So now that you've played it, what are your thoughts on the Sonic Project 06 Shadow demo?
Maybe it's just the fact that I've played through SRB2 as Adventure Sonic like four or five times now in the last six months, but I feel like the Shadow demo does something to the controls that I don't entirely like?
Something about the way these characters move feels a little heavier and a little more slippery than I remember. Though, like I said, that might just me being used to how Adventure Sonic controls.
But like I said in the stream, there's also just this pervasive feeling that the Shadow demo feels more like the real Sonic 06 in some kind of bad ways. The camera feels more jittery, it has a lot more trouble orienting itself, and in general I think it's overall a much more difficult campaign. There are way larger groups of enemies (so Shadow can use his Devil Trigger or whatever) and... I dunno.
I remember the vibe of playing Sonic 06 originally, where Sonic's campaign left a sour taste in my mouth, but Shadow's felt... surprisingly more even-handed? And now the opposite feels true. Shadow's campaign in Project 06 feels a little more broken and janky, more like the bad parts of the original game, whereas Sonic's campaign is downright enjoyable at times -- because it's just Sonic Adventure 3.
I will say that Omega's first person mode is downright inspired, however. Playing as Omega almost feels like a totally different game now. It's a nice surprise.
Though I don't like that ChaosX is adhering to the instruction booklet's description of Omega having a flight meter. Maybe if it did more than just glide, but as it stands it just feels like a worse version of what Knuckles does.
I was real excited to play this demo but instead it kind of gave me like, the Sonic fan equivalent of 'Nam flashbacks.
Some of that can be blamed on level design too, I guess. I know ChaosX tweaks little things here and there but largely doesn't add much in the way of new geometry. The way Shadow gets hung up on lips or the camera shifts in weird ways are more just part of these original maps than anything ChaosX chose to do. Like, as much as I came to enjoy Sonic's campaign here, I will always admit that Tropical Jungle kind of sucks.
But also, vehicles should probably control better than this. And the game keeps telling me to push R2 to activate abilities, but for some reason I have to push L2 instead. And I sure seem to be missing homing attacks a lot more frequently now, too.
