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Chaos Walker

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They all sit down around the table. Here assembled are the greatest minds in all of Sonic team. The question is raised: "What do they want?" From somewhere it is said, "Pinball mechanics and momentum platforming!" Another voice speaks up, "Speedy gameplay!" Still more join in, shouting "Exploration and replay value!", and "Non-linear levels!" A clamor rises as everyone stands up and speaks thier mind. There is no consensus as to which are most important. The end.

What sort of physical properties and move set are necesary for Sonic to run full tilt one moment, and momentum platform the next? Level design certainly allows for both to be included, and I hear many say that ideally both would be implimented without being seperate gameplays, or cheating by switching to 2D.

The Topic: How does Sonic himself need to be designed in order for both high speed and momentum platforming gameplay to be possible without changeing control schemes or dimensions?

Edited by Chaos Walker
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Genesis games did it.

...I want to say more than that, but that pretty much solves the problem by itself, doesn't it?

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What exactly is "momentum platforming?" Platforming that facilitates the gathering of momentum or momentum that carries you through certain obstacles? The former goes hand in hand with speed but is something we arguably haven't had before in any meaningful sense. We need something close to Parkour, multi-purpose obstacles that can be traversed in efficient ways. A wall shouldn't just block you or be a set-piece to run on: It should be both, and it should be able to be climbed, depending on where you want to go and how you want to get there.

The latter is merely hills, loops, inclines, breakable walls and things, none of which are platforming.

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While I would agree that the classic games were good (and even more so the classic levels of Generations,) I like pretty much all the gameplay of different Sonic games. I'd really love a Parkour game though, preferably since it would allow Sonic us to platform at high speeds without using boost, jumping, and homing attack all the time. And I don't get the topic either.

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the topic is just goofy people, it's not SUPPOSED to relate to anything -_-

and I don't get the recent trend in the last few days on topics about how Sonic should incorporate parkour. when I think parkour, I think the famous youtube videos, Mirror's Edge, and that opening scene in Casino Royale. While yes, it is incredibly badass, it's not at all Sonic. Parkour folks use obstacles to do sweet muthafuckin' things, and sure, they can jump off of tall jumps, and they can wall jump and what not, but it ain't even CLOSE to looking like a Sonic similarity. So I'm all about not having parkour in a Sonic game, i just don't get it.

What sort of physical properties and move set are necesary for Sonic to run full tilt one moment, and momentum platform the next? Level design certainly allows for both to be included, and I hear many say that ideally both would be implimented without being seperate gameplays, or cheating by switching to 2D.

Genesis games did it.

...I want to say more than that, but that pretty much solves the problem by itself, doesn't it?

K, so I usually find myself disagreeing with Diogenes, but he pretty much sums it up here. Genesis games did indeed do what you are asking about.

And by the way, since when did this fanbase inherently call it "cheating" to switch to a 2D perspective???!!?@?#$!@#?$!??????!#?@$@#%? Cuz I always thought people loved this aspect and considered it to be one of the aspects that made daytime unleashed gameplay and subsequently colors gameplay to be pretty awesome.

sooooo yeah, this makes me want to rant about this fucked up fanbase. When a new Sonic game comes out, people really like it. Then over the years, the fanbase complains about it more than they praise it. examples? Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Sonic Advance 2 and 3, Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Colors, and probably more. All of these games are complained about now more than they are praised, but when they came out, I remember people really liking them. so what the flying fuck??

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People advocate Parkour-like gameplay because it deals with conquering the landscape in as efficient and quickly a way as you personally see possible, which is pretty much what people say Sonic is about at its core- an actual marriage of speed and platforming. However, it's never been done in any satisfactory or meaningful way. The classics were great games for sticking with a simple core gameplay and perfecting it, but the marriage people talk about is an arguable misnomer; the fastest bits you're subjected to are separated from the intricate platforming because it has to be. You simply can't platform traditionally at high speeds, and this has always been the case. For this marriage to have any real meaning beyond further romanticizing the classics, a different type of gameplay must be enacted.

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Genesis games did it.

Sonic Adventure gameplay

Restore, refine, and and redesign

And these did wonderfuly in terms of platforming, yes. But the speed? Dash pad/spring after dash pad/spring is fake speed. If Unleashed did one thing completely right, it was putting us in control of Sonic at his greatest speeds. Granted we don't need to be exactly THAT fast, we still want to be in control of Sonic when he is "showing off." That means a whale chase that doesn't kill you for touching buttons. And yes, the Genesis games did it that way too. All the fast parts of Chemical plant, hydrocity, flying battery, and the other really fast levels used boosters to make things fast. Of course emphasizing platforming over speed is no problem at all for the quality of the game. Go see Mario for evidence of that.

