In the early days of the GameCube, Sonic Team dabbled in other platforming endeavors with Billy Hatcher! SOCIAL MEDIA: / nitrorad / nitroradofficial / nitrorad Thumbnail render by: / nibrocrock #BillyHatcher #Platformers
oh! oh! i noticed something else about the title screen! when you quit the game twice, you can see the scene changes into night and the chick is replaced by a crow. i thought that was the coolest thing as a kid!
@@vivianabertello2200 I don't think that's the reason. Sonic Adventure 2 and Heroes also had lots of inconsistent parts in level designs too. 06 just turned out the way it did because it was rushed (despite the Japanese guys asking for more time to truly finish it).
@@SEGARetroBR SA2, Heroes and Shadow were made by a completely different team than the one that made this game and 06. They were not even made in the same continent.
On the topic of missing obvious hints, when I first played Super Mario Galaxy 2, I was so fixated on Yoshi being advertised as playable that I didn't pick up on the level name Peewee Piranha's Temper Tantrum, and not even the DUN-DUN jingle when a boss cutscene begins was enough to tip me off. It took until the giant Piranha Plant monster came screaming out of the egg for me to realize that wasn't Yoshi.
As a kid, I restarted Lego Star Wars every time I played. Because I didn't know what "load game" meant. I was very young and simply thought "new game" sounded good and "load game" sounded bad. It took me a year or so to be curious enough to check that option out!
last year i bought me a gamecube and this game too cause it was pretty affordable. and i must say that i hated it till the end when i had to quit playing it. i dunno what makes people loving it so much.
When I was a kid I brought this game home from blockbuster because the sonic team logo. My brothers looked at the box art like “wtf is this lame shit” 1 hour later they had taken the controller from my hands and were playing all night long.
I'm pretty sure when a game doesn't register an intended mechanic/action, that's poor testing to make sure it works, moreso than bad level design. Also, the term 'level design' gets used a lot more in this video compared to previous ones, I'm just noticing this as an observation.
This is a very fair point. When you see issues like Billy running off straight through a track or failing to properly connect with ledges or rings it seems more like a collision issue than the design of the level and it'd be very surprising that someone would QA test the game without noting it. I will say I do like the energy this game has, it seems really fast paced which is a good thing for me.
When a game has multiple near-impossible jumps (in a row especially), that is something I'd attribute to poor level design. Part of level design is knowing just what the player can and can not do. If a series of jumps is only a few pixels too high then that is a failure of level design. The designers knew exactly what a standard jump is capable of, but decided for some reason to make these few jumps a little too high. QA didn't catch it cause if it's at the end of the game, they can ofc do it on the first try. 200 hours of practice will do that. But for the average player at the end of an 8 hour game? Nearly impossible. And it is not the QA that failed. It is level design. They did not design around known parameters. They designed around what QA can do. And that is shit design, because the level designers knew exactly what the player can do, they just didn't give a shit.
@@AT7outof10 Ain't that the truth. Well, at least it was from the Dreamcast era to Sonic 06. Sonic Team used to make games with great ideas that fell apart with the execution, rushed development cycles and an obvious lack of playtesting, but nowadays they just exclusively make boring Sonic games that function perfectly fine, but have absolutely no ambition or creative ideas.
I remember playing a demo of this game on a gamecube demo disc that was given away as a promo item at stores back in the summer of 2003. It had this, Sonic Adventure DX, Splinter Cell, Soul Calibur 2, and Viewtiful Joe, and while I did end up getting most of these games later, Billy Hatcher for some reason was the one game I never purchased at some point down the line. I think the best we can hope for now is maybe a remaster on the Switch eShop similar to what they recently did with Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.
I used to play that same disk at my grandparents house!!! I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and kept replaying through the first level loving the movement and feel of the game!!!
here's some food for thought: -crows are birds that have been known to recognize individual humans, have their own mourning practices, and will exchange items for food in a form of crude currency (metal, rocks, bone, cigarette butts) -chickens are omnivorous and opportunistic, won't hesitate to eat anything (each other and their own young included), and the males have literal fighting spurs my theory? billy hatcher is anti-crow propaganda made by chickens to delude us into overlooking the inevitable chicken uprising
This is kinda same feeling as like in case of sheeps and wolves. Sure, there has been a function they serve as parables, but overall wolves seem as species to have more qualities which I guess any Christian would approve (ability to work as team, loyalty, one-partner relationships) and sheeps are just kind of... stupid. Or maybe those parables were actually up something...
