48 replies to this topic

[AtariJr]

I really want this game.. here is a new video thats out for it, and some of the levels look really nice.. love the sweeking sneakers in the shiney title hall.

http://media.wii.ign...277/vids_1.html

Is the release date still TBA? I really want to know when this comes out... if anyone has any intel please tell me.

Edited by AtariJr, Sat Feb 3, 2007 9:14 PM.

[Mendon]

Still set for release on Feb. 27th as far as I know.

I've watched several video's of the game and read several "hands on" reports and I'm honestly beginning to think that Sega just might have gotten it right this time, unlike the piece of crap "Sonic the Hedgehog" recently released for the 360 & PS3.

I'm planning on buying Secret Rings.


Mendon

[AtariJr]

yea, i was scared too after the 360 version.. but , idk, this is how i always envisioned sonic in 3d, kinda reminds me of a camer behind the back Kirby 64.. make it 3d, but still "on rails" type of thing.

[AtariJr]

So i found this at Best Buy today.. no copies at Wal Mart, like 35 at Best Buy.. was going to get it yesterday but i didnt have time. Ive played it all night now and I have to say, once again, i hate IGN.

Why you ask? Oh, how about them saying zelda TP is the best zelda ever giving it a 9.5, when ocarina got 10... or howabout them saying this is the best 3D sonic.. yet, Rush, Rivals, and Heroes got better scores.. they should really not open thier mouth before saying stupid things... like oh, the fact that they complained about the camera LOL, when you dont controll it.. its like saying the camera is bad in star fox... ummm..

Anywho, now that i got that out of my system, this is Wii game #9 for me. And, while its no Zelda, its ranking pretty high in my mind in the fun department. Bad things out of the way first, the controlls are a bit stiff at first. However, honestly, just like Excite Truck or even Red Steel (but not that bad ) just give the game some time poeple.. after your done iwth the first 2-3 real levels youll be playin like a pro. Other than that , your traction, air speed, and acceleration are "leveled up" through out the game with experience points, kinda like an rpg. Also, you pick what difficulty you want ahead of time. So no more D rank or A rank at the end.. you pick what rank you want to go for .. and do it.

Good things, first of all, HOORAY for imagination.. cuase sonic team seams to have found some... finally. The levels are really nice and detailed.. and they arent the typical sonic fair. I must say the graphics are pretty nice. Every once in a while youll encounter a texture thats a tad blurry, but i usually only notice these when im stopped and not moving. Other wise good use of light and what not as well. The levels are varied, giving you objectives from the start... ie, dont break the pots, dont die, collect rings, time trials, etc. This is nice, as its not the "just get to the end after dieing 5 times" sonic play that we are all accustomed to. To spice levels up your get anything from river log rides, dino attacks, carpet rides etc in the middle of the level to spice it up. When i first saw vids i was really worried they would do "a carpet level" or "a log ride level".. but thankfully its just put in in the middle, beginning , or end.. not consuming the whole level. The bosses use the "pounce on the weak spot" mentality, but are FAR more creative then the boring and often repetitive Sonic Rush, which ironically got a much better score than this game. This is also not easy. You will have to restart levels (shock) and do them again. Which reminds me of Red Steel in a way, its a challenge.. which, im not complaining about, as its not throw the controller on the ground hard, just good old fashioned gaming. Most "hard" levels you will get after a 2-4 tries. Different abilities are given to you as you "level up" as well... its a cute idea, and , while not a full rpg, at least gives you variety as you move along.

Voice acting... ok, ive learned from the past to NEVER have english voices on.. i didnt even try them, so you all can torture yourselves, i put it to japanese form the start ((btw, its really cool that they gave us back this option.. it WASNT in heroes and that pissed me off)). Speaking of speaking, the japanese is done SO well.. its VERY professional sounding.. and i recognize that little girl's voice from an anime.. im looking into it. The cutscenes are done elebits style but with comic strip esk movement to it.. and it works really well, and im happy they did it to make it not seem like you just jump level to level.

