expending on the classic Sonic gameplay (and a little bit of parkour)

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

I used to hate the Genesis gameplay..... I used to really hate it alot because I thought it was boring. However after looking at others ideas and also playing Sonic Adventure, I started to grow closer to the idea of it being in a 3D setting. However, how would such a idea work? 

Well In Sonic Adventure, when you first play Sonic in 3D the controls feel like Sonic runs on 2 feet and the controls do feel smooth. It is the same with the 2D games.... in games like Sonic 2 the game makes Sonic feel like a character who runs on 2 feet and his rolling is smooth, especially when rolling down hills or slopes. The problem with the rolling in the Adventure games is that it wasnt as..... smooth really as in the 2D games however spindashing and rolling does give you height sometimes. Though there are times that it doesnt really help. 

The point is.... is that when it comes to 3D play.... Sonic Adventure and maybe 2 is the closest we are gonna get to the Gensisis type gameplay that made people Sonic fans in the first place. 

Enter Sonic Generations Classic Sonic!

It was a good idea! Great concept! But I think they completly miss the point of what made classic Sonic so great and why so many loves his gameplay. He doesnt even roll down slopes and the gameplay is centered around his overpowered spindash. In fact.... everything is about the spindash which.... you shouldnt be forced to use it. When I played the older Sonic games recent, I was never forced to use the spindash. I could use my own skill to pick of speed. Also, the speeds felt really off for me and the only way you can go fast is to spindash.

Final thoughts

Well I want to see the classic gameplay expended on in 3D. But I wonder if it can be properly done? I think one way to do it is to build from the ground up. Add rolling mechanics to the 3D games and allow the player to control the character with there own skill and not have to rely on moves such as the spindash or even the homing attack. Also I do want to point of something I call "the rolling parkour".  i like the rolling parkour part in this and i wanna see this happen in a 3D sonic game.  i think this idea is more smoother then sonic lost world’s idea and a good way to expend to the genisis sonic gameplay. because when the character is running and you are rolling.... using the enviroment you can control said character and roll and stick to the sides of walls. 

it is a good way to expend and keep up the pace. 

 

[FourCartridge]

Hmmm...

I always though a good route to go was to expand on it's pinball elements. The Classic games when no one had a frame of reference to compare them, were liked to pinball platformers (and Sonic Spinball being the logical conclusion was likely how the game was conceived); Sonic often acted like a ball more than he didn't. While I think the Adventure/Unleashed games had decent ideas, apparently it is harder than it looks.

SEGA's often had momentum based gameplay in 3D, and I think Super Monkey Ball could be a good cue to take notes from.

You'll notice the game is focused around level design, much like the Classics, and the monkeys do not have much in the way of innate abilities as they instead have to rely on clever manipulation of physics. The game is difficult, however this series got it's name from giving platformers teeth again. Some hard edge is necessary to be frank.

Sure, running on two legs may not be what those games are known for, but Sonic's about making movement fun & interesting. If it has to resort to other schools of thought to do so, so be it.

[Diogenes]

I've always been a big proponent of bringing back the Genesis Sonic mechanics and elevating them into 3D. I think Sonic's way of moving, both his use of external physics and his ability to run up and along walls, are pretty unique for a platformer, and offer more room to create interesting gameplay than focusing primarily on his speed. It's got that sort of..."natural play" aspect to it. Like, even if you put him in a simple area with no clear objective, it's fun just to control him, to see how fast you can make him go, to see how high you can make him jump, to see if there's a way to reach there from here, etc. And I think that's naturally going to increase in a 3D game, since the physics are no longer just adding or subtracting to your speed, but also acting perpendicular to it, making you turn and weave and adding that extra wrinkle to the gameplay.

One thing I think that 3D Genesis-styled gameplay would really benefit from is a way to "attach" to walls in midair. In a 2D game you can only move straight up or down a wall, and since Sonic's gameplay is so physics-based, there's not much difference between running up/down a wall and jumping/falling next to a wall. But in 3D you can also run across the wall, turning your downwards speed into sideways or even upwards movement. It's something that would give you more control over your character, potentially letting you save yourself from a bad jump or pulling off a tricky move to reach a higher platform.

