Sonic Colo(u)rs Impressions, Help, and Discussion Topic

[Emmett L. Brown]

Levels in SA1 focused a lot less on pathways than SA2. Outside of Speed Highway you were very rarely actually on a path. There wasn't any more variety route-wise, but levels weren't built so much like roads.

I really liked the SA levels. The most amazing thing about them is the existence of actual full-length Sonic levels with no bottomless pits. A feat that never been replicated or even attempted since. Instead they went for the other extreme - I think the jungle level in SA2 was the earliest example of a level-spanning bottomless pit with floating platforms stretched across it. Then Sonic Heroes with every single freakin' level.

As much as I praise Sonic Colors, it could do with less bottomless pits and more level. A gaping hole in the level blueprint really shouldn't ever count as a feature. Just the fact that they put up a little warning sign when you're over a pit does help a lot, but they could go further. Remember Sonic 3? You know how many bottomless pits there are in that game? One. It's in the lower path of ice cap zone act 2.

[Scar]

I really liked the SA levels. The most amazing thing about them is the existence of actual full-length Sonic levels with no bottomless pits. A feat that never been replicated or even attempted since. Instead they went for the other extreme - I think the jungle level in SA2 was the earliest example of a level-spanning bottomless pit with floating platforms stretched across it. Then Sonic Heroes with every single freakin' level.

As much as I praise Sonic Colors, it could do with less bottomless pits and more level. A gaping hole in the level blueprint really shouldn't ever count as a feature. Just the fact that they put up a little warning sign when you're over a pit does help a lot, but they could go further. Remember Sonic 3? You know how many bottomless pits there are in that game? One. It's in the lower path of ice cap zone act 2.

Yeah, lack of bottomless pits was why SA1 was so fuckin' easy.

Even though there actually were bottomless pits. Sky Deck being a rather good example.

You just can't have a 3D game without deathpits nowadays. It'd just make it too easy. You can walk around obstacles and hazards, and if you fall down, you just have another path waiting for you. The only way to force people through a challenge is to push into a 2D veiw where they have nowhere else to go, and are forced to be skillful, or narrow the level down into a corridor for the same effect, or just slather a massive chunk of the level with spikes and other hazards (to the point where they are referred to as "Cheap" and "unfair").

If bottomless pits are too "cheap" in speed sections, just have them in slow platforming sections where the player has no excuse for falling down the pit other than his own lack of skill at platforming. It can't be that hard now can it?

I can understand having a problem with Sonic Heroes syndrome of having every level being a series of platformes floating above a massive deathpit, but having a deathpit where its warranted is OK. Having them in later levels to make them harder tha previous levels is necessary.

Jeez, if it isn't "Too many bottomless pits, CHEAP!", its "Too many enemies/hazards, bad enemy placement, CHEAP!". If it has neither then its "Too easy, not enough challenge, way too short". Its a no-win situation here.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Scar

[Blue Blood]

Remember Sonic 3? You know how many bottomless pits there are in that game? One. It's in the lower path of ice cap zone act 2.

Remember the boss of the first level? Bottomless pit right thar. =P

Jeez, if it isn't "Too many bottomless pits, CHEAP!", its "Too many enemies/hazards, bad enemy placement, CHEAP!". If it has neither then its "Too easy, not enough challenge, way too short". Its a no-win situation here.

Colours is nowhere hear as offensive as previous game sin terms of pits, but quite often you do feel hard done by. Thing is, it tends to be on the annoying mini acts as opposed to the main ones. Compare the ends of PW1 and PW3, since they take place in the same area. I never died once there in act 1, but it happened several times in act 3. And as far as bad enemy placement goes, enemies just suck these days. They're stepping stones for the HA and are only going to be a problem if you run into them. They're bad because of how they're used now.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Blue Blood

[Candescence]

I too advocate for the Adventure 1 way of level design, if only because the "limited amount of bottomless pits" thing. A platformer does not need bottomless pits to actually have challenge. Look at Metroid, or the Castleroids (in this case, Order of Ecclesia would be the best example). Sparingly, and doesn't frustrate the player? Sure, but when entire levels are practically floating over pits? Fuck no.

Remember the boss of the first level? Bottomless pit right thar. =P

So he missed one, but it was more of a boundary than anything. Come on, how many times has ANYONE died in that pit? Other than trying to beat the boss quicker by jumping on him while he's over the pit at the beginning, of course.

Yeah, lack of bottomless pits was why SA1 was so fuckin' easy.

I am highly tempted to deck anyone who tries to use "It's easy so it sucks" as an argument. Who cares if it's easy? The Genesis games were piss easy, especially compared to other platformers at the time.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Masaru Daimon

[Scar]

I am highly tempted to deck anyone who tries to use "It's easy so it sucks" as an argument. Who cares if it's easy? The Genesis games were piss easy, especially compared to other platformers at the time.

