How Sega can fix Sonic

[Lord-Dreamerz]

8 minutes ago, Wraith said:

There's a difference between the odd small minigame and a complete diversion that takes away hours of your time doing something that's NOT fast paced platforming. That's the kind of thing Indigo Rush is talking about avoiding. Nobody minded when Super Mario Galaxy or any of the Zelda games slowed down the pace and had you screw around in some minigame because it was still fun and would only take a few minutes at most. If Sonic can pull that off, then fine, but if he can't, then it's always better to stick to your element. 

The only mistake with the games such as adventure-1 in that aspect was forcing you to play as the other characters to unlock everything. I don't have a problem with them or their game-play at least in concept. I remember even enjoying playing Big & Gamma's story-mode when the game first came out.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

How SEGA can fix Sonic? By actually putting the time and passion into making games that fans would actually enjoy and actually listening to the fans. 

[Indigo Rush]

31 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

The only part I don’t fully agree with. I just don’t agree with the mindset that a game should streamline & stick only to it’s 1 core gameplay style. Maybe I’m strange but games like FF7. Some Zelda titles and other games that try to be a true grand adventure and include tons of silly minigames & stuff are more fun to me then games that try hard to do only 1 thing. For example I dislike most RPGs where the only things you do are walk around maps. battle and collect items… I personally enjoy variety games far more. I actually even liked the snowball level & flying levels on Lost World… I’d agree they needed far more work and could had been done way better, but I still enjoyed them overall.

I'm not sure we're of the same understanding, then. Let me explain further. With games that include optional mini-games or even non-optional gimmicks, they are usually either out of the way enough to be nothing more than a curiosity for the completionist, or are at worst inoffensive, if not complimentary to the general philosophy of their respective series. Wind Waker, for example, had some mixed reception initially not just because of the art style, but because of the sailing. While my enjoyment of sailing is a personal preference, I will still lobby for it's contribution to the sense of scale and adventure, giving a level of depth to the exploration aspect of the core Zelda game. Also, mini games like the battle-ship one or the sliding puzzle are not necessary to complete the game, and simple enough to complete without extensive effort.

Similarly, Twilight Princess' Wolf Link form, despite it's differences and apparent limitations in gameplay compared to a fully-suited up human Link, still works in tandem with the core Zelda formula. The movement, attack and lunging buttons are mapped the same, there is still exploration involved when you're in a different form, as well as puzzles to solve. The only thing that changes are special abilities that bring distinction; Wolf Link's special senses, ability to sniff out scents, digging through holes, lunging across precarious obstacles with Midna's help, etc, while human Link is a combat expert with a more rounded approach to puzzle solving and access to a variety of weapons.

The thing with Sonic, though, is that this sort of variety is not usually complimentary, and is often forced upon the player to complete the game. For example, in Sonic Adventure 2, if Tails/Eggman's clunky targeting mechs were an optional side-quest or an unlockable mini-game, even if it was necessary to 100% the game for getting all emblems, it wouldn't be so bad, since it wouldn't be necessary to complete the story, or to access other main levels. The problem is that it is necessary to even progress to the next level. They are almost the antithesis to a Sonic game. Slow, clunky, combat is done in range, there's a health bar, etc. It may be fun for some, and it could be the basis for a ballin' Eggman game, but it's devoid of speed, fast-paced platforming and flowing momentum-based progression. The only similarities with Sonic and Shadow's gameplay are the ability to jump (and the mech's jumps don't hurt anyone) and the ability to move. 

There aren't very many mini-games in the Adventure games and beyond that are either optional or complimentary to the philosophies of a Sonic game. That's where the issue is. You may like treasure hunting as Knuckles or brawling as the Werehog, but those should be secondary to speedy Sonic gameplay. They rarely are. 

[Lord-Dreamerz]

12 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

I'm not sure we're of the same understanding, then. Let me explain further.

I think I know what you were saying enough. But I guess I should had explained a bit more as there is differences between genre changing and mini-games. While the genre musical chairs doesn’t bother me a big deal on games like Sonic Adventure 2. My opinion on that would be that all the characters should had been separated into their own story-modes and like you say not be forced on the player. Otherwise I don’t have a problem with them existing on the game. And I actually never had problem with the boat sailing on Wind Waker.

[Indigo Rush]

8 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

And I actually never had problem with the boat sailing on Wind Waker.

