Some fun with Generations and Unleashed + which racer?

A few days ago, I made a very unimpressive Green Hill Act 2 speed run on Generations.  I wasn't really looking towards getting a specific (let alone a spectacular) time.  Because it's been so long since I've really played, I decided to practice with a skilled run, and after about 25ish tries with 1 glitch, I managed a mid 1:34.  This was after I had re-ran Skyscraper Scamper Act 3, and instead of putting them into separate vids, I decided I would experiment one time by putting both in one video.  There was about 20 times the effort put into simply making the vids as a while ago, Craigolette suggested I try a different method of rendering.  He's been an excellent help for me with this, as I also got to learn a bit more about my video editing options.  Unfortunately, I didn't have much success in making videos of a higher quality (yet!) but I still had fun.  Admittedly, I'll have to use a more efficient way of experimenting with rendering, but I think I was always hoping that the next video would be the one that would be free from desync issues.  So I wound up doing it the old fashioned way, except I paid attention to the bitrate this time!  It wasn't set at 400 this time!

Street Fighter EX + Alpha music - the composer of that OST... is so friggin epic.  Literally one of the greatest soundtracks of all-time to me and aside from a lot of Asian influence being thrown into most of the songs I enjoy, it just felt right to use for Sonic.  It's fast paced, it's energetic, it changes and stays interesting most of the time.  For as long as Sega has made games, from my experience, they know what a great composer is and this is one of those composers who I probably wouldn't mind doing music for Sonic games. Gosh, I feel so disrespectful... let me Google this guy's name... credited are:

Takayuki Aihara, Shinji Hosoe, and Ayako Saso.

I don't know who did what, but I'm guessing Takayuki was the lead composer.  Definitely an EPIC soundtrack.  If you are a fan of the Street Fighter 4 series and have never played EX Plus, the game pretty much laid the foundation of Street Fighter 4.  It's a really fun game and I still have my PS1 disc of it.

But, back to Sonic.  When I was out today with my sister, I found this little Sonic The Hedgehog themed vending machine.  It gave out these little ornament-like heads of the main cast (I don't think this included Amy or Blaze but it did include Silver, Big, Metal Sonic and Super Sonic along with everyone else you'd expect.)  Who did I get?  Out of about 10 different outcomes, I got Tails!  A dollar well spent.  It's so tiny, though... in fact, I was going to take a picture of it, but I can't even find it...

I'm looking forward to getting some racing games and right now, two have my attention.  The first would be Forza Horizons and obviously, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed.  The new All-Stars Racing game has me hyped after seeing the gameplay and the levels and it appears to look like it's going to be really, really good.  I've never played the full version of it's predecessor (which I found okay, didn't really give it enough time to grasp it too hard) but this just seems so much better.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting back into the speed run game.

OH!  I MUST SEE WRECK-IT-RALPH THIS WEEK.  NO, TOMORROW.

Weekend of SA2B in HD.

Everything runs at 60fps (dunno how the GC handled it, but the DC dropped frames plenty of times, especially during cutscenes).  But everything does not come in 16.9.  All CG cutscenes are still 4.3 and some non-CG ones were left at 4.3 as well.

I had not played this game in literally 10 years and thus it feels considerably more difficult than I last remember it.  Well, if I'm not mistaken, when I was enveloped in it on the Dreamcast, I was trying to get an A rank for all missions - didn't happen.  Probably A ranked a lot of them, but not all of them.  The overall challenge in the game is fairly fair.  Fairly fair?  Yes, because this is the Sonic Adventure series where the collision is downright terrible.  I had collision that reminded me of SA1 where you're running through a long narrow curve, run into the side of the wall and your char is literally running in circles from colliding with the sides.

I'm unaware if there were any improvements made to the game (1-player only), and if there were, I'm oblivious to them.

Before I dive into my "adventure" running through the game from Hero to Last, I want to say that while I found most of the game fairly challenging, the most challenging thing that I had to do back in the day... only cost me 1 life (Shadow vs Biolizard) and it wouldn't have cost me any lives (and maybe not even any rings) if I was aware that you could lose a life sitting in the water. Haha, I don't remember that ever happening before in the past.  For the record, I want to point out that particular battle in all Sonic games that I've played feels iconic.  It's a battle that literally stood out from the entire game where you have the usual David vs Goliath theme, but the track during the battle, is EPIC.  The lyrics (hard to hear during the actual game FOR ONCE, granted it's the song that does that) are literally telling Shadow's turning point in this silly story.  It's a really nice touch. That and the final battle are similar in that regard.  It's such a powerful presentation that helped the game end on such a high note.

Throughout the game, nothing's really changed, I mean, I can point out that after you finish a stage with Sonic, instead of showing off his profile, he's staring at YOU (former was better, IMO - the latter just reminds me how wrong the in-game artwork was for him).  The Sonic & Shadow stages for the most part are still the best and I MIGHT even speed run a Sonic and Shadow stage.  White Jungle is easily my favorite Shadow stage thanks to it's EPIC MUSIC, the sense of SPEED you get from watching Shadow swing on vines.  With Sonic, my favorite is Final Rush, and if you know how I enjoy playing Sonic by now, then you would know that Final Rush is probably simultaneously the fastest and the slowest Sonic stage.  Rail grinding in this stage is SO AWESOME, and it tends to be high risk/high reward.  I really dislike how Sonic runs in this game and spin dashing is so derpy with the herp derp collision. (Side note: I realized Sonic's voice in this game sounds similar to his current Japanese voice.)  Oh, and unlike Generations, you get to use all sorts of Sonic's moves through the main stages!  Rouge & Knuckles' stages... either I got lucky a few times (finding emeralds that weren't on the radar a few times) or it wasn't as annoying as I remembered.  My scores were low, but I was expecting a 20 minute run in Meteor Herd, but did it in maybe 5.  One small thing that I didn't get to experience before was the exclamation mark that pops up when you're pretty much next to the Emerald Shard.  Still, not very replayable.  I do very much enjoy the presence of Knuckles and Rouge in this game, but this gameplay design... if not just the level design itself, sometimes comes off as a bit extreme.  Last but not least, Tails/Eggman stages.  To some extent, I've enjoyed this gameplay, granted the targeting does seem a bit nerfed from SA1.  It might just be me, but I found some of the stages to be too drawn out and it doesn't help that the gameplay itself is pretty linear.  It's not always easy, though.  Even though I may be able to target enemies quickly, I often forget that the ones with projectiles/or long range attacks are targetting me and I can't just sit and point and shoot.

And YES.  PLENTY OF CAMERA ISSUES.  Overall, I don't regret getting this game, but I've run into a bit of a problem.  You see, I have gotten into raising Chao and doing that requires simply playing the game and there's not a lot I want to do.  I just might find myself not playing the game for some time again, but now that I think of it... I just might have a solution to this issue.  Last but not least, I hope this game outsells Sonic 4 Episode 2.  Why?  Just for the lulz... seriously.  I don't want Sega to go back to Adventure style gameplay because everything that's wrong with the Sonic/Shadow gameplay just makes me want to play Unleashed and Generations more because Unleashed and Generations - make sense!

Oh, shoutouts to Sachiko Kawamura... PLEASE HAVE MY BABIES... if not, I'll be your lover forever - I just want to watch you draw Sonic. :3

Overall, SA2 is still mediocre at best.  It has it's highs, but it has it's lows which are just as prominent and unfortunately more frequent.  Speaking of highs and lows, why the hell didn't Sega fix the volume?  The music plays over the voices, especially Shadows and Eggmans.

