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!

Minecraft for 3DS: Update 2

So Minecraft for 3DS is finally here. I'd like to talk about what I'd think of it.

First off, let's start with the home screen. It looks nice. The logo is on the top and the menu is on the bottom.

Top Screen on the Home Menu - pic by YouTube user CharzBall

The bottom screen doesn't have a "Singleplayer or Multiplayer" menu because there is no multiplayer at this point in time. They plan to add that. I think that should be in the game from Day 1; multiplayer is a big part of the game. I hope multiplayer doesn't require an update in the physical version. Anyway, this game does have a menu similar.

Anyway, that's how I would have done it exactly. Well, not exactly. DKC Returns 3D has a digital manual that can be accessed from the 3DS Home Menu and I think that would have been a better way to do it. I actually did make concept art that looked similar, but I didn't post it for some reason. At least not that I can find. Oops.

Press Play and you can begin the game. After it reads the SD card, you arrive at the World Menu.

Does this look familiar?

So far Minecraft on 3DS is hitting all the right notes except for multiplayer. Other Ocean even added new features that mine didn't have; the ability to rename worlds from the menu. Smart.

Anyways, tapping a world will bring you to that world. And that's where we talk about the controls. I made a chart comparing the current controls to the sets I made back in December.

So as you can see, Other Ocean did a good job adapting my new 3DS controls to their version of the game. I also heard that there's a set of touchscreen controls, but I couldn't find anything about what they might be. I assume they're similar to mine (which is based on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare DS) or to the Club Penguin games on Nintendo DS.

So now I'd like to talk about how the touchscreen was utilized.

If you take a look, you can see that the touchscreen has the hotbar, XYZ coordinates, and map, as well as a set of buttons for inventory, crafting, and armor. XP, health, and hunger are on the top of the upper screen. This is similar to how I designed mine, but with a few changes.

Mine, for comparison.

On mine, there are 3 tabs for inventory, crafting, and armor instead of buttons. Health and hunger are on the bottom screen and XP is on the very bottom of the top screen. Mine doesn't have XYZ coordinates. I should add that to the pause screen. And in my version, the map is accessed by pressing Select instead of it being available all the time. I think my map system and touchscreen OS is better; but Other Ocean did a good job using the 2 screens to their advantage. Take notes, 4J Studios. A quick update allowing access to my inventory/map system would be greatly appreciated.

And now, exclusive features.

Minecraft for New 3DS has a few unique features that are as follows:
1) World sizes are bigger than they are on the Wii U, but smaller than they are the Switch.
2) The game comes with 5 free skin packs preinstalled.
3) The map is not an item; it is available from the start.

World sizes being bigger may or may not be a good thing. Minecraft for New 3DS is in the middle in regards to world sizes on game systems. Above it are the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. Below it are the Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, and PS Vita. I think the world size on Wii U was perfectly fine. If the 3DS had the same size of worlds, Other Ocean and 4J could have worked together to make a cross-save feature, similar to how the Vita and PS3 can.

The skin packs are cool, but it would have been much more worth it if they had used my idea to create custom Nintendo skin packs exclusive to the 3DS.

The map being available from the start is something all console versions have, but it takes up an inventory slot and can be lost. In my Minecraft for 3DS post, I remedied this by making it accessible by a button instead. Other Ocean seems to have read my site and implemented it in a similar manner. Now the map is always displayed on the touch screen. This is useful, but like I said before, I think my design is better.

So I think that covers it all. I think Minecraft for 3DS is a good version of Minecraft, but definitely wait for a physical version; the digital copy takes up something like 3600 blocks of storage. (That's 3.5328 GameCube Memory Card 1019's.)

LEGO Series' That I Want to Return

Lego Series' That I Want Back and Why: A Thread

— Josh (@Icystorm9) August 22, 2017

LEGO Pirates of the Carribean is cool, but it provides a much darker tone than what LEGO Pirates always did in the past.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) August 22, 2017

Of course I spelled "provides" incorrectly.

The LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean sets always tried to replicate the movie, and there's nothing wrong with that,

— Josh (@Icystorm9) August 22, 2017

but the LEGO Pirates themes were always plain fun. They're much more bright, colorful and interesting.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) August 22, 2017

You know what? I'll just write a blog post about this.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) August 22, 2017

The Brick Bounty is one of the greatest sets of this decade.

So I've already talked about LEGO Pirates, but now I'd like to talk about LEGO Castle. LEGO Castle is a series that was launched in 1978 and ran until it was discontinued in 1997. It was then revived as LEGO Kingdoms (my favorite of the Castle themes) in 2007 and was renamed to LEGO Castle in 2013. LEGO Castle was discontinued AGAIN in 2014 to make way for LEGO Nexo Knights, a theme that I frankly think isn't that appealing. LEGO Castle was always a great series, but now we have Nexo Knights, which is okay at best. Since I'm not sure if Nexo Knights and Castle can coexist, cancel Nexo Knights. Castle has always had interesting sets. The sets where you build an actual castle have always been my favorite.

Take a look at this beast of a set that I incorrectly named when downloading.

An often overlooked set in the past is the LEGO Space. Despite having a main character from this series in The LEGO Movie back in 2014, The last dedicated Space series was LEGO Space Police, which was discontinued in 2011. And that's unfortunate, because there is a lot of potential for this series with different designs for space ships and the moon and the launch pad and stuff. And that leads me into the next one.

