Sonic 30th predictions

[Red Hot Jack]

Yeah, I bet it's an animation where Sonic and Tails are voiced by Ryan Drummond and Emi Jones... and Ryan is Sonic's Dreamcast era voice... uhm, let's wait and see. 

The real question is... why would they tease it now?

[Jango]

I too wonder why. Is almost as if they have something related to the Dreamcast era planned.

[Badnik Mechanic]

37 minutes ago, Jango said:

I too wonder why. Is almost as if they have something related to the Dreamcast era planned.

So for those who don't know... which is probably nobody who still posts here, I used to write news articles for the site.

I remember you doing this before for one of the Sumo Sonic Racing games, you were teasing loads of stuff and acting as if you had some kind of contact who was giving you information, and I used to question you on this and from what I recall, none of what you teased or hinted actually came to light or I might add has even come to life as being part of some kind of cut content. 

So... Wanna actually reveal your source or justification for all these non hints you keep posting?

[User18091994]

I think we will have a new Adventure game soon not because Sega or Sonic's social media is hinting but because it makes sense. We are currently in a nostalgia wave from the late 90s and early 2000s. All "nostalgia waves" came right after the game, movie or whatever piece of art completes 20 years of its release. The original Sonic Adventure is 21 years old in the US, the Adventure 2 is 19.

The nostalgia wave are all in the entertainment business, we have thousands of remakes of classic Disney animations, we have the return of beloved franchises such as Star Wars, the Marvel movies rely on the nostalgia of the original comics stories, too. In the game's market, we had Crash, Spyro, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy remakes, and it's just the begining.

So, even if the next Sonic game weren't an Adventure remake or an Adventure related game, Sega's probably starting to develop something to surf in this trend, They're going to put Adventure fanservice in the new game for sure.

But, unlike the Disney live action remakes, in my opinion the remakes of old games have more than nostalgia to rely on. They could really make the old experiences feel fresh because the originals have hardware and development limitations. For example, when Sonic Adventure was released, it was the very first Sonic 3D game. Sonic Team doesn't know what would work and what wouldn't. Takashi Iizuka also said in a past interview that the Perfect Chaos from Sonic Generations was how he wanted it to look in the original Dreamcast game but it couldn't due to hardware limitations.

Sonic Adventure remake could have expanded level design, better directed cutscenes and voice acting, better presented story, better design Adventure fields. I could be amazing!

It's also an opportunity to Sega to revisit the Adventure gameplay and see what they could use in the next games. We see that the boost formula isn't the way. It's fun but also consume too much resources and have some limitations that the Adventure's formulas doesn't.

[Badnik Mechanic]

54 minutes ago, Raphael Martins said:

Sonic Adventure remake could have expanded level design, better directed cutscenes and voice acting, better presented story, better design Adventure fields. I could be amazing!

Except it won't.

This is something I really need to talk about more and something that those who want it need to realise.

Let's just hypothetically say that tomorrow Sega Announces a full on ground up Sonic Adventure Remake. 

It is not going to be a 1 for 1 Sonic Adventure remake.

Sonic Adventure was made to sell a console, just look at that game in terms of scale for the time. There's what... 6 different characters, each with near unique gameplay style. each with their own music themes and cues, each with their own unique cut-scenes each with their own voice actor, some have really unique level designs despite being based in the same location. 

A full on 1 for 1 remake will be lucky enough to even be half of what the original is. 

The closest thing in recent times we've had to an adventure game is Forces, technically 4 characters with unique gameplay (sorta) each with their own stages, music cues etc. But look at that game in terms of scale it doesn't even compare, most stages are over in barely 1 and a half minutes. Some are barely 60 seconds in length.

The last game we had which came even remotely close to emulate the scale of SA1... was Sonic 06, and the only reason for that is due to the "Amigo" portions of certain stages.

Does anyone, truly believe that Sega would risk a 1 for 1 remake in terms of scale for Sonic Adventure? 6 fully playable characters, each with their own storyline, unique gameplay? I'd wager you'd be lucky to get half that.

I'd almost be willing to put money down that if Sega did decide to remake the game, they'd only focus on Sonic... Or... They would totally re-design the game ala a Resident Evil or FF7R route. So you have a Sonic storyline, which cuts to single levels in which you play as Tails and Knuckles... I don't even think you'd get Big or Gamma as much as I'd love a Gamma stage.

Sega don't make games anymore to sell a console, nobody outside of Nintendo, some Sony first party studios and a few Microsoft studios. 

