I have a difficult time believing anyone here would be as forgiving with wholesale reusing of level themes if it weren't the new Sonic game. Nearly every page is talking about how reusing levels for the third or fourth game in a row is totally not a bad thing at all and it's completely normal and common for games to reuse the same exact level themes (down to the assets) over and over again, and it all comes off as incredibly disingenuous. Uncle Sonic is drunk at a family gathering again and everyone is pretending that it's completely normal to puke all over the floor at family Christmas because nobody wants to admit there's a problem.
Generations' assets were designed for Xbox 360 and PS3-class hardware; 15 years and two console "generations" behind. They would almost certainly have to spend time on them so that they stood up to scrutiny in 4K. To which the argument is, if you're having to do all that work anyway, why not make something new? Why not tint the textures and call it "Dry Manktuary Zone"? Christ you could add a bit of green and actually make it look like the level you're copying. This idea of not having the time or budget - you're meant to plan for this. If they don't have the resources to make levels in a Sonic game, that's a serious problem, and one absolutely worthy of criticism - you ought to be dramatically rethinking your approach to game development, be it making smaller games, hiring bigger teams, or extending development by six months or a year (which is what people were calling for a couple of weeks ago anyway). No I can absolutely see it being a "let's revisit the past for a bit of fun" scenario that was planned from the outset - it's a thought process that's been all over the games since at least 2011, so if this is really Sky Sanctuary, you can bet it was a conscious decision to include it.
Yeah it's totally normal. Don't see anyone ever calling it a problem for this game at all, everyone is still excited for it, why? cause it showed new things too. Just like this new Sonic game in fact
A lot of people are concerned about the direct reuse of the same overworld for BotW's sequel. They're pinning hopes and optimism that there's enough new content filling it out to make it worth it. But that is not a good example, because there's genuinely a good amount of vitriol out there, and believe me I've seen even dedicated Nintendo fans be concerned. Sonic Frontiers is in a sea of concern, asset reusage slapped on top is like the cherry atop a sundae in that regard.
Red Dead Redemption 2 actually majorly doesn't use the parts of the map that come from Redemption for anything before the Epilogue (alongside the 8 year difference making most of the assets from the first game needing redone anyways), and in fact, basically the entire thing is a super lazily tacked on wasteland with zero respect for how it was portrayed and brought to life in the first game, choosing not to create new assets for things that were explicitly said to have been located there during that time period, turning the mysterious ghost town of Tumbleweed into just another town to visit, etc. It's kind of exactly how Redemption itself is treated by Redemption 2, it's only tied into the first out of the desire to invoke the nostalgia, but when you take all of those elements away, it's a story that could've been done without that nostalgia and just been a spiritual successor like Redemption before it. Anyways, I always thought it'd be cool to play as Sonic running around the Red Dead Redemption map, so I'm glad SEGA is following through on that.
I think the Yakuza series would have been a much better "gotcha" here. I don't think I could have disputed that with anything other than comparing the quality of Sonic vs Yakuza and that's fairly subjective. To say nobody cares about the reuse of the overworld in BotW2 is just outright false, though. I'm not the biggest Zeldahead and I don't spend much time on forums but even I know there was outcry when it was announced they were reusing the world map.
This post feels, in itself, disingenuous. Sky Sanctuary has been reused only once to my knowledge, in Generations. "Over and over again" is hyperbolic, unless you are asserting that other stages which already have been used multiple times are going to return, which would perhaps be even more disingenuous because I don't recall seeing them. I also don't quite understand why we need to assume that people can only have differing or more nuanced opinions because it's a new Sonic game. If it weren't a Sonic game, I'm sure a lot of people would have similar takes. Being upset about asset reuse is a characteristically Sonic fan thing to think, not that other series don't experience the same thing, but considering the history of this franchise, and judging by this thread it is clearly not the voiceless minority opinion that it might appear to be. It is a very normal Sonic fan thing to think, we've been conditioned to think it purely for the fact that it's happened so many times in Mania, Generations, Forces, Sonic 4, etc. So IMO I don't think it would matter so much if it weren't a new Sonic game. The BOTW case is indeed similar, and while you see a lot of people being instantly angry and vitriolic about BOTW2, you also see a lot of people asking questions and understanding the complete lack of context and all these other factors, in general it seems like the fact this is a Sonic game instantly makes it less likely that any amount of asset reuse is forgiven, in any context.
It was in one of the Sonic Racing games, no? Sky Sanctuary might be the next Seaside Hill in terms of reuse.
Yes, it was used in Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed. Even though it was a spin-off game, but it was used.
Yeah that was a spinoff by Sumo Digital that came out one year after Generations and was being developed concurrently. We're moving the goalpost a bit. Even if we count spinoffs and such, Green Hill and Chemical Plant (and Seaside Hill, that's true, and Death Egg is getting up there) definitely take the cake for most rehashed stages. Sky Sanctuary was only brought back for Gens and a spinoff that tied into Gens.
I honestly I like the fact Sonic 3 & Knuckles is getting a lot of love and references lately. Usually it's always (or mostly) Sonic 1 and 2. I think we maybe own Sonic Mania for that, too.
