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

[E-122-Psi]

The problem is that a large amount of the characters feel superfluous, and even when they ARE relevant they have to discard much of the original mythos to make them work.

Tails worked because he was the sidekick, the 2P character and the 'easy mode'. He was there for the main character to cooperate and interact with. Knuckles worked because he was the rival and helped explore some of the chaos emerald lore. His main game was detached in S3+K but he was still relevant in Sonic's main quest, making his playable role something to appreciate afterwards. Neither were just 'Hey look, cool but irrelevant new character, play as them NOW!'.

Sonic Adventure has things get more messy. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have similar roles, but everyone else feels a bit superfluous.

Gamma could have been useful for developing Eggman's plot with POV but we actually skip over most of that in his story and his role in the main story consists of getting Froggy and having a brief fight with Sonic with his solo mission afterwards having little effect on it.

Amy is the damsel in distress, and I suppose that works okay if it were more integral to the main plot, but she meets Sonic in a filler bit of his story and her only reason for being captured is she has a bird with a single emerald. After that she contributes little to it but through Gamma's story which is also detached afterwards.

Big has only the same relevance due to Froggy being possessed to collect a single emerald. I can sort of accept that Big was supposed to be the wild card and so intentionally detached in a way, but I still feel like that could have worked more effectively if he was immersed into the main story against his will more.

Gameplay wise it sorta has the right idea of giving them all separate campaigns you collect through Sonic's story, because then you're gradually introduced to different genres and controls. Tails and Knuckles feel like smooth transitions that merely side step a bit from the usual Sonic gameplay, though things get more detached with the other three who you unlock later on.

Some other things also didn't quite translate as well to 3D. Tails is still the 2P character for example but in 3D perspective it's even harder to keep track of him and he's not actually that beneficial to 1 player. Also due to the more straight forward level design, there's also a lack of as many unique areas and easter eggs only he and other characters can find (even if some do exist).

The roster gets even worse as games go along because later titles keep pushing the new ones as MAIN CHARACTERS and make less and less of an effort to have them flow into the standard Sonic setup as a gradual evolution, by Next Gen it is SONIC that is the filler material, with tons of random gameplay genres being forced onto you rather than a gradual expansion of the usual mechanics that the 2D games offered. Silver also does not really add onto the original Sonic universe and mythos, if anything his story and character arc are reliant on completely skewing it into something different.

[MadmanRB]

Thing is that Adventure did have some good gameplay concepts that if were implemented more could have worked.

We just need something in the middle of Sonic adventure 1's multitude of gameplay styles mixed with the consistency of Sonic Generations and its entirely possible to do this.

Heck again this is something that Forces could have done if sega were not such dunderheads.

 

Limit the game to only sonic and the boost formula its a snore fest like forces was (the only fun parts to that game for me was the avatar gameplay)

Have too many elements and its unbalanced like Adventure is at times.

One can take advantage of Sonics long list of characters if one uses them right but Segas is too stupid to try the adventure formula out again and refine it.

[The 3rd Option]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:23 PM, MadmanRB said:

Thing is that Adventure did have some good gameplay concepts that if were implemented more could have worked.

We just need something in the middle of Sonic adventure 1's multitude of gameplay styles mixed with the consistency of Sonic Generations and its entirely possible to do this.

Heck again this is something that Forces could have done if sega were not such dunderheads.

 

Limit the game to only sonic and the boost formula its a snore fest like forces was (the only fun parts to that game for me was the avatar gameplay)

Have too many elements and its unbalanced like Adventure is at times.

One can take advantage of Sonics long list of characters if one uses them right but Segas is too stupid to try the adventure formula out again and refine it.

Frankly, I could honestly get behind this. If the Avatar marks the sweetspot between "alternate gameplay" and "Sonic+X ability", then I'm all for it. It would be a good compromise.

Just design levels around Tails' flight and Knuckles' gliding, and don't give them literally the same stages as Sonic, and everything's good.

