Need to vent the urge to play a new Sonic game, and yet can’t wait for Sonic Lost World? Here’s the perfect fan game to help ease that nagging feeling!
After one year and six months since its announcement, LakeFeperd has finally released the highly anticipated fan game, Sonic After the Sequel!
A follow-up to his previous efforts, Before the Sequel (linking Sonic 1 and Sonic 2) and the “Metronic” BtS: Aftermath, the project is meant to tie together the events of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, filling the gap between the first fall of the Death Egg and the discovery of a downed Angel Island.
As Eggman tries to salvage his heavily damaged Death Egg after his last showdown with the Blue Blur, Sonic the Hedgehog and Miles “Tails” Prower continue to chase the evil and determined Doctor Robotnik, and begin their journey in the Horizon Heights Zone. With the duo hot on his trail, Eggman’s sights are set upon a floating island, far off in the distance…
Sonic After the Sequel holds a grand total of 10 Zones for you to explore, with the narrative leading Sonic and Tails through locales such as the sunny then rainy greenery of Horizon Heights, the sweet tooth incarnate Sugar Splash, the crowded and bustling Cyan City, the haunted and ghost-riddled Moon Mansion, the frozen tundra of Parhelion Peak, and the Storm Station high above the heavens.
Each Zone is broken down into 3 different Acts, followed by the Boss Act. By finding Star Rings scattered throughout the stages, you can also reach a hidden Special Act! Be warned though, these special Rings are pretty well hidden, and might require numerous playthroughs in order to locate them.
On the gameplay front, Sonic and Tails play no different than their 2D incarnations of the 90s. Sonic retains his ability to Strike Dash/Peel-Out by holding up and tapping the jump button repeatedly, Tails still flies, and the two Spin Dash.
However, there are a few twists to how you play as well. The Flame Shield returns in all its blazing glory; the Bubble Shield lets you both breathe underwater and double-jump, and there’s a shield that not only protects you from spike damage, but allows Sonic to drop straight down and retain his speed. If Kirby’s no stranger to you, then there are a couple of quirky yet amusing forms for you to toy with in Cyan City: Beam Sonic and Mirror Tails!
The game is split down between two modes; one is easy, the other harder but more rewarding. The easiest of the two is Story Mode, where you simply clear the complete game by going from Zone to Zone.
For the daring, Classic Mode plays much like the Genesis games. You’ll have to gather a certain amount of rings in order for a Warp Ring to spawn at the end of an Act, which then leads you to a Special Stage where you to chase after a Chaos Emerald. Collect all 7 and you unlock Super Sonic and the Good Ending! Each Special Stage bears a remixed tune, with variations of Sonic 2’s Special Stage, Radical Train’s The Chase of Sonic 2006, Hill Top Course from Sonic Drift 2… and the seventh one, well, you’ll have to reach it yourself to find out!
While LakeFeperd looked after the game’s development, the effort put into organizing the soundtrack was split between seven people! Returning from BtS’12 are Falk, Andy (Ristar/Tunners), Funk Fiction, and KgZ, with Mr Lange, DJ Max-E, and Xiao’an Li joining the fray.
I’m not gonna sugarcoat it: the game’s OST is beyond all levels of freaking amazing as each artist did an overall fantastic job at scoring After the Sequel. Keen eyed players will notice a nod towards the composers at the start of each Act, indicating which artists contributed the music for a particular stage. While the OST did hold back the game’s release significantly, it was SO worth the wait, believe you me!
The Sonic After the Sequel OST, however, is to be released separately, but it should be out by the week’s end. In that case, let’s see if we can get something like this going on again…
EDIT 19/06/2013: The soundtrack is out!
So, Lake, now that you can prepare Sonic Chrono Adventure for SAGE’13, what do you have to say about ATS now that it’s released?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TesdgOUB5f4
“It’s out.
Enjoy.”
Aptly said!
Download the game through the button below, and share your thoughts in the comments! Be warned, it’s a hefty 150MB!
Hey guys. Can anyone please tell me how to run the game? I extracted the .RAR file, and tried to launch the application, but I keep getting an error message saying “Cannot create file in temporary directory!”. I’m quite new to PC gaming and am confused as Big the Cat wondering why Froggy runs away from him, so PLEASE HELP! Thanks to anyone who can offer a solution in plain English for a newbie like me.
