07-08-2008, 05:11 PM
The answers to how to revive Sonic are rather simple and I'm amazed that they've alluded everyone for so long.
The old games were focused around Sonic, but not his speed - his speed was only available to slightly more skilled players. Whenever you get some real speed going you'll be slowed down by spikes, enemies, springs and various other obstacles. If this weren't true, then the posts allowing access to the past and future in Sonic CD wouldn't require you to maintain speed for a set amount of time before letting you warp through time. Sonic's top speeds had to be worked for, and it took skill to maintain it. A lot of the engine focused around the physics of Sonic himself too, with him bouncing off enemies at different heights, speeds and angles, depending on where he hit them from and at what speed. The current games just showboat Sonic's speed and more or less control themselves half the time, relying heavily on giving you blisteringly high speeds with little to no effort. Sonic also seems to only bounce a set height from enemies in the newer games and the homing attack meant you always hit everything at the same speed.
The levels always had many different, interlocking routes which allowed you to replay each level in a variety of different ways and meant that there were always new areas to find and hazards to overcome. New games are far more linear, containing one main route which the player is forced down, with few shortcuts or side roads. The exploration element's just gone as of late.
Plus, Sonic was about Sonic. The ramps, jumps and loops were designed specifically for Sonic and it felt as though Sonic alone could conquer it all. True, in Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles allowed you to play as Tails and Knuckles, both had their own specific abilities which allowed them access to routes that were impossible to get to as Sonic - it meant the gameplay changed drastically depending on who your character was, and due to different characters having access to different routes, it almost felt like playing a new game each time. For example, say there are a set of platforms ascending from a breakable wall - a common sightin those games. Sonic couldn't break the wall, but could jump up the platforms and continue along. Knuckles however had a lower jump height and couldn't get up the platforms, but he could break the wall. The levels were designed in a way that made them unique for each character, but as Heroes shows, the obstacles that are character specific are now present only to verify a character's participation in a game. It's far from the same effect. To solve this, you'd either have to let Sonic go solo again, or try to recapture the level layouts of Sonic & Knuckles.
Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2 bring up an alarming point as well. There are too many characters with little to no variation between them. In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow and Rouge were there purely to rival Sonic and Knuckles - that was their entire purpose and these new characters were mere clones of their rivals, with the same abilities and statistics. Meanwhile, Tails had his entire gameplay changed, simply to use him as an equivalent to Robotnik, ignoring all the previous flight, swim and tail abilities which made him unique and lovable. In Heroes, all the teams are carbon copies of each other, and play exactly the same as one another. 12 playable characters that are all clones of one another is a worrying thing, it'd be like a Street Fighter game filled with Ryus, Kens, Akumas and Dans (oh wait), where the characters are there simply to bump up the roster and have no real purpose or use. I say most of these characters need to be dropped, or have their involvement severely cut.
To use Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure as an example, I bring up another point. Sonic Adventure 2 felt broken, because as soon as you got into the game and started enjoying blasting through stages, you were forced to switch to a whole new gameplay style as either Tails or Knuckles. This killed the flow of the game for me, as the second I got comfortable playing as a character, I had to jump to another one who played as though it was a different game. S3&K and SA1 had multiple characters, and they were all unique, but, you only played as one at a time. You played as Sonic, got into a Sonic groove, and finished it as Sonic. You could play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E-102 etc when you felt like it and wanted a change of pace. It was never forced, and so felt like an option and an occasional breath of fresh air giving you replay value, rather than the forced and stiff switches in later games. The S3&K and SA1 character select systems need to return if multiple playable characters are to be a feature and lure of future Sonic games.
Super Sonic was once a prestigous award for those who bothered to collect all the Chaos Emeralds, and you could play him in any level, and take him wherever you liked. This unparalled freedom Super Sonic offered needs to return. I'm sick of him simply appearing for one heavily scripted and linear battle. Sick of the Chaos Emeralds being a part of the plot, rather than having to attain them through Special Stages. Special Stages like those in Sonic 1, 2, 3 and even 3D need to return. Though I despise the Special Stages of Sonic CD and Chaotix.
Robotnik needs to be Robotnik once more. I'm not talking about the name swap, I'm talking about Robotnik being the anatgonist, the main villain, rather than a soft, comedic relief, villain that is usually shown as being incompetent by a higher being or one of his own creations. It's getting very old, very fast and he's no longer the nemesis he once was.
Another point is the story. Sonic was never originally designed for a worldwide continuity and plot. Sonic 1, Sonic 2, CD, 3 and Knuckles had plots that were heavily hinted but never thrown in your face and never the focus. It was always pick up and play gameplay. I'm sick of there being giant, contradicting and confusing plots by people trying to get into Square Enix.
Also, the games need to be finished and polished on release. Too often do they feel rushed and contain a truckload of bugs and glitches. The engine needs to be ready before we get to play it. We don't mind if we don't get it for Christmas, just as long as it's good. So long as the extra time was spent making sure the game was as tight as it possibly could be.
Moving from 3D back to 2D's not the answer either, as the Sonic Advance series proved. Though Rush was indeed good, it didn't meet the standards of the old games for several of the reasons listed above. 3D can work, if done right.
But then again, Sonic 1's GBA port proves that Sega can't even get the most basic of games right these days. All they had to do was move Sonic 1 on Mega Drive to the Game Boy Advance, and somewhere along the line they managed to mess up the collision detection and add several bugs and glitches.
Sonic Unleashed is the last bastion of hope for me. If it doesn't do what I want it to do, then I'll probably give up on the series entirely.
