By Patrick Hawes-DeFrias
Each week I meet up with a group of friends to play through
a game that at least one of us never had the opportunity to play. Generally, we
try to pick some kind of hidden gem- something from an indie company, an old,
obscure JRPG, or even a fan-made game or romhack. However, as a joke, I added
the now infamous Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric to the list of choices, jokingly
saying “hey, we play so many good games, we should switch it up by playing
something bad!” Little did I know that, on a whim, my friends would respond
with an apprehensive “sure, why not?”
And so we delved into the game some say rivals the
anti-quality of the legendary Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). We hoped to see for
ourselves firsthand if this game really was another speedbump in the franchise’s
momentum, or if everyone was too quick to judge it. And with Sonic Mania and
the untitled Sonic ‘17 coming out next year, each gaining all sorts of fan
recognition, why not contrast what could be the series’ potential rebirth with
the possible worst it has to offer?
So, you may ask yourself, is this game as bad as everyone
says it is?
Yes. Yes it is.
End of article, right? Well, no, not quite. You see, I knew
the game at the very least wouldn’t be very good. Everyone talked so much about
it when it came out that there was no question it would be bad. There’s
reviews, several Let’s Plays, and videos dedicated to pointing out all the
hilarious bugs in the game. In fact, it’s SO bad… that I ended up playing the
game on my own. My friends tapped out about an hour in. After playing for that
long though, I was in it for the long haul. So I kept it going, using a speaker
plugged into the Wii U gamepad to let my friends experience the cutscenes while
they played Bloodborne. I wanted to experience it firsthand. There’s a big
difference between seeing a bad game,
and playing one… Plus, I knew I’d
have plenty to talk about afterwards. But regardless, once you saw the title
you knew I was talking about a bad game. So we’ll be taking a different
approach to this article later.
But make no mistake, first I WILL point out the horrible
things I experienced. Here’s a list of the highlights:
1. The music
is very forgettable. This is a crying shame, even the bad Sonic games tend
to have at least a few great songs. But here? Nothing. Not even a version of
the classic song “Sonic Boom” from Sonic CD. All you get is some generic
“adventure” music. And that just boggles my mind because the composer, Richard
Jaques, has composed great music in several videogames before, including a few
tracks from the Jet Set Radio games. Hell, some of the games he worked on were
in the Sonic series! Sonic R was certainly not that good, but anyone who’s
heard the soundtrack will tell you that those songs will be stuck in your head
forever.
2. The video
editing is terrible. Characters will be t-posed (a pre-animated pose used
in rendering) while cutscenes load and run through objects where a scene was
clearly supposed to end. There’s black space in between every cinematic cut…
there’s videos that detail the visual oddities in this game far better than
writing can convey, but the bottom line is this- every cutscene looks unfinished.
The game itself doesn’t seem finished, sure, but the cinematics literally look
like someone made the footage and just didn’t clean them up before putting it
into the game. There’s several scenes where Sonic and pals are running down a
path and you can see exact copies of them further down the path in a t-pose.
Now, I’m no cinematographer but I believe the t-poses were meant to be
references the animators made for themselves so that they’d know where to put
the characters after the camera angle changes, but they weren’t deleted in the
final build.
3. The game
runs horribly. Moving from one area to another will cause a massive dip in
FPS, the running segments are incredibly choppy, and when using the co-op
feature the game becomes virtually unplayable. I’ll get into that in a second,
since it’s so bad it warrants its own section. But regardless, this game does
NOT operate as a modern game should. And with the sheer amount of movement you
have to do, these constant frame drops start to kill your eyes.
4. The co-op
is awful. We tried it for a bit, just to see how it worked. The answer?
Barely. As stated earlier, it causes massive frame drops. This, combined with
the other sources of frame drops, will cause the game to turn into a Powerpoint
at times. Beyond that, the game has this annoying mechanic where if players get
too far away from each other it’ll snap one player to the other. This feature is completely broken.
For one, the game can’t really decide who gets snapped to whom. Let’s say you
and your partner are doing a platforming section. If one player gets stuck, but
the other gets across, then in theory the player who got stuck would snap to
where the end, that way they could keep going. Alternatively, the game should
default to always snap player 2 to player 1, that way it’s always consistent.
However, this game doesn’t do that 9 times out of 10. Sometimes player 2 will
make it across and player 1 will snap to them. Ok, that’s fine. Sometimes
player 2 will make it across, and snap to player 1. That could be fine I
suppose, if that’s what should happen every time. But it doesn’t, so you never
know what to expect. In fact, the game is really random about how far apart you
have to be for the snap to occur, so sometimes you’ll just randomly snap to
each other during the platforming
section, thereby forcing one of you to die. Which will put you at the last
checkpoint. Which will cause you to keep snapping. Over. And over. AND OVER. We
got stuck on a simple platforming section for about 5 minutes due to this,
which was one of the tipping points that caused my friends to give up.
