Q&A - The Mapmaker's Legend has Direction and a Key. Accept the Declination, But What Good is it to Me?

Explanation - Unrepentant vagabond

Plot the new coordinates and cast the map aside

Now I gotta ramble on

Navigate the pitfalls and cross the great divide

A - I can't see the rationality. The world's not my responsibility! Happiness isn't there for me, but maybe I'll inch closer to the source when I find true north, with or without a friend. We'll keep searching to the end.

I can answer many fantastic questions such as this and many others with Pailey at my website Ask Pailey and Josh. Go visit it or else

Game Boy Advance SP Snippet

Oops, I haven't made a post since October. I guess I had better do something about that. So here's a little bit about the Game Boy Advance from a video project I'm working on right now.

"In 2002, Nintendo released a new model titled the Game Boy Advance SP. It has a clamshell design for better portability, a frontlit screen, new triggers, and a rechargeable battery. While the screen and triggers are an improvement over the original, the d-pad and buttons are much more clicky and my hands feel cramped. I understand why people like it, but it’s not my favorite design. The SP had tons of great color options though. I’ve owned a blue one and a red one before, but I really want the Limited Edition SpongeBob Squarepants version. That one is awesome."

Fun fact, the SpongeBob Squarepants GBA SP is a model AGS-101. Because of that, it has a better screen than most other Game Boy Advances, with the exception of the NES themed one and the Game Boy Micro. Good stuff, that SpongeBob GBA.

Switch Fixes

I've owned the Switch for about 2 months now, and I think I'm ready to talk about what could and should be done to fix it.

First of all, fix the UI. It looks bad; cheap; not great. It looks like what I imagine the GameCube OS would look like if it had not had anything to do with a cube. So what should it actually look like? Well, I'll show you.

Hey, would you look at that. It's the Wii U Menu.

The Wii U Menu is well-designed. It can show 15 main things at a time compared to the 3 that the Switch can show. You could say that the Switch only shows 3 at a time because it has to work on a tablet, but all 15 things show on the Wii U GamePad just fine, no problem. The Switch uses the same screen size with a higher resolution; the Switch should at least show 6 at a time.

Another thing that needs to be fixed is similar, but not the same. The menu needs themes. The way it is, the 2 colors shades aren't cutting it. Add themes. I want my Dreamcast theme, Nintendo.

Another thing that needs refining is the eShop. It's near impossible to find anything in it at this point. It has a search system, but the games themselves are categorized poorly. I feel that the Wii Shop Channel categorized things well; It divided things into Virtual Console games, WiiWare games, and apps. So what the eShop should do now is to divide it into Virtual Console games like the NEO GEO AES and Arcade games, eShop exclusives such as the Jackbox Party Pack and Sonic Mania, and retail games such as Arms and Super Bomberman R. Apps would be added later. Then each of those categories are divided by genre, release date, and company. If it was divided like this, I'm sure it would be much easier to use.

Finally, fix the friend system. Replace friend codes with usernames and add a Discord system. The friend codes are too long and randomized for it to be easy to remember. You'd have to have it written down somewhere. I can say "Add me on Xbox Live: Storm9CP" much easier than I can say "Add me on Switch: SW-1802837501918723905 or whatever" From what I hear, things like Netflix and YouTube and Discord are all ready to be launched and Nintendo just has to allow it. So why doesn't Nintendo just allow people to use Discord on the console instead of their dumb mobile phone app?

Going on a bit of a tangent with the mobile phone app, most people complain about it draining their battery. That's fair, but I'm more concerned that it's using more bandwidth. Is it? I have no idea. But if it is, that's no good.

Anyway, that's about all I have for now. Goodbye!

What Sonic Generations Should Have Been

This is less about the game itself and more about the surrounding details, okay?

Spoilers.

Sonic Generations was released in 2011 to pretty much unanimous praise. But do you know what platforms it was on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS. Do you know what platforms it should have been on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and PS Vita (as a launch title). The 360/PS3 version is great, but the 3DS version? Not so much. And with the Wii and Vita also available, the game itself could have been so much more.

First of all, we'll start with the PS3 version.

