Do you think a Sonic Adventure Remake is a good idea?

Does Taxman and his crew even any experience with making a 3D game? It's quite different from making something like Mania

 

Their wheelhouse is 2D and have shown a excellent understanding of classic 2D Sonic, Sonic Team making them go 3D would be yet another baffling move unless it’s to undermine Evening Star to keep Sonic Team from becoming solely a mobile game developer.

A possible new Sonic from Evening Star should be informed by what the market based off Mania’s sales and profitability but that would be a threat to Sonic Team who already got humiliated in 2017, I remember how people kept acting like having a OC creator was going to make Forces a big success and that Mania was a for a “niche” audience.

 

IIRC Taxman wanted to go into 3D, and he has had enough time to step in it at least a bit. A remake is a good way to make a "small" title to test the grounds and not threaten the mainline games with that humiliation you talk about. Either way, it's just an impression, a feeling, as there's so much talk about that remake.

 

Going into something like Sonic for your first 3D protect would be a herculean task as history has shown, a remake isn’t a small task when you consider all the gameplay types that Adventure has and all the unique issues each have, this would be a much much bigger project than the 1&2 remasters or even Mania and one that foolishly avoids capitalizing on the momentum that Mania created.

There’s talk about it just as how there was always talks Adventure 3, Sonic Team has never been shy about referencing Adventure especially in it’s music so I don’t see that see that stuff as a sign either, in fact Colors is the only post DC console game I can recall that doesn’t have a obvious reference to it. What Activision is doing with their remakes doesn’t signal what Sega will be doing otherwise Team Sonic Racing wouldn’t be so barebone and lacking in post launch support.

 

I am so damn starved for a mobile Chao game that I almost want to try to make one. I would get it in a heartbeat - even if it was something passive like Neko Atsume.

 

I would absolutely love an ambitious SA1 remake.

I don't trust Sonic Team to merely recreate the flawed original, much less improve it.

 

I've never understood all the longing after Sonic Adventure (either in the form of the remake or a sequel). Granted, for the longest time, the SA games were probably the "least worst" 3D Sonic games.

But since then we've had Sonic Colours, which does an excellent job of mixing elements from the classic games with the modern gameplay. Sonic Colours is the formula that Sonic Team should be pursuing. It's too bad the game was a Wii exclusive and you needed to beat story mode to truly enjoy its brilliant level design, as I think a lot of people missed out on it. I suppose subsequent games have loosely tried to build off Colours but in true Sonic Team fashion, they've blundered it.

It's too bad Yasuhara didn’t stick around. A key problem with 3D Sonic games has been the level design and he did an excellent job with the level design in Sonic R (despite the game's dreadful controls). I think if he had remained on the team, Sonic's 3D era would have been less problematic. But yeah, it's Colours and R we should be longing after, not Adventure.

 

But that's, like, your opinion, man.

For real tho, in my opinion Sonic Colours was terribly dull, and I'm happy they never tried doing something like that again. Just a glorified Mario game with a Sonic skin. No thanks.

On the subject of the Chao garden, it is a bit weird that they never brought it back in some form or fashion. I don't know a thing about game development, but an improved Chaos garden using the one in SA2 as a base shouldn't take too long to do, right?

 

Yes, of course, sorry if that wasn't clear.

I found it unbearably repetitive during story mode. But after beating that, it was awesome. Maybe it's just a case of a hungry person being grateful to get some food, but I loved how it actively encouraged the player to wander off the main path to find secrets. It was a marked contrast to SA-Unleased, where exploration was usually punished with death by bottomless pit.
I wouldn't say Colors is perfect, but it seemed to be trying to build on the platforming aspects the classic games had, rather than going for the "faster-faster-faster" mantra that later 3D titles pushed.

I am so glad they haven't. Grinding stats for those dumb Chao to unlock Green Hill Zone in SA2 was the worst.
I don’t mind them pushing Chao as a mobile-only game, but I am so glad that they've been kept out of the main titles.

