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Sonic the Platformer


Badnik Zero

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So... essentially it's holding the "B" button down like in Mario. Or the boost minus the invulnerability?

I can dig it. :)

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So then it's the Unleashed boost, minus the invulnerability, and the need to hold it down.

Got it.

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Well, what I'm saying is that it makes you go about Unleashed speed, and you gradually gain speed until you get to Boost speed in Unleashed. So basically, it's "press button to go from SA1 to Unleashed and back".

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I've never played any DLC Unleashed levels, but some of the more original ones look more platformy than usual. For those who played it, was the Shamar Chao mission very good? It looked like what I imagine a decent open Sonic level would look like.

Eh, it was an average level really. In fact, it's deceptively linear. You can't really collect the chao in ANY order. Missing one means backtracking, not exploration.

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Can someone explain to me what benefit the Advance 2 "boost" is? I've never been able to figure out what purpose it's supposed to serve. Plus I've always felt the best part of the Rush/Unleashed boost is the instant acceleration, so I don't see how removing that is supposed to be an improvement...

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Can someone explain to me what benefit the Advance 2 "boost" is? I've never been able to figure out what purpose it's supposed to serve. Plus I've always felt the best part of the Rush/Unleashed boost is the instant acceleration, so I don't see how removing that is supposed to be an improvement...

I agree completely. But people prefer it because it's "earned" rather than instant, and also it doesn't make you half-invincible. Though to answer your question, in Advance 2, it served a simple purpose, as well as prettiness, of doubling the moveset. Most of the attacks you could do had different effects depending on whether you were in boost mode or not. It was a cool idea, and all the different moves the characters had were fun, though ultimately not that useful, let alone necessary to beat the game.

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Can someone explain to me what benefit the Advance 2 "boost" is? I've never been able to figure out what purpose it's supposed to serve. Plus I've always felt the best part of the Rush/Unleashed boost is the instant acceleration, so I don't see how removing that is supposed to be an improvement...

The Advance 2 boost actually helped take advantage of all of Sonic's pre-existing traits and didn't over shadow them like the Rush/Unleashed boost did.

- It was gained through running at a top speed for a few seconds and could be aided by the physics to make getting the boost quicker, i.e running downhill will accelerate you faster and thus gain the boost quicker and vice versa when going uphill.

- Because of Sonic's slow acceleration, it allowed for Sonic to move about slowly and he could gauge his speed easier, but could easily let loose and go super fast just by running at full speed.

- It didn't overshadow rolling and the spindash since the spindash could be used to get a quick start like always, and rolling downhill was faster than running.

- It gave speed pads a decent purpose as well as making it possible to cut down on them if they were to ever be necessary in a game. Because of how potent the boost was, you could cover a good amount of distance from just one speed pad, making them essentially only really useful when needing to go uphill, etc.

- It gave purpose to the Speed Shoes and Invincibility items. Speed Shoes make gaining the boost almost instantaneous, and the boost, obviously doesn't give invincibility.

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- It gave purpose to the Speed Shoes and Invincibility items. Speed Shoes make gaining the boost almost instantaneous, and the boost, obviously doesn't give invincibility.

Now this is something I would like to see. I enjoy and miss these items. They were barely used anywhere useful in the 3D games too. (Case in point, City Escape, there's only one enemy you can reach which is actually affected by it - all the others in the area are floating in mid-air and don't shoot at you, thus having invincibility makes no difference at all in terms of defeating them).

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Pretty much what JezMM and Virgo said. High speed is given to you, yes, but incredible is what must be earned. Running in "Speed 2" and "rolling + momentum" would cater to these catagories, and it would really make the game feel much less cheap than Unleashed/Rush's "Instant Win Button".

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You know, this whole sort of argument and differing opinions is partly why I've considered the idea of Sonic trying to do something different that definately works in 3D, eg, a sandbox game. There's a good reason why I mentioned Prototype previously. Sure, Mario never made such a massive change, but Mario 64 was a pretty huge change from, say, Super Mario World. Spyro kinda changed genres in an attempt to recover from the Sonic 06-level epic fail that was Enter the Dragonfly, and the Legend of Spyro games have been improving with each instalment.

