What do you think has worked & not worked in Sonic games?

[Eileanach]

I don't like the vehicle additions in the games either. The same with in Sonic Adventure (or 2 I forget) when you ran around in vehicles for the Robotnik and Tails levels.. yawn! I would have enjoyed it more just running around as Tails or Robotnik minus the vehicles.

[Gabz Girl]

The 3D switching to 2D worked really well in Unleashed, so I hope to see that again sometime.

The bad? Instead of introducing a giant RAWR monster of the week, Why not have Eggman for once? It almost happened in Unleashed but...argh!

And yes, vehicles for Shadow were awful. They controlled like shit. You can run Shadow, why do you need a car or a bike which is coincidentally built for midgets and just lying there in the road? >.<

[Eileanach]

It's like they enjoy teasing us with potential Robotnik goodness then go no RAWR giant monster isn't it Gabz? I guess they are just trying to point out that Robotnik isn't the ONLY bad guy... but, really why bother he is one of the better bag guys in a game series.

[Toby]

They didn't really tease us. One of the very first images we saw of Sonic Unleashed was the giant monster. =p

Edited March 9, 2009 by Toby Barrett

[123654]

I think the hubs definitely work. Given the way the stages in Unleashed are, simply having all of those, back-to-back, would just make for a shallow experience to me. The hubs give you a good chance to take a breather and do some slower platforming. Of course, hub-like areas could easily be put into levels and that would negate this problem.

As much as I loved the Werehog as a one-shot feature, it definitely doesn't work and shouldn't be in future games. It's not that the gameplay itself was bad; the Werehog's gameplay was actually very good. It's just that it polarizes the experience by being the exact opposite of Sonic's gameplay. The same could be said about the mech levels in Sonic Adventure 2.

I think 2K6 was onto something by separating Sonic's gameplay into Sonic Adventure-style sections and track-and-field sections. But the execution was terrible because the speed sections were very suckish and poorly designed. So the next Sonic game needs to do the same thing, but the speed sections could be more like the gameplay in Unleashed. This would make it so that the next game can have everything that was good in Unleashed while still maintaining the Adventure gameplay. It could be a perfect design in my opinion.

The boost works, but it needs to be implemented differently. More like in Riders, where you have to conserve your boost gauge. In Unleashed you could just spam it at your leisure. It would also be nice to change the boost into something more like the Chaos Control move in Shadow's game, so the normal gameplay can focus more on building speed with physics and the boost can be a temporary powerup. Then again, if the next game has Adventure-style stages and Unleashed-style stages, the boost could be limited to the Unleashed-style stages and the Adventure-style stages can be the ones to focus on building speed with physics.

[CreamyBagel]

Worked:

I thought the Chao gardens worked really well. Whenever I finished SA1/SA2 I would spend the majority of my time in the Chao garden's caring for my little pets. It was so much fun watching them evolve and opening up the various different gardens.

I also find the storylines in Sonic games work well when they're done properly. Sonic 06 had one of the best storylines I'd seen in a while, without a storyline you're just speeding through levels for no apparent reason.

Didn't Work:

As others have stated the constant addition of new characters is becoming a problem for me. Blaze and Silver are the exception as they were pretty cool but I would much prefer a Sonic universe without Omega.

The addition of more hedgehogs. It's like Sega keep inserting a new hedgehog every game just to rival Sonic. Shadow worked because he was the exact opposite of Sonic and appeared to be evil but Silver, though I like him, doesn't really stand as competition and was probably introduced to market the game.

[Nix]

-Things that worked: Grinding, Pinball Physics, Homing attack, music.

-Things that haven't worked: 80% of the gimmicks they tossed at us, boost pads (God I hate them)

I think the boost pads are cheap way to get Sonic to top speed, when a game like his should revolve around its physics, plus in Sonic Unleashed they made you go slower so......

-Things that haven't worked, but has the ability to work (In my opinion at least):

Boosting: I never really found the appeal for why Sonic should go so fast, much like the boost pads, it is a cheap way to get Sonic to his maximum speed, and most of time you whore the boost to the end. The boost should be implanted so it can't be used so much, making it harder to fill the boost gauge, and making it last shorter. It would take an amount of skill to find the right path for the boost to fill up quicker, and the right places to use it, possibly making the game a little more creative for speed runs.

Hub Worlds: This never really worked out for me, its not because of their existence, they are by no means frustrating, I just found that there was a lack of stuff to do. I want to do more than just run around talking to people, I want to run up buildings and stuff like that. Soleanna was nice in size, but lacking in content, Sonic Unleashed was small in size, half of it for talking to people, and the other half for just running around, and finding secrets. I want something of a combination between those two.

That's my two cents anyways

[Badnik Zero]

Good points about the boost.

I've had a lot of fun with the mechanic in Rush and Unleashed, but it's so powerful it dominates the game. One solution I came up with is having it be a power up, like the original Speed Shoes, except they could work in bursts like mushrooms from Mario Kart and you save them until you need them. I really like the boost, but it overshadows some other aspects of Sonic gameplay.

Edited March 9, 2009 by Badnikz

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

One thing I think works: homing attack. The boost works but like others have said, it is overpowered. I think making it available after you collect 100 or 200 or so  rings would work. Make the long pathway part of the levels hard to get to or something, you have to platform and skillfully keep your rings and then you will be rewarded to turn loose on the boost. 

Hub worlds work but I think they should be like short little rest areas in between an end and the beginning of an act where you can play mingames or puzzles. Makes it feel like you're on a long journey.

[Scritch the Cat]

At this point, that question is hard to answer, because upon replaying the original games my finding is that the practice of padding things out did not begin with Big the Cat.  Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone have also been discussed a lot as betrayals of the Sonic ideal.  Thing is, I'm starting to think the "Sonic ideal" is a long, hard thing to achieve given how faster characters necessitate bigger levels, and even if they're not the Sonic ideal, there are some people who like those things.

However, I'd say if they have to have those sorts of things in Sonic games, a good rule of thumb would be "don't make them the most difficult parts".  This is a good design philosophy in general, and it's not only Sonic games that have goofed in that regard.  If you must throw a stealth mission into a game that is otherwise a bunch of guns-blazing action, and it's mandatory to complete that mission, you shouldn't make that mission as tough as you'd make a stealth mission in a stealth-focused game.  If your game is based on running, you shouldn't interrupt that flow with a non-running level that's the hardest in the game.  If your game normally gives the player infinity lives, there shouldn't be a mandatory mission to complete with just one before you go back to bits with infinity lives.

For the record, the most abysmal point of the Adventure series wasn't Big the Cat for me, it was Security Hall.  Rouge is overall a more fun character to play than Big, but at least Big's story was easy and (even though he moves slowly) relatively quick to end for me.  Security Hall was needlessly, cheaply, artificially and randomly difficult, and in a style of gameplay that has never been Sonic's selling point.  No more of that shit.