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Tails deserves his own series, or at least a sequel to Tails' Adventure.

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1 hour ago, Splash the Otter said:

Tails deserves his own series, or at least a sequel to Tails' Adventure.

They should hack an early Metroid game to make Tails the player.

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Mania is way too outdated compared to modern 2d Platformers , it's the same problem I have with NSMB games, they feel like too much of a relic of a begone era

Newer 2D franchises like Shantae, Hollow Knight, Shovel Knight feel more like platformers made for this era

 

Heck Rayman Legends and DKC TF and even Kirby Star Allies managed to modernise their gameplay and formula without straying too far from the older games

 

It's kind of ironic given how mario and Sonic used to he the most innovative 2D platformers but nowadays they are essentially "same old shit" 

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There's actually somewhere to go for Mania.

And you start with what works.

NSMB could add extra abilities to base 2D Mario, but 2D platformers aren't exactly outdated...so that doesn't make sense.

NSMB's problem is stagnation, not era.

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19 hours ago, sonic 1-derful said:

it's pointless and stereotypical to have sonic in a car

Holy crap, there are other people on this opinion?! I'm truly shocked.

'Stereotypical' might not be the best word, but definitely a copycat thing.

And yeah, putting Sonic in a car just defeats the entire point and purpose  of the character: that he's fast on his feet, without the need of cars or other vehicles. For Mario and other platforming characters it makes sense because they are NOT that fast on foot, so needing a car to go fast is logical. With Sonic, it's stupid.

Apparently they realised this with Sonic R and tried going for a concept that made more sense for the characters, but in typical SEGA fashion, they took the failure of the execution as the failure of the concept and never revisited it ever again.

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11 hours ago, Tarnish said:

This is purely personal preference, but I'll take a b-movie any day over a lame comedy film (i.e., Sonic games in the last decade.)

It's more like a mixed bag. There are things they improved, then there are things they made worse.
Improvements:
+ Addition of grinding was great, best grinding mechanic we ever got before they slowly turned it into a pointless, automatic conveyor belt mechanic.
+ Bounce attack as a move was a cool addition, just wish they did a bit more with it.
+ The fact you don't have to charge the 'light speed dash' anymore was a welcome change.
+ The fact you don't have to press A+B/A+X with Knuckles/Rouge to dig into walls and ground was good.
Things they made worse:
- The fact can't just start rolling in a ball anymore was stupid.
- The fact you have to hold down B/X for a period of time to start the spindash instead of instantly starting it was stupid.
- I find the whole somersault/sliding thing dumb and pointless.

Then why didn’t you like their latest b-movie, Forces? Maybe it was more of a Z-Movie...

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37 minutes ago, Tarnish said:

Holy crap, there are other people on this opinion?! I'm truly shocked.

'Stereotypical' might not be the best word, but definitely a copycat thing.

And yeah, putting Sonic in a car just defeats the entire point and purpose  of the character: that he's fast on his feet, without the need of cars or other vehicles. For Mario and other platforming characters it makes sense because they are NOT that fast on foot, so needing a car to go fast is logical. With Sonic, it's stupid.

Apparently they realised this with Sonic R and tried going for a concept that made more sense for the characters, but in typical SEGA fashion, they took the failure of the execution as the failure of the concept and never revisited it ever again.

Rivals?

Anyway, Sonic is fast on his feet, sure, but he likes both competiton and cool stuff, so it doesn't really defeat the purpose as much as just have a different gameplay style. It'd be like playing Sonic Shuffle and asking why he doesn't just run through the entire board.

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19 hours ago, Heckboy said:

It used to be fairly popular, now it seems fairly unpopular because the kids that grew up playing it are nostalgic adults. 

I will admit there's a certain campy charm to it, but the story is basically an incoherent b-movie. Gameplay is a downgrade in every way from SA1. I'd legit argue that the mech levels are some of the worst shit in the series. I can get why people are fond of it, but I really don't understand why so many of its fans seem to think that people just started hating on it blindly in recent years because of ProJared.

Because often times people either overexaggerate the flaws or outright lie and use the game as a scapegoat for things they currently don’t like still being around in the series—the standard operating procedure of this fandom at its worst.

