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Sonic Utopia


PickleBrows

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We got two great 3D Sonic fan games with physics and momentum in mind? Oh come on, now you're just spoiling me. 

The strengths in this game are stunning. The momentum and physics aren't tied down to computer performance and even on non gaming PCs, this runs decently. Very smooth animation and game flow were a wonder to behold. Sonic at any speed is smooth and fun to control but maybe a little bit slippery in spots depending on if you're landing on platforms that are far away. The level design is really tantalizing and open but at the same time so much of it is a flat plane with a ton of plateaus of slopes and loop de loops to balance on. Oh it's fun to control but I did expect this to have a little more going on in it which wasn't something I was having a problem with in Green Hill Paradise. I feel like there could have been more hills and elevated area and fewer pits where you had to go look for some platforms and springs to climb back up. That was a bit of a hassle. The personality is something that caught me immediately. Every Badnik has its own reactions and sound effects and the variety of things to see go on here is nothing short of dazzling for a game that isn't as demanding as a UDK game. Fun and fluid. The level itself? Serviceable and certainly fun when you really get into it. It's just a little flat in places I expect to have more to do. 

And it's interesting to get into the level design aspect of these. GHP is feeling a lot more focused now that we see this. Landmark level design is a good way to make sure your level feels good to progress through. I did have fun here and the level's best offerings were in finding the secrets much like Paradise Final Mix. However, the level is lacking in good landmarks here. It doesn't feel like there's enough to do and yet the map is huge, you know? 

But whatever. It sure is fun for all of this critique I'm putting out though. Wow, two Sonic games I love. Seriously? You're spoiling me now. You're showing Sega the way to do anything. Seriously. Good work. 

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My only beef with it is that visually, there's so much going on that it's really hard to focus on Sonic at times. But, otherwise, this is the best Sonic has ever controlled in anything 3D. Looking forward to more, if they're doing more!

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I'm having this problem where the camera is just spinning wildly for no reason. It's making playing impossible.

Pretty sure I don't have any controllers plugged into my computer either.

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Thoughty-thoughty-thoughtorinos...

 

Took some effort on my part to get my computer to run it normally, as I kept falling off loops and hills with the low framerate, but once I did.... hoo boy, this has to be the best Sonic I've controlled so far. The smoothness of the gameplay is lightyears ahead of GHP, and flying off a ramp, duck-and-curling, and landing the downhill portion of another hill to gain even more speed is pure bliss. The homing attack is much smoother than the GHP counterpart, and actually adjusts to consider your height, almost reaching that "bounce" you could pull off in the classics. One of the features of it, though, is that it only works inline with your momentum. Kinda weird. It makes sense for a more strict, Classic Sonic-physics-based level design, with a clear direction and meaning to the momentum behind it, like GHP, but I dunno about it in here. Feels like it should let you travel in any direction you want with how open it is. Regardless, it's smooth as silk, and that's all that matters.


I must admit I'm not much of a fan of it's aesthetic compared to GHP's*, (Which is ironic, considering how much I prefer SLW's art style over Generations', and yet these two are the opposite) but there are areas where the game really looks absolutely superb, especially on higher settings. For example, there's an area to the leftmost of the level that apes Palmtree Panic a small bit, and the shadows it casts and color diversity it contains are a sight to look at. I do appreciate the art design all the same, though, as small things like the grass enhancing your running with a "rushing" feeling and also pointing you in a general direction do stand out. Just wish there were more of the previous example; there's just so. Much. Greeeeeeennnnn...

*It's most likely because, while SLW's art style was simple, it was pretty messy or varied at least, while this one feels a little too simple, due to no small part of the flat and repetitive terrain and color. Generations and GHP, on the flip side, had one feeling detailed and messy for detail's sake, while GHP opted to look more natural overall.


I gotta say, though, I love the animations Sonic and the badniks have in the game. From the spinny noodle legs when running medium speed/rubber band feet when running at top speed, to the duck-and-curl Sonic does in mid air, over to the launching animation off ramps at high speeds, gives a fantastic feel to the gameplay that almost makes it feel like you're playing through Sonic CD's opening animation itself; only thing missing is the vaulting through trees and parkour. And the Badniks, while easy to breeze by and ignore, all have a lot of personality to them if you look at them more closely. Crabmeat's walk cycle of "I don't give a ****" and Motobug's "I'mreadyI'mreadyI'mreadyI'm-nope, forget this, I'm done, not that fast..." animation when you fly past out of his range are my favorite.


