Sonic Colors Ultimate Review Scores Thread

[Jango]

6 minutes ago, Soniman said:

Oh I didn't notice I just pulled his quote from your post so I didn't think it'd register as me responding to you my bad LOL

I only realized that because I saw Jova drive-by just to call it riddiculous or a lie or something else, I think not even he realized it wasn't me who wrote that, right my guy? 

[Milo]

All I really got out of the recent discussion is that I think Sega would had gotten more mileage out of a remaster project if they remastered both Colors and Generations and sold them together as a bundle, instead of forcing themselves to pick one. I don't see much from the individual remaster that we have that is either elaborate, extensive, or particularly special to Colors. The new skins, lighting changes, rival races, remixed music, QoL changes like Tails Assist--all of this don't really significantly add to or change the base game, and could had been replicated for Generations as well. And in terms of the arguments put forth as to which game deserved a standalone remaster more, they both seem on par with each other; as opposed to something like the Adventure titles or Unleashed where one game is at a clear disadvantage.

The only real argument against it would be that it would require more money; but at that point I would ask why even foot a bill towards any remaster project at all, and not just port/re-release the vanilla games instead. There's being "risk-adverse/prioritizing safe bets" and then there's "how much money can we make, for the least amount of effort possible."

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

18 minutes ago, Jango said:

I only realized that because I saw Jova drive-by just to call it riddiculous or a lie or something else, I think not even he realized it wasn't me who wrote that, right my guy? 

Jango, I'm afraid you're mistaken again. Unless you have a QUOTE where I pointed you out as someone in that regard, of which there is none, please leave me out of this and don't bark up the wrong tree. 

[Wraith]

21 minutes ago, Jango said:

I only realized that because I saw Jova drive-by just to call it riddiculous or a lie or something else, I think not even he realized it wasn't me who wrote that, right my guy? 

 

4 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

Jango, I'm afraid you're mistaken again. Unless you have a QUOTE where I pointed you out as someone in that regard, of which there is none, please leave me out of this and don't bark up the wrong tree. 

[Red Hot Jack]

I feel like Colors was worthy of a remaster, more than Unleashed, because it was overall - despite a vocal minority of fans - better received of the modern games, and mostly because it was stuck on Nintendo Wii? Yeah, that's the main reason for my argument.

Generations would be worth as well to revisit because it's another great game and less divisive than Unleashed, as much as I want to play that (as I said before), it's just that it was already on most platforms at the time, so less of a priority, but in fact I kinda wanted a Colors + Generations remastered collection. I think it was more doable than an Unleashed one because that would need major rework...

I feel like "uh we got Colors instead of Unleashed" is more like a blame game "let's blame SEGA for everything". 

[KHCast]

just saw this tweet, and just…no? Does context not matter here?

[Jango]

All this Generations remaster talk reminded me of something... Didn't the same dubbing studio that first leaked Colors Ultimate also had Generations in their recent work tab?

[JezMM]

Even as an Unleashed fan who doesn't feel Colours is up to scratch at all, Colours absolutely made the most sense for a remaster due to it's crowd-pleasing status.  Absolutely it's the game that is more of a priority to preserve.  However I'd also say this remaster doesn't sound like it really adds anything to the Sonic franchise. We haven't added a good release to Sonic's repitoire, just made it more accessible.

The argument for the Unleashed remaster is that it's a game that was so brimming with potential but fell short in a number of ways that appear fixable... but even I have to confess that argument is a slippery slope. If a 2006 or Rise of Lyric fan raised that same argument to me I'd be like "no, your game is too far gone" - like, what's the threshold on this argument, y'know?  (I would posit... above 2006 but below Unleashed, obviously, lololol. But uh, point is, you could argue for days about which Sonic games are worthy fixer-uppers and which should just be gotten over already).

Anyway, remastering and fixing such a game would, in a sense, add another good release to the Sonic name.  Colours Remastered does not.  Which is more valuable between "making an existing good game more accessible" or "turning a mediocre game into a good game", will vary from person to person.

 

...And that's without getting into the fact that I personally think Colours is also a fixer-upper that did not get fixed or upped by this remaster to my liking, lol.  But I respect that as long as I'm in the minority for feeling that way, they had no real need to.

[Willsy]

I'd be curious to see how a Generations remaster would be approached from a technical standpoint. I highly doubt they would go through the trouble of porting the original iteration of Hedgehog Engine to modern hardware (then again, they might not need to, especially if such a project targeted 9th gen consoles). 

