First time playing through Sonic Robo Blast 2. This game is wonderful and fills me with so much joy. SEGA is pretty cool for letting fan games like this exist.
As a general baseline opinion, I like SRB2. I want to get that out in front because I also have a lot of complaints about the way things about that game have been getting handled.
I like how thoroughly they converted Doom to feeling like a legitimate 3D platformer, for instance. It’s not a totally modern implementation (the camera, for instance) but SRB2 feels more like a platformer than it does a shooter to me, and for that, they deserve a lot of commendation.
I suppose my problems with SRB2 really boil down to three issues:
Levels are getting too big. In the first “final” release of SRB2, it was mainly just Egg Rock Zone that was a huge 30 minute gauntlet. (It reminded me a lot of Eggmanland). Instead of trimming the longer levels down to their best parts, they’re doing the opposite and adding a bunch of junk to make the rest of the game longer. This isn’t always so bad, but some of the new stuff is seriously awkward (I don’t like anything about the new jello slime in Techno Hill, especially that bit where you have to jump from a high place to touch a submerged button). In general, levels really feel like they overstay their welcomes now and don’t always have the best pacing. If it was up to me, there are quite a few things I would throw out (for example, the Castle Eggman rising water puzzle). Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you HAVE to find a way to make it fit. It’s like feature creep for level design. Besides, if you really become attached to an idea, shift it to a bonus level or something. When played as part of a complete package, 20 short levels are better than 10 long levels.
Bosses need work. I don’t know why, but they decided to make the first two bosses in the game more difficult. Green Flower’s boss really does not need the desperation phase where he shoots out spike balls, and Techno Hill’s boss gets too aggressive as well. Castle Eggman’s boss outright sucks. It’s really slow and tedious. I’ve never even seen what the Metal Sonic Race or “Brak” Eggman is like.
I miss “Sonic Adventure Mode.” I mean, this should be a given, considering I was once making a mod a decade ago called “Sonic Adventure SRB2.” The entire reason I started that mod is because I’m one of those people who thinks the homing attack is a great idea and that 3D Sonic games benefited from its inclusion. Movement in 3D is exponentially more complex than movement in 2D, so when dealing with a character as fast as Sonic, a little bit of help dealing with enemies in 3D space is more than welcome. Unfortunately, the homing attack was removed from SRB2 ages ago because it was apparently deemed “worthless” or whatever. I’ve even heard that analog control mode is in danger of being depreciated, when really, I think they should be focusing all of their attention on making that better. I think some members of the team have been playing shooter-y multiplayer so much that are starting to forget they are making a 3D platformer.
Obviously they’re still going to keep cranking away at SRB2 until presumably they reach feature complete on the design document, whatever that looks like now. Really, all they need is to keep a wider perspective and have a little more quality control. SRB2 is already a very impressive thing, but it could be even better with a little more elbow grease in a couple of places.
