where will sonic team go from here

[ClassicKnuckles]

2 minutes ago, Santamus Prime said:

Sonic Team will continue to make Modern games, that's not going to change. Though I expect the quality to still vary with each game.

 

I hope so, but Sonic is in need of a gameplay reboot/gameplay change, but I don't think that'll happen, especially since they just built the Hedgehog Engine 2. It's kind of odd, because most people panned Lost World for being too different and not being a boost game, but the also panned Forces for being a boost game and not different enough. I feel like we need another game using the same gameplay from Lost World.

[Irish David]

I didn't enjoy Lost World or Forces because of those gameplay issues. They need to examine and sort out the physics and controls so they are consistent. The game needs to be fun to pick up and play (which they have proven they can do in the past) but I think boast and narrow corridors is done. Allow the player a bit more space to explore.

What intrigues me the most is apart from budget, direction etc., do the developers at Sonic Team just turn up to do their job? To an extent,.they don't have to invest/be passionate about Sonic, just code and test what they have done. On the flipside, the Mania team had a lot of creative ideas and had a huge amount of passion for Sonic.

[PickleBrows]

If, for some reason,  it were me in a room with Sonic Team and my job was to convey to them what their biggest problem is I'd ask them the one question I know they're not going to be able to answer:

What is the foundation of 3D Sonic?

Now, I'm sure I'd get a few hands and they'd all be able to give me factors like "high-speed", "spectacle" etc but none of them would be able to actually tell me in a paragraph or so what what core philosphy of Sonic in 3D entails. They couldn't tell me because the answer doesn't exist thanks to the inconsistency of almost two decades of game design.

I've said this multiple times before, but they need to have a bit of a Mario 64 process and not do anything until they've got a Sonic that's fun to control. Put him in a test level that's nothing but a flat plane and keep tinkering until he's fun to control on flat terrain. Add some jumping blocks to the level and tinker until he's fun to control in the air. Add some target objects in and tinker until you're able to efficiently hit those objects with it feeling neither totally luck-based, or that you didn't really do much of the work in hitting it.

Once you've got Sonic fun to HANDLE, then you can start to give him something fun to DO by constructing levels that take advantage of his strengths and weaknesses as a character in a 3D space. At all times consider; why is this game 3D? You have three axis of movement to work with, if you've got Sonic cut-off from 90% of his environment have you really made much use of the freedom you've been given? Take out all of the environment that you can't interact with and leave only the core level design floating in a void world and see if it's still engaging to run through.

[Gabz Girl]

10 hours ago, ClassicKnuckles said:

I hope so, but Sonic is in need of a gameplay reboot/gameplay change, but I don't think that'll happen, especially since they just built the Hedgehog Engine 2. It's kind of odd, because most people panned Lost World for being too different and not being a boost game, but the also panned Forces for being a boost game and not different enough. I feel like we need another game using the same gameplay from Lost World.

No, the real reason why people (including myself) panned the return of Boost in Forces is because it’s NOT an improvement over Sonic Generations in any way, shape or form! It controls worse, it plays worse and the level design is not always suited to the Boost sections (see Sonic’s Metropolis stage). The jumps are floaty and hard to control, Sonic and Avatar randomly accelerate at points killing you over bottomless pits, something that never happened to me in Generations! 

Of course the other reason could be fatigue, because you can only do so much with the Boost gameplay before it gets boring after a while. But honestly, my real complaint is not so much that I’m tired of Boost but that the inclusion of it and also Classic Sonic’s gameplay has done Sonic Forces no favours. Funnily enough, Avatar’s gameplay has the most potential so go Avatar!  

[ClassicKnuckles]

1 hour ago, Gabz Girl said:

No, the real reason why people (including myself) panned the return of Boost in Forces is because it’s NOT an improvement over Sonic Generations in any way, shape or form! It controls worse, it plays worse and the level design is not always suited to the Boost sections (see Sonic’s Metropolis stage). The jumps are floaty and hard to control, Sonic and Avatar randomly accelerate at points killing you over bottomless pits, something that never happened to me in Generations! 