[Almar]

Too long didn't read Sonic is a speshul snowflake that shouldn't have standards and a solid direction.

We tried it TC's way. And that got us Sonic going from Mario's greatest rival to a meme.

[The 3rd Option]

14 hours ago, Almar said:

Too long didn't read Sonic is a speshul snowflake that shouldn't have standards and a solid direction.

We tried it TC's way. And that got us Sonic going from Mario's greatest rival to a meme.

Oh come on. Did Crash 3's multitude of vehicle levels kill the series right then and there?

[Diogenes]

18 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

Oh come on. Did Crash 3's multitude of vehicle levels kill the series right then and there?

Having played through the trilogy for the first time a while back, I'd say they certainly didn't help.

[Almar]

It was an obvious sign that the makers were getting tired of doing Crash. You saw that in Spyro the Dragon as well. And unlike Sonic Team they had the foresight to just make new IPs instead of forcing Spyro to drive hummers and wield guns or whatever happens if Sonic Team was in charge.

[MadmanRB]

On 11/4/2018 at 7:52 AM, Almar said:

Too long didn't read Sonic is a speshul snowflake that shouldn't have standards and a solid direction.

We tried it TC's way. And that got us Sonic going from Mario's greatest rival to a meme.

So what is your suggestion?

The next game be nothing but the boost formula where the only thing you need to beat the game is hit the boost button?

And the only playable character be Modern Sonic?

No variation?

Sorry but that sounds too boring.

Plus Forces tried that with the only difference in gameplay is a gimped classic sonic and a boost less avatar (which again was the only part of that game i liked as otherwise the boost sonic is boring and gimped classic sonic sucks)

 

I honestly dont think boost sonic can run an entire game, Colors tried this yes but it still had 2D sections and did not hand out the boost powerup like candy like forces did.

[Wraith]

12 hours ago, The 3rd Option said:

Oh come on. Did Crash 3's multitude of vehicle levels kill the series right then and there?

No but if you notice the series kept doing stuff like that until people lost interest. Nsane Trilogy was successful because it was back to basics.

[StaticMania]

4 hours ago, Wraith said:

No but if you notice the series kept doing stuff like that until people lost interest. Nsane Trilogy was successful because it was back to basics.

It actually really didn't. Wrath of Cortex as people like to repeatedly bring up is just Crash 3 again, so it's just basic. While Twinsanity only has 2 game-play shifts and is more basic Crash gameplay than anything...it's just in explorative level design. 

 

Crash didn't tire people out because of its formula, people just really didn't care for the MoM or CoT...

[Dash Speed]

Anyone who's not even good enough to get a 2d gameplay standard and have the capacity to build something long term for 3d gameplay is doomed for failure. Shadow and Silver are both cursed with the fact their potential in being universally accepted by the entire Sonic collective is ruined because they have no real balanced abilites to work in 3d gameplay or have no programmers that can simplify them in quality appeal with classic genesis/adavanced Sonic style platforming mechanic.

Only tails, knuckles, amy, and blaze have the best potential for integration for 2d/3d elements and easily gain praise outside the modern fan base, plus are basicly ideal movesets that can represent their own game styles like Knuckles and hunting and tails and flying. Blaze is fire sonic and she can even hover via shadow in some titles. Shadow and Silver have to copy from sonic directly with clunky gimmicks like guns and pschokinesis.

So the problem is they have no simple answer to be mainstream in 2d/3d gameplay and actually be good enough for sega to push other characters out of segas current direction of solo sonic, with a few exceptions.

[Blacklightning]

10 hours ago, MadmanRB said:

So what is your suggestion?

The next game be nothing but the boost formula where the only thing you need to beat the game is hit the boost button?

And the only playable character be Modern Sonic?

No variation?

Sorry but that sounds too boring.

It's a good thing he didn't actually suggest any of those things, then.