This is a dumb comparison. The context and the standards are 100% different for a new entry for a platforming series versus a new entry in an open-world RPG series. A better comparison would be Mario reusing the same grass, desert, ice, forest, water, sky, mountain, and lava themes for its games, and yes, people do think that's a problem, even when there are new twists or even new themes occasionally (like space, or a circus). Sonic's gameplay is (or should be) strong enough, and simple enough, that the only real creative effort you should need to put in are new level concepts, a new story, and a new soundtrack. It's like Kirby or Mega Man in that it doesn't really need to "evolve" beyond small enhancements here and there. The gameplay loop is addicting enough on its own that it doesn't need drastic formula changes like what it keeps doing. If Sonic Team understood this, then they would probably put more effort into the games' coating.
My main issue isn't the level/asset reuse (I do have issues with those, but I could forgive them if it meant they were able to better spend/use that time on making interesting platforming challenges, but alas it seems that that's not the case), it's the level design itself. Nothing this game has shown us so far seems to offer much on that front that is any better than what Forces was offering, and this is a much bigger scale project which was apparently in development much longer. Frankly, I'm not seeing that the extra dev time actually amounted to anything of value. Whoopty-doo, I can fight bizarre robot-alien things for 3 minutes, solve braindead, slow puzzles for 30 seconds, do a time trial for a minute, and/or collect coins along a mostly barren, automated field which doesn't look like it belongs in the same space as Sonic, or all these springs, rails, hoops or dash panels. And the stuff that does look mildly interesting looks like it was literally slapped on top of everything else, with random floating platforms littering the skies- rather than a natural part of the environment.
It's only what a lot of corps do and for a lot of people, it was fans expect and want to? Sonic, Mario, Zelda, Tomb Raider, Halo, Yakuza, Drakes, and Resident Evil have all done it. I really don't get why Sonic Team gets singled out for it. If you're a fan of an IP, I think many people look for parts from the old games, to be used in the new game and sometimes It's nice to see how the new tech shows how far were have come I really wish mind, Sonic Team will one day look at reusing the Time travel aspect/theme from Sonic CD. I loved how you could go back into the past and make a difference in the future, that you could visually see
I do find it silly people are saying they reusing the level layouts, when we've had less than 15 seconds of footage. Footage that does show a different layout than Generations' Sky Sanctuarary, mind you, so we know for a fact it's a new layout. It's gone from "they're reusing the level tropes?!" to "they're copy/pasting entire levels?!" and we haven't even caught more of a glimpse of the damn things.
That's my only real light mark on this in that they obviously won't just 1:1 the exact same level design from Generations, or whatever else they import. On the flip side, Forces had some of the worst level design in the entire franchise up there with Labyrinth and Tails Sky Patrol in my opinion, albeit probably on a biased comedic hyperbole here, and I don't have a whole lot of confidence that Frontiers improved in that regard.
I find it a tad silly people are getting upset over asset reuse. Personally, I'm not against some reuse here and there. I once read somewhere that Speed Highway for Sonic Generations reused some assets from Empire City. If this is true, I really don't blame them, Sonic games are supposed to be fast, and I doubt anybody is slowing down to pay attention to some building on the side. As long as they don't straight up ctrl-c ctrl-v the exact same thing everywhere, and/or they cleverly disguise it well enough, I don't really see that much of an issue. I used to dabble in creating Team Fortress 2 maps in the Hammer Editor, even just a spawn room could take me a good few minutes to build, texture, and decorate (that's excluding the time it took to also make functional doors/resupply lockers, add proper lighting, and making sure it was balanced to prevent issues like spawncamping), and I was using premade assets. The developers have to make most of their stuff from scratch, so I sympathise with the poor blokes who have to build entire highways and green hills.
I don't think anyone's inherently saying "100% new assets gotta be used, they can't reuse anything", it's just no one wants Green Hill 7, Chemical Plant 4, and Sky Sanctuary 3 or whatever. Team Fortress 2, all those prefabs and pre-existing assets can be used with creative ways for numerous situations, lighting environments like times of day, and a unique spin on the environment, and because canyons, factories and grasslands are mostly what TF2 is (give or take some variety and alien invasions), no one would really bat too much of an eye at it. Sonic has been everywhere from rolling greens to the tops of volcanic mountains, ancient ruins and virtual reality, the hearts of cities and the depths of space, so to see more Green Hill of being explicitly designed after Green Hill yet again instead of just some occasional looks and motifs is the real stick up my rear. And calling it Windy Hill in Lost World when it's directly based off of Green Hill's visual style except planetoids and killer flowers, or having Green Hill in Forces but sandy for mostly the background and occasional thing to run on isn't.. exactly cutting it for me. Tweak some stuff, give us lush flower fields taken from the Frontiers open world off to the sides and call it Emerald Hill for once, I dunno. Anything to feel fresh, rather than stale. If they take Sky Sanctuary and the Death Egg in the background, add new cyberspace elements to really make it distinct, give it a broken and distorted look to symbolize the memories and try not to play it too straight that it looks like a Generations mod. Stuff like that can go a long way to at least justifying inclusions without feeling they're just here because the assets still exist.
