[muteKi]

Perhaps so, but your post is better. :P

[Black Squirrel]

Krigo, on 16 November 2011 - 05:02 AM, said:

Black Squirrel, on 16 November 2011 - 02:53 AM, said:

Mr. Mash, on 15 November 2011 - 06:55 PM, said:

Black Squirrel, on 15 November 2011 - 06:28 PM, said:

Mickey Mouse, the character that's trying to be emulated, has been successful because he's taken big breaks. Disney haven't been making Mickey Mouse cartoons for 90 years - they've moved on, done other things, and then came back when a new idea has arisen. Sonic Team should move on to another franchise and come back when they have a better idea. Maybe they can come up with something that can fit into multiple genres, idk.

Wasn't that exactly what Oshima and Naka were trying to do waaaay back, like in the mid 90's with different games like NiGHTs?

Indeed it was, but someone clearly told them in 2003-ish that this was a bad idea, because the last truly original game Sonic Team have come up with is Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. Since then it's been SONIC SONIC SONIC with a bit of Puyo Puyo sprinkled in just because they got the IP.

Just going to be leaving these here.

Dare I ask why? Propping up the Phantasy Star series (which is older than Sonic) is just as unoriginal. But it does highlight my point somewhat - there was a six-year gap between Phantasy Star IV and Phantasy Star Online, and the latter ended up being a complete refresh of the franchise which received much critical acclaim (much like Sonic Adventure at the time). None of the sequels since have been half as groundbreaking, with the main source of sales being from fans of the series, not the "general public".

I'd say they should take a break from that series too, but in their defense far fewer games are both made and sold in comparison to something like Sonic. And many have been "updates", which is understandable due to the online nature of recent entries.

[Herm the Germ]

Kogen, on 16 November 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

Sonic is annoying looking and Tails is very dull - both in colour and shape. Each of them are too tall. Their features are not pronounced (Sonic is not spiky enough; Tails is not cute at all). Sonic is stupid and became a 'bro jock'. Tails is a loner (supposed to be an obsessive sidekick) and makes weird statements that are probably poor attempts at jokes.

And while Robotnik is not here, he is too goofy and cartoony. They went overboard with it. His sidekicks are also Rollie Pollie Ollie characters. The Sonic series should not be childish, it should be 'family friendly'. The recent documentary mentioned how Sonic is supposed to be 'mature', but just looks child-like.

Meh, I don't see those "problems" whatosever. They're just… Sonic and Tails there. I respect yer opinion and all that, but, I can't see myself agreeing.

[Dark Sonic]

Herm the Germ, on 16 November 2011 - 09:01 AM, said:

Kogen, on 16 November 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

Sonic is annoying looking and Tails is very dull - both in colour and shape. Each of them are too tall. Their features are not pronounced (Sonic is not spiky enough; Tails is not cute at all). Sonic is stupid and became a 'bro jock'. Tails is a loner (supposed to be an obsessive sidekick) and makes weird statements that are probably poor attempts at jokes.

And while Robotnik is not here, he is too goofy and cartoony. They went overboard with it. His sidekicks are also Rollie Pollie Ollie characters. The Sonic series should not be childish, it should be 'family friendly'. The recent documentary mentioned how Sonic is supposed to be 'mature', but just looks child-like.

Meh, I don't see those "problems" whatosever. They're just… Sonic and Tails there. I respect yer opinion and all that, but, I can't see myself agreeing.

Ya, I'll admit modern Tails is quite derp at times, but the rest of them seem fine. The classic cast kind of fits everything quite well. At the very least, classic Tails is young and cute, unlike modern Tails who looks like some kind of puberty teenager. Modern Sonic isn't too bad though so I have no real complaints on that end.

And so what if Eggman is goofy. His name is Eggman, he's a fat man who looks like an egg. None of the cast is supposed to be too serious, because if they are you end up with Shadow, and we all know how that turned out.

[Afti]

Said it before and I'll say it again- the degree of mobility Sonic has now is actually really interesting. The issue is that you've nothing to do with it- you don't need to exploit the game's physics. Classic Sonic was in large part about improvisation- in moving through the environment, there was plenty of room to exploit the mechanics for greater speed and airtime, with rewards in the form of higher paths. There's not nearly enough of that in the present games.

