Personal Insight: Sonic Colors

So, a few days ago, I completely finished the Wii version of Sonic Colors. I didn't go for all the S ranks or anything, although I did get a few along the way, I got all the red rings hidden throughout the levels and I grabbed all the Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic Simulator levels you unlock from collecting said rings. So, let me start from the beginning and work my way up to there.

Don't worry, we'll get to these in a minute.

So, here's the deal. Sonic Colors is a great game. There's the DS version, and the Wii version, and they vary pretty significantly, but the plot is (almost) exactly the same. I'm not going to outline it for you too much, but there ARE going to be spoilers, like usual.

Since there are a DS version and a Wii version, there are obviously going to be big changes in the gameplay as well as the whole execution of the game itself. The Wii is much more powerful than the DS, obviously, and is capable of much better graphics etc. etc. etc. That's sort of beside the point. The point is, the Wii version has a combination of behind-the-back gameplay and side scrolling, the DS version is entirely side scrolling. But that's not really fair to say, because the DS version has special stages that are behind the back. I'll get on those later, though.

I'm only trolling a little...

The Wii version is much, much longer than the DS version. By a marveling degree. Each zone in Sonic Colors for Wii has 6 acts and a boss, except for the very final zone that has an act and then a boss and then half an act. Sonic Colors for DS has 2 acts per zone, 3 optional challenge stages featuring other characters in the cutscenes made of pictures and text, and a boss. The optional challenges aren't really worth playing in my opinion, because while they are in fact, challenging, they aren't very rewarding. I've only played a few, because I can't be bothered. There are also 2 final bosses. However, there are just as many zones as in the Wii version, obviously, so the DS game is MUCH shorter. I beat the DS version with all the chaos emeralds and beat the final boss in 2 days, and with not much more than a few hours worth of playtime. I don't know the exact number, but it wasn't nearly as big as the Wii version's was (which was actually 99:59:59 because I left the Wii on for a couple of days).

The two versions had some different wisps than the others (the wisps being the aliens you are rescuing and get super powers from.) The Wii had 8, and the DS had 6. I'm not going to get into those, though. That would be completely ridiculous.

I don't have a lot to say about this game, I would highly suggest buying it on either (or both) systems. Or, at least, give them a play through. What I really wanted to get to was the red rings, and the incredible prize afterwards (supposedly).

First of all, I would like to tell the world that I cheated. I used YouTube videos uploaded to show how exactly to get all the red rings. But, hey, I never would have gotten them by myself. There are fucking 180 of them.

I didn't get them on the DS version. You get the Chaos Emeralds differently in the DS version, and I hear the red rings don't dish out a very good prize in the DS version. If it's infinite boost, then it's not necessary because you practically have infinite boost in most of the levels anyways because of all the boost you get throughout the game whilst boosting. I did get all of them in the Wii version, because you need them to get the Goddamn Chaos Emeralds.

Thank you God for these precious gifts.

In the DS version, each zone has a special stage. You play the special stage by completing an act in that zone with 50 or more rings at the end. Just like the classic games. In the special stages, you control Sonic with the Stylus along a tubular ramp of sorts, collecting colored orbs/balls/testicles, whatever you want to call them. You take 3 laps: On the first lap, you need to collect red orbs. If you touch any yellow or blue orbs, you swat them away. You shouldn't do this because you need to collect those orbs on the next 2 laps. If you touch a spike ball, which there are fairly few of, you lose some orbs. You need to collect a certain minimal amount to pass to the next lap, and when you complete 3 laps with enough orbs each time, you get a Chaos Emerald. If you don't, you lose the special stage and you have to play an act over again with 50 rings to try again. I found out that you can restart the special stage at any time, and that includes the moment you realize your about to reach the finish line and you don't have enough fucking orbs oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. If you restart there, there's no penalty. It's so much easier to do that, but I only did that once, because after I did it once, I didn't have to do it again because the special stages here are fucking easy as pie compared to past special stages.

