Sonic Heroes details

[OB1]

From GAF:

Sonic Heroes
Sega announced this morning that they will debut Sonic Team's brand new installment in the Sonic the Hedgehog series at this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo. To be called Sonic Heroes, the game features a unique twist to the tried and true formula; the heroes have evolved. As such, players can control THREE characters at the same time; they'll have to utilize Sonic's speed, Tails's flying abilities, and Knuckles's power on the fly. According to Sega, the team-based gameplay takes platforming to the next level, as Sonic and pals battle against the ultimate evil.

Sonic Heroes will be on the GameCube, plus the blue hedgehog is making his debut on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. No release date has been announced, but we'll have more come E3.

Posted by Christian on 4.28.2003

Ooh, intriguing! I can't wait to find out more. I just really really hope they get rid of the non-Sonic-like gameplay from the past two games. Sonic Adv. 2 was practically ruined because of the excruciating non-Sonic-and-Shadow levels.

[A Black Falcon]

I've never understood why everyone hated the Tails levels... I thought they were a lot of fun. Not as good as sonic/shadow, but good...

Oh, and that descrption is somewhat confusing... are there different characters or just one or what?

[OB1]

The Tails levels were shit! If I want to play a crappy mech game I'll go find my copy of Mech Warrior and play it with two ping pong paddles. This is Sonic we're talking about! They took the only flying character in the game and put him in a damn robot. What they should have done was take away all of the uber-shitty Knucles and Tails levels and just keep the Sonic/Shadow levels but allow you to play as all of the other characters, ala the GBA Sonic games.

[A Black Falcon]

Getting rid of the Knuckles levels would have been a very good idea. Those weren't very good at all... but the Tails ones were. Were they platformer game levels? Not really... though there were a lot of jumping puzzles it was really a action game in a mech. I, at least, found that fun...

And they can hover/float like Tails. :)

[OB1]

Oh shut up. The Tails levels were ass and you know it.

[A Black Falcon]

No, I don't...

Or do you just dislike mech action games?

[Nintendarse]

I can think of three ways that Sonic team might do this:

Wind Waker style: Press a button to change characters, and use the abilities of all three characters to advance/solve puzzles.

Automatic switches: At designated spots in the level, the game automatically switches characters for you. This would kind of go against the whole "controlling multiple characters at the same time" aspect that Sega claims.

Crazy Controls: Somehow, the controls are set up so that you can control all three characters at the same time. I doubt Sonic team would choose this method because it is the most disorienting.

[A Black Falcon]

What if you control one character with the powers of all of them?

[Great Rumbler]

Why would they do it like that?

I think they'll make it were you press a button to change characters.

Too bad there aren't any screenshots yet.

[OB1]

Originally posted by A Black Falcon
No, I don't...

Or do you just dislike mech action games?

I love mech games but the Tails levels were simply horrible. Mech action does not belong in a Sonic game.

[Dark Jaguar]

So you think they should have just tossed the alternate character levels? They were EXTRA! Why get rid of them? Why NOT have them? Because they suck? Big deal! They were MORE, never get rid of MORE!

[OB1]

They weren't extra, DJ! There are more Tails/Knuckles levels in the game than there are Sonic/Shadow ones. Did you think that the Tails/Knuckles levels just made themselves? No! For every Tails/Knuckles level in the game, there is one less Sonic level (or about that). If making the Tails/Knuckles levels didn't take away development time from the Sonic levels then I wouldn't have a problem.

You also couldn't skip the levels. For every one Sonic level you had to play three shitty Tails and Knuckles levels. If you were to take away all of the Tails/Knuckles levels from the game it would take about twenty minutes to beat it. If they had put all of their development resources into making a strictly Sonic-only game (with the ability to use different characters in the same level like Sonic Advance 1 & 2) then we probably would have gotten at least twenty or more good-sized Sonic levels. That would have made for a much, much better game.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeesh, upset about something are we?

[OB1]

Read my post again since I edited it.

But really DJ, how could you consider those levels "extra stuff"? They take up most of the game!

[OB1]

Oh and did the rest of you notice that this new Sonic game won't be GC-exclusive? This is terrible, terrible news. For one thing Sega has pretty much given Nintendo the shaft when it comes to exclusives. The only GC-excusive non-ports that Sega has released are the Monkey Balls (am I fogetting something?), and then Billy Hatcher later this year. MS and Sony get all sorts of awesome exclusives, and we only get three of them. However, the worst part about Sonic Hero being a multiplatform game means that the game will look much worse than it would if it were developed from the ground up for the Gamecube since Sega has to make the game with the PS2's weaknesses in mind.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, Sega has been pretty skimpy when it comes to game on the GC.

I have to agree with OB1, most of the non-Sonic/Shadow levels in Sonic Adventure 2 were just aweful. I gave up playing the game because those levels were just too much of a chore.