Multiplayer. Some of the games are pretty fun, some of them are "wait.. what am i doing?". in fact, i found that most of the games that i played through the first time around, the instructions were SO bad, you were half way through the mini game before you realy knoew what to do. That aside its really fun once you know what to do. There are varied areas, each with differnt challenges to go through the mini games, so its nice and varied.. thank you Sega. Its no Mario Party, but for something that they shoved in there as a bonus, it near rivals in fun, and its 1000 times better than any mulitplayer expereince they put in the adventure 2 battle game.

So.. i believe that about covers it.. what would i rank this. hmm.. 8.5 probably. Once again ign has a bug up thier ass and seems to be dead beat in hating every 3d sonic.. w/e, look at the user reviews.. no 6's or belows.. most are 8, 9, and 10. and its true. its a nice game, its not your typical 3d sonic and thats a VERY good thing. in fact, if the next sonic games dont use this controll , ill be dead shocked. Expect sonic games to once again be more on the nintendo systems than the others now, just becuase it works that much better. Its finally what ive been saying all along.. make a 3d sonic thats 2dified... and they did it welll. its how it shoudl have been all along.

Pick the game up, you wont regret it.. it will give your other games some dust to collect so they seem more special when you come back to them (sorry zelda and red steel, ill come back .. promise..)

Edited by AtariJr, Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:35 PM.

[Zoop]

ign ,and other commerical review sites have been really hard on Wii games so i don't put much in their opinions of wii games i just buy what i want. I wouldnt have what i have if i listened to them. I plan on getting this as soon as i can.

[Mendon]

I agree with just about everything you said, AtariJr. I bought Sonic, am maybe an hour into it, and enjoying it alot!

One question for you: does the game seem to be more of a "driving" game to you than a "Sonic" game?

It does to me and I'm thinking that the reason I'm noticing it is because of the vast amount of time I've spent playing Excite Truck. I'm using the controller the exact same way that I do in Excite Truck and I just can't shake the feeling that with Sonic moving all the time and my "steering" him around the levels that I'm playing a driving game.




Mendon

[figgler]

Zoop, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:06 AM, said:

ign ,and other commerical review sites have been really hard on Wii games so i don't put much in their opinions of wii games i just buy what i want. I wouldnt have what i have if i listened to them. I plan on getting this as soon as i can.

Exactly. Hell I even bought Shadow the Hedgehog so obviously I am not too picky when it comes to Sonic

[jbanes]

For those of you who haven't seen it, there are gameplay videos on Youtube:

Watching through a gaming session, I can say that there are some things that appeal to me about this game, and others that don't. There is one thing in specific that I find appealing: This game is fast. As in, Roller Coaster, Formula 1, loop-de-loop, FAST. Thank God that the Sonic Team finally got that through their heads.

That being said, I think the Sonic team needs a bullet through the "creative story telling" part of their heads. The poorly acted dialog pretty much tells the entire story:

"Someone is magically controlling those pillars!"
"Sonic, you can get the Pearl by defeating that spirit!"
"Watch out, the red spirits can breath fire."
"Press the 2 button to get off the Flying Pot." (Flying Pot? *snicker*)
"Make sure to tilt the Wii Remote side to side very carefully here."

I'm sorry, but having some sort of fairy speak dialog that sounds like something my younger sister would record, all while playing rock music in the background, adds up to a big, fat, ugly, WTF? Oh, and "magic"? "Spirits"? I thought this was a Sonic game, not an advert for Final Fantasy!

Sonic was fun, in part, because it was cool. Adding rock music does not automatically make you cool. Having whiney dialog definitely does not make you cool. Replacing awesome robots, lava, and flying machines with "magic spirits" is the ultimate in uncool.

I've harped on this before, but they never should have ignored the SatAM material. Rather than having some whiney fairy, I'd much rather be hearing Sally over the radio. Not only could she emote, but she could actually provide a bit of immersion. Rather than hearing, "Sonic, you can get the Pearl by defeating that spirit!" I'd much rather hear, "Sonic! There should be a bot right ahead of you! I need you to destroy it, it has a Pearl in it that you'll need!" To which Sonic could reply something actually witty. You know, like, "A Pearl? What, am I not shiny enough for you?" Such dialog could even be extended out into humorous banter that helps keep the player in the game.

