Let's talk about multiple gameplay-styles -re-redone-

[iambitter21]

ok so I decided to remake the first 2 topics at their source because the last one get deleted by something and I don't know what I was. here's my retake:

Treasure Hunting: In concept, treasure hunting is a remix of the core sonic design: An entirely open/explorable level, a good sense of physics of momentum, and a new objective to boot: finding 3 hidden objects that are scattered across the level. it's a very unique shake-up. in execution though, except for a good amount of levels, there's not really much to right about. Their level are quite shallow in sa1 but they're easy, in sa2 while most of the levels are less shallow and have a lot more depth to them, some of it's levels are tedious to do because of the gimped radar. even though they're like that, I still enjoy, remember and even love them a lot, despite how shallow or tedious they can be since I keep replaying them a lot, like a lot of the levels in sa2. and what makes them better are the controls, I feel like I'm playing as knuckles/rouge, when I play sa2, and it's so good because of them (oh and screw the ghost they can go get ghost busted for all I care). overall, nice shake-up, sort of rocky execution, but a great experience. now what would I do to make them better? well, make the levels as vast as Red mountain, Speed highway and the infamous Pumpkin Hill. but also make them easier to navigate like Wild Canyon, Egg quarters and Dry Lagoon. Make the radar the same way it was in sa1, and for the hints, make them less vague, and more forgiving if a beginner is a bit lost. if you're gonna make the levels harder, add more pieces to find, without gimping the radar.

Shooting: "eww, shooting? in sonic!? WHAT HAS THE WORLD BECOME!!?!" says any sonic fan, and to all of those naysayers who are appalled by this style, I understand why you feel this way, but I strongly disagree that this style cant work in sonic games, I know this style can work. in sa1 and 2, when you hold down on the action button, you lock on to multiple enemies, and the more enemies you lock down on, the more points or time you get. it's a nice concept, but the execution is a mixed bag, the levels in sa1 have a nice flow to them and the controls are clean and smooth, but the levels in sa2 have more clunkier controls, and blocky level design at times. in sonic forces, the way it was handled in the controls and physics (by forces standards of course) down packed. the avatar in forces controls similarly to sonic, to a point that he/she technically runs as fast as sonic, but even . but the execution in the shooting department is too simple for it's own good, too simply pressing one button to take down any enemy in you path. even for both style mix-ups, I can agree with most detractors of this styles that it can be boring to just use a single button and that's it (despite sonic 1, 2, 3&k, adventure 1&2 and heroes existing) But I still think it can be reworked to have more options. how would I improve this style make it inspired by a well known run and gun game: ratchet and clank. the way it does shooting can work wonders in a sonic games, platforming, moving while shooting, grinding while shooting, more platforming, gadgets, mechanics and soo much more platforming. first make the stages and the controls smooth like in sa1, don't bog it down by slow platforming, make them go a lot more faster, probably not as fast as sonic himself, but fast in it's own rights. let the player use different ammunition with other buttons, like make the X Button the lock-on, the B Button the Vulcan Cannon/Wispon. Give enemies and the player HP, and weapon upgrades to make shooting matter. the hover jump needs to be brought back, it was so fun to use. add strafing so you don't have to clunkify the characters to aim better. and after that, the shooting is good to go. 

Combat: never played the night stages or unleashed In general so I'm not gonna say much here, I heard that the werehog was good, I heard It sucked, whatever.

Amy in sa1: meh. her gameplay is slow, and boring, but tolerable to an extent. her gameplay needs a HUGE do-over, make her acceleration and overall speed quicker, do more with her hammer, and her acrobatic abilities with it. make her turning arc smoother. and make her overall levels a lot more platform-based, since most of her gameplay was hot-pursuit, puzzle-based gameplay. overall I find her gameplay, ehh... okay.

Silver in 06: I remember playing 06 when I was a small little boy, and I think I remember dying a lot. I think I didn't like it, but the past is hard to remember. if he's ever gonna come back, do more with his telekinesis, and psychic powers. look at sonic adventure chronicles:

 

 

As long as you do what this game did with silver (even without the similar mechanics and gameplay philosophy) it could work as good as the rest of the cast.