It’s not like that hasn’t gone unnoticed. SA2 has flaws, but people aren’t blind not to notice others have gone out of their way to bash it for the sake of putting it in the worst light possible when at worst it’s pretty average, especially compared to a lot of what came after it.

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13 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Because often times people either overexaggerate the flaws or outright lie and use the game as a scapegoat for things they currently don’t like still being around in the series—the standard operating procedure of this fandom at its worst.

It’s not like that hasn’t gone unnoticed. SA2 has flaws, but people aren’t blind not to notice others have gone out of their way to bash it for the sake of putting it in the worst light possible when at worst it’s pretty average, especially compared to a lot of what came after it.

Sonic Adventure 2 is, for better or worse, the most contentious Sonic game in the entire series for good reason. It's basically the point where the fandom can be divided between ones of the classic aesthetic and ones of the post-Dreamcast 2000's edge aesthetic.

Adventure 1 still had some surreal elements from the classic games, helped by musical choices of old genesis remixes, sound effects, and overall stage visual design. It definitely had some elements that later games would adopt, but it was still pretty recognizable in alignment with what came before. 

Adventure 2 went all in with the photo realistic aesthetic; more levels resembled real world locations, the palette became a smidge darker, the classic sound effects were gone. Adventure deviated a lot from the classic aesthetic that I don't think gets recognized enough. This created a cognitive dissonance with a lot of people on who grew up with the Classic games, because it's extremely difficult to comprehend how the series as one thing and then see it shift into another thing entirely.

 

Adventure 2 wasn't their Sonic, it was a different Sonic. Think of it like the people who argue Archie vs. the games, except in this case it became the entire franchises' identity for the next couple of years. (No seriously, Adventure 2 shaped the entire way the series was up until Unleashed). What made this even more contentious is that Adventure 2 was the first game in the series to go multiplatform on the gamecube. Millions of kids first exposure to Sonic was Adventure 2 on the Gamecube, a lot of kids who are on this forum in their early to mid twenties today. That's what the series was for them, not the Classic Aesthetic. So naturally, there was (and still fucking is) a divide between the old guard vs. the new bood; older fans argued Classic was the "true" spirit of the series while the newer and younger fans argued the dreamcast era is the "true" Sonic.

 

This divide still exists today and its why this site spends half of its time screaming at each other over what's ideal for the series. It's literally a generational gap of the biggest proportions.  

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1 hour ago, thumbs13 said:

Rivals?

Anyway, Sonic is fast on his feet, sure, but he likes both competiton and cool stuff, so it doesn't really defeat the purpose as much as just have a different gameplay style. It'd be like playing Sonic Shuffle and asking why he doesn't just run through the entire board.

Although I haven't played Rivals, judging by the videos it seemed a lot more like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 kind of versus racing, not a 3D racing with multiple character.

Also, I don't see Shuffle being the same case. That's a board/party game, you can't really have Sonic just run through the board unless you want to make a broken game. The point of that game is to play those minigames, collect the precious stones and whatnot, not be the first in a race around a track. In that scenario, obviously he has to obey by those rules.

When it comes to a game where the entire concept is racing around a track, he can do that without a car. The concept doesn't REQUIRE a car. They could drop the cars and actually make a unique racing game where the characters are on foot, instead of forever being a Mario Kart ripoff.

Sure you can write it off as "well he's driving a car because he thinks it's cool", but that doesn't change the fact that at that point, the characters are pertty meaningless. You could swap them for Mario characters and they would fit perfectly. The characters are not an integral part of the mechanics or concept at all. Any character can sit in a car and talk smack, you don't need Sonic characters for that. The characters are basically just window dressing in these games, their skills and abilities play zero role. Which you could say about all the other racers, and that's exactly what I find sad. The other kart racers really can only work by throwing a car under their asses. Sonic could be unique in that aspect, but instead decides to be just another copycat.

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2 hours ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Sonic Adventure 2 is, for better or worse, the most contentious Sonic game in the entire series for good reason. It's basically the point where the fandom can be divided between ones of the classic aesthetic and ones of the post-Dreamcast 2000's edge aesthetic.

