"Multiple" new Sonic games planned for 2021

FWIW, Unleashed gave the player full camera control and it's the last Sonic game to do so to date. Colours, Generations, Lost World and Forces all remove camera control, but before Forces it wasn't so that they could only render half levels. Colours was limited by the Wii control scheme, and it was a common thing not to have an disparities between control schemes.

Generations is where things get messy. I just made a post about camera and warping effects that were used in Unleashed over in the "fastest game" thread. Camera control really tore those effects apart, but it wasn't the biggest thing. All of the boost games rely heavily on making Sonic follow scripted paths. Even at times when you don't realise it, Sonic is bound to invisible splines that make him weave around corners and generally just follow the route without pressing anything other than up on the analogue stick. But this gets absolutely broken when you rotate the camera. The up direction will still make Sonic follow the path forwards and down will have him go the opposite direction, even if the camera is side on to Sonic. You can still get this to happen quite easily in Generations by running around against walls and forcing the camera to turn a little on its own.

Camera control was removed from Generations simply because it it didn't work with the game and the developers weren't willing to make a proper fix. And with Lost World it was probably just not a good fit for the level design. But Forces... They took full advantage of being lazy.

 

Oh Forces was just lazy all around lol

 

Zilch sadly.
Oh well, there's still plenty of time.

 

Welp that's slightly disappointing, although I wasn't really expecting anything from the Direct anyway. It would be pretty nice though if SEGA could at least give some kind of timeframe of when to expect an announcement or something cause the almost complete silence is getting a bit tiresome to be honest. Hopefully the wait will ultimately be worth it.

 

I really disagree with this idea. It sounds good, but in practice, it doesn't work out.

If you've ever played Burnout Paradise, you'll know why this isn't a good idea. If you haven't, give it a shot: it does exactly this. You're given a big, open world with a ton of cars and things to do. The races all take place in this open world, and have you going from point A to point B, with complete freedom in how you get to point B. It's an absolute bore because the races suck. The team had to design race tracks that could be feasible within an actual city, and let you explore them/traverse them as normal while roaming around. It didn't work out.

Other examples of this type of gameplay is Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. People, from what I've seen, are mixed on the open world. But, most people agreed that the parts that were the most fun were, ironically, the more linear parts. Another aspect that people liked was the ability to... make your own linear path for others to challenge. What appealed to people wasn't the open world structure, or the "go anywhere you want!" gimmick, but the linear challenges. In my opinion, Sonic is much the same: it's a platformer. It's always been linear, and about using the level to get to your goal: having multiple paths doesn't make it suddenly non-linear. An open world goes against that.

Apologies for the huge gap between this post and the one I'm quoting, but I figured I'd give my 2 cents, with examples of games that tried it.

 

I know this has already been explained as debunked (the Game Theory video is truly terrible, mixing average speed and top speed among many other things), but I want to fully explain why this is wrong since this is the second time it's appeared in as many days.

Sonic, in his original game, when running on flat ground, runs at 6 pixels per frame. Mario, in Super Mario Bros., when running on flat ground, runs at 2.5 pixels per frame. So Mario isn't faster in terms of pixels.

Both Sonic and Super Mario are approximately the same height, 1m tall. This translates to 40 pixels for Sonic, making his speed 9m/s, and 16 pixels for Mario*, making his speed 9.5m/s. So is Mario faster?

No, for one simple reason: 9m/s is not Sonic's top speed - it's simply the speed you get when you hold right on flat ground. Fire shield dash? Now you're at 16m/s. Spindash? 18m/s.

"But DigitalDuck, these things weren't in the original Sonic game." That's true. But slopes were, and when rolling down slopes, your speed is effectively infinite. It's well known that it's possible to outrun the camera, so we'll use the camera's movement speed. In Sonic 1, this is 16px/frame = 24m/s. Of course, the camera can move faster diagonally, increasing this to 34m/s. In Sonic 3 this speed got a boost to 50m/s, and it's still possible to outrun it with legitimate intended gameplay.