Unfortunately, I know it's never going to happen. The Sonic Team is just going to keep dunking Sonic's head in the toilet, with no regard for the rich material they left behind.

*DUNK*
"Give us money!"
*DUNK*
"Give us money!"
*DUNK*
"Give us money!"
*DUNK*
(You get the idea. )

[FujiSkunk]

jbanes, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:16 AM, said:

That being said, I think the Sonic team needs a bullet through the "creative story telling" part of their heads. The poorly acted dialog pretty much tells the entire story:

In all fairness, Sonic Team probably didn't have much control over the English voice acting. One of my very few complaints about Sonic Adventure was the voice acting. The Japanese voice acting seemed a little better. Not much better, but a little.

Quote

I've harped on this before, but they never should have ignored the SatAM material. Rather than having some whiney fairy, I'd much rather be hearing Sally over the radio.

Sonic Team did not create the characters from that show beyond Sonic, Tails and Dr. Robotnik Eggman, and therefore probably do not have legal permission to use them. I've heard Sally made an appearance in Sonic Spinball, but that wasn't a Sonic Team creation anyway, and to get permission to use any of those characters again probably would create more legal red tape than Sega and Sonic Team probably would want to deal with.

Besides, North America is the only area where those characters had any sort of popularity in the first place. All of Japan's offerings have stuck to the same canon as the video games, while Europe was treated to yet another comic book series with yet another cast of supporting characters (ever heard of Kintobor, Johnny Lightfoot or the Fundamental Four?). Only the characters that first appeared in Sonic Team's video games have any sort of awareness around the entire world.

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Not only could she emote, but she could actually provide a bit of immersion.

You're assuming they would hire a decent voice actress and give decent direction. They apparently didn't with any of the other characters, so why should Sally be an exception?

I'm excited to hear people are liking this one. Now I definitely have to get a Wii.

Edited by skunkworx, Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:36 PM.

[jbanes]

Quote

Dr. Robotnik Eggman,

^Pet Peeve, ho! It's Robotnik, not Eggman! And I don't care what anyone else says, least of all the original Japanese version of the game.

skunkworx, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:35 PM, said:

Sonic Team did not create the characters from that show beyond Sonic, Tails and Dr. Robotnik Eggman, and therefore probably do not have legal permission to use them. I've heard Sally made an appearance in Sonic Spinball, but that wasn't a Sonic Team creation anyway, and to get permission to use any of those characters again probably would create more legal red tape than Sega and Sonic Team probably would want to deal with.

Perhaps. But I have little doubt that buying off perpetual rights for a few of the characters would have been the right move. The SatAM universe was a lot richer than the one they've developed for the 3D games. It would have been worth any difficulties they might have experienced. Especially since they're now licensing a whole bunch of crud relating to the (truly terrible) Sonic X.

Even if they ignored SatAM, they had a much richer "Mobius planet" background in the US localizaton than the Sonic X derived stuff has provided. I don't suppose you remember the promotional Sonic comic that had Dr. Robotnik as a good guy who gave Sonic his red shoes?

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Besides, North America is the only area where those characters had any sort of popularity in the first place. All of Japan's offerings have stuck to the same canon as the video games

IMHO, that was not a problem. From what I understand, the early Sonic games were more popular in the US than in Japan. The changeover to the Anime Sonic may have improved the Japanese audience, but it did so at the expense of the American audience. We liked having the games localized for us!

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Quote

Not only could she emote, but she could actually provide a bit of immersion.

You're assuming they would hire a decent voice actress and give decent direction. They apparently didn't with any of the other characters, so why should Sally be an exception?

The actors voicing the roles in the 3D Sonic games are the 4Kids actors who did the redubs of Sonic X. I don't see why they couldn't hire the SatAM actors. Especially since the Princess Sally actress is still doing video game work. (She was the goth chick in Tomb Raider: Legends.)

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

You may all hate me...but I kinda like the Sonic X universe of things now. And I like the Sonic X series in general...

So...the only voice acting I have a problem with is the Djinn's themselves in the game. At least Sonic and most of the rest sound familiar to how I have heard them speak lately. And I never could stand the fact that Urkel was doing Sonic's voice in the SatAM series...ugh...

