Sonic fans have no idea how to make the franchise work well in 3D.

[Shadowlax]

37 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

Also, I'm going to retract my earlier statements about this fanbase being too divided; @Plasme and @Wraith do have a point that while we may have different biases on what we prefer out of the series, we're all here for Sonic at the end of the day. And I think most of us would be down for whatever direction Sega pulled with Sonic if it maintained the type of focus and quality that a game like Mania had. 

 

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Even if you're not a fan of Classic Sonic, most really cannot deny that Mania is simply well made game and that's a significant reason why people loved it. 

Eh, but do you buy it is the thing. And that's sort of what sega has to worry about. They could make the best sonic game ever, but if people don't like the direction then...what? I don't think you can say definitively most people would be down for whatever, it kind of just isn't true and something sega as a company designed to make money has to worry about. While I think some directions with some fine tuning are much better and potentially profitable than others. I do think they idea that " they could go in any direction " is accurate.

This isn't even mentioning the current context for a lot of people even after the film, their interest in sonic games are questionable. Due to the wavering quality of the games and some games associations. A brand new direction depending on where it is, might be met with disinterest. I hate that sega is relying on half ass nostalgia, but I get why. I understand why, I don't think it fixes their development issues. But who might buy what and how much is something they have to think about.

So I agree I don't think the fanbase is divided. I think the fanbase might be disinterested is the bigger issue

[Kuzu]

23 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

Eh, but do you buy it is the thing. And that's sort of what sega has to worry about. They could make the best sonic game ever, but if people don't like the direction then...what? I don't think you can say definitively most people would be down for whatever, it kind of just isn't true and something sega as a company designed to make money has to worry about. While I think some directions with some fine tuning are much better and potentially profitable than others. I do think they idea that " they could go in any direction " is accurate.

This isn't even mentioning the current context for a lot of people even after the film, their interest in sonic games are questionable. Due to the wavering quality of the games and some games associations. A brand new direction depending on where it is, might be met with disinterest. I hate that sega is relying on half ass nostalgia, but I get why. I understand why, I don't think it fixes their development issues. But who might buy what and how much is something they have to think about.

So I agree I don't think the fanbase is divided. I think the fanbase might be disinterested is the bigger issue

The Movie being so successful is a testament that yes, people DO like Sonic. It's the most radically different interpretation of the character to date and it's also the most successful opening of any video game movie. The movie is not perfect by any means, and is ultimately a generic feel good kids film, and it still made bank despite that. 

That's why I said "most" fans not "all" fans. The movie succeeded for the same reason Mania succeeded, it knew what it wanted it to be and focused on being just that and nothing else. Did everyone like it? No, but that's not the point, the point is that it succeeded in what it set out to do, and that was introduce an entirely new generation of people to the franchise. 

Whenever the series is confidently defined, and sets out to do what it wants to do, and does it well. Then people are going to look much more favorably at the game as a result. You might have a few detractors here or there, but that's fine. Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Colors, and Sonic Generations are all the most successful 3D Sonic games because they kept the focus on the things they wanted to do and why they are still remembered fondly. 

It's also why I don't buy into the idea that games like 06 or Forces retroactively made those games bad like so many people insist; 06 and Forces are terrible games because they lack focus and are just poorly optimized, NOT because of the direction those games followed from their predecessors. 

 

So yes, I absolutely do believe a new direction would be accepted, so as long as it was confidently defined and well structured; it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that's alright because some are just stubborn like that, and the game shouldn't bend backwards to appease everyone, because that's how you get games like Forces which are just a shallow hodgepodge of what Sega thinks people want. At the end of the day, people just wanna play a game that knows what it wants to do and does it well. 

[Wraith]

A lot of people treat the variety if Sonic content and the fact that people are enthusiastic for all of it as some kind of blight but it's probably more realistic that it just means the series is flexible. You can do a lot of different things stylistically with it and people will be open to it. They should be using that to their advantage to try new things like they were doing before instead of clinging to old imagery and concepts. 

[Shadowlax]

2 minutes ago, Wraith said:

A lot of people treat the variety if Sonic content and the fact that people are enthusiastic for all of it as some kind of blight but it's probably more realistic that it just means the series is flexible. You can do a lot of different things stylistically with it and people will be open to it. They should be using that to their advantage to try new things like they were doing before instead of clinging to old imagery and concepts. 