 

And as somebody who recently warmed up to Unleashed a lot, while I would buy an Unleashed Ultimate, I don't expect it to happen nor would I blame Sega for not doing it. Colours made a lot of sense as the wider gaming community legitimately liked it, with very few asterisks at that. It was stuck on the Wii as well, whereas Gens and Unleashed at least have the benefit of being playable via backwards compatibility on Xbox (the former being bumped to 4K resolution, and having a PC version with a huge modding community), and being available on PS Now. I'd love to have Gens on console at 60fps but I totally understand why Colours was chosen 

[Dr. Mechano]

The Werehog was and still is an unpopular gameplay mode, and it's like half of Unleashed.

I do think that there's potential for Unleashed to get a re-release, especially if Colors Ultimate does well, but the game has a lot more baggage that's going to make it a harder sell.

But I also don't think you can just make those unpopular elements optional. The Werehog is - for better or worse - absolutely intrinsic to SU's story and structure. Entire stages and boss fights are built around it. You couldn't just take it out or just make it skippable; To preserve the game's flow and amount of content, you'd have to replace it something else, and by that point, it'd scarcely even be Sonic Unleashed anymore. 

So they'd have to keep it in, and keep it mandatory to play through. And in 2008 and today, that side of the game puts off a lot of people.

[JezMM]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The Werehog was and still is an unpopular gameplay mode, and it's like half of Unleashed.

I do think that there's potential for Unleashed to get a re-release, especially if Colors Ultimate does well, but the game has a lot more baggage that's going to make it a harder sell.

But I also don't think you can just make those unpopular elements optional. The Werehog is - for better or worse - absolutely intrinsic to SU's story and structure. Entire stages and boss fights are built around it. You couldn't just take it out or just make it skippable; To preserve the game's flow and amount of content, you'd have to replace it something else, and by that point, it'd scarcely even be Sonic Unleashed anymore. 

So they'd have to keep it in, and keep it mandatory to play through. And in 2008 and today, that side of the game puts off a lot of people.

I think the Werehog would've been more strongly recieved if they trimmed down the mandatory combat encounters and started you off with a more levelled up state (like, have more combos available from the start and have them unlock automatically seperate from the rest of the levelling system so no-one can accidentally never unlock any more due to not understanding what "Combat" means on the level-up screen (I sure didn't first play), and what was Strength Lv.2 in the original game would be Lv.0 in a remaster).  Also stuff like not hiding "hold B to auto-grab things rather than timing it every jump" as an unlockable Prof. Pickle hint would've made a world of difference to the platforming segments for many.  But... I won't deny it's a tough sell either way.  The Werehog was not well-recieved at announcement, and the original release just confirmed those assumptions about it.  Considering it's just not really a done thing in PR to outright say "we did it badly last time, but THIS time we did these things to improve it", I wouldn't know how to begin marketing a fixed version.

[Indigo Rush]

18 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The Werehog was and still is an unpopular gameplay mode, and it's like half of Unleashed.

I do think that there's potential for Unleashed to get a re-release, especially if Colors Ultimate does well, but the game has a lot more baggage that's going to make it a harder sell.

But I also don't think you can just make those unpopular elements optional. The Werehog is - for better or worse - absolutely intrinsic to SU's story and structure. Entire stages and boss fights are built around it. You couldn't just take it out or just make it skippable; To preserve the game's flow and amount of content, you'd have to replace it something else, and by that point, it'd scarcely even be Sonic Unleashed anymore. 

So they'd have to keep it in, and keep it mandatory to play through. And in 2008 and today, that side of the game puts off a lot of people.

On the whole, yes. Unleashed is not Unleashed without the Werehog. It's got to be in there. But there are a lot of little things you could alter with Unleashed without removing the core content to make things less frustrating:

Increasing the effectiveness of exp drops to let you level up faster, reducing the required number of sun and moon medals to progress, adding more waypoints and a guide for the hub-world to make it less of a labyrinth to parse, changing the homing attack command to match Generations, implementing something like Tails Save to help with difficulty (especially Eggmanland, woof), limiting the Werehog battle music (and reducing the number of clear rooms if at all possible, please for the love of-) and including all of the DLC to maximize the content would be great ways to improve Unleashed. 

[Kuzu]

The main thing I'm taking away from this line of conversation is that the elements hardcore 3D Sonic fans love about them are simply things that would not sell to the general audience. WE love to play as Sonic's friends, or alternate playstyles because we have some emotional connection to this stuff. A non-fan doesn't have any reason to care about this stuff, and would generally find their implementations extremely intrusive. 

Sega's basically drawn their line in the sand at this point; after years of mediocre reception to their games that have gotten some niche appeal, they decided it was better for Sonic as a whole to attract newer and younger fans as a means of spreading goodwill. Unfortunately, that more or less means they're ignoring all of the mediocre yet intriguing games of the past they made that appeal to their old base. 

