playing as Sonic friends....

[Jet Prower]

im worried about Sonic. Hes still amazing he can do alot more.

 

What do you mean you are worried about him?

[Splash the Otter]

Hacks can be fun if done right, but at the same time they aren't usually thinking about a profit like Sonic team is. Sonic Team and Sega are quite scared about taking risks, which is a shame, so they keep making these sonic only games when there is definitely a demand out there for Sonic friend stuff. Sonic Dash can show you that, in that people work so hard to unlock Sonic's friends in these games. It just depends how much demand there really is of course. It is out there, but it is worth tapping into overall.

The fact that everyone in Sonic Dash is a reskin of Sonic just shows how desperate we are to play as someone who isn't Sonic. I'm not saying we should settle for that of course, but I imagine if other characters were playable the backlash would be significantly less than before.

[Nepenthe]

There's different expectations from a mobile endless runner game where the character model doesn't actually matter to the implementation of other characters in a large-scale console release with a storyline of some sort where their presence will undoubtedly matter. The former will have no effect on the inevitable backlash of the latter.

[Marcello]

I'd love to see other characters return. Just make them play similar to Sonic with their own abilities. Like, let Knuckles punch (And glide and dig), but don't make his gameplay into a brawler. That would make me happy.

 

Some characters could use their styles from Generations, like Espio could swing and.. Actually that's all I actually remember. >_>

 

Edit: Oh yeah, and I always loved all the stories coming together in SA, so I'd love for that to be done again.

 

What do you mean you are worried about him?

 

He's been hitting the bottle quite a bit lately.
 

[Jet Prower]

As I explained before, the SA1 one roulette wheel is loved by some and hated by others. I loved the wheel and the fact you could play as other characters to complete the overall story like that, and then there are others that just hate it high heaven because it isn't just sonic running running running and more of the same over and over again. You then have the people that love that Sonic only stuff of just sonic doing nothing but running and that's it. I'm not one of those people that just want the sonic only stuff. It just doesn't have any variety and is over too quickly for my liking usually.

 

This once again brings you to that complication. Which do you get for? You can make it be Sonic only, you can have other characters, but they all play like or similar to Sonic. Then finally you have like in SA1 where everyone is different and it isn't all about just Sonic.

 

It is hard to please everyone here.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

What do you mean you are worried about him?

adding other playables would take the spotlight away from Sonic. they only give Sonic 2 moves while other characters get 3 or 4. its not fair. :-/

[SlickEvan]

adding other playables would take the spotlight away from Sonic. they only give Sonic 2 moves while other characters get 3 or 4. its not fair. :-/

Okay what? We've past this stage now. In fact we passed this stage since SA2. Sonic can bounce, stomp, spindash, boost, jumpdash, homing attack, slide, summersault, roll, use elemental shields, parkour. No need to worry man. Since even Sonic 3 he had more abilities, but some people le the fancier moves though. But they have enough engines, now, to code extra characters. They don't neet to be forced. Even unlockables are fine and it even adds to replay value. I atleast want Tails anf Knuckles, They're the easiest to get in there.

[Bullet Curtain]

The fact that everyone in Sonic Dash is a reskin of Sonic just shows how desperate we are to play as someone who isn't Sonic. I'm not saying we should settle for that of course, but I imagine if other characters were playable the backlash would be significantly less than before.

 

Christ... I spent real money to play as Amy Rose. >_>

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

Okay what? We've past this stage now. In fact we passed this stage since SA2. Sonic can bounce, stomp, spindash, boost, jumpdash, homing attack, slide, summersault, roll, use elemental shields, parkour. No need to worry man. Since even Sonic 3 he had more abilities, but some people le the fancier moves though. But they have enough engines, now, to code extra characters. They don't neet to be forced. Even unlockables are fine and it even adds to replay value. I atleast want Tails anf Knuckles, They're the easiest to get in there.

they give him more moves because he was the only one playable now. Now we can see his potenchal (?) and what he can do. He can walk on walls and run on them which is a shinobi move in one game. In another game he can use wisps to explore areas you cant get without them and speaking the wisps it shows that he can be trusted because... the wisps allow him to use such powers. So we see a little personality to. We also get to play a game where we see acrobatic shinobix mix like Sonic in the day and then a more combat Street Fight ish Sonic at night. Another game we get to see Sonic play like his classic days but with a fun modern touch. And the game after that we get to see him and Tails work together and create moves that can be combine.

