It would appear that my upgraded water bike thing (that’d be “jetski” then) still isn’t nearly fast enough to beat Johnny the Torpedosharkrobot for the remaining Chaos Emeralds.
So, I won’t be getting them any time soon then.
Phew! It’s about time I completed another game. Haven’t completed one in weeks! So there was just one more set of levels (well, aside from repeating a few hidden ones to pick up items I’d seem previously but it wouldn’t let me collect) – the pirate’s base in the old ruins. It was pretty easy, and the face-off with Captain Whisker and Johnny was alarmingly simple.
Of course, there was a reall boss after that – a giant robot thing – who was also easy.
Now, it’d be nice to go and collect all the Chaos Emeralds, just the last three are plainly impossible. I have, however, upgraded my water bike, so that may help matters.
I think I may have done a couple of levels in the wrong order, as the ice level I’ve just finished was not only much easier than Sky Babylon, but also before it in the Stage Select list. The boss was bizarre – a giant metallic whale you smack on the nose before jumping inside and finding what looks like it could be a huge tonsil and smacking that too. Amazing.
It’s also “nice” to see The Laws Of Platform Games in full effect, what with the ice level and all. Now all we need is a mine cart level! Even Super Paper Mario had that.
Bumped into Johnny The Torpedo Shark Robot Thing first of all, but couldn’t beat him. He gets far too far ahead right away, so launching stuff at him doesn’t work (they don’t hit him), and I can’t boost to catch up as he’s too fast. So I gave up on him.
Instead, I explored another couple of islands, and then stumbled across Sky Babylon, which was actually pretty difficult with lots of electro-floor insta-deaths and precision jumping. I found a problem with the jumping too: When you move right, the “viewport” of the screen adjusts to move Sonic further to one side of the screen. This is to allow you to see a bit further ahead when moving at speed. However, if you jump just a little to the right, say, then stop, Sonic appears to jump up, right, then left on his own, before moving to the right again as you stop. Of course, he doesn’t, but it makes difficult jumps harder than they need to be as it feels like you’re been blown backwards.
But finished it in the end, and the boss was pretty ace too, so it wasn’t all bad.
Didn’t play for long as my battery started to go flat. Did find a few more islands, and redid an earlier one to get some more Bronze Material so I could build a hovercraft. Well, so Tails could build it, but anyway.
With that, I found a couple more islands, and can see where I need to go next but didn’t actually attempt to get there due to the battery thing – you don’t want to be losing your game because the power goes off, do you?
After complaining about the backtracking and repeating levels thing on this game in ugvm, I got a reply saying that you don’t need to redo levels so much, if you explore the map and find hidden islands, and do those instead.
So, armed with that advice, I set about finding hidden islands, which did indeed provide a larger quantity of Material needed to build things (in this case, a radio tower) than the proper “story” levels. I had to redo a few of them to get enough, but they’re easier and shorter than the story levels, so that wasn’t really a problem.
Hurrah, eh? That means the game instantly stops being crap and some of my former faith in the Sonic series has been restored! Only some mind – there’s still all them horrid 3D ones…
Anyway. So with the tower built, and Johnny the Shark beaten a further three times (I have four Chaos Emeralds now), I found the next story island, the Ghost Ship one. And killed the far-too-easy boss at the end.
I have come across a major, irritating, and almost game-breaking problem with this game today. I couldn’t progress yesterday as I needed to build a new boat. But I couldn’t build a new boat as I didn’t have enough of the required Material.
The solution? Play levels I’d already played before. Again. And again. Until I’d collected enough to carry on. How annoying!
Then I had to race a shark on sea bikes, and got a Chaos Emerald for my trouble.
Finally (for today), I completed another island and the squid boss, and then bumped into both Eggman (or not?) and Blaze the Cat. Look Sega – STOP PUTTING YOUR STUPID CHARACTERS IN SONIC GAMES. Sonic games should have Sonic, Eggman, and perhaps Knuckles and Metal Sonic. THAT IS ALL. No, not even Tails.
Let me just start with one statement: This is not as good as any of the Megadrive Sonic games, nor is it even on par with Sonic Rush.
However, it isn’t bad. Strangely, it is both alarmingly fast (during actual levels) and painfully slow (the “adventure” chatty story bits) with some mid-speed boating inbetween. Yes, boating.