I almost want to play Sonic Heroes.  Apparently, I don't think I've ever mentioned that game in my blog as I haven't labeled it.  Honestly, that was... the 2nd worst Sonic game I've ever played (Ep1 being the worst).  No, I think I'm just curious or retardedly nostalgic... or both.  It must be this Adventure gameplay I've been diving into lately.  Before SA2, I was playing SA1 for a bit (which reminds me, SA2 doesn't make me feel like shit, unlike SA1).  So I suppose my brain is just reminding me of what was next in line.  I still own Heroes on the PS2, but I think I would rather play the seemingly better XBOX version of the game... providing I can find it.  Probably not worth it.  There is nothing wholeheartedly memorable about Heroes.

My tone in this blog has shifted.  Been feeling more energetic lately, but - that's for another blog~

Derp, Microsoft. Derp.

Seems like the download for SA2 doesn't work directly through consoles, so... it is possible to download it on xbox.com.  Just remember the DL will start after you log in on your console.

Day 1 purchase?  Man, it's Friday... I ain't got no job... and I ain't got shit to do...!  Sure, why not.  I just hope that I don't have the same issue with SA2 as I have with SA1, and that is... SA1 gives me splitting headaches when I stare at it over time.  Don't know why.  Do you?

YEAH, SA2. YEAH.

I'm honestly not excited about the re-release of this game.  Sure it's deserving of it... and there is a great chance that I will grab it once it becomes available next week.  But to me... it's just SA2 in 16.9.

On the other hand, there is the Battle DLC upgrade, and the 2-player mode, which is probably... probably... something in a Sonic game, 90% or more people can say, "Fuck yeah!" about.  I never owned the GC version of the game, so after seeing it as I had the DC version... well, I felt somewhat, just somewhat shafted with the whole Chao aspect of the game.

The Dreamcast pretty much forced you to use it's Tamogachi-like memory card to play with your Chao.  It was also the only way you could view your pets stats, but the biggest drawback I experienced was simply the memory cards having a rare to occasional case of amnesia when abandoned.  Not necessarily talking about losing a Chao, but losing your save files.  Mmhmm.

Sonic Adventure 2 for me, did many things right and many things wrong.  Now, I'm actually not going to go into the wrong, but I will go into the right, starting with what I feel was SA2's greatest strength and that would be:

-The Soundtrack. The reason why I am going to get this game is because of the amazing soundtrack, lead by Senoue, but I give a lot of credit to the other people who contributed tracks here such as Kenichi Tokoi.  I mean, where Senoue is literally THE MAN with a guitar that will rock your world, Tokoi's music is great at being soothing or very mid-tempoed.  His work in SA2 really makes me think of how I'd expect Sonic music to sound through his stage themes for Rouge.  With Unleashed and Colors, I felt like he was able to bring those games alive, and though his music often sounds as if he literally wrote it while within the real-life atmosphere which inspires Sonic stages (such as Unleashed), I feel like his sound comes with such a dynamic feel to it.  If I hear Planet Wisp's theme and I'm playing Sonic Colors or Generations - yes, I am in Planet Wisp.  But if I am outside on a mid-late sunny afternoon where the grass is very much a dark green, under a cerulean sky, while this theme is playing... then I am very much outside on a mid-late sunny afternoon where the grass is very much a dark green under a cerulean sky... with my eyes open or closed.  That is what makes Kenichi Tokoi's music special.  His sound can be as much of a fantasy as it can be a reality.  However, I felt like most of his work after SA2, though excellent... was leaning a bit more towards reality... just a bit... and moreso in Unleashed than Colors.

-The Interface: Although this isn't something I feel is super serious, can we just... look back at the main series games for a sec.  All of them, from Sonic 1 to Sonic Generations.  Sonic Adventure 2's interface was beautifully dolled up in a variety of colors and simple shapes and awesome character art of course.  It makes SA1's interface look like something out of a 1980's Atari game.  Combined with an epic soundtrack, it might sound strange, but it was a pleasant experience just... going through the options of this game before beginning to play it, and it seemed even better in Battle.

-Sonic/Shadow Stages: Yeah... a huge improvement over SA1, but I just want to point out my favorite aspect in this game - rail grinding.  It has a sense of challenge when it came to balancing (now Sonic is so leveled up, he perfectly balances on it in Unleashed and up) and you get the most sense of speed... because just about everything else in SA2 feels pretty slow.  (I will add that the GC version felt like it played faster than the DC version).

-Chao: Sega may have deprived fans of a hub world, but I feel like the Chao gardens were a good enough escape from simply throwing a character into a stage and having to go through that stage that may or may not have feel interesting enough to replay.  Either you loved it, or you hated it.

Last but not least...

-Characterization:  Because the story sucked, but... this was a nicely fleshed out cast and most people felt like Sonic in this game was more "Sonic" than he's been as of late.  In short, he acted his age and had the attitude down vocally.  Two main series games before this one, he didn't need a voice to express his attitude, but it does seem like the current Sonic has... in comparison to SA2's... softened up a bit... okay, a lot.


... and everything else in SA2 is pretty much mediocre or bad... !  You know, I can honestly say that the only thing I'm really looking forward to from playing this (outside of Battle and 2-player) is... everything moving at 60fps from start to finish.  But I think I'll wait for some reviews... hmm... *goes to metacritic*

Score: 1- Bad experience over again... -terrible collision (you can bug this game many times). -Inconsistency in soundtrack (pure rock + vocal) - don't match with sonic. -Realism in Sonic world. But this is only the begin... Look the port of Sonic CD (better physics, tails extra, you can change soundtrack ). The SA2 don't have awesome extras. I need Sonic Generations and Sonic CD port again.

Score: 10 - i lyk plin a sanic i tink itas fun rolling in ball and runn fast through stages and i clear every act gam is in hd high definitnietion you can see the graphifcs sonic is blue angd he get the rings i give this gam 10 sanic hegehouds out of 10 for ggbeing good game very fun yes thbank you bye 

Score: 8 - i think sanic adventures 2 is a pretty cool guy, eh goes fast and doesn't afraid of anything GOTTA GO FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST GOTTA GOT FAST

Oh, Internet...~

The hardest Sonic Unleashed day stage.

Know what the hardest daytime stage in Sonic Unleashed is, even if you're not speed running it?  Savannah Citadel Act 2, LOL.

This stage brings me back to when this game first had my attention and I didn't know anything about it.  On YouTube... (unfortunately...) I saw someone run the stage and I was aware the point of getting through it was to drift, and the player who was playing it was pretty much like, "Drifting is useless in this game."  ... and this is why you shouldn't take the comments on YouTube seriously from random people.

Yeah, I'm seriously exaggerating that this is the hardest stage to speed run, but the stage... as simple as it appears, pretty much just laughs at you if you drift this stage wrong.  As far as from what I've seen done by the heavy hitters that speed run Unleashed who make it look easy (I still have yet to understand how they drift with precision in this stage), it doesn't seem like a nail you can miss once you've learned how to hit those turns fast without falling off the stage.


