What minor Sonic the Hedgehog things do you miss from older Sonic games?

[Shiny Gems]

These can range from anything, including music, sounds, gameplay related things, visuals, story, character related stuff, etc. Now, I did say gameplay stuff can be mentioned, but try to mix it with other things. I mean, I know there are things not there in newer Sonic games that people still complain about, and while complaining is not necessarily prohibited, I do want to keep this thread fun if possible. So even if you can't find anything else other than minor gameplay things, try not to start any fights.

I'll start off. I miss this old Sonic Team logo and sound effect...

I miss this sound effect for when Sonic jumps in the classic games (not counting Sonic Mania, by the way)...

And in terms of gameplay, I guess I miss what Sonic does here.

So, if it is okay to make this topic, what is it in terms of minor things that you guys miss from past Sonic games?

[LegoFedora]

Spoiler

Insert joke about missing when sonic games were good here

The biggest thing I miss, is when each character (or at least each major character) had a vocal track assigned to them. Now, all we get is the main vocal tracks of the game and maybe a credits vocal track (or in the sad case of gens, absolutely neither of those). Forces was actually refreshing since it kind of did that with stage themes, but it'd be nice to actually see a new vocal theme for characters like Tails or Knuckles.

Kind of related, I miss Sega getting multiple bands to make the music for the games. Shadow The Hedgehog and Sonic Heroes, for as weird as those games were quality-wise, at least gave us a lot of different bands doing the music. Powerman 5000, Julien-K, etc etc.

I just miss vocal tracks in general man. Give us more than just the main theme and an ending theme.

 

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

I miss the fact that each character had their own theme songs.  That's what I loved about the Sonic Adventure series is that I had a lot of theme songs to choose from each character and each character had a pretty good theme song.  Also, I missed the fact that both Tails and Knuckles can also go super and not just Sonic.  I honestly don't know why SEGA decided to drop that aspect of the early games in the later games.  It would have been great to see how each Sonic character, besides Sonic, Shadow and Silver, would go Super.

[Iko]

I miss chao being a recurring element in the series. I don't necessarily mean chao gardens, I mean them being one mainstay species in the series which is often referenced or even involved in gameplay and/or story, even if just for a side mission (such as Advance 3's collectables and Generations' chao missions). I miss chao being considered part of sonic's world, now they are a cameo for old fans at best, or completely missing at worst. I also miss the little animals popping out from robots when they are destroyed... It's still a thing in classic games (I guess), but most modern games don't do it anymore: I liked the idea that while fighting those robots I'm also saving the animals, made it feel more heroic.

[castell-neath]

The signpost.

The lampost entry in to special stages

 

[JezMM]

It's a crime that the mechanics of skimming across the surface of water lived and died in the 8-bit games.  It's way more visually interesting than just running across the surface of water and just feels like the sort of thing that has potential to be expanded at least a little.

[Blue Blood]

Item boxes. I could make a long post talking about how tactile feedback and sound effects are really quite bad in the games starting from 06, but I'll just focus on the item boxes instead. 

For some reason in Unleashed, item boxes and monitors were replaced entirely with pick ups that you just walk into to collect, no different from regular ol' rings. You could argue that this was done to accommodate the boost ability and therfore allowing you to just keep running, but I'd argue that it hurts it. In the previous games, item boxes, monitors and balloons were infrequent and required a tiny bit of effort to activate. And then you reached them, you got loud sound effect to signal that you'd broken them open. That little break in the pace as you bounded off the object and heard that breaking sound effect was golden. It was like popping bubble wrap.

Now compare that to the boost games where you do everything just by running. Rings? Run into them. Collectables? Run into them. Enemies? You just run into them too. You'll use a homing attack on some enemies of course, but they're just part of your course through the level. You don't seek out enemies, and the homing attack chains are very often just stand-in a for proper platforming. So the rewards, be they red rings, 10-rings or 1ups, just get lost amongst everything else. Plus the lack of variety on show now is also pretty damming. Shields and other power ups felt like good rewards to get. Even the Wisp capsules in Colours act just like rings. They don't respond to jumping or homing specifically. 

I just kind of hate seeing Sonic run through through piles of giant 10-Rings and other things. It doesn't feel good. It's a reward that feels indistinguishable from the rest of the gameplay. That's super boring. 

[Duelistic Nature]

 1. Being able to change menu styles and announcement voice like complete with quippy lines. Adds thats little bit of personality.

