Comfy shit

[Wraith]

I kind of miss the side of the series we used to see in the saturn-early dreamcast era where things felt kind of...relaxed and slice of life ish?

I was introduced to the series with stuff like the PC ports of the classic games, 3D and R, and aside from 3D and R having surprisingly chill and melancholy soundtracks, they also came with that Sonic Screensaver thing where there was a ton of artwork of the characters just chilling and living life.

I think Sonic Adventure 1 was the first game to nail this feeling though. Station Square and the other hubs felt very lived in at the time, and you got pretty familiar with them since you spent the whole game there. There are more "playful" levels like Windy Valley and Twinkle park where the stakes aren't so high to contrast with the other, more traditionally high octane ones like Sky Deck , Lost World and final Egg.


This wasn't completely lost on the modern games either, despite how well known they are for their high octane action. Hub worlds are controversial  in Unleashed because they tend to be pace breaking in nature for a fast paced action game, but I like the sense of place they add. They're kind of at odds with Unleashed's more extreme gameplay mechanics, but I think  they would have fit better in an Adventure type game where the pace of the whole thing would be a bit slower.




Replaying Unleashed made me kind of miss these little breather moments, and I want to know what your favorites are and  how you'd implement them going forward.

[Dr. Mechano]

I agree completely.

It's hard to care about the big bad epic stuff happening to the world if we never get to see the nicer, more relaxed side of the world we're protecting. I think that letting us have light, happy, relaxed moments and areas like this helps the audience to really know the world Sonic lives in and the people who inhabit it, so that when Eggman or some other villain does threaten its way of life, we care a lot more.

[Heckboy]

This type of stuff is great. I really like Sonic the Screensaver (as I've mentioned a few times in status updates) and just the whole vibe of that era. 

Sonic Shuffle also has some nice slice-of-life-ish moments shown in the credits.

The credits for Unleashed also had some photos that added to the feel of being on a world tour. Maybe that clashes a bit with the high-octane gameplay and looming threat of an elder god in the planet's core, but... I dunno, I think this is pretty comfy.

 

Occasionally we still get this kind of thing in Sonic Channel artwork, but overall it seems to have been lost somewhat in the games themselves. And I think that's a shame, since I feel Sonic is best when it does have this sort of relaxed side to it. I like seeing the characters just chilling and having lives outside of smashing robots. Yes there needs to be danger and thrill, but there ought to be some breather moments here and there to really show (as Mechanio said) what Eggman is threatening to ruin. Even if it's just little things.

[Big Panda]

What I found the most fun about those Screensaver artworks was imagining a story around each one. Like that one of Sonic at the bus stop. Where's he going? Is he going on vacation? Has he already been on vacation and waiting to go home?

[RedFox99]

47 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

I agree completely.

It's hard to care about the big bad epic stuff happening to the world if we never get to see the nicer, more relaxed side of the world we're protecting. I think that letting us have light, happy, relaxed moments and areas like this helps the audience to really know the world Sonic lives in and the people who inhabit it, so that when Eggman or some other villain does threaten its way of life, we care a lot more.

This... This guy/girl gets it.

[Diogenes]

I've got mixed feelings about this sort of thing. While I can see some value in it, I think it's a hard thing to do well, especially for Sonic, where the go-fast mentality rules and where the setting and characters have repeatedly failed to endear themselves to a lot of people. Making a bunch of hub world style content isn't worth it if most players are just going to rush past it to get to the actual game, and if you force it on players they're likely to end up resenting it.

3 hours ago, Josh said:

There are more "playful" levels like Windy Valley and Twinkle park where the stakes aren't so high to contrast with the other, more traditionally high octane ones like Sky Deck , Lost World and final Egg.

Now this kind of thing is where I think the chill, breather-type content works the best for me. Instead of feeling like a break from the game, it's just...a different side of the same idea, I guess. You still do all the same things Sonic normally does, and it works just as well as a level as any other, but you take the pressure off, maybe lower the difficulty a bit, and just let the player play around in it.

If they were going to do some kind of out-of-level content...while I've generally been against an entire Sonic game being open world, having one big, open hub, and making Sonic inherently fun to control in it, is probably the way I'd go. Make it one big playground with some interesting things to find and interact with.

[Osmium]

Meh. I'm for some calmer moments just for some occasional contrast to everything else I guess but I've never been much a fan of hub worlds in Sonic games at all. This is just me but it always felt like such a damn buzzkill to go through a cool level and then have to faff about doing some boring shit in a town or whatever before I can get back to what I want to actually be doing.