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The idea that the other characters need to "play like Sonic (with an extra ability)" is narrow-minded and limiting


The 3rd Option

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6 hours ago, RadicalLaRuby said:

Sonic has no focus in the games with multiple play styles. As much as I love Gamma (not SA2 Tails), his style of play has no business in a Sonic title.

His style of play is more suited to Sonic's primary game-play focus...

Most likely to be a spin-off than a full game.

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As a huge supporter of variety in games I definitely agree that I love me a good game that isn’t super one-note. Some of my favorite games are the Sly Cooper series, the LittleBigPlanet series and Final Fantasy 7… all of which are really good games packed full of variety… and all of which I wouldn't be a fan of if they all had stuck with only their main gameplay mechanics. For example if FF7 only had it’s battle system, item collecting and the story plus nothing else… I seriously wouldn’t give 2 hoots about the game regardless that those elements of the game were ok. It was all the minigames + silly side missions that did it for me! For example everything in the golden saucer, chocobo raising, the motorcycle minigame, the goofy ways we collected the items that were needed to dress the MC up as a woman in order to sneak into a lair and save his friend from villains… The list goes on and I loved EVERY single moment of it.

However games with lots of variety normally need a lot of extra time of development and or at least very competent developers behind it… Something that Sonic games often lacks on both ends. Here’s the thing tho… regardless if a game has lots of variety or is a one trick pony with almost nothing else to it… either method doesn’t fix anything or promises a good game by itself. Many people in general and especially fans sometimes want to believe there is some single special sauce secret trick to making a good product and that anything else won’t work… Let me tell you that is just not remotely true. For the most part the only thing that really matters is if the product in question is well made and simply good regardless of it’s contents, nothing else really matters… shocking to hear I know. Hahaa! Most concepts can work fine and gain a fan base if executed good enough which is the plain dull truth.

All that said… I was pretty happy with all the variety we got in Sonic Mania and feel mainline Sonic games should stay around that area of variety often. I’m aware some fans did not like stuff such as the Puyo Puyo mini-game boss… and oddly there was some people even complaining about any of the bosses having variety in general, with few peps even going as far as calling all bosses gameplay flow killers… But I think it’s safe to say we should simply ignore those few people as they are just a loud minority that desire one-note hollow unadventurous games altogether.

Actually I personally feel Mario Oddyssey had lots of variety… outside of the fact the only reward for doing most things was those boring moons… which was a minor problem I say, I think little more variety in the reward system would had helped a lot in order to remove the monotony… plus couple other playable characters like Peach would had been wonderful, simply making them clones of Mario’s gameplay with slightly different abilities swapped around would work, for example how Super Mario 3D World did it. But those couple nitpicks aside… Mario Oddyssey otherwise had enough variety, and 3D Sonic games would be amazing if they followed loosely those kinda gameplay methods along with few extra characters added. In my opinion it would basically be the same idea as taking the Sonic 3&K + Mania level of variety and putting it into a 3D game. I do think other ideas could also work… but I don’t feel it’s important to worry about aiming towards the unknown here.

Anyways my point is that (yes) mainline Sonic games should have variety in order to be good adventure type games. But probably it is for the best if at least the characters themselves stick to a core gameplay style with other types of variety being limited to level/boss gimmicks and optional minigames. Also as a note I think we all can agree on, players should not be forced to play every character in order to unlock a “true ending” … because that defeats the point in making characters optional to start with as the player’s personal choice.

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I know i want some variety in gameplay again.

After playing as Sonic, Sonic and Sonic in Sonic Forces it did become a bit redundant.

Dont get me wrong the Avatars gameplay might have been the most fun in Forces but its lack of refinement and focus hurt it.

All of the alternate gameplay styles in Sonic games could have been great with refinement.

From Gamma, to Treasure hunting, to racing Sonic, to smashing robots with a giant hammer gameplay in the adventure games was actually fun and only held back by lack of refinement (and being forced to play as other characters as noted before, even Big could have been better received if we were not forced to play him to get the real ending).

