Another Thing About Action Henk

It's official: Action Henk is my new whipping boy. Not the game itself, but its fans who insist this is the best Sonic game since the Genesis days, when it's blatantly not. In fact, the game epitomizes why Sonic has been total shit since 2013 or so.

1) SPEEEEEEEEED! No pressure.

Sheer speed is a major spelling point of the game, and is only achieved through momentum-based movement, like Classic Sonic (more specifically Sonic 1). However, AH in the end incorporates speed very differently from how Sonic does. One uses speed in Action Henk as the main goal, rather than the means to an end.

Speed is effectively all there is (except reclaiming your trophy from Kentony, but that's directly tied to your speed). Platforming is obscured by the loops and chutes, with momentum-aided running jumps being absolutely necessary later on. Story is just as ridiculous as the Pontaff era. Combat is out of the way, with boss battles all being races against an opposing toy even more grotesque than you. 

2) No Annoying side characters? Not really. 

Action Henk has been stated to have "all the rush of a 2D Sonic game, without any of the annoying sidekicks."

Well, Sonic's friends and other supporting characters didn't become annoying and useless until later, and moreso over time. Even Sonic himself became an utterly unlikable character starting with Lost World.  Action Henk's side characters were doomed from the start.

Henk is the sole remotely decent character in the game. While ugly, he has that old Digimon/Toxic Crusaders feel to his design. He is a fine and okay character. The rest of them range from bland to horrifying. I've already shown you the nightmare that is Betsy before, and I don't want to show her off again. On the other hand, I will show you a character who could have been okay:

Afronaut (named "Neil" in the final draft) originally looked way better in the concept art than in the final game.  The final draft of the character didn't work as well. A cel-shading filter would have been very stylish and made him not unbearably grotesque.  There were also some characters who did not make it into the final cut: Stacy (a parody of Paris Hilton) and one in an astronaut suit.  Unlike Honey and Tiara, nobody cares about them. This is because of poor design. None of the characters really stand out (except UGH... Betsy). None have distinct abilities. None have real personality, only ghastly face value.

3) Robotnik/Eggman/Baldy/whatever

Kentony is not threatening in the slightest. His goal is to steal Henk's trophy and make him miserable, just like current Baldy. His threat to conquer the world comes out of nowhere. Kentony is Gaston's skin over Baldy. 

It turns out Henk's development history is much more interesting than the final game. However, I would like to grant the final product with a:

Pee and Poo: Attack of the Leftovers

The sole reason Sanic Dum: Pee and Poo even exists is because of it having been part of an old contractual obligation. SEGA prefers to bleed money, so they decided to go through with the contract rather than put it to rest. Going through with a contract based around one of the worst-received games in recent history takes some real imbecility (or worse, malice). They did let Sony aid in the production of Shemnue 3, so I guess it was imbecility.

"A more linear, classic experience"

I would have preferred if you improved on the old Metroidvania play style. This linearity implies nothing. It could just maintain the linear speed of the original, as Sonic's running was pretty much automatic.

"We have a new character, Amy Rose"

This has confused many, but Amy was not playable in Shattered Crystal, like how Sticks wasn't in Rise of Lyric.

"The people who hated Boom contributed to bad sales"

Many people were more or less indifferent to Boom. The games also recieved bad reviews because they were terrible. RoL in particular was a complete failure.

"We no longer consider the Wii U version canon."

R.I.P. Perci. Also, this does show that they were aware Rise of Lyric was a flop. They aren't aware it tainted Boom by being the figurehead. 

Overall, Pee and Poo will be another faliure and continue the state of crisis at hand.

More Pee and Poo

So, did you guys want more content about Sanic Dum: Pee and Poo? Did you want to eradicate this filth from your minds? Well then, regardless, here it is:

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/whats-next-for-sonic-the-hedgehog-and-friends

Evidently, the game has a sillier tone closer to the aptly ridiculous show. Baldy McNosehair builds a series of robots to outrun and humiliate Old Man Ogilvie, like he would on the show, where Baldy's goal is to annoy Sonic rather than do much lethal. Even the Arc Villain evokes Crash Bandicoot in his naming scheme, being a little pun with a single letter before the rest of the pun: D-Fekt (defect). So this game gets points for source loyalty.