I'm really tired of all the strawmanning that's been going on in this thread. "Let's have a game that's actually consistent with itself and the series for once" isn't the same as "let's make the games braindead boring and have absolutely no variation whatsoever", just the same as "let's have a game where you can actually play as more than one character for a change" isn't the same as "LeTs PuT tAiLs In A mEcH", and by trying to boil things that far you guys are doing a huge disservice to each other's points and your own. Can we all just knock this shit off?

[The 3rd Option]

On 11/5/2018 at 7:57 PM, Blacklightning said:

It's a good thing he didn't actually suggest any of those things, then.

I'm really tired of all the strawmanning that's been going on in this thread. "Let's have a game that's actually consistent with itself and the series for once" isn't the same as "let's make the games braindead boring and have absolutely no variation whatsoever", just the same as "let's have a game where you can actually play as more than one character for a change" isn't the same as "LeTs PuT tAiLs In A mEcH", and by trying to boil things that far you guys are doing a huge disservice to each other's points and your own. Can we all just knock this shit off?

No, I totally get you. I can understand why some people want the "Sonic+X ability" design for the other characters.

I just disapprove of the idea that the other characters can *only* be "run to the end". Giving the other characters different goals is what gives the series its spice. It feels like you're using the abilities of the other characters to the fullest instead of using them to cheat Sonic's levels.

[Diogenes]

2 hours ago, The 3rd Option said:

It feels like you're using the abilities of the other characters to the fullest instead of using them to cheat Sonic's levels.

What it feels like is that someone's pulled a bait and switch and left me playing an entirely different game. If games like 3&K and Mania fail to properly take into account the characters' unique abilities (which I don't entirely agree with, but regardless), games like SA fail to properly take into account the abilities the characters share. I don't feel like I'm properly using Knuckles' abilities when I'm just gliding and climbing around a room with a bunch of shit strewn around at random playing hot-or-cold with emerald shards, because Knuckles is more than just his gliding and climbing. Those abilities should augment his gameplay, not be what solely defines it, and even if you argue that the games haven't been designed to do that properly, the solution is to fix that, not to abandon half of it and turn him into something completely different.

[The 3rd Option]

21 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

What it feels like is that someone's pulled a bait and switch and left me playing an entirely different game. If games like 3&K and Mania fail to properly take into account the characters' unique abilities (which I don't entirely agree with, but regardless), games like SA fail to properly take into account the abilities the characters share. I don't feel like I'm properly using Knuckles' abilities when I'm just gliding and climbing around a room with a bunch of shit strewn around at random playing hot-or-cold with emerald shards, because Knuckles is more than just his gliding and climbing. Those abilities should augment his gameplay, not be what solely defines it, and even if you argue that the games haven't been designed to do that properly, the solution is to fix that, not to abandon half of it and turn him into something completely different.

Then the better thing to do would be to *not* make the characters so similar to one another. Why does everyone have to be able to run nearly as fast as Sonic and curl into a ball anyway? It feels like it devalues Sonic's position as the series' top speedster. Knuckles' abilities should complement his gliding, and Tails' abilities should complement his flight. If both of them run fast in addition to their aerial abilities, they just feel like Sonic with some ability tacked on.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, The 3rd Option said:

Then the better thing to do would be to *not* make the characters so similar to one another. Why does everyone have to be able to run nearly as fast as Sonic and curl into a ball anyway?

Because I want to buy one good game and not 30 shitty ones.

1 minute ago, The 3rd Option said:

It feels like it devalues Sonic's position as the series' top speedster. Knuckles' abilities should complement his gliding, and Tails' abilities should complement his flight. If both of them run fast in addition to their aerial abilities, they just feel like Sonic with some ability tacked on.

If Sonic doesn't feel special, make him feel special, instead of ruining everyone else.

[Wraith]

13 minutes ago, The 3rd Option said:

 Why does everyone have to be able to run nearly as fast as Sonic and curl into a ball anyway? It feels like it devalues Sonic's position as the series' top speedster. Knuckles' abilities should complement his gliding, and Tails' abilities should complement his flight. If both of them run fast in addition to their aerial abilities, they just feel like Sonic with some ability tacked on.