And the sound design is particularly good, of all things. I don't particularly notice this element of the game in many games, but it just gives the fan game so much character through it, and it really pops out. The gradual increase in pitch for running and rolling when going faster and faster really adds to the feeling of speed, the sounds the animals make when rescued is a nice reminder of what you're doing when blasting through enemies at top speed and makes the level a little less robotic, (...Pft) and adding onto the personalities of the badniks, they all have "voices" to call their own, and makes them all the more their own character.


Which brings us to the last of it all: the level design... ho boy. Personally, when I get in the groove, I like it. In fact, I love it sometimes. Zipping about, covering as much ground as I can, rolling about, and improvising routes as I go about at breakneck speeds. And I do love finding new areas that I haven't explored sometimes as well. The developers wanted to go with a level design that lets you improv routes, and I get that. And when it works, it really works...

Thing is, I don't think this is the only level design where that could have been pulled off, and in the case of this game's level design... it reeeaaally could have been better. A lot better, really. 


In terms of what they were going for, it can be done, but there are several things that are holding it back for general playthroughs. For one, the most apparent thing is that everything's so far and few between that if you fail and fall off the "higher" routes, it can take utterly forever to get yourself to the top of them again and find your groove, what with how far apart springs and routes are. And besides that, the bottom route offers no fun level design in any way. Now this does create a hierarchy of sorts, where traveling on the high routes is the most desired option, and that should be the case, as too many people just take the opportunity to run past everything to the goal in these open world games, as long as they can. Or, they'd just skip the harder parts by running over to a spring directly before the loop-the-loop. But I don't think making it to this degree is the way to go about it at all, and people fall down into it on their first dozen runthroughs waaaay too much just to leave it as is. It'd have to be balanced, sure, and maybe they didn't have enough time for it, but a good mix of more unfortunate and treacherous level design to make the high routes more appealing, and terrain variances both to address the second point below and give intuitive players a way back up to the high routes would do a world of wonders for it all. Plus, it'd add a heaping ton of direction to the level, which this game desperately needs. (at least, I think it would...)

Secondly, a lot of it has a lot to do with how flat everything is, too. Not just the "floor", but the level design overall as well. The best, mastering-not-required routes you can take in the game, are the ones where there are 5-6 downwards slopes available at least, and you can constantly use the speed and momentum to carry you over what would be the clunky and speed-killing platforming. That's a solid design standpoint for Sonic in any dimension, and it works when you nail the high routes of the game over and over. But the problem is, those routes don't exist in the game, at least not largely. If you ever even do encounter a slope going forwards on anything lower than the high routes, there's an 80% chance that they're gonna be uphill, of all things......including these weird pockets that occur in the middle of a flat space, that have no downwards slope, but do an uphill, and spikes randomly in some corner, as if they were to be a danger... all when slope variations that could have helped with the momentum do exist, and could have 1:1 replaced them, easily. But no, those are in the worst possible places you could place them: at 90 angle turning junctions!...... Yeah. It's an easy fix, tbh. Make more slight downhill slopes, hills, or at least terrain for people to capitalize on.

And in addition to that, typically, the only way to make it up to the higher, better routes, and alongside the lack of any speed and momentum that might've let you use uphill slopes for something, it's all done through platforming. And there is a lot of platforming to do in the game. Ideally, again, in a Sonic game you're supposed to have the ability to skip over platforming with terrain manipulation, speed, and momentum, or play through a more unique and physics-based platforming section, all for one reason: Platforming up blocks with Sonic the Hedgehog is dull as all getout. It can easily become clunky, but even when it's not, basic platforming really isn't worth the time of day in terms of level design, and it really interrupts the flow of things. It's a shame, then, that so much of the platforming in the game is the exact same thing, because due to the lack of much slopes/enough potential for speed to use uphills, that's all it is. And again, there's so much of it when you're a new player and constantly looking for where to go and not 100% acing the high route, and it's tedious as sin when you should be using an engine like this to it's fullest potential. Not really sure how this'd be fixed, since I'm sure fixing the other elements would either fix this as well or need to be adjusted accordingly, but at least making some variations in how we platform would go a long way imo.

And then lastly, the direction. Now, it's not like it's nonexistant, as there are plenty of high routes that give off a general outline of where to go, and the grass does subtly direct you towards a direction, but this game is really easy to get lost in on your first runthroughs, especially if you don't have much of a sense of directions. This is something that can easily be fixed in the more ambiguous platforming sections with signs or gameplay mechanics/props indicating a direction, but in the wide open areas it's literally impossible to fix until they themselves completely revamp them with their own level design, and their own direction.