You have to extract the files in the archive to a folder on your computer. Unless you get 7zip, which allowed me to play the exe from the archive directly without problems
Actually when I wrote that comment I’d already done that. I extracted the files, went to the appropriate folder and double clicked the file. I thought it might have been a hiccup of some sort, but I tried running it multiple times (double clicking & right clicking), but no change. It still gives me that same error message.
Do you have administrator privileges on the computer you are on? Do you have anti-virus software that’s interfering with the game? Does the temporary directory already have a file with the same name? Maybe try deleting the contents of the temp directory. Other than those things, I am really not sure what may be wrong.
Actually, I do have admin privileges; wouldn’t the anti-virus give me a pop-up if it were blocking it? Also, where is the temp directory be located? If it’s not the anti-virus then it’s probably the temp directory, right? Also, sorry if I’m coming across as a bother…I just really want to learn, y’know? By the way, if anyone’s a similar problem or not, I hope you’re taking notes. Just sayin’. Also, thanks for putting up with me, Chad! ^_^
P.S. Anyone know why I’m not able to register as a member on this site? VizardJeffhog? Anyone else on the staff? I really want to be a part of this website, and it won’t let me for some reason. Says that it won’t accept registrations currently, or something…
@the ao erizo: That’s because the Sign Up button up there is for Staff/Writers of the site only. If you’re looking for the forum, it’s under “Community”!
What’s up with all the hype surrounding this game? I can see the effort put into it but it’s just not a good game.
The levels are SOOOOOO claustrophobic (with the exception of a few) and the levels really drag for several minutes with unintuitive level design that hardly ever proves to be fun. And the 3 act 1 boss structure doesn’t fucking help and makes that levels drag even more.
The music, while good, didn’t really complement most of the places they were used in (again with a few exceptions) and they had no melody to them.
+Good visuals
+Good music
+Nice lil story.
+Great improved elemental shields
-Horrible level design.
-Horrible use of mechanics
-Plenty of glitchy areas
-Repetitive dragging levels
-Bland bosses
-Bland badniks
-Things feel off about the physics of the engine
-Forced gimmicks
5.5/10 Barely worth a shoot.
You obviously have no idea how hard it is to develop video games. I thought the game was perfectly fine and the music was exceptional. I think your dumb ass is forgetting this game is free, as in you didn’t pay a single god damn thing to play this. Consider the effort and time involved before you post shit like this.
Well Said and the hype can be counted also for Lake being a valued member of the community and trying to make something people will enjoy.
I don’t get this. OP brings up legitimate critiques and we’ll resort to ad hominem and mention the fact that it’s not a AAA title as reasons not to critique it?
I don’t see anywhere where anyone asked for a critique. So to critique it is rude, and also even more rude to swear in his critique “boss structure doesn’t fucking help”. And yes I am attaching the OP because the developer is just having fun and the OP is basically ruining it. It’s uncalled for. How do you not see that?
Actually, nobody asked for your critique of his critique either! I understand you’re trying to defend a game you really like, but this is not the way to go about it. How about actually addressing the points that were made instead? While I find some of them questionable, to say the least, to dismiss them as “shit” without even saying why is far less civil.
OP didn’t ruin anything. He played the game, which is a lot more than most will do. People on the internet review things and have opinions. It’s easy to ignore his comments if you find them offensive.
While critique is always welcome, there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and letting things get personal… Swearing certainly doesn’t help Mass’s position there, but some of his points are valid, either to him or to others who’d agree or see where he’s coming from. I agree with him on a few of those points, actually.
It’s as yellowstar said. The game isn’t perfect by any means. Yes, there are a few niggles that bogs down the experience. Physics aren’t 100% Genesis perfect (it’s a Sonic Worlds fan game, not the lost game that never released), levels and bosses are “your mileage may vary”, some mechanics/gimmicks feel forced while others don’t.
But Lake, a valued name in the community, tried to make something for folks to enjoy: an entire Sonic game made from his own hands. He tried to improve on issues addressed in BtS, though I’ve a few problems with the game, and I consider it to be a complete blast to play through and an improvement over its prequel. Something big to the community like ATS deserves coverage. I don’t expect everyone to enjoy it, but surely quite a few have already. Though in a critique, elaborating while keeping a cool and level head, explaining why some mechanics are forced, why the bosses weren’t to one’s taste, so on so forth, usually helps one’s position. Same could be said for any critique for any medium.
