What do you legitimately dislike about the Boost Trilogy Gameplay?

[Narukami07]

Just curious to find out from various users here.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

mind elavorating on your thoughts first? a general post like that generaly doesnt fly

 

Also, I dislike how it is primarily in corriders, and that it isnt super conducive to multiple play styles

[Solkia]

When you hold a single button to run forward with no regard for physics while effortlessly just ramming enemies to kill them, something is wrong.

[Jimbo]

I never liked sliding while boosting in any of the games, especially Unleashed. The controls were too tight and it never felt like it was actually helping me out. Hell, running into the wall was usually a better alternative than sliding.

 

Outside of that, I can't really think of much that bugged me about the boost gameplay. Sometimes quick stepping wouldn't work and it would slow down times in speed runs, but that's really all.

 

Small edit for OP: You should probably help out and list what you don't like as well, or explain why you want to know this. Have you not played any of the games in the boost trilogy? Or are you just getting some opinons on it? Something like that would work.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Toejam

[Vertekins]

In Unleashed? The 'broken' nature of the boost itself. I've have always personally felt that it's too easy to use because it's energy diminishes too slowly when used, the gauge can be huge when normal Sonic is max-levelled and it's property of attracting rings effectively encourages it's overuse. The level design revolves too much around the boost as well.

 

In Colours? Wisp forms. To me, they epitomize the fixation the game has with 2D as over half of them has exclusive utility on the 2D plane, the fixation with automation as many a time the game plays for you when you use aspects of the Wisp form's abilities i.e Nearly everything about Rocket, Hover's ring dash, Drill travelling through pipes and the lack of clever usage in regards to level design much of the time.

 

The Wisps were far too incorporated into the game's design and intended fun factor for players who aren't down with them to simply ignore them. So assertions that players who aren't big fans of them should just skip them are inherently flawed.

 

In Gens? The same issue as Unleashed but on a lesser scale and Classic's gameplay and level design basically being a diluted poor man's version of the Mega Drive games.

[Tara]

Just going to say that an opening topic should have at least a few sentences worth of explanation and detail, and it would also be nice if you put your own stance on the issue.  Since there appears to be enough discussion value in this topic, though, I'm letting it slide.  But for future reference, please abstain from one-sentence posts.

 

Anyway, I'm going to be hated for this, but... I honestly don't hate the boost.  Granted, I typically prefer the Spin Dash for the greater complexity, but I don't have a huge vendetta against the boost.  Except Sonic Unleashed Wii's boost where you had no control over your movement when you were boosting and often ended up running straight into a wall.

 

The simplicity of being able to ram into enemies and send them flying is highly appealing to me, but I feel they scarcely-ever implement it in interesting ways.  I think if there were more places where boosting is simply a bad idea despite it seeming like an easy solution, it would give more weight to the decision to boost.  As is, there's no weight to boosting except pre-programmed areas in the level where it's obviously intended to be used.

[Narukami07]

Just going to say that an opening topic should have at least a few sentences worth of explanation and detail, and it would also be nice if you put your own stance on the issue.  Since there appears to be enough discussion value in this topic, though, I'm letting it slide.  But for future reference, please abstain from one-sentence posts.

 

Sorry, I've been around around *barf* Gamefaqs too much lately that it's become a bit of a habit of mine whenever i make a topic there. 

Edited November 15, 2013 by Narukami07

[SegaFanatic]

While I prefer the classic or Adventure Sonic gameplay to the boost gameplay, I don't hate it. The pros are the exhilarating sense of speed you achieve, and how badass you feel dodging obstacles while doing so. The downside is that this becomes stale, and it is not that satisfying to cover any type of terrain you encounter by mostly holding down a button. I actually think if the parkour from Lost World is combined with slopes that affect your speed, we will have a near perfect 3D Sonic experience. And have a parkour button, not a run button.

[Milo]

When you hold a single button to run forward with no regard for physics while effortlessly just ramming enemies to kill them, something is wrong.

 

When you have this gameplay in a series that started it's life by encouraging players to build and maintain momentum in order to gain speed, something is doubly wrong.

 

Another thing I dislike about the boost trilogy is the level design. For the 3D levels, it's designed around using the boost, and when coupled with the on-rails gameplay, leads to levels effectively designed as nothing more than hallways and racetracks with the occasional QTE set pieces and hidden sidepath. As for the 2D levels, most of it is comprised of linear single paths that feature lots of "block platforming"-simply performing timed jumps across block-shaped platforms.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Gabe Scrooge

[LATER BUDDY]

I personally find that it's just a gameplay type that ironically doesn't have much milage.