I just cannot ever see Sega taking that risk to making a game in todays standards with the same scale.

[Johnster4]

You would think with the waiting on the information that Larry would have leaked the information by now and saved everyone the waiting.

Quote

Except it won't.

This is something I really need to talk about more and something that those who want it need to realise.

Let's just hypothetically say that tomorrow Sega Announces a full on ground up Sonic Adventure Remake. 

It is not going to be a 1 for 1 Sonic Adventure remake.

Sonic Adventure was made to sell a console, just look at that game in terms of scale for the time. There's what... 6 different characters, each with near unique gameplay style. each with their own music themes and cues, each with their own unique cut-scenes each with their own voice actor, some have really unique level designs despite being based in the same location. 

A full on 1 for 1 remake will be lucky enough to even be half of what the original is. 

The closest thing in recent times we've had to an adventure game is Forces, technically 4 characters with unique gameplay (sorta) each with their own stages, music cues etc. But look at that game in terms of scale it doesn't even compare, most stages are over in barely 1 and a half minutes. Some are barely 60 seconds in length.

The last game we had which came even remotely close to emulate the scale of SA1... was Sonic 06, and the only reason for that is due to the "Amigo" portions of certain stages.

Does anyone, truly believe that Sega would risk a 1 for 1 remake in terms of scale for Sonic Adventure? 6 fully playable characters, each with their own storyline, unique gameplay? I'd wager you'd be lucky to get half that.

I'd almost be willing to put money down that if Sega did decide to remake the game, they'd only focus on Sonic... Or... They would totally re-design the game ala a Resident Evil or FF7R route. So you have a Sonic storyline, which cuts to single levels in which you play as Tails and Knuckles... I don't even think you'd get Big or Gamma as much as I'd love a Gamma stage.

Sega don't make games anymore to sell a console, nobody outside of Nintendo, some Sony first party studios and a few Microsoft studios. 

I just cannot ever see Sega taking that risk to making a game in todays standards with the same scale.

1.  If they would do it on the 6th Generation Consoles surely they could be able to remake the game on modern hardware.
2. They wouldn't need Sonic Team to make the Sonic Adventure Remake work with either Bluepoint Games who remade Shadow of the Colossus  or work with Activation and Vicarious Visions to remake the game who were able to remake 3 games 1:1 in one disc.

[Jango]

16 minutes ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Sonic Adventure was made to sell a console

And how would that stop a remake? Isn't every game made to sell a console? SEGA has made bigger games than Sonic Adventure. All I can take from your argument is "SEGA won't do it because that would require money and effort". Yes their latest Sonic games were a little lower on the budget and arguibly in quality... but I can tell you that it was a choice, not a necessity.

[Red Hot Jack]

If they didn't spend money on their latest Sonic titles but take big budget to develop a remake... well, that's a big fuck you to new Sonic games. I just don't see the point.

Also, even if a SA remake was announced by tomorrow, you know people still will not believe you, this or next time, since all you did was vague hints messing with people 

[Jango]

14 minutes ago, Jack at Home said:

If they didn't spend money on their latest Sonic titles but take big budget to develop a remake... well, that's a big fuck you to new Sonic games. I just don't see the point.

Except not really. A remake is still a game. I don't see the point in your argument.

 

14 minutes ago, Jack at Home said:

Also, even if a SA remake was announced by tomorrow, you know people still will not believe you, this or next time, since all you did was vague hints messing with people 

I also don't recall asking for anything ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Razule]

31 minutes ago, Jango said:

Isn't every game made to sell a console?

Not games that aren't exclusive. Or.. aren't on consoles

[User18091994]

 

1 hour ago, Badnik Mechanic said:

Except it won't.

This is something I really need to talk about more and something that those who want it need to realise.

Let's just hypothetically say that tomorrow Sega Announces a full on ground up Sonic Adventure Remake. 

It is not going to be a 1 for 1 Sonic Adventure remake.

Sonic Adventure was made to sell a console, just look at that game in terms of scale for the time. There's what... 6 different characters, each with near unique gameplay style. each with their own music themes and cues, each with their own unique cut-scenes each with their own voice actor, some have really unique level designs despite being based in the same location. 

A full on 1 for 1 remake will be lucky enough to even be half of what the original is. 

The closest thing in recent times we've had to an adventure game is Forces, technically 4 characters with unique gameplay (sorta) each with their own stages, music cues etc. But look at that game in terms of scale it doesn't even compare, most stages are over in barely 1 and a half minutes. Some are barely 60 seconds in length.

