Sonic Spectre v0.5 SAGE 2023 demo

Violet CLM said:

The stages end up being difficult to make out visually a lot of the time, due to the high contrast in the backgrounds, but I thought the bosses in this were quite fun and creative, especially the one where you climb up the rotating floors. The balloon stage was pretty cool. The cutscenes were, thankfully, skippable.

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TripodRanger said:

I played through what was available, really liking what I see. The overall presentation is great. I like the cutscenes, even if they are slideshows, the art is all great, and I really like Eggman's design. I enjoyed seeing the random citizens around in the first zone. The level design was pretty good, and I never felt frustrated by it. That carnival zone is one of the best takes on it I've seen. Most of the bosses were also pretty fun.

For feedback, I found the very first level hard to read with the background looking very busy and being made up of the same kind of buildings you platform on. Also, those badniks that fire the crab claws are annoying enough to rival the enemies from Metropolis Zone. Those might not be a good enemy to include in the first zone of the game. I also found the GUN soldiers standing around in Zone 4 to just be weird. Why are they just standing around? Why are they also in the underwater areas of Act 2, without any kind of diving equipment? They need to look like they have a reason to be around. And then I simply don't understand the horror angle you seem to be going with for the Black Arms. I personally find them to look goofy, not spooky, so at no point did it really fit in my opinion.
I also found that some bosses would giving the warning noise for an attack but then attack before the noise was finished, which is really bad when you're supposed to rely on that sound to avoid attacks. Also, using the one laser charging sound gets grating when it's used for so many boss attacks across the game. Some of the bosses were also of the variety of "wait for it to be vulnerable, get a single hit in, wait for it to be vulnerable again." These aren't very fun, and they get less fun the longer you have to wait between hits.
For boss-specific issues, I was initially excited in the Egg Kraken fight, because I thought I was going to be fighting it while climbing all around its tentacles, which is a really cool concept, but I was severely disappointed when that was only a lead up to an otherwise underwhelming boss fight. Also, the attack hitboxes were iffy, as I once got hit by a tentacle when I was very much under the safe one. With Egg Phoenix, the last phase was very annoying as there was only a small section where you can actually bounce up to hit the boss, and it's on the same side the spring enemies spawn, giving you very little time to hit them and jump on the spring. Then, for my homeboy Metal Sonic, I got hurt by jumping into him during the first phase, when he was just standing around. It was right before he did an attack, so I assume his hurtbox activated slightly before the attack animation actually started. And his second phase is incredibly easy to beat. If you just run into the right side of the screen, he can't touch you at all, while it's very easy to hit him. Doom's Eye just wasn't very exciting or fun. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with it, it's just not a stand-out fight.
However, I think the biggest problem just comes from the sound. For context, I played with the intended soundtrack. While I found most of the music good and appropriate, there were a few questionable tracks. The vocal tracks like Stranger I Remain and Devil Trigger felt really out of place, as their lyrics have no bearing at all in the fights (especially Stranger I Remain), and if you played the games they're from, you just think about those games. It's a similar story with the Star Wars track, I was taken completely out of it because I immediately recognized it as Star Wars music. I also question the use of jungle music for an underwater highway level. A lot of the music didn't loop well, either, either fading out before starting up again, or just suddenly starting again without a proper loop transition. Oh, and Eggman's constant laughing in the third zone got really, really annoying.
Finally, two other bugs I found. One, I got to that one area in Zone 4 Act 2 I wasn't supposed to. I know I was supposed to kill myself, but I decided to see if I could finish the stage from there. I was able to pass over the signpost, which actually triggered the level end, but the results never showed up and I was stuck there until I restarted the game. Two, you can pause with a controller, but you can't unpause with one. I always had to unpause with my keyboard.

Again, I really like what's here so far. Even if you don't change a lot of the things I addressed, it will still be pretty good. The only big gripe I have is the general sound issues. If you put a bit of effort into fixing up the music and sounds, you'd have an A+ game.

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dashthehedgehog said:

I really love this fangame from top to bottom, has good sprites, unique boss fights and great music choices!

but i wanna know what music is used in act 2 of Windy Woods zone?

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Charem said:

Game was fairly fun, if rough. I do have a large complaint though, as a streamer/YouTuber: Your 0.5 'copyright free' version was NOT copyright-free. It still played Star Wars music in Freaky Funfair Act 1. I had to mute my stream's audio for that act once I heard the initial melody and realized what was playing; hoping I didn't get myself a copyright claim/strike due to this, frankly. I feel pretty bothered by this because it literally said it was a copyright free version...

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TheBearBridge said:

Thank you! That's great to hear! This is the music used in act 2:

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