33 replies to this topic

[TheLightSpeedDash]

The title explains its self,

Should Sonic be in a 4 player 2-D side scroller?

Since Mario,Kirby,and Rayman have done it and those titles have done very well. Should Sega try something like that? Personally I would say yes because even though that style of gameplay has already been dealt with Sega could do it and it would become a big hit(If it were to be done right). I really did enjoy the side scrolling mini game from Sonic Colors and if Sega expanded from that and make it a downloadable game or a console game it could hold up. I would see it better as a downloadable game and for the characters and story... I really wouldn't be expecting much since the other 4 player 2-D side scrollers didn't have much of a story or wide selection of characters. Hell I woudn't be supperised if the only characters that would be chosen would be sonic recolored 4 times and the story would probably be as basic as sonic 1's story(Dr.Robotnik is kidnapping Sonic's friends go stop him). The levels would either:

A.) Do the Sonic 4 method and make stages based off of old ones

or

B.) Actually have new levels and enviorments(But I highly doubt it because Sonic has basically been in so many different enviorments it's hard to create ones that he hasn't already been through).

So yeah, that's what I think the game would be like but the bigger question is... How do you guys think this game would be like?

[Ekaje]

I don't really know how this would work out. Sonic is generally faster than the games you mentioned, so it could lead to one good player getting far ahead and everyone else constantly warping to him/dying, or being stuck at one end of the screen a lot of the time.

@Winston

I wasn't aware that Rayman Origins and Kirby's Return to Dreamland were exactly like NSMB.

Edited by Ekaje, 05 May 2012 - 06:32 PM.

[Winston]

So, you're basically saying "New Sonic the Hedgehog". Nah, no thanks.

Edited by Winston, 05 May 2012 - 06:28 PM.

[Solkia]

It didn't work in NSMB Wii, I don't see how it could possibly work in a Sonic game.

[Chili Dawg]

I can't really see this working with good 2D Sonic level design without being a mess. Sonic's levels just have too much going on, so many paths and shits. It's not as easy to just toss in three more players like Mario can. Unless you want to design the game specifically with four players in mind, but designing levels like that tends to lead them being pretty bland when playing solo.

That said, there is nothing that can't be done, only things that haven't been done. I'm sure a 4 player Sonic COULD work, I just don't know how.

[Diogenes]

No. Co-op and Sonic just don't work well.

Mario, Kirby, and Rayman can pull it off because they're all fairly slow paced, have mostly linear levels, and the gameplay is broken up into smaller chunks that "reset" the players' positions periodically. With Sonic, you have large, seamless, almost labyrinthine levels, played mostly at high speeds. This makes it nearly impossible for players to stick together for any length of time. If one player gets hit, or if a player takes one route and another player takes a different route, they're going to end up separated by a pretty huge distance. And if you can't keep your players together, there's little point in having co-op at all. You're better off making competitive races if you want multiplayer.

[Nepenthe]

You could easily set up the screen properly by getting rid of the camera's focus on Sonic, thus mitigating the ability for other players to fall behind off screen, implementing automatic screen zoom that depended upon the distance between players, and add an invisible wall that popped up to stop the lead player from progressing farther than the screen could zoom, perhaps one dynamic enough to detect pits and enemies so one couldn't easily get damaged. Tweak character movement from there, yada yada. If anything, those are the easy problems to address. It's the gameplay that feels up in the air considering no gameplay style in the series with the exception of Heroes' has felt tailor-made for cooperation in the first place. And instead of shoehorning any existing style into a multiplayer experience, I almost feel like you'd do better to just nick Rayman's style- what with the amount of freedom of movement, focus on speed-running, and lack of player collision detection (such a godsend)- and call it a day.

[Diogenes]

I don't think zooming out solves the problem. With the size of typical Sonic levels and the speeds of the characters you'll either hit the maximum in seconds or it'll zoom out until the characters are specks. And crashing face first into an invisible wall just because someone couldn't keep up does not sound like an enjoyable Sonic experience.