That's what they were designed to be. Sonic with alternative options. The fact that there's nothing special about Sonic is what makes him special. There's no cheat or shortcut to get around the level design. He's made for honest play.

I have my own problems with how Tails and Knuckles are designed in the classics., but the solution isn't to gut the part that works. The part that makes up the basis of this Sonic game. You can't build game mechanics strictly around lore and character bios.

[Sonic Fan J]

13 hours ago, The 3rd Option said:

Why does everyone have to be able to run nearly as fast as Sonic and curl into a ball anyway?

This question of yours leaves me wanting to ask your thoughts on games pre-1995 where everyone playing the same with just different animation quirks (if they had any at all) based off of their personalities was more common then everyone playing differently? I feel if you shared those thoughts it would make it easier for others to see why you find it so limiting.

Anyway, to give my own answer to the question in a word; cohesion. When making a game you typically start with the question of what type of game are you going to make. Most frequently with Sonic the answer to that question is a platformer. Now I'm going to put some emphasis on the indefinite article "a" here to help clarify my point. "A" is used vaguely to simply imply the genre, however, it can and is frequently used to imply a singular noun and so in this case "a" when applied to platformer should be assumed to represent a singular platformer and not multiple. Now, taking the singular assumption, the platformer you are going to make must a have a gameplay core that permeates the majority of the game beyond minigames/bonus levels. Deviating from this core in things as major as multiple playable characters results in having to make multiple cores for a singular game which can create a disjointed and broken work. That is to say nothing of splitting the work and increasing development time and costs or splitting limited resources to keep time and cost within a certain range resulting in a collection of half-baked concepts. Even in a sandbox game which is built around a narrative driven collection of minigames, every playable character still typically adheres to the same gameplay core in spite of the game being built to have a plethora of gameplay types. Even fighting games where character diversity is a must still has all of it's characters adhere to a singular gameplay core. This cohesion allows the developers to stay focused and make a complete and polished product that works both technically and from an ease of access position. The player can just pick up and play regardless of their character choice without having to learn a new game with every character reducing player frustration and creating trust in the developers resulting in future purchases by the consumer and everyone influenced to buy by the positive word of mouth that the consumer shares. This cohesion and singular core benefits everyone in the long run.

Now, all of that said, if ones goal is to make a Sonic game based around every characters unique identities then by all means it should be explored to the best of the developer's abilities, not to mentioned advertised as such. Instead of say advertising Sonic Adventurer as a Sonic the Hedgehog platformer, advertise it as a Sonic themed shared narrative platformer collection. A bit wordy perhaps, but the point comes across and tells the audience what they are getting, and from a developer standpoint if you go in to concept with that mindset then you can convince the producers to budget it that way as well allowing for the necessary time and resources to complete such a project. It is not inherently impossible, it is just a project that needs to be approached from a completely different viewpoint and presented as such. However, as this thread is mostly addressing a singular assumed platformer with as many playable characters as possible then the above method will not work.

So, when gameplay diversity does not work from a core level, minor character deviations from the core become a necessity to keep things fresh if animations are not enough. To make such work in this case you have to look at the characters and ask how you can diversify them and also keep them unique. To make things even challenging there is of course the problem with Sonic himself using only the core gameplay concept which results in every other character being Sonic plus an extra move or two. So, I can come up with a number of examples easily enough using Mania plus Amy as a basis, but as they are kind of off topic I'll spoiler the next bit.

Spoiler

So, when diversifying the characters based off their individual traits you have to first ask what is the character fundamentally. Of course you have your easy characters like Tails and Knuckles who live by there namesakes, though I would argue against letting Knuckles keep his glide but I'll get to that. Next up you have your more animal based characters in Mighty and Ray where an armadillo's protective shell is used to alter enemy and obstacle interactions and a flying squirrel's natural ability to glide is used to create a different type of aerial movement. Moving on to more challenging characters you have Amy who is just Girl-Sonic-Lite for the most part plus a completely random toy hammer, and lastly Sonic himself who is just the core gameplay of run, jump, roll plus his reputation of being fast. That alone does not really make for good character diversity for Sonic so one has to dig a little deeper into the characters and aspects of there concepts to diversify them around that core including Sonic himself.