Now...my take on the game.

In a word...I love the idea of the game...but I'm still not sold on the controls. I don't know if maybe I'm just now learning that my button 2 isn't working right or what. But I have a heck of a time with the jumping in this game. I have the steering control down pretty well, but I can't get the jumps to work correctly. I press 2..and Sonic will act as if I'm pressing the 2 button quickly. He will basically squat, stand, squat, stand rapidly. I have to really press down on it hard to get him to stand the hell still to do a real jump?! I might try playing it later with my other remote to see if it is just me or the remote.

The graphics...are simply incredible?! Before this, I felt that Luigi's mansion and StarFox Adventures had some of the best Cube like graphics. But Sonic is defenitely a step above anything I ever saw on a Cube. Most of the textures are still somewhat blurry up close, but the water and particle effects are just insane. Also I haven't ever seen Sonic himself look this good?!

I'm not all about the graphics though. I really don't like the music and wish they would sorta bring back the old style almost techno like beats from the earliest games.

This is easily the best 3D Sonic I have ever played and as I stayed I like the idea on how it all plays out. I just don't care for the crap music and odd control mechanics. I almost wish they had left an option to use the nunchuk to control sonic with and just had you flick the remote to jump or something. Probably would have worked better.

Also the constant changing of how you hold the remote for the minigames is also annoying. Not the way you hold it for the minigames themselves as this is almost like Wario in that respect. But the fact that it keeps reminding me to turn it sideways again when not playing the minigame. Just annoying...and probably just me...hehe...

Great stuff overall though, I'm just disappointed that the EB games I picked it up from didn't have any of the wrist bands for the preorders. Then again, I only preordered mine on Tuesday...hehe...

[Tempest]

-^Cro§Bow^-, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:52 PM, said:

You may all hate me...but I kinda like the Sonic X universe of things now. And I like the Sonic X series in general...

Ok I hate you.

Tempest

[jbanes]

Tempest, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:55 PM, said:

-^Cro§Bow^-, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:52 PM, said:

You may all hate me...but I kinda like the Sonic X universe of things now. And I like the Sonic X series in general...

Ok I hate you.

Tempest

I'll get the rope, you find a tree.

[figgler]

-^Cro§Bow^-, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 6:52 PM, said:

I really don't like the music and wish they would sorta bring back the old style almost techno like beats from the earliest games.

This is the second time now people haven't like the music much. Is it very different from recent Sonic games? I know it is cheesy, but the over-the-top goofy japanese tunes in Heroes and the Adventure games, and Sonic Rush too actually were all pretty awesome in my view.
Awesome as in appropriate and ridiculously catchy, not awesome like I want the CD.
Even though I secretly do.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Rush does have good tunes..and some of the tunes in the Sonic Adventure games were okay...but I didn't care for Heroes tunes much and from what I have heard of Sonic Secret Rings...I don't like the background much on this one either.

Granted I'm still on Dinosaur world..or whatever..it's called still. I do like how the missions open up and your able to go back to other places you visited with new goals in mind based on the new abilities you aquire. This keeps some variety to the game and seems to add some replay to it as well.

[AtariJr]

no i dont think its like a driving game. i have excite truck too... if i fifnt have to slow down so much and fight eneimes i might agree with you... other than that , no, its very much an adventure game..just on rails

[FujiSkunk]

jbanes, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:36 PM, said:

skunkworx, on Thu Feb 22, 2007 1:35 PM, said:

Dr. Robotnik Eggman,

^Pet Peeve, ho! It's Robotnik, not Eggman! And I don't care what anyone else says, least of all the original Japanese version of the game.

Take it up with the Team.

Quote

Quote

... to get permission to use any of those characters again probably would create more legal red tape than Sega and Sonic Team probably would want to deal with.

Perhaps. But I have little doubt that buying off perpetual rights for a few of the characters would have been the right move. The SatAM universe was a lot richer than the one they've developed for the 3D games. It would have been worth any difficulties they might have experienced. Especially since they're now licensing a whole bunch of crud relating to the (truly terrible) Sonic X.

