Sea Gate is Dumb and Stupid and I Hate It

Sonic Heroes has a tutorial level and it's dumb and stupid and AAAAAAAAAAA
Consider supporting me - / zoomzike

[@zoomzike]

Friendly reminder about June Zoom's 4th Rule: "Upload time goes by the Pacific Time Zone" PRESS THE COMMENT BUTTON TO COMMENT

[@ryanr27]

Commented!

[@t-elijahmorrison6855]

Commented!

[@meatbleed]

why would it be any other button ?!

[@virgieuy7007]

Commented!

[@Nightcaat]

Commented!

[@0xEARTH]

Sea Gate as a whole is confusing to me. the devs showed in Seaside Hill directly afterward that Hint Rings are perfectly capable of providing the information you need perfectly fine -- and they do, because they're littered everywhere. Hint Rings do precisely what Omochao did in Sonic Adventure 2, but even better because it's the characters themselves telling you and not some disembodied Omochao voice.

[@danielschott4639]

I completely agree that the Hint Rings voiced by your teammates enforces the concept of the game. However, Omochao could work given a touch of tsundere. For example: "Such a simple task shouldn't be TOO hard for the fastest thing alive." or "Really, that's his plan? 300 IQ everyone."

[@0xEARTH]

@@danielschott4639 the funny thing too is that like. they could absolutely do that and reinvent Omochao as a character. could you imagine having Omochao being prevalent in anything other than just a game mechanic?

[@lrgogo1517]

“Disembodied Omochao voice”?? In SA2 Omochao is a physical object that flies around your character until it finishes talking. You can even pick it up or attack it and it’ll react!

[@chaozsheep]

@@0xEARTH We already have the normal chao's to have prevalent characters. Also, Omochao is infinitely better than the hint rings, because they were downgraded and when you touch them a screen expalining something appears instead of the character explaining that thing, also Omochao had personality.

[@MoonIessNight]

Holy shit hi earth

[@megasoniczxx]

Funny story about this stage. The first time I played this game was when my cousin had rented it from Hollywood Video when we were kids. The problem was that the disc was scratched so we could ONLY play this level and, I kid you not, I played this every, single, day up until we had to take it back to the point where I was practically speedrunning it by the end cause I fell in love with this game so hard lol. He'd even ask me if I was tired of playing through the level again it was so bad xD Needless to say, I was a very happy camper once I got to experience the rest of the game, but this particular stage will always hold a special place in my heart even though it is pretty terrible.

[@ferociousfeind8538]

Ahh, Stockholm syndrome, isn't it beautiful?

[@bidenator9760]

That is hilarious!! Sounds like something I'd do as a kid

[@rollbustah]

To be fair, I've seen people stream Sonic Heroes, finish Team Sonic's entire story, and still be confused about how half the mechanics actually work.

[@karnickel-s33d16]

You can find the dumbest fucking people on the Internet when it comes to games.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

*WHY AM I TOXIC???*

[@NinjaKIngAce]

Ah, so you saw the Game Grumps playthrough as well

[@RobbertRobbert12345]

@@NinjaKIngAce Arin would be confused even if the game used a single button and all you could do was jump

[@thatitalianlameguy2235]

there's five hundred signs and hint rings everywhere you must be blind to not get it, the mechanics are so basic

[@KingTvlip]

Sea Gate is like Omochao holding your hand for 3 minutes non-stop. You can understand the issue with that.

[@ericpratt984]

Yeah, man. Omochao holding your hand for that long is like me cleaning my room. Boring & pointless.

[@mdudegamer]

I picked Team Rose first since the manual said they were easy. However, I think I played the tutorial first, and if so I basically had to play this twice back to back.

[@almaelma11]

IIR Team Rose was the "Easy Mode" of Sonic Heroes and the devs made them to be beginner friendly...but that kinda falls flat as an idea since most people playing this would choose Sonic's team or Dark first. It's baffling but not the most baffling thing about heroes. I think that goes to a hint bubble in the true final bosses first forum that tells you to grab his arm when grabbing his arm is NOT a mechanic used in the first phase of that fight at all.

[@no.402]

My guess is that Team Rose would appeal the most to little girls so Sega made them the easy mode so that children wouldn't struggle with

[@lucasispapyrus901]

@@no.402 that sounds borderline line sexist? Plus as previously stated if you’re playing a sonic game you’re ,naturally, going to play AS sonic.

[@Blue587EE]

@@lucasispapyrus901 Why would it be sexist for a girl to like female characters?