I didn't expect you to.  

[Diogenes]

54 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I think I know what you were saying enough. But I guess I should had explained a bit more as there is differences between genre changing and mini-games. While the genre musical chairs doesn’t bother me a big deal on games like Sonic Adventure 2. My opinion on that would be that all the characters should had been separated into their own story-modes and like you say not be forced on the player. Otherwise I don’t have a problem with them existing on the game.

The problem I have with this, though, is that I'd end up paying full price for games that I'm only interested in a fraction of. Even if I could choose to only play the 1/3 of SA2 I'm interested in, I can't only buy that 1/3 of the game. It'd be different if we were talking about a couple levels of not-Sonic, but when it's 2/3 of the game, I just wouldn't be able to justify buying it at this point, it's simply not enough content.

[Johnny Boy]

I could do without a reboot. In fact I don't think the series needs one. All it needs is a string of high quality games.

[Milo]

4 hours ago, Marioandsonic123 said:

I mean to lock it because it has no purpose. WE can't fix sonic,SEGA doesn't care enough to fix sonic. Let's please move on!

 

4 hours ago, Marioandsonic123 said:

Yes.

 

3 hours ago, Marioandsonic123 said:

I didn't agree. I was talking about the give up hope part.

Except it's kinda evident people still hold hope that people can fix the series. The thread is still going, and people are still giving their thoughts about how Sega can fix the series. It's actually worth noting that this thread had actually been buried for two years until StarStreak revived it with his/her thoughts, and discussion has carried on as normal (mostly, anyway).

You know, if you don't like the subject of the topic, you can just leave it alone. Nobody's forcing you to participate. You also can't tell people what topics they can and can't discuss, only the mods have that ability.

---

To express my thoughts related to the topic, I personally see the main problem being that everyone who is brought in to work on the series (both internal members at Sega/Sonic Team and outsourced partners like Dimps, BRB, Sanzaru, etc.) hold a vague idea of the series as a concept, and maybe also hold a vague idea about the series' history and its fanbase. But they either don't know or don't want to know a comprehensive understanding about any of the three. And when it's time to work on a new project related to the series, they either develop the project based on their viewpoint of the series, try to retool the series into their own view, of just shoehorn some identifiable Sonic tropes into an unrelated project.

To give some examples, the Sonic Boom spinoff series. The TV show, despite it's positive qualities, feels more like an original concept that has Sonic characters in it, rather than it being a adaptation of the Sonic series. The overall setting and format of the feels more like the show was created first, and then had some established connections to the Sonic franchise added afterwards. The Boom games are like this in a more egregious manner; Rise of Lyric and Shattered Crystal/Fire and Ice both look like BRB and Sanzaru were brought in by Sega, given a basic design brief (new Sonic spinoff), and then told to write that into whatever projects they had lying around.

This happens in the main series, as well. Sonic Chronicles, based on from the little I've read/seen of it, reads like Bioware never really settled on how to adapt the Sonic series to the RPG genre and had to cobble together what they had into a game. Both episodes of Sonic 4 largely come off as a general Dimps project that happens to hold a checklist of items that the development thought were essentials to making a Genesis Sonic game. Even Sonic Team's own efforts in Lost World feel like this, with how strongly the game uses Mario tropes in the not-so-greatest of ways. I feel that a lot of aspects of Lost World were the production team jettisoning Sonic gameplay staples and surgically replacing with Mario gameplay staples for the sake of it when the game was still being put together; rather than the team first comparing the two styles, deciding what did and did not work for Sonic, and then building the project from there.

I feel most Sonic projects nowadays aren't really crafted in unison with a clear goal. It seems more like the people in charge just give each staff member working on the project an abstract proposal and are then told to work with it. If the people behind the series could adjust their perspective on how they not only design the games, but also how they view the Sonic franchise, I think a fair amount of complaints about Sonic games and how the franchise is handled could be handily nipped in the bud.

[azoo]

If we were to keep having alternate gameplay styles, then I wouldn't have even minded the two they chose to keep evolving off of. Treasure hunting and shooting in SA1 were definitely the most fun alternatives to Sonic's stages for me, but they also felt distant enough in a way that felt a bit ill-used.

My main problem with it though is how SA2 didn't try to take the two gameplay styles and bring them closer to the core, but instead break them farther apart from it.