 

By the time Generations showed up, I was definitely ready for it to be my last outing with the gameplay style. It was a fun ride at first but I feel like it's hard to re-invent that wheel to keep it fresh without resorting to gimmicky things. 3 games of boosting just got boring to me. More often than not you can blitz through just about anything, which while it feels awesome the first few times, it gets old, and fast. I also can't imagine level size and design being very practical on the developers' half, seeing as a lot of finely crafted things and detail can be missed by a blink of an eye at times.

 

I just think it had it's good run. Most of it's games in the gameplay type are generally well received (if someone takes this as a shot to turn this into an Unleashed fight once again, my god am I tired of it from both sides), and I think it's wise to end it there instead of becoming something extremely stale, which was definitely the path it was heading. I mean if it weren't for the nostalgia factor of Generations, I think if we got yet another installment of basically the same thing again from Unleashed and Colors, it'd be pretty boring, but maybe that's just me.

 

So in short I don't dislike it entirely, but I definitely never thought it was Sonic's answer modern gameplay seeing as it's became an old trick pretty quick. I more over am excited to see what new grounds Sonic can cover with his next gameplay styling.

[Diogenes]

Everything?

 

I mean...to get to the root of the problem, it's incredibly shallow.

 

For games that claim to be 3D, there's almost no movement along two of those dimensions. Most of the level design is basically a line, twisted through the three dimensions, with just enough thickness to accommodate a quick step section or a homing attack chain. And they don't even trust you to navigate this line by yourself, as several areas will partially hijack your controls so you glide through them properly even if you're just boosting (try it at the start of Dragon Road). Most of Sonic's abilities are essentially just keys to various obstacles; light dash on trails of rings, slide through low gaps, homing attack enemies or springs. The gameplay never really rises above the level of a QTE; hold boost to go fast, press the right button for the upcoming obstacle, either you pass or you fail. And no, Generations dropping a few platforms in your way doesn't fix it, because Sonic has no way to meaningfully interact with anything besides the Simon-styled boost design. All he can do is clumsily hop between them, the absolute bare minimum of what you could call "platforming". It's not fun on its own and it sure as hell doesn't counter the problems of the rest of the gameplay.

[MegaMonster54]

I think it's... Interesting... Definitely... Interesting... I mean, I don't hate it, I just think it was a bit to... Ambiti- no... Coo- ... No... Um... I don't know what word to use, so I'll make one up. It was Fugbar! Something that was not quite interesting but was still kind of is now Fugbar! 

Edited November 15, 2013 by MegaMonster54

[Chaos Incarnate]

I don't like that you don't get to explore the levels as much as say, Sonic Adventure's Sonic stages. Now, Sonic games are all about speed, I get that, and while I enjoyed the boost gameplay overall, I'm not too sad that Sonic Team has gotten rid of it. Generations was a step in the right direction with the boost gameplay: it shortened the boost meter a bit and had you do more than constantly boost and interact with the levels more. Still, I'd prefer Sonic Team keep it away for a while, even though I have a sinking feeling we'll be seeing it make a return in some capacity after Lost World.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Chaos Incarnate

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

It's fucking restrictive.

 

Although I don't hate it, it's so dominated by the boost that it offers little room for anything else. It doesn't allow for you to be very acrobatic due to going to fast for you to be able to do very many stunts, most enemies you can just ram into unless they're airborne, and its overspecialization doesn't invite me to come back to the style very much. And this is all at the push of a button; I'd like speed to be more of a reward for avoiding obstacles and keeping my momentum, and this is without getting into how the level design can also punish you for going too fast and not paying attention.

 

In addition to that, most of the level design for it are hall-like, with a little bit of space in some places before confining you to a single stretch most of the time. Generations is where the fields started getting wider, but then given everything above it doesn't solve everything. The inclusion of the Wisps only barely offer a more variety, but they're also dominated by that mentioned above of hall-like level design, in addition to being more restricted to 2D space than 3D.

[Brad]

It's just so utterly boring.

 

You hold down a button to gain all the speed you should earn. You destroy you enemies without a second thought at all by just ramming head first into them. Corridor styled level design has to be created to accommodate this style which cramps on the exploration mechanic. It puts way too much focus on the gimmicky speed of Sonic rather than the roots of his genre. What's the point of having momentum based physics which the series was founded on and its traditional styles of ramps and hills when you can hold a button to achieve max potential speed with doing little more than doing... absolutely anything other than just boosting?

 

That's what I have to admire about Lost World. It really did its best to create a new style of gameplay which accommodated a lot more of what's missing. Though it still has issues with speed earning, it seems more satisfying to get a decent run a Lost World level than a Boosting level.  

[azoo]

+ Was able to emphasize the progression of moving through environments, going from one area to another and making a big ado about it. The satisfaction of moving through the alleyways of Rooftop Run, skydiving through a tower structure and into the rooftops, up the clock tower and back down on a support rail, across unfinished boardwalks and through a rickety set of pillars was all kinds of amazing.