 

I dont know but other Sonic games with playable friends didnt give us this Sonic but they gave us one people would call dull and now only play Sonic games for his friends forgetting about Sonic. Thats why I like Sonic-only games. Because I get to see just how amazing he can be without being outshined by anyone else.

 

Im dont want to be mean but this series is called Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic is the main character. Damn, give Sonic sometime to be a star, he deserves it! He deserves to be awesome like everyone else. I know hes amazing but man people, let the guy be amazing for a couple of games. Im dont wanna be angry but I dont like seeing my favorite character get shoved in the background :*(

 

[VGamer]

Hacks can be fun if done right, but at the same time they aren't usually thinking about a profit like Sonic team is. Sonic Team and Sega are quite scared about taking risks, which is a shame, so they keep making these sonic only games when there is definitely a demand out there for Sonic friend stuff. Sonic Dash can show you that, in that people work so hard to unlock Sonic's friends in these games. It just depends how much demand there really is of course. It is out there, but it is worth tapping into overall.

 

No way on the planet will I believe that they are scared of risk-taking. How many gameplay changes have we gotten since Sonic has gone into 3D? We've gone from normal 3D to Team-Based gameplay, to guns, to '06 (which admittedly was supposed to revive the Adventure-era of gameplay), to boosting, and now to Parkour and run-buttons, with Sonic 4 somewhere in there.

 

I've mentioned this before since I clearly remember Iizuka saying this at some SOS or Boom panel, but they're excuse for not having us play as the characters is that they need to find and refine "the core gamepaly for Sonic, before adding others into the mix" (or something along those lines). That's not possible though with all these changes they keep making, therefore it's a bit of an annoying cycle that we have going on here.

 

I'd love to see playable characters again, especially sort of in the style of S3&K, Advance, and Adventure (characters play the same, have distinct abilities that put them apart of just "Sonic with flying", but are optional as well), but after Lost World I'm just not gonna hold my breath anymore. It'll be a nice surprise if they do bring them back, but I just really am tired of this worn out and (in Sonic Team's case) invalid excuse.

[Tani Coyote]

The power of nostalgia for the Adventure era aside, I think we've determined Sonic is best when all the characters play the same barring quirks. Let's look at the classics - they all had the same moveset, except Tails could fly and Knuckles could climb on walls and glide.

I think SEGA should probably stick to that formula. It'd likely help ratings enormously, and allow each character to more or less keep that fun sense of speed that defines Sonic.

[Jet Prower]

The power of nostalgia for the Adventure era aside, I think we've determined Sonic is best when all the characters play the same barring quirks. Let's look at the classics - they all had the same moveset, except Tails could fly and Knuckles could climb on walls and glide.

I think SEGA should probably stick to that formula. It'd likely help ratings enormously, and allow each character to more or less keep that fun sense of speed that defines Sonic.

 

I doubt anything would help the ratings with how biased most critics are about the sonic series in general and will always find every little reason to not rate them well.

 

Still, the thing with everyone playing the same with little differences between them can work, but then you have people that will say, what is the point of them if they are all similar to Sonic himself in a way. That's more the little conundrum here. Being unique gets people all uppity that this is Sonic's game. When they play all the same and it is just little differences, you have people saying what is the point of them being in the game in the first place.

[VGamer]

I doubt anything would help the ratings with how biased most critics are about the sonic series in general and will always find every little reason to not rate them well.

 

This has been bugging me for a while, but I don't get why a lot of people think the critic's still (if ever?) have had a huge bias against Sonic. If you look at it, games up to Heroes did pretty well, and Shadow and '06 deserved the crap they got. Unleashed was a bit mixed but for the most part negative, but that's really just because of the Werehog.