Hard to forget Eggman saying "what?! You do not like me?" As you opted to replace him with another character in the options menu.

2. A short story recap the moment you continue your previous save. Bonus points if its in narration of the characters presented in the game. Could be main or side characters complete with mannerisms. 

It added an extra little layer of story immersion hearing the character's thoughts on previous exploits and current challenges after having put the game down for 2 months or so. 

[Cosmos Rogue]

Sound effects. I don't know enough about sound design to explain what I don't like about the sound effects in the series since Unleashed, but I do know that springs sounded better in Adventure and better still in the classic games.

[Rienasketch]

No more chao gardens..

There was so much potential they could have used for them. They could have been SEGA's response to pokemon or something.  Could you imagine all the DLC they could have taken advantage of allowing people to get new clothes or items to play with for their chao? Unfortunately they only thought about as far as using them to ride out the Tamogatchi craze.

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Cosmos Rogue said:

Sound effects. I don't know enough about sound design to explain what I don't like about the sound effects in the series since Unleashed, but I do know that springs sounded better in Adventure and better still in the classic games.

The 06 sound effects are traaaaaaaash and they keep using them. They changed the sound effects in 06, presumably,  to fit the ultra realistic aesthetic of that game. But they have kept the sound effects ever since. I especially hate how weak grinding sounds. 

The springs are also naff, no longer sounding like some sort of metallic recoil befitting of springs but instead just being a soft woosh noise that's not dissimilar to the dash pads. The sound effects are all so weak my homogenous that it's hard to notice that Colours Ultimate plays the spring sound effect on top of the sound effects for boosters and dash rings. 

But fun fact, the Adventure spring sound is still used in Lost World for the yellow springs in some stages (like Sky Road 4). I think that Colours also uses the SA spring sound for yellow springs, but I can't relent off the top of my head. 

[Rognog]

I wish the series had more magical landmarks like little planet or angle island. Early on the direction seemed that Sonic's world was littered with weird magical landmarks that had great power or where unique anomalies. This kind of got dropped by SA2

[MGA_Gamer]

I miss having other playable characters like Tails and Knuckles in the 3D console games. Yes I know, Shadow was playable in the Forces DLC, but come on, Let me play as Tails again, Dammit!

[Sapphirine Wind]

I wanna randomly spindash again! And I want more characters to have more presence in the stories.

And bring back the Chao Garden dang it.

[Shiny Gems]

You know what thing that hasn't been in the games lately? The development of characters. Especially Tails. I like how Tails was in Sonic Adventure, but nowadays, he does not do much aside from being a sidekick. The other characters do not get much focus aside from Sonic and Eggman. As others have said before me, the other characters are just...there. You all know what I mean?

[Rognog]

12 hours ago, MightyGems said:

The other characters do not get much focus aside from Sonic and Eggman. As others have said before me, the other characters are just...there. You all know what I mean?

You hit the nail on the head, characters like Knuckles, Tails, Rogue, Blaze, Shadow, etc are no longer their own characters with goals or life styles unique to themselves; they have been regulated as friends for Sonic. That's their most defining trait in the eyes of the writers. Knuckles logically should rarely be seen since he's a recluse living on a floating island guarding the master emerald, but due to his popularity he's always with Sonic and Sega's justification usually is "shut up he's sonic's friend so he's with sonic". Funny how this happened also with DBZ with characters like Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu in relation to Goku. Just another thing they (unknowingly) ripped off.

[batson]

For many years, I answered this question with saying "having animals appear when you destroy enemy robots". It was such an iconic aspect of the franchise that Sega just ignored for many years. Many people even questioned whether Eggman even still used animals to power his robots. But of course nowadays, the animals are back and everythig is gud.

[Cayenne]

Personally, I miss the stylish graphic design from the 90s to early 2000s:

I work as a graphic designer and old Sonic artworks, manuals and even cds/dvds are a huge inspo to me. I simply love how well they mix themes and design trends from their respective times with Sonic's visual identity.

After the storybook games, nothing grabbed my attention anymore. I think Colors was where I felt that Sonic's graphic design was starting to get "safer" and weaker.

[micjimstar488]

i missed it when they felt free to do anything now it feels like there too scarred to do anything experimental o6 made them have second thoughts boom pretty much gave the trauma.  

[Strider_Xhaiden]

I guess.....just the style of the Adventure games. The artwork, the arrangements and style of the music.....the fact that each character had music styles chosen just for them.