Even if they ignored SatAM, they had a much richer "Mobius planet" background in the US localizaton than the Sonic X derived stuff has provided. I don't suppose you remember the promotional Sonic comic that had Dr. Robotnik as a good guy who gave Sonic his red shoes?

I can't say that I do, though it wouldn't surprise me. If I recall, that was also a plot point in the British comic, where Robotnik was a good guy before something happened to make him become evil.

But anyway, keep in mind that, except for non-Sonic-Team games like Sonic Spinball, the Sonic games have never incorporated any character that originally appeared outside of the games. Furthermore, Sonic Team has always done what they wanted, and left the localizing to the marketing departments of whatever Sega division was trying to sell the game. Specifically, the "Americanization" of Sonic that we saw came from Sega of America's marketing department, which Archie and DiC then picked up and expanded on. Since then, the apparent "re-Japanization" of the game is again being driven by Sega's marketing. You may not like it, but anime is in now, thanks to the success of things like Pokemon and Hayao Miyazaki movies, and the marketeers are reacting accordingly.

But marketing aside, the Sonic Team games themselves have a definite consistency to them, from the first all the way up until the most recent.

Quote

Quote

You're assuming they would hire a decent voice actress and give decent direction. They apparently didn't with any of the other characters, so why should Sally be an exception?

The actors voicing the roles in the 3D Sonic games are the 4Kids actors who did the redubs of Sonic X. I don't see why they couldn't hire the SatAM actors. Especially since the Princess Sally actress is still doing video game work.

Sometimes it's a matter of location. The 3D games that came out before "Sonic X", including Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, actually have an entirely different cast. Ryan Drummond, the American voice of Sonic in those games, wanted very much to be a part of the American dub for "Sonic X", but 4Kids only wanted to use talent local to their New York City headquarters.

[AtariJr]

just got the the first level of Pirate Storm... what an awesome level.. and HUGE. i really wonder how there is no framerate drop in this game.. KUDOS. Everything from jumping huge gaps, enemeis, rain, awesome looking waves, riding a cannon ball through the air, and riding huge waves on a piece of wood, all while avoiding cannon fire from all around you.. best level yet by far.. loving this game.

Edited by AtariJr, Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:22 PM.

[ewing92]

instead of SatAM, i would prefer Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog people, and what ever happended to Mobius? Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is my favorite becasue when i was little, the age of 4 i got sonic 2, and then when i was around five, i was flipping through the channels and then seen sonic on tv and was like OMFG!! it's sonic!!! Wait a minute...................................................................................................................................................................whoa. What if that was the SatAM series? i looked it up on wikipedia a minute ago and seen Sally, and was like that looks familiar, well, i may have just put two and two together, and (i only caught a few episodes) but i think it was the SatAM series, and tehn the ADvenutres series a little after that so i must've thought that that was what i seen. Wow, i always wondered why i never seen the "pink girl" in the adventures of STH series....thank you for creating this thread, and letting me know the truth!

[FujiSkunk]

ewing92, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 5:41 PM, said:

instead of SatAM, i would prefer Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog people, and what ever happended to Mobius? Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog is my favorite becasue when i was little, the age of 4 i got sonic 2, and then when i was around five, i was flipping through the channels and then seen sonic on tv and was like OMFG!! it's sonic!!! Wait a minute... whoa. What if that was the SatAM series?

"The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" was a syndicated weekday afternoon cartoon that originally aired at the same time as the Saturday morning ABC cartoon, which was called simply "Sonic the Hedgehog." If you saw Sally, then you probably were watching "Sonic the Hedgehog."

Most people think the Saturday series, which featured Sally, Rotor and Bunnie, was good, while the weekday afternoon show, which featured Scratch and Grounder, was complete crap.

I happen to be one of those people, but of course that's just my humble opinion.

Incidentally, does anyone else think Sonic and the Secret Rings sounds like a rejected Harry Potter title?

Edited by skunkworx, Sat Feb 24, 2007 9:41 PM.

[BydoEmpire]

I agree with Crossbow for the most part. I played about 4 hours (3 hours adventue, 1 hour of minigames). The only voice acting that was REALLY bad (even by Sonic standards) was the Erazor Djinn. The other stuff was pretty much what I'd expect.