Of course the other reason could be fatigue, because you can only do so much with the Boost gameplay before it gets boring after a while. But honestly, my real complaint is not so much that I’m tired of Boost but that the inclusion of it and also Classic Sonic’s gameplay has done Sonic Forces no favours. Funnily enough, Avatar’s gameplay has the most potential so go Avatar!  

I guess that makes sense, especially since there really was no improvements except for some abilities from Colors like the Double Jump. (Though I didn't really enjoy Colors, so I don't really like the Double Jump, especially since I'm used to the Air Dash.

[Slashy]

On 12/20/2017 at 3:26 AM, JoyToTheWorld said:

If, for some reason,  it were me in a room with Sonic Team and my job was to convey to them what their biggest problem is I'd ask them the one question I know they're not going to be able to answer:

What is the foundation of 3D Sonic?

Now, I'm sure I'd get a few hands and they'd all be able to give me factors like "high-speed", "spectacle" etc but none of them would be able to actually tell me in a paragraph or so what what core philosphy of Sonic in 3D entails. They couldn't tell me because the answer doesn't exist thanks to the inconsistency of almost two decades of game design.

I've said this multiple times before, but they need to have a bit of a Mario 64 process and not do anything until they've got a Sonic that's fun to control. Put him in a test level that's nothing but a flat plane and keep tinkering until he's fun to control on flat terrain. Add some jumping blocks to the level and tinker until he's fun to control in the air. Add some target objects in and tinker until you're able to efficiently hit those objects with it feeling neither totally luck-based, or that you didn't really do much of the work in hitting it.

Once you've got Sonic fun to HANDLE, then you can start to give him something fun to DO by constructing levels that take advantage of his strengths and weaknesses as a character in a 3D space. At all times consider; why is this game 3D? You have three axis of movement to work with, if you've got Sonic cut-off from 90% of his environment have you really made much use of the freedom you've been given? Take out all of the environment that you can't interact with and leave only the core level design floating in a void world and see if it's still engaging to run through.

They did that with Sonic Adventure, heck the Sonic World section of Sonic Jam was probably one of their testing grounds.

[ClassicKnuckles]

Sega needs the empty spaces of Colors (the only thing that comes close to being good in Colors), with the enemy placement of Forces, and the actual power of the enemies from Unleashed, alongside the gameplay innovation of Lost World.

[molul]

The enemy placement in forces? As in "not menacing at all"?

[GuyWithThePie]

Well... All the talent behind Unleashed and Generations left to work for Nintendo, they only have around three level designers left, their budget gets smaller and smaller with each new game, and they can't really make another boost game after Forces ruined the formula's reputation...

So, uhhh... Things aren't looking so good, to say the least.

[Multikaris]

22 hours ago, molul said:

The enemy placement in forces? As in "not menacing at all"?

But there sure were a large number! And the “not menacing” comes from their weak patterns.

[EzSonic01]

I would like for Sonic Team to realize what they have done wrong (a lot), and get back to their testing grounds with 3D. 2D Sonic is a strong foundation for the series, and these games have generally been well received by the general public, critics, gamers, and fans alike. Sonic Team should take a look at games such as Mario 3D Land or 3D World, which stick to the original 2D Mario formula, only in 3D. Instead of working on new gameplay formulas, why don't try to make everything that makes 2D Sonic great in 3D? 2D Sonic doesn't run like crazy, so why not trying to slow down 3D Sonic a bit too? Make him control similar to the 2D games (not too stiff either), don't put automation everywhere, make the badnik enemies more challenging to defeat again, re-introduce items and power-ups (not Wisps) to use during the stages such as regular shields and invincibility, be creative with the levels (Also don't make them dull/colorless like Forces, make them colorful and vibrant) and don't add too many gimmicks either, keep story to a minimum, don't make it too complex (e.g. Eggman wants to take over the world using the Chaos Emeralds and capturing the innocent animals friends to power his robots, Sonic and co. have to stop him), don't waste too many resources on stuff such as graphics.

