[quote=“Lance Way”]
I’m surprised you thought Sonic R was soo bad - not that I felt it was amazing myself, but I wouldn’t have thought it was one of Sega’s worst games ever… what did you dislike so much about it?[/quote]
ahhhhh Sonic R is so good!!! Its my 3rd fave ever game!
PD Mini felt to me like it was trying to be a “cut down” version of the Saturn games, but the way this was pulled off didn’t seem to work very well in my opinion. For one thing, the gameplay of the PD rail shooters partially “worked” because of the way you could look all around you as you flew forwards; that’s one of the differences they have from other games in the genre, and it’s one of the major ways that variety is brought into the gameplay (in that enemies can come from all sides). However, PD Mini removed this part of the formula (by necessity) and didn’t seem to adequately adapt the rest of the concept around it; with enemies slowly appearing in small groups from the front, and with their attacks being relatively easy to avoid, the game seemed far too easy - or at least, far too unvaried and simple - to be enjoyable for me. (This isn’t to say that I think this kind of old-school rail shooter is bad of course, as I thought games like Space Harrier worked perfectly; but their gameplay was designed to give enough variety, and in SH’s case, a suitable level of frantic action, which PD Mini failed to do in my opinion.)
There were other things missing from PD Mini that didn’t need to be necessarily left out though, which I felt was disappointing. For example, why not give the dragon a berserk attack? Surely it wouldn’t be a problem to have a berserk bar that fills up as you shoot things, and then to let you press a button and have the screen flash for a few seconds, annihilating anything that appears? Getting the player to make well-timed berserk attacks could be one way of adding more variety to the levels, as PDZ and PDO did.
A similar missed opportunity seemed to be the blue, black and red dragons: if there are multiple playable characters, why make them all play the same? Why not just have a dragon evolution system where one dragon grows through different forms, similar to the one in PD Zwei? Unlocking extra dragon forms would be a simple way of encouraging players to replay the game and improve their scores - but for that matter, where are the scores? PD Mini doesn’t rate you on anything you do, so you simply progress to the next level four times, and then the game ends. A simple % shot-down ratio at least wouldn’t have been hard to implement, and other things like hits taken, boss times, a general score and other grades could have been implemented without too much difficulty as well. I’d feel much more motivated to play through the limited number of levels again if I had some way of knowing I was improving my performance.
Another thing I found disappointing was the lack of a storyline; even if the game simply re-used the PD1 story for example, and told it with some straightforward still-image cut-scenes, I would have preferred it to what we ended up with: a dragon that was shooting things simply so that a spin-off game could exist. Another mildly annoying storyline point is that without a rider, it doesn’t really make sense that the dragon can fire bullets in Panzer Dragoon Mini; I’d have preferred it if the rider had simply been left in, even though he’d presumably be reduced to a handful of pixels.
Going back to my original complaint about this feeling like a “cut-down” PD game though, what I’d rather have seen would be a traditional 2D side-scrolling shoot-'em-up that used the PD world’s visual style, without trying to emulate the 3D gameplay. The game could have had depth and good design in its own right then, rather than trying to recreate a 32-bit console game on an 8-bit handheld, which seems like a recipe for disaster from the outset…
And I’m not even going to begin talking about how I’d have preferred a handheld PD RPG. 
I assume the budget would never have stretched that far, but I’m just saddened that a short development time gave us the PD Mini we have today: something that feels to me like a very rushed game and a missed opportunity.
(Oh, and sorry for going on so long. 
)
Sonic R wasn’t that bad. Sure, it had it’s quirks and such, but as far as racers go it was decent. At least it had some nice level designs (even if there were only 5 tracks).
Heh, I was about to bring that one up myself. I’m surprised noone else has said anything about it, considering this IS a Panzer Dragoon forum. I can’t think of any Sega game that’s worse than PDMini anyway. I’ve seen a lot of disapointing Sega games, but not many that I would really call “bad” (although they do exist). Actually…scratch that…Gungrave was pretty bad, although technically they only published that.
The only real complaint I had with Sonic R was its length: or more specifically, that I came home at about 4:45 pm having bought the game, and finished it with everything unlocked before I went to bed that evening. 
