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What Sonic's made of.


Chaos Walker

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I gotta know, just what are we asking for here anyway? All these debates about boost, rolling, branching paths, racecars, pin balls, on and on and on. But just what are we looking to have in the end anyhow?

THE TOPIC: What features from classic and modern gameplay do we want to save? Be specific. Don't just say "We need the spindash and boost because they saved my life." Tell us what mechanics, designs, and systems need to be held on to in order to form a proper Sonic game experience. Don't be afraid to talk about the classics and modern games seperately.

To start us off, I'll throw something in that I'm afraid might not get a mention.

Replay value You must be able to play the game multiple times, or you just payed full price for a well reviewed one-play game. Having medals and ranks is nice and all, but they arn't much incentive on their own. Givng the player rewards for medals like unlockables is one way to help that along. There was also going back for chaos emeralds, which has been handled differently from game to game, but has always been a reason to go back and replay levels. Amongst the classics were the multiple paths to take. In that way, the classics created replay value through exploration. Sonic 3&K also let you replay the game with two other characters, which changed the experience in slight every time. Finally there are chao. This was definetly my favorite type of replay value. This essentialy turned each level into a resource forraging mission that was part of another game.

To sumarize, a Sonic game that has Rewards for Metals/ Ranks, Special Stages accessed through the levels, optional characters, and Chao gardens would have maaaasive replay value. If I missed something tell me.

Edited by Chaos Walker
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I think a lot of people would be thrilled if you'd start making topic titles that I don't know, actually relate to the topic

As for said topic, keep the homing attack, slide, stomp, maybe drift. I wouldn't mind the double jump sticking around either, really. Apart from Sonic's abilities, I love the red rings and the switching between 3D and sidescrolling perspectives. Everything else from the modern games can go.

And of course, keep everything from the classics.

And bring back Blue Spheres

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You seem to make a lot of topics that can primarily be summed up as just what do people want out of a Sonic game...and now the titles are getting weirder and weirder. 8/

Anyway, replay value is only worth as much as a game's immersion. Throwing in things to do is a nice effort on the developer's part, but it doesn't mean a thing to me if I'm not invested in the entire experience enough to waste time on secondary and tertiary objectives. Your world needs to have some character, some type of liveliness that makes me raise an eyebrow and wonder to what extent the creativity extends through the universe you crafted, which ultimately prompts me to explore and take part in all of those missions and easter eggs you've hidden away. Otherwise, I'm going to beat the main campaign, perhaps over and over again if I really liked it, and that's it. So yes, divvy up your budget to make a world that matters. I've only been saving it for twenty years now; this is not the time for it to get dry and boring.

Oh, and speed. Not "swiftness"; raw speed. I don't really care how it's done, but it needs to be there, otherwise there's little point. I need an adrenaline rush when I play Sonic.

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Keep all the elements! Just limit the boost more, make sure it controls well at low speed, add some 3d platforming, and have some more open areas.

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Honestly the best replay value is making a game fun, complex, and varied enough to keep you coming back. I can go back and play S3&K over 15 years past release not because of the Chaos Emeralds, not because of time and score attacking, not even because of the 3 playable characters (although I certainly do like that) because the mechanics are still fun and interesting and there's enough variation because of them that I'm not doing the same thing each time. I got Unleashed a few months back, and now that I've done every challenge short of S-ranks and DLC, I have little reason to go back to it, because I find myself just making the same motions; it's robotic, dry, monotonous.

I mean, even when I make a mistake in Unleashed I never really have to change my approach. Either I die and go back to a checkpoint, resetting things to a known state, or I just point myself forward and boost and I'm back on track. The game spends so much time guiding you along or setting you to some predefined state. Alternate paths are either short (in which case the difference is minuscule), sectioned-off (in which case I just switch to "preprogrammed instructions part 1B" when prompted), or both. With the Genesis Sonics, though, there's more lost when you make a mistake, a bigger delay before you get back up to speed, which affects how you handle the level. A big enough mistake can even send you on a different path entirely, and the paths there had a lot more meat to them. Even just a moment's hesitation makes a much greater difference in the Genesis games than in the modern ones...

What if they mixed Pin ball physics, with boosting?
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Hahahahahahahahahaha XD I thought the title WAS related to the topic, but I'll change it if you like. X)

As for said topic, keep the homing attack, slide, stomp, maybe drift. I wouldn't mind the double jump sticking around either, really. Apart from Sonic's abilities, I love the red rings and the switching between 3D and sidescrolling perspectives

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Let's be very clear. This topic is not about HOW stuff should go together, it's about WHAT stuff should go together.
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Wow I popped in with an answer to the topic but to only find out that the topic really doesn't go with the answer I was going to give. Oh well.