What exactly is "momentum platforming?" Platforming that facilitates the gathering of momentum or momentum that carries you through certain obstacles? The former goes hand in hand with speed but is something we arguably haven't had before in any meaningful sense

Speed is the necesary feul for momentum platforming. That is why he was made with both abilities at once. Sonic CD did it best in terms of forcing you to use speed to conquer obsticals.

I have no idea what the topic title has to do with the topic. :r

Attention grabber. I hate when people ignore my topics. Especially when I'm not done discussing.

and I don't get the recent trend in the last few days on topics about how Sonic should incorporate parkour. when I think parkour, I think the famous youtube videos, Mirror's Edge, and that opening scene in Casino Royale. While yes, it is incredibly badass, it's not at all Sonic.

People's favorite example is the Sonic CD opening. I'm a little hesitant on parkour myself, but it does seem like a litteral example of high speed platforming. My only gripe with that is it might push out the momentum based platforming. The level could be desgined for Sonic to spin up the wall, or it could be designed for him to jump onto off another wall and grab the edge.

And by the way, since when did this fanbase inherently call it "cheating" to switch to a 2D perspective???!!?@?#$!@#?$!??????!#?@$@#%?

I think it is just me. They are avoiding the issue by simply seperating the speed and platforming. It's like tearing Sonic in half and switching them depending... on which type of... level... wait... that's the next game, isn't it? You shouldn't have to segregate it like that. Sonic should be able to do both, without having to run with an alter ego.

Like I said though, it's mostly just me. It bothers me so much that they havn't found one gameplay style that can handle both, and so they are staying with this shortcut.

You simply can't platform traditionally at high speeds, and this has always been the case. For this marriage to have any real meaning beyond further romanticizing the classics, a different type of gameplay must be enacted.

Exactly, and to be honest, I don't want anything new. Sonic doesn't have to be able to do both at once, otherwise he starts being Sonic the ninja. What I am looking for is a single gameplay style that can do one at one moment, and then another a minute later. Platform now, speed later, platform again, but this time no cheating with dash pads. The reality is, speed is EASIER to make controlable in 3D, since you can see what is comming. So 3D has the advantage of letting you easily control Sonic at highspeeds.

Edited by Chaos Walker
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Parkour folks use obstacles to do sweet muthafuckin' things, and sure, they can jump off of tall jumps, and they can wall jump and what not, but it ain't even CLOSE to looking like a Sonic similarity.
I don't think anyone's advocating replacing everything "Sonic" with parkour stuff, but of merging it in with more traditionally Sonic actions/gameplay, to better bridge the gap between platforming and speed. Don't discount it simply because it's not how Sonic moves now; there was a time when Sonic didn't boost, quick step, drift, stomp, hell when he didn't even homing attack, yet these things became natural-looking once they were done and it had some time to settle in.

And by the way, since when did this fanbase inherently call it "cheating" to switch to a 2D perspective???!!?@?#$!@#?$!??????!#?@$@#%? Cuz I always thought people loved this aspect and considered it to be one of the aspects that made daytime unleashed gameplay and subsequently colors gameplay to be pretty awesome.
Look at the 3D sections in Colors. Notice how they're shit? That's the problem. Moderately good 2D sections are being used as an excuse to let the 3D rot. Rather than making a game where the 3D sections are solid enough to support the game by themselves, they halfass it and rely on the 2D to hold it up.

sooooo yeah, this makes me want to rant about this fucked up fanbase. When a new Sonic game comes out, people really like it. Then over the years, the fanbase complains about it more than they praise it.
People's opinions change over time. When you first get a game it's all shiny and new and you're too busy enjoying all the new to see some of the problems with it. But the more you play it, the less "new" it becomes, and you start to see the problems you missed.

The first time you boost along the Great Wall of China, it's a thrill. The 10th time, it's commonplace. The 20th time, you start wondering if you really have to hold the stick as you turn...ah, looks like you don't. That's pretty shitty, game.

And yes, the Genesis games did it that way too. All the fast parts of Chemical plant, hydrocity, flying battery, and the other really fast levels used boosters to make things fast.
No they didn't. Not if you had any understanding of the rolling, anyway.
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Speed is the necesary feul for momentum platforming. That is why he was made with both abilities at once. Sonic CD did it best in terms of forcing you to use speed to conquer obsticals.

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Third Time I have used this post I made a long time ago....

929717_20050908_640screen001.jpg

A lot of people would love to have this. I would too as a layout, but Imagine allll that land that you can run on. Now fill that land with level design, traps, platforms, details, obstacles that are Sonic Like.