The last game we had which came even remotely close to emulate the scale of SA1... was Sonic 06, and the only reason for that is due to the "Amigo" portions of certain stages.

Does anyone, truly believe that Sega would risk a 1 for 1 remake in terms of scale for Sonic Adventure? 6 fully playable characters, each with their own storyline, unique gameplay? I'd wager you'd be lucky to get half that.

I'd almost be willing to put money down that if Sega did decide to remake the game, they'd only focus on Sonic... Or... They would totally re-design the game ala a Resident Evil or FF7R route. So you have a Sonic storyline, which cuts to single levels in which you play as Tails and Knuckles... I don't even think you'd get Big or Gamma as much as I'd love a Gamma stage.

Sega don't make games anymore to sell a console, nobody outside of Nintendo, some Sony first party studios and a few Microsoft studios. 

I just cannot ever see Sega taking that risk to making a game in todays standards with the same scale.

Your arguments doesn't make sense. There are games with much more characters and voice actors than Sonic Adventure 1 nowadays. It doesn't make the games too expensive to make. Sonic Unleashed wasn't made to "sell consoles" and it has higher production value than the first Adventure.

Final Fantasy VII remake is an entirely new experience even if it's a remake. A Sonic Adventure remake could be like that. I don't know if the next Sonic game will suffer with lower budget. The Hedgehog Engine 2 is already made, they don't have to worry about graphic and physical engine, they only have to make the game.

Forces had 4 years of development time, but 3 years were only to develop Hedgehog Engine 2. After Forces, Sonic Team had plenty of time to focus only in the development of the game itself. If they started developing the new game right after Forces released, they had 3 years.

The Adventure remake could have all 6 characters of the original, but they could rework Big gameplay and make the fishing only a minigame.

[MugiMikey]

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of an Adventure remake and the more and more I think about it, I don't like it.

If they do remake Sonic Adventure I do expect a lot of big changes to come alongside it. I think the story would mostly be the same, but the gameplay would be very very different. For example, I think they would certainly cut playable characters such as Big, but because of his new, memey marketable status he'd be a major NPC. Hell, they would probably try to find a way to make Classic Sonic part of the story and shoehorn in his own playable campaign too. Modern Sonic would have boost versions of his levels (think Speed Highway from Generations) and wisps would probably be there too, because why not?

The only playable characters I see happening are Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, and maybe Shadow or the avatar. I don't want it to be this way but it's the only realistic routes I see them taking. If we ever did get Tails, maybe they could take the way Sonic controlled in Lost World and retool it for him, because damn, he really needs to go through that story arc again. I mean, it'd be a good opportunity for it but they probably wouldn't do it.

The story would probably be more or less the same, but I also think it would be a retread of the original story but still placed in the timeline after Forces, like the Phantom Ruby making it all possible to revisit everything. Character personalities would match that of their current iterations—Sonic would still be making jokes about Eggman's mustache, and he would probably constantly make a bunch of water jokes at Chaos too. If Tails isn't playable he'd probably follow one of the Sonics around and give advice, almost like Omochao. I'd expect the rest of the characters to take a backseat cheerleading kind of role just like before. The humans would probably be replaced with other anthropomorphic animals and the modern boost levels would probably be like a minute and a half long.

Even if they did try to do a 1:1 remake from the ground up without making major changes to the gameplay I don't think it would be as good as the original, like at all. I honestly don't have a lot of faith in the prospect either way unfortunately. I'd rather they do something new. I really hate that I don't have faith in this, and I would love to be proven wrong.

 

EDIT: After sitting on this for a couple hours, I just wanted to say that this is more like a collection of worst-case scenarios in the realm of possibility I see happening. I don't expect it to be 1:1 with everything here. Basically I expect at least just one questionable decision.

[expansivelovestories]

8 hours ago, Jack at Home said:

Yeah, I bet it's an animation where Sonic and Tails are voiced by Ryan Drummond and Emi Jones... and Ryan is Sonic's Dreamcast era voice... uhm, let's wait and see. 

The real question is... why would they tease it now?

Maybe the animation episodes are complete and can be released this year?!  it is definitely a major and fully surprising reveal!!   For some of us, myself definitely included, the twitter announcement about the reveals being postponed made it feel like a possible animation was in fact something that was being delayed.  Now it seems like quite the opposite is true!  the release itself could be months away, but, this is a very positive sign!!