Adventure 1 still had some surreal elements from the classic games, helped by musical choices of old genesis remixes, sound effects, and overall stage visual design. It definitely had some elements that later games would adopt, but it was still pretty recognizable in alignment with what came before. 

Adventure 2 went all in with the photo realistic aesthetic; more levels resembled real world locations, the palette became a smidge darker, the classic sound effects were gone. Adventure deviated a lot from the classic aesthetic that I don't think gets recognized enough. This created a cognitive dissonance with a lot of people on who grew up with the Classic games, because it's extremely difficult to comprehend how the series as one thing and then see it shift into another thing entirely.

I want to focus on this part, because I still don’t find that to be the case even back when this whole idea started becoming a thing. I’d say one reason why it doesn’t get recognized enough is probably because if you were to really compare them, they’re a lot more similar than folks think. 

In a lot of ways, SA2 mirrors S3&K in aesthetics much in the way SA1 does. Space Colony ARK stages to the Death Egg; Sandopolis to Death Chamber or Hidden Base; Pumpkin Hill to Mushroom Hill; Green Jungle/White Forest to Angel Island.

About where it sets off are the city stages and military bases, but even the latter could at least pass as gray version of something like Launch Base or Chrome Gadget.

If you want to make a case about having recognizable classic aesthetics, technically neither of them come anywhere close to what people associate with the look nowadays—that honor would actually belong more to Heroes.

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30 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I want to focus on this part, because I still don’t find that to be the case even back when this whole idea started becoming a thing. I’d say one reason why it doesn’t get recognized enough is probably because if you were to really compare them, they’re a lot more similar than folks think. 

In a lot of ways, SA2 mirrors S3&K in aesthetics much in the way SA1 does. Space Colony ARK stages to the Death Egg; Sandopolis to Death Chamber or Hidden Base; Pumpkin Hill to Mushroom Hill; Green Jungle/White Forest to Angel Island.

About where it sets off are the city stages and military bases, but even the latter could at least pass as gray version of something like Launch Base or Chrome Gadget.

If you want to make a case about having recognizable classic aesthetics, technically neither of them come anywhere close to what people associate with the look nowadays—that honor would actually belong more to Heroes.

While there is bits of a point here, his point still stands pretty significantly. 

Although the Angel Island point is a reach. What is Chrome Gadget though?

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18 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

While there is bits of a point here, his point still stands pretty significantly. 

His point, or rather the part I focused on, is that to those that grew up with the Classic aesthetics, SA2 deviates significantly. My point is that, in many ways, they don’t differ anymore than SA1 does.

What exactly still stands?

Quote

Although the Angel Island point is a reach

How? You’re running through a forest or jungle in SA2 and swinging along vines and running along fallen trees to get to the end. How is that not what also happens in Angel Island Zone, aside from it being on fire?

Quote

 What is Chrome Gadget though?

One of the Competition levels of Sonic 3.

 

 

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4 hours ago, StaticMania said:

There's actually somewhere to go for Mania.

And you start with what works.

NSMB could add extra abilities to base 2D Mario, but 2D platformers aren't exactly outdated...so that doesn't make sense.

NSMB's problem is stagnation, not era.

My biggest issue is the linearity and lack of side content compare to more modern 2d platformers

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Linearity in an A to B type game isn't a problem...

It's not a n actual complaint with what it's trying to do...

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13 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Linearity in an A to B type game isn't a problem...

It's not a n actual complaint with what it's trying to do...

I wasn't talking about Linearity in Level Design

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3 hours ago, Tarnish said:

Although I haven't played Rivals, judging by the videos it seemed a lot more like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 kind of versus racing, not a 3D racing with multiple character.

Also, I don't see Shuffle being the same case. That's a board/party game, you can't really have Sonic just run through the board unless you want to make a broken game. The point of that game is to play those minigames, collect the precious stones and whatnot, not be the first in a race around a track. In that scenario, obviously he has to obey by those rules.

When it comes to a game where the entire concept is racing around a track, he can do that without a car. The concept doesn't REQUIRE a car. They could drop the cars and actually make a unique racing game where the characters are on foot, instead of forever being a Mario Kart ripoff.