[@lucasispapyrus901]

@@Blue587EE borderline. It’s borderline sexist. Personally i could understood why girls would pick the girly characters, but then assuming that they need a tutorial while the male characters don’t just rubs me the wrong way.

[@gramergames]

@@lucasispapyrus901 yeah it was sexist but he is rigth. Team Rose easy difficulty was here mainly for those girls playing the game at that time. 15 years ago the contrast beetween the ideology that dolls (and all those things) were only for girls and video games for boys was much greater and for that very reason they tried to be more beginner friendly with team Rose (the one that probably little girls would pick).

[@Superflaming85]

So another funky thing you didn't touch on is that despite being mandatory as Team Rose, the actual tutorial option is played as Team Sonic...and it's painfully obvious that they're who was intended to go through it. They're the color-coded characters to the mechanics and there's a trail of rings or two for the light-speed dash. (which Amy can't do) But, IMO, the biggest failing of the tutorial is that they don't teach you about how Team Sonic's team blast is unique compared to the other teams, and that it's unique at all. It's something that really could have used a mention, as it's super easy to miss it, especially as a child

[@MetaKaios]

How is it unique?

[@ownerofanheartofthesunrise]

It enhance sonic's homing attack

[@Sad-Lesbian]

@@ownerofanheartofthesunrise And the Blue Tornado.

[@adudeplaying4100]

@@MetaKaios Team blasts are all unique. They all do mass AOE damage, but you get different side effects. Team Sonic gets, as mentioned by someone else an enhanced homing attack and tornado. In PVP the blast actually hits the other player globally, thus resulting in easy kills, giving you a big advantage. Team Rose gets invincibility and iirc a level up for each character. Good in story mode, bad in PVP races. Chaotix gets rings for each enemy killed. Whilst not exactly inherently impressive it does yield lives which are fine. The main benefit is these rings do refill the Blast bar, making it ready to go sooner (or in boss fights/areas with many enemies immediately after the cool-off period.) Very underwhelming in PVP races. Team dark has the most broken Blast. They stop time for 10 seconds after, which is obviously absurd in PVP. However, there's a hidden benefit. It actually stops the other player's air momentum. So when they hit a dash pad or a series of springs, the blast not only freezes them for 10 seconds regardless of location (so they can't even die quickly to make progress again) but also drops them to their death/to the bottom of a nasty, lengthy fall. In PVE it's a quick boss killer.

[@Milesprowerthegamer]

@@adudeplaying4100 I think Team Rose gets speed shoes as well, not just invuln shield.

[@destronlaserwave9566]

The only reason I can assume Sonic Heroes has a tutorial level, could be the same reason the game wasn't a "Sonic Adventure 3." As Sonic Heroes was Sonic's first multiplatform game, they probably wanted to ease new players in. Even if it meant babying them and hand-holding. But, this is only a guess. I agree, this level sucks.

[@ShaimingLong]

@TrainerblueTube You have to assume that Team Rose was originally positioned on the left, to be the default first choice. But then it's a Sonic game, so Team Sonic should be that default first choice so that's what they did, only without fixing Team Rose being the easy mode w/ tutorial.

[@thatitalianlameguy2235]

@TrainerblueTube girls didn't play games much back then

[@theneoreformationist]

Heroes was absolutely nothing like the sonic adventure games. It was completely different in both tone and setting and played more like the 2d games, as each character has the same levels in the same order with very little story, and virtually the same playstyle (plus the use of special stages). Comparatively, Sonic '06 was far more like the adventure games, even intentionally copying the story style, going from sonic/shadow to sonic/shadow/silver, with all 9 of the characters playing differently, having hubs, having character upgrades, and having adventure-style bosses, rather than enemy hordes or long health bars. Even the enemy design in 06' looks a lot more like the adventure games than the "egg pawns" of Heroes. Even Shadow the Hedgehog was closer to the sonic adventure games, because it was tied far closer to the world and story of those games.

[@sanglish18]

I find baffling that devs got through all the effort to design three separate teams with different difficulties but NOT make it clear that the player should freely choose which one to play, they thought pressing Y button on the menu was enough but it wasn't because I never saw a single player pressing that button when booting the game. Literally ALL they needed to do was to put a text at the bottom of the team written "NORMAL/HARD/EASY/MISSION", they made the game all accessible but failed literally in telling the player which Team they should choose an I bet 99% of players did not start with Team Rose, which is the one I most recommend starting so the difficulty curve is much smoother when player other teams

[@TheDisarminghinkle]

To be fair, it WAS in the game manual. Gamecube was an awkward era between manuals being perceived as useless as they would eventually be and being absolutely essential as they were in the SNES and earlier era. They probably would have died off earlier, but the fact that the manual could be reliably kept in disc boxes meant that the devs probably thought that they could continue to be a reliable source of information.