There never seemed to be much replay value there either, as Super Sonic was overpowered enough to make flawless runs a breeze. I’d still have given the game 90% if I had to review it when it was released though, as in all other respects it seemed to be top quality.
i loveedddd Sonic R
Usually now when i play through it i try to win on Hard without any shortcuts… pretty good
And i never did get knuckles to “climb” =(
I will post a high score topic soon… no one steal my idea!! be back after the match (United vs Chelsea) at about 10pm
Neither did anyone else. Stupid misleading manual.
[quote=“Shadow”]
Neither did anyone else. Stupid misleading manual.[/quote]
I DID!
Or at least I think I did.
It might be a glitch… although it does only work with knuckles and metal knuckles.
Go to the city track (no idea what it was called… radical city or something like that) and run through the track normally, until you go through that rock-tunnel thing. Look to your left, and there’s a small chunck out of the road (sort of a trap-like pit thingy that you fall down if you suck) that leads down into another section of the track, walk very carefully to the edge, a VERY, VERY slowly, walk off as close to side-on as possible, THEN jam down the run button and turn to go up. You should run back up the wall.
This is probably a glitch, but they weird things is only knuckles and metal knuckles can do it. If this isn’t a glitch, it’s the WORST special ability of all time… ever.
Yes, but can you beat Super Sonic on all courses at hard difficulty? That’s the true test.
[quote=“Shadow”]
You mean they actually advertised at all!?! 
[/quote]
That’s what I mean.
Fitting, but they did advertise Sonic R
It was a very good advert, its what made me want a saturn.
Lance: Yeah, I see what you mean. It could have been a lot more than it was.
I don’t really take Master System generation games that seriously to be honest. Just some quick fun if I’m bored. So that could be why I wasn’t really disapointed or upset with Panzer Dragoon Mini.
The Master System was never really capable of having a truly great Panzer Dragoon game IMO, since the games rely a lot on atmosphere. I’d love to see what someone could pull off on the GBA or the new handhelds though. I think a top down GBA shooter or RPG could work quite well.
I rekcon PD games need big screens.
Big screens, or two screens. I bet the DS could pull off a good PD RPG, a shooter would be tricky but still possible.
SEGA of America was run by a crackwhore for a while. 32X should never have been made and for some reason most of the good Saturn games were released only in Japan, while in the US we just got crappy Activision games.
I was gonna say Kid Chameleon, but I kinda’ actually remember having some fun with the game. I guess the Barney games on the Genesis were pretty awful. Then again, pretty much every single Master System game ever made (aside from PS) ties for the worst Sega game ever.
[quote=“Scott”]Fitting, but they did advertise Sonic R
It was a very good advert, its what made me want a saturn.[/quote]
I thought it was a horrible, cheesy advert. It made me physically cringe.
Let me guess. You couldn’t beat Kid Chameleon? 
And the Master System Sonic games were good for a laugh. Altered Beast had the worst controls ever, though.
I thought Sonic R was good. The graphics engine Travellers’ Tales programmed themselves was nothing short of stunning. If Sonic R had been a Saturn launch title, then we can safely say that things would have turned out a little differently.
The “pixie dust” special effect was a nice alternative to the ugly net curtain effect seen in so many Saturn games. The only game that renders nicer 3D transparency effects is Shining Force 3 in spells such as Wendigo. All software of course. Like the Model 2 arcade board, the Saturn doesn’t have in-built support for 3D transparency effects. Team Andromeda only managed to produce transparency effects by overlaying 3D models with scaling 2D planes, which was quite clever.
The worst Sega game for me is Shining Force 3 Scenario 1… for no other reason than because you start a story you can never truly finish.
[quote=“Shadow”]
advertise Sonic R
It was a very good advert, its what made me want a saturn.
I thought it was a horrible, cheesy advert. It made me physically cringe.[/quote]
O_O
if anyone can get this advert from the web pleeease tell me where. I have looked all over
Heh, I wouldn’t say NEVER, if this project ever actually gets completed: http://www.panzerdragoon.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1355. Hey, better late than never 
Oh, and now that I think about it, didn’t Sega make all the games for the Pico? I don’t think there would be much debate as to whether those games were bad or not, even if they were designed for toddlers.