5. The story
and levels are forgettable. It starts in-medias-res, with Sonic getting
shot and being crushed by a ton of rocks. Guess what? When that part of the
game happens, Sonic gets up and is fine about 30 seconds after. So the game
starts out with a fake dramatic moment. Great. After that, we see Sonic, Tails,
Knuckles, and Amy running through the jungle chasing Eggman. One thing leads to
another, and they get cornered against a giant door by Eggman and Metal Sonic.
They notice that the door is engraved with what looks like images of Sonic and
Tails, as well as some sort of hand reader console. Sonic uses the hand reader,
despite his friends saying that they can handle it. Metal Sonic then blasts,
and Sonic, clearly seeing that his friends can in fact NOT handle it, opens the
door so everyone can run inside before the door slams shut and everyone chides
Sonic for locking them. After that, the group accidentally wakes up an ancient
snake named Lyric, who threatens to destroy life on the planet, and of course
Sonic is scolded once again. But, as far as I can tell, he was just looking out
for his friends. So remember kids, let your friends do dangerous and stupid
things, because if you try to be prudent and cautious you’re just keeping them
from showing their worth. That’s an interesting moral. After this, they
basically just stumble around for a while collecting various McGuffins in the
forms of crystals before Lyric can, so pretty basic Sonic scenario. The only
other part that really stands out is that at some point Sonic and Tails end up
going back in time after finding some lab from an ancient civilization and
turning on a time portal by accident. Their actions inadvertently cause Lyric
to be sealed away, thus explaining why he was found in ruins depicting Sonic
and Tails. After that, it’s just a typical romp around the levels until the
final showdown. Honestly this story isn’t much different conceptually from
other Sonic games… it just doesn’t have nearly the same kind of energy or
excitement. Yeah, your average Sonic the Hedgehog game isn’t a masterpiece of
writing, but they all have somewhat interesting, likeable characters and cool
set pieces. Everyone remembers City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2, which
involves grinding through a Los Angeles-like city on a sheet of metal then
getting chased by a giant truck. The scenes with Tikal from Adventure are
pretty trippy, and certainly memorable, as are the levels including the Egg
Carrier and a giant casino. Even the older 2D games are memorable despite
having virtually no story to speak of thanks to their levels. But here? Nothing.
You might notice I haven’t even mentioned
the levels in Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric yet. That’s because, barring a few key
exceptions, every level consists of either A) running through a canyon, or B)
running through some ancient ruin. There are a few set pieces I suppose, like a
fight with Metal Sonic or a point where Shadow the Hedgehog literally comes out
of nowhere and fights you, but even then they’re just memorable because of
nostalgia. There is a part where you control a boat, and another with a submarine.
They stand out because they’re really bad. The only actual level that I can
fully call to mind was the underwater facility that Sonic and Amy go to. I
remember it because of three major factors: 1) The level somewhat reminded me
of the Lost Precursor City from Jak and Daxter, which was one of my favorite
levels from that game. 2) There’s a set piece where a giant octopus-robot
chases you through a narrow passageway. There’s countless things I could say it
reminds me of, but Sonic decides to stick with Jurassic Park, as he makes a
“Must go faster!” reference. And 3) At one point, the area opens up into a
massive, pretty cool looking cavern with upward-moving waterfalls that reminded
me of Hollow Bastion from the original Kingdom Hearts. Now, there’s nothing
inherently wrong with being derivative, but if all a game does is remind me of
other, better media, then the game has failed to get its own identity.
6. The
characters. Ok, so the characters of the Sonic franchise have never been too
deep. At its core it’s a game meant for people of all ages, but specifically
for kids to enjoy. As such, we deal with characters that are essentially tropes.
Sonic is the wisecracking adventurer, Tails is the brain, Knuckles is the big
guy, and Amy is the girl with a crush. All of these kinds of characters have
existed since storytelling started, and are constantly present in today’s
writing since they work well as convenient storytelling tools. What is done
with the characters beyond that baseline concept is how depth is created, and
how people start to care about them. While it’s true that Sonic’s cast is
generally basic, they all still have their own quirks that make them unique.
