[Saka]

The Humble Store has Family Friendly Sale, which offers discount on a bunch of games that can be safely played by an entire family. The most notable games are from the series about an adventurous hedgehog, Sonic.




The 2022 game Sonic Frontiers is a platformer taking place in Starfall Islands. Sonic, who gets separated from his friends after a wormhole incident, needs to collect Chaos Emerald to be able to face bosses. The game uses mechanics from classic Sonic games, but features an open world for the first time in the history of the franchise. The game is available at 33% off.




Sonic Colors: Ultimate is a 2021 port and remaster of a 2010 Wii game. It's a platformer in outer space, where Sonic jumps through rings and fights enemies. The plot revolves around stopping a villain from enslaving an alien race and taking over the world. The game is 30% off in the sale.




Another noteworthy game is Rayman Legends.This platformer from 2013 still looks gorgeous in the current day. It can be played both alone and in a co-op up to four players! Rayman and his friends discover a tent filled with paintings, that transfer them to other worlds. In these worlds there's always some problem to solve! The game is 80% off.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Thank you for this. Though, personally, I am a bit weary of those big franchises because I did not play and Sonic or Rayman games before. I wonder, to play those games that are on sale, do you need to know the franchise, characters and all, or they can be just picked up and it is not necessary to be familiar to understand what is going on?

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I think you can just pick and play. The plot doesn't seem very complicated in any of the games. But as I haven't actually played those games, I can't confirm it 100%. The reading I did lead me to believe that people don't play Sonic games for the story, just for navigating the platforms and fun gameplay.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka True, gameplay-wise most people know how these games feel even if they never tried them. I was talking more about, say, in Sonic, I only know the title character. I know there is Dr. Robotnik because I read that Jim Carry played him, and there is, I think, a fox with two tails, but this is all I know. Why Sonic needs those rings, what other characters are there, where is this all happening, I know nothing about it. I wonder if I should read a wiki or something before playing...

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch There probably is some kind of explanation of the basics of the game. I don't think games are generally made with the expectation that you play everything from the franchise, especially if a lot of them were on older platforms.

For example, I played the recent Tomb Raider games but never touched the old ones. And yet, there was an explanatory intro for the mechanics.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka Mechanics explanation is put in many games, even if as a tutorial. I am thinking more in terms of the plot. Tomb Raider is an interesting example because, if you are talking about the last trilogy, then that's a "relaunch", so a mix of old and new lore, and all lore gets an exposition again. Something similar happened to Hitman, for example.

It is true that some games are generally not expecting you to play previous installments, and it is justified as that would limit the target audience somewhat, but I can't help but wonder how many easter eggs and insider hints I may miss in such cases. And some games, like Mass Effect, actually build on the fact that the player is assumed to have played the first game before the next ones, unlike, for example, Witcher. I guess it is case-by-case, and I am not sure where Sonic falls into...

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I found this article, answering the question about Sonic.

" The order isn’t really important to enjoy the series. There’s no interconnected narrative since story was always almost hidden or secondary in favor of the gameplay."

Apparently, some of the older games are also no longer obtainable, so it would be nearly impossible to play them all. But there apparently is no bigger plot in them.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka That was a good summary, thank you. It put my mind at ease in that regard, but now I am worried about a different thing: the part that "story was always almost hidden or secondary in favor of the gameplay." For me, the story is an important element in games, more than gameplay is, and if Sonic games prioritise gameplay and downplay the story, I wonder if I would enjoy them all that much...

I guess it is worth a try, but I'll put it toward the end of my game backlog list for now.

[Saka]

@DoctorEldritch I guess it is a bit like in Pokemon games, there's some story, but it's not that important because all the games follow a general scheme.

[DoctorEldritch]

@Saka True, but then Pokemon games were not designed for PC in the first place, the mechanics and device were different. Come to think of it, nor was Sonic initially. I wonder if the platform has an impact on how important the plot is. Consoles have some famous stories like The Last of Us that came out of it, but PC is much easier for indie studios to develop for, so it gets more variety and smaller stories. Maybe it does not matter...