Are multiple playable characters still seen as an issue/

[Diogenes]

13 minutes ago, A person, that exists said:

I mean, what even IS a Sonic playable character?

It's a character, who has more emphasis on horizontal movement, and who goes fast. Knuckles has more emphasis on verticality (Heck, Chaotix was mainly a vertical platformer) and has abilities that slow him down. 

There's no special emphasis on horizontal movement in playing like a Sonic character. If anything even the most ground-bound Sonic characters have more vertical movement than a lot of other platforming characters because of the ability to run up walls, not to mention all the springs and other gimmicks to launch you upward and the multi-tiered level design.

And Knuckles still goes fast. Just because not all of his moves directly contribute to going fast doesn't mean he doesn't still go fast the majority of the time if you have even the slightest clue what you're doing.

Anyway, unrelated to that, I just had a thought: how does the "the problem isn't multiple characters, it's alternate gameplay" argument mesh with the complaints against Classic Sonic in Forces? Obviously the gameplay is still a major problem, but if it was just that I'd expect to see people arguing that they just need to make his gameplay good and not "never do this again".

[A person, that exists]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

 it was just that I'd expect to see people arguing that they just need to make his gameplay good and not "never do this again".

Really, most people who dislike Classic in Forces dislike his gameplay. I mean, he had big shoes to fill after Mania, and Forces just didn't deliver.

Plus, Classic has appeared way too much in modern games recently. It's kinda like what happened with Shadow in the 2000-s.

[Wraith]

10 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Anyway, unrelated to that, I just had a thought: how does the "the problem isn't multiple characters, it's alternate gameplay" argument mesh with the complaints against Classic Sonic in Forces? Obviously the gameplay is still a major problem, but if it was just that I'd expect to see people arguing that they just need to make his gameplay good and not "never do this again".

I mean, asking for more characters besides sonic because you like those characters and getting another sonic is inherently kind of a fuck you, you know. 

There's some more aggression toward it because of that, so it's not gonna be treated the same. I legit think people would be easier on it if it was someone else. 

[Blacklightning]

6 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Anyway, unrelated to that, I just had a thought: how does the "the problem isn't multiple characters, it's alternate gameplay" argument mesh with the complaints against Classic Sonic in Forces? Obviously the gameplay is still a major problem, but if it was just that I'd expect to see people arguing that they just need to make his gameplay good and not "never do this again".

I'm of the opinion that elements of modern and classic ought to be merged into one gameplay style anyway, but even entertaining the notion that they're separate there's nothing actually wrong with it on a strictly conceptual and mechanical level. They have different tools and different ways of interacting with the environment, but both still hold the same general purpose - get from point A to B in a smooth and speedy manner - so it's kind of hard to consider them "alternate" gameplay in any sense bar the fact that Classic doesn't have 3D sections. In regards to Forces specifically the faults lie elsewhere, namely that Modern is astonishingly shitly balanced and Classic is so poorly programmed that it only barely functions. And the fact that it's literally just a second Sonic, like Josh says, doesn't help.

[GentlemanX]

Largely the problem with Classic Sonic in Forces, at least on a conceptual level, stemmed from it essentially eclipsing Modern Sonic's gameplay like in Generations. People accepted that because of the 20th anniversary and the game's conceit as well as it's improvement over what was seen as a failure in Sonic 4.

If not for Mania, I think it's likely reception for Classic in Forces would have been seen more positively. You'd still have folks upset that Classic was taking up Sonic's screen time, but there would be people going "I'm glad to see Classic's gameplay hasn't been abandoned though." Mania does what Forces did but did it better, and not while taking screen time from his modern counterpart.

Take Shadow in Forces for instance. His being largely a skin for Modern was seen as a negative by some, but in general his inclusion in Forces was received much more positively than Classic. Reasons for this could be due to how long there had been since he was playable, the fact he had his own DLC story content, the fact he was entirely optional, the fact he played largely identical to boost Sonic, etc. It reinforces the argument fans want other characters to resemble the core game's gameplay while offering an optional alternative for further game time should they be inclined.

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Josh said:

I mean, asking for more characters besides sonic because you like those characters and getting another sonic is inherently kind of a fuck you, you know. 

There's some more aggression toward it because of that, so it's not gonna be treated the same. I legit think people would be easier on it if it was someone else. 

And I can understand the reasoning behind that. The point I'm trying to make is, there are valid reasons to dislike his inclusion as a character and not just because of his gameplay. So the "Sonic's shitty friends" complaint can't simply be reduced to complaints about gameplay styles; to some people this particular friend is shitty, in so far as they feel he shouldn't have been in the game regardless of his gameplay.

