic 3-style shields feel more tightly designed, with each having a specific purpose with level design, but they're never actually in SRB2's main campaign. If it were me, I'd replace attraction shields with lightning shields, put attraction's ability on the whirlwind shield (since lightning makes it redundant) and replace armageddon and elemental shields with flame and bubble (wherever is appropriate). You can keep force around, because even though its ability sucks, it being a 2-hit shield is one of the most practical and universal abilities in the game. I also agree with dj, most of them are a little too opaque, probably.
In terms of other problems, every boss fight is bad. All of them. They tend to be either too repetitive (THZ and DSZ) or just overly long (CEZ, Fang and Metal). GFZ's boss is also probably harder in it's final phase than it should be? It gives me shit despite easily no-hitting most of the other bosses. Bosses have historically been a real pain in the ass for Sonic games, especially 3D ones, so it's not like I blame the devs (and some of these guys are almost 20 years old, in any case), but I think almost all of them need some reworking.
The color palette has been mentioned before, but I think it is worth bringing up again, some of the texturing is really bland. Techno Hill 2 is mostly gray, Deep Sea is really dark, Castle Eggman is dark and gray (mostly CEZ2 here), there's a significant portion of the game that is totally desaturated between THZ1 and ACZ1. Compare to Flying Battery, which despite being made out of metal, uses deep turquoise, purples and oranges for its palette. I'm sure this stuff is in-progress and I'm complaining about decades-old art design, but I really do hope that more changes to the stage colors themselves are on the agenda. Doesn't even have to be a big redesign! Just overlay some colors in photoshop and it'll look way better, I think.
This is just a personal thing, but I think that with 2.2's update, we've seen that broader design with less demand for precision is better for 3D Sonic. Obviously Egg Rock is getting remade, but I think that mentality should extend to other things, too. Monitors should probably be a bit bigger and easier to land on. Some tiny platforms should be made bigger. This isn't about difficulty so much as design mentality. One thing I think Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric actually got right was a small, subtle ring attraction that every character has by default. Current 3D Sonic's way of making sure you have rings is to shower you with as many of the fuckers as possible (including this game to some extent), so having a small amount of leeway on that would do wonders for making blitzing through grabbing as many as possible more fun. You wouldn't even have to do much with the attraction or lightning shields, they can just intensify the range of attraction.
The game should probably start with simple controls enabled, or at least tell you about them from the outset. I had a friend who struggled to play with the default setup for an entire playthrough and slapped himself in the face when I told him how to enable analog.
Aerial Garden and Azure Temple have both been mentioned here, and I think the disconnect comes from one side saying "they're bad because x mechanic" and another saying "it's supposed to be a challenge", when the real problem is that neither of them are very fun to play at all. Aerial Garden is a ginormous labyrinth, but does very little to incentivize exploration before or after you actually know where you're supposed to be going. It embodied a lot of Mystic's worst design decisions, having you make precise jumps on tiny platforms over and over again, and filling the level with bees doesn't mitigate that monotony. If anything, adding one more way to screw up and die is just more aggravating. A challenge is all well and good, but these levels currently lack a reason to enjoy that challenge. I think part of this is that they, along with Techno Hill 2, are relics of an era for SRB2 that lacked a lot of verticality and obviously dynamism via sloped terrain, and should probably be remade entirely.
In terms of other problems, every boss fight is bad. All of them. They tend to be either too repetitive (THZ and DSZ) or just overly long (CEZ, Fang and Metal). GFZ's boss is also probably harder in it's final phase than it should be? It gives me shit despite easily no-hitting most of the other bosses. Bosses have historically been a real pain in the ass for Sonic games, especially 3D ones, so it's not like I blame the devs (and some of these guys are almost 20 years old, in any case), but I think almost all of them need some reworking.
The color palette has been mentioned before, but I think it is worth bringing up again, some of the texturing is really bland. Techno Hill 2 is mostly gray, Deep Sea is really dark, Castle Eggman is dark and gray (mostly CEZ2 here), there's a significant portion of the game that is totally desaturated between THZ1 and ACZ1. Compare to Flying Battery, which despite being made out of metal, uses deep turquoise, purples and oranges for its palette. I'm sure this stuff is in-progress and I'm complaining about decades-old art design, but I really do hope that more changes to the stage colors themselves are on the agenda. Doesn't even have to be a big redesign! Just overlay some colors in photoshop and it'll look way better, I think.
This is just a personal thing, but I think that with 2.2's update, we've seen that broader design with less demand for precision is better for 3D Sonic. Obviously Egg Rock is getting remade, but I think that mentality should extend to other things, too. Monitors should probably be a bit bigger and easier to land on. Some tiny platforms should be made bigger. This isn't about difficulty so much as design mentality. One thing I think Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric actually got right was a small, subtle ring attraction that every character has by default. Current 3D Sonic's way of making sure you have rings is to shower you with as many of the fuckers as possible (including this game to some extent), so having a small amount of leeway on that would do wonders for making blitzing through grabbing as many as possible more fun. You wouldn't even have to do much with the attraction or lightning shields, they can just intensify the range of attraction.
