The hustle and bustle of the New York Comic Con is over and my buddy, Keith, finally sent me back his impressions of the game. Nobody here at TSS is anywhere close to New York, so this reach-around method of getting some semblence of a “TSS Preview” will have to do. Keith is an old friend of mine from grade school and we were teammates on many a hockey team. He moved out to New York a few months ago after he graduated. When it comes to his Sonic background, he hasn’t played a game in the series since the Dreamcast launched with Sonic Adventure 1. I told him to rent Sonic & the Secret Rings before heading to the event and he thought that it was an “O.K.” game.
The second entry in the Storybook Series of games takes Sonic and plonks him into the land of dragons, knights, and the round table. Keith’s first impression of the game is Sonic’s inclusion. He couldn’t get his mind around why he was playing as Sonic and not as somebody else, as it’s not totally clear why. He mentioned “Wonderboy,” since one of his favorite games is Wonderboy in Monster Land, as an alternative, but that’s another discussion. One factor contributing to the game’s identity crisis is the yellow fairies. Instead of rings, you collect yellow fairies, which then get converted into rings. Why not just make them RINGS?
With Secret Rings fresh in Keith’s mind, he got a good comparison of how the two control. Black Knight showcased the superior of the two control schemes, but it wasn’t without a few drawbacks. Black Knight ditches the on-rails shenanigans of the previous title and opts for a Nunchuk+Wiimote system. The “A” button acts as jump and the sword swinging is assigned to the waggle function, similar to Twilight Princess. While it’s nice to get that big “A” button in on the action, Keith said that he got wanker’s cramp after his time at the Black Knight kiosk. He noted, “Sonic slicing things at high speeds is cool, I guess, but it wears on you after a while. Not mentally…physically.”
As I mentioned before, this game is no longer on-rails and you can move Sonic forward and backward as you please. Despite having freedom of motion, the levels on display were rather linear and forced the player into playing how the designer intended you to. Granted, he got to play one of the earlier levels, but I can wager that the rest of the game will follow suit. To make up for level linearity, you can go back and complete different tasks within each level. Let’s hope that the controls are good enough, so that “complete the level without taking a hit” isn’t next to impossible. In addition, SatBK has a deep, RPG system, similar to Secret Rings, and a multi-player battle mode. Keith didn’t get to experience the latter.
Remember when I asked everybody to “place their bets?” Well, Sonic’s pals are back masquerading as other Arthurian characters. Seriously, Knuckles better say something totally stupid. I bet people who make “YouTube Poop” are wishing the same. The difference this time is that you will be able to play as a few of those characters, but Keith said that the SEGA rep at the kiosk did not disclose who.
To end on the highest of notes, Keith was impressed by the graphics. As a frustrated Wii owner, he really thought that Black Knight’s graphics were some of the best on the system. There was no hiccup or lag during his experience to boot.
Well, that’s it for Keith. Feel free to accuse him of not being a “true Sonic fan” or some other bullshit that you kids like to hurl at people who have a shred of dislike for anything Sonic related. You guys always preach “open-mindedness,” but you totally contradict yourself when you shut others down. If you post any of that crap in the comments box, I will delete it, because it’s not relevant to discussion.
This is your warning. We are changing the air in the community and it starts now. Everybody is welcome to their own opinion.
” Feel free to accuse him of not being a “true Sonic fan” or some other bullshit that you kids like to hurl at people who have a shred of dislike for anything Sonic related. You guys always preach “open-mindedness,” but you totally contradict yourself when you shut others down. If you post any of that crap in the comments box, I will delete it, because it’s not relevant to discussion.
This is your warning. We are changing the air in the community and it starts now. Everybody is welcome to their own opinion.”
Holy shit. I can only thank you so much, as I myself have gotten just sick of all this hatred against modern Sonic, because no matter what the quality of the games actually are, people seem to just compare them to the older games, instead of reviewing them off their own merits. And I’ve gotten really tired of seeing that sort of bias or viewpoint if you will, on this site every time I check in.