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

And I can understand the reasoning behind that. The point I'm trying to make is, there are valid reasons to dislike his inclusion as a character and not just because of his gameplay. So the "Sonic's shitty friends" complaint can't simply be reduced to complaints about gameplay styles; to some people this particular friend is shitty, in so far as they feel he shouldn't have been in the game regardless of his gameplay.

That's fair, but there are ways to fix that that don't involve snatching the whole idea of playing as someone else out of the series. There's also the fact that no matter who you pick there's going to be people who don't like them, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
 

[Salamander]

Are multiple playable characters a problem?  It depends on your metric for "playable".  The original complaints, as a I understood it, were largely based on the degree of differentiation.  Playing as different characters became increasingly like playing a completely different game, rather than the same game with a few quirks.  The more additional playable characters you added, the more different games you were playing, diluting the overall development and gameplay time which could be assigned to each of them.  It was a situation where you were likely to develop most favoured and least favoured character gameplay styles, but would be enabled to play with your most favoured characters less whilst being forced to play with your least favoured characters more.  This isn't just a big-M Modern problem; the Advance games also risk falling into this trap, since you are sometimes compelled to play as all characters in order to experience the true final boss, and since all characters have a bevy of advanced and technical moves which are quite redundant and happily easy to ignore.  But on a narrative level, overuse of mandatory alternative characters also diminishes the role of the main protagonist; even around the time of its release, I remember seeing criticism of Sonic Adventure 2 to the effect that you barely ever got to play as Sonic, the title character, who likewise in Sonic '06 is largely irrelevant to the narrative.

The narrative and gameplay implications are partly separate, and partly intertwined.  As outlined above, Sonic Team and Sega didn't and indeed still don't seem to have understood that having the character you're playing as be technically "Sonic" is an irrelevance if he has multiple completely different gameplay styles; and narratively, even if both gameplay styles are appreciated by fans, they may not recognise the legitimacy of one or the other "Sonic"s you're given to play as.  Why are there two gameplay styles, why are there two characters?  Sonic Team doesn't appear to understand this question.

The classics took a relatively safe approach with other playable characters; because they had far more similarities than differences, it was easy and comfortable to transition between them - and the overall light narrative made the choice of character often more or less a matter of "just for fun."  Sonic Adventure tried to give each character's playstyle and narrative more definition and weight while adding a narrative reward for playing through all of them, but unfortunately that reduced the comfort level and made playing as each character mandatory.  That eventually led to the problems outlined above, which at their worst reduced in the stripping-back of the series after '06 to solo-Sonic.  It's not entirely clear what the solution is.  One suggestion I would make would be to lighten the story load and have each character's playthrough be optional again, but have them be narratively canonical and offering different perspectives on the same overall story.  Alternatively, different character narratives could be mutually exclusive but could employ dialogue and storytelling to have each narrative and encounter play out slightly differently.  Gameplay-wise, alternative character gameplay should go back to the approach of having more similarities than differences, characters playing overall the same but each with their own unique power.  Or perhaps we could find a way of integrating other characters into a unitary Sonic gameplay; a number of individuals have suggested that Sonic could "equip" friends between levels and use their abilities like Wisps.

The best (perhaps only) way of redeeming Sonic's friends in the public eye is by making them useful, fun, and likeable.  That truly is two problems intertwined, requiring good game design and good writing - though depending on how you intend to use them, you might rely less on one or the other.

[Shadowlax]

In regards to classic sonic in forces, I would also make the argument that not is he kind of a F U to the people who wanted playable characters, he's kind of this very obvious representation of a lot of the issues the last few sonic games have had rolled into a section of this story. And this is emphasized with the release of mania, being Sega is over relying on nostalgia rather than using what people like about those things to make a new thing. It was just " hey remember classic sonic" and he had no reason to be there and kind of did nothing and played bad. As opposed to shadow who played about as good as sonic did, and did a thing ( and then subsequently vanished for no reason) but did infact do a thing. I think if the other story mode was just....shadow and maybe the rest of the story was explaining where he went for several months instead of just...piss poor classic sonic gameplay the game as a whole might have been received better because it seemed they kinda cared about shadow being there and made sure to make him look cool. And classic sonic was "remember classic sonic" . And believe that its possible do this with adventure era stuff too ( That was a lot of my issues with generations) but in regards to forces, classic sonic was the main culprit he just didn't fit with what was going on, didn't play well, didn't do much of anything. Just a very obvious nostalgia call out that kind of made the game worse, that's made much worse that the people who wanted that version of sonic.... got a game. So the need for him to even be here made less sense I guess. 