I've also been dabbing in the Rooftop Run stages, and... I'm having the same experience with daytime Act 2-2 as I had with Jungle Joyride 1-2, and that is... the DLC act is easier than the original.  As I've mentioned before, a lot of the DLC stages in this game are pretty good, INCLUDING the Werehog stages (although the majority of the ones I've played are actually harder than their DLC counterpart such as Arid Sands 1-2... holy shit...).  But I've got to say, I'm really impressed with Rooftop Run 2-2.  It is probably the most fun in this game I've had.  Act 4 is quite challenging, but I haven't spent much time in it.  Act 5 was another challenging yet very fun (and funny) stage.  Funny because game logic says that if Sonic falls to the bottom of the stage, he "dies."  But here... he clearly hits the ground and walks forward for a bit... and stands until the game fades to restart the stage.  We all know Sonic is virtually indestructible because as you know, in Sonic Adventure 1, he jumped from a FREAKING AIRSHIP, like 30,000 feet from the ground!  And in lolSonicX (I actually like Sonic X even with it's inconsistent artwork) he fell from outer space and survived, earning nothing but a week or two of sleep after the impact.  This character can survive falls from infinite heights and he dies from a measly 20 story fall, lol.  But he has to "die," for how else will he get back up?  I think Sonic Team should've at least killed off his dying voice or say "fail" if they knew he was going to hit the ground.

Great... now I sound like a true, nit-picking Sonic fanboy, lol.

But honestly, I have no idea what I want to do next for a speed run (maybe Rooftop 2-2).  I could run Skyscraper Scamper 3 again and go for a faster time (and mayyyyybe try out the glitch), but nah.  Oh, before I forget, I also figured out how to get a ridiculous time in Windmill Isle Act 3.  Man... this game... lol.  It's not such a big deal now, though.  Been talking to Craig about increasing the quality of my videos and I will be looking into it deeper.  Shoutouts to him!  Here's his run of Rooftop 2-2.

I'm going to play Unleashed for a bit.  I hope I can get better at this game.

Under 30.

"HEHE."

I love Sonic's Japanese voice.  I blame all of the speed runs for me falling for it.  Otherwise, I'd be going WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! in English... though QSSing in English sounds weird.

But I digress.

Sonic Unleashed - Windmill Isle Act 1 (Daytime)

So, yeah...

I've been messing around with Unleashed lately.  This game, I tell you... it feels so complex compared to Generations.  Speed in Unleashed feels so... inconsistent sometimes compared to Generations.  It's true.  This game has a lot of speed caps and with that, even more ways to break the speed cap.  I guess that's what makes it interesting.  But getting the most out of speed in Unleashed is hard.  Not that speed running Generations was easy - no.  It's just that there are so many little things you have to factor in to keep Sonic's momentum.  So many things that try to stop him from going fast - kind of like Crisis City Act 2, but worse.

The first speed run I did of Act 3's Skyscraper Scamper is probably one of my favorite stages because 95% of the time, it's really just Sonic moving at his uncapped speed with the Quick Slide Step + Boost.  Most of it is just memorization.  I think the last part is the trickiest because you must target the right enemies to get the goal ring up and then you must aim Sonic at the goal ring which for me is tricky.  Why?  I'm just not used to it.  It seems simple but Sonic moves really slow when he turns and I usually expect him to be facing where I want him to when my thumb is pointing which direction I want him to go.

And that's what's going to be the challenge here - controlling Sonic.  Memorization?  Not so much, I think.

By controlling Sonic, I mean that I MUST be able to do EVERYTHING he is capable of doing to go faster (though I'm not too concerned about D-Speed, M-Speed, etc.)  Quick Slide Step, yes.  That's easy.  Stomp-sliding... don't get it and I really want to.  Gaining extra speed from speed boosters... straight line drifting... man... all of this may sound strange, but every time I look at Unleashed speed runs, I think of how awesome it would be to do most (if not all) of that stuff, so I'm gonna try.

Today, I decided that I would take this journey of controlling Sonic as slow as possible, so yesterday I was messing around with the very first daytime stage in the game.  You know it.  It's really short.  My goal was sub 30 seconds and the current record was somehow 33ish  To get the most out of the first part requires some straight-line boost drifting in between some rocks, or you can QSS it, but I found that was even more challenging.  For now, I just boosted through it and after the last rock, starting QSSing and jumping over the speed boosters before the first 360 to get max speed in the loop.  The next part is strange and tricky.  If you simply run over the ledge, you will loose all control of Sonic until he lands, but if you side-step just before leaving the ledge (timing is important), you will be able to air boost over to the next area.  If the side-step is mis-timed, it will kiiiiiiill youuuuuuu~ because you will fall into the pit.  The air boost needs to be immediate so Sonic will land asap and can gain as much speed as he can on the ground so he can jump just before hitting the springs so he can reach the highest platform.  I don't get how he should land afterwards but I always air boost and it seems to just throw him into a wall lol.  The rest of the stage is really simple.  The only thing I can really take note of is the after the side-step area, it's better to hop than hit the launcher, and after the corkscrew, you can either stomp slide or QSS for a bit more speed before the ring (just don't slide UNDER the ring.)

Because I made it to 29.66, I now have another stage to record.  I will do my best to try and get Sonic through the first part asap.  So far the fastest time I've seen was sobatsuyu100's run of the stage.

Resurrection?

It's been a while.  Admittedly, I decided to take a break from focusing on Sonic.  Information overload?  More like information motherload.  What does that mean?  I think that staring into the screen, peering through various fan sites, various forums, certain youtube accounts (NOT youtube comments, most people on YT are just dumb kids) and my own efforts towards expressing my love for this franchise, simply got a bit overwhelming.  It was also the first time in a long time that I was consistently playing a Sonic game at a high level.  A part of me was yearning to play something more laid back as I seem to have forgotten how to do that with a Sonic game (until recently).

What I wanted was an RPG.  Sonic Chronicles?  No.  In fact, I don't really see myself enjoying that game.  I tried to watch a playthrough of it (something that's become somewhat of a past time for me this year, watching playthroughs of video games) and I didn't get far for two reasons.  First of all, the story was poorly written, and secondly... I was not in the mood to watch a Sonic game of Sonic doing something that doesn't express his speed.  It's a deal breaker because how he expresses his speed is a big deal.  (Why do you think there are so many people throwing in custom Sonic voices in Generations?  Voices from Unleashed and Adventure 2.  To put it simple, it brings him to life.)  So I picked up FF13 - yeah, I said it.  A non-Sonic game in my blog.  You know... this is actually something I've been wanting to point out, actually (especially since I've been playing Unleashed lately).  When I was looking at what people were saying about Final Fantasy XIII, they seemed to say two things about the game that were very similar to what some people were saying about Unleashed.  Yeah, you guessed it.

1. Linearity: Now, if Role-Playing Games happen to be something new to you, or you've never played any games in the FF series, I'll try to keep it simple.  RPGs such as FF have always offered a sense of diversity and openness.  On a large scale, you get a world map with plenty of exploration, a variety of ways to travel, a long story, a battle/character development system and hopefully a thoroughly developed cast.  On a smaller scale, you get various vehicles, various mini-games, side-quests that have various tasks that offers either a reward or if you're lucky, it can add to the story, sometimes optional characters, a ton of monsters (some of which may aid you in battle), tons of items that rank from useless to too good to use unless it's the hardest battle in the game (though it still may never get used), side-bosses, weapons/armor, etc..  13 was in fact missing a lot of things longtime fans were accustomed to.  No world map, no various transportation, no sense of exploration (everything's mostly a long narrow hallway), no mini-games (maybe one).  Final Fantasy XIII is really an all or nothing game, and people bitched.

Sonic Unleashed's linearity was criticized in it's level design of course and people bitched because it didn't have much of a platforming game.