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I don't really feel like I can add all that much to this topic, but I think personal preference is something that is being severely undermined here. Just to use myself as an example, I like older games and all of the characters pretty much handling identically (Sonic 2, Streets of Rage, Metal Slug, Golden Axe, every sports game ever made, etc...) with their differences and personalities shining through in their designs and animations. I never needed distinct individual gameplay styles per characters to fall in love with my favorites. Just a defined gameplay style that was fun to play and the character being "them" so to say through their unique animations alone. Call me limited and narrowminded, and every and any other insult you can come up with, but I would be pretty happy if a Sonic game came out where every playable character, including Sonic himself, was just a reskin of each other differentiated and defined only by the unique animations that highlighted their personalities. Point is though, individual preference is a major contributing factor and their is so much that creates that individual preference that it can't be accounted for. Even arguments of high quality fall on deaf ears as all of the quality in the world means nothing if nothing in game of said quality appeals to an individuals personal preferences. So sorry if I'm coming across harshly, but I personally believe that calling someone narrowminded because they have a preference for one thing over another is unduly insulting and disrespectful to individuality in general.

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On 10/29/2018 at 10:52 AM, MadmanRB said:

 (and being forced to play as other characters as noted before, even Big could have been better received if we were not forced to play him to get the real ending).

One of the biggest issues facing each and every Sonic game that comes out these days is core content. If your going to devote the time and resources to developing an alternate play-style (like a Big, a Silver or an Avatar) then you almost have to feature it as mandatory content just to create some longevity in the overall playthrough. If you don't you'd be taking one of the biggest weaknesses of the series and making it even worse.

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If the base game isn't long enough...Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Gamma make for like 3-4 hours at most right?

Plus the final story adds an extra 30+ minutes?

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5 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

One of the biggest issues facing each and every Sonic game that comes out these days is core content. If your going to devote the time and resources to developing an alternate play-style (like a Big, a Silver or an Avatar) then you almost have to feature it as mandatory content just to create some longevity in the overall playthrough. If you don't you'd be taking one of the biggest weaknesses of the series and making it even worse.

Well the avatars gameplay in Forces is actually decent but lacks true refinement.

I would actually love it if say Gamma or Tails would use more wispon like abilities

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8 hours ago, Sega DogTagz said:

One of the biggest issues facing each and every Sonic game that comes out these days is core content. If your going to devote the time and resources to developing an alternate play-style (like a Big, a Silver or an Avatar) then you almost have to feature it as mandatory content just to create some longevity in the overall playthrough. If you don't you'd be taking one of the biggest weaknesses of the series and making it even worse.

On the flipside, if you're forced to play the same stages and do the same things over and over again, it will just create a Sonic Heroes situation, where the game is just insufferably repetitive.

How would you guys feel if in Sonic Adventure, you just play Sonic's stages over and over again, with only the characters being only slightly different in speed with their tacked on aerial abilities like flight and gliding?

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6 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

How would you guys feel if in Sonic Adventure, you just play Sonic's stages over and over again, with only the characters being only slightly different in speed with their tacked on aerial abilities like flight and gliding?

Better than fishing.

Really, though, we shouldn't be forced to choose between Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes. It's entirely possible to have multiple characters that share the same core gameplay mechanics and general focus while still having distinct enough playstyles and level design such that they're all worthwhile experiences.

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2 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Better than fishing.

Really, though, we shouldn't be forced to choose between Sonic Adventure and Sonic Heroes. It's entirely possible to have multiple characters that share the same core gameplay mechanics and general focus while still having distinct enough playstyles and level design such that they're all worthwhile experiences.

Do you remember this topic from quite some time ago?

The reason the S3&K/Advance/Mania style works in 2D is because the verticality of the level design helps balance the characters' aerial abilities. Tails and Knuckles don't seem as blantantly better than Sonic since the level design never favors one over the other.

In 3D, that verticality is gone. Meaning that the two only way to make characters both distinct and balanced is to give them alternate playstyles, or severely nerfing their abilities to the point where they don't matter as much. I'd rather go for the former since it has that variety that Sonic games need.

