Hubs worlds in the Sonic series

[KHCast]

*bump!*

 

So after seeing the Lost World hub, we've had two games with the classic map oriented kind of progressions. I really do like it, it's quick and simple to get around.

 

With all that said however, I would like that freedom of roaming around that Hub worlds in the Sonic series have offered. I really like both forms of progression. Each have their positives and negatives. However, I do have a nice idea that could combine the best of both worlds.

 

What if we took the overworld style that Colors and Lost World have used, but had freedom to move around the map and explore,interact and talk with the residents. It would still be fairly small mind you, nothing on the scale of SA1, but perhaps around Unleashed's Apotos size. Perhaps have that chao store thing from Generations or Wentos from Unleashed be the means of a shop for upgrades or other things, use maybe two or three NPC's in each stage that have their missions, and perhaps hidden goodies throughout each map. Keeping it small enough to where you can just keep progressing through the stages, but interesting enough to having you come back and explore them for replay value.

 

 

You know, now that I do think about it, the idea at hand does remind me of something akin to Sonic Battle's hub. Something like that, but on a larger scale and with some NPC's would really do wonders. What are your thoughts? What do you want to see out of the series now, considering hubs?

[Jolt_TH]

Are you thinking of something similar to Mario 3D Worlds HUB worlds?

[KHCast]

I haven't really payed all that much attention to 3D World. What is the HUB in that game like?

[JezMM]

I still feel all we need is a Crazy Taxi arrow pointing to the next objective and most frustrations would be removed.  Have a button that toggles it on and off, with an initial tutorial encouraging the idea that the game experience won't suffer if you'd rather explore for yourself.

 

 

If you want to be really hardcore, and pander cater to everyone though, when you start the story you get to choose between "Standard" or "Classic" mode.

 

Assuming the game doesn't have unlock conditions for new stages like Unleashed or Lost World, Classic mode just has you play through stage after stage, with world-building exploration and bonus level opportunities being skipped over, and cut-scenes just playing between stages.  At the end of Classic Mode, the hub naturally opens up to explore and seek out bonus levels.

 

Include a button that jumps Sonic straight to the nearest stage entrance, as well as Generations style "L/R to instantly scroll through stages" functionality from here, and I can't see anything to complain about.

Are you thinking of something similar to Mario 3D Worlds HUB worlds?

 

 

I haven't really payed all that much attention to 3D World. What is the HUB in that game like?

 

How about we keep talking about upcoming Mario games I don't want spoiled to the forum that isn't dedicated to the opposite franchise ._.

[Salamander]

One thing that appeals to me about the potential use of a hub world is that it's a good place to practice your moves.  You could even make the hub into the tutorial stage.  I guess this depends on how the level progression works, though, but something like a playable version of an RPG-style overworld map would also work for me.

 

It also seems kind of silly to me that the levels in Lost World (and other games) are presumably meant to represent your journey through the world, but the levels are just points on the world map and the actual travelling is along a featureless path.

[Blitz 'n Burst]

I liked Unleashed's hub worlds and I really wish they would return. They weren't just empty space like Soleana, or really fucking annoying to find your way like in Adventure - they were there for you to explore and had incentive for you to do so, but you could also just head straight to the stage if you wanted. The only time I ever had problems with the hub worlds at all was spending half an hour looking for the university in Shamar. I'm still ashamed about that

[gala]

I think that Sonic Adventure had the best hub worlds. I would include Unleashed too, but your abilities and speed were restricted whilst in the hub worlds on that. Adventure allowed for exploration because you retained your abilities, but I think Unleashed had it's good points too, like the places where you could buy things. I wish SEGA could bring back those kind of 3D hub worlds in the coming games

Edited November 3, 2013 by BlastToThePast

[Nepenthe]

Just taking and perfecting Unleashed's hubs would be fine with me. I like their size and simplicity. It makes it impossible to get lost in them, and also allows the designers to fill the area with a good bit of detail and charm indigenous to each region. I also enjoyed the stage hubs themselves for opening up Sonic's abilities. It makes getting to each stage a little interesting and involved, and it served as good tutorial fodder for all of the different moves you'd encounter. However, I see no reason why these things require pairs of hubs for each area or zone, especially since it would actually cut down on loading times. So essentially, I'd like to see them mashed together somehow.