 

Of course, but I think that's more of a problem with Adventure 2; the game really likes to make you do dumb shit to reach 100% completion. The races are one thing, but there's also the racing mini game, the boss rush...
Grinding my Chao for the race definitely wasn't fun tho. If the garden was to come back, they would need to make it 100% optional imo.
I never messed around with Sonic Aventure 1's Chaos garden too much (since the one in Adventure 2 is more complete), so I don't know if you had to use it to get some emblems in that game? If that's the case, that's definitely something to change in a potential remake.

 

Yeah, the Adventure games made a half-assed effort to have a collect-athon feel via the emblems. It did not work in their favor. I think I had suppressed the memory of the kart races and boss rushes, because I forgot how much I hated doing those.

And yes, Adventure 1 had a few emblems for the Chao Garden, too. It's just that Adventure 1 had no reward at all for getting all of them.

 

Developing something like a Chao system takes a lot of development resources. So even if it's optional it still impacts on the game by taking away resources that could be spent elsewhere.

That's one of the problems with Adventure to Unleashed. They were so stuffed with ideas that I doubt Sonic Team had any time to refine and rework those ideas.
I also think that's one of the reasons Colours and Generations were much better because they weren't big on idea stuffing. With Lost World and Forces, Sonic Team went back to introducing lots of ideas and the games suffered in quality.

I strongly feel that until Sonic Team have perfected modern Sonic to the point where they can release several strong titles in a row, they should leave off things like extra play styles, mini-games, hub worlds ect, as these things subtract more than they add (And that's why I am not keen on the love for Adventure, because it was that game that introduced these "sins").

 

I think Sonic Adventure is the best kind of game to remake - a high profile entry in a very well known series, that had a lot of charm and cool ideas, that reviewed and sold well at the time, but is flawed and clunky by today's standards.

Better to remake and improve upon an interesting but flawed and dated game, than a game that still looks and plays great today (Super Metroid, for example).

Some games only need a few "quality of life" improvements and enhanced graphics/music, like Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap and Zelda: Link's Awakening. Other games benefit from a more drastic overhaul, like Metroid 1 and 2.

I think Sonic Adventure would fall in the latter category.

Colours and Generations are definitely better games than SA1 and SA2. They did a good job refining how Sonic controlled in Generations (still room for improvement though), but as you say, Colours had a more exploration based design philosophy.

I think an issue people had with Colours was how much of it was 2D, but those 2D sections didn't play like a traditional Sonic game. No rolling into a ball, few curved platforms - it was a very different thing. The 3D sections didn't do much with the three dimensional space, being mostly set in Crash Bandicoot style corridors, and Sonic himself controlled more like a hybrid between a racing car and a platformer character. It's an old observation, but from Rush/Unleashed onwards, the series has become like a mash-up of a platformer and a rhythm game. The only thing I can think to compare it to is the excellent Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. This is a worthwhile premise for a game, and Sonic as a character is suited to it. If they could further build upon Generations, I think they'd be onto a winner (Sonic Forces was took so many steps back).

But no matter how well they do (or don't do) with that formula, I think there will still be a demand for a fully three dimensional Sonic game. There hasn't been one in 13 years now, and they never quite managed to pull it off at the time. Sonic Adventure was the closest they got to envisioning Sonic in 3D, and 3D games have evolved so much in the two decades since, so it's understandable that people want to see Sega take another stab at it.

 

Yeah, I'd be down for an Adventure remake. Adventure may not have quite the universal populariy of the classics, but it's definitely regarded as one of-if not the best 3D Sonic games. A remake with better graphics, better custcenes, whilst staying true to the original in terms of level design, physics, but at the same time adding a few tweaks here and there to improve the experience.

I wouldn't want a remake which strays too far from the feel of the original which could end up alienating the fanbase and I wouldn't trust Sonic Team to do a good job. I'd prefer a team of developers similar to Team Mania who know the Adventure games inside out and thus could do a remake justice.