It always comes back down to the lower routes and the abilities that non-ace players can have at their disposal out the gate. It's a huge issue that clashes specifically with what the game is trying to accomplish, and yet most of it could be fixed with the answers to just two questions: Where are the slopes and varying terrain??? It's really odd that they're so prominently missing for a large portion of the game, when you have a engine with physics this good, especially.


AND YET...!


Even with all these issues, this level design does have some great things to it all, and things that make me seriously want to see this finished rather than be replaced by another fangame. First off, the fact that they're trying to make a Sonic level as open and free as this is absolutely incredible, and I love the concept of it; even being able to ace the high routes now, without a care in the world, (these controls, man....) feels like an absolute dream to pull off. It's exhilarating, and yet at the same time entrancingly graceful... almost like a dream-like state of pure bliss. Sounds pretentious, but that's seriously the best description for it imo. 

And the fact that the high routes ape SLW's hills and give their own take on them, to the point where they feel like utter roller coasters... mmph. Been wanting something like that out of Sonic for years now. 

The easter eggs of different zones is a legitimately cool concept, and if they're ever expanded upon to full zones... whoo. *sweats* 

And despite all the flaws in the level design... c'mon. It's still ridiculously fun to play through because of the controls of the game alone, and that nails what a good game should be about. Dunno where it came from exactly, but it reminds me of a Nintendo-based mindset/quote somewhere along the lines of "Strip down your game to it's core essentials: single room, with basic platforms, and your core mechanics. If it plays decent, then you can still make it become greatness, but if it plays fantastically, you've already accomplished it." ... Don't quote me on that; don't have the faintest clue where I remembered it from, but I think it rings pretty true all the same. :T It's crazy that we're this close to making 3D, physics based Sonic games that are serviceable to the public, and can at the very least prove that there is some grounds for having it in 3D in the first place.

 

And as for the question of whether this invalidates GHP or not with how good it is... I don't think it does. Both have pretty different ideas with what they were trying to accomplish, as well as very different strengths. Utopia is a game that acts like a SLW stage spread out over a vast space with millions of route opportunities, while GHP is a more S3&K inspired design where you pick a route out of many that split off, or you see in the distance, and follow it to the goal, not knowing exactly where it'll take you. One is made incredibly open ended with little stopping you, but many chances to try and possibly fail, while GHP is focused on individual obstacles in the level and your abilities to overcome them. One has fantastic physics and polish, while the other has really tight level design and focus.
 

I'd love if the two teams would come together and put the best of their skills to the test on one, single project, but as is, tbh, I hope that both projects are fleshed out to the best of their extent. They're just so unique in their ideas, and also something that I personally have wanted from at least one Sonic game for so long, it'd be a crying shame if they were abandoned for something more linear. A more linear game would probably be great, all things considered, and I do think that it'll be the first thing to convince the mass majority that Classic Sonic mechanics work in 3D, but for now I just want to see these dream projects become as great as they can be before being dropped entirely.

 

22 hours ago, Carbo said:

As fun as I have with the feeling of Sonic Utopia it's starting to dawn on me how it's a bit emblematic of an issue - or rather the REAL issue - that fans and developers have yet to figure out when it comes to Sonic, and it's the kind of issue that is somewhat endemic to 3D platforming in general. It's an inherently harder genre to do which is especially true to Sonic - it's a platformer that sells itself on speed. This is kind of why the homing attack was absolutely necessary for one thing. But having said that I still think games like these miss a certain "hook" to them.

It's fun to run around in these levels, no question about it. They have a good foundation. But after that I kind of realize there's not a lot to draw me in here. Enemies are best ignored because of the wide space and there's not really a lot of challenge. The best thing Utopia (and Green Hill Paradise) proves is that it's absolutely possible to make momentum-based systems in 3D, but it doesn't really have much else in the way of suggesting where to go from there. It's a solution to only one part of the problem.

It's an issue of compromise. Even Mario, a franchise which has been putting out critically acclaimed 3D platformers as if it were nothing, took over a decade to settle on a 3D formula that was more true to it's actual roots, when up to Galaxy 2 they had to settle for something more sandbox-y. Even with that kind of approach though it was the elegance of it's design and methodical pace that allowed that kind of approach to work, and neither Utopia or Green Hill Paradise seem to have the requisite design to prove the same works for Sonic. This is kind of why I occasionally debate with myself about how even in spite of me not liking it, the boost formula is probably the closest the 3D Sonic genre has ever come to working and having something of a good hook to it since it's a series that struggles to balance speed, control and good design.

