What direction does "Sonic" need to go in?

lol, I somehow doubt the handhelds would be able to handle something as big as S3&K; I mean, if they can't even get the spin-dash right in that Sonic 1 port, what chance do they have with S3&K?

 

They got the physics right in Sonic Advance; Whoever "ported" Sonic 1 to the GBA was just lazy, period. The GBA is more than capable of handling a well done port of S3K.

 

Although this has been said before, Sega need to get back to basics with Sonic, in other words back to the original characters, there's shitloads of extra characters in the fucking series now & that's not required.
Eggman being the main villian always?
That was the point of the series, now it's always a fucking monster or Eggman Nega.
Returning to the original format.
There's no need for spinoffs such as Sonic Riders all the time, the only thing we get close to original now is the Rush series.
Characters doing what they should be doing.
When did you last see Knuckles guarding the Master Emerald on Angel Island?

I must say that the style of Sonic Rivals, a 2D/3D mix would do well with a normal Sonic game, not another racing game.

 

That seems right, except for a certain routine .

 

Are there not times in a Mario game where Bowser isn't the main villain? Variety is important—always having Eggman as the villain would be dull. There does need to be a balance, however, which is something that the last few games have been lacking.

The Riders series doesn't have massive releases—there's been one every couple of years or so, which is exactly what you'd expect from such a series. Compare it to the obscene number of Mario Party games and it seems a bit more reasonable.

It's called personality development. Knuckles only guards the Master Emerald when there's suspicion of imminent danger... otherwise, he does his own thing, meeting up with Sonic and the crew when it's appropriate.

I agree. The Rivals engine sucks balls, though.

 

Hello, I'm new, blah blah blah.

I think SEGA should concentrate on level design, I don't know about you but I loved taking 3 minutes in every act of S3K finding the goodies.

 

So did I. Levels should be long. What's the point of putting all kinds of work into them and having it last 30 seconds? And longer, more complex levels give higher replay value, something a lot of games today don't have. I think one of the biggest problems in a lot of video games is that there isn't enough work put into level designs. That's a real problem with a lot of 3D stuff. 3D levels take way more work and no one really put enough time into making them. And somehow they forget about the whole platforming idea, the way it is in 2D platforming levels. Oh, and it's retarded to have parts of the level where the game does things for you.

About the whole story thing, just like someone else said, I like how S3K tells the story without overdoing it. A story is fine but it should never take over the gameplay.

Another good point. We as the people playing these games know what we want, but Nintendo and Sega don't really want to hear it. Since they don't want to keep the style that their games used to have, the best thing we can do is hack or make our own.

 

I never liked the longer levels, especially Act 2 of Marble Garden/Carnival Night. If you don't hull ass, you're going to die from a time up. Sure, you could hunt for all the "secrets", at the expense of a life. I thought Sonic 2 had it just right; no extra act (Metropolis Zone excluded), no super long levels that made you run out of time if you tried collecting all the rings, and no giant rings you have to go hunting for. A DS port of Sonic 2 with Hidden Palace Zone as a bonus is a dream, but thinking about the GBA "remake" (or whatever the hell that shit was) of Sonic 1 kinda crushes that dream.

On topic, I think Sega is headed in the right direction with the Rush games. No Shadow, a new, decent character, awesome music, good level design, good story, and Sonic Rush had the best Sonic series ending I've ever seen. I haven't had any time to play Sonic Rush Adventure, but it seems like a pretty good game so far. I'd like to see more Sonic handhelds, and I think that's the direction Sega should go in.

 

I'm with the people who regret buying it, it was a total disappointment for me. Even if I forced myself to enjoy it, I just ended up tolerating its many flaws but I still think it's a step backwards from Sonic Rush (which I still love).


So I'd try it before assuming things... =\

 

The thing is, the special stage rings were not that far out of the way. They were often on an alternate route the would normally go ignored.

Rush was getting it right. Sonic Rush Adevnture destroyed it.

 

I just hope the next handheld game doesn't end up worse than Rush Adventure, then it'll probably end up going the route the console game's went with Shadow The Hedgehog.

 

I severely disagree. Read on to see why!

 

For the 2D games, I'd say Sonic CD had the perfect formula. Open, yet short levels with that many routes it's almost confusing, and generally rather slow-paced that required skill if you wanted to go fast (as opposed to today's speed orgies where there are springs, boost pads and whatnotever everywhere to make the whole game a flashy roller-coaster instead of an actual platformer). I never really liked Sonic 3 & Knuckles' LONG AS FUCK levels that rarely gave you a chance to decide what style of play you'd like. They shot you around speed segments, forced you to slow down for platforming parts and lacked the freedom of choice Sonic CD and to a lesser amount also Sonic 2 gave you with their multiple alternate routes.

