The Makers of Sonic Unleashed Hate Me
Posted: 21 Feb 2010, 00:05
Examples:
In one area the Over-world stage has "stream" running through it, that it is safe to walk in. In the first stage of this area, there is a bridge with rendered scenery out-side of it, when the games linear design prevents you from jumping over the edge of the bridge... at the end of this bridge there is an open area where you beat some monsters surrounded by a moat of water that looks a lot like the stream in the over-world... unfortunately THIS water is instant death water.
After a good minute or two of very easy level, there is a save point... AFTER the save point there are 4 (or more) very difficult combats in close quarters to the aforementioned death-water where it it quite easy to fall in... and as a bonus there is a secret area where there is a big 50 or so monsters spawning in quick succession arena battle that I get to beat every time I die because it's right AFTER the save point... and as an additional bonus there is a cleverly hidden ledge that I can shimmy along to get a collectible item... after which it appear the ledge continues... but unfortunately THIS part of the ledge is actually just decorative and trying to step on it dumps you into the insta-death water.
When you walk into the clearly marked stage entrance and wait for a few seconds a prompt comes up and asks you if you want to play the stage or not. BUT if you accidentally walk through one of the in-game "disguised as scenery" navigation doors (like walking past the pillars of the university or down the wrong alley)... which is really easy as sonic because his walking is nigh incontrollable in the over-world areas (he's fine inside the levels that specifically target him)... it automatically loads up the new area.
Similarly there are certain puzzles where you have to switch the stage from Day to Night... which is awesome... unfortunately... despite the day and night versions of stages sharing the exact same terrain mesh the game has to completely reload the entire stage, reset the number of rings you've collected, power-up meter and score. Better yet you can just bump into these hour glasses while exploring the levels and breaking things.
Load times are PAINFULLY long...
The worst thing I think is that despite their best efforts I still enjoy the game a lot between bouts of frustration... my only conclusion is that they hate gamers and have purposefully combined psychological torture with enough entertainment to cause people to willingly abuse themselves... because Sega is bitter because they don't have a console any more and want to punish us all for pirating Dreamcast games, waiting till the system was under a hundred dollars to buy it and mocking their VMUs.
In one area the Over-world stage has "stream" running through it, that it is safe to walk in. In the first stage of this area, there is a bridge with rendered scenery out-side of it, when the games linear design prevents you from jumping over the edge of the bridge... at the end of this bridge there is an open area where you beat some monsters surrounded by a moat of water that looks a lot like the stream in the over-world... unfortunately THIS water is instant death water.
After a good minute or two of very easy level, there is a save point... AFTER the save point there are 4 (or more) very difficult combats in close quarters to the aforementioned death-water where it it quite easy to fall in... and as a bonus there is a secret area where there is a big 50 or so monsters spawning in quick succession arena battle that I get to beat every time I die because it's right AFTER the save point... and as an additional bonus there is a cleverly hidden ledge that I can shimmy along to get a collectible item... after which it appear the ledge continues... but unfortunately THIS part of the ledge is actually just decorative and trying to step on it dumps you into the insta-death water.
When you walk into the clearly marked stage entrance and wait for a few seconds a prompt comes up and asks you if you want to play the stage or not. BUT if you accidentally walk through one of the in-game "disguised as scenery" navigation doors (like walking past the pillars of the university or down the wrong alley)... which is really easy as sonic because his walking is nigh incontrollable in the over-world areas (he's fine inside the levels that specifically target him)... it automatically loads up the new area.
Similarly there are certain puzzles where you have to switch the stage from Day to Night... which is awesome... unfortunately... despite the day and night versions of stages sharing the exact same terrain mesh the game has to completely reload the entire stage, reset the number of rings you've collected, power-up meter and score. Better yet you can just bump into these hour glasses while exploring the levels and breaking things.
Load times are PAINFULLY long...
The worst thing I think is that despite their best efforts I still enjoy the game a lot between bouts of frustration... my only conclusion is that they hate gamers and have purposefully combined psychological torture with enough entertainment to cause people to willingly abuse themselves... because Sega is bitter because they don't have a console any more and want to punish us all for pirating Dreamcast games, waiting till the system was under a hundred dollars to buy it and mocking their VMUs.