Knuckles and Rouge are much clunkier and un-Sonic-like in control, go through levels made with much more confusing and open ended design (with no focus whatsoever on flow), and more arbitrary limitations to the radar mechanic, which makes the stages more elongated, un-Sonicy and tedious than SA1's ever were.

Similarly, the mech stages in SA2 take the focus away from a frantic time-attack thing and turn it more into a shooting gallery, which removes a lot of the motivation and tension to keep moving forward as quick as you can. This is only made MUCH worse by the controls and mechanics being altered to where Tails and Eggman play NOTHING like Gamma (and in turn, nothing like Sonic) thanks to the almost binary clunk movement and extreme heaviness of the revised mech controls. This is only exaggerated in how, like the treasure hunting stages of SA2, most of the layouts are purely flat land, with very little to no areas to make use of slope physics, speed or flow.

For these reasons, I feel like SA2's stages for both styles are a drastic drop from the first Adventure's. And the weirdest part to it is not that it's because of bad design oversights. You could tell that every difference in their controls was purely intentional! Not a mistake by any means! From a technical standpoint they're much more impressive, considering they don't feel like they just tacked it onto Sonic's gameplay and called it a day, but in the process they also lost the simplicity and arcadiness that also help make Sonic's core.

What I'm trying to say is that I think they even could've made these gameplay styles evolve in a way that works better with Sonic's core mechanics, and I wouldn't have batted an eye at it unless it were to overshadow the base gameplay.

For example, Knuckles' stages could be more linear, and based on finding one treasure piece at a time. But rather than in a huge open area, it spans across multiple smaller areas you run through. So suddenly, the game goes from "big open map" to "point A-B-C-D", with the radar pointing you towards where you should be next (like imagine a little blinky bloopy radar compass thing rather than the archaic three-shard-symbol system). Then do regular Sonic-y level design and control for the rest of it and there you go. Done.

[Blacklightning]

While we're on the subject of SA2's alternate styles, I see no reason why the shooting characters couldn't have controlled practically identically to how Sonic did on a basic level save for the fact that the homing attack is replaced with a gun, using the same targetting reticule and all. Every character that's ever done this - Tails especially - already has some kind of flight or hover, so it's not like they need a Homing Attack as platforming assistance in the same way Sonic does. Just fly right through enemy-heavy airspace and shoot every motherfucker you pass by along the way instead of using them as stepping stones.

Treasure hunting I'm a little more iffy on, because to be honest I'm not convinced it's particularly endearing as a mandatory level goal even when you cut all the fat from it and streamline the hell out of it. In my head I liken it to hunting for Special Stages in the original trio, which were 1) optional on a basic level, 2) required little to no backtracking to find in the scope of multi-tiered level design even when you couldn't just fish them straight out of checkpoints, and most importantly 3) you didn't have to find every single one of the fucking things to achieve their intended purpose. You still had to do a little searching and experimenting to find plenty of them, but I hold the Special Stages in higher regard because they cooperated with the existing level design and detracted almost nothing from their intended focus - you could get to the goal pretty quickly and lose fairly little ingame time for picking up a Chaos Emerald or two along the way - whereas Master Emerald hunts are designed in such a way that the level design has to adjust to accomodate for much the same reason having to kill every enemy in a ShTH mission is a complete pain in the ass. And when you come right down to it, there's only 7 chaos emeralds but even in S&K, which is frankly the least lenient about it, still gives you a lot more than 7 tries to put together the full set. I feel that margin of error spread across the game is pretty important.

Red Rings kinda seem like they tried to be a middleground in this regard, but in a sense they ended up the worst of both worlds instead - there's a lot of them, but you still really have to go to illogical extremes to find some of them, and they're useless unless you grab every one out of every chance they're offered to you. If it were up to me I'd just make this kind of thing a reward for uncovering shortcuts to the goal instead.

[Indigo Rush]

 

26 minutes ago, Blacklightning said:

While we're on the subject of SA2's alternate styles, I see no reason why the shooting characters couldn't have controlled practically identically to how Sonic did on a basic level save for the fact that the homing attack is replaced with a gun, using the same targetting reticule and all. Every character that's ever done this - Tails especially - already has some kind of flight or hover, so it's not like they need a Homing Attack as platforming assistance in the same way Sonic does. Just fly right through enemy-heavy airspace and shoot every motherfucker you pass by along the way instead of using them as stepping stones.