OH GOD WHY!?!?!?

After you get all the chaos emeralds, you get an extra final boss that you fight as Super Sonic.

In the Wii version, when you get all the red rings and unlock all the Sonic Simulator levels, you have to play through them. There are 7 zones and 3 acts each. That's as much gameplay as the DS version has alone. You get one Chaos Emerald every time you finish a zone, and when you have all seven Chaos Emerald, you can go into the options menu and turn on the option to use Super Sonic. That's exactly what it sounds like. In the 3D levels, for the first time in 3D console history, Super Sonic is available during any stage of the game.

Which, in hindsight, is pretty terrifying.

Ironically, you can't fight any bosses as Super Sonic in this game. You don't even get an extra bonus boss for Super Sonic. It's so weird. But regardless, Super Sonic is totally worth it. Right?

Not... really...

See, here's the deal. Super Sonic is awesome because he's lightning fast, completely invincible, and can burn through levels like they're made of cardboard. Usually. Super Sonic in Sonic Colors is about the same speed as Sonic. He reaches top speed a lot faster, and he has infinite boost, and that's the change in speed. Infinite boost is nice, especially when it's combined with invincibility, but it's impractical when his jumps lose precision and most levels are riddled with traps to obliterate you for running fast in a Sonic game. There are other problems in the system, too. Turning on Super Sonic in the options sort of disables you a little when you aren't Super Sonic.

First of all, lots of levels, especially the earlier ones, don't have an immediate 50 rings waiting for you at the start of the level. So, when that happens, it might take a while before you can transform in the level you want to transform in. Sometimes it's impossible because there aren't even 50 rings in the level. These things aren't usually a problem when getting 50 rings doesn't suddenly seem necessary, but there's usually a way to get lots of rings in levels anyways. That's with wisps. Wisps let you access lots of places you normally can't as Sonic, and those places frequently have rings to make it extra rewarding for getting there at all. But guess what? YOu can't use them. You know why? When you get the 50th ring, there's a symbol depicting the 7 Chaos Emeralds where the wisp's ability symbol normally would be. So, you can't have a wisp and be able to have the Super Sonic option at the same time. That's why the Super Sonic option can even be toggled. If you want Super Sonic, you can't use ANY wisps. In fact, there are some levels where wisps are necessary to finish the level, and they have to be altered slightly so you can return without having to use Super Sonic (in case you don't have the rings to transform) and without using wisps. So, there's a lack of rings, it's hard to get as much Super Sonic out of a level as you want. Basically, it's hardly worth the trouble. Most of my readers know me personally, so let me make this shout out: If you want to try out Super Sonic on Sonic Colors, I'll be happy to show you. Don't waste your time buying Sonic Colors and doing it yourself.

But seriously, buy Sonic Colors. It's awesome.

KingRanter

Personal Insight - Kirby's Epic Yarn

Sorry in advance for the enormous pictures in this post, high resolution is inconvenient and I can't be bothered to fix it right now.

So here's the thing. I liked Kirby's Epic Yarn. it had a LOT of problems compared to other Kirby games, though. Personally, I really wish they released an actual Kirby game that wasn't trying to be Little Big Planet. I have my reasons for it, too. Kirby games had a lot of qualities that were completely obliterated by this game, and it is absolutely necessary that they don't make another game and slap an unrelated franchise's name on it.

Kirby had a lot of defining qualities that other games didn't have, or couldn't have. It was unbelievably different from other games in the sense that nothing else could have pulled off what Kirby pulled off. So, let me list some original things that were ripped from the heart of Kirby when he entered the Yarn filled world of his Epic Yarn.

Abilities

This is the first thing that punches you in the face. Kirby is completely unable to inhale fuck all. Technically, if this was true, everyone living in the yarn world (I forget if it has a name) would suffocate to death. Obviously, Yarn doesn't have to breathe, so I SUPPOSE I can let that pass. The story implies that when Kirby tries to inhale, the air passes right through him. Physically, there would be no change in air direction regardless of what he did. Without lungs (or whatever the fuck Kirby used in the first place) there is no change in air pressure, and therefore no air rushing towards the low pressure area. Air shouldn't be passing through him at any enhanced rate at all.