But in Rise of Lyric, some of the characters are reduced down to the most basic
form of their trope. Sonic comes out of it the most intact, thankfully. A
product of the 90’s, Sonic is supposed to be cool and he goes fast to set him
apart from other platformers. And of course, when he eventually got put into a
scenario where he could talk, he obviously became a wisecracking smartass. The first
time I could find of Sonic full-on speaking was in The Adventures of Sonic the
Hedgehog (one of the older cartoons). That show pretty much set the precedent
for what Sonic’s personality is, and it continues today throughout the games,
comics, the newer cartoons, and so forth. So what sets him apart from his peers
under the banner of the wisecracking adventurer? Well, he’s fast. Not just in
terms of movement, “speed” seems to be the underlying concept he lives his life
by. He’s always on the move, out to have new experiences in life. He’s also
horribly impatient and rushes into his problems head-on, which can get him into
trouble. And his motivation for always bumping heads with Dr. Eggman? Well,
there’s wanting to uphold justice, protecting his friends, and so forth. But
above all else, Sonic fights Eggman, wisecracking the whole time, because it’s
fun. Sonic finds it incredibly
entertaining to get under Eggman’s skin, and constantly mocks him in order to
push his buttons. So, how does that compare with his Rise of Lyric version?
Well, he’s still centered on speed and likes adventure, but it’s much more
toned down here. We only ever get to see Sonic as he’s going from point A to
point B, so his speed seems much less of a part of his character, and much more
of a necessity to progress the game. The jokes he makes tend to just be pop
culture references, which can be infuriating. All that’s left is…an adventurer who
cracks wise. Bear in mind, Sonic is by FAR the character least harmed in the
characterization department. Tails, normally the naïve but smart sidekick,
usually looks up to Sonic and support him with his inventions and strategies.
Here? He’s the smart guy. He
decidedly does not contract any of his words, which always sounds incredibly
forced and unnatural. Secondly, he endeavors to utilize larger, multifaceted
words and phrases with the intention of sounding more sophisticated than his
peers. It doesn’t make him sound smart. It makes him sound pretentious. Knuckles
has always been a guy who’s easily fooled, but has a strong resolve and sense
of duty, motivated to help his friends and protect the Master Emerald. Here?
He’s dumb and punches things. The first thing he does in the game is look at
his hands to figure out left and right, and it’s not a great introduction. He’s
constantly shown in this light. Amy, however, is the worst. In other media, Amy
is a girl driven by her crush for Sonic. She follows him to the ends of the
earth, sometimes into danger, since he’s her hero. But, she’s not helpless- far
from it, since if she’s in trouble she’ll just start swinging the giant
sledgehammer she carries around with her. But here she’s just “the girl.” Occasionally,
she says “Girl power!” or something along those lines. The prior iterations of
Amy weren’t exactly revolutionary for female presence in video games, since her
entire motivation in life being a guy. At least it was something. Here? If it weren’t for the cutscenes or the characters
chiming in with voice clips now and then, I’d forget she was even there. Oh yeah, speaking of that-
throughout the levels, characters will make little remarks about what’s going
on. For example, in the Metal Sonic fight Amy might let you know he’s about to
start leaving bombs on the path, or they might comment about what happened in
the last cutscene. Sometimes it’ll just be random banter. Sonic will say
something, Knuckles will make a dumb remark, Amy will point out how dumb it is,
and everyone laughs as Knuckles grumbles. This is all fine, it’s a little trick
to help immersion and make you feel as though the characters are actually going
on an adventure. The last use of these voice clips, however, is what infuriated
me throughout the game. They talk about various level elements, like rings,
speed pads, and ramps as you interact with them. Why is this a problem? They
don’t do it just once in a while, they comment on every other item and just
will NOT SHUT UP. There were platforming sections where I would hit bounce pads
into rings, onto a zip-line, then onto a speed pad that sent me off a ramp, and
everyone had something to say about each object I touched. However, there was
one moment that my friends and I will continue to laugh at to this day. Sonic
and Tails were running on water through an old flooded tunnel. At one point,
there were ramps that could be used to get to higher areas and jump over
obstacles. Upon doing so for one of the ramps, Sonic said “Hey look, ramps!”
followed immediately by Tails saying “Do you think we can use these as ramps?”
Gee Tails, can you use those ramps as ramps? I’m not sure.
7. This is
not a Sonic game. Not really. What’s the defining aspect of a Sonic the
Hedgehog game? Speed obviously. Problem- most of this game is not fast. The
only real sense of speed comes from the scripted running segments…which is
really unfortunate, because that idea immediately conjures up images of Sonic ‘06.
So, other than these scripted segments, the game feels like a light jog. Sonic
Boom is actually an action-adventure brawler where so you jog from one combat
encounter to another, occasionally switching between the characters to deal
with their specific puzzles. As a spin-off game, I can’t really say that the
game in and of itself is bad. Mario RPG doesn’t play like standard Mario games,
the Metroid Prime games don’t play like the main Metroid titles, but I can deal
with the spin-off not playing like the main game if it’s good. As I’ve
described to you just now, this game is NOT good. So, rather than a divergent
gameplay style adding a new, interesting way to play as a character I’m
familiar with. Instead, I’m left with a bad game pretending to be a Sonic game.