I suppose that's why classic sonic gets criticized harder than everyone else 

[Sonic Fan J]

12 hours ago, Fire-N-Space said:

It depends on how its added if it changes the gameplay to much it might do more harm then good there will be people who want there favorite character in the gameplay they prefer or making to much work for the developers to handle. Best to change the character to fit the game and not other way around.

This right here is one of the best things I've ever seen said about game design in while, and pays respect to what it means to make a game in a professional setting.

Getting on point, I don't think multiple playable characters is as much of a problem to be avoided anymore. Consider, in Mania Plus people are looking forward to Mighty and Ray and were glad to have Tails and Knuckles in vanilla Mania. Even the "friends" don't seem as much of a problem as they did not seem to be complained about in Forces beyond their under and misuse. I think though in the 3D games a Hero-esque approach though while starting off with a Sonic clone mentality might be the way to go to ease back into using Sonic friends.

Just to throw out an example, let's look at Sonic Boom and how for most of the game the characters are together. If one were to take a more traditional game like Heroes and have the character select but make playing as additional characters optional without blocking you out of the end game because you didn't, but then make a narrative where everyone is together then it really just boils down to using who you want to play. It even supports co-op and minimizes the workload of the developers allowing them to focus on quality over quantity. Sure it's taking baby steps which an established development studio like Sonic Team shouldn't have to take, but it's a solid starting point that can be worked from while testing the waters and not overwhelming the development team or straining the budget and schedule.

[Red Hot Jack]

I have been directed here by the mods, so I think... Never say never, I believe Sega has noticed how much fans really love the cast, and they are trying to bring them back, see Shadow in Forces, and TSR and spin-offs, Mania Plus and mobile games, I think we are currently cool with multiple characters, but it will never be that many again in a main game, and it's a good thing IMO, the quality wouldn't be good if there is so much quantity.

[E-122-Psi]

Well as much of the problem comes from the past games evolving into abruptly FORCING you to play as different characters, making it less a cool new option and more a mandatory task.

Adventure 1 and the Advance series were more balanced in this regard since this only existed in the sense of needing the play all the games' tasks to access the secret final boss, besides that all the characters had their own separate campaign modes which you could go through at your own choosing and pace. Adventure 2 however brought on the premise of many characters sharing the same campaign mode and suddenly switching between very different gameplay styles whether you wanted to or not. Next Gen got ridiculous about it, since most campaign modes not only featured 'amigos' with completely different gameplay styles from the main characters (and usually less refined) but also at times forcibly switched you into playing one of the other two different main characters anyway. All of this could also happen not just between levels but often within THE SAME LEVELS. There just lacked a consistent flow anymore and playing as a different character had now become almost an imbalanced trial enforced on the player.

But of course Sonic Team refused to accept any of their design and execution was flawed and came to the conclusion that players just didn't appreciate the other characters anymore and wanted Sonic, Sonic, Sonic, reducing the gameplay to him despite sometimes bringing in the same uneven breaks of momentum with other new mandated gimmicks.

[RedFox99]

To be honest, I probably wouldn't mind the others not being playable, but the issue is that almost always when they aren't, they often become background characters who do little to drive the plot forward, especially when Unleashed came around.

[Dash Speed]

It's hard to make Sonic characters feel like Sonic which is mandatory since they don't share his speed, which is why it's surprising how Shadow isnt used more in any sonic gameplay framework from not only 3d but 2d. Shadow (and Metal Sonic), share all of Sonic's speed abilites and they can be implemented with all of sonic's gameplay styles from any game he stars in. Sonic Team is missing out on some money here. At least Tails and Knuckles can be used when Sonic in 2d can move at the same speed as everyone else with alot more extra quriks to scale the level. Shadow and Meal would be direct clones of Sonic if they were in a 2d game and their extra powers only operate on a wider scale not suitable for platformer basics.

[Multikaris]

I once pointed out that every single Wisp in the entire franchise is analogous to an actual character, when someone on the Sega Forum made that claim that only most of them were. 

The claims I made were that Vector, Big, and Tikal could use the powers of the Rhythm, Cube, and Void Wisps, which he claimed could match no character. Someone else refuted my argument and believed it made no sense, but I tried to rationalize it. Do you agree that every single Wisp ability is better suited to a character?

 

In addition, with Forces having some minor perks for species types, should those make a return again? 

 

Sadly, several critics argued that the other characters are inherently bad, and i’d be more than happy to prove them wrong.

[DabigRG]

Would it be palatable to have other characters in Boost style games, minus the boost?

[Salamander]

If you're proposing having a game where some characters have the Boost and others do not, then I think that might be difficult.  It would depend on whether or not you wanted to have them play the same levels; a level made for a Boost character probably won't be much fun for a non-Boosting character - and vice-versa, for that matter.  But if you wanted to have exclusive levels for each class of character, then... well, that's the same model as Unleashed, so you might be able to pull it off, but you also might just end up making two completely different games only awkwardly glued together.