The game should probably start with simple controls enabled, or at least tell you about them from the outset. I had a friend who struggled to play with the default setup for an entire playthrough and slapped himself in the face when I told him how to enable analog.
Aerial Garden and Azure Temple have both been mentioned here, and I think the disconnect comes from one side saying "they're bad because x mechanic" and another saying "it's supposed to be a challenge", when the real problem is that neither of them are very fun to play at all. Aerial Garden is a ginormous labyrinth, but does very little to incentivize exploration before or after you actually know where you're supposed to be going. It embodied a lot of Mystic's worst design decisions, having you make precise jumps on tiny platforms over and over again, and filling the level with bees doesn't mitigate that monotony. If anything, adding one more way to screw up and die is just more aggravating. A challenge is all well and good, but these levels currently lack a reason to enjoy that challenge. I think part of this is that they, along with Techno Hill 2, are relics of an era for SRB2 that lacked a lot of verticality and obviously dynamism via sloped terrain, and should probably be remade entirely.
Pyrakid Wolfo
Member
Well I mean we do have a mod that replaces all of the shields with Sonic 3 variants. I think it uses LUA.
(I'm referring to Many Minor Tweaks btw)
I dunno, I really like the whirlwind shield. In some ways its better than the lightning shield, it can be used underwater... thats it lol xd. But yeah in 2.0 i dont think force or stomp had an ability yet, only whirlwind and armageddon.
I dont see the point of changing attraction n stuff either, im pretty sure you never once complained about attraction shield's homing ability, why just copy and paste it over to whirlwind and remove attraction shield giving us lightning shield. I think the placement of the monitors is the problem, not the abilities themselves. Though Force and Stomp is pretty boring.
Eli4698
Member
Ngl i really dislike the level design in red volcano near the end cause those one enemies that like to grab you and drop you into lava is just really annoying and not only that for some reason it scares me because it can basically happen any time when your near them and it honestly reminds me of ristar's planet scorch but that scared me too because it was just really unexpected to me and got really annoying really quickly
dj_is_raiden
yo
man this thread is so funny
cookiefonster
Wiki Admin
Are you saying that the whirlwind shield should be replaced with a shield that does the attraction shield's homing attack? I think that's a pretty weird idea. Say what you will about shield abilities, but I actually like the balance between the whirlwind and attraction shields in SRB2: the whirlwind shield has a cool double jump (far more useful than the attraction attack) and is waterproof, BUT the attraction shield is the one that attracts rings. Swapping those shields' active abilities would completely screw up their balance.
dj_is_raiden
yo
you know what would mess up with their balance?
making them more transparent so i can see my character clearly
Chezi
Chili Dogs
What... does this have to do with balance?
Andres_Craft
the brainrots are too fast, murder drones good
Nothing, but he's right.
Chezi
Chili Dogs
Honestly don’t get what’s wrong with the current visibility. I can see the character just fine with any shield on
cookiefonster
Wiki Admin
I'm guessing the first line of this post was meant as sarcasm? You didn't explain why you thought your suggested shield change wouldn't mess up the shields' balance, but rather mentioned something totally different related to shields.
In any case, I don't see the issue of SRB2's shields decreasing character visibility. The game's character sprites are all easy to distinguish from each other, even when wearing shields.
Darknik
Sonic Maniac
I don't understand the problem with the fact that the characters are less visible when using a shield, could you tell me how that affects the gameplay because I just don't understand?
Personally, I have no problem with how the shields are implemented in any way.
Chezi
Chili Dogs
Yeah, I’m just not that good at the game lmaoMy mans. They supposed to be used with invincibility
dj_is_raiden
yo
it's a bad joke i like to make which consists in not making any sense and forcing my stupid, funi opinion.
but being serious now, character visibility with shields is not a real problem, i just don't like how they look, at all
look at the classic shields when using MMT, they're fully transparent and cool, and i like them :]
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also, nice to see some real epic gangnam style gameplay gifsMy mans. They supposed to be used with invincibility
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it doesn't affect gameplay, i just hate how they look
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Shaddy the guy
Professional ass-merchant
Because it's not really the lightning shield if you just put attraction's ability on it. Then it's just the attraction shield.
Fair, I didn't know this. I still don't think it's a great design choice, though. The game certainly didn't convey it extremely well, in any case.
I don't think they're balanced as-is. Frankly, I think Sonic just needs a standard homing attack in SRB2 to begin with, but my point is that having eight types of shield monitors is pretty redundant when there's about three useful active abilities between them.