04-19-2015, 11:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-19-2015, 11:02 PM by Jermungandr.)
Sonic Lost World was definitely a step in the right direction. The more cartoony aesthetics and story worked very well, and using the shoulder button to give you some control over Sonic's speed actually felt really good to me. The biggest flaw I feel the game had was in the complexity of the controls. In addition to focusing on speed mechanics, the Sonic games have always been about really simple controls. For example:
Sonic 1; all you had to use was a single button for jump and the D-pad.
Sonic 2 added a spindash, but it still utilized the jump and D-pad, just combining the two at the same time.
Sonic 3 brought in shield powers, and airborne powers for Tails and Knuckles. Still only a single button and the D-pad are required, just push jump a second time in midair.
When the games went 3D in the Adventure games, the controls remained pretty much the same. Pressing jump a second time allowed characters to use their airborne powers, including Sonic's homing dash. And said homing attack was extremely simple and logical to use, most players didn't even require explanation. A second button was added for the spindash out of necessity, which could also be used to do things like the lightspeed dash and bounce attacks, but still two buttons and a joystick was still a very simple and easy to comprehend control scheme.
(A third button could be used to do things in some places, but it was very rare and most of the time ignorable. The only place I can think of where it was required in-level to progress was picking up the keys in Sonic's pyramid stage in SA2).
Et cetera et cetera. Boosting was added at some point (Sonic Rush I think was the first game?) but it still didn't make the game controls feel particularly complicated.
Then Lost World comes out and oh my god simplicity and logic is just thrown out the window.
You got one button for speed, one button for spindashing, one button for slow-rolling (what? why?), two different jump buttons with two different homing attacks, and some other things I can't even remember or care about right now. And most of these buttons don't even feel like their placed in appropriate places on the gamepad.
Most of these are not even necessary. All the game really required was a single button for jumping & homing, a second button for spindash/airstomp and maybe lightdash if they wanted to include it, and a shoulder button for the speed control and parkour. That's basically the same control formula they've been using in the majority of the Sonic 3D games and it would have worked just fine here. The "slowroll" is a complete waste of time; sure it has a purpose kind of, it can be used on slippery and sticky floors to give you better traction, but you know what they could have done to alleviate this problem? NOT USED SLIPPERY OR STICKY FLOORS.
And it's not just the number of buttons the game utelizes that makes the controls feel too complicated for a Sonic game, there's also the overcomplicated homing system. Aside from the fact that there are two different types of homing attacks, one of which is completely unnecessary, you can't even use the basic homing attack to pounce from enemy to enemy easily anymore. You've got to wait until the game targets multiple enemies for you and then hope the game actually bounces from one to another correctly. It's overly complicated, less fun to pull off, and like a lot of the other control issues, not instinctive.
I feel like if, for their next game, they were to take what they did in Lost World and simplify the control scheme, they could actually end up with a pretty solid game. Problem is I have a feeling they're more likely to scrap the Lost World style as a failure altogether, which I feel is disappointing.
[EDIT] Oh, and color powers SUCK.
Sonic 1; all you had to use was a single button for jump and the D-pad.
Sonic 2 added a spindash, but it still utilized the jump and D-pad, just combining the two at the same time.
Sonic 3 brought in shield powers, and airborne powers for Tails and Knuckles. Still only a single button and the D-pad are required, just push jump a second time in midair.
When the games went 3D in the Adventure games, the controls remained pretty much the same. Pressing jump a second time allowed characters to use their airborne powers, including Sonic's homing dash. And said homing attack was extremely simple and logical to use, most players didn't even require explanation. A second button was added for the spindash out of necessity, which could also be used to do things like the lightspeed dash and bounce attacks, but still two buttons and a joystick was still a very simple and easy to comprehend control scheme.
(A third button could be used to do things in some places, but it was very rare and most of the time ignorable. The only place I can think of where it was required in-level to progress was picking up the keys in Sonic's pyramid stage in SA2).
Et cetera et cetera. Boosting was added at some point (Sonic Rush I think was the first game?) but it still didn't make the game controls feel particularly complicated.
Then Lost World comes out and oh my god simplicity and logic is just thrown out the window.
You got one button for speed, one button for spindashing, one button for slow-rolling (what? why?), two different jump buttons with two different homing attacks, and some other things I can't even remember or care about right now. And most of these buttons don't even feel like their placed in appropriate places on the gamepad.
Most of these are not even necessary. All the game really required was a single button for jumping & homing, a second button for spindash/airstomp and maybe lightdash if they wanted to include it, and a shoulder button for the speed control and parkour. That's basically the same control formula they've been using in the majority of the Sonic 3D games and it would have worked just fine here. The "slowroll" is a complete waste of time; sure it has a purpose kind of, it can be used on slippery and sticky floors to give you better traction, but you know what they could have done to alleviate this problem? NOT USED SLIPPERY OR STICKY FLOORS.
And it's not just the number of buttons the game utelizes that makes the controls feel too complicated for a Sonic game, there's also the overcomplicated homing system. Aside from the fact that there are two different types of homing attacks, one of which is completely unnecessary, you can't even use the basic homing attack to pounce from enemy to enemy easily anymore. You've got to wait until the game targets multiple enemies for you and then hope the game actually bounces from one to another correctly. It's overly complicated, less fun to pull off, and like a lot of the other control issues, not instinctive.
I feel like if, for their next game, they were to take what they did in Lost World and simplify the control scheme, they could actually end up with a pretty solid game. Problem is I have a feeling they're more likely to scrap the Lost World style as a failure altogether, which I feel is disappointing.
[EDIT] Oh, and color powers SUCK.