The best option I can see for co-op in Sonic is to make player(s) 2(/3/4) incredibly subservient to player 1. If the other players are to have the same gameplay as Sonic/player 1, add a Kirby-style "warp to leader" function, ideally one you can activate manually rather than having to wait for the game to realize you've been left behind, and have it apply player 1's speed to them, so they have some chance of keeping up with a fast-moving P1 instead of instantly being left behind. Or you could do something kind of like Mario Galaxy's co-op, where 2P isn't a character in the game world, but something confined to the screen, but I'm not sure that would be interesting enough to be worth it.

[Nepenthe]

Level size and character speed, and subsequently the amount of zoom available are things that can be directly tweaked and played around with to cater towards keeping multiple characters on screen as long as possible; If my direct comparison to Rayman Origins didn't communicate my intent properly, I'm hardly advocating Daytime stages just with extra characters thrown in. And in the grand scheme of things, I don't even think you could stick directly with traditional Sonic level design in the first place if the multiplayer aspect is to even be more worthwhile than what it's been in the past.

Regardless, a warping or a rubberband-esque function is certainly do-able, but I don't like the whole idea of basing the game perspective around player one, because in my mind that already facilitates half of the viewing and design problems that make it significantly easier for second player to get left behind in the first place, and it gets even worse if Sonic is naturally faster. I shouldn't have to be constantly relying on a warp function.

Also, Mario Galaxy's co-op is hogwash. I wouldn't bother with that as a starting point.

[Sega DogTagz]

I die a little inside whenever I see someone mention Galaxy as a Co-Op experience..... good god, its a disgrace.

I'm gonna side with the majority of the people in this topic. A traditional 4 Player side scroller just won't work with the sonic formula unless you tweak the concept to an insane degree. You'd have to build it up from the ground up and do everything you can to compensate for the skill and speed differences of each player.

Going the Chaotix route and rubber-banding characters together could work. it would keep better players from getting to top speed (dead weight would slow them down) and it would give lackluster players a little bit of a boost.

[Autosaver]

What I want is the ability to do Sonic Rush/Advance/Generations races but with even MORE people.

Imagine racing 3 other people for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

[Wolfy]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think the only multiplayer Sonic can work well with is racing. I mean the guy is about speed, and you can't fit that all in one screen with 4 people unless the 4 people playing are godly at the game. But from a common person standpoint, it's not going to work, not like this anyways.

Possibly if you have it online only where everyone gets their own screen and they are free to wonder about as they please, however, this really wouldn't be much co-op in terms of team working a situation, more over just having your buddies zip around in a level with you. That said, guess where that leads too? "Let's see who can get their first" since everyone is so free willed and independent, thus making it a race mode.

At this point I wouldn't mind. Yes, you could have a race mode online to really focus on racing, though, I wouldn't mind this form of multiplayer if the racing was sort of an added bonus. As in you can play "story mode" with your friends, race light-heartedly, but ultimately your placement doesn't really affect anything other than your ego. Then yeah, there'd always be a "non-story" mode for you and your friends to duke out on.

That's really the only way I can see a Sonic game working in multiplayer if we're just talking about straight up a Sonic game with no game-featured gimmick.

[Diogenes]

Level size and character speed, and subsequently the amount of zoom available are things that can be directly tweaked and played around with to cater towards keeping multiple characters on screen as long as possible; If my direct comparison to Rayman Origins didn't communicate my intent properly, I'm hardly advocating Daytime stages just with extra characters thrown in. And in the grand scheme of things, I don't even think you could stick directly with traditional Sonic level design in the first place if the multiplayer aspect is to even be more worthwhile than what it's been in the past.

Problem is, how much do we have to change to make this work, and will it even be "Sonic" anymore or just Mario with a spindash? They'd have to nerf Sonic's speed, so players aren't constantly left behind. They'd need to simplify and linearize the level design, so players don't end up on wildly different paths. Classic physics wouldn't have much use, given that we can't go too fast and we can't have big hills. So are we calling this "Sonic" for any reason but the guy on the cover?