It features levels from all main series Sonic the Hedgehog titles- Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Heroes, Next-Gen, Unleashed HD, and Colors. Is this a bad lineup? Let's take a look at the levels chosen.

Green Hill
Chemical Plant
Sky Sanctuary
Speed Highway
City Escape
Seaside Hill
Crisis City
Rooftop Run Day
Planet Wisp

Yeah, I'd say this is a good lineup. It's missing a few key games, though; Sonic CD, Sonic Advance, Secret Rings, stuff like that. Now let's look at the 3DS version.

The 3DS features only 7 stages instead of 9. They are from Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Rush, and Colors DS. We could've gotten more, but let's see what levels were chosen.

Green Hill
Casino Night
Mushroom Hill
Emerald Coast
Radical Highway
Water Palace
Tropical Resort

Oh, of the 7 levels, 3 are first levels. 4 if you divide up 3 and Knuckles. That's not the greatest.

So those are the 2 versions. What do I propose we do with the game?

For the PS3, not much. The game is very creative and has good control. What I would add is Stardust Speedway from Sonic CD, Hydrocity from Sonic 3, Westopolis from Shadow the Hedgehog, and Radiant Emerald from Sonic R as a race level.

For the 3DS, change the levels and the art design. The Modern Sonic levels looked good, but the Classic ones look too similar; they should have had more of a Sonic Advance style to differentiate it.

What levels would I pick? Here's a list.

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Game Gear
Aqua Lake - Sonic 2 on Game Gear
Sunset Park - Sonic Triple Trouble on Game Gear
Cosmic Casino - Sonic Pocket Adventure on Neo Geo Pocket Color
Ice Paradise - Sonic Advance 2 on Game Boy Advance
Toy Kingdom - Sonic Advance 3 on Game Boy Advance
Water Palace - Sonic Rush on Nintendo DS
Haunted Ship - Sonic Rush Adventure on Nintendo DS
Tropical Resort - Sonic Colors on Nintendo DS

And then the Wii. Why wasn't there a Wii version released? Sonic Colors was probably finished in early 2010 or even late 2009; they could have had time to finish a Wii version of Sonic Generations. They even had an engine built for Sonic Colors that they could have used. All they had to do was design the levels and add Classic Sonic. And since it's on the Wii, it can have different levels and give people a reason to buy both, just like Sonic Unleashed. How would that be built?

Well it would work very similarly to Sonic Colors. Running in the same engine and having a few shared cutscenes with the PS3 version. The levels would be as follows:

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Genesis
Mystic Cave - Sonic 2 on Genesis
Stardust Speedway - Sonic CD on Sega CD
Hidden Palace - Sonic 3&K on Genesis
Windy Valley - Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast
Pyramid Cave - Sonic Adventure 2 on Dreamcast
Egg Fleet - Sonic Heroes on Nintendo GameCube
Deep Woods - Sonic and the Black Knight for Wii
Sweet Mountain - Sonic Colors for Wii

The Wii version would support the GameCube controller and the Classic Controller, but they are not required. You know what would be required? The Nunchuk. Sonic Colors didn't require the Nunchuk and the controls suffered for it. D-pads are not good for controlling characters in 3D Space (except for games like Bug!). The controls for the GameCube controller is the same as Sonic Colors or Sonic Unleashed Wii. The 2 schemes can be swapped in the menu. The Wii Remote & Nunchuk controls are as follows.
The stick moves Sonic.
The D-pad moves Sonic in Classic Stages if you so desire, or rotates the camera in Boost Stages.
A and 2 are jump/homing attack.
1 and Z are boost/spindash.
C is to ground pound.
+ and - are to pause.

The Wii version also supports multiplayer modes like race and battle from Sonic Heroes. A nunchuk is required for both players.

And finally, the Vita version.

For the Vita version, I would make it the same as the proposed 3DS version from above, but with updated graphics and textures. It would also look nicer due to the 544p OLED screen on the Vita. Hopefully that's enough to get people to buy it. That's why I would buy LEGO Batman 2 on the Vita- It's the 3DS version that I like, but with a better resolution.

So what would you have liked to see for Sonic Generations? Tweet me @Icystorm9 telling me (if you care). Goodbye!