Pretty much. Good post. Sonic has too much global name recognition to be abandoned at the moment. Even if SEGA didnt want to continue investing in sonic, some other company would.....and SEGA does of course. So Sonic will continue to be supported as a franchise. The current level of support is low however, so this may be a relatively unexciting phase of the franchise for those who are looking forward to a great 3D sonic game (myself included). If there is no movie tie-in game, I think Mania is more likely to get a follow up before another 3D game is announced. But there might be a movie tie in game? If there is, we'll know about it in the spring. Otherwise it doesnt seem like anything major is going to happen with 3D sonic for a while. I'd be shocked if there were even an announcement in the first half of 2019.
Thanks dude. Your reply brightened up my day. Your post and thoughts are excellent also (your posts are always well thought out and amazing to be honest - you're an awesome poster).
It scares me to think that SEGA could be working with the Mania team for a minor movie tie-in instead of the full main 2D game which they deserve to make.
I for one can't wait for Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie: The Game: Mania Plus featuring Officer Burpo as a playable character. Especially if they cross-promote with Hooters. The sad part is that nobody would be surprised if this actually happened. But hopefully Mania wasn't lightning in a bottle and SEGA will massively course-correct after they've shuffled through their list of contractually agreed upon products and promotions which were no doubt made in a weird "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" mindset. Seriously though, I hope there's no movie game. If they can't figure out gameplay in their main-series titles, I doubt it'll be done any better in a movie tie-in game.
I'm not arguing that a game full of Sky-Sanctuary Modern 3D stages would be easy, simply pointing that such has technically been accomplished by the team before. A style for these types of stages does conceptually exist. Whether or not it is even feasible to create an entire 'game' of them with the current iteration of Sonic Team is another matter entirely. I'm merely trying to say that if one wishes to convert Sonic to fully 3D (Not 2.5D ALA Colors), THAT is the best existing example of how to do it and make it great we've been given by the team so far. I'm certainly not against something even more ambitious/open world/whatever... I just think there are serious issues to consider. How fast, for example, could Sonic run from one end of the other to a major open world map like say, Skyrim if given his top Generations/Forces Speed? How does one make a game of that if he can cross an entire massive open world in 'mere' minutes? That remains the big issue we face for 3D Sonic.
The easy answer is, of course, you don't give him his generations top speed. In an open world context I would definitely take inspiration from the classic games in terms of momentum building gameplay in 3D. Not in precisely the same way since slopes and the like will be more difficult to conquer in that space, but in general terms of keeping sonic's movement going while traversing objects and terrain and building speed in the process. Imagine sonic running down a pillar or building of some kind and transferring vertical momentum to horizontal in some way. Or sonic using structures to swing himself into momentum and keep his movement flowing (This same idea was jslust mentioned in a recent thread elsewhere actually). I didnt play the most recent spiderman but I think shades of this is involved in that concept. Sonic can do it even better. Itd be fantastic. Kind of hoping those who are thinking like this already can get this idea to catch on with someone in proximity to sonic team actually..... This is different than, say, the 3D sky sanctuary of the generations ilk. I like the generations style for what it is, but I think the open 3D world momentum concept would be far better for sonic in general. Sonic CD opening anyone?....
I'd rather them make 10-12 Sky Sanctuary quality levels. I don't care if it takes them 6 years to accomplish that; if that's the standard, then that is what they should strive for. Release smaller games (that don't require large budgets) in the meantime to aid financially.
The simple answer is to not make 3D (or 2D) Sonic platformers* that require players to be constantly moving that fast in the first place. This attitude right here of front-lining Sonic's speed as the undisputed priority when designing Sonic games is the actual big issue 3D (and even 2D) Sonic games face. The series has almost never delivered on just providing a good 3D platformer experience and the "Sonic is all about speed" designer mindset is (among other things) part and parcel as to why that is. What was before a trademark for the series' gameplay is nowadays the only thing that matters, and game design for Sonic games across the board (controls, camera, core mechanics, level design, level mechanics, physics, etc.) has been watered down to its most boilerplate form to support that notion. It just goes to show just how long and how far this series has crawled up its own ass in believing speed is the only thing that holds up Sonic gameplay. Speed has its place in Sonic games. The entire damned game is not its place. *Emphasis on "platformers" here for anyone thinking I want the Boost gameplay to be nixed completely. The gameplay it provides is indeed enjoyable and thrilling in its own right; but they aren't good 3D platformers in the context of the genre due to how extremely limited and basic the underlying framework is. I'd argue the type of gameplay experience Boost gameplay delivers on is instead a much more natural fit in the environment of racing games.