Regardless, a warping or a rubberband-esque function is certainly do-able, but I don't like the whole idea of basing the game perspective around player one, because in my mind that already facilitates half of the viewing and design problems that make it significantly easier for second player to get left behind in the first place, and it gets even worse if Sonic is naturally faster. I shouldn't have to be constantly relying on a warp function.

If you've got anything resembling typical Sonic gameplay, I don't see any way of avoiding it. And I don't see how trying to give all players equal weight is going to solve any problems.

Also, Mario Galaxy's co-op is hogwash. I wouldn't bother with that as a starting point.

I die a little inside whenever I see someone mention Galaxy as a Co-Op experience..... good god, its a disgrace.

Yeah I'm no fan of it either, but fixing some of the players to the screen rather than putting them in the game space is one of the few ways I could see any meaningful co-op working with Sonic gameplay. That this is a serious contender shows how difficult it is to make Sonic and co-op work.

[Rusty Spy]

I just realized that with the WiiU, the possibly of a Co-op Sonic game becomes much more feesable by relegating other players to their controller's screen.

[Wooly-Fools]

As much as I'd like to see it happen, I doubt it'd be work that well. Or at all........

[Nepenthe]

Problem is, how much do we have to change to make this work, and will it even be "Sonic" anymore or just Mario with a spindash? They'd have to nerf Sonic's speed, so players aren't constantly left behind. They'd need to simplify and linearize the level design, so players don't end up on wildly different paths. Classic physics wouldn't have much use, given that we can't go too fast and we can't have big hills. So are we calling this "Sonic" for any reason but the guy on the cover?

The fact that we're talking about a hypothetical game in the vain of NSMB:W- something that's never been tried by Sega before- means there's no precedent for it in a "Sonic" context so no: none of what we're discussing is inherently "Sonic." But such a question is one I can't answer meaningfully in the first place without a reference point for what "Sonic" even is in this topic, and your broad statements aren't helpful.

For example, you say one would have to nerf Sonic's speed for this idea to function, implying that's an issue because that isn't a Sonic-like design decision, but people- including yourself if I recall correctly- have been calling for Sonic's speed to be nerfed for years because the modern iteration is "too fast." So what is "too fast" and "too slow?" What is and isn't acceptable speed? I mean, how do you propose I even answer you succinctly without any reference points whatsoever?

Now, if your personal definition of Sonic revels in a purely classic context, then again no. Of course a multiplayer game- in almost any capacity -isn't going to be "Sonic" without changing some things that make the games fundamentally "Sonic." But not only do I not even agree that that's the only kind of appropriate Sonic game, but coming into hypothetical discussions like this from such a narrow context is such a boring way to participate, so much so that I don't even want to try answering your question from my own viewpoint anyway.

If you've got anything resembling typical Sonic gameplay, I don't see any way of avoiding it. And I don't see how trying to give all players equal weight is going to solve any problems.

Merely disallowing characters from being able to fall behind and stay permanently off-screen until they lose a life or something, either through dynamic walls or something like a rubber band or magnetic mechanic, would quickly solve the whole "keeping people in one place" issue.

[Alexander]

I'd like to see something like this... but I don't think it would work. Like others have mentioned, New Super Mario Bros tried it, and I don't think it worked all that well. However, one idea that I always had was that if one player gets too far ahead, the screen would become a split screen so the other player(s) can see what the hell they're doing, and once they catch up to the player that's ahead, the screen would switch back to the default full screen. I dunno if something like that is possible, though.

EDIT: o hey what if two players were tethered together similar to Knuckles Chaotix lol jk fuck that shit.

Edited by Alexander the Swell, 06 May 2012 - 01:31 AM.

[Diogenes]

The fact that we're talking about a hypothetical game in the vain of NSMB:W- something that's never been tried by Sega before- means there's no precedent for it in a "Sonic" context so no: none of what we're discussing is inherently "Sonic."

I'm not talking about what the co-op gimmick adds, but what has to be sacrificed from the way Sonic games normally play to make the game viable.