[OB1]

Yeah, I had to d/l a save for the game in order to enjoy it.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Maybe it'll be made on the GC and then ported later... :(

This game still sounds awesome, though.

[A Black Falcon]

Well what's wrong with a variety of stuff in the game? I don't get it... so 1/3 of the levels weren't platform levels (Knuckles of course was a bad version of Mario 64-style platforming)... so? Lots of games have variety... or is it just the fact that because of it you can't play as Tails in platform levels? I didn't mind... sure the Sonic levels were the best but the Tails ones were fun too.

And there is a 1:1:1 ratio of Sonic:Tails:Knuckles style levels... :)

[OB1]

A 1:1:1 ratio means that there are more Knuckles/Tails levels than there are Sonic ones. That's not good. The Tails and Knuckles levels sucked and were totally out of place in a Sonic game.

[Great Rumbler]

The Tails levels were kind of fun, but the Knuckles levels were just plain awful. They should have done it like it SA 1 where you were given the option of playing through all of the Sonic levels without having to play through the other character's levels.

Well what's wrong with a variety of stuff in the game?

Nothing. As long as the variety doesn't make the game a chore to play.

[Dark Lord Neo]

I hated the knucles levels but I didn't mind the Tales ones

[A Black Falcon]

The Knuckles ones weren't, really... they were platform levels and so were the Sonic levels...

After the awful Knuckles levels, I'd say the biggest flaw in the game is that it limits you to 2 player multiplayer... 4 player would have been SO much better.

[Nintendarse]

I've never played SA2:Battle for a long amount of time, but I agree that if you dislike 2/3 of a game, that's different from disliking 1/1000 of a game. If 2/3 of a game is "extra," then the chocolate cookies of an Oreo are "extra," and what Nabisco is actually selling you is a white creamy substance. :p

On Sonic Heroes, I thought of another way that Sonic Team might pull off the teamwork aspects: what if Sonic team combined the character switching aspects of Wind Waker with the AI-controlled team members of Chrystal Chronicles? So when you're controlling Sonic, AI controls Tales and Knuckles. But when you want to control Knuckles, you simply press a button to switch to him, and then Sonic and Tales would be handled by AI. This might make it possible to keep the pace of the game at Sonic speed.

[Dark Jaguar]

I always thought they WERE just selling the creme... I consider the chocolate part "extra" myself, and have been known to lick off all the creme and put the cookie part back.

Random Persona: Don't put the chocolate part back in the bag, that goes in the trash!

[A Black Falcon]

I've never liked Oreos, myself...

As for Sonic Hero, I'd say that that description is so vague that it could mean almost anything...

[OB1]

You don't like oreos??!!

*gasp!*

[A Black Falcon]

Nope. For cookies, my favorite kind is chocolate chip (soft is best, but the crunchy ones are good too)... but some others, such as ginger snaps, are also good. Not Oreos... though I do like Cookies and Cream icecream, which has (I think) oreos in it. Huh.

[OB1]

[A Black Falcon]

Great smily... add it! I mean... the hammer, guns, :S, and head-bonk aren't enough... :)

And probably I like the icecream because it doesn't really taste like oreos...

[Dark Jaguar]

That smily doesn't seem phased in the LEAST by that buzzsaw. The rest actually seem injured, but this smily not only keeps smiling, but seems to instantaneously regenerate itself after each pass. I'd LIKE to be that smily.

[A Black Falcon]

but... its just been CHOPPED IN HALF... lenghthwise... you're supposed to imagine it falling apart in two pieces...

[Dark Jaguar]

I imagined that, but then it came back again, and again, and nothing else happens! It's just instantly regenerating each time! It can't be defeated in this manner!

[A Black Falcon]

Just like all the smilies... a real person :hammer: would be flattened eventually... :)

[Great Rumbler]

First ABF says that he doesn't like coffee, now he's saying that he doesn't like oreos either?!

[A Black Falcon]

While we're at it why don't I just say that I also dislike peaches, pears, and cherries, and don't like beef/steak very much. There, better? :)

[OB1]

You're friggin' insane.

[big guy]

i don't much care for oreo's either...or, get this CHOCOLATE! (i don't hate it, just don't really dig it too much) eeep. although i do like pears.

now, i was thinking, what if all three characters are on screen at once and you control them all as one unit, but when you go to use a move, the corresponding character pulls it off. it'd be like controlling both banjo and kazooie, but instead of having an extra character in a backpack, it's 2 extras running along side you...don't know if it would work, but it's a thought.

[A Black Falcon]

I like chocolate, and chocolate bars (though not as much as fruit candy like Skittles or Starburst), but for some reason dislike chocolate icecream... not sure why, but I always have...