Anyways, the game looks pretty good, about a billion times better than Secret Rings (which is good) and I actually think the sword mechanic looks really cool.
Kinda short for a preview… But I learned there’s no lag 😛
I think it’s good that he’s not a “true sonic fan” as you say; it makes him a far less biased source. I find it sad that it’s become expected of the community to react so viciously to anything that seems even remotely like an insult to Sonic.
Anyway, I found it funny when he said that he’s confused as to why it’s starring Sonic. Not that I disagree with him; I just find it funny how even people beyond the core fanbase even are beginning to view the series as becoming very different from what it used to be.
I will say that whether it turns out to be a good game or not, I can’t say I oppose the idea of Sonic swordplay in the slightest. We are used to swordplay in video games, but not blended with the high speeds Sonic plays at, so I’m curious to see how well these two forms of gameplay will mix, tiring as it may be. If it is tiring, maybe they should have added alternative controls like they did in Wii’s Unleashed.
And yellow fairies? Wut?
I want to try this game out for myself. I also agree about bias reviews, they shouldn’t even exist, but they do. Let’s do a simple problem: replace Sonic with another VG character not within the Sonic franchise, and it gets great scores, now put in Sonic, and critics call it crap for some unknown reason.
So far it’s looking like what I’m expecting. Nothing amazing, but something to tide us all over. I don’t think the bk is gonna be an epic phail or anything, but I’m not expecting something amazing either. Either way, I won’t really be able to decide anything until I get some hands on action with the controls.
Looking foward to it even more now! Except for the fairies. Who do they think the main character is? Tingle!?
just so everyone knows, you can be knuckles, shadow, or blaxe in multi, it was featured in Nintendo Power some monthes ago… anyways, this game looks great,
Actually SpeedSpiegel, he’s referring to when people get bashed for saying anything negative about a sonic game.
Anyways, with my deep hatred of Unleashed out of the way, I’ve been kind of looking forward to this. Video gameplay looks nice, but from the sounds of it it’ll only be good for one playthrough, and maybe some challenges if they’re decent. A few things about it sound really messed up though. Seriously, yellow fairies? The only reason I’d ever collect fairies in a game would be to lure in Navi with them and then bash her chattermouth skull in.
All in all, it’s looking decent, but will probably be a rent-only for me.
YAY!!! NO RAILS AND AWESOME GRAPHICS AND NO LAG! I’m starting to fall in love again. *sniffle*
Not on rails? The graphics are decent? I might actually play this. Thanks for the info!
I`m happy to hear now that we can move the charathers freely & A to jump & waggle the wii remote to acttack that seems okay … I can`t wait to play 🙂 (Thank god Sonic doesn`t get a little fairy like Link did )
If he gets tired from just afew swings of the Wii-mote then he kinda needs to toughen up…
i for one played the game aswell. its controls i admit was a little hard for me and getting sonic to go back was a pain. but with a little more hands on it could be very good. it being a sequel to scret rings should already be a plus seeing how SR did very well(atleast compare to…uknow)so it should be good. it might make u ask y sonic it could be anyone else but the point is that it is sonic so who cares about anyone else XD ll
HOLAS: ™
i kinda like to see a “neutral opinion”…. good to see there is no lag (even with that awesome graphics)
also i must quote this:
*************************************************************************
The second entry in the Storybook Series of games takes Sonic and plonks him into the land of dragons, knights, and the round table. Keith’s first impression of the game is Sonic’s inclusion. He couldn’t get his mind around why he was playing as Sonic and not as somebody else, as it’s not totally clear why. He mentioned “Wonderboy,” since one of his favorite games is Wonderboy in Monster Land, as an alternative, but that’s another discussion. One factor contributing to the game’s identity crisis is the yellow fairies. Instead of rings, you collect yellow fairies, which then get converted into rings. Why not just make them RINGS?
