Current Events > Why did people hate Sonic Heroes?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I mean, it wasn't amazing or anything, but I didn't think it was bad, either.

People expected great and got average at best

I had fun with it as a kid. Seems like it might have even aged better than SA1, which is complete ass.

Going through it once with sonic, tails and knuckles is fine

Going through the same levels another 3 times to get to the secret chapter sucks

Yeah I played it when I was like 12-13 and I fucking loved it. I played it before SA1/SA2 and it made me want to play those too, which thankfully they both had Gamecube versions. Crush 40 was like all I listened to for 2 months straight.

I think that was partly the problem. That it wasn't amazing and just okay.

On top of that it was also in that generation of gaming where 'kiddie' games were criticized a lot more in general.

I remember the boss fights being overly complex

I loved it when it first came out, but replaying it again recently I just didnt have a great time. It almost felt like a lot of it was designed to screw you up and the sometimes poor controls combined with the level design just made it an overall not fun experience.

I still dont hate it, but I definitely liked it better when I was younger.

The teams all played pretty much the same, the levels had a lot of dumb design that made the game frustrating (a lot of edges had no railings while several attacks force your character to move), way too much rail grinding, and just...generally not that interesting.

Coming off of SA and SA2 which felt extremely deliberate and detailed with a heavy focus on story and characters, it felt weird to move on to a game where every team plays almost identically to one another and they all run through more or less the exact same levels...and the story is nonexistent and completely underwhelming.

"We have to stop eggman from doing.................something" is such a weak plot, and the "twist" at the end isn't really as exciting as the game wants us to think it is.

Edit: Oh, and lest I forget, the whole "damage sponge" enemy design just made the game feel sluggish and dragged out. Especially if you didn't get the arbitrary "level up" items in each level in order to start doing respectable damage. It just felt like every design decision made the game significantly worse than SA1+2

It was much more slippery than the Adventures and much more combat focused. Enemies had more than 1 hp to justify power formation, but the attacks all sent you flying off the platforms, and late game had a lot of levels with small platforms to fall off of to your death. The late game also gets a lot of enemies that take a minute or two to take out which is tedious. And they were largely mandatory fights, which basically didn't exist outside of bosses in Adventure 1/2.

I still enjoyed it as a kid though and 100%'ed it at least once.

The special stages were a glitchy mess. Kept getting stuck in the floor or walls of the tube. Had to use team rose just because of bigs size to make sure I could get the speed boosters.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

The teams all played pretty much the same, the levels had a lot of dumb design that made the game frustrating (a lot of edges had no railings while several attacks force your character to move), way too much rail grinding, and just...generally not that interesting.

Coming off of SA and SA2 which felt extremely deliberate and detailed with a heavy focus on story and characters, it felt weird to move on to a game where every team plays almost identically to one another and they all run through more or less the exact same levels...and the story is nonexistent and completely underwhelming.

"We have to stop eggman from doing.................something" is such a weak plot, and the "twist" at the end isn't really as exciting as the game wants us to think it is.

Edit: Oh, and lest I forget, the whole "damage sponge" enemy design just made the game feel sluggish and dragged out. Especially if you didn't get the arbitrary "level up" items in each level in order to start doing respectable damage. It just felt like every design decision made the game significantly worse than SA1+2

Agreed; it also came at a critical time, as the very first console multiplatform Sonic game, and was completely underwhelming, particularly when compared to its most recent predecessor (Sonic Adventure 2), imo. I had been looking forward to an Adventure 3, not... that. Ugh. Then Shadow's game came out and was worse, then Sonic 2006 which was even worser still. Really rough time to have been somewhat of a Sonic fan. The baffling decisions by Sonic Team back then really started piling up fast...

What goes up must come down.

Game feels like you are playing on Oil.

Also it was the first sonic game with a OK Soundtrack, which is unacceptable

Hang Castle is cool though

Because the game sucked. The controls and camera were even worse than Adventure 2, it was even glitchier than Adventure 2 and the team mechanics clashed with the only fun part of the game.

The things with 3D Sonic games back then is that it was rushed out to the market without the devs bothering to make any improvements to their stale formula. With every game, you're dealing with a shit camera, shit controls, shit level design, shit automation, shit glitches, etc; it was only a matter of time before Sonic 2006 happened.