 

+ The amount of flow in the level design was wicked. Swerve around these corners, off ramps, down hills, around loops and twists and across thin platforms, around walls and down chasms, all sort of connecting if you're good enough into what could be a perfect run.

 

+ The amount of speed that you could attain was off the charts in exhilirating and exciting, made you really feel like you were in control of the fastest thing alive.

 

- The boost was the dominant part of the gameplay and it took so much of a strangehold to the rest of the game. Every other action was an afterthought, and could be done while boosting because they wanted you to first and foremost boost, if you could, through everything.

 

- The automation and linearity makes everything rather boring for a second run. The game becomes less of a platformer and more of a glorified racer / obstacle course structured game. It also made it where after perfecting the run, there was basically nothing left to do in the levels but speedrun them. No real gimmicks that had a learning curve, nothing moved in any other direction but forward and quickly, so you were stuck to having to learn how to get to the end quickly and there was no replayability beyond cutting corners on your time.

 

- Boosting is overpowered and disregards potentially satisfying player physics. You blast off at a set super-high speed, destroy everything you come in collision with, and are at least 75% invincible in that state.You never get the feeling of moving as if you're building up speed, its just BOOSH, given to you like candy.

 

- Related to that, the gauge goes down too slow and builds up too fast, and the overall idea of having a gauge in the first place kind of takes you out of the immersion since you're focusing on a meta-mechanic instead of something actually relevant to Sonic.

 

 

Boost gameplay was a blast in Unleashed, Colors (sorta) and Generations but by the time we got done with those games we've lived all we could do with it. Linear, constrictive, and semi-automative race track / obstacle course stages built with the idea that you're moving foward at top speed all the time. If we could take the good elements of this gameplay (mentioned at the beginning of this post) and add it to what Lost World is doing, we'd have gold, but bringing back the boost is not the best idea.

[Briraka]

The boost games were centered more around looking good than actually being fun to play. While I do think a cool cinematic moment once and a while is fun and all, it shouldn't take away the freedom of the controls. It's like the games saying, "You're not cool enough to preform this awesomeness".

 

If they ever brought the boost back, they should make it like Advance 2's, except when you achieve full speed you have to hold down the L trigger to activate it. The spin dash could be mapped to one of the face buttons.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Briraka

[Captain Fun]

The level design is kind of restrictive in "boost games" and the controls don't allow for very interesting or challenging platforming. It's also very easy to build boost and there's rarely a time where you wont have it. 

[Kuzu]

I like the spectacle and all, but its incredibly shallow and doesn't leave much to the imagination.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

I never disliked it. But I do think the level design of each game that it existed in didn't do a good job of using the boost to its fullest potential (Not just boost and run on a flat area with nothing happening btw). Unleashed kinda suffered in terms of not much really happening while boosting, Colors worked against the boost by having extremely basic platforming that did not really make the boost something to be carefully used so much as rendered it useless in many areas, and Generations sorta did better than both, but could have gone further.

[Celestia]

The boost gauge never drained quickly enough, that's basically my main issue. You always had enough to do whatever, particularly due to the Ring Magnetism. Generations was probably the worst about it since there's so many methods to fill the gauge (Rings, enemies, destroying breakable stuff in the environment, doing tricks, and drifting IIRC). I know this is probably one of the most minor issues with the gameplay, but eh, I liked the era overall. 

 

I personally think something like a mixture of Adventure and SLW would be a lot more fulfilling in the long run, though. SLW is giving me a lot more replay value than even Colours, despite still loving that game.

Edited November 15, 2013 by ElementofChaos

[Solly]

It's formulaic to the point where I don't see how any future games could build on top of it. As someone who liked Sonic Generations, I think everything is so fast and automated that player input boils down to little more than just pressing the right button at the right time, testing reaction speed and memorization more than your actual ability to direct and control your character. It's practically a giant quick-time event. Everything is context-sensitive.

[Gregzilla]

Jumping.  Sonic feels way too heavy, and his jump is way too short.  Particularly noticeable in Generations, for both Modern and Classic Sonic.  Basically in the Genesis classics the jump felt very comfortable, like you always had some leeway to change direction while in the air at a very nice degree.  In the boost games, every time I land on a platform it feels like I just BARELY made the jump.  Like, every time. It's incredibly stressful.

[Toby]

That is EXACTLY the problem I have in Generations! The jumping and 2D platforming is absolutely dreadful! And I remember having the same issue with Colors as well.

[Soniman]

I kinda had less issue with the boost era jumping maneuverability in Colors due to the double jump because surprise, double jumps actually help a a lot with that kind of stuff.