[Scar]

Just taking and perfecting Unleashed's hubs would be fine with me. I like their size and simplicity. It makes it impossible to get lost in them, and also allows the designers to fill the area with a good bit of detail and charm indigenous to each region. I also enjoyed the stage hubs themselves for opening up Sonic's abilities. It makes getting to each stage a little interesting and involved, and it served as good tutorial fodder for all of the different moves you'd encounter. However, I see no reason why these things require pairs of hubs for each area or zone, especially since it would actually cut down on loading times. So essentially, I'd like to see them mashed together somehow.

Yeah, I'd agree with this.

Turn the hub-worlds into mini stages in and of themselves that provides space for the player to get to grips with the way Sonic moves. Make them fun to traverse with nice hidden collectibles and details for expanding the universe.

[Jet Prower]

Well, from what I gather from what Nepenthe meant maybe is that why not instead of many smaller hub worlds, why not have one HUGE hub world. That way, you only have to load one hub world and never again. I've seen plenty of games do this. When the hub world is better, you just have loading areas where as you are getting closer to an area that isnt loaded, the game has time to load the next area for you as you get closer to it. Recent example of this would be when I played through TY3. It was a bit different from this where you were driving around yes, but it was a huge world and you had to drive from level to level, and the game would load as you were going along, so as to not interrupt the game. I've seen plenty of games do this, where you have areas where the entire world, even the levels are locked into the hub world with little loading areas you have to run through while the game loads, that way you never see a loading screen ever. You know it is happening,but you never see the loading at all.

 

I've always enjoyed hub worlds a lot and sort of miss them. I really like SA1 and Unleashed for having them a lot. I never cared for the way SA2 did it where it went back to the old style of just progress from level to level like that. That is just my personal preference though. I like to explore.

[Jolt_TH]

I dunno, I don't want them to be too big else people might get bored or lost, Unleashed's were a good size I agree.

[Jet Prower]

I dunno, I don't want them to be too big else people might get bored or lost, Unleashed's were a good size I agree.

 

If you get bored that easily, why are you playing the game in the first place? You know what you are getting into when you get the game usually. I don't need to have constant 100% action to have fun in the world. I'm exploring and it seem fun to me.

[Nepenthe]

Well, what I meant was just that-- mash Unleashed's hubs together. Don't separate the exploratory hub and stage-bearing hub with an arbitrary loading wall; just make a navigable path between the two and boom. You're done.

 

Or, if you're feeling more design-y, just incorporate the stages around the exploratory hub itself, reachable by the same tutorials and platforming present in the current stage-bearing hubs. Imagine, say, Spagonia's hub: Instead of going through a gate, you can Parkour up onto a rooftop to find a stage, or perhaps you can actually enter the school (again, no loading screen here) to do business with Professor Pickle, find collectibles, or mess with some students.

[JezMM]

I'm sure they separated the Hubs in Unleashed as a simple way to avoid any complications from in-gameplay switching from slow to fast controls.  It would certainly be possible to do of course, just seperating into maps is the easy option.  Though it's possible they also separated the maps just to give more detail (remember that I'm pretty sure part of the Hedgehog Engine's map data streaming capabilities were dependant on points of no return in stage design).

 

Naturally if Lost World's mechanics stick around, the speed switching thing should no longer be an issue.

Edited November 3, 2013 by JezMM

[Jolt_TH]

If you get bored that easily, why are you playing the game in the first place? You know what you are getting into when you get the game usually. I don't need to have constant 100% action to have fun in the world. I'm exploring and it seem fun to me.