Sure you can write it off as "well he's driving a car because he thinks it's cool", but that doesn't change the fact that at that point, the characters are pertty meaningless. You could swap them for Mario characters and they would fit perfectly. The characters are not an integral part of the mechanics or concept at all. Any character can sit in a car and talk smack, you don't need Sonic characters for that. The characters are basically just window dressing in these games, their skills and abilities play zero role. Which you could say about all the other racers, and that's exactly what I find sad. The other kart racers really can only work by throwing a car under their asses. Sonic could be unique in that aspect, but instead decides to be just another copycat.

The "you can swap them out for something else and it'd be the same" never actually works as an argument, especially for spinoff games. Of course you can swap them out for something else. The point is to get a unique touch specific to that franchise.  Which we do with characters, dialogue, mechanics, and settings. 

As for making a super special awesome on foot Sonic game, they could do that. But it wouldn't be the same concept. It'd be something completely different. Just as riders aren't the racing games, Sonic R 2 would not be the racing games either. It'd be its own beast. And at that point it's basically just "Why make something I don't want when they could make something I do want instead."

Also, Sonic being in a car is not something that's alien to the franchise when both Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog exist, but that's a totally different argument.

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33 minutes ago, ComeAsYouAre said:

I wasn't talking about Linearity in Level Design

Sonic Mania is about as linear as Sonic 3&K...

Or Sonic 3&XXL

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24 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Sonic Mania is about as linear as Sonic 3&K...

Or Sonic 3&XXL

A game that was made in the 90's....

 

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And that matters why?

Last I checked a games linearity isn't based on the era it comes out.

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2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

His point, or rather the part I focused on, is that to those that grew up with the Classic aesthetics, SA2 deviates significantly. My point is that, in many ways, they don’t differ anymore than SA1 does.

What exactly still stands?

That it's responsible for the division in styles since a lot of the Dreamcast and early Modern elements originate from it.

 

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

How? You’re running through a forest or jungle in SA2 and swinging along vines and running along fallen trees to get to the end. How is that not what also happens in Angel Island Zone, aside from it being on fire?

 

 

Because the simplicity of being a forest/jungle is not a decisive callback to anything. This is extra obvious compared to Pyramid Cave having Ghosts or the Ark having Gerald's face on it.

 

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

One of the Competition levels of Sonic 3.

 

 

Ah. Weren't those 2P levels typically reskins from existing zones or did Sonic 3 use unique assets for those?

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18 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

That it's responsible for the division in styles since a lot of the Dreamcast and early Modern elements originate from it.

To which, I say again, it doesn’t deviate anymore than SA1 before it, especially considering that SA2 (and some games after it) literally follows in its footsteps despite its own setbacks.

Quote

Because the simplicity of being a forest/jungle is not a decisive callback to anything. This is extra obvious compared to Pyramid Cave having Ghosts or the Ark having Gerald's face on it.

That doesn’t really tell me how they don’t compare after I already elaborated their similarities.

Quote

 

Ah. Weren't those 2P levels typically reskins from existing zones or did Sonic 3 use unique assets for those?

Not sure, haven’t looked into that.

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12 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

To which, I say again, it doesn’t deviate anymore than SA1 before it, especially considering that SA2 literally follows in its footsteps despite its own setbacks.

That doesn’t really tell me how they don’t compare after I already elaborated their similarities.

I said that it is responsible for many of the obvious differences.

It might just be trying to up the ante from Adventure 1, but it did so in ways that help distinguish at least those two enough that people can pick what they prefer between them.

That's starting to get away from X's point, but you know.  

12 minutes ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

 

Not sure, haven’t looked into that.

Yeah, me neither. I legit have no idea what it looks like, but I assume it's Launch Base.

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4 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

I want to focus on this part, because I still don’t find that to be the case even back when this whole idea started becoming a thing. I’d say one reason why it doesn’t get recognized enough is probably because if you were to really compare them, they’re a lot more similar than folks think. 

In a lot of ways, SA2 mirrors S3&K in aesthetics much in the way SA1 does. Space Colony ARK stages to the Death Egg; Sandopolis to Death Chamber or Hidden Base; Pumpkin Hill to Mushroom Hill; Green Jungle/White Forest to Angel Island.