Expect plenty of this

There will be four boss battles, utilizing both screens like in the Rush series and Colors 64. These all appear to be creations of D-Fekt, as he is the main Arc Villain of this chapter, like Lyric in RoL as SC. I did like the double-screen of the olden days. D-Fekt is a Baldy creation gone mad with obsession to gain power from the "Ragnium" of Bygone Island. He even looks a lot like Orbot and Cubot, killing any sort of menace factor to him. He's a dumpy, stupid looking robot.

There are unlockable characters. Whether this means we start with Sonic like in SC or we can get Metal Sonic, Perci, and Shadow is unknown. There is a screenshot depicting what appears to be Metal Sonic, however.

The game is also to strongly feature the multiplayer "Bot Race", where you collect and race Bots build by Baldy McNosehair of various characters. Whether the Bots are playable or not is unknown. These Bots seem fairly similar to the "Sim Sonics" of the Colors Era. The recolored Metal Sonic down there seems to indicate that what is shown is Bot Race.

All five main characters are playable in the third SB

Also, BOUNCEPADSBOUNCEPADSBOUNCEPADS are gone, replaced by traditional springs. So we will likely no longer hear "BOUNCEPADSBOUNCDEPADSYOU'RESOCONVIENIENTEPICBOUNCEPADLAUNCHYAY!" in the game. Other obnoxious phrases might get phased out to in order to be more in line with the show's humor.

On Tumblr, the cover-art is tagged with #it's going to be way better than the first one. Hubris, much. The first game, as you all know, was abysmal. The second was forgettable, but had some good music tracks. So there really isn't much of a gap for the third to climb. It's like claiming the Genesis Action 52 was way better than the NES one (Their "Cheetahmen" is even worse than the NES Cheetahmen). So that assures nothing.

What could have been

D-Fekt has become a minor joke, and I can't find any fanart of the guy at all. Shows how low this game has gotten to. Before RoL, even minor NPC Perci got a truckload of fan-art.

Unfortunately, I have cancelled my Doom skin of her

And worst of them all, BOOM SONIC IS NOW MODERN SONIC. SEGA have entered their death throes. SEGA are likely trying to die (or torment us with hellfire). It's at least a better situation than Spyro (at least Modern still exists as Legacy Sonic, though Legacy's fate is unclear), but greenlighting another game following RoL is pure stupidity. I've only seen Atari act like such an idiot. Even Ubisoft shoved Petz to the side as they milked it to utter destruction.

You were better under Penders

In five years time...

I have never seen a Sonic game get such an unanimously bad reception before: people were even initially hyped for RoL.

Will Pee and Poo be Sonic's Backyard Baseball 2007? Or can Sonic be saved yet?

The Action Henk Fallacy

 Well, word has been going around of a Sonic "spiritual successor" called Action Henk. In my opinion, without even playing it... IT SUCKS MONKEY BUTTS!

Yes, I've managed to get this assumption from damn gameplay footage recorded by some neckbeard. For one thing, the character designs are downright scary, and not in a good way. Henk does look pretty creepy to begin with, but then you take a look at someone like Betsy...

MOMMY! GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!

The reason Sonic won a huge fanbase was because of appealing character design.  Each of the characters was well-designed and appealing. Freedom Planet and other franchises followed this principle. AH does not. You can't relate to anyone of these horrifying Bozos and Slugs.

Also, there's the level design, which Is  very linear and lacks depth. Sonic has exploration and multiple paths.  AH has just running and sliding about. Maybe you can go faster on slopes but to little avail other than a new score. There is a level maker, but most levels made are just as bad as the pack-ins.

Well, I realize this is not a BAD GAME per se, but it's a niche title for sure. It's niche are the extremist Sonic "fans" out there, who claim:

* Kill all the characters except Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Robotnik. 

* Back to 2D, 100%.

* No story! 

* No "edge". Make it comedic, like Earthworm Jim, or straight-up childish. 

* Physics are absolutely everything. The rest of gameplay factors do not matter.

* Reduce it all to XBLA titles. 

* Creativity= NO! No experimentation whatsoever! Have you seen that fucking Werehog?
* Levels need to be a straight track to the goal! Use momentum!