Not me in particular, I'm quite partial to open world games (I NEVER drive properly on open world roads honest 0:) ) but some people don't want to spend ages slogging through a huge hub world to get to a stage, it's like people who don't want cutscenes have the ability to skip them.

But that's my exact argument, if someone is buying a sonic game they might not be expecting a huge sky rim/Zelda/GTA hub world, like LW's identity crisis, people want Sonic to be Sonic

[Kuzu]

Not me in particular, I'm quite partial to open world games (I NEVER drive properly on open world roads honest 0:) ) but some people don't want to spend ages slogging through a huge hub world to get to a stage, it's like people who don't want cutscenes have the ability to skip them.

But that's my exact argument, if someone is buying a sonic game they might not be expecting a huge sky rim/Zelda/GTA hub world, like LW's identity crisis, people want Sonic to be Sonic

 

So just do it like in Unleashed where you can just select the stage and never have to touch the Hub world. Problem solved.

[JezMM]

I have to say an open world Sonic doesn't interest me much.  I like having small hubs that are sort of like mini levels in themselves (though just small enough and simple enough to not be frustrating if you fail what they ask of you to get around (save that for secret level entrances though)), since there are certain world-building elements you can't stick into a fast-paced Sonic stage.  But at the end of the day I want the main gameplay to be obstacle courses for me to conquer, but there's nothing wrong with a few levels that feel more like an indoor kids play area on a massive scale.

 

I feel like if a Sonic game ever reaches the point where main chunks of gameplay are so loose you couldn't play them in the same way by choosing them from a menu after you've finished, it's possibly got too unfocused from what Sonic is about - to me anyway.

Edited November 3, 2013 by JezMM

[Fletch]

I prefer the style that Colors/Lost World had where you move around a map and go stage to stage. 

 

If we're to have 3D hub worlds again in a Sonic game, I wish they would be more like the ones in Unleashed. I felt the hubs in Unleashed just felt more alive compared to 06, was a good size compared to 06, and just had more things to do compared to SA1. I could buy items, talk to town folks and do some fun missions (better missions that the ones 06 provided), and I could even use the different skills Sonic had in the game. It really wasn't even that difficult to find the entrance to the next stage, but it was annoying to collect those medals to advance to the next stage. Let's just have it where I can explore the world, and when I feel like entering the next stage to continue the story, I can just go without having to get a certain amount of an item to continue. 

 

I think it's worth noting that I really did enjoy Generations 2D hub world. I really did enjoy the platforming it gave, and it wasn't that bad moving to the next section of the game. Just do some missions, fight a rival/boss, and grab a chaos emerald. Simple. 

[Jet Prower]

So just do it like in Unleashed where you can just select the stage and never have to touch the Hub world. Problem solved.

 

And that sound more like some of the older games or such like that. I don't like the simple lets select the next level and be on with it. That's why I liked Unleashed as well was because it had an interesting hub world for me to explore. It wasn't all about nothing but speed. I know Sonic is about speed, but so many people act like he should be running full speed 100% of the time and never slow down ever. I don't feel that way. I want to be able to explore and see the world. I don't want to have just speed as fast as I can ALL the time.

 

I always liked Unleashed's hub worlds. I would have liked them to be a bit bigger maybe and not have tons of invisible walls around them. It may just be me, but I just like the feeling that there is more than just levels in the sonic world. We need to see more of it anyway.

[Splash the Otter]

And that sound more like some of the older games or such like that. I don't like the simple lets select the next level and be on with it. That's why I liked Unleashed as well was because it had an interesting hub world for me to explore. It wasn't all about nothing but speed. I know Sonic is about speed, but so many people act like he should be running full speed 100% of the time and never slow down ever. I don't feel that way. I want to be able to explore and see the world. I don't want to have just speed as fast as I can ALL the time.