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35 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

On the flipside, if you're forced to play the same stages and do the same things over and over again, it will just create a Sonic Heroes situation, where the game is just insufferably repetitive.

How would you guys feel if in Sonic Adventure, you just play Sonic's stages over and over again, with only the characters being only slightly different in speed with their tacked on aerial abilities like flight and gliding?

I feel like you just kind of undermined your own argument.

 

While Heroes was obviously the worse case scenario, Sonic Adventure took that formula and showed how you could absolutely thrive with it. Tails took the same set of stages, with the same mobility, sense of speed and mechanics and created stages that were unique and fresh in comparison to Sonic. The race mechanic, that pushed you to rush through stages and the addition of his flight made his stages feel different enough. You don't have to to flat out copy-paste play-styles like in heroes, just like you don't have to go off the deep end and create something that doesn't fit at all. But it is completely acceptable to build within the established formula and make small tweaks and things will stay interesting.

Tails Stages differ enough from Sonic's that you get to avoid any sense of repetition or fatigue. Windy Valley is a completely different level thanks to Tails Flight. Red Mountain is a completely different level thanks to Knuckles ability to climb.

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3 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

Meaning that the two only way to make characters both distinct and balanced is to give them alternate playstyles, or severely nerfing their abilities to the point where they don't matter as much. I'd rather go for the former since it has that variety that Sonic games need.

I'd rather do neither, and nerf them just enough, while buffing them in other ways and refocusing their gameplay into something better. Which isn't the easiest thing to do, obviously, but I don't think it's in any sense an insurmountable challenge. In fact, and on the subject of old threads, this discussion reminded me of some ideas I had posted before along the lines of "fixing" SA's gameplay. I'm not going to claim that they're all winning ideas, or that they're exactly how I'd want them to go about things in future games, but I think I took a pretty good shot at bringing all those different concepts into some more unified style without losing the things that made each character unique. Tails would still race Sonic and his flight would still be the key to beating him, but he wouldn't simply dominate any open-air level. Amy would still have more grounded abilities and a focus on escaping Zero, but it wouldn't require her to be as slow as molasses or constantly stop to solve puzzles or try to use broken stealth mechanics. Gamma would still be the game's shooty-boy, but instead of stomping around and stopping to tag large groups of enemies he'd be rushing from target to target to keep his combo going. So I think it's clear that you don't need to go as far as SA's alternate gameplay to have characters that each offer something unique and worth playing.

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46 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

Do you remember this topic from quite some time ago?

The reason the S3&K/Advance/Mania style works in 2D is because the verticality of the level design helps balance the characters' aerial abilities. Tails and Knuckles don't seem as blantantly better than Sonic since the level design never favors one over the other.

In 3D, that verticality is gone. Meaning that the two only way to make characters both distinct and balanced is to give them alternate playstyles, or severely nerfing their abilities to the point where they don't matter as much. I'd rather go for the former since it has that variety that Sonic games need.

Alright so I know we're getting hypothetical here but why does the vertical space have to be gone in 3D? I understand that there's more horizontal space to consider but that's more of an advantage than anything. I think the biggest mistake 3D Sonic made by far was rarely thinking vertical with it's level design when there's not a whole lot of functional reasons not to. 

Tails and Knuckles would still no doubt need some tweaking for 3D, no doubt, but I'd rather try and meet their abilities and the level design halfway than splinter the game up. 

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20 hours ago, Wraith said:

Alright so I know we're getting hypothetical here but why does the vertical space have to be gone in 3D? I understand that there's more horizontal space to consider but that's more of an advantage than anything. I think the biggest mistake 3D Sonic made by far was rarely thinking vertical with it's level design when there's not a whole lot of functional reasons not to. 

Tails and Knuckles would still no doubt need some tweaking for 3D, no doubt, but I'd rather try and meet their abilities and the level design halfway than splinter the game up. 