I agree with this . I think the issue is, sega has been literally screwing that up for like 2 decades and them doing that is associated with bad. Even a good thing my be preconceived to be bad in game form.  That's the issue sega has to deal with on the development end. They can't use that to thier advantage when the last few decades has been them messing it up.

They need to "Hey you know this old thing we can do it good, we can regularly produce a thing of quality that you like " then go do new shit.

Me personally I want them to reboot the whole 3d thing and go in a different direction inspired by various different things and refining cool shit they did in the past and do new stuff.

 

[Wraith]

5 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

 

Me personally I want them to reboot the whole 3d thing and go in a different direction inspired by various different things and refining cool shit they did in the past and do new stuff.

 

I want them to feel emboldened to try whatever they think would be cool and not worry so much about what we think.

But my pie in the sky dream for the series is more of a BOTW style reconstruction that includes lore and mechanical concepts from basically every game they've ever made, yeah. 

[Kuzu]

Variety is a good thing, but only when it's handled well. The reason the series has such a terrible reputation as a unfocused mess is because that's exactly what the games have been, because Sega feel like they need to please every facet of the fanbase. The worst folly a creator can do is to try and please everyone, because at the end of the day you'll end up pleasing nobody.  

Basically, the series needs to find a way of adding variety without just tossing out everything that came before. You CAN add new elements and iconography without removing the ones that came before. It's why Sonic Adventure was able to work, because it feels like both an evolution of Sonic, but still has numerous callbacks to the previous games. 

Lost World is NOT an inherently bad game, and actually has a few great ideas worth exploring for instance, but it retained almost nothing from it's predecessors Colors or Generations.

 

 

The safest thing right now though probably is to do a Sonic Adventure remake, if only just to show people that they can fix one of their older games. Otherwise, a new game and new direction that knows what it wants would be better. 

[Shadowlax]

Games cost money to make and require money to produce. They have to at all times consider what people will buy. Even the most recent success mania is sold off the back of nsotalgia. Even the film is

Its just the nature of things. Disregarding fans in a franchise that is a mascot platformer is just... not a thing you can do really.

[Kuzu]

You can't base all of your products around what you think the fanbase wants though, because all you're doing is appeasing those specific people. You need to think about what the public at large wants. 

The Sonic movie did well not JUST because of nostalgia, but because Sonic is just a lovable and relatable character in it and kids love to see that shit. 

[Wraith]

I don't mean to say completely disregard us. Just stop bending over backwards for us because that shit is lame.

Everything in this genre that's not Mario or a few indies is some kind of throwback or remake. It's boring.

[Kuzu]

That's why I think if they were to remake Sonic Adventure, they need to go balls off the walls with not only updating it, but improving it too. In an ideal scenario, you hit that sweet spot of showing newer fans why the game is great, while playing on the older fan's nostalgia. 

[DryLagoon]

25 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I don't mean to say completely disregard us. Just stop bending over backwards for us because that shit is lame.

I mean is that really true though? I don't think many people after Generations went "oh yeah they should scrap all of this and do it again!". This was before Mania so Classic was still somewhat positive there. And the avatar in Forces feels like a decade too late if it was responding to fans. Not saying it's bad, but the peak of Sonic OCs was in the 2000s.

From what I can tell the Japanese fans love Sonic and his friends, so it wasn't them insisting they remove them either.

I honestly think it was the critics and a vocal section of the fandom that led to the post 06 changes. Images like this show it can be flawed to rely on critics for feedback in some situations.

Spoiler

I think while it was partly due to some fans and critics, I still think it's also the team wanting to try out ideas they have too.

[Kuzu]

It should be noted, the "going back to its roots" meme started with Sonic Heroes, as that's what Sega were marketing it as after SA2. They deliberately designed Heroes as a nostalgic callback to the older games; the simpler story, and the two act structure. 

[Scritch the Cat]

I want to offer a hot take here; one that I feel shouldn’t be controversial but somehow seems unacknowledged: I don’t think it’s really that hard to make another Sonic Adventure game.  I mean, the bit I noted last post, of Sonic games being hard to make in general, and professional-tier 3D games remaining outside the capabilities of fangame developers, is still true, but SEGA used that formula in five successive games, albeit to varying success, and the speed part of that formula is still in essence the one they’re using, with the addition of some new moves and gimmicks.  There isn’t any major hurdle they need to clear in order to make Sonic work the way he had in those games, and if they include other playable characters in the safe way of making them play mostly like Sonic, but with some differences, they, too, could be easy enough to make.