Now, forgetting all that, let's stick to what he is left with. He can shoot a string of yarn and grab onto whatever to do whatever with. Depending on what he does with it, the yarn will do different things, usually pulling. Here's where shit gets weird

When you grab an enemy with your yarn, you do one of two things. If you hold the button, they turn into a ball of yarn. Simple enough. Then you hold them above your head and you can throw them at whatever. Kind of like other Kirby games right? Since you don't have copy abilities, you can just throw balls of yarn. Oh, the second thing is that if you just tab the button, you grab onto the enemy and rip them to shreds with your yarn lasso. That's what happens. Holy shit. Kirby games have never been so ruthless. Other Kirby games never let you see you digesting your enemies into stars. Yarn or no yarn, if you did something like that in real life, you're leaving a bloody mess on the floor.

Now, while we're on the topic of abilities, let's get a little more specific...

Mobility

Kirby hates you for this, Nintendo. Kirby's inhalation of air did more than just let him eat fucking everything, it let him fly. Now, he can't. He can, however, turn into a parachute. The working physics of a parachute is that it's large surface area pushes against the air on it's way down, thus slowing the fall significantly. What the fuck is going on here?

Some other things that you can do are turn into a car, a yo-yo, a top, and a tiny tank. If you get to a point in a level where you are required to turn into something more complicated that you can't transform into on a regular basis. Some of these things are a UFO, a dolphin, a snowboarding penguin or a giant tank.

I don't have a problem with many of these, but they are all very limited use. None of these things can be used wherever the hell you want with the exception of the car because it's just dashing but for lazy Kirby when he doesn't want to take the bus, and the occasional turning into a weight and apparently getting heavy as hell despite being made of the same yarn. Therefore, unless you're in a place where you are required to use it to get something/somewhere, you can't use it. It seems pretty useless most of the time. But here's something that's even more useless...

Scoring

Lots of games with stages and worlds have decided to score you on your performance, D usually being the lowest (Sometimes E) and S usually being the highest. It's a pretty familiar system by now, and it usually incorporates a variety of things. Sonic games usually base it on how fast you ran through the level, Mario games usually base it on score alone, but what can Kirby do? Kirby doesn't have anything that can support a functioning scoring system because of all the things you can do and all the different ways you can do it. Kirby games are so limitless that there is no plausible way to score the levels you play.

Oh wait.

Kirby's Epic Yarn introduces Beads. You need to collect lots of beads to get a good score in the level. It's completely useless to bother, but it's something you might as well do along the way, otherwise the game gets boring as hell. There are several uses for the beads, none of which are very original. You use beads outside of the levels as currency to buy more useless shit like furniture for your house that has nothing to do with anything and does nothing but look pretty while you sit around in your Yarny house not playing any levels. To bead collecting challenging, every time Kirby gets hit, you lose a shitton of beads. You can recollect them if their within reach before they disappear, and if they don't fall down into a pit. Oh, but don't fall into a pit yourself because then an angel appears and as it carries you out of the pit, you shit out all of your fucking beads and they usually all fall back into the pit, forever unreachable. Oh, and don't think that taking a hit with no beads kills you...

Challenge

Having a challenge in a video game is necessary for fun. It's not necessarily original in anyway at all, but Kirby's Epic Yarn completely erased any challenge it could have had. You can't die in this game. When you lose all your beads and take a hit, you're fine. It doesn't matter what happens, you're perfectly safe at all times. You don't have a health meter, and getting hit makes you flinch and lose your beads. Don't have any beads? Ok, let's just take out that last part until you get some beads to lose. This makes boss fights extremely easy, and boss fights that you can't figure out (if for some reason you can't figure it out) long and obnoxious. Scrambling around to collect your beads is a definite distraction, but what else is there for you to do? Nothing is out to get you for anything more than making you poor.