YES. God I love this game. So happy to see it being covered by another person, I hope it makes a comeback at some point. The music just gets me jamming any time I listen to it, the concept is just wacky enough to work... Ugh. So good. Except the controls, those and the camera were a bit inconsistent around ledges especially, but for an early GameCube era platformer, I can’t bash them much.
I feel like the issue isnt so much the design of the levels (because they are mostly engaging and clever). The issue has more to do with programming and collision detection. The egg should've been programmed to sort of get sucked onto the pathing of the rail once you let go, and Billy should be the landing point rather than the egg (so you dont fall off edges). Interactions are too tight and should've been loosened (such as with the final boss's purple goop).
Speaking of fever dreams, I've got Poinie's Poin on the mind lately, thanks to Vinesauce. It's a little pile of batshit for the PS2, and it follows the colorful fairytale adventures of this Osamu Tezuka-looking reject named Poinie, who lives in Jelly Town and wants to see a space pirate movie. He's then chased by our presumed antagonist, a brat with sunglasses named Lolo, and he and this girl Lilin fall into a sewer. Poinie explains that his mother is missing, and so Lilin bestows upon him the power of poin, which manifests in the form of a wisecracking butt-duck who sounds like Eric Cartman and uses the color green as an insult. Now Poinie can hold the poin, throw the poin, combine the poin, and thus affect the emotional state of anyone around him. Lolo also has some hip-thrusting Hell-neow minions with her, and together they corrupt Lilin with bad poins. This is the first boss fight of the game, and also the point in which Vinny stops playing.
14:00 I still appreciate the spoiler warning. I dont think the game's age really matters, cause there might be people who've never even heard of the game before and probably want to see what its like themselves if they become interested in it. it makes no sense to me to say "this game is blehbleh years old, you shoulda played it" when the game itself might not be as well known or as remembered as others.
Even when a game is well known, I might have not played it for whatever reason (but I intend to play it in the future) and still want to see a spoiler-free review, so I would go further and say that a spoiler warning is ALWAYS welcome despite of the game's age AND despite of how famous it is.
@@SEGARetroBR Thank you. It always frustrates me when people assign a random time-frame to a game or show saying "you should've seen it already" cause I can think of tons of examples where that doesnt apply. If I told you GrimGrimoire was a good game, but you'd never heard of it, I'm not gonna tell you huge end-game spoilers for it and say "but it was on the PS2, its been out for like, a decade, you shoulda played it already."
@@WaddleDee105 The AVGN was great in the early days when he was funny. It's not that the others got better, he just lost all of his enthusiasm and ran out of games from his childhood a long time ago. By the time he got busy with his "movie" he was already phoning in low quality reviews.
Eh. The Raid2020 review was okay. At least it wasn't a worthless James and "Why haven't I fired you yet" video where Mike says if you play with savestates, you haven't beat the game.
Here's a tip: The circus rings that swing like trapezes are easier to use with smaller eggs. I almost always get the right position with them using a small egg because of the smaller hit box, so less chances to undershoot and hit the ledge. Also when you have to do a bounce jump to reach a higher ledge, if it's got extra ground on the higher ledge and not like the pillars in Giant Palace, just roll in midair. Then you won't have to worry about Billy falling off the edge. 14:15 One more frustrating thing, if this happens to you, it's technically not the game's fault, it means you must've missed a pixel of sludge, so the game registers that pixel as still part of the sludge pool. You have to clean that stuff absolutely spotless, otherwise it doesn't count.
I was absolutely in love with this game's multiplayer mode and hatching all the different creatures... and finding the special character eggs, like the one that hatches Sonic.
This was the first video I've watched. Now I have watched all your platformers, horror and rpg maker reviews. I love how you find something good in every game even ones that most people wouldn't. The fact that you do obscure games help me find a few new favorites. And I love your since of humor. Keep up the good work.
I recommended this to you during the fatal frame stream few months back. I’m glad you actually played it. Wish I warned you about how frustrating it could get at times. But it’s a really fun game and one of my favorites.
It's kind of eerie how often you review either classic favorites or games I've always had interest in. You're probably my favorite RU-vidr; your delivery and analysis is so calm yet well written while staying interesting all the time. Also I could never figure out that intro spelling until now.
I had a feeling when you started the video and started talking about the obnoxious as all hell main theme, but I am so happy that you brought up Chant This Charm. I absolutely love that song.
Big The Cat: Hey you! I bet you killed FROGGY. Billy: What? No No I didn't kill him, I was jus- Big The Cat: Yeah you did, I saw you used that egg of yours to kill him and now I going to make scramble eggs out of you now. *Tries to attack him*.