Point is, some will have problems, some will let it get to them and have it ruin the experience, others aren’t as affected. Mass felt the need to speak out his concerns with the game, and only want to see the best out of Lake. The game is miles better than its previous instalment, and Lake will only improve from there.
In any case, this article mostly went towards folks who have been waiting to play it for a long time now. I’m having fun with it so far!
…wait, whaddya mean “the music has no melody”?
@Chad
I love how you make your assumptions. Just because games aren’t easy to produce doesn’t excuse the apparent flaws they have. Just because ’06 was rushed doesn’t mean we should give the developers a pass and call it a day. I gave critique and was begin mostly constructive. Constructive criticism is important weather the developers ask for it or now (in most cases, developers appreciate this sort of thing)
Besides, what’s up with the “didn’t pay” thing and flaming me with it? It’s not like I outright bashed the game or Lake. There are thing that I legitimately love about it but the flaws outweigh them in my case.
@VizardJeffhog
Oh man. I now feel that my previous comment was a bit too harsh on the game. Probably shoulda been a bit more forgiving but whateves.
And the music thing.. well, I didn’t know how to put it at the time but basically some of the tracks were pretty cheesy and forgettable. “Some” of ’em. Most of them were pretty darn catchy and atmospheric.
Those are not ‘legitimate critiques’ because they’re not true, the level design’s are fantastic, there’s tons of alternate routes in every level, the gimmicks introduced every zone are all brilliant, really well done/programmed very enjoyable to use, all the individual acts add a new gimmick that don’t feel forced in any way, they keep up the variety of the game.
And of course each zone shares mostly the same gimmicks for all three acts EVERY CLASSIC GAME DID THIS AS WELL, so this is in no way different whatsoever from the classic games like 3&K in terms of gimmick use/level design, the level design does not ‘drag’ at all.
There are a couple of glitches, nowhere near as many as Before the Sequels final release, I’ve only run into one or two minor glitches that in no way dampened my experience because I don’t get in a bad mood at the slightest imperfections like the OP.
And also the bosses/badniks are all unique clever and very well designed.
I’m sorry but the OP is either someone who get’s very aggravated really quickly over the tiniest things so he just proceeds to call everything shit, or he’s got something against fangames/classic games and waited for this article so he could shit on it for everyone to see on a big article to try and ruin the games reputation.
OP’s critique was fucked anyway. “Had no melody?” Was he listening to the game through dixie cups? The melody in this soundtrack is overflowing, the modern Sonic games don’t hold a candle to the amount of melody here.
An analysis that poor suggests he can’t analyze shit.
@Mr Lange
Alot of the tracks were good (even if some of them didn’t fit the area they were in) but some of them were just downright bland.
Why can’t you take someone having a different opinion than yours anyway? The way I analyzed is from a whole different perspective than yours.
Im not gonna chastise you for your opinion but I have to strongly disagree.
Have you ever played Sonic CD? Because this game plays alot more like Sonic CD rather than 1, 3, or 3. CD was alot more floaty and had a pretty distinct gameplay style aside from the Peel-out technique. And this game captures it to a tee. Same thing with the level design. CD’s levels where very packed and crunched together and generally focused more on platforming. Which this game does as well (But personally, I feel this feels faster and more fluid.)
The music is actually really good, but it is quite out of style so I honestly believe you are just mistaking it in a comparison point of view.
And lastly, aside from the fact that just about every boss is a running sequence, they are quite varied. Not too dissimilar to other 2D bosses, but just different enough to feel fresh. The badniks are also really diverse for the levels and how they fit in with the theme. I mean, Sonic enemies are one hit kill robots, how drastically different do you want to make them? XD
If I were to say anything bad about this game, is that its actually a little easy. Which is not necessarily bad because the tracks and courses all bring their own little memorable experiences with them. So the ride is still fun as you play.
-The glitches I’ll give you. I was part of the beta testing and Lake fixed pretty much none of the things I reported.
-The bosses were actually pretty cool, but the final (non-super) boss was rather tame.
-The badnik count was low but I didn’t really notice at first.
+The level design is incredible, I don’t know what game you’ve been playing but compared to every other fangame ever made, this is revolutionary.
+Some of the gimmicks are forced but their use is genius.
+Mechanics are used the same as in any Sonic game.