They can't release Sonic Adventure as it is now, because it's an archaic mess despite the fanbase's love for it. Even if they did decide to remake it, it would mean potentially having to alter the very foundation of the game and removing the parts that appeal to said fanbase to begin with. 

 

 

And it's frustrating as fuck as a longtime fan, because on a logical level I understand WHY they're neglecting their more contentious games, but at the same time, it pisses me off because there's so many interesting concepts that are being left on the cutting room floor from those games that the series simply hasn't touched upon since. 

[Blue Blood]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

The Werehog was and still is an unpopular gameplay mode, and it's like half of Unleashed.

I do think that there's potential for Unleashed to get a re-release, especially if Colors Ultimate does well, but the game has a lot more baggage that's going to make it a harder sell.

But I also don't think you can just make those unpopular elements optional. The Werehog is - for better or worse - absolutely intrinsic to SU's story and structure. Entire stages and boss fights are built around it. You couldn't just take it out or just make it skippable; To preserve the game's flow and amount of content, you'd have to replace it something else, and by that point, it'd scarcely even be Sonic Unleashed anymore. 

So they'd have to keep it in, and keep it mandatory to play through. And in 2008 and today, that side of the game puts off a lot of people.

Dude I accidentally wrote a 2000 word essay on how to fix Unleashed without changing the core of the game. The game has some big problems, but most of those can be buffed out without removing or drastically changing the game's content. Colours Ultimate is just Colours with new bells and whistles, because that's all that the game needed for a re-release. A hypothetical "Unleashed Ultimate" would need much more work, because the game is littered with more problematic design and system issues. The Werehog in particular could be drastically improved by modifying existing level design (enemy encounters, level up system, combat). I firmly believe that given due care and attention, Unleashed could be fixed and released to much warmer reception. 

C&P of that post follows...

Unleashed is flawed. It's very, very flawed. But it's a very good game too, and was judged far too harshly by critics and a lot of the wider gaming community when it was new. Also it had performance issues, but I'm going to gloss over that because they should by all expectations be gone in any port/remaster. The game only found favour with the dedicated fans and the younger audience, whilst everyone else wrote it off for the inclusion of the Werehog. Now the Werehog is problem because of how much time it takes up and how it negatively contrasts with the faster, more traditional (and more fun) daytime gameplay. It's just a strange part of the game that gets in the way of why many people would want to play Sonic. That gameplay style had never been seen in the series before and has never been seen since. It didn't play remotely like a Sonic game. But it's there, you can't make it go away now, it's actually not awful and it can be improved. 

The medals and progression systems were also unsuitable for Unleashed. You had to explore during all the levels to find these medals that were mandatory to unlock subsequent levels. And sometimes, new levels arbitrarily wouldn't unlock until you visited Professor Pickle and he told you to go to said level, even though you had met all other requirements. You could walk up to a gate with all the medals needed and previous levels cleared, but you wouldn't be able to go in because Pickle hadn't explicitly said so. It was asinine. The game was also littered with optional collectables in the form of art books, records and video tapes, but it forced you to go out of your way to collect medals too. That wasn't an egregious task in the Werehog stages that were slower and more suited to exploration. In the day time stages however, it completely went against how the game otherwise played. What's the point in optional collectables that are practically no different to the mandatory ones? 

So if Unleashed was ever to get the remaster treatment, this is what I think needs to happen:

1. The Werehog needs to start off with better base stats, so that combat encounters aren't so drawn out by such long periods of button mashing. He needs higher strength and more combos available from the start.
2. Some of combat encounters in the Werehog levels need to be removed. It often feels like you can't move 10ft or activate a single switch without a new fight starting. Some encounters should have the number of enemies/waves of enemies reduced by half.
3. In addition to some fights being removed/reduced, many others should be made optional; don't lock the player into an arena every time that enemies are near by. Give them a choice to engage in combat for points and safer exploration, but don't necessitate every fight. 
4. The Werehog battle music needs to stop. It should be used sparingly for just a couple of specific, longer fights. The regular stage music should continue uninterrupted for most fights.
5. Medals should not be required to unlock mandatory levels. They should only be used for unlocking the optional acts.
6. It should be made clear to the player which mandatory levels are open to be explored next. A simple on-screen check-list viewable on the world map and within the hubs would be nice. It would just be 2 or 3 lines long in the upper sight of the screen, with each line listing  a single task like "explore Spagonia during the day time" and "open the boss gate in Adabat". Items would get cleared off the list as you completed them, and new lines added.
7. Optional collectables should be kept, but they need a proper tracking system. Similar to the Red Ring counter in Colours, every collectable (medals, tapes, records, books) should be given a unique spot on the HUD (when paused) and menu screen. This way you would have a rough idea of where to look in the levels. In its current state, Unleashed only tells you that you've collected a certain number of medals in a level, but not which ones. Instead of saying "6/7 sun medals", it should show you that you've collected #1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, which means that you need #5 still and know that it's between #6 and 7.