So far, I’ve played the first two “zones”, beaten two bosses (a dinosaur, and a big robot with swing-ball set), and I have all the “Material” (about which Sonic says “I’ve never heard of this ‘Material‘, which just sounds stupid…) needed for my next boat, and Tails says to ask him to make it, but there’s no option to do so. So I’m stuck. Pff.
Only this time with less emeralds (none, in fact – I didn’t even try) and more speed (achievements for completing Chemical Plant 1 and the whole game quickly – GET!).
I then had a go playing online in VS mode. Oh dear. Whoever hosts, wins. This seems to be a common thing with these Sega XBLA games (see also Streets of Rage 2). If you’re not hosting, there’s a second delay between pressing a button and the action being carried out. This makes the main VS levels really difficult to win as you can’t time jumps properly, but makes the VS Special Stages impossible as you also have the handicap of being Tails, who starts behind Sonic. Rubbish.
Seeing as I’d left Sonic “parked” on Wing Fortress, I wasn’t surprised to finish this almost immediately after starting to play it today. Super Sonic made short work of the boss at the end of Wing Fortress, and Metal Sonic and Eggman proved to be no challenge at all.
However, although I got the achievement for completing the game, I need to go back and do it again, only more quickly! There’s an achievement for doing Chemical Plant 1 in under 45 seconds, and another for doing the game in under an hour. It should be easily gettable, it’s just I spent so long hunting rings on this run through that I spent way too long on it.
Made it up to Wing Fortress without too much difficulty. In fact, the only times I died were due to Super Sonic kicking in and then the floaty-slidey nature of his jumps causing me to fall down holes and stuff. Tch.
Wing Fortress isn’t going too well either, as I keep having to lose my rings on purpose in order to not become Super Sonic!
It was only fairly recently that I completed this for the Wii. So why get it for the 360 as well? Because it’s Sonic, of course! (NB: Rule of “It’s Sonic, of course!” does not apply to Sonic Heroes, Sonic and the Secret Rings or Sonic the Hedgehog 3D)
So I’ve managed to complete Chemical Plant Zone, having nabbed all the Chaos Emeralds before the end of Chemical Plant 1. It really helps not having picked Tails to accompany me. Stupid fox. PUNCH HIM. No lives lost yet either.
It, obviously, is the same as the Wii version, only with slightly wonky controls (the 360 pad isn’t a patch on the Classic Controller) and over sensitive steering on the special stages. But ace!
Picked up the final Chaos Emerald on the first Marble Garden level, and then went on to complete the game!
I only died once, and annoyingly it was a completely avoidable crusher on the very last level. How irritating!
I actually bought this on the Wii’s Virtual Console on Friday when it was released, but apart from a very brief play, I didn’t really get into it right away.
Today, though, I made a proper start on it (which involved deleting my saved state data, as the display was shaking horrifically, in the same way it does with Kid Chameleon, but it’s OK now), and by the end of the second act of Hydrocity Zone I’d already managed 6 of the 7 Chaos Emeralds. Ace!
I finally got round to putting some decent batteries in my PlayPal today, meaning the screen was actually bright and the sound volume audiable. I played Alex Kidd In High Tech World for a bit, but somehow managed to get Game Over without warning so played Triple Trouble instead.
It isn’t actually very good at all. The main problem (and the problem with most of the Game Gear Sonic titles) is the small area of actual level that you see at any one time. You can’t plan ahead much, so can’t see holes coming up, platforms/rings/baddies/TVs etc. above or below, and it’s far too easy to get pranged on unexpected spikes. Sonic’s jump isn’t quite right either, as it’s far too floaty and making slight adjustments to your target landing point whilst mid-jump causes much frustration as you over-steer through no choice of your own.
It’s also rather easy. None of the bosses killed me, bar Eggman at the end, and I only lost a few lives through the rest of the game (mainly on an underwater zone where I kept drowning or getting pranged), and I didn’t use a single continue and had 5 lives remaining at the end.
I’d completely forgotten all about Hill Top Zone and Oil Ocean. I don’t know how, but I had. And isn’t Sonic 2 so much bigger than the original? I remember being slightly disappointed when I first got it, since most zones only had two levels, rather than the three the first game did, but there are so many more zones it doesn’t really matter.