2. Auto-play:  In FFXIII, people said that the battle system requires little to no effort thanks to auto-battle.  Now this was only true up to a certain point.  First, if you didn't reach the part of the game where the character development system opens up (give it an hourish) then you'd eventually learn that you can not just mash autobattle.  The irony of this is that most people who started the series (like myself) played FF7, and honestly, that game's battle system in comparison was extremely linear.  Everyone pretty much leveled up the same and your physical power would eventually reach a point where you could just HOLD down the button that selects the command while you waited your turn and just auto-attacked with your normal attack.  I have never, ever died so much in a FF game like I have in FF13.  It does to a very solid degree, require a lot of micromanagement to develop strong characters and to earn high scores in battle, you must be strategically efficient with your attacks (which will also depend on how you developed your characters).  It does boil down to making the right decisions fast enough.

Sonic Unleashed's auto-play, you've heard it... boost-to-win.  I've probably already given my opinion in the past on what I think of that term.  Personally, I think it's a scrubby term that suggests to me (when referring to Unleashed) that the game requires little or no effort to get from point A to point B.  Some people may argue back that old school games were just hold right-to-win in some cases.  Again, like in FF13, if you do not reach a certain point of the game, you will soon find out that braindead boosting doesn't work for very long.  The linear level designs won't allow it.  Another thing is that there is a reason why in Sonic games, the clock ticks forwards instead of backwards.  There is a huge gameplay in Unleashed that's still to this day being developed which dictates how fast Sonic gets from point A to point B to point Z.  I don't think many people get it.  Just because you get from point A to point B in Sonic Unleashed by holding down the boost button doesn't mean you win.  It means you just aren't able to figure out the other things Sonic is capable of in terms of creating speed.  It's not that simple as pressing a button in Windmill Isle Act 2.  (I had something else to say, but I forgot.)

In the end, FF13... for what it was worth, I felt it was a pretty decent game.  It may not have been closer to it's roots, and it did have room for improvement (yeah, 13-2 pretty much let me down by dumbing down the battle system and making a story I could hardly consider captivating.).

Unleashed on the other hand... yeah, you think I'm going to start bitching about the Werehog?  No.  For what it's worth, it took a while for me to appreciate Unleashed, but it somehow seems to surprise me to this day (even moreso than Generations) what people can do in that game to make the fastest time.  It's NOT EASY.  I felt like Generations sort of closed the gap a bit with how advanced you  can be in the game (granted it's newer and yeah, I've still been paying attention to it - the D and even M-speed is possible in Generations, though it's harder to execute.)  Unleashed really had the makings of a great 3D Sonic game with the daytime levels.

Well, that is all... oh wait... almost all.  Yeah, I made a vid.  I'll go into details about it later.

Happy 21st Birthday, Sonic.

I've liked Sonic since Sonic 1 and I have never, not once in my life ever within the 21 years of this franchise have celebrated his birthday.  Well... today is going to be different.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything all that spectacular to express my love for Sonic... well, neither did the people from The Sonic Show but I'd give them an A for effort.

Meanwhile, I'd been wanting to record this long before I had a PVR, long before the Spring season.  Long before 2011 as I found that out shortly after purchasing and playing this game on day 1.  I was just gonna upload the raw file with no music to it, but lately YouTube has started desyncing my MP4s.  Not too long ago I was uploading a bunch of OLD Super Street Fighter 4 matches I'd wanted to put on YouTube since 2010 and nearly every one of them failed to sync correctly.  Only one of them synced and unfortunately it wasn't even a real match.  No luck today with that either.  It sucks because eventually I'd love to upload some quality MP4s that I can edit in the future, but if I can't upload them with such quality, then I suppose there's no use worrying about it now.  However, I don't get it.  I'll never understand why I always have syncing issues.  I had them a long time ago when I had my first capture device and the quality was terrible.  Now it's just hit or miss.

Anyhoo, enough doom and gloom.  I hadn't really given it much time what I'd do today as I only considered recording stuff yesterday.  I thought perhaps I'd do something with Sonic CD thinking it was released in '92 so it would be on it's 20th anniversary, but it was actually released a year after Sonic 2 in '93.  Do something with Sonic 2?  No.  Sonic 2 is an awesome game of course, but it's really my least favorite between 1, CD, 2, 3&K.  Of course I could still do something with CD anyway, but I have the least amount of off the hand knowledge of the game unlike the Genesis titles.

There was one idea I had originally, and I had started on it already, however things aren't looking very promising with editing.  I'm also worried that I don't have enough content.  I really can't forsee the scope of it yet as it's just something that's gonna require more time I unfortunately don't have today.

Well, I'll figure something out.  My mind is so convinced that I need to record, record, record, but really... what I think I need to record probably isn't mandatory at all.

I decided to start recording in 1080i instead of 720p to see how it would work out.  I really didn't like the quality of the last speed run that I did.  It was recorded in 720p, but it was compressed pretty hard.  In fact, all of my videos post Sky Sanctuary wound up that way because I have to compress the MP4 into an MP2 so it can get edited in Windows Move Maker - and then it gets saved into a WMV file (more compression I assume) and it just looks bad.  I may have to look into better hardware soon, or recheck my options saving files in Movie Maker.  But how did recording in 1080i work out?  Since it's interlaced, there seems to be a bit more motion blur in the videos which I found extremely difficult to NOT notice when I was recording Unleashed.  For reasons beyond me, my PVR won't do 1080p.  The console flickers off and on until it just won't display it.  In spite of starting from a larger resolution, the quality of the edited video (as you can see from above) isn't really much different than from what I've been uploading.  Personally, I'm not much of a fan of this interlaced look along with the motion blur.  I might feel different about it in the future, but honestly, all that blur doesn't really help games like Sonic easier on the eyes when everything's moving so fast.  To watch, it's okay, but to play with... that's another story.

Okay, that was a useless rant, but I feel better~

False advertisement.

Yup.  Sure nobody's going to mind that Shadow is advertising Sonic Adventure ONE.

(Though, that is my favorite picture of Sonic, so I'll forgive even Sega for this.)

Obligatory SA2 post.

http://www.sonicstadium.org/2012/06/sonic-adventure-2-confirmed-for-xbox-live-marketplace/

(And I just got word that SA1 + Director's Cut on XBL is going for 600 MS points this week.)

I'm actually looking forward to this release and I'm glad that they decided to put it in HD.  However, I do have a few concerns.

Seeing this screenshot and all, the first thing I'm wondering is what the framerate is going to be like for the 2-player mode.  When I played this game on the Dreamcast, the 2-player mode was pretty horrible.  More than the drop in frames, it was slow.  I only wonder now that it's running on significantly more powerful hardware, will this still be an issue?  Yeah, this is going to be the "Battle" version and I didn't get to see the 2-player mode in the Gamecube version, so...

If there were to change anything, all I'd ask is for Knuckles to have his radar work like it did in SA1 where it would go off for every shard instead of just one at a time.  THAT'S IT.  Knowing Sega, that's a lot to ask for even if that was centered around one of the game's largest problems: Knuckles' enormous stages.  For me, and I'm sure a lot of other people, that would make the replay value of the game go up.

Then we can hail it as the greatest 3D Sonic game ever made... ha!  I don't think so.  This game was overall a step up from SA1 and IMO, better than Sonic Heroes as far as story, variety of gameplay, voice acting... and MUSIC are concerned.  SA2 really did have one of the best Sonic OSTs in the series.

So did SA1 as well.

And for now, that is all!

How to M-speed in Sonic Unleashed and Generations.