 

I always liked Unleashed's hub worlds. I would have liked them to be a bit bigger maybe and not have tons of invisible walls around them. It may just be me, but I just like the feeling that there is more than just levels in the sonic world. We need to see more of it anyway.

I think he means that players should be given the option to access levels from a menu if they don't feel like traversing hub worlds. While I agree with this idea somewhat, I also think there should be some things you can only access by going into a hub world.

[Jet Prower]

I think he means that players should be given the option to access levels from a menu if they don't feel like traversing hub worlds. While I agree with this idea somewhat, I also think there should be some things you can only access by going into a hub world.

 

I guess if you just want to level select that would be okay, it just seems boring to me to just select the level and move on like that. Many platformers these days seem to be more about trying to get you into the world and trying to make things slightly more free roaming. This is the case at least with some of my more favorite platforming series of course. When it is just level select, it seems just like you are taking the life out of the game when you just want to play the level and be done with it, almost like its a chore to be playing.

[Shikushi]

I think Adventure and Unleashed did the hubs pretty well. 

 

In Adventure, I like how you can run at full speed, meaning you can pretty much ignore the hub worlds if you choose, and how the hubs connected to each other. I absolutely LOVE how, if you spindash in the right place and jump, you can get a lot of air time. That means that you can make going through the hubs even faster, if you know what you're doing. Oh, and talking to the explorers in the Mystic Ruins is kinda cool I guess.

 

 

And then Unleashed. When I talk about Unleashed hub worlds, I mean the ones where you talk to people and stuff, not the hubs where you go to the real action stages, but I guess I'll go over my opinion on both.

 

The "talking hubs" were actually kinda neat in my opinion. Some hubs, especially Spagonia and Apotos, looked like they could be real places. The hubs also were beautiful and full of little things that make them fun to mess around in. One bad thing (not really for me though) is that you speed is limited. But if you really have to get through them fast, just spam the homing attack.

 

The level hubs were awesome too, they looked just as beautiful as the other ones, while a bit more video-game-y, because there are more springs, speed boosters, grinding rails and enemies. But because of this, you can usually explore these hubs A LOT, and find goodies, like extra lives and medals. 

 

Oh, those other hubs. Colours, while they are more like a "menu hub", are still fun to look at, thanks to all the little details. Generations was still fine, but I think the white background gets a tad boring. Yes, there are the levels themselves that bring color into the environment with in-jokes and references, and you can explore a bit, but I prefer 3D hubs with depth and connectivity. I know that that's not the game's idea, but that's just my opinion. Though the platforming you need to do to reach certain places was kinda cool. Sonic 06' I haven't played, but I'm sure those hubs are shit. Lost World I don't know either, but they look ok.  

Edited November 4, 2013 by SonicDude

[JezMM]

I didn't like the Generations Hub World much because there was no sense of mystery to it.  Because the platforming was just there and you knew every stage had 5 mission entrances etc it kind of took any wonder away from exploring and just made an inconvenience in getting to game content.  Or maybe it was just lamely designed platforming.  Either way exploring the Generations hub to reach missions was nowhere near as fun as exploring Unleashed's hub to find collectables and secret acts.

[Jet Prower]

I didn't like the Generations Hub World much because there was no sense of mystery to it.  Because the platforming was just there and you knew every stage had 5 mission entrances etc it kind of took any wonder away from exploring and just made an inconvenience in getting to game content.  Or maybe it was just lamely designed platforming.  Either way exploring the Generations hub to reach missions was nowhere near as fun as exploring Unleashed's hub to find collectables and secret acts.

 

Basically how I feel yes. The hub world of Generations is just there for a bit of a distraction for the most part. It wasn't much to look at at all. It was for the most part, just white space everywhere, which yes I know what sort of the point. It was still a bit boring, unlike the hub world in unleashed that felt a lot more full and alive and worth exploring around.

[JezMM]

I like my hub worlds like I like my women. Realistic, smart, exporable and with no delays whatsoever.

 

And this is Sonic we're talking about so plenty of curves please.