Which is what Sonic Team did in Sonic Forces & Sonic Lost World. Furthermore, the top speed in Generations is far slower than the top speed of Sonic Unleashed. Much like the boost formula in general, Sonic Team are dealing with mistakes caused by changing the Classic formula to emphasize speed. This bears re-posting. http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=38229 The difference between the 3d incarnation of boost (which is just a watered down Crash Bandicoot) and the previous Adventure styled games is that the later made changes necessary to deal with the addition of the Z-axis while still taking cues from the Classic formula. The worst part is that the "3d boost" formula would be better suited to just be the special stages with autorun as has been proven to work in the past. And to echo someone else's sentiment, I'd like some solid platforming in my 3d platformer.
With respect, you quote me but took me out of context a bit. For the generations style boost games, the speed is not an issue because the point of those games is to speed forward with almost reckless abandon and test your reaction skill. They work for what they are, but they are not true 3D platformers. The rest of my post talked about what where that would work. Maybe I could have worded it differently so as to highlight this point. I thought I did. This is just in reference to designing a 3D platforming game, which generations really is not. I would not invest the time trying to tweak that formula to make it something it clearly isnt. Neither would I lost world or forces, because they share the same general design philosophy, which is 2D gameplay molded within a 3D space.
I think you're right about that but I still contest that speed, even in Generations, is a problem which affects the the overall level design. The fact that Sonic Team in the two games afterwards nerfed the speed considerably is a testament to this (if he's slower, you don't have to lay as much track for him to run). That said, a more open world type design was achieved on a primitive level in Sonic Adventure but that means dealing with a 3d camera which Sonic Team cannot program to save their lives.
I don't know if we'll ever get a true 3D Platformer in the sense of an open world that can be explored freely, because I feel that Sonic's entire formula goes against it. I feel that we'll always have stages with a general "move forward" style goal, with the key being to create as many branching paths as possible to at least make this exploration more interesting. Knuckles Emerald Hunt stages were the antithesis of this formula, and were truly an almost entirely different style of play (deliberately designed as such), compared to an "action stage". I also don't think this is necessarily bad. The roller coaster move forward style 3D Sonic stages ARE an extension of his 2D legacy and style in a sense, the problem is that many stages were designed in an overly simplistic and lazy way compared to their 2D predacessors which often allowed you to choose multiple paths by which to go forward. This can be fixed, but it requires a lot of time and effort Sega has been unwilling to put into MOST titles so far, either by the sheer incompetence of the team, or for other reasons. I think trying to expand beyond this style of play is almost pointless, I would just rather see it refined and expanded upon in a proper way.
I very, very much disagree. I think that 3D gives even more possibilities to explore why the classic 2D gameplay was fun in the first place, which is to experiment with Sonic's momentum, explore new paths and areas, and master moving quickly through the environment....almost like Tony Hawk in 2D, (Christian Whitehead even used this analogy). I simply think that in order to do so, you have to let go of the mentality of trying to directly translate Sonic's 2D gameplay molded within in a 3D space which is what Sonic Team keeps trying and repeatedly failing to do! I think you have to go full 'Sonic CD opener' and think open world environment with many intertwining paths and regions. Sonic can still do point A to B within this context but now you give him lots of room to go from point A to B, to E, to C, back to B, over to D, onto F, etc, all connected in many paths to and fro. Its easy to imagine a structure in which that can work and to properly build a world and narrative around it. I think Hirokazu Yasuhara envisioned something similar when he designed Sonic 3 and Knuckles levels and this is evident when examining the level maps; they are like 3D environments mapped flatly onto a 2D plane. He always said he designed the 2D levels with a fully 3D environment in mind. This is taking that idea and running with it but actually making full use of 3D and designing the environments to be large and interconnected instead of narrow paths over bottomless pits like has been par basically since SA1-SA2. Now you truly can have something like 'Zones' as has been the tradition in Sonic since the beginning but fully realized. Sonic can always move forward when he needs to but now he has the option of taking many paths and there's lots of things you can give him to do within that framework. This to me is the obvious path forward for 3D Sonic.
Whatever happened to the hedgehog engine? I was blown when it was first introduced, and especially how it was tweaked in Generations to perfection....but there hasn't been anything done with it? I would give SEGA so much money for a remake ala Crash/Spyro/Medievil for full remakes of the Sonic games (1,2,CD,3&K) in the hedgehog engine.
Um, what? The Hedgehog Engine was used for Lost World, and Forces is running on the Hedgehog Engine II. The Hedgehog Engine also hasn't been "perfected", far from it. Its performance in Unleashed was sloppy to the point that its graphics had to be scaled back in subsequent games so the gameplay could run consistently at certain framerates; and Sega/ST's never really bothered to fix its other problems (use of low-detail/low-res. textures and models and the general fact it's a super obsolete and bloated framework...which for some reason are still preserved in the "built from scratch" Hedgehog Engine 2). Unless this is again at work the popular misconception that the Hedgehog Engine is still the gameplay engine....in which it isn't. Even if it was, the comment still doesn't make sense, because the "Boost" gameplay is in Forces (albeit in its worst incarnation yet).
