SAGE 2017: Review Slew #3

And here we are at day three! Which, technically, is more like day five of SAGE. I think? I don’t know. I’m writing some of these articles days in advance. I’m finding myself pleasantly surprised by a lot of SAGE this year. What do you think? Anyway, games:

 
Battle Cross FEVER
Here’s a game that seems to try splitting the difference between Super Smash Bros. and more traditional fighting games like Street Fighter. Inputs are similar to typical Smash inputs, but with a little more complexity. You have normals, heavy strikes, buttons dedicated to specials, and more, but all your moves are bound to simple button+direction combos. Controls seem to feel okay, graphics are decent (even if there is mixed pixel resolution) and I appreciate deep cuts on arena selection like Pioneer 2 from Phantasy Star Online. The only thing I can’t really speak for is balance, as there is no versus CPU option as of yet. But what I do know is this: if you pick the City Escape arena, you actually fight while on boards while you surf down the hill and keep fighting once you reach the bottom. That’s amazing.

Sonic 2 HD
Sonic 2 HD is both absolutely gorgeous and sort of weird looking. Mostly, it’s beautiful. This is a incredible way of interpreting Sonic 2’s pixel art, and the game looks like classic Sonic promotional artwork come to life. But around those edges are things that are less interpretive and more additive, and this is where most of the awkwardness comes from. Many of the brand new animations and additions made to the levels stick out like a sore thumb. Not all of them, granted, but a lot, like Sonic and Tails’ new end-of-level poses, or most of what’s been done to Hilltop Zone, just don’t really fit in. They’re trying too hard to be flashy in a game that, while flashy in it’s own right, was a little more understated than that. And the fact that so much of this demo is so beautiful just makes these moments even more obvious than ever. This isn’t even touching on the engine itself, which like the art, gets 99% of the way there but it’s that 1% you notice the most. The physics are just ever so slightly off, making this a less-than-perfect recreation of Sonic 2 in HD. I suppose that may be the limit of volunteers doing free fan game work. In that context, Sonic 2 HD is a lot more impressive.

Sonic Beyond the Speed
Bless this game for trying to have controller support. Clickteam Fusion only normally supports a maximum of four face buttons, but this game clearly required more than that, so their solution was to bundle a copy of Xpadder with their game and hope for the best (and the version of Xpadder may or may not also be pirated, whoops). The game itself is… okay, I guess. It’s a Sonic Generations-style game that’s just a little unpolished. My biggest frustration comes from how fast you go while boosting; even with all of the screen space you’re given, it’s impossible to react to anything directly in front of you. This is never more obvious than in the Sonic Forces’ Sunset Heights level, where I must’ve slammed into spikes half a dozen times. This gets contrasted with what must be the world’s slowest homing attack. Honestly, this isn’t a bad game, it just needs more work.

Sonic Districts
Would it be fair to call this game a walking simulator? I mean, it’s a level, a real level, with enemies and rings and a goal to reach. But the enemies are not that numerous, nor are the rings, and the wild, minimalist art direction coupled with the dreamlike music really feels like Sonic Districts is pushing into the alt-games space a little bit. This is a game that is at once very pretty but also a little creepy. An endless, empty, lifeless city stretches out before you, full of identical buildings, all solid white with no textures. You can follow the road, but you don’t have to, and at certain points, the game actively tries to stop you from staying on the path. A single field of stray Motobugs provides one of the only splashes of color you’ll find. I want to relax with this game, but it sets me on edge at the same time. It’s serene, yet spooky, and maybe even a little melancholy. What happened to all the people? Could people even live here? Am I barking up the wrong tree with these assumptions? (Who cares? “Death of the Author” and all that, right?) I enjoyed my time with Sonic Districts, but depending on how open you are to games that are trying to be “artistic” rather than traditionally fun, your mileage may vary.

Sonic MAX
I’m confused. Isn’t Sonic MAX the name of an engine? Maybe that’s what engine this game is using, then. Between that confusion and the game’s incredibly basic visuals, MAX doesn’t really make the strongest first impression. But give it a chance — though levels are incredibly simple, they scratch the same itch for me that I got in something like Sonic Runners. I didn’t expect to spend as much time as I did playing this game, but I felt absolutely compelled to keep playing because the difficulty tuning actually feels really good in spite of literally everything else about this game. Try it out, you might be surprised.

Donnie the Chao: Final Mix
I feel like maybe I shouldn’t review this game. Even though Donnie is a fellow TSSZ colleague (and the hardest working person on the site, currently) I have remained blissfully unaware of the memes that surround him. I’m vaguely aware of the “shut up, Donnie!” jokes, and the fact that this ROM hack opens with a modified Green Hill Zone set to the tune of Toxic Caves from Sonic Spinball isn’t entirely lost on me. But most of this hack? A complete mystery to me (please, don’t explain the jokes to me, that will just ruin them forever). Taken on its own terms, the hack is alright. Some of the new color palettes are kind of an eyesore, and the difficulty’s a little bit higher than the original Sonic 1, but it’s still pretty decent, all told. I did not hate my time spent with this.

Sonic the Sketchhog: Episode 2
The original Sonic the Sketchhog was a very simple browser game, sort of an auto-scroller where your only real control over Sonic was to jump. I remember it being pretty easy, to the point where it started to put me to sleep. That’s definitely not the case with this fan-made “Episode 2.” This is a tough little game, and it took a great deal of effort to get anywhere in the first level. It’s mostly about getting the timing down on hitting enemies, not unlike the aforementioned Sonic MAX (and by extension, Sonic Runners), but the way things are spaced apart here, sussing out when exactly to jump turns out to be incredibly difficult. It would help if I could speed up or slow down, but that wouldn’t be in the spirit of the original Sketchhog. Give it a shot, but I think the masochists out there will get the most out of this game. It does get bonus points for having 100% original art, though.

 
We’re halfway through these review articles, folks! Until next time.