FREEDOM PLANET IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE

Solid Snake · 02-08-2015, 01:55 PM

THIS IS THE GAME I'VE WAITED FOR EVER SINCE I FIRST PLAYED SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ON MY SEGA FUCKING GENESIS

(Thanks Numbers)

Kyanbu The Legend · 02-08-2015, 05:56 PM

Yeah it's an amazing title. Though I know this mainly from second hand experience.

phil_ · 02-08-2015, 10:30 PM

No Linux=fascists.

BitVyper · 02-09-2015, 01:21 PM

Yeah, that's how I felt when I started Freedom Planet too. Wait for it to set in. The further you get in the game, the more apparent it becomes that they didn't redesign the levels after they departed from the concept of doing a Sonic fangame. I threw a review up on Steam because the game needs more negative press.

Lilac loses momentum in bad ways (she has no good way of attacking while maintaining speed - cyclone steals her momentum and dragon boost isn't very functional because it eats all her power in one shot), and her normal running speed is really slow, so you get the Sonic 4 antigravity boots feeling when you go up walls (almost every negative review amusingly uses the phrase "brisk walk"). The physics are sort of like uncanny valley Sonic physics with springs that don't work quite right and so forth. Lilac's combat mechanics are pretty ace, but the fighting is really poorly designed in the game, and the levels aren't built for it. You mostly either get enemies that don't require her fighting abilities (as they're again, clearly designed to be fighting Sonic), or enemies that make them fully redundant (the robot dudes who attack you in scores later on. You'll know what I mean when you get there). The Dragon boost ability eating all her power and requiring a full bar to operate kinda messes with her combat mechanics too, because it forces you to spend time waiting for stamina, which is really not conducive to her style of fighting or fast paced battles. Later bosses are all pattern-memorization and a lot of random chance. By the time I reached the end, I had largely abandoned the Dragon boost and switched to attacking with ground-cyclones as much as I could. If you want to fight, you have to stop moving and focus on fighting, which is jarring in Sonic-based gameplay. Later on, you have little choice, because the aforementioned robot enemies will follow you through entire levels in stupid numbers.

It's a Sonic clone that failed to be a Sonic clone and didn't go in its own direction hard enough to succeed on its own merits. It's got tons of style and potential, but it's bogged down in poor choices that pile up more and more the further you get in the game, until it's all just a big chore. Also the non-Lilac characters are crap to play as, so I guess there's one way it succeeded as a Sonic clone.

Edit: The springs are a good example of what's wrong with this game. Ask yourself what they're there for. They don't send you far or give you enough momentum to do much with. Anywhere that a spring sends you is somewhere you can dragon boost to more easily, and dragon boost will give you more momentum than the springs while also attacking. So they're only really there because they're in Sonic, and no one really bothered to check why they work in Sonic. This happens a lot; many of the levels are just "which Sonic 3 gimmick are we going to screw up here?" See also: The spinning tops in that one level that are just a massive chore to drag over to whatever place you need the spinning top at, where they were pretty well integrated with the level design in Sonic 3&Knuckles.

Solid Snake · 02-13-2015, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BitVyper

Edit: The springs are a good example of what's wrong with this game. Ask yourself what they're there for.

The springs I've run into so far are of varying power; some launch me far, others do not. Just because it mechanically works differently than Sonic (I find the springs here are far less about propelling your movement and more about giving you a direction to move on your own), but that's okay, because it's trying to simultaneously be a Sonic homage and do a few things quite differently.

02-08-2015, 01:55 PM	#1
Solid Snake Erotic Esquire Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 5,563	FREEDOM PLANET IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE THIS IS THE GAME I'VE WAITED FOR EVER SINCE I FIRST PLAYED SONIC THE HEDGEHOG ON MY SEGA FUCKING GENESIS (Thanks Numbers) __________________ *WARNING:* Snek's all up in this thread. Be prepared to read massive walls of text.

02-08-2015, 05:56 PM	#2
Kyanbu The Legend Local Rookie Indie Dev Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: New Jersey Posts: 5,497	Yeah it's an amazing title. Though I know this mainly from second hand experience. __________________

02-08-2015, 10:30 PM	#3
phil_ Just sleeping Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: At home, probably in bed. Posts: 6,482	No Linux=fascists. __________________ Be T-Rexcellent to each other, tako. Last edited by phil_; 02-08-2015 at 10:31 PM. Reason: How does it run in wine?

02-09-2015, 01:21 PM	#4
BitVyper History's Strongest Dilettante Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Arcadia Posts: 6,662	Yeah, that's how I felt when I started Freedom Planet too. Wait for it to set in. The further you get in the game, the more apparent it becomes that they didn't redesign the levels after they departed from the concept of doing a Sonic fangame. I threw a review up on Steam because the game needs more negative press. Lilac loses momentum in bad ways (she has no good way of attacking while maintaining speed - cyclone steals her momentum and dragon boost isn't very functional because it eats all her power in one shot), and her normal running speed is really slow, so you get the Sonic 4 antigravity boots feeling when you go up walls (almost every negative review amusingly uses the phrase "brisk walk"). The physics are sort of like uncanny valley Sonic physics with springs that don't work quite right and so forth. Lilac's combat mechanics are pretty ace, but the fighting is really poorly designed in the game, and the levels aren't built for it. You mostly either get enemies that don't require her fighting abilities (as they're again, clearly designed to be fighting Sonic), or enemies that make them fully redundant (the robot dudes who attack you in scores later on. You'll know what I mean when you get there). The Dragon boost ability eating all her power and requiring a full bar to operate kinda messes with her combat mechanics too, because it forces you to spend time waiting for stamina, which is really not conducive to her style of fighting or fast paced battles. Later bosses are all pattern-memorization and a lot of random chance. By the time I reached the end, I had largely abandoned the Dragon boost and switched to attacking with ground-cyclones as much as I could. If you want to fight, you have to stop moving and focus on fighting, which is jarring in Sonic-based gameplay. Later on, you have little choice, because the aforementioned robot enemies will follow you through entire levels in stupid numbers. It's a Sonic clone that failed to be a Sonic clone and didn't go in its own direction hard enough to succeed on its own merits. It's got tons of style and potential, but it's bogged down in poor choices that pile up more and more the further you get in the game, until it's all just a big chore. Also the non-Lilac characters are crap to play as, so I guess there's one way it succeeded as a Sonic clone. Edit: The springs are a good example of what's wrong with this game. Ask yourself what they're there for. They don't send you far or give you enough momentum to do much with. Anywhere that a spring sends you is somewhere you can dragon boost to more easily, and dragon boost will give you more momentum than the springs while also attacking. So they're only really there because they're in Sonic, and no one really bothered to check why they work in Sonic. This happens a lot; many of the levels are just "which Sonic 3 gimmick are we going to screw up here?" See also: The spinning tops in that one level that are just a massive chore to drag over to whatever place you need the spinning top at, where they were pretty well integrated with the level design in Sonic 3&Knuckles. __________________ "There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea is asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace; we've got work to do!" Awesome art be here. Last edited by BitVyper; 02-09-2015 at 01:56 PM.