The problem with heavily incorporating verticality into 3D is that, more often than not, it might come across as constraining. With low verticality, you can actually see where you're going since the way forward is clear. With verticality, you might not be able to see where you're going. Could you imagine if you're put in essentially a 2D Sonic level and the camera is behind the back? It would look awkward as hell.

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32 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

The problem with heavily incorporating verticality into 3D is that, more often than not, it might come across as constraining. With low verticality, you can actually see where you're going since the way forward is clear. With verticality, you might not be able to see where you're going. Could you imagine if you're put in essentially a 2D Sonic level and the camera is behind the back? It would look awkward as hell.

Of course it would look awkward. It was never designed with the third dimension in mind. Switching the camera behind Sonic in a 2D section and watching the chaos ensue is the equivalent of telling me how awkward it is to eat soup with a fork. It was never designed for that.

Branching pathways are a prime example of a way to increase base verticality in a 3D level. There is a reason why one of the first things we look for in new footage of 3D games is the availability of alternate paths. If you design your 3D game to incorporate even a few vertical up/down choices, you can have an end result that easily rivals that of a 2D experience without hindering sight lines. Most Sonic stages in 2D feature a top, middle and bottom route. That is not impossible to replicate in the 3D space without containing the player. Good level design (like SeaSide Hill in Generations) show that Sonic Team is capable of building layered alternate paths if they so choose to stay committed and implement them. And that is one of the most free and nonrestrictive levels in the series to date.

 

Verticality is not something you have to give up on in 3D.

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2D level design is never going to adapt directly into 3D, but that doesn't mean verticality is off the table. Instead of building everything directly on top of each other as if you turned a 2D level into a 3D level, start by taking advantage of that extra dimension, building your levels wider, and having different "lanes" at different heights crisscrossing over each other. And even though that probably wouldn't allow for as much vertical design as in the 2D games, it'd still be plenty for you to take advantage of moves like flight, gliding, and climbing.

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But as Generations showed, building levels to be as vertical and multilayered as possible skews a bit too much towards quality over quantity. Yes, the levels are unquestionably the best of the boosting games, but there's just so little of them. Yes, there are Red Rings and abilities to add a bit of replay value, but it's only a bit.

Besides, Generations' idea of "variety" was to do those lame-ass missions that were just small segments of the level with minor changes. I hadn't seen such blatant filler since the pre-dungeon fetch quests in Skyward Sword.

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2 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

But as Generations showed, building levels to be as vertical and multilayered as possible skews a bit too much towards quality over quantity. Yes, the levels are unquestionably the best of the boosting games, but there's just so little of them. Yes, there are Red Rings and abilities to add a bit of replay value, but it's only a bit.

Besides, Generations' idea of "variety" was to do those lame-ass missions that were just small segments of the level with minor changes. I hadn't seen such blatant filler since the pre-dungeon fetch quests in Skyward Sword.

And hence lies the perpetual problem with 3D Sonic. Its hard enough to lay out enough track for a character moving at mach 1 - let alone tiered branching pathways built in such intricacy that you may blaze through a single path - bypassing the other two and thus missing a chunk of the stage that otherwise could have been made mandatory to pad the level length.

Its a nasty catch-22 but its something that even the 2D games have to deal with. And those games are successful in overcoming the issue in large part due to the encouragement of exploration by exploiting the minor differences between characters. If you take all the assets in the side missions, and dump them into the standard levels, you could create a more re-playable experience akin to the 2D games. One where you want to revisit stages to check all the alternate routes. Much like how different wisp loadouts could access different branching paths in Forces, playing as Tails or Knuckles could come with the same boon.

Sonic Team in many regards has moved away from that, in favor of a more cinematic and flowing experience for their Modern Sonic levels. If they take the handcuffs off they can maintain the quality through specific set pieces and sections while also providing quantity through means of replay-ability.

 

 

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Multiple paths aren't the only reason Generations has so few levels. Splitting development between two playable characters and using a gameplay style as inefficient as the boost cut into how much they could afford to make as well. And Sonic games aren't typically all that long anyway; a good game with densely designed levels doesn't need tons of levels because a lot of the game's value comes from replaying them to see the routes you missed and to find the most effective and most fun ways through the levels.