About where it sets off are the city stages and military bases, but even the latter could at least pass as gray version of something like Launch Base or Chrome Gadget.

If you want to make a case about having recognizable classic aesthetics, technically neither of them come anywhere close to what people associate with the look nowadays—that honor would actually belong more to Heroes.

I think in terms of the sonic gameplay, the somewhat linear A to B goal oriented style (disregarding the physics) SA2 actually follows the classic era fairly well. Most of the main series games do, although the nuances of physics and level design seemed to weaken with each entry following SA1. Even the boost games follow the same basic formula in this regard.

 

The biggest differences between the classics-SA1 and then SA2-modern titles are the level design (and physics nuances) and the environment aesthetic. SA1 in particular was almost like a sequel to S3K in terms of the tone, locations used and the palette choice. Even though it had some realistic locations it used practically identical themes throughout with the same lighter, more vibrant tone throughout much of it. And one underrated element that it pretty much nailed as a follow up was in its choice of music; SA1 had a very diverse selection of music that was composed to create a sense of atmosphere, which is a key element that the classic games focused heavily on. This is one element that is often mentioned when people talk about the old school "sonicy" vibe that the classics seemed to have in comparison to the titles from SA2 onward. The level design aesthetic and the musical themes (and SFX) combined in a recipe to create a very distinguishable sense of environment or world from any of other series. SA1 does that nearly as well as the classic games did. This is without getting into the level design, for which SA1 is really the only 3D title in 20 years to make a serious attempt at translating sonic's classic gameplay into a fully 3D context. I think with SA2 sonic team realized they werent totally capable of making that kind of high speed pinball physics gameplay in a fully 3D world, so to compensate they needed to change the focus of their design principles to put more emphasis on spectacle...an element which has always had a place in the series but in the classics was secondary to the slope/level interaction mechanics that were fundamental in allowing the player to control the action. SA1 didnt quite nail this either even with its honest attempt and was also quite overdone with spectacle...but one can immediately tell playing the game what ST was trying to do. SA2 by comparison was much more like a series of hallways sprinkled in between sections of a rollercoaster. Much more on rails and segmented than SA1 which was designed to feel more like distinct open environments, very much in line with what the classics tried to create despite being limited to 2 dimensions.

(By the way heroes attempted to copy the aesthetic and stage progression of the classics but completely missed the point in almost every other area. This is why few use it as an example).

 

SA2 used some elements from earlier in the series (crazy gadget/death egg, etc.) but the entire palette was much darker to match the tone of the story and writing, which also significantly diverged from the classics in being more of a shonen or 'knock off' sci fi vibe. And the music choice sharply diverged as well, with the focus being more on character themes rather than creating a sense of atmosphere in each of the environments. This is an underrated thing because in the classic games the environment/aesthetic plays a big part in making the player feel like they are actually in some fantastical alternative universe home to Sonic and his critter friends; while SA2 goes for more of the "realism" vibe, even though it too has some wacky design choices sprinkled throughout. I think SA2's choices based on the plot and characters made perfect sense for what it was... but theres no question its direction was very different than even its immediate predecessor. It really should be considered the beginning of modern sonic, while SA1 feels somewhat like the swan song of the classic era....although technically being the first major 3D title in the series.

 

*this post might be redundant in parts, I apologize in advance. But I'm not going to edit it cause I dont feel like it, and I'm not apologizing for that 😁*

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4 minutes ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

SA2 used some elements from earlier in the series (crazy gadget/death egg, etc.) but the entire palette was much darker to match the tone of the story and writing, which also significantly diverged from the classics in being more of a shonen or 'knock off' sci fi vibe

The Classics were also influenced by Shounen,  or more accurately Kodomo which for those who don't know target those that target kids below the age of 12 while Shounen targets 12-18. 

The current most influential Kodomo magazine even Had the Dash and Spin Sonic Manga which created amy  , and it currently publishes The Manga of Nintendo franchises(Mario Pokemon Animal Crossing) and Yokai Watch and Doraemon 

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