The longevity of the Boost formula

[Ratcicle King]

Well at least we know that once Sonic Team starts a new formula they'll make a trilogy out of it, it happened with Adventure (kinda, Heroes and Shadow delayed them), it happened with Boost, and it'll happen with Parkour.

Not really, they could just as well scrap it. There's no such rule that Sonic Team MUST make a trillogy, yes it happened in the past, but it is not something set in stone, it's just a pattern.

[FriendBot]

Well they might keep the Parkour but most the overall gameplay may be dropped since they could do away most of the stuff Lost World tried to do. After all, Parkour is just a game mechanic while Boost is a full out gameplay style.

[Johnny Boy]

Boost gameplay was most likely dropped for three reasons:

1 ) Depth and replay value. Boost gameplay was fast, frantic and fun, but honestly all of its depth was in how many buttons it had taken to navigate Sonic's movement, and not in the actual game design. Otherwise it's a one trick pony: the boost games aren't much more than obstacle courses you blast at top speed, sidestep and drift through. It's fun, but that's about all there is to it.

2 ) Cost/effort load versus amount of playtime. Boost games require not only next gen visual levels to keep up with the times, but also stages that are anywhere from 5 - 20 real life miles long. And considering Sonic's speed in those games, he kinda blasts through them in 3 - 8 minutes. Major waste of resources in comparison to play time, right? Especially if the replayability is low.

3 ) Freedom for creativity. Boost gameplay isn't very lenient to letting anything else other than going fast be the focus, because the game's design all the way down to its core principles make the player feel like going below top speed is a punishment. And there isn't really much you can do when you make the game about moving top speed at all times, besides litter obstacles everywhere that either slow you down, speed you up, or kill you. 

Also, the games following the base gameplay from Adventure and Adventure 2 (such as Heroes, ShTH and 06) only match them in regards to superficial elements, with their mechanics and gameplay focus being much different. After all, besides the inclusion of the homing attack and more linear routes, SA/SA2 gameplay is really just the classic games but adapted to 3D, rolling physics and all, and everything past SA2 threw that out the window entirely.

Pretty much this. That and I think that the Boost formula would limit the amount of characters we could possibly have playable. Heck the only characters that I think could work with the boost formula are Sonic (duh), Shadow (if his boss fight in Generations is anything to go by), and Blaze (Rush did have a heavy amount of boosting). That's just me though.

[KHCast]

Silver as well, going by Generations. Just lessen his op gameplay from the boss battle 

[FriendBot]

Pretty much this. That and I think that the Boost formula would limit the amount of characters we could possibly have playable. Heck the only characters that I think could work with the boost formula are Sonic (duh), Shadow (if his boss fight in Generations is anything to go by), and Blaze (Rush did have a heavy amount of boosting). That's just me though.

No, I think you got a point. Sonic, Shadow and Blaze do seem to fit with the boost pretty well, I guess that because we have seen them boosting in previous games.

Silver as well, going by Generations. Just lessen his op gameplay from the boss battle 

If you count flying telekinetically as Boosting then sure, I guess?

It just won't fit other characters and that's no good for some people.

All this talking about gameplay styles makes me very curious on how the next main series game is going to play like? Will it be more like the Sonic gameplay from the Adventures? With or without the Parkour? The world may never know until next year.

 

[Blacklightning]

If the problem is one character being too overpowered for others to fit, then why not just... tone down that one character? Trying to scale everyone else up to his level seems like a needlessly roundabout way of fixing things when you could just not make the Boost kill things and literally break the sound barrier the moment you press a button. Hell, you could even just restrict the OP version of the Boost to Super Sonic so there's something for everyone in there.

[FriendBot]

If the problem is one character being too overpowered for others to fit, then why not just... tone down that one character? Trying to scale everyone else up to his level seems like a needlessly roundabout way of fixing things when you could just not make the Boost kill things and literally break the sound barrier the moment you press a button. Hell, you could even just restrict the OP version of the Boost to Super Sonic so there's something for everyone in there.

How does one even nerf the Boost? I guess making the boost more scarce and make it that you have to earn the boost energy and stuff like how they did in Rush but in a game like Colors, where most of the game is like a generic 2D platformer, having the Boost at all is pretty pointless.....

[Blacklightning]

How does one even nerf the Boost? I guess making the boost more scarce and make it that you have to earn the boost energy and stuff like how they did in Rush but in a game like Colors, where most of the game is like a generic 2D platformer, having the Boost at all is pretty pointless.....

I... literally just listed two examples in the post you quoted. >_>

[FriendBot]

I... literally just listed two examples in the post you quoted. >_>

Might just be me but it kind of sounds like the Boost Mode from Advance 2 and 3, which is a much better substitute to be honest....