[@sanglish18]

@@TheDisarminghinkle Yeah Sonic games back then were still too much of "learn all by yourself" so there is a lot of things that the player won't know unless it tries or read some external info, Sonic Adventure 2 suffered a lot from this, but Sonic Heroes also suffered in that aspect. Like, devs did all the hard work by creating different layouts but the most basic and simple thing which is comunicate the player which Team to choose they utterly failed because everyone choses Team Sonic because It's the first one on the list with no clear indication on what are the differences. Doesn't help that nowadays most people don't have the manual to read

[@iliakazakov5947]

I pressed the Y button

[@sanglish18]

@@iliakazakov5947 that's nice!

[@flainfan]

@@iliakazakov5947 so did I.

[@LupinticDream]

Sonic Heroes is a weird game, in that it often surprises me here and there with some clever design decisions I would've taken for granted back in the day, but then it has stuff like this.

[@michaelsleeman2443]

If they remake this game, I think they should change the fundamental structure of team Rose. Honestly, you have to get through all 4 stories eventually, so you need to do a normal, hard, and mission, in addition to easy mode. While shorter, you still go through it all again with minimal changes. Sonic's should be the best foot forward, being a vanilla experience with Dark being a twisted version, like it is already, and Chaotix really does add to the game by making unique objectives, changing the fundamental structure of what you done for what's effectively 3 other play-throughs. So what about team Rose? I think it should be an easier Chaotix, having unique objectives than just get to the goal ring that benefits a short level structure, maybe a timer, or get x number of rings like in their alternate missions. Point is: not just another difficulty mode. Search for clues to find Cream's Chao and Big's FWOOGY since Amy was trying to play detective. If the goal was to simplify the level design, then it should be a short romp that challenges the player rather than tests them for repeating the same game, it's already pushing the players limits with 4 play-throughs with the same levels with minimal changes, a unique style be more welcomed At the very least: no tutorial levels as a mandatory stage when it's ALREADY an option. It's unneeded.

[@Knux5577]

I doubt they ever would remake it but the whole aesthetic of the game was great even if the actual gameplay wasn't great or rather, was lacking in some areas.

[@michaelsleeman2443]

@@Knux5577 still, a rerelease in some fashion (because let's be honest who knows what the difference between the various terms for the improved version on newer hardware) would be a good chance to at least address some minor issues. Not unreasonable to cut the forced tutorial for Team Rose, right? People have gotten nostalgic for the GameCube era, with some of Sonic's best 3D platforming, heroes and the adventure games would make for a solid trilogy rerelease package, assuming Sega would devote time to making the games for a new generation, and not just another port.

[@manimifire8563]

THANK YOU! I too thought it was a very ugly decision to put it as Team Rose's first level considering there's a 99% chance you'll start with Team Sonic.

[@zephyr8072]

The team with the most girls in it gets the patronising tutorial? Take a wild guess. Actually don’t because sarcasm is lost on the internet. It’s misogyny. The typical Japanese misogyny of that era.

[@no.402]

@@zephyr8072 Cry.

[@peterparker5050]

@@zephyr8072 Found the misogynist lol Oh and a xenophobe, too, way to kill two birds with one stone dude

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@no.402 why

[@doggoadexx2680]

@@no.402 Grow up child

[@YourContractHasExpired]

I played Sonic Heroes first, before I tried many other games as I only had PC back in the day and not many sonic games were made for PC. I only found out emulators exist years later. Can you imagine my happiness when I found out you can use Omochao as a weapon of mass destruction? Throwing him around in SA2 is one thing, but using him as ammo is a whole new level. Making him and things around explode feels great. My personal headcanon is that he starts explaining something to the enemies and they suddenly die just to not hear any of his speech. P.S. Zoom, pay the wall of text or I'm calling the police.

[@justknucklesandtails]

When I saw the thumbnail at first I thought you were talking about Ocean Palace and that we were going to have to throw hands but then I remembered Sea Gate is the tutorial level and yeah I fully agree

[@artey6671]

It's strange, really. In the menu, you can make Omochao tell you that team Rose is for new players, but children will probably not do that and pick team Sonic instead. But maybe children wouldn't care about the tutorial anyway. So maybe new players that are not children actually went for team Rose. But they probably acknowledged the tutorial button, negating the point of the forced tutorial again.