Roman gives a visual example on what speed Sonic needs to be walking at to perform the M-speed glitch.  Have fun with it.  Some people have found it to be easier in Unleashed, and if you must know, it works for any version of Generations - even the 3DS version!

What's up? Not much.

Literally, not much.  Sonic news has been quite stale lately.  In fact, all I can really think of mentioning is this.

I look forward to the completion of this film.  I'm not really much of a fan towards this particular Sonic model.  It looks like a furry toy plush that belongs in some late 1980s flick, granted I have yet to really get a good look at him.  Just a first impression.

So, it's supposed to take place before Sonic 1.  All one can do is hope that the story is good.  People seem hyped that Jaleel White is back sitting in the Sonic voice saddle.  Me?  Yeah, he's good, but I don't find him to be the end to all Sonic voices.  I'm mostly glad he was willing to do it because I feel like Sonic could use some support from the people who were involved in his roots. (*coughsnakacoughs*)

This summer isn't very far.  In fact, summer solstice is right around the corner.  A release date for this film would be nice some time soon.

Windmill Isle Act 2 dominance.

Both sobatsuyu100 and Millernusgaming seem to still be hard at it when it comes to speeding through Windmill Isle.

Last I saw, sobatsuyu100 did a 1:25 in Act 2, but with some new tricks - some which are more obvious than others... he's down to 1:20.  Miller thinks he can bring it down to about 1:17.

As for Miller himself, it seems he's been able to throw in that nice M-speed jump in the first section as well.  Both of these guys are really putting in a lot of effort to go faster.


Sega's presence at E3 with Sonic unfortunately didn't bring out any news towards Sonic Adventure 2, but it did promise a nice true super sonic blue Nascar Impala with none other than Danica Patrick for the new TRANSFORMED game.  People also got some hands-on time with the game as well.

I'm not too sure about this move for the sake of advertising, but you have to admit, for once recently, it's quite a bold move by Sega.  That's something we haven't seen in quite some time.  The only thing that really brings uncertainty to it is who they chose to use.  Although I'm a racing fan, I'm not much of a Nascar fan (I prefer Formula 1 and other circuit racing events that don't involve driving in an oval) one wonder was Danica the best choice?  I don't believe she was a bad choice, but when the word Nascar comes to mind, is her name at the top of the list?  Either way, we get one of the prettier faces who will be animated in the game, and I'm looking forward to it.

Modern Red Ring attack, via KAKIPI1000.

Kakipi seems to be flexing his muscles still with performing red ring attacks.  It may seem he's been somewhat quiet as of late since his full speed run of Unleashed a month ago.  However, it's really just me seeing that everyone else has been pushing speed runs out left and right and not really knowing what to expect of his future runs.  With all that he has done between Unleashed and Generations, it's just a complete wonder what he'll pull out next, but this seems to be his focus lately.

 Kakipi usually pushes videos out maybe a few times a month, so actually all is quite normal. :)

Melponterations!

PC Generations makes me sad.  Sad, not because I don't own it... but I can't exactly run it just yet.

It's really nice that there are people willing to create an experience through the latest major Sonic release like this and let the public play around in it.  Everyone wants that sense of freedom in a Sonic game and though this isn't very fast, it could definitely be a step in the right direction.  In the present, I'm glad that we actually have a nice 3D Sonic that people can do this with.

Well, I'm too sleepy to say anything else, so... gooooodnight!

Best Sonic Unleashed speed run, ever.

13337!

Effort.

I read somewhere in a YouTube comment someone (it was posted by one of the speed runners I track, no worries - except that I don't recall exactly which one) said, quote...

"It takes diligence to speed run."

That is pretty obvious, yes.  But it made me think about my efforts toward Seaside Hill.  Every other stage that I did a speed run for (except Speed Highway), I put a lot of time into before I had my PVR.  Green Hill... I ran for a long time since the Generations demo as the whole Havoc engine was still new to me.  Sky Sanctuary, I ran for at least two weeks.  City Escape... I don't remember though my first serious time which was top 50 may have taken at least two days and a few more days to top ten.  Crisis City... MONTHS, and I loved every bit of it.  Seaside Hill - 5 days from scratch with minimal hours of play.

Honestly, I don't know why I was in such a rush considering I had previous experience in other stages.  This was the quickest I've ever learned a stage, and simultaneously... it's the highest I've ever put myself on a Sonic leaderboard.  It really was a stage I could have simply been patient towards. Perhaps a part of me was convincing myself that the actual stage wasn't as hard as I thought it was... or maybe I'm getting better at the game... or both?  Maybe I created my own sense of urgency to make a recording of it by always talking about it?  Who knows.

After I had finished uploading the video to YouTube, I just watched it... over and over.  When I had to leave the computer, I was watching it over and over.... over my phone.  My brain was feeling some sort of release from the experience.  That was probably the stress of practicing it a few days ago being liberated.

I saw some missed opportunities in the run (at least the last 2D and 3D sections where I dedicated the least amount of time to) but in the end - it made the music sync with what was going on quite well from start to finish.  Didn't even have to move the track.  I just started it when the video started.  Must give thanks to my good friend for throwing that song in my direction.  Again, in the end, it's not so much about having the fastest time more than a good looking run with some nice music... and I'm glad just how well it turned out.

From the exception of Crisis City Act 2, that one mission where you hit the music notes and Action Master, every other stage that winds up recorded from this point on in Generations will be from scratch.  By that, I mean every stage up to now will be taken seriously for the first time.  So when I start Unleashed.... man... there's probably going to be a lot of downtime in between Generations and Unleashed, let alone between Unleashed itself.  I've BARELY scratched the surface with that game.


Speaking of Sonic Unleashed, lately I feel like I haven't been sharing enough speed runs from other people, and I want to throw this one in because it's a stage I never really liked (at least the non-DLC version of it).  But I think I've changed my mind now.

Man, Unleashed is so fast.  Miller states in his description that it took him over 5,000 tries and he's very proud of this.  I don't know how accurate that statement regarding the number of tries is, but hey... can't say I don't relate to him about how he feels in the end.  It's just the love for the game... and when it comes to love towards anything, in spite of how frustrating it is and how many fails you have to stack up before you succeed, you just don't know how far you can go...

... unless you are willing enough try and keep trying.

Seaside Hill Act 2... R.I.P.

Man... I'm telling you - I was so stressed making this, but the music I put in makes it all worthwhile.

So what's next?  I think I'm going to go for Chemical Plant Act 2.  Why not?  It's the only stage I haven't recorded from the Genesis Era and I've covered all of the Dreamcast Era stages.  I believe my current time is something around a 1:41ish.  There's plenty of room to improve and I still want to save my favorite stage for last.

Cheap.

(Source)

Yeah, I was actually interested in a 20th anniversary statue, but when I heard what this particular one was made of shortly after it's release, I was like... no.

... and it wasn't even hot.  So basically...

Happy June!

And we start on a blue note as always but this time, through an E3 trailer of Sonic & All Stars Racing TRANSFORMED where we're welcomed with more heads of the Sonic cast going through what is... a Skies of Arcadia theme?  Either way, check it out if you haven't already.

I wonder if there will be a playable build at E3 next week?  Guess we'll just have to stay tuned for now.

That's all that Sega seems to have lined up as far as Sonic goes.  Yup.  In spite of all the rumors lately, there is absolutely no chance Sonic Adventure 2 will make an appearance there.  You should know by now how Sega employees, or "Sega employees," and Gamestop employees, church friends, neighbors and even your pet rat love to troll Sonic fans with false information. :P

(Shit better be 16.9 or delay of purchase.)