And a few last bonus points about controls unrelated to everything else but every bit as important:

• Sonic's controls ought to be tightened up a bit, as he's too slippery. I think that Unleashed actually controls better than any 3D Sonic game to come out since, with Sonic actually responding to left/right inputs on ground and in the air (seriously, Colours, Generations and especially Forces are dreadful the moment you try to do anything other than move forward in one direction). But damn does he move like a stick of butter in a frying pan. This includes the drift, which could be tightened up too. He needs to be snappy instead of "slidey" when changing direction, and should brake much more sharply. This actually also applies to the Werehog's run too because he slides a lot as well. And it would be nice if the Werehog could turn on the spot without taking a couple steps in any given direction. That would help a lot in tight platforming sections. Those balance beams with spikes on either side are tedious for all the wrong reasons.
• The air dash/air boost issue is also a nightmare because halfway through the game, the rules on platforming and correcting your jumps get changed. Jump + jump = air dash/homing attack. Jump + boost = air boost. Basically every other Sonic game does it this way, so I don't know why Unleashed felt the need to be special. Just speaking from my own experience here, but I always go out of my way to skip getting the air boost in Chun-Nan. It's supposed to me mandatory, but avoiding it is for the best.
• The lives system could be removed, because that's just a normal thing these days. Unleashed even made a habit of placing 1-ups in the middle of the path just before difficult sections, meaning that you were unlikely to Game Over in the game's hardest areas. The lives serve no purpose if the game is handing them out anyway.

Those issues are what I think Unleashed needs from any port or remaster. Everything is just tweaks and refinements to existing systems. I'm not advocating any major overhauls to levels and gameplay systems. The ground work is already there, the building has already been built. It just needs to be made more accommodating. The biggest change that needs to be made to the gameplay is within the Werehog levels; fewer and shorter enemy encounters, and not starting off so pathetically weak. 

Everything else about Unleashed can just be left intact. The level design is solid, the music is delightful and the visuals are the best that the series has ever seen. It may not be as advanced as Forces in the graphical department, but it looks 10 times better. A direct port at higher resolutions and 60fps would look way nicer than Colours Ultimate. I'd also welcome higher resolution textures or re-mapped texture in certain areas, as the original can look blurry and stretched at time. As I said at the start, it's a good game with some very obvious flaws. The biggest flaw is the very inclusion of the Werehog, and it's nowhere near the deal-breaker that it's made out to be. Tweaks and refinements will make the entire game better, both the Werehog and the rest of it.

Now let's look at Colours. Colours was never as good as Unleashed and it was made for much weaker hardware. But it was still a solid enough game, and it didn't have any one major issue that negatively impacted the rest of the game. Despite being on the Wii, it boasted some beautiful graphics. The soundtrack was fantastic too as you would typically expect from the series. Aside from some control tweaks and the typical graphical updates, I really don't think that much could be done to improve it. It's just fine. Freshen up the paint job and it would be good to go. That's all it needed.Unleashed is flawed. It's very, very flawed. But it's a very good game too, and was judged far too harshly by critics and a lot of the wider gaming community when it was new. Also it had performance issues, but I'm going to gloss over that because they should by all expectations be gone in any port/remaster. The game only found favour with the dedicated fans and the younger audience, whilst everyone else wrote it off for the inclusion of the Werehog. Now the Werehog is problem because of how much time it takes up and how it negatively contrasts with the faster, more traditional (and more fun) daytime gameplay. It's just a strange part of the game that gets in the way of why many people would want to play Sonic. That gameplay style had never been seen in the series before and has never been seen since. It didn't play remotely like a Sonic game. But it's there, you can't make it go away now, it's actually not awful and it can be improved. 

 

The medals and progression systems were also unsuitable for Unleashed. You had to explore during all the levels to find these medals that were mandatory to unlock subsequent levels. And sometimes, new levels arbitrarily wouldn't unlock until you visited Professor Pickle and he told you to go to said level, even though you had met all other requirements. You could walk up to a gate with all the medals needed and previous levels cleared, but you wouldn't be able to go in because Pickle hadn't explicitly said so. It was asinine. The game was also littered with optional collectables in the form of art books, records and video tapes, but it forced you to go out of your way to collect medals too. That wasn't an egregious task in the Werehog stages that were slower and more suited to exploration. In the day time stages however, it completely went against how the game otherwise played. What's the point in optional collectables that are practically no different to the mandatory ones? 

