The thing is Smash Brothers, I have beaten the game and actually received a lot of silver medals by the time I traded in it last night. There were a few missions I didn't get to complete, and what not, but I finished most of the game after beating the story. I understand all these fundlementals of the game, the whole breaking and jumping and what not. I mean, the controls were in tacked enough to play it. I mean, really, don't get me wrong because in the long run, I did enjoy the game. I really hate how people call me whiney though, and then act like there isn't anything wrong with the game itself. Many of reviews and a lot of people have complained about the controls. I noted in the Wii Section's Sonic thread, that my one buddy who plays Xbox360 all the time hated the game. After he watched me play it and soar threw some levels and have the controls down pat, He started playing it a little more and liked it kind of. He still couldn't stand the controls though, and that's understandable since he didn't really have time to get the hang of things.
The sliding on rails was annoying and weird to get the hang of, but I found that to be less of a problem and annoyance than other things. The breaking wasn't the issue for me, it's when you start back up and sometimes I found it to quickly jolt to the left or right, even though sonic is moving slowly forward. It's not until after you let go of the brake, that I found it real easy to move to the left and right, and yet you move so slow forward. It seemed out of place and broken. I admit that it has helped me move around something when I stoppped right before it, but it's the same loose controls that made it able to accidently bump into something when it was completely needed.
I never turned off Sonic's speed abilities either. I always kept them as fast as I could. I would take off quick grinding sometimes or even quick air, and I never really found his speed to be an issue. His speed is totally controllable if you know how to slide and brake right. I liked to use the short jump to gain acceleration, but the short jumped to me seemed broken even. A lot of times you really need to slow yourself down, and slide to attack an enemy. Sure there are ways to get around it, and things you can do to adjust to it, but a lot of times the controls felt clunky and broken. Anyone can "learn" controls, no matter how horrible they are.
The game needs precision like no other game, and the controls do not fall into being precise. You can grow used to it, memorize the level and obsticales, go through a section knowing exactly what you need to do over and over just to get the hang of it.. but in my opinion, doesn't make the controls better afterwards. The controls are clunky, and just because you force yourself to get used to it, doesn't make it perfect. They seemed slapped on, just to use the WiiMote's technology over finding a good rythme and a comfortable level of controls. I think a good example is how people use the Gamecube controllers for VC titles. They suck for the most part and are always put together in a horrible way compared to the classic controller. You can get used to the buttons easily, but the button mapping could have been much better.
I think a big problem is jumping backwards too. I ended up having to run backwards instead of jumping back, which is an ability you gain as you level and should be utilized better in the game, and just so clunky feeling to do that move. Once you got Sonic to move backwards, it was fine.. but to get him to stop dead on and start it right away, was kind of tricky and could have been layed out way better.
When I mean slip up, It's easy to hit jump cancel and slide button when you meant to hit the brake button. It's easy to attack an enemy when you meant to slide forward while jumping, or vice versa. It's really easy to slip up on the rails and not do what you really want him to do, unless you want to take it real slow. When you're shooting for a gold or silver, it's way to easy to slip the controls and timing up, and it's even harder to recover. I'm not asking for it to be dumb-downed or anything like that, I mean.. When I play FPS on my computer, I play them on Hard right off the box, as with any game practically that gives you a difficulty setting. I like a challenge, but learning such loose and broken controls for such a precise, intense game.. that put things in the game just to piss you off to make it hard, instead of creatively making it a challenge.. I find to be a lot different.
If you want an example of it.. Think of how they just pop a few enemies in front of you or drop a pillar at the last second. You really think this was in the best interests? Don't you think a good level design could have made it where you could take a higher road, which is harder to get to and you need to do a few things first like jump off 3 well placed enemies, so you could easy fly passed that part and not deal with it. I think so, because some of the missions/worlds do that in Sonic, and it really works out well. Some worlds/missions are thought out brillantly, and then you run into those that just make things pop out so you die and have to memorize that part. It's not about reflexes, it's about dying at that part first so you know it's coming next time. So you can hold the jump and slide, and actually clear the part before it even shows up. I found way to many levels doing things like this, and wish they would have kept the level design consistant and not choppy. When I mean choppy, I mean not throwing in a level that took you 10 minutes to create just to make the game longer. Collect Zero Coins? Great, Lets take the level you played 2 rounds ago, make it exactly the samething, but lets just add a bunch of coins at the very end to make it different and a challenge. Things like that piss me off.