Not just "freedom", but freedom as a reward for excellence. Options expanding exponentially as your play improves.

(Also- am I the only one who'd like to see Sonic games featuring literally no plot at all? Not even an excuse to visit a sequence of levels- no explanation beyond "THIS IS A VOLCANO OR SOMETHING, OR MAYBE A CASTLE. WHATEVER. GO BEAT UP ROBOTS." If there must be cutscenes, they'd purely be comic skits, no connection to an overarching "story", taking inspiration from classic Looney Tunes. Probably wordless!)

This post has been edited by Afti: 16 November 2011 - 09:53 AM

[Dark Sonic]

Afti, on 16 November 2011 - 09:48 AM, said:

Said it before and I'll say it again- the degree of mobility Sonic has now is actually really interesting. The issue is that you've nothing to do with it- you don't need to exploit the game's physics. Classic Sonic was in large part about improvisation- in moving through the environment, there was plenty of room to exploit the mechanics for greater speed and airtime, with rewards in the form of higher paths. There's not nearly enough of that in the present games.

(Also- am I the only one who'd like to see Sonic games featuring literally no plot at all? Not even an excuse to visit a sequence of levels- no explanation beyond "THIS IS A VOLCANO OR SOMETHING, OR MAYBE A CASTLE. WHATEVER. GO BEAT UP ROBOTS." If there must be cutscenes, they'd purely be comic skits, no connection to an overarching "story", taking inspiration from classic Looney Tunes. Probably wordless!)

Ya I'd love to see a take at them not even trying to convey a plot beyond "GO FROM GREENISH ZONE TO FACTORY IN X AMOUNT OF ZONES TO FIGHT FAT GUY" Seriously, fuck Sonic plots. They're all pointless in their own special way.

[Herm the Germ]

A game without a plot at all would make me quite sad, personally. Call me an idiot, but plots are a big part of what makes Sonic games interesting to me in the first place. =\

[BetaTwizzler]

Afti, on 16 November 2011 - 09:48 AM, said:

(Also- am I the only one who'd like to see Sonic games featuring literally no plot at all? Not even an excuse to visit a sequence of levels- no explanation beyond "THIS IS A VOLCANO OR SOMETHING, OR MAYBE A CASTLE. WHATEVER. GO BEAT UP ROBOTS." If there must be cutscenes, they'd purely be comic skits, no connection to an overarching "story", taking inspiration from classic Looney Tunes. Probably wordless!)

I think a game with no "story" could work, and possibly be really great, but it'd have to be done right. People are always saying that Sonic 1, 2, 3, and S&K are great and near perfect games, but if you take Robotnik out of those games it's basically just Sonic trying to get to the end of *insert Zone here* We all know Sonic likes to run, and he's chillasfuck, so I think it's entirely possibly for there to be a game where he's just running though levels because he's Sonic or exploring some new place he and Tails flew too.

Anywhoozle, as for post Generations Sonic, no matter what Sonic Team decides to do, someone is gonna bitch, BUT, I think some little changes could lower the number of whiny fanboys/girls. Someone said something about changing Sonic's slide to a roll, that would be one change I think people would like to see. You'd still be able to get under obstacles like normal, and it's classic, something we'll apparently no longer see in the future. Surely it wouldn't be too hard to do something like this. If Sonic is running or moving in general, when you hit B or O on your controller he'll just roll, if he's standing still and you tap B or O multiple times he'll crouch and rev up a Spindash. Sure, a Spindash mapped to one button would anger the one guy who still wants to hold down and tap A, but at least if it was how it's how I mentioned it you'll have have your modern Sonic with your "classic" Spindash.

The Spindash brings me to my next thing change I think should be included in future Sonic games. Sonic should be slowed down a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love how Unleashed, Colo(u)rs, and Generations are so fast, but you should never be able to boost through an entire stage. Slow Sonic down a bit, but don't get rid of the boosting altogether, make us have to work for it. For example, getting half of the Red Rings nets you the ability to boost, and getting the rest gives you a lager boost gauge, and in the mean time we have our kind of over powered Spindash to get us by. If not something like this then keep the boost gauge as small as it as at the start of Generations and make directly getting rings then only thing that refills it. Sonic isn't just about speed, there's platforming in there too.