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Of course, I agree, since I've been thinking a long time about what can be done with the previously-mentioned control set and making a sandbox game. My ideas are all stashed onto this website:

Project : FreeRunner

Knock yourself out. =P

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You know, this whole sort of argument and differing opinions is partly why I've considered the idea of Sonic trying to do something different that definately works in 3D, eg, a sandbox game. There's a good reason why I mentioned Prototype previously. Sure, Mario never made such a massive change, but Mario 64 was a pretty huge change from, say, Super Mario World. Spyro kinda changed genres in an attempt to recover from the Sonic 06-level epic fail that was Enter the Dragonfly, and the Legend of Spyro games have been improving with each instalment.

Not to get off-topic, but the first two Legend of Spyro games were MUCH better than the third. The last one had a messed-up camera system and huge, rambling levels (I stopped playing after getting the giant grass field level).

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Not to get off-topic, but the first two Legend of Spyro games were MUCH better than the third. The last one had a messed-up camera system and huge, rambling levels (I stopped playing after getting the giant grass field level).

Wha? The camera was fine, and the levels were a godsend compared to the overly linear levels of the first two games. The co-op and free-flight also elevate Dawn of the Dragon above its predecessors. Bonus points for looking gorgeous on Wii, too.

@Azukara: I noticed, though I haven't really read it, I doubt my idea of a Sonic sandbox game would be close to yours.

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The boost in Advance 2 seemed like more of a crutch to make up for the shitty level design, or perhaps it's existence was the cause of the problems. Allowing the player to actually use it requires the levels to have frequent large empty areas with no obstacles. In order to make it seem special, they nerfed the shit out of Sonic's basic acceleration, and to make sure it didn't actually make jumping on stuff any easier, they got rid of mid air course correction.

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Yeah Sniper, I noticed that your version of a sandbox game would be as a mix between Prototype, Mirror's Edge and Unleashed all slam-packed together; while mine being based around taking the best of both Unleashed and SA1.

Not saying Prototype or Mirror's Edge were bad games (no, in fact they were awesome), but I'd rather see Sonic do his own thing rather than take from others.

But other than that, I can't see how it'd be too different. How would you set up the world design?

Because personally I'd just make something that is open wide and filled with platforming and exploration, but also have slopes, hills, ramps and loops / corkscrews everywhere for high speed. Also to note that I'd put tons of area-specific gimmicks (like from the Genesis games) in every area.

@Phos: I hate to say it, but just because Sega couldn't do it right in Sadv2 doesn't mean it'd be bad redone for something else. Plus, this "boost" would pretty much work like this:

Sonic would still keep accelerating in "Speed 2", all the way until you've hit maximum speed (about Boost speed in Unleashed PS360), and it adds the "breaking the sound barrier" visual effect to make it look as if he really is doing such. The "boost wind and aura" would pretty much just be a simple visual effect showing you can't go any faster.

Edited by Black Ranger Azukara
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That's still going to require big open areas with very little in them to actually get much use.

As for the gearshift idea, it won't really fix anything. Simply put, if excessive acceleration/speed is what was making Sonic so hard to handle in 3D, it would have manifested itself in the 2D games from the beginning.

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Allowing the player to actually use it requires the levels to have frequent large empty areas with no obstacles.

No, not really. The boost wouldn't even need to be used all that often, and it could mainly be utilized in areas built for speed, or for moving across areas with mostly level land and little platforming.

In order to make it seem special, they nerfed the shit out of Sonic's basic acceleration.

Isn't that a good thing? With a slower acceleration, it makes Sonic's speed easier to gauge, and in turn, allows for easy platforming without constantly accelerating too fast and off a ledge.

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No, not really. The boost wouldn't even need to be used all that often, and it could mainly be utilized in areas built for speed, or for moving across areas with mostly level land and little platforming.

If he wants to do that there's nothing inherently wrong with it, considering that it would cut down on travel time between areas.

Isn't that a good thing? With a slower acceleration, it makes Sonic's speed easier to gauge, and in turn, allows for easy platforming without constantly accelerating too fast and off a ledge.

It might have, had they not also nerfed mid air mobility. It was a net loss in terms of ease of use. They clearly invented a problem that wasn't there previously, because jumping on stuff wasn't hard in the classics.

