Some overall feedback Thread - Ashura: Dark Reign Mod for Unreal Tournament 2004

First off, I'd just like to say that I am really impressed with this modification. It's a damn shame that few people participate on these forums along with the seemingly small notoriety it receives. Hopefully with your entry in SAGE, it will gain much more publicity.

To give my basic feedback, again, I'm impressed. The detail of the level design is very immerse and visually well done. I will say, however, that at some points it felt a little cramped and confusing (For example the tunnel you run through after you run through the timed gate. Despite this, the levels gave me a dark feeling to them..something different from most sonic games out there that could in fact work.

On the topic of abilities, I like how you've already added in the light dash, the ability to run on water, the homing attack, the special abilities with certain shields, and of course, the ability to run 360 degrees on walls and celings is done amazingly well. I defenately look forward to what further refinements you may make to that said coding in the future, and how you can apply such skill to creating the abilities of other characters (I.E. Tail's flight and especially Knuckles' ability to climb walls).

If there was one critique that is most prominant, it is of the animations. Now, i'm certain that the completion of animations is not a high priority at the moment, so I can understand why they are what they are now (which is still quite good if they're unfinished). The Jumping, spinning, and mid air animations are all acceptable, however the walking and running animations seem alittle stiff. What's more is that the steps sonic takes do not seem to sync up with his movement speed, where it seems he's sliding across the floor. If anything, I would try and add some more "bounce" to his step and have his arms move alittle more while in movement.

The use of the Sonic 3 special stages really made me grin out of nostalgia . I can bet that it must have been difficult to replicate this as well as you did, however, I hope we see more than just replicas of past sonic 3 & knuckles stage layouts. However, i'm guessing that you did this one stage merely as a test

Only other thing I suppose I'd like to comment on was the boss fight. The fight really gave you a sense of anxiety, expecially by the angle and height at which robotnik approaches you. You dont see his full body/ship, but rather the bottom of his eggmobile with his ball and chain, giving him a more, prominant sense of a badass villian. And of course, the destructable objects are a nice plus.

And lastly, story!....but not in the sense of commenting, since we obviously know nothing on it yet..but I can say that the dark theme you've given us, the interesting character design of the new hedgehog character on the title, and finally if memory serves me correctly, the spoken intention of targeting an older audience, has really perked my curiosity. I'm certain that if the same amount of creativity that was put into the design of this game was also put into the story, we'll have a memorable mod on our hands.

Finally, I only have afew questions...some of which might have already been answered or covered previously, in which case, simply ignore them if you wish. First, will there be some type of multiplayer, and, if so, will we have a cooperative play option? Second, How often is work being done on the modification/Has it hit a stand still or obticle/is the production on schedule? And lastly, are there any plans for an obtainable super sonic(or super forms for other characters)?