+The levels are shorter than regular Sonic games. I think you’re just really bad at games you haven’t played a lot.
%The Physics engine is Sonic Worlds so it’s not really Lake’s fault. It’s the same engine used by a majority of Sonic fan games.
The hype is over the fact it is one of the few Sonic games that gets finished properly, with some badass art and most importantly: A completely original soundtrack.
No, it’s not the best Sonic game ever but it beats Sonic Team’s recent attempts at a Classic style game, and it’s larger and more well designed than any other fan game out there.
Of course it won’t be a perfect Sonic game, it was created by ONE MAN (and 6 musicians). The reason it’s popular isn’t because it’s a amazing game by gaming standards, but it’s amazing by fan game standards and is on par with classic Sonic games, despite the team consisting of a single person. It’s retro, it’s not some Furry-fest like Freedom Planet and it’s fun.
All of this is rare in fan games at all, let alone a Sonic fan game. I think you’ve misunderstood the point.
Exactly. This game is overhyped for no reason in the Sonic community. I played the game and didn’t even like it.
Did you pay any money for this? No? Then calm the hell down.
It’s been awhile since I’ve played a fan game, but back in the days when I was playing them a lot there was one thing I understood: they are fan games done in someone’s spare time. If I didn’t like them I deleted them, but one needs to be more forgiving towards this kind of game then a retail game. This kind of criticism towards a fan game…just comes off ass really mean and not actually understanding of the kind of work that goes into programming a game, especially in one’s spare time.
Every publicly released piece of media has a right to be critiqued regardless of what the media is, what its purpose is, or even how expensive it is. These things can be factors in a critique certainly, but just because something is, for example, free doesn’t mean it’s immune to critique. It goes both ways though, and I think these critiques deserve to be critiqued.
I haven’t played this game so I can’t say whether or not I agree with Jeffery Mass’s points, but most of those in the list seem legitimate enough. The mere mention of “Beam Sonic” in the article seems sufficient for me to believe his points about forced gimmicks. However his overall tone did seem somewhat hostile as though he was intending for destructive and demoralizing rather than constructive criticism. For example, the phrase “What’s up with all the hype surrounding this game?” could be less aggressively expressed by “This game was over-hyped.” Furthermore, certain complaints like “Horrible level design” or “Things feel off about the physics of the engine” would be much more useful and well received if some specific examples were cited. Even better would be a proposed fix to these problems.
Thank you, I probably wouldn’t have even said anything if this was how the OP’s critique was written.
I am going to bring all of you to my English class.
I always thought Sonic 3&K took place straight after Sonic 2!
Apparently not! Canonically, quite a bit of time passes between Sonic 2 and 3, methinks. This game gives its own take on it!
Same here. I figured that Sonic two ended with Super Sonic and Tails flying through the sky, and then Sonic three started a few seconds later with them coming on Angel island, But I guess that it would make sense that Eggman would need some time to build Launch Base.
I thought it was a direct continuation at first (the opening scene in Sonic 3 suggests it), but I unearthed a bit of info that implies months of time passed.
Its an .rar file. Any suggestions on software to run this type of file?
WinRAR opens the compressed .rar file, lets you access the .exe file (the game) inside.
7Zip is a free alternative.
Can somebody please tell me how to play this game? Well, not just this game, but all fan games basically. I download the file, but the game doesn’t just start up when I double click on it, how does it work? Does this concern an emulator or something of that sort? I missed out on before the sequel, megamix, and I don’t want to miss out on this too just because I don’t know how to open it. Somebody help! 🙁
That’s odd… It’s its own software, no emulation! Can you elaborate?
Wait, what kind of computer are you using?
Well, it might just be that this computer technically is a loaner and I might need “administrative” privileges to play it or something, but I was assuming that I needed an emulator. I would try it on my home PC, but it is quite slow and obstructive due to some passed virus trouble.
Is it because you can’t open the .rar file? It’s like a zipped/compressed file, but you might need some extra software to open it, like WinRAR.
Well, when I double click on it, it opens up adobe acrobat for some reason and when I instead click “open with” the only option there is adobe acrobat; I don’t see what adobe acrobat has to do with this. It could be that I don’t have winRAR, but I wouldn’t know exactly what that is or how to get it. Sorry if this is a hassle, I know computers better from the outside than the inside if you know what I mean. 🙁
Well actually, I think the problem clearly is that I don’t have the winRAR software, because if it doesn’t show up on the “open with…” menu than that is probably because it isn’t on my computer. How do I get it though?