I mean, it's not like they're not bringing things back/rerelease stuff; it's probably just not stuff people would be very vocal about like Sakura Wars and Panzer Dragoon or have a big budget like Chu Chu Rocket
If there’s one game I’ve always expected you to cover eventually. It’s about time! I really need to check it out for myself sometime. Btw that title theme is also such an underrated banger. If you need a change of pace from platformers for bit, may I suggest the Pokémon ranger games? Guardian signs in particular is amazing!
OH MAN, This just pulled up memories i didn't remember i had. Taking turns with my cousins playing this while eating freezie pops after a summer day at the pool. That slapped so hard.
I'm so glad Chant this Charm (ending theme) had its own little segment! It's such a pleasant, cheery song. I recommend people listening to it even without playing the game.
I can't express enough how much I loved Billy Hatcher, couldn't play it enough and even come back to it somtimes. The soundtrack was astounding and aside from a few bugs the levels were super well made. Honestly one of my all time favorite GameCube games and games in general to exist even to this day.
I had really fond memories of this game as a kid... This was almost like Mario Sunshine for me, which I would repeatedly rent like crazy until I got it for Christmas one year. I did eventually 100% it, even though it does have many of the flaws you mentioned. Still, really great game, if you can deal with the finicky controls. While this is a bit away from the main topic, I also had to ask if you ever plan on covering Rayman Origins and Legends. I know you are more of a 3d platformer guy, but you have talked about parts of them in some videos, and seeing as you are a big Rayman fan, I find it rather odd that you haven't covered them yet!
THIS WAS MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME AS A KID. So, SO many pleasant memories, not only playing the story mode by myself, but I also always played the multiplayer with my cousins on holidays, when the family got together. They're some of my favorite, most cherished memories....
Just finished last night, and I agree with absolute everything, including the golden egg segment and the final boss. I'll add one thing, in the end game I felt like the levels were TOO big, and because of those level design flaws, started to really piss me off. It is genuinely a good game, but also a very infuriating one. I just finished because I really wanted, but man... Fantastic video as always!
Also, the ost for this game I love. It's so very, juvenile(?), innocent, and just fun. Each world has one long song divided into three parts; One for the world at night(before Billy's hatched the Elder), one for morning(after hatching the elder), and one for day(the other missions in that area). I love how the stages seem to roll(heh) into each other that way. It makes listening to each area's three songs consecutively much more pleasing
Hey Nitro Rad ever heard about games Call Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and legand of kay or NIGHT? These are me childhood games dose anyone have those three games?
I love this game even though it can be a glitchy mess sometimes. I'm still hoping for a sequel or a remake Sega! please do something with your other franchises.
omg when you showed the golden egg with the railimg you have to carefully push it through oe it will just fall off the edge gave me PTSD flashbacks. so weird that one little area and the way it looks is engraved in my memory
Am I the only one that thinks that Sonic Team's other games like Nights, Billy Hatcher, and Phantasy Star are so much better than Sonic games? Even the ones that people praise as good like the Adventure games, Sonic Heroes and Unleashed have so many more flaws than any of Sonic Team's other games or Sega games in general. The only thing Sonic has going is nowadays 90's nostalgia and the design of the characters. This drives me so crazy with SEGA. They have so many good games and concepts but it really seems that only Sonic really sells well. And Sonic games aren't even good, the only reason they sold so well in the past is because of the character. But that's it!
They're good, but the fact they were selling and any side properties weren't is the problem. People just bought Sonic, Sega did their best to push the other titles however the audience never really took the bait.
I haven't played this for awhile but I feel like you're supposed to kick the egg towards the railing to separate yourself from it, it looks inertia based. Alternatively you're intended to hop on the railing with the egg and the level is designed with a door so you can move back and forth if you lose the egg
No he explicitly said it's bad design that there's a door there, and he kept just leaving the egg at the ledge. I watched the whole vid before I posted it because he tends to explain what to do later on but I don't think he was correct this time.
Honestly the main mechanic with the eggs was really really fun to me as a kid, i feel like if the controls and camera were better this would have been a real gem back then. I would love for it to be remade though. Thanks for reviewing it!
I know it's been commented before, but I wanna provide some info for the kids spelling out Giant Egg that few people provide. They're spelling it out as G-I-AN-T. They kinda run-together the A and the N so it sounds like "ayen". The soundtrack has a track on it called "Lesson E.G.G!" which is pretty much just the kids practicing the chant, only slower and more pronounced, so you can really hear them emphasize "A-N-T" as separate letters.
Man, your camera presence has gotten to be top-notch, man. Not to imply you were ever awkward or stilted, but I’ve noticed the latest batch of videos are incredibly conversational, really makes me feel like I’m chatting with a buddy. Great work, my dude.