The final boss was disappointing. It wasn't long enough, and there was no challenge. The biggest problem you could have had was landing hits, and when you get to the last phase, it's just stupid easy. It's not necessary to make you completely invincible in a video game even if it is directed at children. Invincibility for the sake of not wanting kids to lose and have fits should be left for games like Disney Princesses and shit like that, which aren't all that legitimate. Speaking of being illegitimate...

Legitimacy

Kirby games have some noticeable patterns to them. There's always a Wispy Woods clone, even Epic Yarn stuck with that idea. There was, however, one very disappointing boss battle that I was looking forward to.

Meta Knight battles always allow Kirby to use a Sword. That's because Meta Knight is Chivalrous, and because sword fights are awesome. Of course, Kirby's Epic Yarn did not include a sword fight because there is no sword ability, and Nintendo felt it unnecessary to make a special exception for this particular part of the game. Instead, it was filled with Meta Knight throwing fireballs at Kirby from his sword, and getting them thrown back at him, never realizing that if he stopped throwing fireballs, he would be Goddamn invincible. He says later that he was sorry and that the Yarn had made him evil or something because he needed an excuse for not knitting a Yarn sword for Kirby when he made his own. What a douche.

That's really all there is to it. Now, I'm not saying that Kirby's Epic Yarn was a bad game. It was a good game. Not the best game I've ever played, and it was pretty short and didn't have a lot to it, but it was alright. You have to take into consideration what the market is for games when you think about how good/bad it is, so for a kid's game, it was decent. Compared to other Kirby games, however, it was awful. If they just went ahead and tried again on that game that was supposed to be for the Gamecube that got delayed repeatedly and then cancelled, I imagine that people would be much happier with the result. I know I would have been.

KingRanter

Blackfire Summary Pt. GTFO OF HERE

So, Jesus Christ, I'm not doing plot updates anymore. The first one should have covered way more shit, and even then, I change the rules frequently so they make more sense TO ME. Personally, I don't think about those old stories anymore, and trying to make a beginning to something that has a middle and has no planned end is confusing as hell to do. I've already changed a lot of the rules from the first summary, and I'm not going to get into what those are for obvious reasons.

So here's where we stand. Forget everything I've written plot-wise, and forget a bunch of the stuff I wrote about their powers etc. Also, while I don't plan to delete it, disregard the previous post as well, it was way too fucking general anyway. Instead, if I get th urge to write about King Ranter's adventures in my imagination, I'm going to go ahead and just do a fight or something, maybe with simple backstory. I can't be bothered to write up a fucking book if I have no inspiration to recreate old plots that are now essentially expired. A lot of it still holds water right now, but every so often I remember something I had thought up and that it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense in the current run of things. So I change it. It's not bothering anyone else, so who fucking cares? Thats's basically my mindset for it.

I still plan to write up some new chapters, but nothing will necessarily be in chronological order. The only thing that seems to hold true are the names of the characters and what they do, but not HOW they do it or in what way or whatever. Therefore, in any new chapters I make, remember that they are not linked together with the exception of things that I want to reuse because I think they are fucking awesome. That being said, as you read, if something doesn't make sense from something I wrote in the last post, disregard what I had written in the last post. That's srs bsns everybody, because I don't plan to fix shit up so it makes sense ever again, that's the whole reason this idea is going to hell in the first place. And that being said...

I will be taking requests. If someone has a request, I am significantly more likely to actually write a story because I will have something to write about. And I will take any request as long as I find it interesting and understand it remotely. I'm serious about that. See, I do a lot of cameos in Gyronia. Ranter's been doing a lot of running with Sonic the Hedgehog int he past year, I tell you. I highly encourage requests with or without cameos of fictional or non-fictional characters, because God only knows exactly how long I could go without making a post. Everyone who has read this blog knows that I can go a long Goddamn time. I just don't like to, so keep that in mind.

KingRanter