Then again the question remains whether or not the "design" part is something these projects want to answer, and I can't deny that when it comes to the two former points, they do these points well.


Why bother wondering? We've had core gameplay that the mainstream audience has always been attracted towards with Classic Sonic's more linear gameplay. Why not just plop the best of both worlds from these fangames in there and call it a day? 

Or maybe something more Adventure-esque like this...

It shouldn't be too hard. It's just that these fangames are a lot more focused on creating their own experiences they wanted out of their game, rather than use the same old formula. For Utopia it was the free-flowing freedom that something like the CD intro would give in a more open level, and for GHP, it was making a "bob-omb battlefield" for Sonic, just in Sonic's typical style. I don't think they've ever mentioned answering what a full Sonic game should play like, only how they can play like.

GHP, and to a lesser extent Utopia, do have potential for being a solid, full 3D title with their design nuances, though. They would just need to consider for the expaned scope and focus of it all, like a more clear goal for GHP, or a more narrow and easy-to-manage area for Utopia.

3 hours ago, EmmBee said:

I'm having this problem where the camera is just spinning wildly for no reason. It's making playing impossible.

Pretty sure I don't have any controllers plugged into my computer either.

 

1 hour ago, Bulbysaur said:

Currently stuck with Mouse for now, but is there any way to control camera with keyboard? Can't seem to find any way.

Try rebinding the camera controls in the "input" bar when starting up the game. Might help fix your problems on the former, but will definitely help on the latter.

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After playing it I’ll give a few more additional thoughts on it.

As some have said the size of objects and badniks are really off… Like why is everything so freakish huge? Sonic looks like a ant at times… I’m pretty sure rings are not suppose to be almost the same size as Sonic. Well I suppose some of this stuff was done to be easier to hit things in a 3D environment, but it doesn’t pull off quite right. Surely there's a better way to handle all of that if given more thought.

I don’t agree with the suggestions I’ve seen going around that Sonic Utopia should extremely pull back on the size of the whole level into Sonic Adventure-1 size playgrounds. I like and am very interesting in the idea of a open world Sonic game… to make that work my opinion is you should be able too see other zones off over into the distance and be allowed to go to which zones you want in any order by adventuring towards it without any loading screens. Plus perhaps the doors to a final zone would unlock after you free the captured animals in all the other zones first? And again the zones need to be filled with a whole lot more content and landmarks to not only to help players not get lost… but to make things more interesting obviously. Of course the game needs more direction, so the size of the zones should be scaled down from the demo a bit… but not to the point where the open world aspect is gone.

I also would say while the art style is honestly nice… however it does need more detail… even Sonic Lost World has more detail at the moment compared to this concept demo.

Overall a very nice start. With some hard work I think something very great could come out of this!

PS: With it looking like Sonic CD/OVA I would love if in the future Amy and maybe even Metal-Sonic was playable! ;3

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I've been meaning to say something about this, but everything has pretty much been said already.

This is simply one of the best 3D Sonic engines I've ever played, official or otherwise. Sonic feels so solid to control, even with the piece of shit PC controller I got from Goodwill. This definitely won SAGE for me personally. Well, and Into Darkness, but that's a totally different story.

I know people have criticized the open world, and I get that, but let's seriously appreciate all of the effort that's gone into this map. I've probably logged 3 or 4 hours into this demo, and still haven't explored the whole map. That's like 75% of the time it took me to beat Sonic Generations.

With more refinement, this is on track to being the best fan made 3D Sonic experience ever. Props to you guys.

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I find myself going back to this demo at least twice a day, as far as the engine goes, I think it's the best Sonic has ever been in 3D.

I repeat myself here, but the level design needs just a little bit more focus, but I'm ok with the open world, maybe have some linear level, some open world one, but it's a good formula.

It's so fun to just run around and roll downhills, I wish we had more wallrunning opportunities, I can't wait to see more.

What should we expect out of this game? 

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This game is extremely fun to speed run!

Here's a run that I recorded:

 

It's really, really satisfying to pull of a decent run in this game, I haven't had this much fun in a Sonic game in a long time! :) 

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There are a few glaring issues with me.