I still think this is a wonderful idea that I want to see realized. I mean, it blends Tails' two gameplay styles from both Adventure games and puts emphasis on both his mobility and flight (and ability to roll, ideally) as well as his mechanical tinkering and occasional (kid-friendly) weapon usage. It also serves a unique (non-homing-attack) way for Tails to better handle combat in 3D space. 

I'm honestly kind of miffed that this doesn't exist in a 3D Sonic yet, but I'm also not the least bit surprised.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

But that would be so broken as to render all that enemy placement they did pointless. Can't have you taking the short and easy way to kill folks, now can we?

[Blacklightning]

What are you even talking about? Combat is already as simple as pressing one button once an enemy is highlighted - literally the only thing that changes is that you hit them with a projectile instead of your own body.

[Wraith]

There's not even really any skill or thought required to get past a Homing Attack chain anyway, some bits in Unleashed aside. I don't really see the issue here. It's basically the same idea. Unless they change the way the chains work then I don't see the problem with Tails being able to shoot them down.

[Diogenes]

The problem I have with giving Tails a gun is that I'm not sure it would do enough to shape how you move through the level. The homing attack, for all its faults, clearly integrates itself into how you platform. Not just in explicit paths built from homing attack chains, but also in the simple fact that it moves your character, and you have to be able to understand and account for that to play well.

A projectile attack, in simplest form, doesn't do anything like that. And given that Sonic games are usually pretty light on combat (and forcing combat hasn't been looked at too fondly) and Tails in particular is such an agile, mobile character, I'm not sure how much benefit there is to actually shooting things vs just running/flying past, or bopping them with a spin as you go through them (assuming that's still an option). I feel like, for it to be an equal competitor to the homing attack, it needs to have some function beyond just clearing out enemies effectively.

[Indigo Rush]

Eh, I do kind of agree with you, however I still think there is more to be gained through giving Tails a targeting weapon as his primary attack.

I think it's better in this case to differentiate Tails in that aspect. Assuming he's still quick on his feet and has the spinjump and roll abilities, giving him a less up-front and personal way to deal with enemies gives him a unique approach - and it's not just for combat - I think long-range weapons can be useful in activating switches that are too far away for Tails to fly to or for Knuckles to glide towards, for example. Building mechanics around the ability to target and shoot multiple targets at once could have more utility than simply blowing robots up (which in and of itself is cool imagery, IMO).

It also reflects his demeanor, kinda. Sorta. Well, see, Tails doesn't rush headfirst into situations. He plans things out and plays it cautious; tactics and strategy. Not that shooting things is particularly careful, but contrasting Sonic's brash launching and bouncing off of enemies against Tails' distance and defense while safely flying over everything is, I feel, a valid reflection of their personalities.

[Blacklightning]

19 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

And given that Sonic games are usually pretty light on combat (and forcing combat hasn't been looked at too fondly) and Tails in particular is such an agile, mobile character, I'm not sure how much benefit there is to actually shooting things vs just running/flying past

Why not both? That was the general idea of what I was going for - being able to shoot at things without impeding your mobility, regardless of whether it's on the ground or in the air. In hindsight I probably should've said that explicitly, because it's easy to see where you'd get a different impression from (ShTH doing that dumb hover thing whenver you shoot in midair, '06's Chaos Spear stopping you completely while you charge etc). Given that Tails's flight is already either useful or downright gamebreaking depending on which interpretation you look at, I'm not really convinced he needs another platforming based move on top of that. At best I'd just use recoil for small momentum boosts and direction changes, like shooting down from above to shunt you up a little or shooting backwards to regain some lost speed, but nothing too serious.

[Diogenes]

Oh, no, I assumed it wouldn't be the kind of move that stops you dead. I'm asking, what's the benefit to engaging in combat at all? Why even bother shooting things, if they aren't in your way enough to be a threat?

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

4 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

What are you even talking about? Combat is already as simple as pressing one button once an enemy is highlighted - literally the only thing that changes is that you hit them with a projectile instead of your own body.

Dude...I was just joking around, poking at how that's a good idea that wasn't implemented on how easier that would have made things compared to the clunky mech?

Wasn't expecting you to take that so seriously.