Could Lost Worlds Parkour work with Boost gameplay?

[KHCast]

Idk, I’ve thought about this for awhile, it always /sounded/ cool and interesting, but I was never sure if in execution it could work out well, or feel good. The parkour of lost world plays more with momentum and physics(well, to a degree), whereas the boost...kinda ignores that all, so I could see how the two may get in the way of eachother mechanically and fundamentally, especially if say you’re boosting close to a wall and suddenly started to parkour. (Especially in 2D sections if those returned) That’d be frustrating and clunky to play. However, at the same time, I have to wonder if fine tuning the two styles could lead to finding a way for the two to work together seamlessly. 

[Iko]

Parkour should mostly work when you do it on the side of a wall, not when the wall is in front of you (in other words, yes wallrun, no climbing). The climbing parkour should still exist but only climb 1 block of height and then detach and fall: this way it would help you not getting stuck on small obstacles on the terrain, and climb edges of platforms (or do a walljump if you time a jump well), but still would not transform Sonic into a faster Knuckles like he kinda was in Lost World (in the sense that you could climb huge walls with parkour). In 2D, side parkour should be possible when in the background there is a wall close to the platforms layer, while it should be impossible when there isn't any wall near.

Side parkour also shouldn't be a special mode, it should just be normal wallrun, the only difference is that parkour would let you activate it by jumping on the wall without need of a ramp.

Regarding the boost, it can work very well with Parkour. In my opinion there should be 2 ways to activate parkour: hit a wall while uncurled (after an air dash would be ok, but also after a spring or anything else) + holding the forward direction, or hit a wall while boosting. If you are not boosting nor holding forward, you will hit the wall and fall down normally even if the angle+uncurled conditions are there.

-Front/climbing parkour would let you climb a bit more if you do it by boosting, but still not much (maybe 2 blocks and half instead of just one), and it would not be done by climbing but by being launched in the air (so even if the wall is just 1 block high, you will still be sent at 2.5 blocks of height by the boost's power - you can chain an Homing Attack from there).

-Side/wallrun parkour would let you run on the wall without losing height, by ignoring the gravity, as long as the boost is active. When the boost ends, you will start sliding down the wall and eventually reach the ground, unless you jump away from the wall before. In 2D, boosting when there is a wall in the background would be the only way to activate the wallrun parkour, gimmicks or special springs aside.

Wallrun parkour should be activated by hitting a wall at an angle of 45 degrees or less, and the resulting speed would be calculated depending on the angle (smaller angle = more speed preserved); any bigger angle than 45 degrees would activate the climbing parkour instead (but climbing requires you to boost or hold forward in order to start, if you don't parkour would simply not start at all).

There should also be a range of vertical speed required in order to activate the parkour. If you are falling or rocketing upward too fast, you would be unable to attach to a wall, not even for climbing. Vertical speed should be as close to +/- 0 as possible, with some tolerance; boosting might bypass this limit, because it's boost, screw the physics.

Short steps lower than 1 block would not activate parkour, instead, if approached at high speed, they would make Sonic stumble and interrupt the boost if active (you need to release and press again the button). That type of obstacles that so far were only used on flat terrains, would also be used on walls and other than just making him stumble and cancel the boost, they would also detach Sonic if hit, and block any height gain in case of climbing parkour.

Also, in case of multiple playable characters, it would be nice if parkour would only be accessible to some of them, mostly the speed types, but it should be less about the Sonic Heroes types and more about wathever the parkour fits the character or not.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

If you make the level design like they did with Titanfall, yeah. Would actually open new possibilities.

Would be better if their vector calculations with things like Wall Running were complemented with a degree of confined space than Lost World had.

[Wraith]

Like, just combining the boost with Sonic's wall running mechanic? I...guess something interesting might come of that. It sounds a little broken on paper, though. Boost jumping and wall running were already hard to balance on their own. You'd be able to chain them together pretty easily if you combined them. Sonic might never have to touch the ground.

[Indigo Rush]

I personally don't see it working especially well. The way Sonic Lost World handled it's parkour mechanics are awful in general, but placing them in one of the boost games (I'm assuming one akin to Generations or Unleashed HD as opposed to Forces) would be especially jarring. SLW's parkour suffers from a lack of awareness of momentum and inertia, and this doesn't lend itself well at all to a game where blasting ahead at high speed is the main idea.

It would need some serious retooling, but at that point you're going to get what those boost games already have in the form of those setpieces with Sonic running along walls. You could make a case for 2D sections as a compliment to wall jumping, but I am under the strong impression that nobody wants 2D sections in the boost games to begin with, so why bother with it?