After 3 hours of recording.

Never made it to the last 2D section of Seaside Hill 2.  The furthest I made it was to the side-step area where I either hit a bomb because I brain-farted or didn't jump or mis-jumped.

Normally, I could try recording a bit longer, but - I really hate this stage.  Even though it took me literally months to get down Crisis City Act 2, it didn't stress me out like this stage does.  This was the first stage to actually upset me to that extent - which is feeling stressed.  If I reach that point again, I'm just going to stop because there is frustration and then there is stress (and unlike frustration, stress kills).  After taking a break, I was too tired to try again.

So, what are my problems?  Honestly, nothing I haven't already said before, though there's more to add with one crucial discovery.  The biggest challenges is still the section after the killer whales and then grinding.

• It seems that once Sonic lands after the display of orca, if you boost too early, you will fuck up the camera which causes it to zoom more on Sonic and less on the surroundings.  This is easily avoidable if you slightly delay the boost when he lands.
• That whole part where you are aiming him to collect rings, drift over water and then smash enemies & collect rings to fill the boost meter before hopping into the cannon is very tedious and was the center of my issues this morning.  Aiming Sonic at the rings properly is a challenge.  Water treading is okay, it's just that the camera doesn't point at what's ahead of Sonic after he's done drifting on the water.  With a bit more attentiveness I believe I can fix that issue.

• However, in the first 2D section where you wall jump and air boost into the trick ring is so ununderstandable when it comes to getting Sonic consistently high enough on the wall jump platform after destroying that enemy.

Fortunately, I was able to figure out on my own why Sonic refuses to air boost after entering  the cannon and hitting the springs.  See that enemy that's standing next to the cannon - DON'T TOUCH IT.  It was only because I was killing before landing in the cannon that the air boost wouldn't work.

Unfortunately, that opened up a new problem - getting used to using it.  After the air boost, if I want to hop off the platform and on to the rail (providing I don't air boost over the platform, though that may suggest I'm doing it too late) I'm going to have to air boost again just before landing on the rail to get the most out of it.  I find this to be very tricky to simply perform since the camera is mostly above your head. If you reached the cannon with say, less than half boost meter, the two air boosts will destroy your meter, and you can forget about running on water in the next section.  Alternatively, I can just air boost immediately after hitting the last spring and land on the speed booster... and it didn't seem all that much slower, honestly (helluvalot easier.)

And of course there are times the controls don't want to respond...

All these things really make me realize that this stage is really good at revealing the problems within this gameplay from the camera to the controls.  Seaside Hill is super stingy when it comes to meter and it sometimes made me wish that Sonic's boost was more useful when it comes to magnetizing rings (not like Unleashed HD, just better balanced.).  The only reason why the last 2D section is so easy is because the top section is just so simple, all it's good for is to just prepare you for the last 3D section of running on water.  It's just wall jump, air boost, kill an enemy, go through the 180, air boost late, collect rings on rails, fall, air boost, boost, run the 3D section.

I really hate speed running this stage.  At first it was fun, but I wasn't going nearly as fast at first... and maybe Sonic Team wasn't either.  I was thinking practicing it with skills might be nice (or just doing a skilled recorded run instead).  I'm not discouraged... just frustrated.

Good night.

Seaside Hill Act 2.. Take 4...

Yeah, I know what you're thinking...

I'm on it!  The good news is that this took me less than 2 hours to pull off (for once) and I'm confident I can do it again.  Couldn't record earlier sadly.

But can it go faster?  It can, but I don't know if it will go faster than 3rd place.  Gonna test some things in the stage before I start recording to make sure everything goes as smooth as possible.

Ya!

I want the memory game.

Seaside Hill Act 2... take 3... I hate running on water.

If I ever said I liked Seaside Hill 2... I'm sorry.  I don't feel that way anymore.

First of all... I know it can't just be me (or maybe it is) but I find the stage rather boring when you're taking the speed run route.  Not that my heart doesn't beat out of my chest when things are going right and Sonic's going consistently fast, but... idk.  Maybe because the challenging areas are rather... uninteresting (not all of them).  I can't say that about the rest of the stage's alt paths because the stage is actually quite flexible overall.  Although I now completely understand what it takes to get on top of that falling orange platform after running over water (stop boosting before you turn right or you'll cause Sonic to "understeer."), I dunno... just seems so plain.  Secondly, to add insult to injury, after hitting the black speed booster that launches Sonic, you boost down to the end, only to jump and stop all of Sonic's momentum because for some reason, Sonic Team doesn't want Sonic to... go relatively fast around a corner to the left.  For a shortcut, it sure does seem rather bland to kill Sonic's flow.  Last but not least, I'm annoyed at the territory of this game when it comes to the controls in this stage.  Again, air boosting after the cannon launches you to the springs, air boosting seems to be an option on and off like.  It's just like Green Hill 2's last set of springs before hopping over the trip step which you can overcome any control issues by air boosting before hitting the springs.

Well, I've got the early morning ahead of me and after getting 6th on XBL (as I said, I should at least get 8th or 7th), I felt it was time to actually show some progress.  I actually ran out of meter in the final part of the stage and if I didn't, I possibly could've snatched 4th.  Well... that's the plan when I record the run.  The current ruler of the XBL leaderboard is none other than KYUURI999@ 1:30:44.  Right now, I don't see myself knocking 5 seconds off my time.  Still have a lot of work cut out.  Right now, my biggest concern is making the most out of the last 2D section with the wall jumping as it doesn't make much sense to me yet.

... I actually look forward to getting through this stage so I can focus on Crisis City Act 2 again.  I think this stage is definitely more fun to watch played than it is to play it as a speed run.  Maybe a red ring attack would be better...?

Just when I thought I was done with Ep2... and Let's Play?

(Thanks, Kokonoe.)

Seeing how I forgot to publish this post many stars ago (meh, I'd say roughly 6 hours+ ago) and I just got done playing through Generations, I think I'll share some of my thoughts of the game.

No, it wasn't me practicing or recording for a speed run.  This time, I thought for the second time since I've owned the game (which was on it's Xbox/PS3 release date in the US) I decided to run through the entire game from start to finish.  While in the midst of playing, it had made me wonder if I should saturate YouTube with my own "Let's Play" of it.  I honestly have no idea how that would even work out.  Pulling off commentary for instance - I'm not that big on the idea of performing it, but I do appreciate it when I know it could be helpful (and I won't be vulgar or say completely unnecessary things).  However, I don't think I'm that great at explaining things verbally.  Reason why I'd do it is because from start to finish, I must say, it is a very enjoyable game (didn't die to Time Eat once! *success kid image*).   It wasn't as enjoyable running casually as Sonic Colors was, and I mostly feel this way because I don't get a kick out of classic Sonic in Generations.  The best way to sum up Classic Sonic's gameplay is this: It is a slightly dumbed down version of the classic games.  It's not bad.  I'll gladly take this form of 2D gameplay over Sonic 4 in a Sonic second.  It has the fundamentals down pretty good, but I can't help but feel like the Generations version comes off as a whole, a gimmick.  It's much too simplified for me to take seriously.  Although the 3D/modern gameplay technically is a dumbed down version of Daytime Unleashed, for me it's offers some refinements to make up for it. Things such as the new level design and a Sonic that's easier to maneuver (for better or for worse, this one actually STOPS when you want him to) is something I can appreciate but I'm sure was a given.  I'm not praising the controls of Generations.  If you play Generations hard enough, you will eventually realize that sometimes the controls don't want to work and all you can really do is find ways to work around them next time.