It's just nostalgia talking, but I feel like as technology advances, and graphics get better and all that.....sure it all looks better, but I think it loses some of the heart and the charm, too.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

On 8/12/2022 at 5:14 AM, Blue Blood said:

Item boxes. I could make a long post talking about how tactile feedback and sound effects are really quite bad in the games starting from 06, but I'll just focus on the item boxes instead. 

For some reason in Unleashed, item boxes and monitors were replaced entirely with pick ups that you just walk into to collect, no different from regular ol' rings. You could argue that this was done to accommodate the boost ability and therfore allowing you to just keep running, but I'd argue that it hurts it. In the previous games, item boxes, monitors and balloons were infrequent and required a tiny bit of effort to activate. And then you reached them, you got loud sound effect to signal that you'd broken them open. That little break in the pace as you bounded off the object and heard that breaking sound effect was golden. It was like popping bubble wrap.

Now compare that to the boost games where you do everything just by running. Rings? Run into them. Collectables? Run into them. Enemies? You just run into them too. You'll use a homing attack on some enemies of course, but they're just part of your course through the level. You don't seek out enemies, and the homing attack chains are very often just stand-in a for proper platforming. So the rewards, be they red rings, 10-rings or 1ups, just get lost amongst everything else. Plus the lack of variety on show now is also pretty damming. Shields and other power ups felt like good rewards to get. Even the Wisp capsules in Colours act just like rings. They don't respond to jumping or homing specifically. 

I just kind of hate seeing Sonic run through through piles of giant 10-Rings and other things. It doesn't feel good. It's a reward that feels indistinguishable from the rest of the gameplay. That's super boring. 

I agree so much with this. Busting up a monitor or capsule to get more rings is just so much more satisfying than just collecting a ring with a "10" in the middle.

Some other things are that I very much agree with consistently having animals come out of destroyed robots, and also it annoys me a lot when they de-emphasize Sonic curling into a ball. I mean, he's Sonic the Hedgehog, that gimmick is pretty important to the basis of his concept. Curling into a spinning ball to attack and gain speed helps him stand out from the crowd since there are a lot of characters in the world with super speed. With boost gameplay, you gain speed just by boosting rather than rolling or spin dashing, and even with homing attacks, he only spins part of the time. It just feels like an unnecessary dilution of Sonic's uniqueness, and to some extent is less fun.

[Wittymations]

On 8/15/2022 at 11:16 AM, MightyGems said:

You know what thing that hasn't been in the games lately? The development of characters.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, exactly. But how much development could you really do for a mascot franchise like Sonic? Seems like it'd be hard to have the cast constantly learning a new lesson or take on new thoughts with each game in such an old franchise.
 

Then again, I dunno. TV shows could pull this off. Scrubs had JD learning something each episode. Kinda just having a tough time envisioning it for Sonic.

[Shiny Gems]

2 minutes ago, Wittymations said:

I'm not trying to be argumentative, exactly. But how much development could you really do for a mascot franchise like Sonic? Seems like it'd be hard to have the cast constantly learning a new lesson or take on new thoughts with each game in such an old franchise.
 

Then again, I dunno. TV shows could pull this off. Scrubs had JD learning something each episode. Kinda just having a tough time envisioning it for Sonic.

I thought I was talking about the other characters, not specifically Sonic.

[StreetSonic2022]

On 8/12/2022 at 8:21 AM, Rienasketch said:

No more chao gardens..

There was so much potential they could have used for them. They could have been SEGA's response to pokemon or something.  Could you imagine all the DLC they could have taken advantage of allowing people to get new clothes or items to play with for their chao? Unfortunately they only thought about as far as using them to ride out the Tamogatchi craze.

And I don't know why they couldn't bring the Chao Gardens back, especially in this age today where microtransactions and DLC are the norm, especially on the mobile gaming market. They have the potential right there in front in their faces and did not take the advantage of it.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

23 minutes ago, StreetSonic2022 said:

And I don't know why they couldn't bring the Chao Gardens back, especially in this age today where microtransactions and DLC are the norm, especially on the mobile gaming market. They have the potential right there in front in their faces and did not take the advantage of it.

Honestly, this seems like pointing out the positive side of Chao Gardens not being back. Imagining a mobile Chao Garden game with standard exploitative practices is not a happy thought! But it does make me wonder why Sega never even tried such a thing since it does seem like it would be profitable. Maybe they just want people to think of Sonic as action-focused and don't want to dilute that with a virtual pet game.