[@Blue587EE]

If you already had the game and also had a less experienced sibling who wanted to play it, would you have followed Omochao's advice? I think that's what they were going for.

[@artey6671]

@@Blue587EE You mean the older sibling gets Omochao's advice and selects team Rose for the younger one? That would make sense.

[@Blue587EE]

@@artey6671 Yes, that's what I mean

[@flamingoodness4923]

I've always loved the way sea gate looked. The music is a more chill version of sea side hill, which is already a fantastic level both visually and audibly. And Sea Gate really does feel like it is a subpart of sea side hill somewhere off to the side. The cove looking era feels very cozy to stay in, and mixed in with the new version of seaside hill's theme, its just a really nice area in the game for me personally speaking. I just love the area's vibe. With all that said, yeah it's not the best level. It would honestly be a very good tutorial level if it weren't for Omochao stopping your movement. Had they just given you full control without stopping you and made it optional, I think this level would've been way better received.

[@SnailFeeder]

I always felt like the reason it was team Rose out of all character is because, it’s a “girl’s” team. Out of all characters what is a typical little sister going to play? I feel like this decision was made so any girl who was new to games would gravitate to Team Rose and learn how to play straight up. I don’t like this choice but I get why they did it.

[@Antonio-is2cn]

"Team Rose is recommended for those who are new to action games!" - Omochao

[@AdjutantAntithesis]

Also something from SA2 they should've implemented for Omochao: your ability to kick them off a cliff

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

Also shoot and bounce on them

[@BoWs1rJr]

The funniest thing about this level to me is that omochao is giving instructions without being on screen implying that he's some kind of omnipotent god that can give tutorials from anywhere

[@danielschott4639]

Ah yes, a perfect example of how not to incorporate a mandatory tutorial into a story. Seaside Hill was fine with its blatant neon colored signs, but that sure broke my emersion every time. I think Zoomzike's discussion of City Escape shows how a level can indirectly teach the player the controls via stage progression.

[@PINKEDASHPT]

I legitimetly beat team dark's story (the "hard mode") and Sonic's story mode before starting on Team Rose (I was doing them in order). To go from the "hard mode" to a tutorial was...it left me like "what?"

[@TophDaGreat]

Team Chaotix legit was my first pick. Ah, so I see you are a man of culture as well. Take this like and sub sir.

[@JJSquirtle]

same

[@7rhymes599]

Team Chaotix all the way. A team that expresses a desire to explore these levels more is great

[@zacknattack]

they're gonna kick your

[@pickledood1013]

I was literally just complaining about Sonic Heroes' game structure while talking with my brother about Sonic stuff last night haha. It's super annoying that if you start with Team Sonic's story (then likely Team Dark's next) that you have to go through an "easy-mode" afterwards... with a tutorial no less! Great video as usual.

[@Crow_Rising]

Yeah, I can understand the logic of why they put the tutorial on Team Rose since they are intended to be easy mode, but having them as the third playable option on top of that beats the point. Sure, Team Sonic are the main protagonists so you have to have them first, it could confuse people into thinking Team Rose are the main protagonists if their team was first. However, in that case then just don't force the tutorial on them. It's very unlikely that the player will choose them first to begin with, so just let the player choose the separate tutorial option, or implement a prompt asking the player if they want to play the tutorial when they first choose Team Rose.

[@pickledood1013]

@@Crow_Rising 1000% agree it should just ask you if you'd like to play the tutorial (heck, I wouldn't even be mad if they asked before whichever story you decide to go with.) I think they just went wrong making a difficulty easier than Team Sonic. Leave Team Sonic as "normal" difficulty, Team Dark as hard mode, Chaotix as Mission mode, and just come up with a different gimmick for Team Rose. Maybe they could be SA1 Tails style race levels chasing down Sonic/Froggy/Chocola. That would fit the characters well lol.

[@thatitalianlameguy2235]

@@Crow_Rising girls who were new to games including my lil sister picked team rose so it worked

[@Crow_Rising]

@@thatitalianlameguy2235 "A demographic that probably makes up less than half of the series target demographic in 2003 would pick them first so it's fine". That seems to be your logic in a nutshell, and I can't really agree with it. Even if a player does pick them first, Seaside Hill on it's own already functions just fine as a tutorial, and is less intrusive. There absolutely should have been an option to skip Sea Gate when choosing Team Rose, regardless of if you pick them first or not.