The first is Sonic's control. He plays perfectly well when going forward, but it's very unresponsive when going backwards. He awkwardly stops and steers around when he goes backwards, which might make sense from a realism point of view, but it also makes the game clunky and irritating.

I'm also not a fan of the level design, it's too wide and unfocused. I do like the actual geometery of the stage though.

It also doesn't run very well :p

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It seems we have a lot to look forward to with this game's future. I enjoyed what I played and will stay subscribed to see it's improvements and new additions. It's shaping up to be the Sonic Game I've been wanted for years.

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Well I was super excited to play this only to be completely unable to due to the camera constantly spinning around and having absolutely no way to stop it. Great. The exact same problem I had with Sonic World R7 and why I couldn't play that even though R6 worked perfectly for me.

I just saw that he plans to try and fix that, but I heard some people came across the same problem and found a way around it. Is there anyone else here who came across this same problem and found out how to get it to stop? Cause I can't play the game at all right now and that just pisses me off immensely cause this really looks like fun and I'd love to try it since my laptop can run it just fine. It's highly irritating that I can play the freaking Unleashed Project on here but can't get a couple of 3D fan games to use their cameras properly.

What is with these 3D fan games and having spinning camera bugs?

Figured out the problem on my end, so I've got it working now. This definitely really does feel great and fun to play! Although I was kinda hoping that moving around and turning while running would be a little closer to Sonic Adventure, I can get used to how it is here after playing it for awhile longer. I don't think I have too much else to contribute because everyone else pretty much said all that needed to be said, including the dev team, so I'll just throw my hat in on praising this as a great way for Sonic to control in 3D.

I do kind of wish there was a double jump and a drop ability that's like a stomp if you just tap the button and a bounce if you hold it as you hit the ground, but that's just a silly idea of mine. it'd also be cool to see some properly working water running and parkour in this. Not like Lost World's parkour, though.

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Finally was able to get this working on my computer and, wow, are we really sure this is a fan game? I mean I'm loving pretty much everything about this game right now to the point where i'm seriously hoping this becomes a full on game later down the line. I have a feeling that if they were to keep going with this engine and try making a full on game with it it could be one of, if not the best fan effort in years in terms of 3d sonic games, just imagining this with fully realized levels and new stage themes with speed and platforming on par with the best sonic games in the franchise just makes my head spin in excitement :D

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I love this game to death and enjoyed pretty much every second I played of it. However, if I had anything to nitpick at (and it really is just a small, personal nitpick), it'd be the Spin Dash. Not its power or how it handles, but in how you perform it. I know the classic method had always been "duck and jump" but I feel like it could've worked better via "duck and peel out" in this case. Like I said, though, nothing game breaking.


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2 minutes ago, Potada said:

I love this game to death and enjoyed pretty much every second I played of it. However, if I had anything to nitpick at (and it really is just a small, personal nitpick), it'd be the Spin Dash. Not its power or how it handles, but in how you perform it. I know the classic method had always been "duck and jump" but I feel like it could've worked better via "duck and peel out." Like I said, though, nothing game breaking.

That or, and I know I'll be lynched for this, but I'd personally prefer for it to get it's own button like in the 3D games for an SA1-style Spin Dash. Just so there are options. Traditions be damned, the single button Spin Dash just feels more natural in a 3D environment.

I will say that I feel the Spin Dash is a bit too weak compared to the Super Peel-Out, but there's nothing really stopping you from crouching and rolling out it that instead, is there? I'm sure one could argue the same thing against my wanting a single button Spin Dash, but I'd rather not have to do that.

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I love this game to death and enjoyed pretty much every second I played of it. However, if I had anything to nitpick at (and it really is just a small, personal nitpick), it'd be the Spin Dash. Not its power or how it handles, but in how you perform it. I know the classic method had always been "duck and jump" but I feel like it could've worked better via "duck and peel out." Like I said, though, nothing game breaking.

That or, and I know I'll be lynched for this, but I'd personally prefer for it to get it's own button like in the 3D games for an SA1-style Spin Dash. Just so there are options. Traditions be damned, the single button Spin Dash just feels more natural in a 3D environment.

I will say that I feel the Spin Dash is a bit too weak compared to the Super Peel-Out, but there's nothing really stopping you from crouching and rolling out it that instead, is there? I'm sure one could argue the same thing against my wanting a single button Spin Dash, but I'd rather not have to do that.

I'd thought about the one button Spin Dash too, actually. Making it sensitive so tapping rolls and holding charges a Spin Dash might work, but I'd be a bit worried about half pipes.