Are you having a hard time doing it?

Cause I sure am and I'm a pretty imaginative person. How do you lay out obstacles and traps in a land this big where it becomes relative to what to what your doing? And how do you fill in this space while still giving a sense of Point A to Point B? How do you create levels?

But lets say you DO figure such things out, how many of these same landscapes with slightly different level design that stretch for MILES would it take for Sonic to go through while still giving people a sense of speed and length, while making things look pretty enough for people to not go "Pshh dem ghrphix suck dude".. How bland would environments need to be so it doesn't fry the system? Old Sonic never GAVE you this much elbow room..,sure you could go left gotcha, but still.

I wish I could run Sonic in surreal setting of the size of New York with Sonic like obstacles and looks, I dream of that, but the only way that's happen if the entire game was just based off my dream level and no one going to be satisfied with 1 level. Consoles don't have the POWER to do such feats to provide such a WIDE terrain to be explored at high speeds and then make 6-8 of them again. Let alone how to keep the game feeling Sonic like...or at all even a platformer.

Unleashed could use some wider terrain sure...but if a level like Eggmanland with its hugeness starts making the frame rate drop rendering ALL that terrain...what makes you think that having a game like I mentioned is going to be AT ALL stable enough to be playable.

Even if ST gets better with their tech (like they are with with Generations) were not going to see any large level design like that. Not for a "speedy" platfromer like Sonic...at least not this gen.

Its all easier said than done...seriously people need to do some research in gaming and level design.

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No they didn't. Not if you had any understanding of the rolling, anyway

Edited by Chaos Walker
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Attention grabber. I hate when people ignore my topics. Especially when I'm not done discussing.

Well to be honest, whenever I see an annoying or confusing topic title, it only makes me want to ignore the topic moar because I subconsciously think of it as spam. After a seeing a couple of these in this section already, this is the one that I just broke down and clicked on. And this topic seems very similar to the Union of two worlds- etc etc thread.

But by all means, do carry on though everyone. Just some rambling over here is all.

Edited by Inferno
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I don't think anyone's advocating replacing everything "Sonic" with parkour stuff, but of merging it in with more traditionally Sonic actions/gameplay, to better bridge the gap between platforming and speed. Don't discount it simply because it's not how Sonic moves now; there was a time when Sonic didn't boost, quick step, drift, stomp, hell when he didn't even homing attack, yet these things became natural-looking once they were done and it had some time to settle in.

I like you in this topic. You are absolutely right. But for discussion purposes, I currently feel parkour elements would run the risk of making the game feel more like a Prince of Persia/Assassin's Creed game in it's platforming and less like what we are used to from Sonic. But you are still right.

Look at the 3D sections in Colors. Notice how they're shit? That's the problem. Moderately good 2D sections are being used as an excuse to let the 3D rot. Rather than making a game where the 3D sections are solid enough to support the game by themselves, they halfass it and rely on the 2D to hold it up.

Also a very good point. I know you're not the biggest Unleashed fan, but would you perhaps say that Unleashed 3D sections were solid enough to support the game by themselves? Because that game didn't have 2D transitions neeeeeaaaarly as much as Colors. And there were some legitimate 3D platforming sections in that game too (Chun-nan comes to mind)

People's opinions change over time. When you first get a game it's all shiny and new and you're too busy enjoying all the new to see some of the problems with it. But the more you play it, the less "new" it becomes, and you start to see the problems you missed.

The first time you boost along the Great Wall of China, it's a thrill. The 10th time, it's commonplace. The 20th time, you start wondering if you really have to hold the stick as you turn...ah, looks like you don't. That's pretty shitty, game.

I suppose this is also true. Yet it can be infuriating to me, and seems very hypocritical at first.

Thank you sir for some good discussion thus far.

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This kind of topic again? dry.png And I thought it would be about something different. This thread doesn't deserve the title.

But IMO SA was pretty good in these terms. In some places you had the illusion of some freedom, in other you were speeding down a skyscraper and practically only moving left and right to dodge stuff. You could just chill on the beach and wander about aimlessly or go to Speed Highway and run a little. The route you were going through didn't feel so enforced.

...And the chao gardens. My precious. rolleyes.gif

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Exactly, and to be honest, I don't want anything new. Sonic doesn't have to be able to do both at once, otherwise he starts being Sonic the ninja.

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But for discussion purposes, I currently feel parkour elements would run the risk of making the game feel more like a Prince of Persia/Assassin's Creed game in it's platforming and less like what we are used to from Sonic.
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Chun-nan's platforming is short, incredibly simple, and not very Sonicy. It's the bare minimum, and that it's one of the best examples the game has does not reflect well on it.