That's all I've got, what are your thoughts on the different gameplay styles sonic has used in the past? did you like them or hate them? tell me in the comments below!

Edited June 21, 2020 by iambitter21
you're welcome

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

Treasure Hunting: I have little problems with this style, in fact I'm baffled that others are so turned off by It. all it is, Is a remix of the core design, think about it everything that you'd want in a sonic game is here: Open-World map, a good sense of speed, and platforming, ya' know, cause it's a platformer. the only difference is that the main objective is different, find 3 emeralds. simple goal, right? I guess the radar in Sa2 is gimped, but what else is wrong with it except that?

Speaking personally, "open world" isn't what I want out of Sonic. Not that I want super-linear, super-restrictive level design either, but when there's a clear beginning and end and clear routes from one to the other, the level design can more easily be designed to help or hinder the player as wanted. But when you open up the level design so a player can be coming at almost any section at almost any angle, it's a lot harder to design for; a hill is a speed boost one way, an obstacle to climb the other, and probably just awkward at any other.

Knuckles and Rouge's abilities don't really contribute to speed, either, and only questionably to platforming. It's one thing in the 2D games where the more limited space and the overall linear progression keeps the player penned in and gliding/climbing is only occasionally useful, but in an open 3D space you're going to spend most of your time beelining from one thing to the next, hardly interacting with the things that are typical of Sonic level design, and gliding and especially climbing aren't all that fast.

8 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

Shooting: I don't get, I just don't get it, why is shooting in a sonic game so wrong to people? the objective is the same, and there is still platforming, all you'd want in a platformer, now with ranged attacks, I don't see the problem. what? oh the movement is horrible? then what about forces? Forces, while being an automated speed running game, has pretty good shooting mechanics. it's basically sonic, now with a gun (or Wispon, whatever you wanna call it.)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for a Sonic character to have a projectile attack, but there's a question of what it's adding to the gameplay. Forces' shooting is never actually interesting; the game just lines up worthless enemies for the sake of having something to knock down. There's no interesting decisions to make and almost no skill involved; you see enemies, you shoot wepon, end of story. The Adventure-style shooting gameplay at least made an attempt at there being strategy to it, asking you to lock onto as many targets at once for greater rewards, but even aside from the clunky controls that clashes with the series' goals of speed and fluidity. If you wanted big combos you needed to stop and let your laser tag everything nearby; if you ran ahead you'd miss things or go out of range. Whatever abilities you give a character, they should complement and reinforce the core focus of the game, or at least not contradict it.

42 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

Basically what I'm saying is, as long as the levels in these games feel even a smidge sonic-y, even without the essential elements of the famous sonic game, these gameplay styles can be very fun.

I am really not interested in things that are just a "smidge" Sonicy. I'd much rather see games that are willing to dive into what makes Sonic gameplay unique and explore that space, than have gameplay that could easily be from some entirely separate series save for a few bits of Sonicy connective tissue.

[Wraith]

I find myself liking treasure hunting more the further we get from SA2. It's kinda hard to explain why, but getting a 6th sense for where the designers hide the emeralds and taking advantage of Knuckles's movement and shortcuts to get to them quickly is it's own kinda fun. Not the kind of fun I get from the Sonic stages but it's more like why collectathons can be fun. They had their own share of problems(it's tedious to get around some levels. They should commit more to them all being free flowing with multiple ways to approach each waypoint) but I think it's fine.


The shooting is the one I think could use some tuning up. I actually think the basis for it(aiming at as many robots as possible and letting it rip while trying not to get hit and being mindful of the time limit you have to line up your shot) its fun, but neither game finds ways to shake things up enough for it to stay super fun to me. Different types of projectiles to dodge and more ways to move and dodge around the things would have added a lot to these stages but they get a little repetitive as they. Doesn't help that the platforming that they try to put in feels half-assed compared to the other two types. 