Unfortunately there has not yet been a 3D Sonic game that could be seen as a blueprint for future titles. Though Sonic R's course design I'd love to see being made into normal platformer levels - the open design with the various branching paths and no bottomless pits was excellent. And I find it far more appealing than SA2's, Heroes' and Shadow's linear and straight stages.
Now, but the best stages don't help if the game mechanics are shit. I am still hoping that there will be a more momentum-based game, but since that probably won't happen, I hope to see more of Sonic 06's direction. By that I don't mean the horrible adventure fields, those can go back to the bottomless pit they crawled from. But, mach-speed and boarding segments aside, Sonic 06's level designs were great. Not perfect, but very good. There always were some alternate paths, be it a hidden passageway somewhere behind a corner, a row of enemies you could homing attack through or just a grindable rail above you.
Furthermore, I liked how the stages were divided into single segments that differed from each other not only graphically and musically, but also in layout and gameplay: For example Sonic's Tropical Jungle starts with a fast-paced, quite linear speed segment but in the second part focuses rather on exploration and platforming due to a very open area. Due to this, playing a level feels more like playing different Acts of a Zone rather than one long-ass stage - and it prevents the monotony of Heroes and Shadow, where you're forced to play through the same boring level elements over and over again for 10-15 minutes.
My only complaint about Sonic 06's stages (bugs, glitches, and other problems caused by the game being unfinished aside) is that there's still a rather large amount of death traps (pits, water, sand) and that the parts where you play the amigo characters, while often fun, interrupt the flow of the game. Oh, and some stages are still too long. But WO's, RT's, TJ's and WA's length was about optimal.
The controls of the game I also found surprisingly good (again, boarding and LET'S SPEED UP!!!! segments excluded) - the homing attack worked perfectly, you could jump precisely from platform to platform... And I don't really mind Sonic being a bit slower if he at least doesn't fly off the stage that way (Heroes, Shadow).

Art direction being the last point of my post, I'm fine with either Sonic CD's/Chaotix' surreal, colourful, nearly drug-influenced art or SA2's and S06's serious, realistic style( just no more Elise plzkthx). *shrugs*

 

Rush Adventure left an amazingly bitter taste in my mouth. The storyline was monotonous and broke up what could've otherwise been very solid gameplay and I've had no urge to ever go back and attempt to play the game again. When I do, I'm met with disappointment and regret that I bought the game blindly. Hell, I had it beaten in one day. And I wasn't even trying.

And I'm not anti-new sonic, so don't throw that at me :P Up until Shadow, I was getting enjoyment out of the games while others were whinging about how terrible it was

 

They just need to take more care with Sonic, I feel that recently they are only doing the "Its Sonic it will sell" and hopefully STH 06 has shown them that its not always the way.

More care, take more time to work bugs out, and improve things, they have amazing technology at there hands and they still have the no real control of running on loops - we know that Mario Galaxy had running at different angles, why does Sonic not do this.

And death pits, replace them with spikes or something that when you fall you have some seconds to get back up instead of just falling.

 

Eh. I really think that ST should go back to square one and pretty much just work from S3K. I cant say about SC because I havn't played it. But IMO. S3K they did perfect. I still play the hell out of that game, and found myself to be an Instashield expert in no time, learning the ins and outs of S3K. Glitches. Ring locations. Fucking alot of stuff. I really think that if they took the time to like, not port, but properly remake the classics S1/2/3/K with extra features that aren't retarded, IE, Online Multiplayer, and hell, maybe even a stage builder. Megaman powered up did that, and I think its awesome, as people use it. And wut bout Brawl. That shit is a great idea. If they wanted to, they could even make it in 2.5D graphics. That would be BOSS. As for the New Sonic. SA1. Fun. SA2. Funner, though the dialog got to me eventually, and I had to switch the voicing to Japanese. Thank god I can't understand Japanese. Now, as the games started to progress more and more, I was like, "What the fuck is this?" Heroes, I admit, had spite from me from the start because it became multi-platform. But you know, I put it aside and tried playing it, but I guess I was too familiar and used to the classic song playing style, because Sonic Hereos just didn't do anything for me. I thought it was subpar, but not horrible. I did enjoy the storyline a bit. Sonic Next Gen...hahahahahahahahahaha. Skiiip. Sonic Rush. The gameplay was so nostalgic in my eyes, and it brought me back with a new age flare. I had sooo much fun with it, and the music made it practically my choice pick of Sonic games in a while. Sonic rush Adventure seems a bit to disconnected and not a fluid to me as Rush did, maybe because there was too much to do? Iunno.

All in all, I think they should just take it back. It was like Tekken. T3 rocked. T4 was LOLNICETRY. T5 was awesome, because they backstepped a bit. I think ST should just do the same. Take what worked, and improve on that. As for the characters, they really don't bother me when their importance is spread out and divided up properly. Not even needs to be that important. :/

 

Oh, yeah, and about Sonic Rush: I haven't played any handheld title after Pocket Adventure for NGPC, but clearly they got the sound right. I frequently blast Leaf Forest Storm now that I have the Brawl soundtrack here.

 

Sonic CD wasn't awesome.

 

I don't know what everyone finds so good about Sonic CD, am I the only one here who finds the layouts to be... not fun to play through at all?