The biggest thing I think is keeping them from doing it?  For a time it was probably the aversion to Sonic 06, but as fond memories of the Adventure series start to outweigh the bad taste that retconned-out game left, it probably isn’t anymore.  Now what’s stopping them is the refusal to get rid of the boost.  While it doesn’t absolutely prevent other characters from being playable, it forces them to devote so much more time and effort in level design to focus on moving forward in a hurry, that other facets, like moving vertically, get less focus in turn.  It used to be that when people complained about extra playable characters in the Adventure games, what most pointed to as a better way to do things was, once again, Sonic but with a few different moves, ala the Genesis trilogy/quadrology.  But for that to work, environments must be made to utilize those moves.

TL/DR: Making another Adventure game is not some elusive magical spell; anymore than making another game like the Genesis trilogy.  But it just like Mania, you do need to axe the boost to make such a game.

[Plasme]

I actually largely agree with @Kuzu and apologise if I've been rude!

I also think that Sonic games are best when they just go for a focus and stick with it. Maybe it's just me, but I really get the impression that the team working on Generations had a real passion for revisiting Sonic's past. They celebrated the entire series and did so with some real pizzazz. I think it's a crying shame that Hiroshi Miyamoto hasn't directed a Sonic game since, because I have confidence that he would do a good job.

I really love Mania as everyone does, but I still have a large soft spot for Generations. I think it's the best Sonic game since Sonic and Knuckles when it came out and while the Classic Sonic physics were flawed for sure, I still think he was fun and had great levels to run through.

[Moose the Cat]

Sonic Robo Blast 2 v2.2 makes an extremely compelling case that the "classic" Sonic formula works very well in 3D.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia097A0pKNM

[DryLagoon]

I think boost could work if it was left to specific situations but it'd have the same issue of automated sequences in Adventure. It's less about how Sonic controls and more they would have to completely redo how they create stages. But they kinda did for Lost World anyways. 

[Tornado]

21 hours ago, Kuzu said:

It should be noted, the "going back to its roots" meme started with Sonic Heroes, as that's what Sega were marketing it as after SA2. They deliberately designed Heroes as a nostalgic callback to the older games; the simpler story, and the two act structure. 

It's also notable that, while there's no way to know how much a No Items-Sonic Only-Final Destination game that Sonic Team supposedly keeps making after repeated fan appeals is affected by how it also happens to allow them to more cynically just reuse the engine and mechanics and concepts dating to Unleashed without the elaborate 2+ year development cycle that Adventure and Adventure 2 and even STH'06 and Heroes and Unleashed all had, it sure is convenient for Sonic Team that it does.

 

 

It always seemed pretty telling to me that even though it released straight to bargain bins and was completely overshadowed by Mania from day one, Sega was happy enough with the profits of Forces to deliberately note its success in investor reports.

[Kuzu]

I said it before, they just don't give a fuck anymore. They slapped some shit together and called it a day. Forces sold like ass (only 121,000 units as far as I can tell) and they still considered it a success.

It really shanymore how little they expect of this series anymore.

[Wraith]

I've been saying that Sonic Team's "back to basics" brand of pandering is just the team trying to sell budget cuts as something the people wanted. It's been over a decade since they started with that and the supposedly bloated Sonic Adventure is still the closest thing I can play to the classics.

[DryLagoon]

5 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Forces sold like ass (only 121,000 units as far as I can tell) and they still considered it a success.

Is that lifetime sales? Feels weird seeing less than 1 million.

6 hours ago, Tornado said:

It's also notable that, while there's no way to know how much a No Items-Sonic Only-Final Destination game that Sonic Team supposedly keeps making after repeated fan appeals is affected by how it also happens to allow them to more cynically just reuse the engine and mechanics and concepts dating to Unleashed without the elaborate 2+ year development cycle that Adventure and Adventure 2 and even STH'06 and Heroes and Unleashed all had, it sure is convenient for Sonic Team that it does.

It makes me wonder if they really had budgets cut that far, or if it was a planning issue, or if it was due to a smaller team than before. Maybe it's some combination of them.