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I'm expecting the Drummond/ Jones project to be an unofficial fan project. Still awesome, but I doubt it's official.

Pfft, if there's a Sonic adventure remake, why am I expecting Sega to shoehorn Shadow into that thing?

"Director:Hey, Sonic adventure fans love Shadow right? Put him in as a bonus boss fight.
Sonic fan: He can't be in Sonic adventure 1, he's supposed to still be in stasis while-
(Sonic fan is thrown out of the window)
Developer: But sir, making an extra boss fight is like...Work.
Director: Good point. We'll put in a cutscene where Classic Sonic teleports in to kill Shadow in one hit."

[A Peep]

I’m going to be optimistic and say that if Sonic Team absolutely has to shoehorn in Classic Sonic, they’d make it a skin for getting all the emblems and possibly make 2D versions of Emerald Coast, Speed Highway etc... for DLC. That said, while I don’t think a hypothetical SA1 remake would strip half of its content, add wisps etc.. I think they would add additions from SA2 (bounce bracelet, non-spammy spindash, improved drill claw, better light speed dash) which could be for better or worse depending on who you ask. Honestly though I’d rather a game with inspiration from SA1 than a SA1 remake.

[Red Hot Jack]

That's what I'm saying honestly, a new game inspired by both Adventure games is more likely IMO. Sega would be able to shoehorn their precious Classic Sonic, Green Hill, Wisps, Zavok, villain Shadow, 2D sections, and more, if it was a new game inspired by Adventure 1&2, maybe with those zones reimagined. This way they could also reduce the number of playable characters and zones... unless you expect a direct remake with 11 zones, 7 storylines, extras.

[Badnik Mechanic]

17 hours ago, Raphael Martins said:

Your arguments doesn't make sense. There are games with much more characters and voice actors than Sonic Adventure 1 nowadays. It doesn't make the games too expensive to make. 

So I risk putting myself on the spot here by asking this but... What's considered an acceptable campaign length for a game these days? 6-8 hours?

Can you please name some games which in recent years which have 4 playable characters which are actually unique in terms of gameplay and not just 'class' differences? Which all have a campaign that is the same or very close in length to the primary + 2 other characters that have equally unique gameplay and a slightly smaller campagin? 

The closest I can think of is Yakuza and that isn't separate campaigns. 

That's an example of the scale here, how many games go for that sense of scale at just something as basic as playable characters which have unique gameplay and campaigns? 

[Wraith]

Sonic Adventure's various campaigns reuse more assets from one another that it's actually not as ambitious an undertaking as it seems. It's an impressive technical showcase but it was also a game that made a lot of compromises to be finished inside of a year. If you were to remake Sonic's campaign from scratch you'd end up with most of the assets you need for the other parts. 

[Red Hot Jack]

I don't see it that way, to me, the game had 6 playable characters with storylines, 11 zones with 3 acts each, as well as bosses, time attack, hubworlds, minigames and side things to do, emblems and missions. It was a huge game.

[Badnik Mechanic]

13 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Sonic Adventure's various campaigns reuse more assets from one another that it's actually not as ambitious an undertaking as it seems. It's an impressive technical showcase but it was also a game that made a lot of compromises to be finished inside of a year. If you were to remake Sonic's campaign from scratch you'd end up with most of the assets you need for the other parts. 

That's true, it does re-use assets, but can you name a game which isn't from a first party Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft studio (even then I think you'd be pushing it), that comes close to being the modern equivalent of that?

I think you'd even struggle to find a comparable game in terms of scope and scale from the year Adventure was released, let alone a modern game equivalent. 

[Thigolf]

Most of the other character's levels are simply parts of Sonic's level with a small extra rooms here and there.

Tails' levels are just chunks of Sonic's levels with Flight rings put here and there.
Most of Knuckles' stages are just parts of Sonic levels with emerald shards hidden somewhere.
Amy actually has a sizable amount of unique layouts, but she only has 3 levels, and even those re-use huge chunks of other levels.
Gamma, again, has Sonic's exact levels most of the time, with more enemies and some additional speedboosters placed here and there to accomodate for his speed differences.
Big also often just takes tiny chunks of levels, or has uniquely created areas, but even those are ridiculously small because all you do is fish in them.

C'mon, I adore Sonic Adventure, it's my favorite Sonic game, but let's not act like Sega and Sonic Team cranked out completely unique levels for each character. They put thought and effort to change the areas to make them a little unique for each character, but it's really not some gigantic act like some make it out to be.