Once all of this is done, add more playable characters such as Tails and Knuckles, and make them play similar to Sonic, not short races or treasure hunting. Limit their abilities so they can't fly/glide/climb through the whole stage (e.g. Tails getting tired if he flies for too long, Knuckles slowly descending while he is gliding and not allowing him to climb every wall), with these being mostly used to access areas with bonuses, like in the 2D entries.

They could also very well learn from fangames such as Sonic Robo Blast 2 that actually stick to the original formula, and don't make Tails and Knuckles play too different either, but I don't see any of this happening sadly.

They will most likely continue developing Boost games, adding OCs, and in general continuing being inconsistent and mediocre.

[GuyWithThePie]

I think what we need is some kind of compromise. With the poor reception of Forces, many fans have been asking Sonic Team to go back to the Adventure formula. But here's the thing.

Since the jump to 3D, Sonic games have always relied on secondary playstyles (Treasure hunting, mechs, Werehog, Classic Sonic, Avatar) or gimmicks (Teams, Wisps, parkour) to prevent the games from being too short. Why not have the best of both worlds?

While I do understand the want to go back to Adventure, I don't think Boost should be entirely abandoned. Unleashed and Generations show that Boost has real potential when handled well. My vision (In terms of gameplay) would be this. There would be two playstyles; Boost (More like Unleashed/Generations and less like Colors/Forces) and something similar to Sonic's stages in Adventure. That way, both parties are satisfied.

However, I know this sort of thing would be near impossible today. All the level designers behind Unleashed and Generations are gone, the level designers behind the Adventure games are long gone, and considering Sonic Team's current state, it seems like those three guys who did Forces are the only ones they have left.

So I guess this will be nothing more than a mere pipe dream for now.

[Blacklightning]

3 hours ago, GuyWithThePie said:

There would be two playstyles; Boost (More like Unleashed/Generations and less like Colors/Forces) and something similar to Sonic's stages in Adventure. That way, both parties are satisfied.

That's exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess, though. The concept of genre roulette in Sonic games was born for want of drawing in fans of wildly different tastes, but here's the thing - even in a best case scenario, that ultimately still results in only a portion of a game they actually want to play, because your own wording implies they'll only be one of two "parties". This isn't a compromise by any intepretation of the word, this is just tactlessly shovelling mechanics together in such a way that they don't interact with each other in any meaningful capacity. Better to have a single gameplay style and be consistent all the way through, than to rely on two or three at a time and have to pray that a single person will dig all of them and not have to bicker incessently over which one is objectively better.

A compromise isn't throwing in several playstyles verbatim, it's finding an appropriate middle ground between them. Like nerfing the boost to accomodate tighter Adventure level design, or improving the physics so that people still have incentive to roll/spindash downhill instead of that, and so on and so forth.

[superman43]

I was thinking today. 

This was said by many people... that in Generations, Classic Sonic is basically Sonic from the past, whilst Forces treats him as another dimension.

Let´s just say that Generations definition was and still is correct.

What if there was a game with Sonic, Tails and Eggman again, similar to Colors somehow. The developer (not necessarily Sonic Team) can figure some new Eggman either allies or something similar to how Hard-Boiled Heavies were made. 

The point is, what if Eggman somehow swapped the age of Sonic and Tails (yes, it sounds fanfic, but wait). That way Classic Sonic model can be used for a new adventure or a new one (revised) could be made. The presence will be fully legitimate, Tails could well be playable and maybe serve far better role than in Forces. Then you may apply stages with both characters, with presence of, but not needed to use, combos from S4E2. There could be for the first time in main games Classic Sonic in 3D related to actual gameplay. And in the second half of the story or near the end, there could be 2 stages where Boost gameplay will reappear.

 

Because... why not ?