No chao garden

They wanted Sonic Villains

the team gimmick it's entirely focused around is not very fun and mainly just complicates and slows the gameplay needlessly is the main problem. the level design being largely based around said unfun mechanic is a close second

third reason would probably be how bad the team chaotix levels are. yet another is that there are not anywhere near enough differences overall between the teams gameplay to make playing the same arrangement of levels over and over again fun

Wasn't the team dynamics supposed to be

Team Sonic - Normal mode
Team Shadow - Hard Mode
Team Amy - Easy Mode
Team Chaotix - Hard/ Puzzle mode?

It's fun for a first playthrough. Got pretty boring and repetitive after having to play the other teams to get the true ending.

PowerOats posted...

Wasn't the team dynamics supposed to be

Team Sonic - Normal mode
Team Shadow - Hard Mode
Team Amy - Easy Mode
Team Chaotix - Hard/ Puzzle mode?

Pretty much, although Dark was only really harder in that there were more enemies and higher level enemies and Chaotix's puzzles were just collection missions and stealth missions.

"let's make a Sonic game but this time let's shoehorn slowpaced flying and brawling to get in the way of the fun speed stuff"

It has a few legitimately good things going for it, but for the first all-new 3D Sonic game in a long time, it didn't really impress.

Plus some people may have only had experience with the PS2 version, which it significantly more glitchy than the other two.

Team Chaotix was definitely the worst part of the game lol. "Let's force players to explore levels that weren't designed around exploration in the first place"

Hack ass devs

Yeah, I enjoyed the 1st 3 teams as a kid, but playing as Team Chaotix almost made me stop playing the game because of how boring their levels were.

it would have been fine without the gimmick IMO. People were expecting a return to form, they showcased what we know and love from Sonic, but then it was tethered to a horrible gimmick. Not to mention finally seeing Chaotix again and having their play through be even worse.

Really boring on a shitty engine that was literally a worse version of the SA2 engine filled with tons of bugs.
Sonic '06 at least tried to do something, even if it sucked. Sonic Heroes tried to do nothing and failed.

The biggest problem was it came off the success of SA2, but it was pretty bad in its own right.

• Stages were way too long to the point they all get old before they end.
• Flying and Power formations destroy the games momentum, as does the new health-bar system.
• Most of the bosses arent fun to fight. Theyre easy and boring but tedious because you have to whale on them until their overly long health-bars deplete. Also, 2 (read: 8) of them are just groups of generic enemies.
• 90% of the obstacles were just Find the switch(es) or defeat all enemies on screen. Thats mostly it for like 12 hours.
• It makes you play the game 4 times to reach the ending. This would be fine if the teams took dramatically different routes or had different play styles or dealt with different hazards, but nope; all four stories feel exactly the same except for Team Chaotix which is actually the worst one.
• Finally, Metal Sonic makes his long-awaited return to immediately turn into another giant generic monster like Chaos/Biolizard. You fight him as Super Sonic, Knuckles and Tails not Super Sonic, Super Knuckles and Super Tails; Super Sonic with Tails and Knuckles in bubbles. Also, you defeat him by collecting balloons and using an ineffective-looking attack a handful of times. How satisfying

Other issues include the same control and camera issues Sonic games always suffer from and certain versions having worse QC.

The controls feel way too imprecise compared to the adventure games, they recycle the same levels between all the different team stories, and forced combat encounters drag the game to a screeching halt way too often. The models look like shiny plastic toys, and there was no Chao garden. I enjoyed it as a kid, but while I have no problem going back to Adventure 1 and 2, Heroes just kinda blows

The soundtrack is fucking awesome as usual for a sonic game though
https://youtu.be/pQ-bjZD1EnI

Why didn't Metal Sonic have a a Team?

The Final Boss coulda been Metal, Silver, and Mecha Sonic

PowerOats posted...

Why didn't Metal Sonic have a a Team?

The Final Boss coulda been Metal, Silver, and Mecha Sonic

Probably to sell the theme of teamwork. It was a team of four teams working together to stop the big bad. "Our gang is bigger than yours" isn't as inspiring a message as "we can overcome anything if we work together"

You can unlock "Metal" versions of the teams with a button input in 2-player mode. They ugly tho.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/1/AAcI8BAADGA_.jpg

Heartomaton posted...

You can unlock "Metal" versions of the teams with a button input in 2-player mode. They ugly tho.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/1/AAcI8BAADGA_.jpg

Damn, I didn't know that; that's literally the stuff of nightmares, right there. Jeez.

KevChaos86 posted...

Damn, I didn't know that; that's literally the stuff of nightmares, right there. Jeez.

Also, is it just me, or isn't it redundant as hell to have a metal version of a character that's already a freaking robot? I'm speaking of course about E-123 Omega...

It is.

To both your statement and question.