Well, LPing the game is not really something to consider, but just a thought.  Come to think of it, I'm sure what would be even more appreciated would be LPing Sonic Unleashed HD because I don't think there are any HD LPs of the entire game on YT... at all, and if there are any, there aren't many.  However, I really suck at the game.  Like Generations, I've only ran through it twice and I don't find the game outside of it's Daytime stages all that entertaining.  The story is quite bland and I never really felt a sense of completion for beating the game (could be worse *coughep2cough*).  The werehog stages for me were just the worst gimmick in a Sonic game I've experienced.  Still, the game is aesthetically charming to the point one can only yearn for more... or if you're like me, personally would just wife Sachiko Kawamura. Don't know who she is?  She created one of the most loved and hated things in the Sonic franchise.

Yep, the Chao.

But yes, she is why Unleashed (and Generations) look as amazing as they do on your PS3/360.  I just checked YT and there aren't too many Sonic Unleashed LPs.  Well, that's definitely an option.  Even though the game is shunned by many reviewers, many fans... even Sega themselves, it was a step in the right direction from the previous main series game.

Between Unleashed, Colors and Generations, Unleashed seems to be favored among speed runners and it's really not difficult to see why.  Generations is still a game meant to be played hard, and Colors?  Yeah, not so much.  I see so many TAS runs on it.  It's difficult to appreciate TAS runs.  Entertaining, they can be... yes... but, it's like watching a robot that knows exactly how to do perform everything and it winds up being better than human play.  The sense of challenge seems to be dumbed down.

Wooo, this has gone on for too long and it's quite late... so I better stop while I still can.  Oyasumi~

Me vs Seaside Hill 2... part 2.

Haven't gotten a chance to play in the past few days so I'm getting used to the stage again.  I managed to complete a run that brought me to the top 15, but... if you don't know, readers... I want a top 10 run unless I don't think I can do better.  This means getting below 1:36:23 and I am currently at 1:36:88.

...

Which means if I do this right, I should get no lower than 7th or 8th.  I really want something that'll put me at 4th, but... there are a few problems.

This majority of the stage before the last 2D section is very hard on your meter.  To speed run, every 3D section requires Sonic to run over water.  The first 3D part at the beginning of the section is moderately difficult, but everything is fine if you simply collect all the rings over the water.  Sometimes I have more problems timing the jump into the cannon which seemingly works better from the water opposed to from the land around it.  (I assume that when Sonic is running on water, he is somewhat higher.)

The first 2D section is weird.  I do not try to get off a homing attack dash on the platform because if I kill the 2 enemies starting from that pillar, I cannot get Sonic high enough to land on the right wall jump pad or on the platform to the left.  Instead, I let him fall and the result to getting him high enough after defeating the second enemy seems to mostly be based on how high Sonic's jump was on the first enemy.  It's weird, but the success rate seems around 70%.

The second 3D section is ALL about meter management.  By the time you get to the 2nd cannon, you need at least 90% meter to run over the body of water to the orange platform.  Most of this will successfully depend on whether you collected enough boost energy and you'll want to collect as many line of rings you come across before the first cannon.  The first line on the beach and the second on the water are mandatory.  There are two lines of rings on the next part of the beach, but there are also two enemies together, so destroying those gathering the last line of rings before the first cannon really helps out tremendously.  Before getting on this beach area, it's a good idea to hop from the water on to the beach because sometimes Sonic flies up as if he hit a slope, and that will not help at all.  After getting into the cannon and hitting the last spring, my challenge here is whether the air boost will work or not.  It seems random.  If it does, getting the most speed out of the rails is a bit tricky as hopping on it won't give you immediate access to boosting for some reason (so I guess you have to do it right as you land on it.)  Last but not least is the water section.  In a previous entry, I stated that it wasn't too hard once you get it down, but that was then.  Today, it's a challenge. If I accidentally cause the camera to get caught behind a part of the level, I'm pretty much playing a guessing game at this point.  Other than that, I've yet to really cement it.

The rest of the stage seems pretty much like a cake walk, but that's yet to be determined because I made mistakes the last time I went through it and that only happened from lack of experience there.  Meter is no issue.  The only challenge seems to be based on whether my wall jumps will get Sonic high enough for an air boost on the top platform.

Time will tell if I get this done tonight.  If not, I'll try again tomorrow.

Is glitching automatically = cheating?

Using glitches is not cheating because it doesn’t give any advantage over the competition. Since it’s still within the framework of the game, anyone with the skill and knowledge can perform them. -SigmaAlpha via TSSZ

A lot of people tend to think that using glitches is "cheating."  To some extent, glitches can be used to cheat.  We see it a lot on the leaderboards of certain games and Sonic games are no exception (Ep1, Ep2, CD, Generations PC, etc.).  Though it will always be based on opinion, there are glitches that either take away the effort in the speed running experience in exchange to make it past the finish line (i.e. in 00:00:00).  Then there are glitches that do the opposite, being that they usually add to the effort for actually completing the stage.  There is still the possibility of error for making it through a section 00:00:50 to 00:05:00 seconds faster because of that glitch.  Basically, you're still playing the game.  Even though this is two ends of glitching where one is simply get the fastest possible time without playing the stage and the other plays the stage to exploit the stage, how far those glitches can go for the sake of shaving off time varies.  Some prefer using a glitch or glitches to conquer small bits of the stage, while others, a large chunk. (Note to reader: performing that glitch in Sonic Unleashed which skips a large chunk of the level makes your game prone to physically breaking within your console.)

Cheating is defined by breaking the rules through deceit.  When it comes to speed running... are there any rules?  Is there any form of deception being used?  First of all, if we are talking about the people who get 00:00:00ish times, well... they're not speed running at all more than they're just deceiving the game and the people that actually play the game.  Their focus is not the stage, just the leaderboard.  They want to appear superior at simply doing something not many people can do.  It's not a speed run more than it is a leaderboard hack.  Secondly, if people are conquering the stage by using glitches to go faster within the realm of the game, be it in small bits or large chunks, it cannot be considered cheating as they are doing something anyone can do.  Sometimes I feel that there is a lack of understand that goes in the word cheating where if one person sees another person perform something unusual (feeling deceived), they get labeled a cheater.  The accuser most likely never attempted to even perform such a glitch to understand the depth behind it even though the person who performed it makes it look easy when it's very possible for it to be difficult or have huge consequences if performed wrongly.  There is only one rule most speed runners go by, and that is to play the stage as fast as possible, and I personally believe that the legitimacy of the run is weighed in by the amount of effort that's put in to playing the stage.

It is just me, but I believe glitching is not always synonymous with cheating.

Not everyone is going to know the best methods for what makes a speed run faster (and developers don't always know all that's capable within the framework of their game).  There is usually a lot of knowledge that goes into speed running a stage in these types of games as it's usually never as simple as it looks.  If those methods are understood as ways to expand the experience for any competitor (opposed to taking away the experience) who's goal is to be the one to make it first to the finish line, why shouldn't people use glitches?  If we limited our efforts, the game grows stale because there would be limitations instead of plateaus.

And right now, I think that's what makes Sonic Unleashed more favorable than Sonic Generations for speed running among the top speed runners on YouTube.  It's not only allows Sonic to do a lot on his own while moving fast, but after much time, people are just finding ways to make him go faster.  It doesn't make Unleashed unique to other Sonic games, but it definitely stands out as the more complex game compared to Generations.

But if you're a fan of Generations and not Unleashed, don't worry... it's time just may come sooner than you think.