...I do think the homing attack is a necessary evil, though. It's significantly more difficult to hit enemies in 3D than in 2D, especially when you're moving as quickly as Sonic does. In the interest of keeping the gameplay fast and fluid, and not requiring you to slowly, carefully aim every attack you make, I think having some kind of aiming assistance is a good move for the series. But it's something that shouldn't be as "clunky" as it has been, it should feed back into the game's momentum-based physics instead of bringing you to a stop.

[Potada]

I've always been a big proponent of bringing back the Genesis Sonic mechanics and elevating them into 3D. I think Sonic's way of moving, both his use of external physics and his ability to run up and along walls, are pretty unique for a platformer, and offer more room to create interesting gameplay than focusing primarily on his speed. It's got that sort of..."natural play" aspect to it. Like, even if you put him in a simple area with no clear objective, it's fun just to control him, to see how fast you can make him go, to see how high you can make him jump, to see if there's a way to reach there from here, etc. And I think that's naturally going to increase in a 3D game, since the physics are no longer just adding or subtracting to your speed, but also acting perpendicular to it, making you turn and weave and adding that extra wrinkle to the gameplay.

For me, the word I've always thought worked for this was "flow." The way Sonic moved through the environment in the 2d classics just was almost like playing as a river trying to keep the current going along the environment. Like you said, trying to build up speed, then seeing how high or far you could go to explore or find a secret was a blast. Seeing that Super Monkey Ball gameplay, it honestly baffles me how SEGA or Sonic Team hasn't managed anything like that since the Adventure games.

One thing I think that 3D Genesis-styled gameplay would really benefit from is a way to "attach" to walls in midair. In a 2D game you can only move straight up or down a wall, and since Sonic's gameplay is so physics-based, there's not much difference between running up/down a wall and jumping/falling next to a wall. But in 3D you can also run across the wall, turning your downwards speed into sideways or even upwards movement. It's something that would give you more control over your character, potentially letting you save yourself from a bad jump or pulling off a tricky move to reach a higher platform.

I don't know if it's so much the wall itself as it is the way the wall connects to the ground when it comes to the 2d games. Even if you jumped straight at a straight wall, it wouldn't do any good for your momentum if there was no slope at the bottom. But, that's stating the obvious, I guess. I get what you mean, though. The only problem is that there wasn't any real way to attach to walls in 2d save for Knuckles and his amazing wall-crawling friends. Then, again, I guess it would also depend on the control scheme for said 3d Genesis-styled game.

 

...I do think the homing attack is a necessary evil, though. It's significantly more difficult to hit enemies in 3D than in 2D, especially when you're moving as quickly as Sonic does. In the interest of keeping the gameplay fast and fluid, and not requiring you to slowly, carefully aim every attack you make, I think having some kind of aiming assistance is a good move for the series. But it's something that shouldn't be as "clunky" as it has been, it should feed back into the game's momentum-based physics instead of bringing you to a stop.

Agreed. I think, personally, a mix between the Adventure-era and Generation balloon popping Homing Attack could work. It might cheapen the momentum-based gameplay a bit, but it would still rely on said momentum, I guess.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

Hm, how about instead of the homing attack, it can be replaced with the enimy dash from Sonic Adventure 2? That way it doesnt stop your pace and you still kind ahave a homing attack.

[Bowbowis]

I feel that the best way to improve the homing attack would be to simply have it bounce you differently depending on the players input. For example if you simply tapped the button Sonic would bounce off the enemy as though he'd jumped on them normally, preserving momentum. Whereas if you were holding the button when you made contact with the enemy Sonic would bounce straight up like he has when using the homing attack in past games, killing momentum but affording you a little extra time to make your next move. Something like that would be simple to implement and I think it would be reasonably intuitive as well.