The old games were focused around Sonic, but not his speed - his speed was only available to slightly more skilled players. Whenever you get some real speed going you'll be slowed down by spikes, enemies, springs and various other obstacles. If this weren't true, then the posts allowing access to the past and future in Sonic CD wouldn't require you to maintain speed for a set amount of time before letting you warp through time. Sonic's top speeds had to be worked for, and it took skill to maintain it. A lot of the engine focused around the physics of Sonic himself too, with him bouncing off enemies at different heights, speeds and angles, depending on where he hit them from and at what speed. The current games just showboat Sonic's speed and more or less control themselves half the time, relying heavily on giving you blisteringly high speeds with little to no effort. Sonic also seems to only bounce a set height from enemies in the newer games and the homing attack meant you always hit everything at the same speed.
The levels always had many different, interlocking routes which allowed you to replay each level in a variety of different ways and meant that there were always new areas to find and hazards to overcome. New games are far more linear, containing one main route which the player is forced down, with few shortcuts or side roads. The exploration element's just gone as of late.
Plus, Sonic was about Sonic. The ramps, jumps and loops were designed specifically for Sonic and it felt as though Sonic alone could conquer it all. True, in Sonic 3 and Sonic and Knuckles allowed you to play as Tails and Knuckles, both had their own specific abilities which allowed them access to routes that were impossible to get to as Sonic - it meant the gameplay changed drastically depending on who your character was, and due to different characters having access to different routes, it almost felt like playing a new game each time. For example, say there are a set of platforms ascending from a breakable wall - a common sightin those games. Sonic couldn't break the wall, but could jump up the platforms and continue along. Knuckles however had a lower jump height and couldn't get up the platforms, but he could break the wall. The levels were designed in a way that made them unique for each character, but as Heroes shows, the obstacles that are character specific are now present only to verify a character's participation in a game. It's far from the same effect. To solve this, you'd either have to let Sonic go solo again, or try to recapture the level layouts of Sonic & Knuckles.
Heroes and Sonic Adventure 2 bring up an alarming point as well. There are too many characters with little to no variation between them. In Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow and Rouge were there purely to rival Sonic and Knuckles - that was their entire purpose and these new characters were mere clones of their rivals, with the same abilities and statistics. Meanwhile, Tails had his entire gameplay changed, simply to use him as an equivalent to Robotnik, ignoring all the previous flight, swim and tail abilities which made him unique and lovable. In Heroes, all the teams are carbon copies of each other, and play exactly the same as one another. 12 playable characters that are all clones of one another is a worrying thing, it'd be like a Street Fighter game filled with Ryus, Kens, Akumas and Dans (oh wait), where the characters are there simply to bump up the roster and have no real purpose or use. I say most of these characters need to be dropped, or have their involvement severely cut.
To use Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure as an example, I bring up another point. Sonic Adventure 2 felt broken, because as soon as you got into the game and started enjoying blasting through stages, you were forced to switch to a whole new gameplay style as either Tails or Knuckles. This killed the flow of the game for me, as the second I got comfortable playing as a character, I had to jump to another one who played as though it was a different game. S3&K and SA1 had multiple characters, and they were all unique, but, you only played as one at a time. You played as Sonic, got into a Sonic groove, and finished it as Sonic. You could play as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E-102 etc when you felt like it and wanted a change of pace. It was never forced, and so felt like an option and an occasional breath of fresh air giving you replay value, rather than the forced and stiff switches in later games. The S3&K and SA1 character select systems need to return if multiple playable characters are to be a feature and lure of future Sonic games.
Super Sonic was once a prestigous award for those who bothered to collect all the Chaos Emeralds, and you could play him in any level, and take him wherever you liked. This unparalled freedom Super Sonic offered needs to return. I'm sick of him simply appearing for one heavily scripted and linear battle. Sick of the Chaos Emeralds being a part of the plot, rather than having to attain them through Special Stages. Special Stages like those in Sonic 1, 2, 3 and even 3D need to return. Though I despise the Special Stages of Sonic CD and Chaotix.
Robotnik needs to be Robotnik once more. I'm not talking about the name swap, I'm talking about Robotnik being the anatgonist, the main villain, rather than a soft, comedic relief, villain that is usually shown as being incompetent by a higher being or one of his own creations. It's getting very old, very fast and he's no longer the nemesis he once was.
Another point is the story. Sonic was never originally designed for a worldwide continuity and plot. Sonic 1, Sonic 2, CD, 3 and Knuckles had plots that were heavily hinted but never thrown in your face and never the focus. It was always pick up and play gameplay. I'm sick of there being giant, contradicting and confusing plots by people trying to get into Square Enix.
Also, the games need to be finished and polished on release. Too often do they feel rushed and contain a truckload of bugs and glitches. The engine needs to be ready before we get to play it. We don't mind if we don't get it for Christmas, just as long as it's good. So long as the extra time was spent making sure the game was as tight as it possibly could be.
Moving from 3D back to 2D's not the answer either, as the Sonic Advance series proved. Though Rush was indeed good, it didn't meet the standards of the old games for several of the reasons listed above. 3D can work, if done right.
But then again, Sonic 1's GBA port proves that Sega can't even get the most basic of games right these days. All they had to do was move Sonic 1 on Mega Drive to the Game Boy Advance, and somewhere along the line they managed to mess up the collision detection and add several bugs and glitches.
Sonic Unleashed is the last bastion of hope for me. If it doesn't do what I want it to do, then I'll probably give up on the series entirely.
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![[Image: SigArt.png]](/image.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fi648.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fuu205%2FAfr0Blu3%2FSigArt.png&hash=84ed4ccde9e0c55a0d35a96ef7b95c52)