The LEGO City Set "Utility Shuttle" is actually in my Amazon list right now.

Alien Conquest was awesome. I really liked the design of all the spaceships and all of the aliens. There are nearly infinite possibilities for sets here as long as there are creative people at LEGO. I don't know if Alien Conquest can coexist with Space, but if I had to pick one, I'd mash them both together and call all of the sets LEGO Space. Nice and simple.

I actually built the Alien Mothership with my cousin back when it was released. It sits on a shelf in his game room now.

Next we have LEGO Western. LEGO Western was an awesome theme. I would pay 80 bucks for Fort LEGOREDO if I had the option, despite the fact that it should realistically be 70. Every set in LEGO Western is unique and creatively crafted. Sets like Rapid River Village and Sherriff's Lockup are so cool and look nice, not to mention the fact that you can do so much with the sets. Here's a picture of Fort LEGOREDO just to show you how great it is.

Who wouldn't want this set?

Pharoah's Quest was also a cool series. The sets had lots of detail, especially in the decals and printed pieces. The mummy figures and vehicles were always great. I still have my mummy minifigure from the Cursed Cobra Statue and it's one of my favorites in my collection. One thing that Pharoah's Quest did better than nearly every theme is that it felt grand and large, despite the fact that it wasn't, honestly. The few sets released for it made it feel like it went on for much longer than it actually did.

I wish I could've afforded this back in 2012.

And finally, can we all agree that LEGO Atlantis was awesome?

What The Wii U Should Have Been

I'm not going to act like I'm smarter than the dozens of people that were working at Nintendo from 2011 to 2014. But now that I have history to reflect on, I think I have a few ideas that would have helped the Wii U not only sell better, but have a better library in the long run. I also got these ideas from other people that I know.

First of all, bundles.

What they should have done is have 3 bundles. The Basic, Standard, and Deluxe. The Basic Set is red and comes with just a Wii U Pro Controller, AV Cable, HDMI Cable, and Mini-USB Cable. It would cost $250 at launch.

Couldn't find a good image of a custom red Pro Controller online, so this will have to do.

Because it doesn't include the GamePad (which cost either 60 or 80 dollars to make, I don't remember), the price could be reduced significantly. But as a result, all games would need to do one of two things.
1) All games need to support the Pro Controller in one way or another.
2) All games that require the GamePad need to be clearly marked.

I think the second one is the best option, so the games requiring the GamePad won't be restricted because of the Pro Controller requirement. And if the second one were the case, I'm sure many more games would support the Pro Controller from the start.

The Second Bundle is the Standard Set. It costs 300 dollars and comes with everything that the current Basic Set comes with. It comes in 2 colors- white and red.

Nice looking console, isn't it?

The memory would be 16 gigabytes because I said so.

Then finally we have the Deluxe Edition. That's the same. It comes in either Black or White, just as the already-existing Deluxe Edition.

So those are the 3 bundles. I'm gonna go make some grilled cheese and come back to talk about the next part, reaching out to 3rd party developers.

Ah dang, I'm out of cheese slices. Oh well. So as I said, this section is about reaching out to 3rd party developers. They had a good start by getting SEGA games Bayonetta 2 and Sonic Lost World as exclusives, but they needed more. If they funded more exclusives or ports of 360 games, then the Wii U would have had the same advantage the Dreamcast would have had. If they had given companies like Rockstar and Activision money to make exclusives and port their older games, then the Wii U would have not only had the new games, but the best versions of these older games, as well as exclusives. And I think that would have pushed a good amount of people over to Nintendo's side this previous generation.

Some ports they could have had if they paid a small amount to the game developers:

Madden 25 (Electronic Arts)

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)

(i honestly got lazy w/ this one) Dishonored (Bethesda Softworks)

Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)

(Didn't actually design this, blame someone else) Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games)

Resident Evil 6 (Capcom)

So now that I've touched on ports that they could have funded, I'll talk about exclusives that they could have funded.

Yakuza 1 & 2 Remastered technically already exists and is an exclusives, but it's only available in Japan.

Jet Set Radio 3, boiii

Another LEGO game, like LEGO City Undercover, such as a LEGO Pirates-type thing, would be greatly appreciated. I would buy that.

Why don't they pay EA to be competent for once? That would be a sight to behold.

And finally, the thing that everyone whines about - marketing.

If they had advertised it correctly, then the Wii U could have been saved, even without the previously mentioned changes. I remember for Thanksgiving 2014 or 2015 (I don't remember), I went to my cousin's house. He has cable, so I watched The Simpsons on FXX. And do you know what I saw? I saw ads for the PlayStation 4. I saw them all the time that weekend. Do you know how many ads I've seen on TV for the Wii U? None. And that's dumb. The Wii U has many features that are unique to it, too. Like full backwards compatibility. And 5-player support. The Pro Controller, the best controller of the 8th generation. All of the great 360 games that are best on the Wii U. And most of all, all of the great exclusives like Pikmin 3, Splatoon, Sonic Lost World, and Runbow Pocket. With all of these great things, you'd think they'd advertise a lot, and you'd think they'd advertise smart. But that didn't happen.

But what's done is done. And the Wii U is done. Nintendo is likely not making any more Wii U things ever again. But that's okay. Because of the Wii U, we now have the Switch. Nintendo had to fall to learn how to make the Switch such a great platform. And I'm glad that they did.