[Milo]

13 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

A compromise isn't throwing in several playstyles verbatim, it's finding an appropriate middle ground between them. Like nerfing the boost to accomodate tighter Adventure level design, or improving the physics so that people still have incentive to roll/spindash downhill instead of that, and so on and so forth.

Gameplay compromises between two playstyles can only work if the two playstyles are largely contemporaneous with each other; which is something I don't really think can really be done with the Boost and non-Boost playstyles. I do think that in terms of gameplay focus (high focus on speed) and level design (linear automated stages spread throughout the entire game), I'd say the gameplay in Adventure 2 through 2006/Lost World establish a precursor to what Unleashed and its sequels took to their logical extreme; but at the same time I feel Unleashed's controls, mechanics, and gameplay pacing/flow virtually redefine what came before it. Boost gameplay as I see it takes a significant effort to drastically push platforming far down the design priority list so players can (easily) constantly maintain top speed with the boost.

I think for the most part, you won't so much find a middle ground than you will get one of the two playstyles retooled to adapt specific elements from the other playstyle into its design (which I think your suggestions are closer to being), or you'll make a playstyle that takes general elements from the two but adapts them into something largely different.

Not that I agree that games should have  both playstyles crammed into one game, though. I'll just fall back to what I've been vouching for a while now--spinoff the Boost gameplay into its own series that's separate from the 3D platforming games.

[Salamander]

56 minutes ago, superman43 said:

I was thinking today. 

This was said by many people... that in Generations, Classic Sonic is basically Sonic from the past, whilst Forces treats him as another dimension.

Let´s just say that Generations definition was and still is correct.

What if there was a game with Sonic, Tails and Eggman again, similar to Colors somehow. The developer (not necessarily Sonic Team) can figure some new Eggman either allies or something similar to how Hard-Boiled Heavies were made. 

The point is, what if Eggman somehow swapped the age of Sonic and Tails (yes, it sounds fanfic, but wait). That way Classic Sonic model can be used for a new adventure or a new one (revised) could be made. The presence will be fully legitimate, Tails could well be playable and maybe serve far better role than in Forces. Then you may apply stages with both characters, with presence of, but not needed to use, combos from S4E2. There could be for the first time in main games Classic Sonic in 3D related to actual gameplay. And in the second half of the story or near the end, there could be 2 stages where Boost gameplay will reappear.

 

Because... why not ?

Considering the existence of Lost World, it's clear that Modern Sonic isn't defined by the Boost; if the developers want to change his gameplay completely, they can do so and it doesn't stop him from being Modern Sonic.  So you could just... make a game which plays like Classic Sonic, but stars Modern Sonic.  They could even just make a game which plays like Classic and uses Classic Sonic, too; Sonic Mania got away with it.  Classic and Modern just describe the character's appearance, really.

[superman43]

6 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Considering the existence of Lost World, it's clear that Modern Sonic isn't defined by the Boost; if the developers want to change his gameplay completely, they can do so and it doesn't stop him from being Modern Sonic.  So you could just... make a game which plays like Classic Sonic, but stars Modern Sonic.  They could even just make a game which plays like Classic and uses Classic Sonic, too; Sonic Mania got away with it.  Classic and Modern just describe the character's appearance, really.

No, by that I actually mean that they need some fresh idea. And well... they made kind of fanfic story with Forces, so why not try something that at least doesn´t go very far from the core. Doesn´t have useless friends and so on. I think that is one of the very few points where Colors starred. Sonic Colors had some fresh idea, whilst it cut off Sonic´s friends (with Tails only being with him) for good, I believe. 

Isn´t it true ? Many were complaining that the other characters were useless as well as the reappearances of Chaos and Shadow as illusions were useless.