[DabigRG]

1 minute ago, FFWF said:

If you're proposing having a game where some characters have the Boost and others do not, then I think that might be difficult.  It would depend on whether or not you wanted to have them play the same levels; a level made for a Boost character probably won't be much fun for a non-Boosting character - and vice-versa, for that matter.  But if you wanted to have exclusive levels for each class of character, then... well, that's the same model as Unleashed, so you might be able to pull it off, but you also might just end up making two completely different games only awkwardly glued together.

Hm...fair point.

I was imagining, like, Vector running through Rooftop Run  with a slide and some emphasis on Spinjump/bouncing enemies.

[Sonic Fan J]

The funny thing is, outside of mandatory fights, most of the Werehog's longer levels would work as standard levels for most of the other non-flying characters. You'd even have unique routes depending on where you are trying to get if you take Amy's double jump from 06 or Espio's grappling hook from Generations (or the Avatar from forces if you prefer). Heck, mentioning Amy, in Adventure she had to deal with narrow walkways even on more than one occasion.

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

The funny thing is, outside of mandatory fights, most of the Werehog's longer levels would work as standard levels for most of the other non-flying characters. You'd even have unique routes depending on where you are trying to get if you take Amy's double jump from 06 or Espio's grappling hook from Generations (or the Avatar from forces if you prefer). Heck, mentioning Amy, in Adventure she had to deal with narrow walkways even on more than one occasion.

Espio had a grappling hook?

[Sonic Fan J]

7 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Espio had a grappling hook?

He sure did, with swinging mechanics to boot.

[DabigRG]

3 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

He sure did, with swinging mechanics to boot.

I have never played that mission. Neat find.

[Sonic Fan J]

16 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

I have never played that mission. Neat find.

I need to play Generations again one of these days, but yeah, on a whole, between the Werehog level layouts, the wisps specific levels, and character missions, the Boost trilogy had the pieces for making the other characters playable but never compiled them into a single game. A shame really since Lost World's slower pace and more expansive level design had the promise for a gameplay formula that would allow Sonic to play with the others again in 3D as well.

[DabigRG]

7 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I need to play Generations again one of these days

My little nephew was actually playing that in the other room on a fresher file, funnily enough.

8 minutes ago, Sonic Fan J said:

I need to play Generations again one of these days, but yeah, on a whole, between the Werehog level layouts, the wisps specific levels, and character missions, the Boost trilogy had the pieces for making the other characters playable but never compiled them into a single game. A shame really since Lost World's slower pace and more expansive level design had the promise for a gameplay formula that would allow Sonic to play with the others again in 3D as well.

Yeah, I think many of us want the other characters to finally be playable in a proper game again

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

I think this is maybe THE most annoying complaint of all time among the Sonic fanbase for me. To me it is the cause of the most fundamental divide that exists between the so called "gameplay purists" which most often are classic era fans and modern era fans who want lots of characters and "serious" stories.

The reason why its incredibly annoying to me is because I've thought for a long time that Sonic fans can have both! Not in a way that would please absolutely everybody but definitely in a way that could please the majority of sonic fans despite their differences.

The main conflict in screaming about other characters incessantly is that Sonic's primary gameplay has still not been fixed. It has been experimented on, good ideas flirted with, but the main problems with it have not been properly explored and thought out to a true solution. Basically, its still fundamentally broken as a 3D platformer! (This is not a commentary on the boost games, which I and I think many others do not consider true platforming gameplay despite it being a formula that has seen some success) I'm quite positive what most of the screaming lot wants is for it to be fixed and finally excellent. They want a true 3D Sonic platformer that is very polished and fun and to play their favorite characters in it and have engaging stories and action!

But Sonic Team is very (evidently) easily distracted by fans screaming about the wrong things! Fans should not be screaming about alternate characters until Sonic himself is actually fun and excellent to play as a 3D platformer. This can happen in a reasonable timeline! Especially if fans realize this and get on the same page long enough to further push Sonic Team/SEGA to concentrate on this problem. Once they fix it, then there would be all the motivation in the world to include other characters to add to the gameplay in a way that is fun and consistent, which of course will help the franchise tremendously in the long run. Getting a series of big budget 3D games reviewed like Mania instead of Forces means bigger budgets and better games in the future. We all win.

Instead we get "Why can't I play as my favorite character? Hmph! When is he/she gonna get a turn?!" 

Its the most insane, ridiculous, counterproductive thing to me. There is not a single thing about my fellow Sonic fans that I loathe more.