Ultimately, the boost games are, for better or worse, all about dashing to the finish line in a quite linear obstacle course (diverging paths aside) and the core control mechanics are not at all designed for free movement and exploration, which is what Lost World's parkour was meant to facilitate. It's best to let the boost games (if they even have a future) excel in that high-octane moment-to-moment dashing and jumping action, and let the challenge come from perfecting the run over blocky platforming. Let it shine, don't bog it down.

[Diogenes]

I don't think they're too compatible. Lost World had that continuous spindash which was kind of like the boost, but you couldn't do that while parkouring, you could only get one quick burst of speed. In theory and in its best moments, Lost World's parkour is meant to keep you doing things to put energy back in the system, and the boost would be way too much energy for far too little cost. They could prevent you from boosting, or change the mechanics of it, while in parkour mode like they did with the spindash, but I imagine that'd feel arbitrary and go against the feel of the rest of the boost gameplay, where you're generally free and encouraged to use it as much as the meter allows.

[PC the Hedgehog]

They would have to completely overhaul the system, as the parkour in Lost World was absolute garbage. Clinging to and climbing up walls with complete disregard for momentum is clunky, jarring, and goes against every design philosophy the Sonic series stands for. Throw in the boost, and I just imagine Sonic blasting down a corridor at top speed, slamming into a wall, and immediately jetting upward. Even by Sonic standards that's a big mess.

[SBR2]

Can I ask what exactly is wrong with the actual gameplay of Lost World? I sincerely don't see what's actually bad about it but everyone says it's bad. I mean I guess there's a learning curve but it always looks like it controls fine from the videos I've seen. 

[Indigo Rush]

46 minutes ago, SBR2 said:

Can I ask what exactly is wrong with the actual gameplay of Lost World? I sincerely don't see what's actually bad about it but everyone says it's bad. I mean I guess there's a learning curve but it always looks like it controls fine from the videos I've seen. 

Can't speak for everyone else, but for me it's that there's no sense of inertia or momentum, a jarring, binary acceleration and a very unfocused approach to overall design; none of the miniature gameplay styles included are especially fleshed out, and the main 3D parkour gameplay isn't especially smooth to control, which is a severe downgrade from Sonic Adventure, a game from 1998. 

It's not just that it doesn't play well from a Sonic perspective, it just doesn't play well from the perspective of any modern platformers, and I find it hard to forgive from a AAA developer in the 2010s.  

[Multikaris]

5 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Can I ask what exactly is wrong with the actual gameplay of Lost World? I sincerely don't see what's actually bad about it but everyone says it's bad. I mean I guess there's a learning curve but it always looks like it controls fine from the videos I've seen. 

Hmm, well, the fact the Sonic series, a game based around building momentum up, has a no-frills run button added to it, and a speed cap applied when you are not using it, is pretty darn weird. The boost already pushes it, but it serves as an attack and is exhilarating in short bursts. (It would also make a good attack for Super Sonic...)

 

Speaking of combat... there’s no indication on what enemies you need to use the kick or charged HA on until it’s too late and then Sonic has already taken (deserved?) damage from the enemy’s cheap shot. There are also many indestructible BADNIKS mixed in, not to mention all the fleshy enemies.  A neutral HA is now required for more specific situations than ever before, and the chirpy sound design of the move was retained for Forces, which makes it rather out of place, and more exposure of the game’s cheapness. 
 

Then there’s the gimmick levels. Remember the Werehog? Or Tornado Defense? Those look like the Treasure Hunting and Mech stages by comparison when you see stages like the Snowball Waltz. Sure, they happen only once, but what’s the point? 

[Iko]

I don't know... I think that when the boost gameplay is just an hallway and slopes are barely used in a meaningful way, implementing a mechanic that incentivates the use of walls in level design is only a plus. You still have your hallways, but now you can run on ground or do some stunts on the walls, there is more complexity now, in a gameplay that in some parts has the complexity of a Game & Watch (yes I'm talking of quick step).

Obviously it would not be an exact copy of Lost World's parkour, that would not work in any platformer that's not as blocky as Mario 3D World (Cat Mario anyone). Parkour should obviously be redesigned, but I'm pretty sure it can be. I would prefer to decide myself to stick on a wall rather than let an automated spring do it for me while I just watch and get bored.

In the other post I suggested a nerfed parkour that would make you lose height fast and only allow you to climb a small block at best; in order to have a slightly better parkour, you would need rely on the boost: in that case, the boost wouldn't make the parkour broken, it would limit it to the boost gauge instead. When the gauge ends, your parkour would be very weak and only useful for maybe a walljump (the game must be balanced so that the gauge is not always full).

To conclude, with new mechanics being implemented, the level design would change as well: if parkour is added to boost gameplay, the levels would be designed for parkour, so it would not be identical to the existing boost gameplay (for the better).

Honestly I can't see what would not work aside of if the developers do a bad job at it.