Anyways, I think the controls are serviceable and will take some getting used to. For the most part they work. But I found myself dying a bunch of times because I'd be right up next to an enemy - too close to jump high enough to get a lock on to attack - and unable to do anything about it except get hit over and over until my coins ran out. I also didn't like the 'walking backwards' mechanic. I don't think it adds anything to the game and it's pretty awkward. There was one section where I was on a circular platform with three plants I had to kill to beat the level, and trying to get behind them was really frustrating - it's like the game tries to move you forward even though you're walking backwards, so you move in some random direction. And the camera is totally fubar'd when you're moving backwards. IMHO, this is more of a racer, and they shouldn't have put in anything that requires you to move backwards. Sonic also accelerates EXTREMELY slowly, and comes to a dead stop when you hit an enemy. It kind of throws off my rhythm in the game. On the other hand, you don't have to play very long before the controls improve...

A pet peeve of mine is when games are designed with gimped and unresponsive controls at the start, and the player has to play through an hour of a poorly-controlling game to unlock what it should have been from the start. Good control should not be an 'unlockable'.

Despite that, it doesn't make the game unplayable. As you power up it gets better. Attacking enemies works well, provided you're far enough away to get a lock. It took me a little while to get a handle on the short and tall jumping, but now I really like the way they did it.

On the plus side, I also think the levels are pretty creative and fun. I was worried that doing missions over and over on the same world would get repetetive, but they did a nice job of splitting out lots of different courses in each world. Each world seems to feel big and varied, even though multiple missions will frequently take you across the same ground. The straightforward 'collect 99 coins' and 'defeat 10 enemies' missions play the best, imho, but some of the other ones like 'bring the eggs to the nests' were a nice twist. Although with that one, I ran around the course over and over and over trying to find the 3rd egg. It did not exist. Then I fell in the water, and when I respawned, there it was! Reminiscent of Sonic R, I found the missions with looping courses to be confusing. I often had to run around the loop half a dozen times before I figured out where I could go.

I also really liked the power up system, where your unlocked powers are assigned to your magic ring. Each power costs a certain amount of points, and the total points worth your ring can hold goes up as you level up. it definitely adds a little layer of strategy (i.e. for one mission I might want powers X, Y and Z, but for some other mission I might want A, B and C).

The presentation is solid. The game looks great in-game - everything is colorful, detailed, and moves quickly. The menus look good, and are nicely functional (no awful Monkey-Ball controller tilting here). The comic-style cut scenes are well done (voice acting aside) and the art style is pretty cool. I really wish they had gone with a more classic Arabian-themed soundtrack, as the traditional Sonic Cheese Metal does not fit the game at all.

I played the minigames for a bit, and while the 'board game' setup isn't ideal if you're playing by yourself, the actual games themselves are generally really good. With default settings, it took almost an HOUR to finish one game of Genie's Lair. That's ridiculous for a bunch of minigames. To be fair, there are options, so I probably could have adjusted the rules for the game. I really wanted to play to 10 points or something, instead of playing until I opened ALL the chests. Hopefully that option is there (I didn't poke around much). Regardless, it seems like it would be a really fun party game with four people. As for the minigames themselves, I particularly liked the canoe racing, the fruit-on-the-sword kabab game, shaking the chests to hear the coins, and pulling the rugs out from under the djinn. The only one I though controlled really poorly was the 'tilt the mirror to see the djinn'.

Sonic is very similar to Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam - in both mission setup and controls. THDJ is a much tighter and more polished game, so you might want to consider that. But Sonic has some interesting twists with the power up system and unique missions, and the minigames.

Edited by BydoEmpire, Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:08 PM.

[jbanes]

skunkworx, on Sat Feb 24, 2007 9:39 PM, said:

Most people think the Saturday series, which featured Sally, Rotor and Bunnie, was good, while the weekday afternoon show, which featured Scratch and Grounder, was complete crap.