I'm not saying "Its so easy it sucks". I liked SA1, but I thought that at times, it could have done with some more challenge.

Nowadays, in the gaming media, games are required to be challenging. If they're too easy, they're usually over too quickly unless they have a lot of padding.

Games require difficulty, because that is the fun of games. You start out bad at the game. You die, you get a gameover. You get better, then you complete it.

That's the basic principle that Super Mario Brothers 1, 3 and World used, and they are heralded as the best Video games ever designed.

If bottomless pits are such a controversial issue, then have diffuclty settings.

Normal mode has a good balance of bottomless pits and badniks etc. Easy mode has fewer pits and enemies. Very Easy mode has no pits and even fewer enemies.

Hard mode has more pits and enemies. Very hard mode has even more pits and enemies. If people really want it, then a "Bastard Hard mode" can be added as an Unlockable for beating Very Hard mode. All it would involve would be adding/removing bottomless pits and enemies, and perhaps adding small extentions to the levels to make them slightly longer.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Scar

[Emmett L. Brown]

Yeah, lack of bottomless pits was why SA1 was so fuckin' easy.

Even though there actually were bottomless pits. Sky Deck being a rather good example.

You just can't have a 3D game without deathpits nowadays. It'd just make it too easy. You can walk around obstacles and hazards, and if you fall down, you just have another path waiting for you. The only way to force people through a challenge is to push into a 2D veiw where they have nowhere else to go, and are forced to be skillful, or narrow the level down into a corridor for the same effect, or just slather a massive chunk of the level with spikes and other hazards (to the point where they are referred to as "Cheap" and "unfair").

If bottomless pits are too "cheap" in speed sections, just have them in slow platforming sections where the player has no excuse for falling down the pit other than his own lack of skill at platforming. It can't be that hard now can it?

I can understand having a problem with Sonic Heroes syndrome of having every level being a series of platformes floating above a massive deathpit, but having a deathpit where its warranted is OK. Having them in later levels to make them harder tha previous levels is necessary.

Jeez, if it isn't "Too many bottomless pits, CHEAP!", its "Too many enemies/hazards, bad enemy placement, CHEAP!". If it has neither then its "Too easy, not enough challenge, way too short". Its a no-win situation here.

I don't believe that. I think it's possible to create good and challenging platformers without resorting to "you fell down, cue the scream, fade to black, cut to checkpoint". Anyway, bottomless pits are completely logical and justified if the level setting is an airship or something like that, so Sky Deck is exactly as it should be, just like Wing Fortress. Bottomless pits are just such an easy way out. To this date I don't think any video game maker is really pushing the envelope of what you can create in a 3D environment, and as long as people keep accepting blank voids in the level space as features rather than laziness what reason will they have to ever improve? What do you put in the bottomless pits? More level. What should you put off to the side of the path? More level. Sonic Adventure deserves respect for at least trying to make something better in a 3D. I can't help but feel that the later games reversed all effort in that direction.

But maybe this is just a pipe dream. And by the way, please stop lumping complaints together into one algamated hivemind. I'm not voicing any issues with enemies/hazards/enemy placement. This is just my little beef with bottomless pits, is all.

Remember the boss of the first level? Bottomless pit right thar. =P

Hah! Yes, I completely forgot about that one. Okay, two bottomless pits then.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Grumpy Old Guy

[Scar]

Bah, all I'm saying is Bottomless pits don't have to be cheap.

They can be effectively used. I though Unleashed was actually pretty fair in its usage of bottomless pits.

Colours had more pits, but given that a few of its levels were in outer space, they were justified.

@Grumpy Old Guy

And I wasn't aiming that last retort at you. Its just an obvservation I've made.

[SuperStingray]

I really liked the SA levels. The most amazing thing about them is the existence of actual full-length Sonic levels with no bottomless pits.

Yeah, I guess I have to give it that much. You know, not including Windy Valley, Sky Deck, Speed Highway, Red Mountain, Final Egg, Hot Shelter, Emerald Coast and Lost World. And I should probably bring attention to Final Egg for putting pit deaths over areas you're SUPPOSED TO GO ANYWAY and Lost World for putting them in rooms with limited visibility and a room with camera controls that make Epic Mickey's look obedient. So that leaves, what? Ice Cap, Twinkle Park and Casinopolis?

I guess I can admit to seeing where the comparison comes from though, as they're a pretty major element of Metal Harbor, Final Rush and Final Chase. But beyond that, I can't really say their placement is any more offensive than in SA1. Pits are only as bad as they are used, and the only ones that are a threat in City Escape and Radical Highway are marked by flashing platforms and they're really not even that much of a threat to begin with in Pyramid Cave or Green Forest. Plus, they're not even unforgiving towards exploration, as it's pretty clear what's an alternate path and what's a pit, kind of like Super Monkey Ball, except not as drastic. The only exception was in Cannon's Core and even then Omochao clarified it was a bottomless pit.