Starting with Tails, his concept has always been around his twin tails spinning like a propeller to allow him to keep up with Sonic as well as fly. From a gameplay standpoint this allows him to stick to the gameplay core but also have a unique move distinct to him which is balanced by lack of momentum and increased vulnerability in addition to a time limit in which it is used. From a gameplay concept it could be described that Tails is given the ability to interact with/ move freely through empty space since he is also able swim.

Now considering Tails and Ray, who I'll get to, Knuckles key trait is his namesake which is primarily used to open up and climb on wall and not flight. It can be said in addition to the core gameplay concept Knuckles' is to interact with walls both by scaling and breaking them opening unique routes matching his background on Angel Island and his role as a treasure hunter and finder of shortcuts and secret passages. It is for these reasons plus Ray being a natural glider that I would remove gliding from Knuckles to focus on the platforming distinct to his namesake.

Moving on to Mighty, due to his protective shell he is the character I would actually not give any extra moves to as his protective shell completely changes the way that he interacts with enemy projectiles and environmental obstacles. He is in a sense an easy mode of a sort built around not punishing players for jumping and rolling carelessly creating a more beginner friendly introduction to the classic games and allowing for one to learn the levels safely so that they can explore them with the more ability centric characters to learn new ways to approach the levels.

So with Ray, his entire gimmick is his gliding making him one of the reasons that I would remove gliding from Knuckles if he is present. Like Knuckles, Ray's glide is primarily horizontal, and he is an empty space interactor like Tails. However, and this is important, where Tails interacts with Empty space by means of slowing down for precision exploration and platforming, Ray is like Sonic in that he is built around speed being what makes him distinct beyond his gimmick completely changing the way that he interacts with empty space. As a result, conceptually Ray is a speed runner whereas Tail's is an explorer and planner which works with Ray's flighty nature and Tails' more methodical approach.

Amy is strangely easy to approach if you add her hammer onto the gameplay core as her hammer is what is used to differentiate her from the others but requires looking at what her hammer actually does; in most cases enhancing her jumping and destroying enemies and obstacles. So looking at that, I would make Amy swing her hammer whenever she jumps period, curling into a ball when jumping so as not sacrifice the gameplay core and giving the player the option to swing her hammer again to attack enemies and also change the property of her jump. I would further allow Amy to break spikes to meet the destructive function of her hammer and open unique routes to her as well as keeping her spring boost from the Advance games to open further routes, all with out sacrificing the gameplay core used by Sonic and shared with all characters. In short, the concept of Amy being Girl-Sonic-Lite plus hammer relies heavily on her hammer to differentiate her which works with how strongly her hammer is tied into her image.