This game fits those "demands" well. You can clearly see people screaming "Get SEGA to hire these guys.", "The only real Sonic game since 1994", and other things. "As if Freedom Planet, the Sonic Adventure duology, the Unleashed Trilogy, the Advance series and other portables, and constant fan-games don't exist," you may think. No. This game aims at those picky weirdos who don't really like Sonic, they only want shallow nostalgia. 

They want an imagined "Sanic", a Sonic without his very nature. A game based on physics and physics alone. Just running, bum-sliding, and being FATS. This game satisfies those wants well.

So sayonara, extremist punks, this is the place you want to be in!  Stay with the Henk, and don't wish for Sonic to become like that! Us Sonic fans are off from this place.

Or you can choose the Freedom Planet Life, like how it chose me.

Fire And Ice: The End Is Near

Sonic Boom Three. No, really. They're making a third Sonic Boom game in the form of Fire and Ice. I guess they were serious about splitting the branches of the series...

On the other hand, I have never seen a Sonic game, or ANY game, get such an UNINANIMOUS NEGATIVE RECEPTION. From fans, non-fans, maybe even the target audience. The reception is so bad, people who haven't touched Sonic in ages come to gawk at this shit!

The Point of No Return

There is a state beyond jumping the shark, a wicked and vicious state few have achieved. A terrible state, one showing no going back. They have become a monster of a franchise. No quality drop will be below them, they have already bottomed out in quality. Death does not follow the franchise into the grave, rather, a living death lingers on their very souls. A limbo of empty moneymaking, seeking money that no longer exists.

Has Sonic achieved this narakrap? We will ask that question later. First, let's take a look at franchises that certainly have achieved this. All three were once moderately popular PC game franchises, but fell down worse and worse over time. Now they do appeal to only the lowest common denominator. The first of three disgraces is Backyard Sports. I have already discussed this franchise once. I wrote how it was utterly razed by corporate greed. It turns out they made a new mobile dump of it. Let's take a look...

FUCKFUCKFUCK Not this crap again!

Aaand, we get more shit that will only appeal to fuckwhocares. This is just a dull sellout along the lines of Candy Crush Saga (which I'm on the borderline of not even considering a videogame). Typical app crap. They didn't even change the designs back! They still look tweenish! The characters looking like cute kids with little bead eyes was part of the appeal!

And what the fuck happened to most of the Backyard Kids, anyway? Those who haven't been fuckshitted beyond fucking recognition have just fucking dissipated into fucking oblivion for fucking YEARS. 11 FUCKING CHARACTERS ARE GONE. And some fucking lame new fucking characters don't fucking change fucking anything.

The next is Petz. You know, those dumb as shit games you see in the bargain bins at your average department store next to the ones based on preschool shows and foodstuffs? THEY USED TO BE GOOD.

Really. The original PC incarnations were an innovative series of Pet simulators based around uniquely designed and coded 3D characters. The series's mod scene created many extra breeds. Some of these breeds are very wild and specialized, like Eeveelutions.  But then 2006 rolled around, and we got a major console release of Petz, and it ripped off Nintendogs. From then on, they would either copy Nintendogs to the letter or make some bizarre premise no one cares about.



Now they're on level with Imagine.

Last is Army Men. Thankfully, this franchise seems to have been laid to rest at last in 2010. But before that, we got a bunch of increasingly worse spins on the series after Air Combat. But the final nail was Soldiers of Misfortune:

In Name Only

Has Sonic succumbed to the fate of these three with RoL? You be the judge.

Burn Notice

In Street Fighter II, when a character is burned, their burning silhouette is clearly that of M. Bison/Vega regardless of your character.

Super Street Fighter II rectified this somewhat, as Zangief got his own burn sprites, which were reused for T.Hawk (in addition to there now being stand and crouch burns).

However, at no point in a 2D Street Fighter game did everyone get their own burn animation. The Alpha series (and thus MVC by reusing the sprites) went with a more cartoony artstyle, and had a generic orange color filter applied to burned players with a few translucent flames, similar to KOF. The same applied with III and CVS2, but with better animation. Capcom's Darkstalkers had unique cartoony ash face effects for everyone (even the headswap).

SF4, however, managed to replicate the effect by darkening and/or reddening the textures on the foe and adding the flame effect.  Some attacks make the foe go darker than others, which was a nice touch.

In the end: I have two questions:

1) What would specific burn animations of the other SF2 characters have looked like?
2) Could other fighters have characters identified from the burn silhouettes?