Skimmed through the thread against my better judgement. It really just screams "It's different and I don't like it so you should also not like it". Sonic hasn't been a non linear physics based platformer for a long time. Not since Heroes at least. And that's FINE. That doesn't automatically make it "bad" or at odds with Sonic's design philosophy. It does not need to be like the classics to be good.
It'll be alright. It's one guy with a take we didn't happen to like. There are a lot of worse things that could happen to us tonight.
Do we know what and when the next bit of content will be? I feel like last week we had a pretty good idea of what was coming next as each thing dropped.
Well Summer Game Fest starts, what, tomorrow? And we've seen some hints that Sonic will have a presence there. I will say, even if they're doing a bad job showing the game off, the actual amount we've been getting relative to the time that's passed since we started getting it has been a welcome change.
Especially if you compare to when Metroid Prime 4 and Breath of the Wild 2 were announced and how little we still know of those games. Sometimes I gotta keep a perspective; MP4 in particular bugs me since that shit was announced in 2017 and we STILL don't know shit about it.
I mean they just flat out restarted MP4 which is almost unheard of. I think Sonic fans are antsier than others due to Sonic Team's track record. We want this to be good because it's otherwise going to be years before we get another attempt from them.
It’s actually a lot more common than you’d think. I think the difference is that Nintendo just flat-out came out and said “yeah the game fucking sucked so we’re giving it to another studio and restarting it from scratch k thks bye”
Hmm. Yea I guess other companies are more quiet about it but now that I think of it "Duke Nukem: Forever" comes to mind and oddly enough, Sonic 3 (it was 3D at 1st right? Then they didn't like that and went back to build off Sonic 2?)
Games re-starting development with a new direction probably happens a lot behind the scenes. I think Earthbound's original build was completely scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up when Satoru Iwata joined development.
I feel like Sonic fans are extremely desperate to get that one game that is just going to magically fix everyone's problems and get accolades and all that. You still have some old fans who still talk like it's 90's and Sonic is just going to throw out a game that outsells Mario. Running on those expectations, its no wonder Sonic fans tend to be up in arms so much. As mentioned, the people who managed to do that are no longer at Sega.
Going from Lange's Twitter thread... I noticed how the classic games function around skill mastery as much as ball physics (given the spin roll and dash abuse). But could such elements be nicely translated into 3D? SA1 tried it as best as it could, not sure if they could make it better. Rails, boost pads, boost button, automation, QTEs... All focus on feel of speed and muscle memory, in my humble opinion. And all this only when it comes to modern games, in line with the classics. They give moment feel, but take freedom away. As a non-gamer casual fan of the series, I don't know how one could design and program a game to return to the roots. And to be honest, I don't think that's needed. It all comes down to 2D VS 3D and how each makes things work at all. There can be progress, there can be evolution, there can be innovation. But one could try to keep in mind the original spirit of the franchise.
I know what I don't want to do: re-litigate whether a 1:1 translation of classic physics works in 3d.
As annoying as it is, the second the modern games drifted away from what the classics established is what opened the door for this stuff. We don't know if Classic shit can translate to 3D, because Sega don't seem interested in attempting to do so and are just content with doing their own thing, and the 3D fangame scene still haven't figured it out either. It's one of those riddle for the ages.
But there are also 3D fans that don't care about translating the Genesis formula or even the Genesis games. Hell I met a person the other day who said the last 3D Sonic they liked was Sonic 06 because they like story in Sonic games. We have to remember that this forum's particular niche is classic Sonic fans. Of course we want to see them try that, but just because we want it doesn't mean others do, even other fans. Sonic means a lot of different things to different people. Someone's favorite game might be Sonic 3 and someone else's favorite game might be 06, or Black Knight, or one of those other titles most of us here hate. And it's looking like Fronteirs may create yet another particular Sonic fan base. If there are people who genuinely think 06 is good, this is no doubt going to be some Sonic fan's favorite format going forward.
Personally think that's an excellent thread, summing up many legitimate concerns and criticisms of Sonic game development at Sega. Ever since the Sonic 4 saga (!) on the official Sega forums, I've stayed well out of discussing Sonic online. But that thread sums up my thoughts perfectly.
It's a riddle already long answered. Sonic Adventure answered 70% of the question with an "of course" and the rest with a "but look at this cool set-piece". Fan games answered the other 30% with "look ma! no automation!" but their remaining 70% was flying off a ramp into the stratosphere. Meet in the middle somewhere and your answer is.. well, yes. It works. Will it work 100%? I don't know, and I don't really care if it does. A 1:1 conversion to 3D was never necessary for Sonic to be "good". And we don't have to ask this question every time it comes up, act like it's never been answered and then go on a million page journey trying to figure out what the truth is anymore. Sonic Team doesn't not do classic gameplay in 3D because it "doesn't work". They don't do it because they don't want to. And we either accept they don't want to and learn to appreciate other forms of how Sonic plays, or we don't and we mald for life. Now Sonic fandom, can we collectively close the door for a minute and just talk about things that aren't this lmao. We get so caught on the "physics" we forget to discuss every other thing that makes games work.
As someone who hates what Frontiers is turning out to be and is not excited for it, as someone who wants nothing more than for Sonic to go back to being simple, focused, arcadey experiences based in movement and strong physics: This is an excellent post. I think what Lange is getting at is that most of classic Sonic's mechanical, aesthetic and narrative choices served a greater whole and that made them much richer games, which is true to me, but I...don't get why having this opinion makes me more valid than anybody else. I really don't. Sonic is a toy at the end of the day. The only thing it has to do is entertain enough people to get another go-around. That's it. That's the only objective truth in gaming fandom. I can argue until I'm blue in the face about how Frontiers is the wrong move but nothing I say will matter if it serves this purpose. Fandom has always clashed hard with this idea because they get so invested in this toy, this product, this entertainment that they think they understand it's appeal better than it's creators. In Sonic's case though I think the appeal is really simple and fans often overthink it: The character himself is cool so the fantasy of playing as him is inherently appealing. You can go deep and make a great action game out of the nuances of his movement and decision making but something shallow will work too as long as it's fun enough. That sucks for me, because I don't like shallow games, but it doesn't matter. The reality is that anyone who has enough money to buy a Sonic game is an equally valid voice worth listening to. It doesn't matter if you've been here for 10 years and the guy you're arguing with has been here for two months. One of the silliest things about people's investment in this series is the idea that it's worth anything. That you deserve more because you stuck around games you didn't like for longer. I'm speaking as someone who only likes one Sonic game from the last decade here: It doesn't matter. It will never matter. Your input will never be worth more than the 9 year old who just wants to see Shadow do a cool flip.