I was really pleased with myself for making it as far as Death Egg without dying, but then Metal Sonic pranged me several times, and since I’d forgotten exactly how to damage Eggman, he killed be a few times too. Bah.
But then I killed him and the world was saved!
Since I enjoyed replaying Sonic the Hedgehog on XBLA so much this week, I decided to buy the sequel on the Wii. Yes, I already own it a jijillion times, but since when did that matter?
And, of course, it’s great.
So far I’m up to the end of Aquatic Ruin. Not had any problems yet, and haven’t died either. Not that there’s an achievement for not dying, as I keep thinking there must be. Bloody Xbox 360-isms.
And not just completed – completed without losing a life! I didn’t really even have to try that hard, actually, although I did nearly plunge to my doom on Scrap Brain Zone 1. Which would have been a bit of a pain. And I almost drowned twice on Scrap Brain Zone 3.
But I did it, which is all that’s important!
Then I went and started again, to try for the Win In 40 Minutes achievement and the Fast Marble achievement. Managed the latter, and am now at Spring Yard Zone 1 with about 7 or 8 minutes “spent”.
No, not the awful recent 3D “masterpiece” that I refuse to buy, but the original Megadrive version, available today on XBLA.
Yes. I already have this game twelventyzillion times. Yes, I have completed it on the Wii since Christmas. Yes. I did buy it. Again.
But it is lovely, see? And this version lets you save your game whenever you want! And there are leaderboards! So it was worth it, yes?
Of course it was.
Anyway. I’m up to Spring Yard Zone 1 so far, and haven’t died yet. And I have all four Chaos Emeralds so far too. And several achievements, including completing the first level in under 30 seconds. Hurrah for Sonic, and, especially, hurrah for a Sonic game without annoying sidekicks!
Look. I want to like it, I really do, but I can’t make myself like it. There’s just something fundamentally wrong with it.
Firstly, you don’t have much control of Sonic. You can veer (not even steer) left and right, and speed up and slow down. And jump. That’s it. Actually, you don’t really have a huge amount of control over jumping either, since you can’t choose a direction to jump in. You have to “charge” your jump to jump higher, which is rubbish as you slow down as you charge, which means you can have height, but no distance.
Secondly, the way you perform homing attacks is stupid. You have to twist the remote forwards quickly, and often you do this in quick succession. Why can’t I just press a button? It’d be so much better.
And then there’s the other problems. The awful “missions” – like “Don’t break any jars!”. The can’t-see-what’s-coming-next gameplay (on the dinosaur level, I just kept running into cacti simply because I’m not psychic. And multiplayer? Just… dull.
Oh yes! And the worst voice acting ever!
And there’s more! Some of the on-screen instructions (especially in multiplayer) are wrong! Aces!
I’m most of the way through Dinosaur Forest, and I’m really not sure if I can bring myself to play any more.
I… I don’t know what to say.
It’s awful. Really, really awful.
This makes me sad.
How strange that the first game I complete on the my new Wii console, is the first console games I ever owned. Well, one of two – I got Altered Beast on the same day, but that doesn’t count…
So I managed to make up for missing out on two Chaos Emeralds by carefully getting to the end of the remaining Acts with 50 or more rings, and got myself all six emeralds by the time I’d done Starlight Zone Act 2. Just as well – that’s the last chance you get at trying for them.
And then I completed it. Although I’ve completed it about a million times before, this was the first time I’ve done it in at least a couple of years, and the first time with all the emeralds in even longer.
Played through a bit more this morning. I’m up to Act 1 of Labyrinth Zone now. Chaos Emerald hunting isn’t going as well as I’d hoped – I’ve only got three so far.
No. WRONG.
Remember my rants about all that was horrid with Sonic Heroes? This could actually be worse. NO.
Had just one attempt this time, and it was enough! Was out of rings with just one hit left to land, and I although I had no idea what he was doing, he pretty much killed himself. EXCELLENTIA.
So, he’s defeated, the cut scene with the now traditional Amy-chases-Sonic bit was shown, and then the credits rolled.
As well as being completed, Sonic Rush marks the 52nd game I’ve completed since I started this gaming diary back in January. That’s 52 games in less than 52 weeks. I do play a lot of games, don’t I? 