Lastly that brings us to Sonic and his concept being frequently misconstrued. The common misinterpretation of Sonic's concept is that he is supposed to be a speedy platformer when a more accurate interpretation is that he is a character who should be able to traverse his levels and interact with its obstacles in a way that makes moving through memorized levels fluid. Speed is simply a reward and the imagery of this behavior and his moveset is built around this concept resulting in the run, jump, roll gameplay core as well the hedgehog who runs fast to tie it all together. But while this is enough to separate Sonic from his peers in the genre it is not enough to make him special and unique within his own platform games when compared against the other playable characters. That is not to say that Sonic can not be made unique, and his trademark speed and reason for being is actually where a possibility can be found.
So, a quick history refresher will remind us that Sonic was created as SEGA's answer to and way to get a share of the market of fellow run-and-jump platformer; Mario. Supposedly speed running World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.because it is a natural thing to do since it is the most played and thus memorized world was part of Naka's inspiration for Sonic, and some would argue that it is even more evidence that like the '90s themselves Sonic was meant to be a more extreme iteration of what had come before. Regardless of any truth in that, that extreme approach to what some would call the quintessential platformer in Mario is where the possibility for making Sonic unique in his own classic style platformers is where my ideas lie. But to make that work Sonic's speed must be taken into account as well as Mario's original name which epitomizes the platformer genre; Jumpman. If Sonic is supposed to be to the extreme then his jumping is the area that needs to be expanded upon to make him unique to the others.
So where I would go to make Sonic unique literally allow him to jump off of any flat surface, be it wall or ceiling, as well as vaulting off of enemies by pressing jump when close enough to "safe" enemies making them special platforms so to say. In this way the players reflexes are tested and Sonic effectively really becomes a pinball that is bouncing all over the place allowing players to dynamically apply Sonic's speed to the last second part of the run, jump, roll gameplay core. While not a perfect solution, it is a possibility to explore that makes Sonic unique and stays true to the gameplay core of the classics.

So wrapping up, while my gameplay examples may be a bit much, I hope it at least provides a passable example of how diverse playable characters can be while sharing a gameplay core. I also hope that I was succinct enough in my explanations of the importance of a singular gameplay core and the differences between multiple playstyles and said core. Anyway, if you would like me to clarify my stance in way just let me know and I'll be glad to give it my best shot.

[E-122-Psi]

Concerning Sonic's signature abilities, I think the Drop Dash works well as such because it is an ability that gives him some sort of travelling/momentum advantage, much like flying/climbing/breaking special barricades can, and in the characteristic fashion of making Sonic fast by rolling into a ball.

The only potential problem is that it maybe works TOO well in that regard, with Sonic sometimes coming off as overpowered in speed run modes like Time Attack and VS race with that move easy to spam.

[DabigRG]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:03 PM, E-122-Psi said:

 

Gamma could have been useful for developing Eggman's plot with POV but we actually skip over most of that in his story and his role in the main story consists of getting Froggy and having a brief fight with Sonic with his solo mission afterwards having little effect on it.

 

Yeah, I would've thought there'd be a little more of that as well.

On 11/1/2018 at 8:03 PM, E-122-Psi said:

 

The roster gets even worse as games go along because later titles keep pushing the new ones as MAIN CHARACTERS and make less and less of an effort to have them flow into the standard Sonic setup as a gradual evolution, by Next Gen it is SONIC that is the filler material, with tons of random gameplay genres being forced onto you rather than a gradual expansion of the usual mechanics that the 2D games offered. Silver also does not really add onto the original Sonic universe and mythos, if anything his story and character arc are reliant on completely skewing it into something different.

 

On 11/5/2018 at 3:48 PM, Dash Speed said:

 

Only tails, knuckles, amy, and blaze have the best potential for integration for 2d/3d elements and easily gain praise outside the modern fan base, plus are basicly ideal movesets that can represent their own game styles like Knuckles and hunting and tails and flying. Blaze is fire sonic and she can even hover via shadow in some titles. Shadow and Silver have to copy from sonic directly with clunky gimmicks like guns and pschokinesis.

There's also Advance 2 with Cream&Cheese.

.

.

 

 

[The 3rd Option]

6 hours ago, Sonic Fan J said:

This question of yours leaves me wanting to ask your thoughts on games pre-1995 where everyone playing the same with just different animation quirks (if they had any at all) based off of their personalities was more common then everyone playing differently? I feel if you shared those thoughts it would make it easier for others to see why you find it so limiting.

I get why that "everyone playing the same+distinct stats/abilities" is the common design for video games from then until now. As you said, it all comes down to the consistency being easy to execute.

But just because "everyone plays the same" is easier to execute doesn't mean it's the right way to execute. I honestly can't think of any other games with more ability diversity among the cast than Sonic, and because of that, those abilities absolutely should be designed around them, and not by shoehorning them as well as their own "unique routes" onto Sonic's levels.