[Blacklightning]

The way I imagined it, pressing the Boost button would just make your acceleration rate higher than normal, not immediately shunt your speed all the way to the cap in a single frame - so in a sense it has more in common with Lost World's run button, only the standard moving speed wouldn't be so god damned awful that it essentially necessitates using it exclusively. That would help it yield some ground to the spindash, which gives both instant speed and a reliable attack whilst requiring you to stop briefely and strategically for it, not to mention other characters, which would have renewed importance once the Boost isn't the only thing in the whole game that matters to such an extent that the level design had to revolve around it above all else.

[Diogenes]

Going back to the whole "Sonic needs consistency" thing, I wonder how much change is too much. People don't want changes as radical as what Lost World did, alright. But if you fundamentally change how the boost works, then you have to change how you design levels likewise. And you have to rethink how Sonic's other abilities are balanced around the new normal (if you take away the boost's attacking properties, you lose your go-to ground attack, so do you buff the slide, leave it as is, add a new move, etc), which likewise propagates into how you design everything else. And of course any other changes they'd want to make would compound the problem. At some point your safe, incremental changes are no longer safe and incremental.

[azoo]

I think adopting the Sadv2 boost is the most logical step that ties the empty gap between the boost and traditional Sonic gameplays together, if anything. Sure, it makes it a lot more clear of what you're doing when you press and hold a button to do it, but gaining enough speed and suddenly 'getting' it like you do in Adv2/3 is a lot more satisfying, to me at least. Plus, it feels a lot more in line with the general game-play and takes a long time to get to, so it doesn't feel too out of place compared for other characters to have.

The way I imagined it, pressing the Boost button would just make your acceleration rate higher than normal, not immediately shunt your speed all the way to the cap in a single frame - so in a sense it has more in common with Lost World's run button, only the standard moving speed wouldn't be so god damned awful that it essentially necessitates using it exclusively. That would help it yield some ground to the spindash, which gives both instant speed and a reliable attack whilst requiring you to stop briefely and strategically for it, not to mention other characters, which would have renewed importance once the Boost isn't the only thing in the whole game that matters to such an extent that the level design had to revolve around it above all else.

I think something like this could work too. Probably on a trigger though and not on a face button. That said, I don't think it's the perfect alternative, but it does also give a button to press and hold for when you want to wall-run or vault as well.

[Blacklightning]

Going back to the whole "Sonic needs consistency" thing, I wonder how much change is too much. People don't want changes as radical as what Lost World did, alright. But if you fundamentally change how the boost works, then you have to change how you design levels likewise.

In a way that's actually kind of the point - if the Boost isn't so ridiculously, overbearingly broken, suddenly levels that can be described as "basically just one goddamned corridor that bends" don't really cut it anymore, so Sonic Team has to step their game up. If one thing changes for the better and everything else has to change for the better to accomodate, well then what's the problem? It's not like there weren't already dozens of things wrong with the formula that didn't need overhauling anyway - I see it less as changing things and more as ironing out stupid mistakes that had no right to persist as long as they did.

It's worth noting that not all these changes have to happen within the scope of a single game, either - it took Sega three whole games until we had characters that played differently enough to form new routes out of them, among a crazy amount of other stuff like Spindashing and linking entire games together. If that all happened at once it would've come off as pretty weird, but rather than throwing the entire formula on its head they simply grew more accustomed with their own engine and mechanics and added an extra layer of polish every time they built off it until it had a mirror sheen.

I think that above all else is all most people are asking for these days - that they stick with what works and make it work better as they go. I know I've been listing my own approaches a lot, but I'll go on the record admitting they're probably not the only ones possible - if Sega figures out something that does just as well, fuck it, I don't care, I'll take it if it's fun.

[NoirSuede]

 

But that's just as they last stood. I've seen a few people say stuff like this is indicative of how long the style would've lasted, but you know what? All of these things are preventable. The only thing innate to the Boost style over Adventure is a button that affects your speed on the fly, and there's plenty you can still do with that. Make it an acceleration boost rather than an outright speed lock. Get rid of the kill aura entirely so there's an actual point to rolling/sliding besides where the game says you can't progress without it. And, well you know, it doesn't have to be Lost World slow but it doesn't have to be a literal breaking of the sound barrier either? We've seen it in action long enough to understand it can be refined over time - if Sonic Team hadn't thrown it to the wayside for no discernible reason or even focused so much on arbitary gimmicky bullshit while they were still using it I'm pretty confident they would've come to this conclusion eventually.