Now, onward to the levels and schtuff. I think the Dreamcast era of Sonic games did it right, from what I can remember anyways. There was a good amount of platforming and an equal amount of speed sections to match. It's been a while since I've played SA and SA2, but from what I can remember there weren't many parts (if any) where you needed to use the Homing Attack/Light Dash. I've grown to love the Homing Attack over the years, but when they put it into the next Sonic games it should only be used to access higher parts of the level, hitting some enemies and chaining to a higher platform is acceptable, being forced to use it or fall isn't. Take for example the part in modern Green Hill Zone where the Buzz Bombers are lined up near the loop, you don't need to hit them, but you can if you feel like it. The same goes for the Light Dash.

If you take the level design from the speed sections of Generations and throw in the 2D sections of Colo(u)rs I think you'd have a great game. Sonic doesn't need to skate or have a gun or anything else(it's bad enough he's in a game with Mario), all he needs to do is run and jump, albeit with some tweaks in the future games.

[Sonic Warrior TJ]

Quote

*Squished widescreen image*
TOO TALL

Spoiler

I see what you did there.

This post has been edited by Sonic Warrior TJ: 16 November 2011 - 03:51 PM

[Overlord]

*Squished widescreen image*

Assuming it wasn't intentional, that's an accidentally subtle way to mislead the person reading the argument, isn't it?

Quote

The original games were all made yearly yet they somehow managed to be great. Time has nothing to do with this.

To be fair there's a hell of a lot less work (and a hell of a lot smaller team) to make a Mega Drive game than a PS3 or Xbox disc title. You can't compare dev times like that. A better comparison would be to the modern proper Mario titles, which have a similar sort of dev time.

[Aerosol]

I actually think that modern sonic games are just fine. They just need to cut out the 2D segments, or atleast the reliance on them. Generations had alot of good ideas for making the 3D portions interesting. I want to see more of that.

[Dude]

I know this is an old, tired argument, but I would like to see a sonic game play like a game instead of an interactive movie for once. And the 'make the game hard by making it tedious and frustrating' paradigm needs to go. So... yeah I agree with SS's evaluation for the most part.

The 3d portions of the game suffer from this the most though. They've tried to 'fix' the complaints with sonic adventure by making the scope of the game incredibly narrow. Many of the camera problems stem from the player doing things the designers did not expect. Instead of trying to make the system more robust they tried to lock you out of doing anything other than what they wanted. This began as early as SA2 when the L/R triggers went from moving the camera all the time, to only moving the camera when you were stopped and as soon as you moved you got directed 'forward'. Then in heroes they started making the levels not cross over eachother as much, and considerably more linear making shortcuts harder to take. They also cut down on sonic's lateral mobility. Sure you can turn in any direction - if you've come to a complete stop. In sonic adventure, you can be moving at top speed and turn very sharply. Not so in sonic unleashed. Not like it would matter, you'd just hit a wall anyways. What's the purpose of being a 3d section without using the 3d part?

You went from having an open adventure game, to a scripted, forced and shoehorned memorization fest. In sonic adventure, I could jump in a loop if I wanted to. Sure it might throw me off the level, but I wasn't blocked from doing it. Hell, in sonic adventure you can build a loop that doesn't require the auto-pathing. it's difficult but they designed the physics and game mechanics well enough to apply in all situations instead of special-casing everything. I've built levels that prove you can have a more open experience in a sonic game. Sure it takes a lot longer and I know why they hate doing it. Nothing sucks more than finding out your camera layout is incomplete because a playtester went into valid level space and the cam didn't cooperate because you didn't think of that area. But you better suck it up because cutting down on the valid playspace is going to make the player think twice about playing your game.

[Kogen]

Dark Sonic, on 16 November 2011 - 09:43 AM, said:

Herm the Germ, on 16 November 2011 - 09:01 AM, said:

Kogen, on 16 November 2011 - 03:53 AM, said:

*stretch*

Sonic is annoying looking and Tails is very dull - both in colour and shape. Each of them are too tall. Their features are not pronounced (Sonic is not spiky enough; Tails is not cute at all). Sonic is stupid and became a 'bro jock'. Tails is a loner (supposed to be an obsessive sidekick) and makes weird statements that are probably poor attempts at jokes.