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Also I hate to call you out twice in the same thread but you honestly come off as very demanding the way you tell people how to write their posts. Just saiyan.
Edited by Chaos Walker
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Well, you must pick the "what" before you decide how to deal with the "what".
But not all "what"s fit together. You need to know how they'll fit before you decide what whats are going in the butt game.

Anyway, here's a defense of the homing attack.

First off, in 2D, it is not needed. Attacking in 2 dimensions is simple enough that the player doesn't need the game to help them with it, as dozens (hundreds?) of 2D platformers have proved.

3D introduces a lot of complexity, though. The simple fact of adding another dimension is a big wrinkle. Consider a rolling attack for example; in the 2D Sonics, there are only two directions to consider; either you head towards the enemy or away from it. The enemy, too, can only move either towards or away, either moving into your attack or only delaying it (I'm assuming it can't jump or fly, for this example). In a 3D game, you've got 360 degrees to aim in along the ground, rather than the obvious "left or right" of 2D, and the enemy has the same 360 degrees to choose from in evading. Now, these are effectively 1D and 2D situations, respectively; a third dimension, that is, jumping attacks and jumping/flying enemies, makes things even more complex.

And in addition, the added dimension is depth, which humans aren't really great at judging, especially in an image on a flat screen. A 2D game has its 2D world parallel to the screen, and thus perpendicular to your line of sight. You've got a view from "outside" the world, which lets you easily judge where things are in relation to each other. But because we live in 3 dimensions, we can't get a nice clear view from "outside"; no matter how we look at it, there's always going to be a dimension parallel to our vision, a space that things can move in that we can't as easily track, a messy system where apparent overlap does not mean actual overlap. And even evolution's meager attempts to make up for this fail against a flat image of a 3D space.

Now, this is common to all platformers, not just Sonic, but there are even further issues specific to Sonic, and to illustrate them I'll be comparing it to Mario. First off, it's worth pointing out that Mario solved the above problems largely by doing away with enemy hopping; while you weren't prevented from jumping on enemies, very rarely were you required or even encouraged to (one "koopa-jump" type segment in one of Sunshine's FLUDD-less levels and some score minigames in Galaxy 2 are all that comes to mind), and Mario was given a punch and kick (and later the spin, which can also adjust midair positioning and is half of a homing stomp) to take out enemies on the ground, essentially reducing it to 2D as I mentioned above.

Anyway, while more difficult than in 2D, jumping on enemies is still viable in 3D Mario, but not so much in 3D Sonic. This is because of the difference in the nature of the games. Mario is very tolerant of stop-and-go gameplay; the slow approach is almost always viable, so you're free to take the extra time necessary to bop a Goomba without really losing anything. But Sonic, regardless of the specific playstyle, involves going fast and staying fast. Lining up jumps for every enemy you want to attack is too costly (this is, as I remember, part of the reason why Sonic rolls in the first place; it allows him to attack without stopping, simplifying it into 1D and keeping his forward momentum).

So I think it's clear that Sonic needs some sort of help in attacking enemies in 3D. To be fair, I don't actually have such compelling reasoning for the homing attack in particular. But, it's been the standard method for a decade, and there's no arguing about its effectiveness (as long as it's programmed well). I think its flaws can largely be ironed out; mostly, have Sonic bounce past the enemy rather than straight up, both so he isn't brought to a dead stop and so your angle of attack still matters, rather than being set into the perfect position for the next one every time.

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You need to know how they'll fit before you decide what whats are going in the butt game.

Diogenes! Seriously, dude? :lol:

Well let's see...another gameplay topic huh. This'll be a bit before I piece my ideas together, as I've been somewhat weak in that area lately.

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As Diogenes touches upon earlier in the topic. "replay value" doesnt have to come down to much more than it simply being a fantastic game. I find Sonic 1, 2, 3&K endlessly replayable despite knowing almost every part of every stage. I've got all the emeralds, found all the secrets so many times but still keep coming back, as it's always fun.

I'm going to Alton Towers on Tuesday and I'll be straight on Nemesis and Oblivion yet again, even though they havent added an alternate loop with a medal on the top since last time :)

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For one thing, I think we should probably keep the "losing a set amount of rings per attack" aspect. Although, if getting attacked removed all rings and reduced/emptied the boost bar, that might be an incentive not to fail. What I love about S3&K is the replay value. The alternate paths, the different goodies to look for, the extra enemies to fight, and the special stages. I love the special stages. The fact that the chaos emeralds weren't pivotal to the plot meant that

A) We could get the "good ending" by having the chaos emeralds

B) We didn't automatically get Super Sonic, but rather, it had to be earned

C) You could play as Super Sonic in any level as opposed to just the final boss.

