Rayman 2 was one of the best platformers you could get, end of sentence.
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I find the game boring. It was boring in 1996, and it's boring now. The only reason I'm brining up Sonic Adventure is because of the Camera. Sonic Adventure gets so much flack for it's camera system it's ridiculous. Yet Mario 64 has a substantially worse Camera system and you almost never here people complain about it. In fact the game is praised for it's crappy camera system on sites like Wikipedia. My question is why?
And honestly aside from the hub world I didn't find it that innovative. NiGHTS came out around the same time and I find it's camera system to be much better. And it's Camera System is almost identical to what Sonic Adventure uses. Control wise Sonic doesn't feel floaty to me in Sonic Adventure. Mario however feels pretty loose when running and stiff when trying to slowly position him. The way you control Sonic in Sonic Adventure, Sonic Jam, and the kids in NiGHTS feels much better if you ask me.
You can praise the replaying multiple levels over and over again all you want. But I see it for what it is. An attempt to stretch a small 8MB game out so gamers don't realize there are less levels in the game than previous Mario games. Mario 64 has 15 unique levels not including the bowser stages and bonus stages. Considering Mario 3 beats that after less than 1/3 of the game is complete that's pretty sad. Yeah you can try the excuse of "They want you to explore each level!" but I've pretty much fully explored it on my first visit. Having to visit it 7 more times is pretty boring.
While not as buggy I'd say the controls and camera are a mess. And honestly The US Dreamcast version of Sonic Adventure never seemed that buggy to me.
I played Mario 64 again a few months back. Played it long enough to get around 60 stars.
I honestly found that the game had aged pretty well and is in itself one of the best reason to own a N64.
I definitely had fun playing it and did not find the camera to be so much of a problem.
Maybe i was slightly annoyed by it at some times but i never felt like it was a deal breaker.
Anyway pls forgive this little guy here he was new at the job :p
http://www.mariowiki.com/images/c/c5/LakituBroSM64.png
I guess the best way I can explain what annoys me with the camera is you can only pick from a few options of what angles the game wants to show you, regardless of whether or not any of those are the angle you actually want or need to see.
I appreciate Sonic Adventure, but Mario 64 is much more fun in the long and short term. The DS version fixed the camera controls, so a "perfect" version already exists and that's all that matters if you're a fan of the game. Hopefully a console re-release will include full camera control.
Sonic Adventure has different overlapping issues, during which camera problems can be deadly instead of simply inconvenient.
The DS version fixed the camera? That's the first I've heard of that, I may need to give that version a try. Though that still wont help the boringly repetitive nature of the game, it would at least make it less frustrating.
I think you've got your Sega blinkers on mate, Sonic Adventures is such a hodge podge, from near greatness, mediocrity then right down flipping awful. Its like tucking into a nice lamb casserole to find pieces of catshit in there.
I dont know why this game gets such an easy ride on this forum, (hmm Sega?). I actually feel the game practically plays itself, just press forward and double jump enough times to hit the enemies in your windy path, there often there to allow you to traverse the gaps in the terrain removing any challenge anyway. Plus the flimsy in-between level fetch quests are child's play and just an absolute chore.
SM64 yeah it can be boring, but thats probably because its a road well traveled and less to do with actual age, I still feel its quite timeless, but like Zelda 64 everybody's played it and everybody knows the ins and out of how it plays, theres no secrets anymore is there. Had SM64 been much more obscure which is impossible due it coming along like the 2nd coming of christ right at the start of 3D game plays infancy, it would get its plaudits sung a lot more.
Why are you playing the N64 anyway? Egads talk about rose tinted glasses country. I'm surrounded by young twenty somethings who have some bizarre unresolved fascination with that thing. Thats when the rot set in, thanks Ninty.
Even back when the game was new I wasn't that thrilled by it. I had more fun watching other people play it than playing it myself. The boredom has nothing to do with the secrets all being known now, but more so with the repetitive nature of the game. When I finish a level I want to move on to the next. But in Mario 64 this isn't feasible as I have to keep spamming the same level over and over again to get stars to unlock new levels. I find this far more boring and irritating than anything in Sonic Adventure. When I play Mario 64 I feel like I'm soloing a bad grindfest MMO.
I've never had a problem with Mario 64's camera, but Sonic Adventure's is awful... Sonic Adventure's faster speed makes the camera problems worse, and you don't have quite as good camera control (with the C-buttons, it works decently).
Good point as well, Mario 64 was creating a new kind of 3d platformer game. SA, in comparison, released several years later, a bit after Banjo-Kazooie... but B-K has a far better camera and hub world.
I do like Sonic Adventure, though really only Sonic's mode... the others aren't that good. I like all three modes in SA2, though. Good game, it's just too short unless you care about getting better ratings in levels. But yeah, Rayman 2 is the DC's best 3d platformer.
Personally, the only time the camera screwd with me in SA was in a especific part in the Lost World level(which is also one of my favorite levels of the game).Apart form that, you can get around.
Also, it is much more easy to transport Mario gameplay to 3D then it is with Sonic's gameplay. None of the plattformer's mentioned above is like Sonic, yet they all are very similiar to Mario, and since SA was the first real attempent of Sonic Team to make a Sonic game(not counting Sonic R, which is a racing game) in 3D, i think they made a damn fine job.
There's no secret that usually the majority of the "press" it is much more lenient to flaws in Mario games then Sonic's.That is a fact and , since their opinion has a big influence , you see what happens.
I rarely even need to mess with the camera in Sonic Adventure. And when I do, the shoulder buttons are more than enough to show me what I need to see. The problem with Mario 64's camera system is that you can only move it left or right in 90 degrees. If I could simply move it freely left or right like you can in NiGHTS or Sonic Adventure this would be significantly better. Instead you have the choice of 4 fixed angles that aren't as good as they could be.
I sold my N64 years ago for less than I'm willing to admit on a public forum, but I did enjoy the times I had with that system. I still should've kept it. Is that nostalgia? Nah, I'm not old enough for that, but the memories are important enough to me. Luckily, it's one of the cheaper Nintendo systems, even with mad, fanatic collectors.
Is it so taboo to like both Super Mario 64 and Sonic Adventure? I liked several platformers from that era, even with the quirks.