Edited December 27, 2010 by SuperStingray

[Emmett L. Brown]

So that leaves, what? Ice Cap, Twinkle Park and Casinopolis?

Correct. Which is a lot compared to Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes' big fat zero. That levels without bottomless pits existed period is the amazing thing.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Metroid. I remember having to tell my nephew that there were no bottomless pits at all in Super Metroid, as I watched him so carefully descend down the big chasm leading to the first power-up. I think I might actually go back a little on my rant against bottomless pits in 3D games by how they were used in the Metroid Prime trilogy. By booting you back up where you were standing and just taking a tiny sliver of health away as punishment, the pits were more like vantage points for the pretty scenery than level hazards, and they were used to sparingly that I soon stopped noticing they were there at all.

Batman Arkham Asylum also used bottomless pits perfectly. They were only at cliff edges, in the caves and in the Batcave (which is almost always pictured built over a bottomless pit even in the comics, animates series and movies, now I think about it - weird) and if you fell in, it just meant a prompt to press the rope button as the game went into slow-motion while it waited for you to press it. It was basically impossible to fall into a bottomless pit by accident in that game. Perfect execution.

EDIT: Guess I'll move that edit down here. Fast typing at work in this thread.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Grumpy Old Guy

[Blue Wisp]

Batman Arkham Asylum also used bottomless pits perfectly. They were only at cliff edges, in the caves and in the Batcave (which is almost always pictured built over a bottomless pit even in the comics, animates series and movies, now I think about it - weird) and if you fell in, it just meant a prompt to press the rope button as the game went into slow-motion while it waited for you to press it. It was basically impossible to fall into a bottomless pit by accident in that game. Perfect execution.

Spider-Man Shattered Dimension does that too.

[DarkOverord]

^Really the first two acts are the "legitamate" acts. 3 through 6 are more the equivalent of bonus missions in the Rush games, except in different level setups.

So they're filler then. Like I said. Levels to attempt to pace the game.

They should've been left as optional levels then really rather than levels taunting you :V

Edited December 27, 2010 by DarkOverord

[ChikaBoing]

So they're filler then. Like I said. Levels to attempt to pace the game.

They should've been left as optional levels then really rather than levels taunting you :V

Edited December 27, 2010 by ChikaBoing

[DarkOverord]

But then it would be the shortest game ever.

Honestly I'm dissapointed how little content there is in the game. We never had only 6 Worlds in a 3d Sonic game.And they still padded alot of the game kind of effortless with putting generic blocks,spiky balls,grind rails,plattforms etc. on to different places on the same area you already played before. I woudn't put this game in much higher regard than Secret Rings in terms of content and how polished it felt.

I agree. But I don't like the idea of forced filler. It's so lazy :C I like the game, but it feels so empty!

[Blue Blood]

I agree. But I don't like the idea of forced filler. It's so lazy :C I like the game, but it feels so empty!

At least it's not SatSR bad.

The game would be even more pathetically short without the mini-acts and simulator stages, but the solution is to add more proper levels and characters.

[Sami]

The way I see it, Colors pulled off content very well considering how it seemed to be an experimental title. It's sad that they need to resort to "filler" to extend game length, but considering Sonic Team's track record in regards to extending play time, it could have been a lot worse. I'm hoping the next game uses the same replay value (thanks to red rings and rankings, I've sunk a total amount of 32 hours into the game) as Colors but with extra characters as well.

I'm just glad we got more levels rather than being forced to play the same ones over and over again. While some of the acts may have been disappointing, I still had fun with almost all of them.

[ChikaBoing]

Even Unleashed had overall more Sonic content than Colours. It had 9(Eggman Land without Werehog) fairly good lenghted Levels that people woudnt mind if they would split into 2 acts. Then there are the mini-stages, and the DlC ones which probably were supposed to be in the game anyway. I mean it's perfectly good package if it would have been just that. It would have also been better if you could decide how fast you would like to make Sonic in Unleashed and still level him up, the slowest speed shouldve been the way how the fast the boost looked in the E3-Trailer that plays in the game.

Edited December 27, 2010 by ChikaBoing

[JezMM]

If it makes one feel any better, I'd actually argue more that there are 3 proper acts and 3 gimmick acts per zone. Though they do tend to mix around what order they come in. Tropical Resort has all the gimmick acts at the end, whereas Aquarium Park and Asteroid Coaster... you can hardly say Act 5 of the former and Act 6 of the latter are filler.

[Blue Blood]

If it makes one feel any better, I'd actually argue more that there are 3 proper acts and 3 gimmick acts per zone. Though they do tend to mix around what order they come in. Tropical Resort has all the gimmick acts at the end, whereas Aquarium Park and Asteroid Coaster... you can hardly say Act 5 of the former and Act 6 of the latter are filler.