I haven’t really played any other Sonic fan games before, but this one seems plain amazing! I’ve only played through the first zone, but it looks like a genuine Sega-made Sonic game to me. I’m guessing this is big part due to the engine this game is using? I’m not very familiar with it either, but I recall hearing about one in existence that most Sonic fan games are powered by. Seeing just the first zone so far I can tell the level design would need a bit of tweaking, as locations do seem to be slightly claustrophobic for a Sonic game, but other than that… the controls seem just as accurate as in the Genesis originals, the graphics are vivid, the Sonic design in the menu is brilliant (gotta love his Sonic CD cutscenes character design!). I must congratulate everybody involved in this for accomplishing so much, I would never have thought fan-made Sonic games could turn out to be so fine. A couple of changes would be welcome (access to the options screen while in-game, faster screen changes between menus), but besides that… it’s just wow.
Hands-down the best original Sonic game I’ve ever played. The work here is a solid masterpiece between the eight creators, and everything meshes well. Sonic 3 Complete (the fan hack) beats it out by a hair, but I’ve never had more Sonic-y fun than I have with Lake’s series.
I wont be going to SOS since i have already booked plane tickets to London since i could no longer wait and it get more expensive the closer it gets and i have to think about my 2 litre borders that have school that start again 19 Augusts. I am sorry that i and the ones in my party cant go. If some one want to now when we are coming to London so you can stalk me lol! It will be 5 August to 10 August! 🙂
I pity you. If I knew the date, I would tell you, but I am nothing more than a visitor to this site. 🙁 Maybe the staff are having a really tough time trying to book it.
Well that is how life goes so i am ok but a bit sad since it is a lot of fun to be in the same place whit many Sonic fans. Yeah they probably are having a hard time to book it. 🙂 If we are lucky SOS will go on for many years to come! 😀 I have at least been to SOS 2 times already! 🙂 I hope you can go at least! 😀 *hug*
I have legitimate criticism:
This game doesn’t work on a Mac. Neither of them do.
That seems to be a problem that needs to be fixed, or am I ruining people’s fun now?
Get Wine! That’s how I’m running the game on my Macbook!
Only drawback is no cutscenes.
It’s a shame that we can’t use cutscenes for the game like before the sequel. But that’s how it works :\
I have a legitimate criticism too.
Don’t use Mac. Ever.
Hells yesssss I have BTS and thought that game was phenomenal! Thanx LakeFeperd! I’m an official fan! 🙂
Wow. This is amazing.
I have none of the complaints. Graphics gorgeous. Music superb (can’t wait to get ost).
Levels not too linear, fell down to lower routes several times in first zone alone and I found no star rings. I’m guessing once people have found all the secrets they would be less inclined to regard the layouts as linear.
The physics are good. Leagues closer to the originals than Sonic 4 and perhaps even closer than Generations.
I personally found the boss battles entertaining. The first one in particular made me smile 🙂
The story is well presented too.
I suffered no nitceable glitches. I’d like to point out that even the classics had their own glitches any way.
Overall this is an excellent fan game and considering it is complete which as pointed out earlier is a rare thing, this is one that Sonic fans should definitely check out.
Thanks LakeFeperd and the entire music team!!!
The stages felt a bit bland and they dragged on for quite a while, especially with some lag going on. The stages were rather vibrant and unique and I like how each act was tackled differently. The music was really nice, but some of the tracks didn’t really fit the feel or mood of each act. Overall the game has a nice presentation but the flaws are really apparent. Could use some ironing out.
I think the level of lag people are experiencing could be down to the computer used. My friend suffers lag when playing it on his laptop, but it runs fine on my p.c. and it’s nothing special (3.62Ghz Quad, 4 Gig ram, graphics radeon hd 5450 1 gig).
Don’t know why everyone is tripping, I’m using a crappy, old, out of date, full of viruses laptop and I have no problem playing the game. I think its 1 of the best fan games I’ve ever played 8.5/10
GOOD GOD! Somebody talk to Sega and give them this. Maybe it should kinda be called “Sonic The Hedgehog: Ascension”. If this were multi-platform (Available for Wii U, 3DS, Vita, PS3, AND PS4), I would buy that Day One. HECK, I would probably get a PS4 for this game if it was on there.