[MarkoMan]

In terms of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, you have to remember that even though Sonic may have not had access to certain paths that Tails and Knuckles had, his paths still had alternate routes. This is probably why the game is so huge (and why debug mode is so much fun when it comes to exploring different paths with different characters, I.e. Knuckles' routes with Sonic)

In terms of Super Mario World, that game (and 2D Mario games in general, if I'm not mistaken) did exploration a little differently. At first glance, it's always "go from the left to the right" in terms of level completion; there are few, if any, branching paths. However, Super Mario World is filled with tons of little secrets... a pipe that you need a little skill to reach, a secret block that's kinda sorta hinted at that will reveal a vine to climb up and get some goodies, flight that could lead to another area, etc. And that's what made Super Mario World so great, trying to find all the little secrets and one up tricks and everything else that makes Mario Mario.

As far as Chemical Plant goes, you can definitely avoid the water completely if 1) you take this pretty badass shortcut (I know its TAS, but you don't need tools to make it)or 2) you take this alternate path that no one seems to know about.

[Spatula]

Another thing worth mentioning: compared to other platformers, Sonic games have very few autoscrolling sections. This is a good thing.

Ideally outside of boss fights, there should be no autoscrolling. The games should be exploratory, and players should be encouraged to go at their own speed.

[Tiberious]

I'm gonna take some heat for this, but I kinda think Sonic CD was just a bit too slow. Very rarely did you ever really get any stretches where you can run fast long enough to travel; you instead had to find exploits or planned areas where you just set the controller down until it kicked in. Second, every act until you finally get the special stages completed is the same thing: Hit Past marker, find canned travel point (see first gripe), track down generator, exit.

Now, I'm not saying it's a bad game... it's certainly better than most of what current Sonic Team has plopped out. I just feel it's undeserving of the title 'Greatest Sonic Game Ever', and that it's a little overhyped.

[Woohookitty]

Brilliant stuff. And I've always said that. Yes I love the speed of Sonic but there's a reason why its called a platform game. Some of the game needs to be puzzle solving. So along with the speed should be things like the ledges in Ice Cap in SADX. Or Team Chaotix's game in Heroes.

[Jan Abaza]

In Sonic 1, fast zones have many paths—often three or more. Slow zones have almost no alternate paths.

But Labyrinth has a ton of alternate paths - there are sinking blocks scattered about which will bring you to its "lower path". Try finding one of those in Scrap Brain act 3 to access the hardest bit in the game. I agree Marble's too one-dimensional though; that's what makes it boring in my opinion...not the fact that it's a "slow level" or anything.

Indoor bits in Sonic 1 are also a bit harder since you've got ceiling above you for additional nasty objects to be positioned against; that's why they could seem slower by default.

Sonic CD is definitely working on a different paradigm than the Genesis trilogy, and I'd love to read some analysis of it. Even if I don't enjoy playing a game, I do enjoy understanding it—case in point, Sonic 1. (Well, no, I enjoy most of Sonic 1... but you get the point.)

It's not as much as a different paradigm than taking the existing one to a new level - instead of just grabbing the past sign and going for it, the objective is to use your Sonic 1 skills to think ahead and clear the road of any obstacles, evaluate your path, then go back and pull off the time warp (clear case in point: Wacky Workbench 2).

Sonic 2 is the real paradigm re-inventer here, what with all its spin shots and speedy bits.

This post has been edited by Jan Abaza: 01 December 2010 - 08:00 AM

[PsuitablePseudonym]

But Labyrinth has a ton of alternate paths - there are sinking blocks scattered about which will bring you to its "lower path". Try finding one of those in Scrap Brain act 3 to access the hardest bit in the game. I agree Marble's too one-dimensional though; that's what makes it boring in my opinion...not the fact that it's a "slow level" or anything.

This is something that's been kind of bothering me for a while. My first attempt to clear this up was by distinguishing "alternate path" from "shortcut," but that doesn't nearly cover it.

However, I reached that conclusion before I had taken a good, hard look at fast zones—I said slow zones don't have alternate paths before I had stumbled upon the idea of path interaction (falling from a high path, falling to a low path, etc.).

So, I might be tempted to say that path interaction (which is what I'll be saying until someone thinks of a better term for it) makes a zone fast, but that doesn't work, either.

Path interaction is minimal in Scrap Brain act 1, but it's present. There are three segments of floating blocks near the center top of the stage that allow the player to fall from the top to the middle. The player never falls to the bottom except by choice, though. Still—more path interaction than what you see in Scrap Brain act 2.

That's still kind of a problem, though. By my count, there are two places in Scrap Brain act 3 where the player can fall from the shortcut to the main path, and there's a fair bit of interaction between alternate paths on the far left side of the stage.

At the end of the day, path interaction is never going to set the pace of a zone—it'll never be absolutely crucial to how fast or slow a zone is. How fast a player can go is not directly reliant upon how many multiple paths are present and how they interact. Path interaction is more present in fast zones and less present in slow zones, but there's no hard and fast rule—heck, path interaction itself is a pretty vague concept.

I still think the fast - slow - fast - slow - fast - Scrap Brain zone order holds, but tying it to path interaction won't do. At least for now.

This was just the kind of confidence breaker I was looking for, too. I've been holding back on finalizing these thoughts because they didn't feel right, but I just couldn't grasp how they didn't feel right.

Indoor bits in Sonic 1 are also a bit harder since you've got ceiling above you for additional nasty objects to be positioned against; that's why they could seem slower by default.

I hadn't noticed, but this is definitely true. In a sense, a ceiling gives them more real estate to work with.

It's not as much as a different paradigm than taking the existing one to a new level - instead of just grabbing the past sign and going for it, the objective is to use your Sonic 1 skills to think ahead and clear the road of any obstacles, evaluate your path, then go back and pull off the time warp (clear case in point: Wacky Workbench 2).

Sonic 2 is the real paradigm re-inventer here, what with all its spin shots and speedy bits.

I'm not awesomely familiar with Sonic CD, so I'll take your word here. It's definitely an interesting concept, especially given the story of Sonic CD's development. I'll have to keep this in mind and give Sonic CD another playthrough.

[steveswede]

In Sonic 1, fast zones have many paths—often three or more. Slow zones have almost no alternate paths.

But Labyrinth has a ton of alternate paths - there are sinking blocks scattered about which will bring you to its "lower path".

Labyrinth zone doesn't have loads of paths, act 1 and 3 have two paths and act 2 is a single path. Even though Labyrinth is very linear, I do find this zone entertaining to play, unlike Ice Cap zone which I find a bore. If act 1 was more like act 2 I would be more forgiving.