 

So if Unleashed was ever to get the remaster treatment, this is what I think needs to happen:

 

The Werehog needs to start off with better base stats, so that combat encounters aren't so drawn out by such long periods of button mashing. He needs higher strength and more combos available from the start.

Some of combat encounters in the Werehog levels need to be removed. It often feels like you can't move 10ft or activate a single switch without a new fight starting. Some encounters should have the number of enemies/waves of enemies reduced by half.

In addition to some fights being removed/reduced, many others should be made optional; don't lock the player into an arena every time that enemies are near by. Give them a choice to engage in combat for points and safer exploration, but don't necessitate every fight. 

The Werehog battle music needs to stop. It should be used sparingly for just a couple of specific, longer fights. The regular stage music should continue uninterrupted for most fights.

Medals should not be required to unlock mandatory levels. They should only be used for unlocking the optional acts.

It should be made clear to the player which mandatory levels are open to be explored next. A simple on-screen check-list viewable on the world map and within the hubs would be nice. It would just be 2 or 3 lines long in the upper sight of the screen, with each line listing a single task like "explore Spagonia during the day time" and "open the boss gate in Adabat". Items would get cleared off the list as you completed them, and new lines added.

Optional collectables should be kept, but they need a proper tracking system. Similar to the Red Ring counter in Colours, every collectable (medals, tapes, records, books) should be given a unique spot on the HUD (when paused) and menu screen. This way you would have a rough idea of where to look in the levels. In its current state, Unleashed only tells you that you've collected a certain number of medals in a level, but not which ones. Instead of saying "6/7 sun medals", it should show you that you've collected #1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7, which means that you need #5 still and know that it's between #6 and 7.

And a few last bonus points about controls unrelated to everything else but every bit as important:

 

Sonic's controls ought to be tightened up a bit, as he's too slippery. I think that Unleashed actually controls better than any 3D Sonic game to come out since, with Sonic actually responding to left/right inputs on ground and in the air (seriously, Colours, Generations and especially Forces are dreadful the moment you try to do anything other than move forward in one direction). But damn does he move like a stick of butter in a frying pan. This includes the drift, which could be tightened up too. He needs to be snappy instead of "slidey" when changing direction, and should brake much more sharply. This actually also applies to the Werehog's run too because he slides a lot as well. And it would be nice if the Werehog could turn on the spot without taking a couple steps in any given direction. That would help a lot in tight platforming sections. Those balance beams with spikes on either side are tedious for all the wrong reasons.

The air dash/air boost issue is also a nightmare because halfway through the game, the rules on platforming and correcting your jumps get changed. Jump + jump = air dash/homing attack. Jump + boost = air boost. Basically every other Sonic game does it this way, so I don't know why Unleashed felt the need to be special. Just speaking from my own experience here, but I always go out of my way to skip getting the air boost in Chun-Nan. It's supposed to me mandatory, but avoiding it is for the best.

The lives system could be removed, because that's just a normal thing these days. Unleashed even made a habit of placing 1-ups in the middle of the path just before difficult sections, meaning that you were unlikely to Game Over in the game's hardest areas. The lives serve no purpose if the game is handing them out anyway.

Those issues are what I think Unleashed needs from any port or remaster. Everything is just tweaks and refinements to existing systems. I'm not advocating any major overhauls to levels and gameplay systems. The ground work is already there, the building has already been built. It just needs to be made more accommodating. The biggest change that needs to be made to the gameplay is within the Werehog levels; fewer and shorter enemy encounters, and not starting off so pathetically weak. 

 

Everything else about Unleashed can just be left intact. The level design is solid, the music is delightful and the visuals are the best that the series has ever seen. It may not be as advanced as Forces in the graphical department, but it looks 10 times better. A direct port at higher resolutions and 60fps would look way nicer than Colours Ultimate. I'd also welcome higher resolution textures or re-mapped texture in certain areas, as the original can look blurry and stretched at time. As I said at the start, it's a good game with some very obvious flaws. The biggest flaw is the very inclusion of the Werehog, and it's nowhere near the deal-breaker that it's made out to be. Tweaks and refinements will make the entire game better, both the Werehog and the rest of it.

Now let's look at Colours. Colours was never as good as Unleashed and it was made for much weaker hardware. But it was still a solid enough game, and it didn't have any one major issue that negatively impacted the rest of the game. Despite being on the Wii, it boasted some beautiful graphics. The soundtrack was fantastic too as you would typically expect from the series. Aside from some control tweaks and the typical graphical updates, I really don't think that much could be done to improve it. It's just fine. Freshen up the paint job and it would be good to go. That's all it needed.