We might as well argue that Sonic Mania has 72 unique levels just because you can play each Act with 3 characters and they all have small areas only they can reach.
 

[Wraith]

Any game of decent length is a massive undertaking but the Adventure games were pretty clever with how they distributed content to make them feel bigger than they actually were. There were 6 campaigns but their length varied extremely with the longest one only being 3 or 4 hours long at most.  The others are stitched together from parts of that first campaign so blatantly that I actually expect that the game would get accused of padding more than anything else if a 1:1 remaster were to happen. 

The "unique" gameplay of most of the cast comes down to tweaking speed values and adding new abilities, which is definetly a ton of work that I don't have to downplay but it's also very doable. Especially since a lot of these abilites were dropped into SA1's existing stages with little regard for balance. It's more like the varied types of platforming challenges you see in most other platformers than 6 actually fully unique games. Big and Gamma are the most unique but have a smaller stage pool to compensate. 

Modern games run laps around this one in terms of scale.  

It's all very doable to me expecially considering Sonic Team's usual disregard for polish. This is all before I get into whether I think it's a good idea(I don't really think it is.)

[Kuzu]

You need to really consider the time frame Sonic Adventure came out in as well; by the standards of 1999, the things it did were considered extremely ambitious because those were the things in demand at the time: More playable characters, more gameplay modes, more ambitious storylines, etc etc and Sonic Adventure was specifically designed to be the Killer App of the Dreamcast.

It's been two decades since then, technology has marched on and what Sonic Adventure did is honestly pretty small scale by today's standards for gaming. So it really wouldn't cost as many resources as people think, especially with the way they've been cutting corners in recent years with their games. 

[User18091994]

22 hours ago, MugiMikey said:

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of an Adventure remake and the more and more I think about it, I don't like it.

If they do remake Sonic Adventure I do expect a lot of big changes to come alongside it. I think the story would mostly be the same, but the gameplay would be very very different. For example, I think they would certainly cut playable characters such as Big, but because of his new, memey marketable status he'd be a major NPC. Hell, they would probably try to find a way to make Classic Sonic part of the story and shoehorn in his own playable campaign too. Modern Sonic would have boost versions of his levels (think Speed Highway from Generations) and wisps would probably be there too, because why not?

The only playable characters I see happening are Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic, and maybe Shadow or the avatar. I don't want it to be this way but it's the only realistic routes I see them taking. If we ever did get Tails, maybe they could take the way Sonic controlled in Lost World and retool it for him, because damn, he really needs to go through that story arc again. I mean, it'd be a good opportunity for it but they probably wouldn't do it.

The story would probably be more or less the same, but I also think it would be a retread of the original story but still placed in the timeline after Forces, like the Phantom Ruby making it all possible to revisit everything. Character personalities would match that of their current iterations—Sonic would still be making jokes about Eggman's mustache, and he would probably constantly make a bunch of water jokes at Chaos too. If Tails isn't playable he'd probably follow one of the Sonics around and give advice, almost like Omochao. I'd expect the rest of the characters to take a backseat cheerleading kind of role just like before. The humans would probably be replaced with other anthropomorphic animals and the modern boost levels would probably be like a minute and a half long.

Even if they did try to do a 1:1 remake from the ground up without making major changes to the gameplay I don't think it would be as good as the original, like at all. I honestly don't have a lot of faith in the prospect either way unfortunately. I'd rather they do something new. I really hate that I don't have faith in this, and I would love to be proven wrong.

 

EDIT: After sitting on this for a couple hours, I just wanted to say that this is more like a collection of worst-case scenarios in the realm of possibility I see happening. I don't expect it to be 1:1 with everything here. Basically I expect at least just one questionable decision.

I don't think these hypothesis make sense. Takashi Iizuka has said about a possible Adventure remake in interviews and based on what he said in them I don't think a remake would be like you described. Probably, it will be the game Iizuka wanted to make in the Dreamcast time, but without its hardware and development limitations.

The Perfect Chaos from Sonic Generations, for example, is how Takashi Iizuka wanted to make the original from Sonic Adventure, but he couldn't.

I think the remake would be close to the original but updated for nowadays gaming standards, with more content and fixing the problems of the original.

[azoo]

I hope the next 3D Sonic game features gameplay. And level design. That'd be pretty dope.

The last one didn't have that, so it'd be exciting to see what they do next time.