[@Boooo]

3:12 if they were worried players would blast through the sections they probably weren't the players who needed the tutorial anyway

[@ShybiNeo]

Bro usually I just wait till morning cause I'm two hours ahead of PST and danm it is more stressful this way lol, I was like "oh god is he gonna make it?"

[@zoomzike]

LOL

[@tanookijumpman1139]

I just wanted to pop in and say: I love ZoomZike's channel! Everything about it is totally carefree and captivating, I can tell a lot of time and passion went into these videos

[@Blue587EE]

I think Team Rose was intended for younger siblings. If you had a younger brother or sister who struggled with video games, you would have recommended Team Rose, while a more experienced player wouldn't have had trouble starting with Team Sonic.

[@Manavine]

ah have your younger sibling carry 1/4th of your progress lmao

[@BaconNuke]

@@Manavine I mean.. most kids would not have realized that there would have been legitimate reasons to play as all the teams, like they most likely would just be like "I wanna play as Sonic" and just play that team over and over.. and then if they played Team Dark next, saw practically the same first level and think "oh it really is just preference" and not touch anyone else Also.. Chaotix was confusing as a kid since they weren't straight forward and so kid me didn't get far in their story

[@betrangustama]

It's weird enough that they made you play the same stages four times. It's even weirder that they put a tutorial on my 3/4th playthrough. Because most people (Including me) would probably finish this game using the team from left to right in order.

[@Blue587EE]

It's just multiple playable characters, like in the previous games. 3&K "made you" play the same stages three times. Nobody is forcing you to get every completion bonus such as the last story

[@michaelsleeman2443]

Sonic levels are kinda tricky to make, due to the fast nature of Sonic. Levels loading up fine is an example of what they do in order to keep the experience smooth. I can't go into details, but simply put: they unload the level as soon as it becomes irrelevant. That maintains the absurd speed everyone loves on hardware that might struggle otherwise. So despite their best attempts, making sonic long would be counter intuitive due to how you get through levels really fast. So I guess the solution was using multiple characters. I don't think what they did was wrong, but I think it could have been done a bit better, like changing the level order or having more unique objectives rather than just get to the goal, like Chaotix. Edit: I hit send too early

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@Blue587EE nobody is forcing you to read this comment, either

[@Blue587EE]

@@hi-i-am-atan Of course. I chose to read it. What's the point of saying that? lol

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@Blue587EE that ball's in your court, is it not

[@grim66]

"This level won't be remembered fondly" I played this game as a kid, one of the formative games of my childhood, and always started with Team Rose because the manual said they were the easy team. I didn't remember this level AT ALL.

[@2c2bpolitics-ce-gate3-4]

I recall appreciating this stage when i was a kid. It was a nice and comfortable start to the stressful world that are speedrun levels. What made normal sonic stages so stressful was this feeling that i had to look good while doing them abd the need for quick reaction time when a stage was still new to me. The tutorial stage felt almost like dipping my toes into a cold pool instead of just diving in. Also it was a great way to bring in friends or family who wasnt accustomed to the fastpaced series of games.

[@MrMariosonicman]

should of been named omochaos gate since outside of menus, its the only spot where omochao appears in levels.

[@edwardthompson3377]

Invisible tutorials was my favorite game design topic for a long time. What makes bad tutorials interesting is that they are 90% "don't do this", whereas good tutorials can be a much more complicated discussion of what you should do instead. In the middle is the old Minecraft approach, to do away with tutorials altogether. Which resulted in a good game ... that even professionals are often surprised by mechanics in.

[@TurboBloost]

But hey, at least Sea Gate's soundtrack is a banger. 😎

[@TheSonicFan4]

Idk, I've always liked this level. The aesthetic, the music, the tutorial.. It helped me learn some techniques that aren't crucial for gameplay which I missed in my first 2 play throughs. More sonic heroes vids please!

[@RiotaiPrower]

My going theory is that it was given to Team Rose, not only because they are seen as the easy mode team, but because their levels are short and throwing in the tutorial in there lengthens their story just a tiny bit.

[@XMan2001X]

Something else to REALLY think about: the opening cutscene for Team Rose was set on a pier at the beach, so it looked like they were already in (or at least close to) Seaside Hill. Yet, their opening level is just inside a mountain that appears nowhere in the cutscene from before. And looking at it from a theatrical standpoint, it’s a dumb mistake.

