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Why I hate Sonic and the Secret Rings: a thread
1. The controls. They are so fucking bad. Even if you ignore the motion controls, the movement feels off, the Homing Attack has a worse delay than 06's, having to charge up a jump feels clunky, rail grinding just doesn't work, and moving backwards is a pain. But since Secret...
...Rings fans keep telling me to get used to the controls in order to enjoy the game, I did. And the controls no longer bother me. That didn't fix all the other issues I had with the game, tho.
2. The level design. Secret Rings goes for an auto running style of gameplay. And the levels don't seem to be built around it at all. Simple platforming is made needlessly difficult by the fact that you don't have any control over where you're gonna land because you're...
...constantly on the movie and you have no front or back aerial control whatsoever. And many of the obstacles within the levels expect more out of you than you can take with its gameplay style. There are multiple moments where the game punished you for not doing a thing, but...
...then immediately throws another obstacle as a punishment for doing the thing the game previously punished you for not doing. On top of this, things you need to Homing Attack just disappear sometimes with no rhyme or reason and you can get hit by things in automated sections...
...where you have no control whatsoever. Levitated Ruin especially likes to do this. And that specific level has 2D sections that are super awkward to maneuver. And then you have Pirate Storm with its abysmal ship sections that aren't built for the type of game that this is.
3. The combat. Like I said earlier, the Homing Attack has a jarring delay, and that has an affect on the combat when you have to defeat multiple enemies to move on. It gets so much worse when you get to enemies that have recovery animations every time you attack them, like...
...the skeletons in Skeleton Dome or the gargoyles in Levitated Ruin. At that point, the combat feels insufferably padded out.
4. The mission structure. Wait, you want an idea on which missions to complete in order to progress the main story? Well too bad, Secret Rings doesn't offer that. Not only does the game like to unlock optional and mandatory missions simultaneously, but sometimes those missions...
...don't get unlocked in the same world you just completed a mission on. This is especially jarring when you complete Evil Foundry, and the game expects you to go back to Sand Oasis. Problem is that the game gives no indication on which mission you need to complete to progress...
...further. And some of the World Rings you need to collect for the final boss are locked behind some of these optional missions, which is pretty fucking stupid if you ask me.
5. The missions. As if the mission structure wasn't bad enough, the missions themselves make me want to give up on life. One might be quick to bring up the dinosaur egg mission in Dinosaur Jungle, and while it is dreadful, it's at least an optional mission. Which is more than...
...I can say for the missions I'm about to bring up. The Defeat 20 Enemies mission in Pirate Storm is stupid, the Don't Get Defeated mission in Night Palace is the epitome of the game's counter-intuitive design, and the special mission in Levitated Ruin is loaded with those...
...awkward ass 2D sections, and believe me, it's just as fun as it sounds.
6. The overly strained tutorial. Why the hell are the tutorial levels separated? Especially since there are so many of them. Why not just get it over and done with in one full tutorial, it's not like we need a separate tutorial on how to move forward. Oh right, because we...
...needed to add some unnecessary Gold Medals to achieve for those completionists, because we don't already have enough of those in the over 100 missions in the game.
7. The bosses. I don't even know how to describe how awful it feels to go up against the bosses in Secret Rings. They'd be legit be the only good parts of the game if the controls were fixed, because having to constantly shake the Wiimote for all of them gets irritating. But...
...then you have the final boss, which is arguably the worst final boss in the entire series. Not only does it have more Wiimote shaking than any other boss in the game, it also likes to throw cheap shots at you, it likes to attack you a second time if you get hit as a...
...punishment (because apparently losing all your Rings and losing the Soul Gauge you need to have a chance at attacking the boss isn't enough), and Shahra flat out states that you're gonna lose while you're about to deal the final blow. Because that'll convince the player to...
...finish the boss, amirite.
8. The XP system. WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO MAKE PROGRESS TO GET BETTER CONTROLS? IT SHOULD CONTROL WELL FROM THE BEGINNING AND THE CONTROL ENHANCERS SHOULD FEEL LIKE CONTROL ENHANCERS!!! THIS IS NOT GOOD GAME DESIGN!!!
That's all I got. Sonic and the Secret Rings is among the top 3 worst Sonic games I've ever played, and the controls aren't even the worst of it. Counter-intuitive level design, terrible combat, horrible mission structure, strenuous missions, having to level up to get better...
...controls, and unenjoyabe boss fights add up to a painful experience from beginning to end. And no, I'm not bothering to level myself up to the maximum. If I have to go through hours of pain in order to get a remotely enjoyable experience, then you've made a pretty shit game.