 

Colors and Gens then proceeded to bring Sonic back to even higher scores than the Dreamcast Era. If critics were really biased against this franchise, then why did those two get good scores? Why was there so much hype revolving around Lost World, the game that got lackluster reviews from the same critics? I don't get where the idea of "Critics just hate Sonic", so if someone could really just explain this to me I'd appreciate it.

[Dejimon11]

The advance and rush games and sonic and the black knight had the right idea. We play as sonic and his friends they all played similar but had abilities that that made them feel and play different. Tails could fly, knux and climb and glide, Amy had her hammer and something I'm missing, blaze had fire powers that made getting up platforms easier, shadow had his chaos powers,sonic was the fastest and cream was broken as hell(you can easily beat the final boss in advance 2 without moving she's that broken)

I know this has been said plenty of times but the criticism that sonic team got in the past was a misunderstanding. The problem with previous games when we played as the friends wasn't that they're were too many friends(granted putting multiply characters in one game can be annoying) but the fact that they're were too many different gameplay styles like shooting sections, treasure hunting, fishing, beat em ups(I do like the werehog but still) ect in a platformer to the point where they might as well make new IP's or give sonic's friends spinoffs.

I wish in the next game they do something similar to 3D World and play as 4 or 5 characters with a sonic feel(the lost world gameplay implemented well) we can have the all around character (Amy) the easy mode(tails) the challenging character(knux or sonic) and the expert mode(knux or sonic) and throw in a fan favorite(blaze or shadow)

Also I'm just going to say the "critics hate sonic" thing is all BS heck I know some of you guys bash the games more than the actual reviewers

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I think the "critics hate sonic" is because even when it comes to good Sonic titles, critics will find something arbitrary to bash even if it doesn't even remotely affect the game. See the critic's complaints toward the characters in Generations where 95% of the time they just stood around at the stage ports doing nothing until you talked to them, or critics constant rantings against using "Eggman" over "Robotnik", and the a noticeable hate of 3D in general as a dimension rather than the design differences of working in that extra dimension, and so forth.

[FireBird75]

This has been bugging me for a while, but I don't get why a lot of people think the critic's still (if ever?) have had a huge bias against Sonic. If you look at it, games up to Heroes did pretty well, and Shadow and '06 deserved the crap they got. Unleashed was a bit mixed but for the most part negative, but that's really just because of the Werehog.

 

Colors and Gens then proceeded to bring Sonic back to even higher scores than the Dreamcast Era. If critics were really biased against this franchise, then why did those two get good scores? Why was there so much hype revolving around Lost World, the game that got lackluster reviews from the same critics? I don't get where the idea of "Critics just hate Sonic", so if someone could really just explain this to me I'd appreciate it.

The Sonic series has really odd relationship when it comes to reception, whether it's the "pro critics" and the "fans".  To explain it, I like to go by "twos"

 

With the adventure games, reception was greatly positive with critics praising the gameplay and graphics and fans praising both those things plus stuff like the story, music, and other things.

Then we got the "oddballs" like Sonic Heroes and Sonic Unleashed where reception is technically positive but we got a few mixed and even negative views coming from certain areas.

Next we have the Storybook titles, in which reception was all over the place from both sides and that had the result of averaging out some pretty mediocre scores.

After that, we got the "Good Graces" games: Sonic Colors and Generations.  Great acclaim from both sides praising just about everything (except for story, which I'll go over next).

 

With all this, I can see why Sega and Sonic Team sometimes have issues when making games.  With the critics, they seem to only care about the gameplay and graphics.  They usually couldn't care less about the story, characters, extras, or even the music.  Some critics might mention those things in a sentence or two but that's about it.  There's no real bias critics have against Sonic it's just that they're not Sonic fans. That's why you're only going to see critics praise the high-quality titles and anything below that going to be a let-down in their eyes.  They don't really understand the Sonic series the same way the fans do as they (the critics) only care to go by past experiences and what's given in front of them.  From I see, critics were hard on Sonic for a while because that last game to get high critical praise before Sonic Colors was Sonic Adventure 2.  Nine years is a pretty big gap but again this is just from the critical viewpoint.

