#melcodriggs

[blazehedgehog]

You know how Sonic games have Zones and Acts, Ristar has Rounds, and Klonoa games have Visions? Are there any other alternate names for levels you find especially memorable?

A level in NiGHTS contains four "Mares." As in, Nightmares. Every time you retrieve the next ideya crystal, you move on to the next mare, until all four mares are complete and you fight the boss. That's kind of weird and notable, I guess.

[melcodriggs]

Other places you can find me

Yes I’m late on the draw. I upload so little here I forget I have the ability.

I’ve never really posted saucy pictures here (not that I draw much FILTH) but I read something about Tumblr shadow-banning visual artists so, to be safe here are some alternatives:

https://twitter.com/MelcoDriggs Twitter is my most active account, but if that doesn’t work for you my Deviantart usually gets uploads every now and then, too: https://www.deviantart.com/thell-vallock

[blazehedgehog]

Omega's dialogue in CrossWorlds has me wondering, how many characters do you think could reasonably take him out one-on-one?

Probably very few! It's been a point, both in Archie Sonic and now IDW Sonic, that if Omega ever goes rogue, it takes multiple people and a coordinated effort to deal with him.

Now, of course, that's not raw Omega. In Archie Sonic, Naugus and his sister got their hands on Omega, turned him evil and gave him crystal armor:

It took Knuckles, Amy, Rouge and Shadow working together to deal with him.

And then, in IDW, Eggman installed him as the core of a new set of robot armor following the Zombot outbreak:

Arguably, this is a much bigger upgrade compared to the crystal armor, and probably isn't even fair as a point of comparison. It took the entire village to deal with this guy, including a last-second appearance by Sonic.

I imagine that one-on-one, only Sonic, Shadow or maybe Knuckles could have any meaningful shot at handling Omega under normal circumstances in terms of raw strength. Tails might be able to come up with a strategy to deactivate or depower Omega, too. I feel like there must have been a point where Gemerl and Omega fought in one of these comics, too, and they seemed sort of evenly matched.

Everyone else would be outclassed, though.

And even then, I believe its on the record that Omega only really thinks of Shadow as an equal in terms of strength.

[blazehedgehog]

Not to "um, actually" you but, genuine question for clarification. Re: Sonic timelines, would Knuckles' Chaotix place in that first one because Metal Sonic is present and Sonic and Tails show up in the good ending? Or is that still not important enough in your opinion?

This is an old ask (2022) but honestly I'd wonder if Knuckles Chaotix even happened at this point, or what it looked like.

I guess they've been slowly referencing it more and more, but with Sonic Heroes they were pretty clear that the new Chaotix we got were not the same characters from the 32X game.

But that was also like, two lore rewrites ago, and now supposedly everything is canonical, so I don't even know how I'd consider it, honestly.

I keep thinking it'd be fun if they did a special series of graphic novels that retold the Genesis games. There are certain things that could be expanded or straightened out. They could give them super lavish art like Archie's "Mega Drive" series or the Anniversary comics they put out.

But really, I'm just trying to capture the magic of reading The Sonic Ideal when I was a teenager. Still, it would help sort out things like where Knuckles Chaotix fits into all of this without actually having to touch the game itself.

[blazehedgehog]

Re: the floating rails question; I think part of my original intent was also to ask why it seems fine for other games, particularly Adventure 2 and Heroes? It feels like there are more than a few levels there with a ton of free-floating grind rails that don't get the same criticism as far as I know.

In those games, the floating rails are there to provide flow in a specific direction. Like, it's not realistic, but it feels like they are leading you "forward."

A rail is a tool that helps you reach the end of the level. It is either leading you towards the end of the level, or away from it. And it's called a "rail." When people talk about games that are on rails, it's like, Star Fox or House of the Dead or whatever. Again, games that are directing you towards an ending. You can't "explore" when you're on a rail. You only have a destination.