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It might have, had they not also nerfed mid air mobility. It was a net loss in terms of ease of use. They clearly invented a problem that wasn't there previously, because jumping on stuff wasn't hard in the classics.

Well that was a problem with the game, and not the boost itself.

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I've thought over the idea of "gears" again, and I've decided that Phos is about halfway-right. It is rather useless to add that; since I've noticed to myself: "Isn't Unleashed's top speed about the same as SA1's?", which led me to notice that yes, along a long amount of acceleration and running down steep hills, Sonic can get up to the speed of Unleashed Sonic, but it's very unstable and jerky. This is a problem I'm deciding to go over again.

When Sonic gets up to those high speeds, Sonic becomes overly-sensitive in controls, leading to unstable jerkiness. For example, when you're moving fast and you press left or right, Sonic shoots in that direction, usually slinging Sonic off of a thin strip of land (think halfpipes on one of the routes of Speed Highway). If they would stiffen his controls some, maybe this problem wouldn't be pleasant, but then we'd have complaints on how it's too hard to steer. Thus, the Sonic Drift could return, although edited to where they need momentum for usage rather than giving you extra speed.

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I'm not really against the instant acceleration concept, just the way the levels are built for the move.

The original spin dash wasn't spammable, and was more physics oriented. Sonic wasn't allowed to dash out of a dash, because he was already rolling and the dash required the player to crouch. In 3D the dash was mapped to a single button, and rolling could be canceled. That makes the Adventure spin dash the forerunner to the boost, IMO. The original lost momentum on it's own, but coming down a hill or out of a loop added to Sonic's speed. When a move is spammable, you don't need environment to complement speed, you just press that button down. The boost is this to the max, because Rush and Unleashed are played best by constantly boosting.

I prefer the Rushes' trick system though, because it requires player input to keep the meter filled. With the ring system it's more like the meter fills itself as you speed along. Rush might not have been faster, but it was more hectic to me for all the trick mashing.

It's not that I'm against the boost system, I love the Rush games for coupling that with good levels. But the more I think and read about it, the more I prefer the old system of speed. Sonic's player controlled speed goes from a trot to a run, and interacting with the level gets you to a top speed the player can't reach on his own. Chemical Plant's first ramp is the perfect example. Sonic Advance 2 however, is a game that seems made entirely of Chemical Plant ramps, which is a bit excessive. Collision Chaos is another good one. There were sections where you'd fly up a huge 2D half pipe, and come swooping around and up the other side. The difference between these speed sections and automated sections is that there's never been a half pipe like that in 3D.

Edited by Goldar
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I've thought over the idea of "gears" again, and I've decided that Phos is about halfway-right. It is rather useless to add that; since I've noticed to myself: "Isn't Unleashed's top speed about the same as SA1's?", which led me to notice that yes, along a long amount of acceleration and running down steep hills, Sonic can get up to the speed of Unleashed Sonic, but it's very unstable and jerky. This is a problem I'm deciding to go over again.

When Sonic gets up to those high speeds, Sonic becomes overly-sensitive in controls, leading to unstable jerkiness. For example, when you're moving fast and you press left or right, Sonic shoots in that direction, usually slinging Sonic off of a thin strip of land (think halfpipes on one of the routes of Speed Highway). If they would stiffen his controls some, maybe this problem wouldn't be pleasant, but then we'd have complaints on how it's too hard to steer. Thus, the Sonic Drift could return, although edited to where they need momentum for usage rather than giving you extra speed.

You know, I just thought of something! Why not have it so the drift is controlled by the control stick. So instead of having the drift occur when you press the left or right shoulders, it can be so that you hold down a shoulder button and you steer Sonic into a drift with the control stick.

So it's like when running at high speeds, and your about to turn, you hold down either shoulder button, and turn Sonic like normal, and he goes into a drift. You don't stop turning in the general angle until you let go of the shoulder. You can adjust the angle that you turn like you would normally, and to drift in the opposite direction, you simply quickly release and press/hold the shoulder again and turn Sonic in the opposite direction. It's basically just like the drift from any kart racer, but it sounds like it would work perfectly for controlling Sonic at high speeds.

EDIT: Nevermind

Edited by VirgoTheCougar
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