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I didn't read any posts. Sorry.

Anyway, my thoughts are that it's a different case between classic and modern games, in classic ones everyone should play the classic gameplay plus different skills, one or two, best example is Knux, who has more abilities and can open his own paths.

In modern games everyone usually has a different gameplay, which is not necessarily a good thing, for variety? Sure, but it's risky and it can deviate too much from what Sonic is, to the point of becoming something totally different.

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5 hours ago, I Love Sticks said:

I didn't read any posts. Sorry.

Anyway, my thoughts are that it's a different case between classic and modern games, in classic ones everyone should play the classic gameplay plus different skills, one or two, best example is Knux, who has more abilities and can open his own paths.

In modern games everyone usually has a different gameplay, which is not necessarily a good thing, for variety? Sure, but it's risky and it can deviate too much from what Sonic is, to the point of becoming something totally different.

Thing is that it makes the game boring if you keep the same style across the whole game especially in the wake of the boost formula.

The boost broke the sonic games, it makes them too easy.

Its especially bad in forces, where it made forces boring and dull.

Oh look at me I am hitting the boost button for 99% of the game how exciting

What is so wrong with variety?

3D sonic so desperately needs variety.

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I feel Sega is ashamed of their character roster outside of the main 4 and eggman. I  think Sonic Team wants to reaffirm and remake it's brand identity by trying to get the general public to realize that they're ashamed for their past mistakes, and yes that includes the over the top edginess so associated, embodied and manifested in characters like Shadow, Silver, Blaze and everything about their characters in the past. Take Shadow for example Smash just confirms more or less, that unlike Ken and Petey, Shadow failed to maintain a iconic endearment to fans at the time he debuted, he was loved for two things, his death and being sonic's dark half. But Sonic Team ruined him to the point Shadow has to survive off of Sonic side games and filler media to stay recognized within the fandom instead of being a main brand character that showcases the Sonic franchise to non related game series. Shadow stars in two of the most universally despised sonic games and therefore brings a bad stigma to quality sonic marketing with characters made to sell to those new fans who look at sonic at a high reguard. Shadow being one of those characters that has basically sonic's moveset but not real independent quality game play makes him even more a faithless character Sonic Team doesn't want to risk any chances on. 

It's evident that characters like Silver, Blaze, Big, Rouge, are never going to be exploited on Shadow's level of selling the modern brand, and which he then fails because Sonic Team can't help but over exploit the Classic brand and make Sonic completely universal in bringing his entire successful gameplay/character image to where it hit it's groundbreaking peak, the classic Sonic games from Sonic 1 to Sonic 3/CD. Look it's obvious the series wants to reinvent from thw wheel Sonic Mania started, and the essential gameplay bonuses to Sonic esqe platforming, that characters{that aren't sonic) brought into those titles. Tails flies and Knuckles glides and Smashes hidden paths while never losing the momentum. This is how Sonic Team finds a winner in attracting fans who are against the "sonic's friends suck" into the series, so they barely even try with other characters without making a game that distances from classic sonic foundations in gameplay. They won't try with Shadow anymore, they just let him copy off of Sonic and go from there with basic teleportation. It's like they won't admit they only keep Shadow around because he is a good marketing feature for bringing females and adding gender neutral elements into their young male audience in order to keep sonic afloat, but that makes it worse because that only confirms Shadow is good for nothing but social appeal for buisness rather than game mechanic potential. Other characters also operates on this logic, Sonic has a big universe to mold with a ton of characters that will appeal to many fans to create a community around, but all of them suck in being actually implemented in main sonic games and fun creative game play like Mario. 

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12 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Shadow was almost always a Sonic clone, though.

And logically they would include him more in playable games with games since 06, but they don't(without him being multi playable and non integral in stories). They almost want to forget he exists when a main stream sonic game comes out, to the point he won't save the world with Sonic as a equal. Thats.......pretty damn discouraging.

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