 

With the fans, we care about gameplay & graphics too but we also take special note of the story, character portrayals, music, extras, and anything else.  Fans of the series tend to look the whole package, with gameplay of course taking precedence but also the other things being very important as well. Fans care about things like having a good, well-written, well-balanced story, well-composed music that fits the game and series proper, multiple playable characters (or the opposite; See Sonic 06), more extras.  Fans see series like, for example, Sly Cooper having aspects like good gameplay, good story, multiple-playable characters, good music, good graphics, good extras, etc. and they want that for Sonic too.

 

Sega has, for over a decade now, trying again and again to find a formula to satisfy both sides but they just kept on getting mixed results with each attempt.  Sonic Colors (and technically Unleashed too) was supposed accomplish this and, to be honest, it kinda did in 2010 with Sonic getting what one could call a "2nd Renaissance" with overall reception of his games.  Now in 2014, Sega's been throw a bit of a curve-ball with Sonic Lost World getting the same familiar kind of mixed reception Sonic games got in the mid to late 2000s.  So now they have to figure out what they feel they need to do get back on the "good graces" track.

 

 

 

And of course, the modern handhelds are exempt from all this because they tend to get  good reception and also they're not looked at as much as the home console games.

[8ther]

If Sonic Boom(the game) ends up being successful hopfully Sonic Team be prompted to make Sonic's friends playable in the main series.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Christ... I spent real money to play as Amy Rose. >_>

As did I for Knuckles. T_T

[Chariot]

Gameplay the exact same as Sonic but with different abilities. No treasure hunting, no mech shooting, no FISHING, no SLOW ASS version of Sonic, no god of werehog, just Sonic. Just like S3&K. It's that easy.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

i like the werehog

 

as long as they dont make Sonic look dull and give Sonic more moves im happy

[DBZHedgy]

I agree with ya pally. Sonic's friends were unique, and as that I would greatly enjoy if multiple (or even optional multiple) characters were added. That'd be great. Sonic 1 is kinda boring to me because it lacks that variety that many of the classics had. Sonic CD did the same, but it had Moves in which differentiated Sonic from the rest of the gang. Sonic's moves in Sonic 1 are exactly what every other playable character in the genisis era were capable of doing.

 

I think the Fangam Sonic After the Sequel really embodies the difference between Sonic and Tails. Sonic is capable of going faster than tails and using the super peel out. While Tails has a slower acceleration and he doesn't run as fast, yet he can fly. I do wish the gap between their abilities was larger, but it's a pretty good example of what ya could do don't ya think?

 

I mean, Sonic After the Sequel is one of the most renowned Sonic fan games isn't it? I should say that it's that way for a reason.

 

For Knuckles, I think his Adventure or Adventure 2 gameplay was the best. His 06 gameplay was pretty good, but his flare and toughness really showed there. Those flashy Fire attacks were pretty awesome, not to mention the wall climbing glitch. If they could polish it for 06 that would be prefect. 

 

Amy's gameplay really shined in Adventure 2's battle mode. She was slow... but she wasn't as big as a pain to control as she was in 06 or adventure. She had moderate acceleration and all that stuff.

 

Shadow's Gameplay was the best in both Shadow and Sonic 06. In ADventure 2 and Heroes he was nothing more than a Sonic clone like Sonniku-chan said. ShadowTH featured the inclusion of Chaos Blast and Chaos Control, other than that it's Sonic Heroes that's more platformed oriented with guns. 06's gameplay focused too much on vehicles and It resulted in me trying to abuse the game to skip said vehicle sections. Seems more like a War game than Sonic. His Chaos Powers are a step up though.

Seeing as how people universally Panned 06 though caused these characters to go away as a result. Which was a poor decision in my opinion.

 

Rouge's gameplay was really good in Adventure 2 and in 06. In 06 she used artillery that showed that she was a secret agent. Sticky Bombs, and such. Pretty Darn good, I was glad once they found a good lining between Tails and Knuckles when finding their character.

 

Omega's gameplay was best in 06. It was completely Unique and the only thing broken was the glide. In every other appearence he's pretty much a clone. I'm glad Omega took Gamma's approach on gameplay when it came out.

