Grinding

[Rinzler]

How do you think grinding should be handled in the series? Should it be like SA2, Unleashed, etc.?

[Jacky]

baby i'll grind on you all day

<3

[DudeManGuy]

SA2. It didnt just feel like an "on rails" (no pun intended) game, but like you actually had to control how you got speed on the rail and you could fall off if you sucked at it. Also you could crouch which actually had meaning in that game. There also werent many random rail field sections in levels. Rails were usually optional routes.

[Indigo Rush]

Depends on the flow of the game. The Adventure 2 method works well enough, but its balance mechanic might not blend well with the boost ability, and likewise if the boost ability was left out of a game, the balance mechanic would find it's place again.

Either way, the Sonic 06 mechanic was the worst.

[Nintendoga]

I don't really care about grinding, it's been in so many sonic games since SA2 that I've gotten used to it and barely notice it anymore.

[Ekaje]

SA2 was really the only game where it was done well, requiring at least a bit of skill. After that, they're either really glitchy (Heroes) or just straight lines requiring no input other than occasionally tapping left or right to avoid a spike ball.

[Indigo Rush]

Also, if I may add, it also depends on whether or not this is 3D or 2D. For 3D, I still hold for what I posted before. As for 2D, that depends if it's a classic-styled game like Advance, where you had to jump on the rail at a certain point, or the Rush method where you could just hop on. Either way, balancing mechanics wouldn't be too sensible on a 2D plane, so there are only so many ways you can mess around with it aside from frequency.

[Blue Blood]

SA2. It didnt just feel like an "on rails" (no pun intended) game, but like you actually had to control how you got speed on the rail and you could fall off if you sucked at it. Also you could crouch which actually had meaning in that game. There also werent many random rail field sections in levels. Rails were usually optional routes.

[Indigo Rush]

Ah, forgot Shadow's game. Yeah, that wasn't very fun.

I can't imagine what else you could add to grinding, though. It's pretty much switching, jumping and dodging... what would you add?

[Diogenes]

Grinding was at its best in City Escape. This is in part because of SA2's grinding mechanics, where the rails relied on momentum and required some amount of balancing, but also because of how they were used in the level: sparingly, and in appropriate places. Grind rails are integrated into the level, where it makes sense to have them. With the exception of the last chain, they're short diversions, integrated with the rest of the level design, rather than long tracks with nothing else around.

Things progressively get worse the further into the game you go, culminating in the template for all future rails, Final Rush. FR, on its own, I can kind of forgive, in a "hey, last level, let's go nuts with this game's gimmick" sort of way. But every game since has copied it, leading to one of the weakest, most boring gameplay elements in the series: the long set of rails over a pit, connecting two pieces of actual level. This is just one symptom of many of the stretched-thin level layouts of many 3D Sonics, but it's one of the most blatant; there is literally no level anywhere around you but the thin line you're clipped onto, and often one or two more thin lines you can switch to. This takes already-limited gameplay and limits it even further, and even in the best case, it is nothing more than a Game and Watch game with better graphics; you have 3 possible positions to be in, get in the one with rings/that isn't about to have pain in it.

This.

Is.

SHIT.

Reimplement the balancing. Limit the length of the rails. Integrate them with the rest of the level rather than having them be the only piece of level in view.

[Soniman]

Everything Dio said to a tee.

I want the Grinding to be organic and actually be placed cleverly, instead of being a quick mini-game within the stages,

[Blue Blood]

Ah, forgot Shadow's game. Yeah, that wasn't very fun.

I can't imagine what else you could add to grinding, though. It's pretty much switching, jumping and dodging... what would you add?

Edited September 25, 2011 by Blue Blood

[Soniman]

One thing I can say for Shadow and grinding, it was the first game to have a good, safe way of switching rails, instead of the SA2/Heroes method of wildly fling yourself to the adjacent rail and hoping you'd make it.

Stop with the huge stretches of boring rail grinding. Sky rail with it's shorter rails was infinitely more interesting than the tripe that was Rail Canyon,

Edited September 25, 2011 by Soniman032-

[Indigo Rush]

There's not much they can add, but they could definitely bee more creative with the rails. Like...

• Final Rush had all those short, vertical rails (not idea for Unleashed grinding perhaps)

• Metal Harbour and City Escape had lots of rails lining paths that let you get through bits of the stage faster is you could time them right. Optional rails rock.

[Diogenes]

Agreed to a point, I don't think they should be removed entirely, but definitely reduced.

[Blue Blood]

No, they really should be. There's no excuse for sections like this:

[Xenos]

Hold on, why can't the boost just be implemented AS the crouch system?

It serves the same purpose, I thought it'd be pretty obvious at that point, you use the crouch to pick up speed when grinding, as you do when boosting, except the boost is more powerful.

And I see the balancing thing as just a way of keeping a good pace on grinding anyway, the balancing system can still be implemented with the boost with a bit of fine-tuning.

Saying ditch the boost and implement crouching to pick up speed is certainly redundant when they can be used to do the same thing. :V

[Indigo Rush]

OMG <3

Especially when quick-step sections are EXACTLY the same as this... yeah. It's like, what is the point of it?

Edited September 25, 2011 by Indigo Rush

[Diogenes]

The boost should be ditched for other reasons. Plus, crouching is more equivalent to rolling than boosting, presuming it'd work with gravity rather than like Heroes' "dance your way forward" "crouch" or just forcing you forward regardless of how the rail moves.

[Komodin]

At this point, while I don't necessarily hate how grinding is used nowadays (I don't really care for how it was used in SA2, to be honest), I wouldn't really miss it if it was removed from the gameplay altogether.

[The Kid]

I loved jumping off of one of the rails in Final Rush, falling 50-60 feet and landing on another rail, skipping a minute or two or the level. That's my answer.

[Blue Blood]

'Cuz Sonic looks cool when he does it, and it offers a change in scenery for a bit?

Remember, I said that I agree with it being greatly reduced, but removing it outright shouldn't be a big deal.

EDIT: Forget it, I'm not about to go into a debate on why there should or shouldn't be grinding in the first place. I currently don't have the patience.

[Xenos]

The boost should be ditched for other reasons. Plus, crouching is more equivalent to rolling than boosting, presuming it'd work with gravity rather than like Heroes' "dance your way forward" "crouch" or just forcing you forward regardless of how the rail moves.

[Diogenes]

I'd prefer the boost not be in the game at all.

[Blue Blood]

All these topics about how X and Y should work, of what Sonic games should be always come back to the boost. That's practically where a big divide comes into play, whether or not it's what the topic was initially about. As it stands, most things about Unleashed gameplay, be it the platforming, level design, grinding or whatever can't be changed very much with the boost still in place. It's kinda funny that we end up in this same discussion over and over. I will admit though that grinding was butchered from Heroes onwards, not from Unleashed. Heck, Unleashed actually made grinding work!

Edited September 25, 2011 by Blue Blood