 

Your wish has been granted (kinda) !

https://youtu.be/mT3lR9WnTeE

Edited October 6, 2015 by NoirSuede

[Sparky]

Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest thing alive, unstoppable, free-spirited, unpredictable, and one with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. 

Gameplay should reflect that.

[NoirSuede]

Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest thing alive, unstoppable, free-spirited, unpredictable, and one with the power of the Chaos Emeralds. 

Gameplay should reflect that.

How the hell can you reflect chaos in gameplay without it being a c********** ?

[Sparky]

How the hell can you reflect chaos in gameplay without it being a c********** ?

....sorry, but I have no idea what the censored word is meant to be...

[AshGreninJovan]

....sorry, but I have no idea what the censored word is meant to be...

It means a "Chaos Emerald"?

[NoirSuede]

....sorry, but I have no idea what the censored word is meant to be...

clusterf***

[Sparky]

clusterf***

I don't know, I was just stating that Sonic is essentially Speed and Chaos, and how the franchise operases reflects that. The Chaos mostly manifests in the series as change, unpredictability, and never staying in one place for long. Sonic is not meant to be slow and ordered.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Sparky

[Regen]

I really liked how Generations handled Boost. In certain levels you had to be conservative with Boost because you would just fly off the screen and die if you didn't know what you were doing. Yet it wasn't like in Empire State in Unleashed where the challenge was complete trial and error because it was completely unknown. The game usually gave you due warning that you had to be more controlled and slow on your first run, but still gave you the option to go boosting off when you are more experienced. So one had to be more conservative with Boost but without arbitrary reasons like the way Colours gave you very little Boost power (which I feel was due to the Wii's Hardware making smaller levels).

The game would usually throw these scenes at you so you knew what you were going to get yourself into if you Boosted off.

It's kind of like the later levels in the Classics, like Death Egg (S&K) and Wing Fortress (S2) which can be aced by an experienced player but usually give the player warning what kind of tone the level will be for newbies. In this way I think Generations gave Boost a kind of progression because, whilst the earlier levels were more linear and speed-thrills, they threw these more complex challenges at the player later, and I'm sad it was never built upon. I think Generations kind of overdid this with the Red Death Signs though. 

Edited October 6, 2015 by Regen

[Blacklightning]

I don't know, I was just stating that Sonic is essentially Speed and Chaos, and how the franchise operases reflects that. The Chaos mostly manifests in the series as change, unpredictability, and never staying in one place for long.

That is absolute rubbish. I'm not usually one to advocate gameplay and narrative segregation, but if there was ever a reason it existed, it's exactly because the latter does not always translate into the former to anywhere near that extent. Mario's a plumber, but you never see him jump into toilets lined with crusty old turd to clean them because that's not fucking fun. Likewise, playing the same game over and over is one thing, but the player at the very least should already have a basic understanding of what they're getting into before they actually play it. Being a free spirit in character does not in any way excuse constant bandwagon hopping and obliterating the whole core of how Sonic moves between games, especially if it's going to be objectively worse off than it was for him earlier, and especially when it's arguably the entire reason the franchise has gone to shit in the first place.

[Sparky]

That is absolute rubbish. I'm not usually one to advocate gameplay and narrative segregation, but if there was ever a reason it existed, it's exactly because the latter does not always translate into the former to anywhere near that extent. Mario's a plumber, but you never see him jump into toilets lined with crusty old turd to clean them because that's not fucking fun. Likewise, playing the same game over and over is one thing, but the player at the very least should already have a basic understanding of what they're getting into before they actually play it. Being a free spirit in character does not in any way excuse constant bandwagon hopping and obliterating the whole core of how Sonic moves between games, especially if it's going to be objectively worse off than it was for him earlier, and especially when it's arguably the entire reason the franchise has gone to shit in the first place.

I'm just saying, Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise reflects the character. I don't know hhow it turned out that way, but it's the way it is, and I doubt SEGA planned it (you can't plan chaos, after all). So as much as inconsistencies hurt the franchise, making Sonic slow and ordered, with fully planned out and structured design with the same kind of gameplay and narrative tone isn't the right idea either.

 

[Milo]

Mario's a plumber, but you never see him jump into toilets lined with crusty old turd to clean them because that's not fucking fun.

Pfft, says you! I'm still waiting for Nintendo to deliver the Mario-themed Janitor Simulator the world has been waiting years for.

[Regen]

I don't know, I was just stating that Sonic is essentially Speed and Chaos, and how the franchise operases reflects that. The Chaos mostly manifests in the series as change, unpredictability, and never staying in one place for long. Sonic is not meant to be slow and ordered.

When has Sonic been about chaos? Sonic's free-willed and snarky sure, but he's never been chaotic? Not sure where you got that from.