[@pikminman13]

I feel like a tutorial for a 3D sonic game would work best as a small sandbox. Non intrusive, off to the side, just look at whatever you need to be taught.

[@ParmMannREBORN]

Big's just a bit slow and needed to go through the tutorial one more time to figure out how to play

[@hypersonicspeedgrov]

Y'know, I never thought that I would hear ZoomZike say "Poopy Gate."

[@dbzboy273]

What's funny is I started with team dark because of the way I was playing it and the tutorial is definitely useless after that story

[@hanerd4270]

im actually kinda glad they put in a tutorial without it i never would've known about the psudo spin dash every speed type character could use

[@justcallmexen]

I remember it being worse. I played the tutorial, so after doing some of Sonic's story at least and being made to play the tutorial, but again, I was annoyed that I could have saved the trouble of doing it twice if I had known that Rose started out with it.

[@59hawks]

I have an idea why this is specifically team rose. Demographics. Its the first multiplatform game and the people most likely to choose team rose are girls who are playing their first sonic game, and the devs might have been in the mindset of the sterotype of girls don't play video games so making team rose the easiest and the tutorial makes sense

[@123christianac]

It may been a stereotype, but it was also true.

[@59hawks]

@@123christianac as stupid as they can be, sterotypes do exist for a reason

[@The64Whore]

This is great, I literally put this game in 3 nights ago. Decided to be different and pick team Rose. And found it weirdly cool and unnecessary it started with this tutorial stage. Really neat to see a video so specific to a thought I had

[@leonardmccoy4797]

I’m early, surprisingly since I’m usually asleep (CST here). So excited to share my insomnia with you and your video!! You really are a top notch YTer and one of my favorites ☺️🥰

[@bluesky0152]

I played Team Rose a shit ton, since Amy and Cream are my favorites, and I completely forgot that this level was a thing 💀 Do you think it's possible they put it in to artificially add a few more minutes of gameplay to Team Rose? With it being the easy mode, it's also the most lacking and levels are super short

[@SonplaysMinEcraft]

i think it was because girls r stupid and don't play vidya so sonic team added a tutorial for the girly team so they would know how to play how nice of them :)

[@theSato]

Congrats on almost hitting the nicest sub milestone of them all!!!

[@GreatFox42]

I'd argue Team Rose being the easy mode isn't so much a consideration as it is plainly intended. The stages are objectively shorter, enemy placement is less dense and the more difficult enemies show up in reduced numbers, and so on. As for why they made them the easy mode, it was probably under the assumption that the characters, being more cutesy, would attract the more casual players first and so they felt they needed the tutorial. Many games did this, where "Normal" difficulty was associated with the title character(s), easy was slated for the cuter characters, and "hard" was associated with the "cooler" characters.

[@ConnorTheUndying]

Sea Gate? More like... Uh... Sea how bad this level is!(?) Idk man, I'm working on a budget.

[@Schnort]

It's good to point out that only 2 guys worked on the level design of this game. And one got sick halfway through so only one person was working.

[@catcraze8673]

Sea Gate gatekeeps Seaside Hill.

[@MSCDonkeyKong]

id love for you to analyze what makes a fun boost level so good. you did touch on it in the sonic forces video, but i'd love to see some elaboration on it. and the world needs more analysis on levels put in the middle of the game

[@Borti_Ovi]

2:38 Okay, that’s a major gaming sin, right there! It’s never fun to just interrupt movement for dialogue! That’s why I disliked Marin in the original Link’s Awakening.

[@rtyuik7]

3:05(ish) - slightly incorrect...what made SA2(:B)'s Omochao so great was the freedom to Attack it while it was activated...whether thats picking it up and chucking it into an enemy, or Bouncing into it with Sonic's bracelet-enabled move, or Drill-Diving into it as Knuckles, or if a stray Cannon bullet hits it as Tails (and of course most of the 'Dark Side' counterparts also have an equally "Omochao-wrecking" technique)

[@SyntheticCupcake]

I remember being a little kid, renting this game around the time it came out. I explored the menus a bit, played through the tutorial, then decided to play story mode. And I chose Team Rose first. I HAD JUST FINISHED THE TUTORIAL AND IT MADE ME DO IT AGAIN.

[@PhirePhlame]

You know what's weird? The game's data actually contains a partially-built version of Sea Gate for Super Hard Mode!

[@ryanr27]

Hey, at least they didn’t put the tutorial in EVERY STORY

[@pktmaster]

If you're going to continue dissecting Sonic Heroes levels, I would like to see you compare the differences between the levels for each team. Chaotix mixes the levels up a bit with their objective based levels.