There's a war going on in Windmill Isle Act 2.

As this week, my youtube feed has been filled with so many speed runs of Windmill Isle Act 2, I can barely tell whether they are different or the same.  What I've come to find is that throughout the month ,sobatsuyu100 and Millernusgaming have posted quite a few speed runs of that stage and it's DLC sister 2-2 that have caught the attention of other players.  However, it is sobatuyu100 who's leading me through the recent confusion as yesterday I discovered he had ran Windmill Isle 2 just under 1:30... and he did it again... in the DLC stage... and he did it again in the normal stage... and 6 hours ago... he did it again taking off about 4 seconds from the initial sub 1:30 run.

Although it seems that the times improvements are largely due to the use of M-speed jumps, I'm not too convinced that those jumps are the whole story to his success as there's a lot of stomping going on in his last video.

Do check out these guy's latest efforts in tearing down the stage.

Millernusgaming: Act 2 | Act 2-2

sobatsuyu100: Act 2 | Act 2-2

Also, while I'm at it... check out this vid by Miller which he so rightfully titled, "Messing With The Game" as it is his celebratory vid for him earning his 100th subscriber.

So, it's been decided...

As I was cycling through the stages checking out leaderboard times, I was trying to figure out which stage I should perform a speed run in next, and when I decided to check the times for Seaside Hill, I accidentally chose to play the stage.

... looks like I'm practicing this one. (Almost feels like a socially awkward penguin moment lol.)

Honestly, I was quite intimidated by this stage for some reason.  Perhaps that's because I know that the fastest known route for tackling the 2nd part of the 3D section requires running on water...?  It took many times to judge where I needed to stop boosting, but it's one of those things that once you get down, it should be pretty easy afterwards.  It seems as if you'll need a full meter to make the distance (let me clarify, starting from the last rails that Sonic grinds on), but no.  Around 85-90% should suffice.

After that, I only had enough time to make it to the end once and jumped nearly 200 spots on the leaderboard.  I'm Currently at 44th now.  Other than that, I need to mess around with the first 2D section a bit more.  It's short, but getting the most out of it doesn't look simple.  In fact, I think Kakipi1000 is the only person I've seen come out of the trick ring and use a homing attack on the enemy.  Perhaps everyone is just doing the wrong trick?  The last 2D section looks easy and I assume is easy.  When I ran it, I wound up starting at the bottom of the last 2D section without really knowing where to go, but I was 20 seconds ahead of my previous time.

Not too lost on what music I'll be using, but nothing concrete yet~

Rooftop Runners.

Eventually, someone is going to break the 2 minute mark of this stage but... forget that for a second.  This guy from Japan just broke the skilled record in Rooftop Run.  Not bad for this guy's first upload.  luciferin555 takes  no prisoners here.  I'm not sure who had the record previously, but congrats to this guy.  Hopefully he won't leave us hanging with all he's capable of doing.

As for myself, I'm not sure what I'm going to speed run next.  What's left?  Chemical Plant... Seaside Hill... Crisis City... Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp.  Crisis City is the only stage I've taken seriously.  After that would be Rooftop Run (semi-serious, my time is pretty bad in it, though the stage is considerably easier).  Although I have a few okay ideas for music as far as Crisis City is concerned, I might actually just record it using just the normal stage music or a modified version of it - as it's really not a bad track at all.  Never thought what would alternatively sound nice with Rooftop Run... but it's not really a stage I had on my mind.  (Been thinking about Seaside Hill, actually.)

There have been no shortage of Generations and Unleashed speed run videos uploaded lately, which I find great.  Hope everyone keeps it up!

Sonic 4 Episode 2, Week 1 - Sonic going backwards.

With my youtube subscriptions predominantly filled with people from the Sonic fanbase, there are tons of LPs and... not as many speed runs of Sonic 4 Episode 2.  After looking at some, it actually led me to agreeing with what Copley said about Sky Fortress Act 2.  It's not hard to see that the level design here was actually... WELL THOUGHT OUT.  I mean, aside from it having the worthless spring/speed booster placement, the level itself is actually interesting as you're not faced with a huge wall, repetitive design and 360 loops.  Flaws of the game aside, this is a good stage.

Why didn't I notice this out earlier?  I've only watched one LP of the game (Beta 8) and the gameplay was so boring I fell asleep in the middle of it.  By the time I woke up, the player had reached the midst of Sky Fortress... Act 3. lol

So the first week of Episode 2 as far as Sega's ever so seemingly valuable metacritic score is concerned... hasn't at all improved very much.  If Sega employees are just sitting around their desks in Japan, pondering, "Well, what went wrong?"  But what went right?  Seemingly the sales on the iOS platforms were a success (I do not understand how they work and didn't look into it deeply if deep at all).  As of today, the PS3's score is 62 out of 100 and the 360's is 61 out of 100.  This game is stacking up to the likes of Sonic Unleashed HD's score (I have no problem with Unleashed HD's scores.  Based on my own experience, it really was not that great the first time around, but after finding the enjoyment of the Daytime stages, that just leaves half of the game left to be desired through the Nighttime stages.)  However, I find it ironic that both of these games suffer for the same reason, and it's that in their own way (in spite of their huge budget differences), they tried too hard to be casual and please the masses.

It's not that there were bad ideas implemented, just poorly executed ideas.  In Unleashed, the evidence is clear.  Most people found the werehog stages super tedious from it's ridiculous length and some poor design (where is the shadow below him when he platforms?  The camera in this game is far from being completely in your control).  When I played some of the DLC stages, I was surprised to find that they were A LOT BETTER.  They made sense as they were a lot shorter with better designs as a character that moves so slow should not have to feel as if they are getting from New York to London on foot.

Ep2 is just filled with poorly executed ideas... so many, there's really no point in going into detail with them as a lot of them are found in reviews here or on metacritic's bag of mixed reviews.  The co-op, the level gimmicks, the team gimmicks, episode metal (or episode re-colors), the physics (which I will get into) which a lot of reviewers state are fixed, but only seem to have tested them based on simply jumping forward and walking up a hill while overlooking the roll/spin dash and downhill momentum.

I would probably be prone to purchasing this game if everything I saw was an outright visual work of art depicting Sonic and Tails running through the pretty scenery - worthy of hanging on my living room wall that said, "It looks fun."  But I can't be so blind to it's purpose as most of the effort put into it are just further steps backwards than the backwards steps Episode 1 took.  Really, this game is such a tragedy.  To think that Sonic is sold merely for being a blue hedgehog that runs to springs and speed boosters is like Aston Martin selling a DBS because of it's beautiful shell, and not it's engine for it's purr as it escapes from the exhaust or it's suspension for it's comfort and sportiness or it's interior to remind you it has a sense of value... or even heritage.

Do you know how you can tell the difference between a good Sonic (in this case, 2D) game and a bad Sonic game?  The ones the fans base their games off of.  To say the least, some of them have made better examples of how the series could move forward.

From here on out, this is where I want to shift my focus away from Ep2 in my blog (really in general).  Certainly, things can change (and yes, I've ragged on the game for long enough), but I'm convinced here that what's done is done.  What Sega plans to do next with the series seeing that the reception is weighing in less and less further from what Episode 1 reached is but a timely (hopefully not a timeless) wonder.

With Sega's huge financial loss from last years sales as their company heavily relies on Sonic as their main source of income seeing that Episode 2 may not make it to it's usual financial success in the franchise, one wonders just how much longer Sega can afford to ignore their fans.