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So I took it for a spin, and found some flaws that hinder it. Many other's have shared, but I'll lay down my thoughts.

Of course the first thing would be the open world environment being huge, but another thing that really causes problems is it really lacks a direction - a sense of where to go. It being a demo mitigates this somewhat, but I feel this is very important for any Sonic game. A huge open world and what you do in it is less the problem than it is knowing where you should be going to do these things, so if this were to be a major Sonic game this should be the main area to focus on.

The environments being huge can be a bit of an annoyance when you're trying to move around, and the camera being a bit awkward doesn't help, although it should be noted that I was playing on keyboard, so most of that might be problem on my end with some of the controls - I'll try again with a controller later down the line, but it feels like I'm playing a psuedo-FPS when I'm moving the camera around. All that, and it could definitely help if they reduced the scale of the setting more. Would really appreciate if there was more content to it, because it being this simple limits what you can do, especially in an open world setting where you're allowed to just fool around. And I found the spin-dash to be rather underpowered and clunky to use myself.

The visuals I wasn't much of a fan of, but again, it's a demo, it's a fan game, I can deal with it. I'd prefer it better if it had the visuals trying to emulate more of what Generations did with Green Hill if they could manage a semblance of it, as it would make things feel more alive. The visuals here can be a strain to look at and judge the distance of things, but it's an interesting set up of GHZ overall.

The controls were definitely smooth, and they were tight enough (even on a keyboard) that I didn't have too many problems with how Sonic controlled. One thing I'd suggest is a the addition of a wall kick, because running and smacking into walls at a complete stop is way uncool for a 3D platformer these days. I'd actually suggest more slopes and curves that connect to the walls to make it easier to run along them when you hit a fast enough speed.

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Beautiful music, scenery, and controls. Toggling whether or not Sonic is curled by pressing a shoulder button is exactly what I would do were I to make a 3D fangame, so that was nice to see in there :)

It is labyrinthine in design, but as a result is filled with secret areas. Discovering these, as well as gazing across the landscape at some distant corkscrew and wondering "how do I get there?", put a huge grin on my face. I was finally playing what I had imagined in my head when discussing the perfect 3D sonic game. There are tons of slopes and winding paths, and staying on them is the challenge. It's fun to perilously navigate these at high speed, barely make it, but hit a ramp with all the speed you've managed to maintain by not falling off, and fly high into the air, fully in control of whether or not Sonic is curled up the the whole time. I was so happy to be playing this.

I am so happy that this exists. Seriously, this is like a cure for sadness - it's just so nice to run around this environment with these controls and this music and it all working so well. This is excellent stuff, and crucially, this is the type of thing that doesn't require being a Sonic fan to enjoy.

Now, to compare with GHP2. GHP2 features a truer representation of the classic physics - the direction in which Sonic is travelling is the "updated" forward, meaning it gets overridden when going down a slope, for example. I think I prefer that to the physics in utopia, as there were occasions where I wanted to drop into a half pipe, but it didn't really work as I was perpendicular to the direction of the ramp. While this makes sense for a snowboard or a set of wheels, Sonic isn't a cylinder, he's a sphere - meaning when I roll down that ramp despite facing 90 degrees to it, that ramp's direction should become the "new forward" when I roll down it.

GHP2's physics + utopia's music, level design, aesthetic, and crucially, controls = perfect 3D sonic game? :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

The developers have been explaining some stuff on the Sonic Retro forums. For example some WIP content was cut from the demo including extra content for the underwater areas among other stuff. I'm gonna quote a few things of interest from the topic.

Below is a reply to questions if the end goal post is to hard to find, some folk believe the level design is fairly directionless and easy to get lost in.

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IF YOU'RE STRONG

YOU CAN FLY
YOU CAN REACH THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RAINBOW

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The level was designed to guide the player with various major cues that I'm surprised have gone so frequently overlooked.

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A reply to questions asking if the real levels later will be just as big & playground themed as Green Hill is in the demo or not.

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Have said multiple times now the actual levels will not be nearly as sandboxy.

And a reply regarding to Sonic Utopia being called a open world game.

Quote

This is not an open world Sonic game. I have never used the words open world to describe it. Please stop calling it that (this goes to everyone). Open world suggests you can go in any direction to find a goal that can lead to any other direction etc. This has one goal, at the end, it is A to B. The level is just big. Big level =/= open world game. The real levels will also be big, but have more controlled environments and clearer directions.

 

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