Another thing, if Super Sonic is optional then it opens up the story to new plots as opposed to the cliche "Eggman needs the chaos emeralds to release some ultimate power, Sonic has to collect the emeralds, fighting Eggman and his goons along the way, using his super form to fight the final boss and win." While the stories are fairly unique, it's the same general plotline, which is getting kind of boring. Another thing is the badniks. It's nice to see them returning for Generations, and I would like to see more of them in the future. It made destroying enemies feel even better, as it allowed me to be destructive and heroic at the same time. (that and those adorable little bunnies <3) The special stages, while being hard at first, were a good challenge, and have always been fun. Preferably the blue sphere stages. I don't care how you access them, but the blue spheres are a must. Heck, if they put more work into Episode 4 and possible episodes after that I would be content. Another thing is finding goodies. Yes, if you venture off the path you can find goodies, but they're so easy to find given that the path is mostly linear, and it's just not the same as going out of your way to find invincibility or something, which brings me to my next point: powerups. I personally loved the shields from Sonic 3. The ones from other games (like S2 or ShTH) were okay, but they only worked for one hit regardless of enemy type. These would protect from different types, and allow other moves to be brought back in moderation (bounce jump and double jump, since the latter just seems weird for sonic to naturally have.) Also, if we eliminate the homing attack, fire dash is back. Or, we could simply change homing attack. How do we do that? Simple. Homing attack has always had auto lock-on. However, that changed somewhat in 06 (bear with me haters,) with the white gem I believe, which allowed us to determine direction mid-air before homing onto something. We could do something like this, with the homing attack being different from the jump button, but you hold it instead (using the joystick or pointer with wii/PS move) and release after aiming to do a homing-attack, with an extra burst of speed to counteract gravity. This would also slow down time while you're aiming (maybe distorting the colors slightly,) so it's about as fast as before (according to the timer,) and should be just as accurate, but encourages people to use other moves. That way it could also be used as a multi-directional boost, (albeit not as powerful,) eliminating the need for such. Spindash should be brought back IMO particularly since it can be used to plow through enemies and pick up speed, and the more speed you want the more you gotta charge it. However, it should be just a crouch button, so you can either use a different button to charge up and go, or crouch while running at high speeds to go into a roll (kinda like the slide.) These makes the fire shield move more useful, while the other two special jumps can be used for other things (such as jumping over high walls, bouncing on the heads of enemies, or jumping onto far-away platforms.) I think that's about it from me. I've recently got nostalgic from the classics, but I think this should be implemented. (though homing attack may need to be renamed into something chaos-related given that it would slow down time, if only to make up for how long it would take to aim.) So yeah, I'm done suggesting stuff now...

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"What Sonic's made of."

Yes, I've been wondering for some time about this. If he was built like other living beings, he surely wouldn't be able to survive a fall from the space and all that smashing through robots (to name a few examples). He must have much more high-density carbon to have such resistance. But I'm no expert at this topic.

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I've always hated how they kinda make him look like rubber in CG like on Heroes & DX's boxes and so on, though it's gotten alot better recently. I know some people hate "furry" Sonic but I can't really imagine anything else otherwise...

Oh crap this isn't that type of topic..

Edited by Inferno
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I think he's made of clay.

Looks like a mod had fun with the topic description, lol.

Anyway, here's a defense of the homing attack.

Yes, the homing attack was indeed an invention of necesity, much like the auto-jump in 3D Zelda. Like you pointed out, both Mario and Sonic needed foward attacks to make 3D combat feasible. You also very conveniently mentioned for me that the homing attack is not necesarily the only way to go, but that there are a variety of attacks that can fill this spot. The homing attack certainly seems staple at this point, yet I can't help but speculate with you as to whether it's necesary, or not being done as well as it can be.

This also makes me question the validity of the spindash in 3D. If slopes that truly need you to use the physics come back in (I'm assuming that pinball mechanics are saved), then an mini-dash move like this would be great. The thing is, who really used it as an attack in any of the 3D games in which it was available anyway? It was too hard to aim, suffering from many of the same problems as a regular jump attack. The only time I can think of ever using it was in the second Shadow fight from Adventure 2 where you were on a straight path anyhow. We could just as easily fill it in with the Super Peel out, Rocket accel, or (dare I say) some variant of the boost.

My only deffense for it is 1: We need a mini-dash move if momentum is capitalized on in level design 2:Mini-dashing randomly like that is safer when invulnerable to enemy contact.

Other than that it could be done differently, or better.

Edited by Chaos Walker
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