This was a quickie where I got Donna's opinion on a modern side scroller
Overview:
A 2D side-scrolling platformer reminiscent of the original Sonic games for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis.[8] Players control Sonic the Hedgehog,[9] using mechanics such as the original Spin Dash and power-ups such as shields, invincibility and speed shoes. Sonic is also able to use a homing attack, which homes in on a targeted enemy or object.
What she thought she knew going in
Genre of the Game: Side scroller (hell yeah)
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What's the story: Sonic... so run fast and rescue the animals out of robots
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How difficult the game is: side scroller so not to difficult
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Anything else: let's do this
How it went
We only played for 20 mins and she got most of the way through the first zone. Donna was having a blast, smiling and laughing until it came to the homing attack platforming sections, which was a new addition for her, once I had explained how the attacks work she got through them pretty easily.
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This was not a full not a gamer playthrough, it was on a whim of Donna's so it will be short.
What she thought
Right... Sonic is my safe zone and it is one of the few games that I can enjoy and play without a tutorial or help from my husband. It begins in a typical classic sonic way, running fast across a zone that looks like sonic 1's green hill zone, it felt great and I loved how familiar it felt but... it still wasn't my sonic, the change from 2D characters and levels to 3D wasn't the problem, the problem was that really game felt cluttered with enemies and springs that it didn't seem to flow in the same way the old megadrive games did. Sometimes Sonic would have to come to a complete stop in order to move forward in the level.
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With that being said however it also felt like a lot of control over sonic was taken away from me, this may be because it didn't feel like my button inputs where as responsive as they had been in those old games and this brought out of the experience a little bit. The worst offender of this is when I am trying to use the homing attacks to move along in the air across otherwise impossible to traverse parts of the level.
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Overall it was good but I honestly felt like I was playing was sonics twin brother, yes it looks similar and has some of the same mannerisms but ultimately something feels a little off when playing the game and I will be trying to play some more of this in my own time because I did ultimately enjoy myself.