[Dr. Mechano]

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

The main thing I'm taking away from this line of conversation is that the elements hardcore 3D Sonic fans love about them are simply things that would not sell to the general audience. WE love to play as Sonic's friends, or alternate playstyles because we have some emotional connection to this stuff. A non-fan doesn't have any reason to care about this stuff, and would generally find their implementations extremely intrusive. 

I'm an old fan, and I like... some of the alternate characters and gameplay styles, but ultimately didn't like most of them, including the Werehog.

I feel like the best way to do different characters is to use Sonic as a base, like the classic games. "Tails is like Sonic, but he's a bit slower and he can fly." "Knuckles is like Sonic, but he's a bit slower and jumps less high - with the added abilities to glide and climb walls." 

This continued in the Dimps games: "Amy's like Sonic, but slower and can't spin and needs to manually use her hammer to attack" is one of the more different playstyles, but it still adheres close enough to Sonic's core fundamentals. Cream as a kind of easy mode (Flight plus using Cheese as a homing attack) also fit right in. Then there's Blaze, who had a slew of cool fire powers, but at her core, still basically controlled like Sonic.

That's the magic bullet to getting people to like playing as Sonic's friends. The closer they play to Sonic himself, the more people will accept their presence in the games.

Keep in mind, I'm someone who's always advocated for more playable characters. Heck, I routinely advocate for playable Eggman, a character you'd have to get really creative with to fit him into the "Plays like Sonic, but..." format (It can be done, I think; Like giving him some kind of light power armor/jetpack combo that lets him run through levels instead of a big bulky mech).

When I see people complaining about the friends and alternate gameplay styles, it's usually stuff like Big, or Shadow's gunplay, or Silver's psychokinesis, or the Werehog, or Black Knight's swordplay, etc. Other characters would actually be well-received I think, but the more you veer off from Sonic's base playstyle, the harder a sell it's going to be.

I'm not even arguing that you should never go way out-there and do something totally wacky and different from Sonic. But as a general rule, similar is better.

[Kuzu]

7 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

I'm an old fan, and I like... some of the alternate characters and gameplay styles, but ultimately didn't like most of them, including the Werehog.

I feel like the best way to do different characters is to use Sonic as a base, like the classic games. "Tails is like Sonic, but he's a bit slower and he can fly." "Knuckles is like Sonic, but he's a bit slower and jumps less high - with the added abilities to glide and climb walls." 

This continued in the Dimps games: "Amy's like Sonic, but slower and can't spin and needs to manually use her hammer to attack" is one of the more different playstyles, but it still adheres close enough to Sonic's core fundamentals. Cream as a kind of easy mode (Flight plus using Cheese as a homing attack) also fit right in. Then there's Blaze, who had a slew of cool fire powers, but at her core, still basically controlled like Sonic.

That's the magic bullet to getting people to like playing as Sonic's friends. The closer they play to Sonic himself, the more people will accept their presence in the games.

Keep in mind, I'm someone who's always advocated for more playable characters. Heck, I routinely advocate for playable Eggman, a character you'd have to get really creative with to fit him into the "Plays like Sonic, but..." format (It can be done, I think; Like giving him some kind of light power armor/jetpack combo that lets him run through levels instead of a big bulky mech).

When I see people complaining about the friends and alternate gameplay styles, it's usually stuff like Big, or Shadow's gunplay, or Silver's psychokinesis, or the Werehog, or Black Knight's swordplay, etc. Other characters would actually be well-received I think, but the more you veer off from Sonic's base playstyle, the harder a sell it's going to be.

I'm not even arguing that you should never go way out-there and do something totally wacky and different from Sonic. But as a general rule, similar is better.

I feel like the reason they haven't even attempted that is because some characters are simply hard to implement in a 3D space; Tails isn't all that fun to play in Sonic Adventure until you get to the final level where you could fully take advantage of his flight mechanic, but every subsequent game veers farther away from what was established in Adventure, likely due to the developers having no idea how to implement his flight properly, same deal with Knuckles. 

That's why even if you do get an alternate playstyle nowadays, it's always some variant of Sonic (Classic, Avatar, and Shadow) as opposed to characters like Tails or Knuckles who have vastly different powersets from Sonic. They're simply more work than Sega is willing to put in at this moment, as its just more cost effective to keep Sonic (and his variants) as the primary playables, at least as far as the 3D games are concerned. Even in the games that the fanbase loves, Sonic Adventure and its sequel, it's use of playable characters has always been a contentious part of it despite the fanbase's love for the games as a whole. 