Now I really could go on, but you get the idea. These are
what I found to be the worst of the worst in this game. But in any storm there
is a calm, in every cloud a silver lining. So, as a challenge to myself, I’m
going to try and extract whatever good points are left in this game.
1. The Sonic
Boom license. No, seriously, Sonic Boom is pretty good. I’ve seen a bit of
the show, and the episodes were pretty well-written, all things considered. I
could tell that the characters are a bit simple in the show, but nowhere NEAR
as drastically as in Rise of Lyric. Sonic is pretty much as he should be, and
so is Tails. That whole “never contract, always use big words” thing that makes
him sound like a snobby robot is gone. Knuckles is dumb, but not anywhere near
as dumb as in the game. Mostly, he’s really naïve and gets his facts mixed up.
Amy HAS A PERSONALITY, which is already a huge lead over her game version. Her
crush on Sonic is back, but it’s not at the forefront of her very being, as it
is in other Sonic media. Sonic Boom’s Amy is probably the best characterization
I’ve seen for her. With good writing and development, I’m sure this property
could get some great games made from it. In fact, from what I’ve heard the 3DS
Sonic Boom games are pretty good, though I’ve yet to play them myself.
2. The open
world. If there was ever a property where a vast open world setting could
work, Sonic would be near the top of the list. It’s a property where characters
can go super-fast, fly, teleport, and more. I remember when I used to play DC
Universe Online, and some of the most fun I had in that game was taking my
character with super-speed and exploring Metropolis, running on water and over
buildings, digging through every nook and cranny for collectibles. That idea,
with the polish of a main-series Sonic game, could potentially be tons of fun.
3. Multiple
characters to play as. Now, when many fans think of having several playable
characters in a Sonic game, they have flashbacks to fishing as Big the Cat. But
that’s not a fault of the concept itself, and I’d argue that the other characters
in the Sonic Adventure games, while not being as fun to play as Sonic, were
still enjoyable in their own right. What I think would be the best direction
would be a Sonic 3 and Knuckles system, where each character goes through the
same areas, but has different strengths and weaknesses that allow them to complete
the levels in a different way, taking different paths and so on…and with the
small amount of footage and news we’ve seen about Sonic Mania, it seems that
Sega might have the same idea.
4. Swapping between
characters on the fly. This game borrowed that concept right from Sonic
Heroes, which had a trio of hero types (speed, power, and flight) working as a
unit, and you could swap between them as needed. I don’t know if the two ideas
would necessarily work together, but it’d be an interesting idea to try out in
a better game. Regardless, these two ideas are, independently, good in their
own ways.
5. A new
main villain. Lyric is boring, but the IDEA of another villain temporarily
usurping Eggman’s antagonist role has worked before, and is honestly a good
change of pace now and then.
6. The
Enerbeam. In the show, as well as the game, the Enerbeam is basically a
laser that can be used as a rope or a grappling hook. Characters use it to tie
up enemies, throw them, and use the zip-lines. It’s a really basic concept, but
the idea of using a grappling hook in a fast-paced environment could lead to
very interesting and unique platforming sections.
7. Glyphs.
There are a few items that the characters can equip in the game called “Power
Glyphs” that you get from doing side missions. These give you passive
abilities, like reducing how long it takes to charge up a heavy attack. I found
them pointless and didn’t bother to get any other than the one you get in the tutorial
for side missions, but the idea of a
Sonic game with equipment could take the game to an interesting action RPG
direction.
And that’s all I can think of. Hey, I was surprised I could
find any positives at all. Do these good ideas make up for the fact that Sonic
Boom: Rise of Lyric is arguably the worst Sonic game ever? No, not really. But
hopefully Sega can learn from this experience. Well, I say that but it was
really Big Red Button that made this game. I suppose that Sega simply learned
to never work with that company again. I went to Big Red Button’s website to
see what they’re doing now. Apparently they’re still in business, and they’re
working on Virtual Reality titles. Interestingly, on their home screen they
have a background that switches between screenshots from what I assume are the
games they’ve worked on and are currently working on. To my shock there is an
image from Rise of Lyric there. I have to wonder why they left that image on
the front page, as there is NO reference to the projects they’ve worked on in
their website beyond that. I understand that the game had some significand
production issues, though all I have to go on is an interview with the
company’s co-founder from polygon. I have to wonder if the company as a whole
is proud of the game. They did make a videogame, which is no small feat. But
with the sheer amount of backlash I have to wonder why they wouldn’t try to
disassociate themselves from the game as much as possible. Well, perhaps if
their new VR games turn out well, they’ll have one of the greatest comebacks in
the history of videogame companies. If not? Well…I guess they’ll run out of
road at that point.
Sources:
wikipedia.org
No comments:
Post a Comment