[Semi-colon e]

Played the Wii version yesterday and today. I really like it, but at times it's really frustrating (ie the red ring in Planet Wisp where you fall towards it, then have to hit the rail), and the controls are just too loose in some of the more precarious and nerve-wracking platforming sections.

Not sure what my favourite level is, the last 3 are really good though - Starlight Carnival is my least favourite and the only one I've yet to replay since beating the short and easy final boss (Phase 2's music is like, barely heard =/). Unlike the DS version, there is no clear favourite in levels. Asteroid Coaster was much better than the DS one as well.

Bottomless pits need to go though. Like seriously. Planet Wisp frustrated me first time round, especially with the damn conveyor belts.

I have like half of the red rings of death, which I haven't played any of the Gameland levels yet.

[Shade Vortex]

So, I finally, finally got all 180 red rings and all 7 Chaos Emeralds. I was lazy. I've basically been putting the game off for so long since I've been busy with Minecraft and Garry's Mod, but I won't get into that, since this isn't the topic for that. However, in Gmod, me and my friends do use Sonic player models and props, so that's always interesting.

Anyways, I've really gotta say, Super Sonic would have been a better reward if it WASN'T an option-menu thing. It should have been enabled in the same fashion as the Classics (excluding Sonic 1 and iirc CD of course). Also, Super Sonic should have been allowed in boss fights and challenge mode. He also should have been allowed to use wisps. Or at least allow normal Sonic to use wisps before getting the 50 rings. He also should have still had a double jump. Also, Super Sonic would have been able to take advantage of the stages more if they started you off with 50 rings in Super Sonic mode (since they felt the need to make it an option menu thing, I'm not sure why they didn't do this).

However, all I'm doing is repeating what you guys have already said many times. Regardless, Super Sonic IS still quite broken, and a whole lot of fun. But he seriously should have been an "Easy S Rank" reward for collecting so many damn rings. They make you work so much harder to get something that was much easier to get in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, and even Sonic 4. And it feels like a better reward in those games, especially since Sonic 4 actually had some trophies for Super Sonic to get. =/

I've hated the A and S ranks ever since they were introduced in SA2 (We need to go back to the SA1 method of just beating a harder challenge in the same stage, without ranking added onto it- SA2 was seriously annoying in having ranking added onto the mission-style concept from SA1), so I'm probably not going to get them all unless I'm really bored. The only game I've gotten them all in so far was Sonic Heroes. Also, I'm not even going to spoiler tag this shit, If somebody hasn't found out about Super Sonic being in this game by now, they live under a rock or something.

Edited January 2, 2011 by Shade Vortex

[JezMM]

^ I do love ranking, though I don't think you should be rewarded for it with anything other than a sparkly save file or a "well done!" message or something. That way people who can't be bothered aren't really missing out, but those who love the challenge can just get a little pat on the back from the game.

So having to get all A ranks in past games to unlock the coolest (and often only) unlockables was worse than the current situation, but at the same time I do wish I could have just a little something for getting all S ranks...

Even if the Colours ones were more just meta-puzzles in which you just learn the best places in each level to take advantage of Colour power usage as long as possible (a few fun exceptions balanced colour usage to getting through quickly and efficiently).

[Emmett L. Brown]

I loathed the ranks since Sonic Adventure 2, since they also made it mandatory to quit the level and restart every time you lost a life. But since Sonic Colors is either the first or one of the first Sonic games to FINALLY FOR FUCKS SAKE stop resetting your score to zero every time you go back to a checkpoint, I'm happy with the ranks now. I'm not getting an E-rank because my awesome score got erased by a missed jump after the last checkpoint, but instead a B rank because dying made me lose a bit of the time bonus since I had to replay a short bit.

[JezMM]

^ Oh yes, forgot about the discouraging "die near the end = you are a terrible player" element to the old ranking. I agree there too. Keeping the timer going instead of resetting the score is perfect.

[Emmett L. Brown]

Now I played Sonic Heroes before I played Sonic Adventure 2, so that's why my most significant memory of wanting to hunt down and pummel the "let's trash the score for every death!" idea guy is from that game.

Final Fortress. Eighty thousand points (or something like that). Game neglected to register me shifting rails in the final section of that extremely long level. Fell down. Hit goal with zero points. E-rank. Rage.

[Blue Blood]

Final Fortress. Eighty thousand points (or something like that). Game neglected to register me shifting rails in the final section of that extremely long level. Fell down. Hit goal with zero points. E-rank. Rage.

And the trick to this is using fly formation whenever there are rails over pits. For that particular section you can fly straight up, watch the laser fire beneath you and then land before going along on your merry way. It's a horribly sloppy game at times. Most times.

I'd not noticed the change in the scoring system for Colours, but it's certainly a good one. Let's hope it stays.