 

 

ITs why I don't think an Unleashed remaster or Adventure remake will ever happen, because fixing both of those games is way too much effort and would cost more money. Why waste money on that, when you can just port a game that already has a solid base like Sonic Colors and not have to put in anywhere near as much work. 

[LegoFedora]

Colors Ultimate could very well be a way to test the waters, as well as being the "friendliest" game for Sega to port. Generations may have been risky because of how tired people have grown of Classic Sonic as well as the theme of reusing concepts/zones instead of trying something new. And Unleashed being divisive at best has already been discussed to hell and back so I won't dwell on that much. Colors hit right the middle, of being a Sonic game that isn't nearly as divisive as Unleashed but also not as nostalgia pandering as Generations was.

I also believe that Colors is the game that needed touching up the most out of the boost games. Let's say hypothetically in an ideal world, Sega rereleased Gens, Unleashed, and Colors at the same time completely unchanged. Gens and Unleashed would both still hold up perfectly, and both look amazing graphically. Colors on the other hand, would have shown its age and stuck out like a bit of a sore thumb. Colors being redone graphically would have been necessary if they were to market it alongside the likes of Gens/Unleashed (now whether or not they prettied it up successfully is a whole different can of worms). Hell, the new additions to Colors such as customization may also be a test to see what can be done in possible Gens/Unleashed ports if they were to include the same additions to spice them up.

The likelihood of a Gens/Unleashed rerelease will come down to how well Sonic Colors Ultimate sells. Keep in mind that Unleashed was greenlit for Xbox Series X, and Sega had to send the source code for it to be tweaked to run. So Sega absolutely knows there is demand for Unleashed and does not mind rereleasing it despite it's stigma, even if they send the source code to someone else and say "Fine but you have to be the one to clean up our mess".

[Wraith]

2 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

Not sure I like the use of the phrase "hardcore 3D Sonic fans" when its application seems to be simply "Sonic Unleashed fans". That feels pretty gatekeep-y. I think we all just need to accept that Sonic Unleashed was simply 'okay' (even the day stages; there's really not a lot of depth to it) and that liking/disliking it is not the litmus test for being a 'true Sonic fan'. Sonic Colours and Generations were just as good (if not arguably better) and they deserve a chance at a re-release just as much as Unleashed does.

 

"Hardcore sonic fans" wasn't me trying to gatekeep. That was me literally acknowledging that a portion of the fanbase cares deeply about games that didn't hit with the mainstream. I don't think it's some kind of badge of honor. Just a difference in reception worth acknowledging.

And no, I don't need to "accept" that it was okay. I thought it was great.

[Dr. Mechano]

1 minute ago, Kuzu said:

I feel like the reason they haven't even attempted that is because some characters are simply hard to implement in a 3D space; Tails isn't all that fun to play in Sonic Adventure until you get to the final level where you could fully take advantage of his flight mechanic, but every subsequent game veers farther away from what was established in Adventure, likely due to the developers having no idea how to implement his flight properly, same deal with Knuckles. 

Then I feel like you could make those characters' abilities slightly less overpowered. Reduce the time Tails can stay airborne, or even make it more of a mid-air double jump with a slowed descent than full flight. 

It's not like Sonic himself doesn't play drastically differently from his classic roots in the 3D games; Dude doesn't even roll anymore.

So I think you could implement characters like Tails, Knuckles, and Amy but have their iconic abilities slightly nerfed (but still recognizably implemented) to fit the current level design's direction.

[Jango]

24 minutes ago, Kuzu said:

And it's frustrating as fuck as a longtime fan, because on a logical level I understand WHY they're neglecting their more contentious games, but at the same time, it pisses me off because there's so many interesting concepts that are being left on the cutting room floor from those games that the series simply hasn't touched upon since. 

This is so true it hurts. 

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Mechano said:

Then I feel like you could make those characters' abilities slightly less overpowered. Reduce the time Tails can stay airborne, or even make it more of a mid-air double jump with a slowed descent than full flight. 

It's not like Sonic himself doesn't play drastically differently from his classic roots in the 3D games; Dude doesn't even roll anymore.

So I think you could implement characters like Tails, Knuckles, and Amy but have their iconic abilities slightly nerfed (but still recognizably implemented) to fit the current level design's direction.

I feel like the difference with Sonic is that, while rolling and pinball physics have been phased out, they were replaced with a focus more on moving forward through an obstacle course with an appropriate move set to accommodate. So the IDEA of Sonic's design is still there, going fast. Just with less focus on exploration. 