*************************************************************************
he had almost the same thoughs i had when i “watched” (never played, and probably never will) this game…. (except for the wonderboy thing xD)
“why sonic?”
i think this game (and the whole story book series) could have a much better reception if there was a random chararther instead of sonic….
anyways i also love to see the other characters inpersonating their storybook counterparts, thats maybe because i’m a “sonic fan”…. but that has (almost) nothing to do with the game itself =/
i’m not saying it’s bad…. but it’s sorta confusing, “indentity crisis” is a really accurate term xD
no lag? what?
What type of sonic game doesnt have lag? =P
haha seriously though, this game is looking promising.
Sega seems to be getting good with their graphics these days
“I also agree about bias reviews, they shouldn’t even exist, but they do.”
This here is from someone who is biased TOWARDS Sonic. I’d have deleted this little bit, but I thought that I should make an example.
Well swinging a sword is physically demanding anyways. I support it 🙂
I think this game will be great. The swordplay is a great addition… whoever hates the idea… I bet if those haters try the game, they will love it. If not, then at least they TRIED it.
That’s unfortunate really. It sounds like this will be another slightly below average sonic game. Which of course means most of the gaming community will call it the “worst game evar!” Sega’s managed to work themselves into an impossible corner where the only way to get out is to just completely blow the world away. Not an easy task for any developer, let alone a struggling one.
Guess they’re holding off on the real criticism until the game is out, but at least it’s good to know it looks great
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having biases. Everyone in the entire world has biases. The question is, should people be upfront with their preconcieved notions and predjudices so that their views and opinions are given the proper weight?
It’s nice to hear from a non-Sonic fan. That way, the opinion brought forward relates to the game and not “Oh my God, he has a SWORD?! -99999/10”.
And as far as “Well, that’s it for Keith. Feel free to accuse him of not being a “true Sonic fan” or some other bullshit that you kids like to hurl at people who have a shred of dislike for anything Sonic related. You guys always preach “open-mindedness,” but you totally contradict yourself when you shut others down. If you post any of that crap in the comments box, I will delete it, because it’s not relevant to discussion.”
That seems a tad perjorative, since Sonic fans often “shred” people that like modern Sonic titles. I’ll point out that Shadow the Hedgehog is a flawed game but kind of fun once you master it, and frankly I get blasted for not saying it’s an epic fail. And how can anyone claim “shutting someone down” when most of the major Sonic sites are negative(minus Retro and news sites like TSSZnews) toward Sonic titles. All they are doing is giving dissenting opinions. If you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean you should “shut them down”.
Anyway, nice column.
I’ve watched loads of real time gameplay of this game and the runnning sections look good but the swordplay, apparently controlled by flaying the control around like an idiot look rubbish. Guess we all saw that coming, right? Anyway I’ll just wait til it’s release and hopefully it will be a good 3D Sonic game; Sonic seems to have more lives than cats when it comes to getting another chance.
I can see two flaws of this game:
1.) The camera, of cousre this doesn’t matter because a lot of 3D Sonic games have this problem.
2.) Pulling off combos, this seems to be the real problem and could cause some displeasure, especial if you want to defeat the big enemies that won’t go down in one shot.
Also, somebody stole my old name, and made me sound bias.
the gameplay dont look like rubbish the guys in the video only play as good as the the dudes who played sonic unleashed apotos act 2 before it was released?
Geez one guy died 20 times at the rail scene and the other guy who played BK was swinging the wii-mote much too hard!
so guys who knows how to USE a wii-mote will make cool combos and evreything.
still i want a gc-controller for that….
I think this game will be better than Unleashed.
SpeedSpiegel: I agree with you, stop compare with the old games.
I think Black knight will be a good game and I glad that Sonic dosen’t slow down, I want speed BUT some platforming. I hope this game will be even better than Unleashed.
hey this is your warning we are changing the air in the comunity
wtf
lolz