Although I still believe that any good plot that could come up might still be f***ed up by Sonic Team or what is left of it. I think we are in a bit different wave then after Sonic 06. Yes, many people left the Sonic Team before its completion (same as Forces), but still there were some left that made up Unleashed, Colors or Generations (where no one of themis brilliant, but they are better than average/mediocre). I just feel that there are far less people in Sonic Team that could figure out any fresh story and a good use of ANY mechanics for a new game than just after 06.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Tiiiiiiiiiiiiny part of me Sonic died now (or at least went on hiatus). Year 2017 killed Archie, ended Sonic Boom (possibly), let Eggman take over the world, canonized OCs and made the perfect sequel to classic games (well, 9/10 sequel). Sounds like a finished bucket list to me.

Obviously I still want Sonic to go and I'm sure there is plenty to do with the franchise. I'm just saying we'll probably never have years as 'conclusive' as 2017.

[Slashy]

16 hours ago, Blacklightning said:

That's exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess, though. The concept of genre roulette in Sonic games was born for want of drawing in fans of wildly different tastes, but here's the thing - even in a best case scenario, that ultimately still results in only a portion of a game they actually want to play, because your own wording implies they'll only be one of two "parties". This isn't a compromise by any intepretation of the word, this is just tactlessly shovelling mechanics together in such a way that they don't interact with each other in any meaningful capacity. Better to have a single gameplay style and be consistent all the way through, than to rely on two or three at a time and have to pray that a single person will dig all of them and not have to bicker incessently over which one is objectively better.

A compromise isn't throwing in several playstyles verbatim, it's finding an appropriate middle ground between them. Like nerfing the boost to accomodate tighter Adventure level design, or improving the physics so that people still have incentive to roll/spindash downhill instead of that, and so on and so forth.

I think there is merit to making alternate playstyles, but I think that it doesn't work well in a game series that has been tied heavily to linear progression. 3D Sonic games are often too rigid in their level design to allow multiple ways to reach the goal, something that the sandbox Mario games benefitted heavily from avoiding. The most ideal experience would be to make a game where you never need to touch any other gameplay style to reach the end and have a satisfying experience. Even if the full experience requires touching other gameplay styles, by that point the player already got the experience he or she was looking for and will be more willing to hussle through content he or she doesn't find as enjoyable.

 

[EzSonic01]

It would also be nice if Sonic Team took a look at Sonic Heroes. The game is pretty nice on its own and Team-based gameplay is not bad either. Maybe they could bring that back, refined, improved, and less-repetitive. Use just Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles first, then add the rest of the groups that debuted in that game. With this, they could use several characters at once and make the story simpler, not deviating from the original formula that much. I'm not saying every game should be like this though.

With Sonic Mania being the success it was, I hope Sega don't alienate Christian Whitehead and co. But there's also the possibility they interpret this the wrong way and end up telling Sonic Team to go back working in 2D titles with Dimps again.

[BlueFlare]

1 hour ago, FairPlay said:

With Sonic Mania being the success it was, I hope Sega don't alienate Christian Whitehead and co. But there's also the possibility they interpret this the wrong way and end up telling Sonic Team to go back working in 2D titles with Dimps again.

Well, all is possible but I personally don't give a poop about Dimps. I really hope they give CW and co. chance to work on another Sonic game. I would like it to take place in a whole new dimension and dump Eggman for once. 

[Tarnish]

3 hours ago, FairPlay said:

end up telling Sonic Team to go back working in 2D titles with Dimps again

WHAT?! You mean you don't like Dimps' awesome Sonic game design? How else are we gonna get improved masterpieces like this then?

 

[A sonic fan]

All i want from sega is to split sonic into 2 a classic series by the mania team and modern adventure inspired series by sonic team or someone else.

[Multikaris]

10 hours ago, Tarnish said:

WHAT?! You mean you don't like Dimps' awesome Sonic game design? How else are we gonna get improved masterpieces like this then?

 

Dimps’s games did have cool new mechanics and took their stories and worlds seriously, which is a plus.

[Tarnish]

3 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Dimps’s games did have cool new mechanics and took their stories and worlds seriously, which is a plus.

Which mechanics would those be?