[@TheHazard36]

BUT, and this is a HUGE but: The music is an absolute BANGER

[@bitwize]

Can I just say how much I love your voice. You sound a lot like the guy who narrated the famous Incite Gaming video about Daikatana. I keep expecting you to talk about how advanced the sidekick AI is... and how voluptuous the level designers were.

[@ThePurpleCheeseMan]

My only defense of the tutorial stage is that I've seen some extremely dense let's players who can't even figure out how to play the game even after playing for a while, or even after beating the whole game. Sitting them down and forcing them to listen is like... they only way? But even then, they don't pay attention, so it's really not helpful. Bad conveyance of mechanics is still a problem for this game. Devil's advocate, here. Oh you know what else I can defend? The music. It's a fun little tune.

[@AkameGaKillfan777]

I wish people(not you) would stop saying games aren't good because they're not idiot-proof.

[@quailron1581]

Sea Gate is NOT Sonic Incarnate :P All jokes aside, imagine playing the tutorial in the menu, diving into Team Rose’s scenario because it was the easiest, and immediately playing the tutorial again. Ouch!

[@thatitalianlameguy2235]

Every new game of the series is a giant sea gate

[@AlsoMeowskivich]

It's not so much that the tutorial exists, it's that it's on Team Rose's story. Which is ordered as the Third Story. They're also "Easy Mode", which is placed after Sonic's Normal and Dark's Hard. Yes, I chose Team Chaotix first.

[@comment1353]

This perfectly explains my frustrations as a kid. I played the teams left to right, so it was annoying having already beaten Team Sonic and Team Dark, and then boom, forced tutorial when you already know how to play. I remember spamming A/X to skip through Omochao talking.

[@lanterns_glow]

Team Rose is Baby Mode. All stages are half the regular length with less enemies and obstacles.

[@zjzr08]

Won't lie, I'm a guy who typically looks on a tutorial if that is available in a game, just so I could easily get a hang on of the basics when I get into the game. Intuitive game design is great, but at times they still make you not being able to do some things that seem easy to do on hindsight. I did this when playing Sonic Heroes in PC many, many years ago although I remember not having a speaker at that time hence why Omochao didn't bother me in the tutorial hehe. I have an unpopular opinion that I like Team Rose being a breather after the normal Team Sonic and harder Team Dark paths. They're the easiest to A-Rank, especially when I usually only get around D-Rank when I was a kid. And while I do agree it's annoying to have it on Team Rose I didn't mind it as I get it was an Easy Mode although I also get what you mean it being redundant. The Hint Rings does already teach the basics of the game so yeah, maybe Sea Gate wasn't really that necessary.

[@metaltornado3457]

It is dumb that they made Sea Gate a forced tutorial for Team Rose when the option to play it as Sonic is right on the menu. It also doesn't make much sense narrative wise. Why is Omochao with Team Rose if Tails built it. That said, the level's music is great, and I love the oceanside vista when we finally get out of the canyon at the end of the level.

[@CinnaSwirls]

The only fun I have in Sea Gate is trying to progress without doing so in the way Omochoa expects you to. You can use the Blue Tornado and glitchy wall physics to clear the Fly section, for example.

[@LeonardoCollywell2004]

4:14 The fact that I laughed here proves I never lost my inner four year old

[@BananabroJr]

I've always had a distaste for tutorials especially ones where I have to wait and listen to a character tell me that I should press A to jump. But I understand why they are there. This one though? I really have no clue the first sonic staged teaches you exactly what you need perfectly why do we need this?

[@Sly88Frye]

Honestly they should have put the teams in the order of easiest on the left to hardest on the right on the team select screen. I know it's called Sonic heroes and team Sonic is the main team you think about, but if they want to make it clear that team Rose is the easy mode that should be the first one you can select. I always found that odd because yes the first time I played this game I played as team Sonic but then I forget which button it was I played it on the GameCube but I pressed the button that causes omachal to show up on the menu to describe each team's dynamic and then realize oh my gosh I should have been playing his team Rose.

[@aurafox1]

Poopy Gate is my favorite Sonic level, how dare you.