Do I think a remake is happening? Well...no. So, I guess I'd settle for a 16:9 widescreen port of the Dreamcast version for next-gen, which is probably the most realistic thing we can expect.

I'd actually be more interested in a "Sonic Adventure Mania" styled game. I.e. take the best stages from Sonic Adventure & SA2 (so that's Sonic or Shadow stages ) and include some brand new stages.

Oh and yay, nice to see some love for Colours which is by far the best game Sonic Team has produced since the Adventure games, but I digress.

 

Colors is an absolutely awful game conceptually (less gameplay so I guess) that introduced a bunch of incredibly bad design choices that have been infecting Sonic games all the way to Forces:

-wisps
-deleting almost every single tenuous connection the series had to its Genesis trilogy roots by that point with the completely elimination of even basic slope physics in favor of being Kinda Crappy Blue Mario (on a console that had both Mario Galaxy games, of course)
-story becoming an almost complete afterthought, yet still present just enough to make you wonder why even bothered having it in there
-2D/3D split being extremely biased towards 2D with 3D as a near-afterthought where you just had to boost and maybe drift
-wisps
-short stages
-did I mention wisps because oh my god, fuck the wisps because yes, let's make the amazing soundtrack impossible to hear because of these jingles every 20 seconds that force you to play Not Sonic

It may be an okay game to play, but it is so extremely divorced from the series roots that it barely feels like a Sonic game--just another me-too platformer. Even 06, even Heroes, and especially the Adventure titles, had some tenuous connection to the core roots of Sonic. The visuals and soundtrack are great but man, it's just Not Sonic to me. I don't want Sonic to be Blue Mario But He's Kinda Faster, I Guess. Of course, Colors get disproportionately high praise from outside of Sonic fandom precisely because it throws away all of its roots to just be a rather average Mario clone, but hey, I like Sonic because unlike literally every other platformer in existence he isn't Mario With a Gimmick but Also Kinda Worse So Why Not Just Play Mario Instead.

The Adventure titles mark a gameplay style that carries on said roots, if rather roughly, but which could be expanded upon. There is a reason why most of these new 3D sonic fanengines that are popping up take inspiration heavily from Adventure, even when they incorporate Boost elements.

 

The Wisps in Colours felt like an evolution of the shields from Sonic 3 (especially after beating story mode). Although I do agree that later games used them lazily, where they were pointless.

Colors had a dreadful story, but that's because of Sega's decision to use Ken Pontac & Warren Graff. If they were to make a new Adventure installment, they'd probably keep them around, so I doubt the story would be any better.

 

I think dreadful is a word I'd reserve for something bizarre like Forces. Colours basically having no story outside of a basic outline (planets chained up, etc) meant at least there wasn't anything that could go wrong.
Plus, Terminal Velocity being more or less a rad interactive cutscene akin to CD Sonic escaping from an exploding Little Planet was a great touch I think more Sonic games could use.

For the sake of free money for SEGA, Colours 1080p 60fps port on Switch should have happened already.

In fact, at this point I'd take an Unleashed/Colours remastered collection over any remake right now

 

Make it a two pack with Generations and I'd bet it sell well. Don't count on Unleashed getting a port though. There's something werehog about that game that makes Sega pretend it doesn't exist.

Thought: As a way to test the waters, why not have the next 3d outing be something akin to Sonic Jam's Sonic World area? If they really are employing Evening Star, its be a nice low stakes way of testing their competency in the 3d sphere (Mania's special stages notwithstanding). It'd be easier then trying to remake Sonic Adventure.

 

While it may not seem a good idea for the current team of SEGA developers, I might want to see how a remake of Sonic Adventure would become. See the fields, stages, chao garden and events in a more modern style.

I do understand when others say that, where games like Spyro and Crash suceeded, Sonic might fail. Given ST's latest track records, it'd the most logical outcome to expect from them.
But I also admit I'm a bit tired of each new game focusing only on speed stages, with Sonic or a speed character to play with. A bit more variety, like Tails's flying races or Knuckles's treasure hunting, could be welcome, for once.