I wouldn't go that far. Adventures was more of a kids comedy show, while SatAM was a more serious drama for kids. (With the requisite Star Wars overtones.) They both had their pluses, but SatAM was obviously a far richer source to develop from. Certainly, the characters fit into the original Sonic style a lot better than the wacko "Amy", "Blaze the Cat", and "Silver" characters. Not to mention the current "furry" overtones.

Quote

Incidentally, does anyone else think Sonic and the Secret Rings sounds like a rejected Harry Potter title?

I thought that Wild Fire was a much better name, but I guess Sega legal got cold feet. Stupid legal.

[AtariJr]

if you play the game Wildfire is a horribly cheesy title, and Secret Rings goes much more with what the game is really about, instead of just the stupid little arrow thats in your chest put there by genie guy.

anywho, the controlls are SOO much better than that ive been leveling up, and ive seen some really cool power ups. its kinda bad that they made the controlls so stiff in teh beginning which i think worried some people when they played it (or in the case of IGN where i swear they only play games for 30 min before writing a review, said the controll in the whole game was horrible -_-), but its nice to see that they knew what they were doing with leveling him up.. and it actually matters to the gameplay.

[BydoEmpire]

So I was ready to smash the wiimote this morning. I had only one available stage, and I could NOT get past it - the "Race Uhru" stage in the Dinosaur level. I swear I played it twenty times and couldn't even get close. For some reason I never noticed that the screen where you select which ring to use is the difficulty select (A-D). I managed to beat the level on C, and even then I had to have a near-perfect run.

The first level of the Floating City of the Dead was incredibly frustrating as well. The windy area right at the beginning is ridiculous. I found myself missing the zip pad, and then getting stuck in a little loop of getting pushed back by the wind, into the zip pad, forward into the wind, back to the zip pad, etc. over and over and over. Sloppy things like that are why I just couldn't get into Sonic Adventure, but at least in SatSR it doesn't zip you through a wall to your death. Shortly thereafter in the same level, there are three zip rings in succession that send you from one ot the next. I must have tried that series of jumps a dozen times. Getting the right timing was really hard, and I seemed to get past it based on sheer luck, rather than any improvement on my part. Then the rest of the level (which is pretty long) felt mostly like playing on autopilot. I don't know... I *do* like the game... but I definitely understand the criticisms. Like AtariJr says, the controls definitely get better as the game goes on, but the game as a whole doesn't feel polished at all.

[AtariJr]

BydoEmpire, on Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:53 AM, said:

So I was ready to smash the wiimote this morning. I had only one available stage, and I could NOT get past it - the "Race Uhru" stage in the Dinosaur level. I swear I played it twenty times and couldn't even get close. For some reason I never noticed that the screen where you select which ring to use is the difficulty select (A-D). I managed to beat the level on C, and even then I had to have a near-perfect run.

The first level of the Floating City of the Dead was incredibly frustrating as well. The windy area right at the beginning is ridiculous. I found myself missing the zip pad, and then getting stuck in a little loop of getting pushed back by the wind, into the zip pad, forward into the wind, back to the zip pad, etc. over and over and over. Sloppy things like that are why I just couldn't get into Sonic Adventure, but at least in SatSR it doesn't zip you through a wall to your death. Shortly thereafter in the same level, there are three zip rings in succession that send you from one ot the next. I must have tried that series of jumps a dozen times. Getting the right timing was really hard, and I seemed to get past it based on sheer luck, rather than any improvement on my part. Then the rest of the level (which is pretty long) felt mostly like playing on autopilot. I don't know... I *do* like the game... but I definitely understand the criticisms. Like AtariJr says, the controls definitely get better as the game goes on, but the game as a whole doesn't feel polished at all.

sigh.. poor poor you.. dude.. its not difficulty settings, if you read my review i thought the same thing. hit customize when you clikc on a ring, you can use all that crap youve been collecting to make you better, includign SHOCK acceleration and speed boosts. this isnt even in the instruction booklet so it was poorly explained by sega. each of these rings are just like slots for a game save.. not difficulty settings.. if you get a bronze medal in something thats it, its not bronze for class c or d. i had the same issue on that stage..and others, but when i realized what the rings actually DID they were almost too easy. try it the right way, the controll and what not on the game SEVERELY improves.