#blobsreviewsofgame

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think Tomoya Ohtani should step away from Sonic for a while? I thought Sonic Forces' soundtrack was pretty bad and think some fresh blood (who also knows what they're doing, of course) would help a lot. The more important person who has to go is Morio Kishimoto of course but... I also have a feeling that Tomoya Ohtani focusing on something else that isn't Sonic (something like Rhythm Thief, maybe?) would be good too. Especially after SEGA FES 2018's Sonic DJ Live. But what do you think?

I don’t think Ohtani is that bad, I just wonder if he’s starting to take on more responsibility for the music now, or splitting responsibility with different people than his more “classic” work.

Because, like, I looked this up somewhat recently, and you know how I’ve said the soundtrack for Sonic Runners sounds like anime music? That’s because Ohtani collaborated with Takahito Eguchi on it. And Eguchi has done tons of anime music for the likes of DNAngel, Gundam, Lupin the Third, Naruto, and more. So, like, no wonder Sonic Runners sounds like sakura blossoms blowing past wistful schoolgirls next to a montage of robots having sword fights and people running towards the future.

That being said, you look up the credits for Sonic Forces, and it’s a lot of usual suspects: Eguchi returns, with familiar partners in crime: Kenichi Tokoi, Naofumi Hataya, Yutaka Minobe, etc. A lot of these names date back to the Dreamcast era, some even as far back as the Saturn and Sega CD.

I guess it’s possible they just wanted to try something different with Sonic Forces. It definitely seemed to be outside all of their comfort zones, which shows in the end result. There’s nothing wrong with experimentation as long as they learn from their mistakes and don’t make a habit of putting out junk, you know?

Because, I mean, as I noted, I didn’t necessarily hate the anime-sounding Sonic Runners music, it’s just all I could think about whenever I heard it. And I’d certainly take more of that over Sonic Forces music any day.

I think we should give it a game or two before we start calling for changes.

[blazehedgehog]

I've read through your Unleashed PC list and I've noticed you bringing up the Hedgehog Engine 2 being better than Hedgehog Engine 1. How so? I see a lot of effects that HE1 introduced just plain missing in HE2, like a blur effect or complex shadows. The only thing that I know the HE2 can apparently do is display better grass? And maybe some low-res reflective puddles on a street or the cubes from cube wisps displaying a low-res version of the level? But overall, HE2 seems worse/simpler than HE1.

It was mainly a… tweet? I think I saw about Hedgehog Engine 2′s lighting and how it’s actually way better than you’d think. I can’t find the tweet that was talking about it specifically, but here’s the original source tweet showing off lighting differences between Generations and Forces:

Basically, the two images seem to show that Hedgehog Engine 2 is better at handling normal maps – those may even be parallax maps (I’m sure someone on Twitter will correct me when this gets posted and the link is pushed out over social media).

Regardless of the actual technique being applied here, the end result is much more natural light with a lot more depth applied to textures.