 

Silver's gameplay was obviously the best in 06. In that game his moves were polished quite nicely. It was nearly perfect. I'm glad they didn't make Silver as fast as Sonic and Shadow though. Then he would be another clone.

 

Blaze's moves in Rush are quite different from Sonic. She isn't as fast as Sonic, but her Air tricks with the L and R buttons are used to give her more agility in the air, otherwise giving her the advantage in stages that constantly rocket you into the air. In 06, it was pretty good how she had a double jump, the tronado spin, and a homing attack. Made for a really pleasant experience.

 

Sonic's gameplay was the best in Sonic Adventure 2, and as a result Sonic 06 used various elements from that gameplay and added newer elements that flowed better. Like the Slide instead of the Somersault. It's much quicker, and it doesn't slow the player down as drastically. Sonic's spin dash were quite broken in the adventure titles, more broken in Adventure. (HAVE YOU SEEN THE SPEEDRUNS?)

 

One thing about Sonic Boom that does strike me as odd is that Sonic and his friends can run at the same speed as him. I want Sonic to live up to his name. Faster thing Alive. It surely doesn't look like it seeing as how Tails, Knuckles and Amy all run at the same speed. When this happens it seems as if Sonic isn't as good as other characters because Sonic only has speed while everyone else has his speed AND a new powerup.

 

Overall, the best character gameplay groups overall were in Adventure and 06. The transitions between the partners were well placed since the game required for the assist character to get past the part. It's like Heroes, except less convenient. I would've enjoyed it much more if you cold switch between your partners on command.

If Sonic Boom(the game) ends up being successful hopfully Sonic Team be prompted to make Sonic's friends playable in the main series.

I'm hoping So, ever since Colors it's been nothing but Sonic even though the plot could've suggested the characters acting to help Sonic, kinda like Tails in 06, when he goes to find information on the princess.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

i liked the Sonic 2006/Sonic Adventure 2 approch. Because it felt like I was playing as different characters instead of Sonic with flying or Sonic with jackie chan ablities. Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush made me mad because its like why play as Sonic?! Play as Sonic with flying/Sonic with gliding climbing/Sonic with fire powers!

 

I dont mind the 2D where everyone runs fast but I rather them play like Amy where they run and jump but they dont take away anything from Sonic.

[FriendBot]

i liked the Sonic 2006/Sonic Adventure 2 approch. Because it felt like I was playing as different characters instead of Sonic with flying or Sonic with jackie chan ablities. Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush made me mad because its like why play as Sonic?! Play as Sonic with flying/Sonic with gliding climbing/Sonic with fire powers!

 

I dont mind the 2D where everyone runs fast but I rather them play like Amy where they run and jump but they dont take away anything from Sonic.

 

I see where you're coming from but we can't have gameplay that doesn't fit in a Sonic game, which is why some people don't like the mech shooting or treasure hunting levels in Adventure 2. I can see other characters running a bit slower than Sonic but they can have their own special abilities. For example, Blaze has a hover move instead of a Homing Attack, it's those small differences that can change the entire game and it's most likely it's going to be the same case in Boom, where the developers said that each character are equally important, so all 4 characters will have similar abilities but has enough differences that ca change the overall experience. Basically, it's more like Sonic 3 & Knuckles, I highly reccommend you should play the game to see where everyone is coming from.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I'm hoping So, ever since Colors it's been nothing but Sonic even though the plot could've suggested the characters acting to help Sonic, kinda like Tails in 06, when he goes to find information on the princess.

I think you mean, "ever since Unleashed".

And we have 06 largely to blame for that.

[Phos]

I doubt anything would help the ratings with how biased most critics are about the sonic series in general and will always find every little reason to not rate them well.

 

Still, the thing with everyone playing the same with little differences between them can work, but then you have people that will say, what is the point of them if they are all similar to Sonic himself in a way. That's more the little conundrum here. Being unique gets people all uppity that this is Sonic's game. When they play all the same and it is just little differences, you have people saying what is the point of them being in the game in the first place.

I swear critic bias is like the Sonic fandom's Godwin's Law.