I certainly won't deny that it's short. And yes, it's simple, but isn't platforming at its heart incredibly simple? I mean what kind of complex platforming are you looking for in a Sonic game? And on that note, what inherently makes certain platforming to be "Sonicy?" Because I can think of several several several examples from the beloved Genesis games of very simple platforming, lots of which even have Sonic not using momentum or speed at all, but simply jumping from a platform to the next.

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Perhaps my only problem with parkour is the aesthetic aspect to parkour. Sonic shouldn't have to employ move to do stuff he could already do by running up a wall and bounding in between them. Perhaps if Sonic did some more spinning during what would normaly just be wall jumps, ledge grabs, etc. Watching the Sonic CD opening, it's doesn't look too odd so long as he is doing a mixture of parkour, running, and spinning. It's when one aspect disappears that we get problems. The question is, to what extent would parkour be implemented? What moves would he have? At what point are we over complicating the controls? My 9 year old sisters can't handle the controls of Sonic Colors. I remember when Sonic used to only need 1 or 2 buttons to do everything. Simplicity isn't absolutely necessary, but it can help.

Hmm, that's a good question. I agree that spinning would be nice, but maybe they could make some of the stuff more input-required instead of automatic with springs and dash panels (for instance, they could bring back the wall-jumping from 06 or triangle jumping from SaTH but make it faster,) and this would also make boost more useful. That's another thing, the boost. As much as I love the boost, it would need to be modified or removed for a parkour game. Perhaps it could be turned into sprinting? Or they take the boost, change the animation into a spindash (as well as the name,) nerf it, and add sprinting (tap then hold the movement button like in Unleashed,) to compensate. Another thing, the meteor burst. While automatic, requiring only navigation, it made use of objects to bounce mid-air, along with in some cases (like by the end of Gigan Device,) bounce off them at angles to make tight turns. Maybe they could employ that somehow which would also require steering Sonic, as opposed to just hitting the jump button as fast as possible. That, and making it so he not only bounces off at an angle, but also goes into a mid-air spindash, at least for aesthetic purposes. Maybe they could get rid of drift as well to make it less like a car (though Zero Gravity did have a gravity drift, so maybe not.) Perhaps for this, they should change the boost so it acts more like Meteor Burst, and could be filled in a similar manner, (jumping off ramps and doing tricks like in SA2.) I might come up with a moveset later but that's all I've got for now.

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The question is, to what extent would parkour be implimented? What moves would he have?
That's a good question; it's easy to say it should have parkour elements, but it's harder to figure out just what they should be.

So here's one idea. Let Sonic grab ledges and run along walls

He'd accelerate like normal rather than having a set speed. Press jump to jump away from the wall, some other button to let go. If you let go while running fast enough, he can go into a wallrun rather than falling. I'm not sure how best to handle jumping up from a ledge rather than jumping away (if we even want that...); to my knowledge most games would have you use the control stick to switch, but that might be too fiddly for high-speed Sonic action.

And yes, it's simple, but isn't platforming at its heart incredibly simple?
No more than anything else. Platforming can be deep and complex enough to support a game; this is not that sort of platforming.

And on that note, what inherently makes certain platforming to be "Sonicy?"
Use of speed and terrain in addition to jumping. Chun-nan's platforms are just flat ground and the jumps don't take anything more than a few steps worth of momentum, if that.

Because I can think of several several several examples from the beloved Genesis games of very simple platforming, lots of which even have Sonic not using momentum or speed at all, but simply jumping from a platform to the next.
Yes, but these are not the only instances of platforming in the game. There's nothing wrong with a Sonic game having basic platforming, but that shouldn't be the only platforming it has.
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That's a good question; it's easy to say it should have parkour elements, but it's harder to figure out just what they should be.

So here's one idea. Let Sonic grab ledges and run along walls

He'd accelerate like normal rather than having a set speed. Press jump to jump away from the wall, some other button to let go. If you let go while running fast enough, he can go into a wallrun rather than falling. I'm not sure how best to handle jumping up from a ledge rather than jumping away (if we even want that...); to my knowledge most games would have you use the control stick to switch, but that might be too fiddly for high-speed Sonic action.

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In short, just look at the level design and you'll notice that Sonic is capable of having alot more ground time than Mario. This is because Jumping is not his only means of clearing obsticals. Curved surfaces are key to making momentum platforming unique. If it's not unique, then I don't know why Oshima spent the time drawing up examples specificaly to show that Sonic was supposed to roll through the terrain.
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