[@wouterW24]

Team Rose is just a weird engima. It only makes sense if a little kid plays the game that cannot handle the other paths for quite some time. Which is weird since it’s marketed as Sonic, and failure to play him will sting. I did beat their story first because of least resistance, and it kind of spoils the levels too. I don’t mind the tutorial as much myself though. When I was 10 I liked having a good rundown of the entire system before setting out. It just should have been optional. There are a lot of systems actions to digest at once, and this covers most and the basics of leveling up in a orderly way. I disagree that some players won’t need this kind of help, especially the youngest players. Heroes runs a real risk of tangling those who haven’t got deep gamer sense of which button does what yet, since well, it varies all the time. Or perhaps it’s their very first game(actually not implausible at all considering it’s intensely appealing bright colours and fluffy cloud sky motif..) So I mostly blame team Rose.

[@EnigmaBarry]

The forced tutorial is all part of Metal So-I mean Dr. Robotnik's diabolical traps that take advantage of Team Rose's moderately-fast speed. Collision detection, falling off rails, forced tutorials. It's all the same thing.

[@muizzsiddique]

This taught me what rocket accel was and then I only actually started using it 10 years later.

[@justyouraveragegamer6142]

I remember it fondly just because I love the music even tho it shares a section from seaside hill.

[@IPODsify]

That omochao is clearly an imposter, it's voice is way too enthusiastic

[@Kibui]

I don't mind Sea Gatekeeping a Team Rose playthrough because the stage music is great and makes me feel very nostalgic :'D

[@ScorpionZX6]

LMAOOO that title had me rolling The song SLAPS though ong

[@zephyr8072]

“Omochao will repeat..” *”Quiet you.”*

[@rym99]

At least sea gate has catchy music.

[@EnergyBurst2]

I never had much issue with it and also never noticed the tutorial option lol, but for me the stage I hate the most is rail canyon.

[@QueeQuey]

EST gang here, got my June Zoom video and now it's off to bed!

[@gengargamer5657]

At least it's only mandatory once

[@insertcringynamehere6554]

I asked for something similar to this in June zoom Now I know it’ll be good

[@tnt551]

I don't even remember this being the first level for team rose. I'm sitting here desperately searching through my memory and I only maybe have the most vague fragments of recollection about this being a thing... I guess that just proves the point of the video in a way.

[@spindash64]

I DO like how Big the Cat is basically Doomguy in this game, tearing apart the forces of evil because they stole his frog again FROOG

[@machina5]

Team Rose was chosen as the tutorial team over Team Sonic because it was the team designed for girls. Japan has a long history of downplaying women, and the attitude is still rampant today. The reason Team Sonic doesn't have a tutorial level is because they thought boys are smart enough to learn how to run forward and jump on their own, and that girls aren't.

[@yoshihammerbro435]

Ya I hate sexism 😡 pathetic males

[@KavinCatastrophe]

20 years Late but someone had to talk about this Dumb Decision.

[@gamefreakDX]

The best thing about Sea Gate is its music.

[@alishegamer8490]

Legit this was my first sonic game as a kid and i played it on pc and it was pain. I hated playing on a keyboard and non knowing any of the buttons

[@Razsteroid]

this is one of the levels of all time

[@foolish_edworm]

i started playing sonic heroes a while ago, and even though i had played it as a kid, i still played the tutorial for a refresher. then i started team rose as i knew it was the easiest to start with, and then was met with sea gate. how could i have forgotten... anyway you could imagine my frustration at accidentally forcing myself to play two tutorials in a row :,)

[@Crow_Rising]

I'm less baffled that Team Rose is the one with the forced tutorial, and more baffled that they decided to place Team Rose as the third choice on the character select screen while doing that. You're all too likely to beat Team Sonic and Team Dark before deciding to try out Team Rose, only to be forced into this tutorial stopping you every two steps to explain to you game mechanics you already know. If they must force the tutorial on you when you play as Team Rose, shouldn't Team Rose be the first choice on the character select screen? At least then whenever you do get around to playing as them, it would make more sense that their team has the tutorial because their team is presented as the first playable option. Of course, the better option really would have just been to keep the tutorial relegated to the separate option. That way regardless of team choice you can hop right into the action. Forcing the tutorial at all nullifies the point of having it there as a separate option to begin with, but placing it on the third playable team just insults your intelligence in the process.

[@maxrelax5940]

we got another iteartion of seaside hill/ocean palace ost so im not complaining

[@unclecheese1157]

You are COMPLETELY UNDERRATED

[@GabLancer]

I totally agree, I mean I remember playing this level when I was about 6 and absolutely hating it and as a child I loved every crappy movie and game so it says a lot

[@princeoftrash8497]

Ah one of the sonic games in my top 10