There's been a lot of debate about whether these types of things should be indulged in a Sonic game but I'm a bit beyond caring about that as long as they made something amusing. Sonic Adventure 2 brings a lot of Sonic Team's arcadey sensibilities to it so it turns out to be surprisingly fun no matter what the game is asking you to do, as long as you're willing to meet it halfway to start with. If the design is solid coherent enough and there are enough incentives to get better I can usually wring something out of it.

I'd completely understand if  they permanently put this stuff on the backburner to focus on one thing but I've played tighter action games with more divergent gameplay than this. If all 3 game modes were firing on all cylinders it would make for a pretty fun and varied action platformer in it's own right.

[iambitter21]

39 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Speaking personally, "open world" isn't what I want out of Sonic. Not that I want super-linear, super-restrictive level design either, but when there's a clear beginning and end and clear routes from one to the other, the level design can more easily be designed to help or hinder the player as wanted. But when you open up the level design so a player can be coming at almost any section at almost any angle, it's a lot harder to design for; a hill is a speed boost one way, an obstacle to climb the other, and probably just awkward at any other.

Knuckles and Rouge's abilities don't really contribute to speed, either, and only questionably to platforming. It's one thing in the 2D games where the more limited space and the overall linear progression keeps the player penned in and gliding/climbing is only occasionally useful, but in an open 3D space you're going to spend most of your time beelining from one thing to the next, hardly interacting with the things that are typical of Sonic level design, and gliding and especially climbing aren't all that fast.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for a Sonic character to have a projectile attack, but there's a question of what it's adding to the gameplay. Forces' shooting is never actually interesting; the game just lines up worthless enemies for the sake of having something to knock down. There's no interesting decisions to make and almost no skill involved; you see enemies, you shoot wepon, end of story. The Adventure-style shooting gameplay at least made an attempt at there being strategy to it, asking you to lock onto as many targets at once for greater rewards, but even aside from the clunky controls that clashes with the series' goals of speed and fluidity. If you wanted big combos you needed to stop and let your laser tag everything nearby; if you ran ahead you'd miss things or go out of range. Whatever abilities you give a character, they should complement and reinforce the core focus of the game, or at least not contradict it.

I am really not interested in things that are just a "smidge" Sonicy. I'd much rather see games that are willing to dive into what makes Sonic gameplay unique and explore that space, than have gameplay that could easily be from some entirely separate series save for a few bits of Sonicy connective tissue.

Fair points, I didn't really dive deep into the styles as a whole, mostly a from-my-heart rebuttal to all the pessimisms they've gotten over the past few years, and my personal opinions on most of these styles are left out. I'll try to be more open-minded this time:

Treasure Hunting: While these levels are quite fun, I can see why other people wouldn't like them, it's easy to get lost, and most of the levels can be pretty bad at times. but then again, I don't really mind them, the characters still have a sense of momentum and physics, what I'd usually want in a sonic game. in adventure 1, you're put in a more explorable environment, and a very trackable radar yes, but they are quite shallow. In Adventure 2, some of the levels are usually semi open areas and branching hallways and the radars gimped, but they feel more nicer to get around due to the nicer control. these stages can be reworked to be more aimless and more fun. like maybe shake things up and do what shaymay did with knuckles controls. overall these stages are alright, not perfect, but alright

Shooting: I can see how barebones just shooting an enemy and all can be quite boring but to be fair the execution in the adventure games were decent. you don't just press a button to attack, you hold it, and you chain them together to get a higher score, in adventure 1's case, more time. and I agree on forces, it's basically useless to shoot in those games because you can already slide (at least that's what I can remember since it's been literal years since I last played forces.) what I'd do is make the shooting more about flow, give the enemies HP, and give you more maneuverable options to make shooting more interesting.

as for the last part I was thinking about what to say last, I should've went with "as long as these styles use the essential elements of sonic..." but then I thought that would contradicts everything else I talked about. sorry for the vagueness (You'll probably be seeing it more in the future)