Again, I do think Forces' Avatar is an acceptable, even excellent, compromise between "Sonic+X ability" and "alternate gameplay". Avatar and Modern Sonic do play fairly similarly, but have their own unique abilities, and said abilities have the levels designed around them. It gives a good sense of familiarity for those who like "Sonic+X ability" and variety for those who like "alternate gameplay".

[Sonic Fan J]

@The 3rd Option thanks for answering my question and clarifying your stance, it definitely makes it easier to see where you are coming from now even as it re-highlights for me the problem with consistency in the Sonic franchise. It also points out that a difficult enough task on its own of making multiple gameplay cores should not be handled by any but the most ambitious and skilled of development teams. As for saying whether or not the way the industry handles the topic of singular or multiple gameplay cores is right or not, I'll acknowledge every time that making video games, no matter how much of an art it can be, is still a business designed to make money. In that regard, though inherently limiting (I'd still argue that as I find too much freedom can actually stifle creative by making it impossible to find a starting point and create a cohesive whole after that - necessity being the mother of all invention after all and all that) it is the most financially sound approach which from an industry and business standard makes it just as right as doing the characters the justice they deserve. It's a complicated beast to be sure, but perhaps part of the problem with the Sonic's cast of characters in the first place is that the are too diverse and distinct for a traditional video game format lending themselves better to a more flexible narrative medium.

[E-122-Psi]

18 hours ago, DabigRG said:

Yeah, I would've thought there'd be a little more of that as well.

It's a shame because I feel stuff could have been put in to not only boost his gameplay time but also his relevance.

Eggman could have easily sent him and the E-Series to destroy the Master Emerald and free Chaos in the first place for example, and maybe the reason they're all wandering aimlessly during his rescue mission is because Eggman sent them to pick up from where they lost and find Chaos and the Emeralds again. Innocuous details in the story that still make him feel like he's part of the big picture. Amy and Big I admit would be harder to fit in, the best I can think of is Big having more 'lucky charms' and then dropping them conveniently where Sonic and Tails collect them, which would be a humorous way to have him part of the main story while keeping him comically oblivious to the grand scheme of things.

Then again, I know Sonic Adventure was meant to be a lot bigger even in later stages so who knows, maybe some of this WAS the original plan.

[DabigRG]

25 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Eggman could have easily sent him and the E-Series to destroy the Master Emerald and free Chaos in the first place for example,

Doesn't the credits or something imply that may have happened?

26 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

and maybe the reason they're all wandering aimlessly during his rescue mission is because Eggman sent them to pick up from where they lost and find Chaos and the Emeralds again.

Hm...perhaps.

 

28 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

It's a shame because I feel stuff could have been put in to not only boost his gameplay time but also his relevance.

Innocuous details in the story that still make him feel like he's part of the big picture.

Yeah.

28 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

Amy and Big I admit would be harder to fit in, the best I can think of is Big having more 'lucky charms' and then dropping them conveniently where Sonic and Tails collect them, which would be a humorous way to have him part of the main story while keeping him comically oblivious to the grand scheme of things.

 

 Ah yeah, gettin Lion King 11/2 up in this.

30 minutes ago, E-122-Psi said:

 

Then again, I know Sonic Adventure was meant to be a lot bigger even in later stages so who knows, maybe some of this WAS the original plan.

Really now?

[E-122-Psi]

33 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

 Ah yeah, gettin Lion King 11/2 up in this.

Which likely would have made fans consider Big funnier too so two birds with one stone there.

I suppose with Froggy being possessed by Chaos they could have went more for it trying to collect emeralds and Big continuously interfering, making what seems like a completely irrelevant mission be deceptively key to how the others chart out.

33 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Really now?

Along with the fact that SA1 is glaringly unfinished in it's final state, there are at least three labels for unused levels in the programming of the final game, "Desert", "Mushroom" and "Jungle". Even with just those levels, they could have likely added to the progression of each character per story and likely given most of them at least one or two more levels to play in.