Rails in Sonic Frontiers kind of do this, by their nature they all lead to a "destination," but they're crisscrossing all over the place and a lot of those destinations are strength or defense seeds, or caches of rings. Which are things that are basically everywhere, so having all these rails lead to them doesn't really mean much. So it's a lot of weird clutter.

Think of it like... Mario. In Mario you have pipes, bricks and coin blocks, right?

But if you think about the more open Mario games, like Super Mario 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey, you don't see as many of those things.

Because things like bricks, coin blocks, and pipes are tools designed to push Mario forward. Bricks can be smashed and don't come back, coin blocks can be emptied and become useless, and pipes take you somewhere. You can't really have these things in a big open area you're going to be revisiting multiple times, because their usefulness is limited and otherwise they just take up space.

And it's not just that a 3D Mario game cannot have these things.

It's a concept of linear versus open. The pacing of following a pathway and having tools or obstacles on that pathway. This is even part of Super Mario Odyssey, because there are routes that get more linear, as you ascend cliffs or buildings. And when that happens, you start seeing the return of coin blocks and things of that nature.

But never just floating out in the open. It's pacing, it's clarity, it's flow. And sometimes having a clear view of the sky is good for understanding scale and location.

Similarly, rails can still work in a game like Sonic Frontiers, but they need to be used in a more organic, targeted fashion. But a lot of that game's open world is a mess. You can tell Sonic Team had no idea what they were doing. No idea how to build or plan landmarks, no idea how to accurately direct the player on where they need to be going. A very nothing world.

[blazehedgehog]

It was a while ago back on Twitter, but thank you for pointing out how much better generic toaster pastries are than Pop Tarts. I grabbed the brown sugar ones from Price Chopper and the difference in quality is insane.

For those of you out there who don't know what this is a reference to, I mean these fellas:

I usually find them at Dollar Tree, and on the back of the box they proudly proclaim to predate Poptarts as "the original pop-up pastry."

They are, ostensibly, just Poptarts, but the notable thing, at least the last time I had them, is they have two to three times as much filling as a Poptart. Regular, name-brand Poptarts suck, in my opinion. They are 90% crust and 10% filling. But not these things, these things have plenty. I generally get blueberry, partially because my Dollar Tree only usually stocks blueberry and strawberry, and I'm not much of a strawberry guy.

I've tried Walmart's store brand Poptarts and I don't like them, personally. The filling on those ended up way too gummy. Like biting into a Poptart full of old dried out sandwich jelly. But these Toast'em guys? Whenever I'm in the area I always make a point to swing into Dollar Tree and pick up a few boxes. And it goes without saying, but not only do you get more filling, they're like a third of the price of a box of real Poptarts.

[blazehedgehog]

For no special reason, here are the most minute Sonic-related hills I'm willing to shake my fist and grumble on.

Rings looked better in Sonic Advance when the inside was flattened out similar to rings in real life, and I will never call Red Rings by their actual canon name because the alliteration was RIGHT THERE. >:[

The rings in SA1 and SA2 look similar, too.

I also sort of have a soft spot for the rings in SegaSonic Arcade, though only a little.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think the "floating rails" criticisms for Frontiers are rooted in this being an open game that feels more like a full-fledged world instead of past linear games' more obstacle-course-styled layouts?

I think it's because they're everywhere and nothing about those islands feels organic. It's very clear they made the island landmass first and then put everything else in around it after the fact.

The thing about open world design is that you are still technically guiding the player. There are roads they can follow. Marked pathways. Zelda, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout... you get this sense of being on a road vs. going offroad. You get the sense you are visiting places, and those places have a purpose. Dungeons full of culture, cities for housing, farms with crops...

Starfall Island is like the most basic, under-developed open world I've seen in a long time, if not ever. It has stuff in it because it needs to have stuff in it. So it's full of trees and rocks and its dotted with settlements that have little to no visible purpose. They're just there to be there.

And all the rails, platforms, and all that other junk is because somebody said "There needs to be something here." Instead of making a world that was both interesting to traverse and interesting to look at, they just cluttered it up with junk until they were confident players wouldn't be bored anymore. It's a mess.