Pretty much my thoughts on the matter. Hub worlds in general are just barriers to the meat of the game. The only thing they do is give the illusion of a fleshed out game when it's nothing more than a mundane level select.
My perfect hub world is how Crash 3 did it. Simple, to the point, and provided a place where story cutscenes could happen as the trio of good guys work out what to do next.
I'm pretty fond of the Spyro hub worlds, but those worked partly because the games were hidden-goodie collectathons.
The Spyro hub worlds were like mini levels of their own and were a lot t of fun. I wasn't a hub works like that or no hub works at all. Please no Super Mario World hub world rip offs.
Unleashed's hub world can get a bit in the way, but still, I love them. They all have a great atmosphere, and every NPC being different and actually doing stuff in the game's world is really cool. They make the game's world actually feel like a world rather than just a level select, and I feel like that really should be the main purpose of a good hub world. That being said, considering that Sonic 2017 is probably going back to being dark and serious, I'm not sure if having hub worlds would really be a good thing.
For all we know, Sonic Revolution could just end up being a light hearted romp and the tone of the trailer is grossly misleading xD
I personally love Unleashed's hub worlds and would love to see them return, with npc's offering more challenge levels like a select few of them did in that game. That being said, Sonic Adventure 2 definitely has the greatest pick-up-and-play value of any of the 3D titles due to its linear level-to-level structure, and for the sake of getting 3D Sonic back into people's good graces again, that's probably the best approach for a game that wants to be a 'return to form.' I think a happy medium lies in a SA2/Star Fox 64 hybrid system of linear progression, but acts having multiple exits leading to alternate zones for replayability. Challenge acts could be treated like they are in SA2, where they are selectable from the world map, filed under each zone's name. For the type of experience the modern formula offers, I think this is the ideal direction.
Hub worlds in Sonic A1 didn't really bother me that much, it was more that the execution was pretty poor at times. I'd rather the team explore new ideas and use the time that would be spent developing hub worlds to refine the main game to be honest.
One of the biggest problems with Sonic Team's games is that they keep trying to do new stuff instead of refining the good ideas they had in their previous games, lol.
Yeah and now we have this new "gameplay component" whatever that is. I like the parkour system introduced in SLW and it would be nice to see Sonic Team have another ago and improve the formula, but.......alas, it sounds like the gameplay will be going back to Gens style; boost for modern Sonic and 2d gameplay for classic Sonic which doesn't control like the gameplay from the classics.
I personally like the boost formula and if we have just another basic one with no other gimmicks I'd like that. One of the reasons I love generations so much is because it's so barebones that you can speed through stages with the boosting and jumping. I could see why that would get boring but Sonic team has been notorious for fixing what isn't broken since the classics were released.
Well, in my opinion, I still don't think Sonic has been nailed in 3D, so yeah, new ideas. I know this is controversial for some but I don't think the generations/unleashed gameplay style is the way forward for 3D Sonic. It obviously hasn't resonated with the mass market on a scale like 2D Sonic did in the 90's. I think an idea stemming from Sonic Utopia could be a good start. But in saying all this, I'm a 30 year old man and not the target demographic for 3D Sonic anymore.
Yeah. And really sloppy because I still have to control camera. And constant camera management should not be mandatory in any good 3D platform game, especially in Sonic games.
I'd honestly rather have all of the Zones connected ala Metroid or Dark Souls, and designed with backtracking in mind. Has the benefit of having a more connected "world", while also nixing the pace-breaking that feels less compatible with Sonic than with something like Spyro.
I've always liked the boost game play. Is it the same as classic Sonic? No. But I don't think it needs to be. Besides it's something that is distinctively Sonic in a 3D Platformer. The Adventure gameplay was basically just a faster Crash Bandicoot, and Lost World was clearly "I wanna be Mario Galaxy too." Yea it might be a little obstacle course like at times but it kept getting better each time it was used, so I really hope that it's brought back in this game. Take some elements of the boost gameplay and throw in some wisp esq powers and some Lost World parkor and I'm happy. Unpopular opinion time but I liked the wisps, and once the shoed in motion controls were taken out of the picture in Lost World I was pretty happy with their inclusion (except rhythm and bomb, they can go fuck off)
I guess what I really meant was mechanics. Though also who the fuck plays Sonic games with mouse and keyboard???????????????????????
You mean like a cup of spaghetti. Backtracking is bad, spiral level design and looping shortcuts to past areas is the way to go, though you have to ask yourself does Sonic's mechanics benefit from level design that is largely vertical?
