Rev Up Those Sonic Cycles

[Garamonde]

Crash Bandicoot and Sonic aren't that similar in gameplay. It is pretty clear that they had a lot of inspiration from Sonic and they were fans of it (basically Naughty Dog freaked out when they got Hirokazu Yasuhara on their company). As you said, there's a lot of jumping and keeping an eye for secret goodies, but Sonic's entire game design was done with speed in mind. For instance, getting hit by an enemy doesn't represent almost any danger to your lives, you'll always have at least one ring with you, but it does represent a big-ass danger to your time-attacking. Falling down platforms won't get you killed, there's always a path below it, but it will throw you to a path that will obligate you to slow down a lot or just isn't as fast as the upper path. They made the game so that players could try to speed their way through the level without fearing that going too fast would make you get killed easier - but you must be skillful to keep that speed throughout the level. (and Takashi Iizuka said the opposite about that on an interview, proving how much he knows about the classics - Nothing)

Anyway, I know that I'd also want a 3D Sonic that had more of that free exploration that 2D Sonic has, but actually using the depth of 3D levels to make the levels seem even more vivid and vast than those giant levels from Sonic 3 and Sonic CD, but I'm okay with this, even though I think that SEGA is being lazy with Modern Sonic's gameplay, basically finding something that works well and just sticking with it and repeating it several times over like if it was a MAGIC FORMULA, barely trying to improve it (already ranted here about how on Unleashed and Generations, you constantly get boost power for doing nothing other than holding forward, and how Unleashed's boost system was a step backwards from Rush, which basically tried to apply the game design of the classics, speed = skill, to a more modern, fast-paced gameplay) but then again, I'm not sure whether the Modern Sonic gameplay on Generations addresses a lot of issues people had on the day-time levels of Unleashed (like REALLY CHEAP deaths and awful drifting and jumping controls). Colors had a really good level design, but half of its merit goes to the fact that it used the Color abilities really well - most of its level design was 2D platforming sections instead of behind-the-hog fast-paced running sections, and it was made by another team than the one working on Generations as far as I can gather, so I guess we have to wait and see.

Whoa. And people criticize me for text walls. But no seriously I think what would also be cool is a totally rad 3D Mushroom Forest Zone (is that what it's called?), with the good old bouncy mushrooms, the boosters, curves, and totally redone SPECIAL STAGES! Imagine a gorgeous 3D rainbow of colors you'd see playing that DNA fryer stage like me and my cousin like to call it. Ooooor if you want something dizzying and annoying, try the spinning stages (kinda mind-boggling thinking about how they would remake something like that).