And while Robotnik is not here, he is too goofy and cartoony. They went overboard with it. His sidekicks are also Rollie Pollie Ollie characters. The Sonic series should not be childish, it should be 'family friendly'. The recent documentary mentioned how Sonic is supposed to be 'mature', but just looks child-like.

Meh, I don't see those "problems" whatosever. They're just… Sonic and Tails there. I respect yer opinion and all that, but, I can't see myself agreeing.

Ya, I'll admit modern Tails is quite derp at times, but the rest of them seem fine. The classic cast kind of fits everything quite well. At the very least, classic Tails is young and cute, unlike modern Tails who looks like some kind of puberty teenager. Modern Sonic isn't too bad though so I have no real complaints on that end.

And so what if Eggman is goofy. His name is Eggman, he's a fat man who looks like an egg. None of the cast is supposed to be too serious, because if they are you end up with Shadow, and we all know how that turned out.

Well I still think Sonic looks poor. Sonic Adventure had an acceptable model, but it slowly progressed into the 'man in a suit' we have today. His quills are just squishy things now, even. Knuckles is like this too. Tails can get away with it more by not being 'sharp', but even then he should be more organic instead of a wax model. In the Genesis games and earlier 3D games, none of them were waxy, they looked like how you would expect (Sonic and Knuckles were saws, Tails was furry; just look at any of them in a ball).

Their faces and personality still seem off to me. I guess others can enjoy this, but it is not how the characters were ever designed to be. Like I said earlier, if they want to make something else then they should just make something else. Leave established characters alone.

And I think we have different concepts of 'mature'. Shadow the Hedgehog is about as immature as a video game can be; worse than Sonic Colours.

Overlord, on 16 November 2011 - 04:26 PM, said:

*Squished widescreen image*

Assuming it wasn't intentional, that's an accidentally subtle way to mislead the person reading the argument, isn't it?

Quote

The original games were all made yearly yet they somehow managed to be great. Time has nothing to do with this.

To be fair there's a hell of a lot less work (and a hell of a lot smaller team) to make a Mega Drive game than a PS3 or Xbox disc title. You can't compare dev times like that. A better comparison would be to the modern proper Mario titles, which have a similar sort of dev time.

Well I just quickly found the image. It was reference only. I assume people know what Sonic and Tails look like in Sonic Colours and Generations.

And if you want to use that example instead, OK! My overall point is that time is not the issue.

This post has been edited by Kogen: 16 November 2011 - 06:16 PM

[The Angry Colossal]

I don't really care whether the games are 2D or 3D, as long as the developers are able to present polished, consistent gameplay. I'd want to say that designing the games in 2D would allow the developers to put more effort into refining the game rather than developing levels, but then again, we did get Sonic 4...

The team that made the classic games has moved on and isn't coming back, and 100% classic gameplay isn't coming back either. What I'd like to see instead is Sega/SonicTeam taking classic concepts and finding a way to incorporate them into the modern gameplay. Rolling should return as a major gameplay element; it was a crucial part of the original games, and an integral part of Sonic's character design. Moves like the homing attack and grinding should be optional, not core elements of level design. I think one place where the developers have been getting it right has been making Sonic not just fast, but manoeuvrable as well. The stomp (and being able to cancel out of jumps using it), quick-step, and drift are all good ideas.

I think the level designers have forgotten something crucial; the original levels weren't designed around setpieces or scripted events, but rather the physics of the game. Several other people have already mentioned the older games having an element of freedom to them; I like to think that the classic levels, rather than relying on scripted sequences, encouraged players to create their own "events". For example, after that tube at the end of Green Hill's first act, didn't you want to try and get more air by bouncing off the nearby enemies? I think a lot of the impact of that "sequence" would have been dulled had it played out automatically with no input from the player.

[Jayextee]

Quote

Design Choices in the Post-Generations Era

Wish they'd make some. In short, there are more ways to construct 3D stages than 'walkway suspended in mid-air'. A lot more. These should be explored; to more ends than just speedways over and over. First two Sonic games didn't consist of Star Light Zone or Chemical Plant Zone clones, there was a mixture of gameplay styles and rhythms with Sonic alone.

Otherwise, I agree with a lot of what Dude has said.