But such a question is one I can't answer meaningfully in the first place without a reference point for what "Sonic" even is in this topic, and your broad statements aren't helpful.

I'm using broad statements because I can't imagine this working without tearing away even the most basic underpinnings of what we call "Sonic". Of course it doesn't help that the series has been so schizophrenic that "Sonic" can mean a dozen different things, but I really don't see the defining points of any main series game being compatible with co-op.

For example, you say one would have to nerf Sonic's speed for this idea to function, implying that's an issue because that isn't a Sonic-like design decision, but people- including yourself if I recall correctly- have been calling for Sonic's speed to be nerfed for years because the modern iteration is "too fast." So what is "too fast" and "too slow?" What is and isn't acceptable speed? I mean, how do you propose I even answer you succinctly without any reference points whatsoever?

I would say that every core series Sonic game has gameplay too fast for co-op to function well, and that going much slower than the slowest of them would go against the spirit of Sonic games.

Of course a multiplayer game- in almost any capacity -isn't going to be "Sonic" without changing some things that make the games fundamentally "Sonic."

I'm not saying it's a problem to make some compromises. I'm saying I can't imagine any way to do this that doesn't sacrifice either "co-op" or "Sonic gameplay" entirely.

But not only do I not even agree that that's the only kind of appropriate Sonic game, but coming into hypothetical discussions like this from such a narrow context is such a boring way to participate, so much so that I don't even want to try answering your question from my own viewpoint anyway.

Come from too wide a context and the question's even more boring, since the obvious answer is "yes, because Sonic can be anything".

Merely disallowing characters from being able to fall behind and stay permanently off-screen until they lose a life or something, either through dynamic walls or something like a rubber band or magnetic mechanic, would quickly solve the whole "keeping people in one place" issue.

Being dragged along like in NSMBWii isn't much better, IMO. It still largely invalidates their ability to do anything meaningful.

However, one idea that I always had was that if one player gets too far ahead, the screen would become a split screen so the other player(s) can see what the hell they're doing, and once they catch up to the player that's ahead, the screen would switch back to the default full screen. I dunno if something like that is possible, though.

Possible, yes, fun to play, I doubt it. Having the screen suddenly slashed and rearranged has got to be disorienting.

[LunarEdge]

a number of these topics were made, even I made one awhile back. I think it could work if implemented right.... but that could be said about a lot of games

[Nepenthe]

I'm not talking about what the co-op gimmick adds, but what has to be sacrificed from the way Sonic games normally play to make the game viable.

I'm not sure what this refutes. Whether we're adding meaningful co-op or sacrificing something, the conclusion's the same: you don't have an inherently Sonic experience under the context you're trying to define.

I'm using broad statements because I can't imagine this working without tearing away even the most basic underpinnings of what we call "Sonic". Of course it doesn't help that the series has been so schizophrenic that "Sonic" can mean a dozen different things, but I really don't see the defining points of any main series game being compatible with co-op.

You've not even told me what the most basic underpinnings are, and as such my own assumptions like "speed" and "flow" are broad as well, ultimately stifling my ability to answer your original question in the first place.

I would say that every core series Sonic game has gameplay too fast for co-op to function well, and that going much slower than the slowest of them would go against the spirit of Sonic games.

I disagree; Classic Sonic without the aid of rolling or downhill terrain isn't all that fast, and I'd even argue his default pace isn't all that far off from what we see in other multiplayer platformers like NSMBW and Rayman.

Come from too wide a context and the question's even more boring, since the obvious answer is "yes, because Sonic can be anything".

None of what I said in my posts advocates going to the opposite extreme, although I'd argue that would easily facilitate more interesting ideas to talk about other than whether or not the op's idea even warrants existence on the basis of it being "Sonic" enough.

Being dragged along like in NSMBWii isn't much better, IMO. It still largely invalidates their ability to do anything meaningful.

How does not being able to be left behind off-screen eliminate the possibility of a less-skilled player being able to play meaningfully?