If you're gonna nerf the abilities of the cast, then you need to replace it with something else to accommodate but still resembles the spirit of the original. Tails going from being able to fly to...mech shooting is simply too jarring of a shift. But Knuckles having more explorative levels still makes use of his classic abilities but in a different context. It's why I think Knuckles' levels were the second best received after Sonic's. 

[BadBehavior]

To simplify what Kuzu's saying: the elements hardcore Sonic fans like and what casual Sonic fans like are like oil and water. Casual fans want 2D Classic Sonic in Green Hill Zone making up most of the game, hardcore fans don't. Hence why the casuals all downloaded Forces in droves but why most fans see it as an affront to game design.

Same for Colors, they just want a simple 2d game where you hold the button and go brrrr, with wisp puzzles that are about as hard as the tutorial in any other platformer.

And when Sega does remember Sonic has fans whove been with the series for more than one game, they make Sonic Mania. Awesome. But what about the fans of the 3D games? Well Sega gets shifty eyes, nervous sweats and throws a plushie of Mephiles to distract you as they run like the wind.

[Indigo Rush]

Sonic social media team have confirmed during their stream today that there will be a patch incoming for Colors Ultimate:

https://clips.twitch.tv/BrainyCourteousReindeerVoteYea-fMzre6oBlOVgxYTK

[NoKaine]

24 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

Hence why the casuals all downloaded Forces in droves but why most fans see it as an affront to game design.

You can't tell me self-titled "hardcore Sonic fans" don't have a weird superiority complex when they genuinely believe this.

Forces didn't sell among because of "casuals." You people bought it. Sonic fans. "Casuals" stayed the fuck away from the 56 Metacritic game and played Super Mario Odyssey.

24 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

And when Sega does remember Sonic has fans whove been with the series for more than one game, they make Sonic Mania. Awesome. But what about the fans of the 3D games? Well Sega gets shifty eyes, nervous sweats and throws a plushie of Mephiles to distract you as they run like the wind.

SEGA would have a different outlook if they weren't all fundamentally bombs. 

I mean, they have absolutely no problem pimping out Colors. But apparently that's because "hold the button and go brrrr", not like Unleashed with its super complicated level design and not at all tedious God of War ripoff that comprises of 80% of the game. Noooooo, medal collecting isn't an obnoxious waste of time and the most obvious attempt at padding since they put fishing in a Sonic game, it's Art^TM. 

If Unleashed released today, it would definitely score high.

They made Mania because people like 2D Sonic. They made Colors Ultimate because people like Colors. They won't make Sonic '06 Remastered because no one actually likes '06. 

Hot take: even most "hardcore fans" don't like '06 and it seems to me that its most ardent fans are kind of just projecting super hard onto what's not actually there, i.e. a good game. 

I still can't believe there are fans who swear Forces is an "affront to game design" and subsequently beg for Sonic '06 scraps. 

Edited September 2, 2021 by NoKaine

[Johnster4]

2 hours ago, Kuzu said:

The main thing I'm taking away from this line of conversation is that the elements hardcore 3D Sonic fans love about them are simply things that would not sell to the general audience. WE love to play as Sonic's friends, or alternate playstyles because we have some emotional connection to this stuff. A non-fan doesn't have any reason to care about this stuff, and would generally find their implementations extremely intrusive. 

Sega's basically drawn their line in the sand at this point; after years of mediocre reception to their games that have gotten some niche appeal, they decided it was better for Sonic as a whole to attract newer and younger fans as a means of spreading goodwill. Unfortunately, that more or less means they're ignoring all of the mediocre yet intriguing games of the past they made that appeal to their old base. 

They can't release Sonic Adventure as it is now, because it's an archaic mess despite the fanbase's love for it. Even if they did decide to remake it, it would mean potentially having to alter the very foundation of the game and removing the parts that appeal to said fanbase to begin with. 

 

 

And it's frustrating as fuck as a longtime fan, because on a logical level I understand WHY they're neglecting their more contentious games, but at the same time, it pisses me off because there's so many interesting concepts that are being left on the cutting room floor from those games that the series simply hasn't touched upon since. 

I agree it just feels like all Sonic Team want to do is abandon long term Sonic fans, my frustrations go further than alternate playstyles and friends with constantly dumbing down the games by making them easier to play with no challenging content, 3 hour games with not enough post game content (3 hour games for $40/£35 that too much), plots that have terrible writing and plot details that should be expanded upon but don't, someone needs to point these criticisms out to Iizuka or Aaron at the next SXSW Panel or an equivalent set up by SEGA themselves and ask them why should long time Sonic fans care about the next sonic game when these problems keep persisting with every game release since Colours?