By comparison, the fastest Mario runs in any of the original SMB or SMW games is in SMB3 with P-wing, and this translates to a whopping 13m/s. Sonic is approximately four times faster than Mario; he just needs some help getting to that speed.


* I've assumed small Mario is the Mario we typically see; after eating a mushroom in SMB, Mario is taller than Princess Toadstool, which does not appear to be the case in modern games. Taking large Mario as our typical Mario halves his running speed again, so this is the more favourable assumption for Mario anyway.

 

Yeah, I get that Sonic 'can' use his surroundings to build up speed to near infinite levels - but honestly, - the simple fact that from a standing start and holding right Mario 1) accelerates faster and 2) reaches a faster top speed in the comparative game world - is telling. Put the two side by side in a 100 meter sprint and the Mario from SM1

And your pixel arguments ignore the fact Mario is 32 pixels high, whilst Sonic is 104 pixels. So Mario may only move 2.5 pixels per frame but thats 1/12th of his height per frame. Sonic moves 1 seventeenth of his height per frame. In the original game he is de facto slower at running.

And I wouldn't say the Game Theorists are terrible for pointing this out. Is just a conversation point, a fun thing to amuse on, they aren't serious about it impacting anything

 

I gotta say, I understand people had problems with both games... but both Burnout Paradise and Mirror's Edge Catalyst are some of my favourite games, directly *because* they're so open and I can just muck about in them.

For instance, Burnout Paradise, I really enjoyed when you unlock a car, you don't just "unlock" the car. Beforehand, you have to drive around the city, and keep your eyes peeled for the car you wanna add to your collection, and then wreck it. It just adds another layer to the game, and I really enjoyed just driving around, wrecking billboards/gates/different cars. I definitely think it got tiresome after a while, but then again, I'm not even a racing fan really and I absolutely love Burnout Paradise lol

And for Mirror's Edge Catalyst. I definitely did enjoy the areas where you didn't have to rely on runners vision (for instance inside the towers that Plastic gets you to go into), but in such a large open world that's few and far between. However, I will say I definitely enjoyed the player races more, because they were usually short and sweet. Catalyst's biggest issue is the fact the open world is *too* big; you can never learn the routes around the world because it's huge, so runners vision takes over and you have no autonomy... that being said, I enjoy the game and its mechanicanics too much to care haha

So yeah, I don't agree that it's a *bad* idea, you just had to do it right. Both games have their flaws, sure, but they're far from bad games (unlike say, Forces lol :P). And if Sonic Team took the *right* lessons from it, I wouldn't be opposed. But that being said... I dunno whether I trust ST to take the right lessons from those games to make it work.

 

I don't know what you're smoking, Burnout Paradise is freaking awesome.

 

Are you forgetting that there's a deliberate speed cap put in place anytime you hold left or right? Run down a hill and let go of right. Sonic's speed cap will be lifted and he'll start running way faster than normal. Why is everyone overlooking this?

 

...today I learned.

 

Alright since I got no end of rebuke for referencing a gametheory video and no one commenting on my actual point which was "the perception of speed based off level design is way more important than actual speed." I'm just going to say it again: Sonic doesn't need to actually be fast. He just needs to feel fast. Toad in Mario 3D world is plenty fast enough to be in a Sonic game.

 

I agree with you, the perception of speed is more important than actual speed. Does anyone remember the old Star Wars Episode 1 Racer game? You weren't really going THAT fast, but the game said you were going hundreds of kilometers an hour, and you felt like it. You can make a game FEEL like you're going incredibly fast while still maintaining a controllable speed in realtime.

 

Is this just the original version of Sonic 1 or does it also apply to the Retro Engine version on Android?

 

That's completely fair! Different strokes for different folks - my point was that a more linear and composed experience works far better (and is generally more enjoyable) compared to a huge open world. I do think a Sonic game, where ST looked at those games and learnt from their mistakes, would work incredibly well in an open world. Unfortunately, as you said, it's doubtful they will learn from those mistakes, or take the right lessons from it. I never meant to imply either was bad, more that their open world may have hindered it more than it'd helped it.

Personally, I feel that linear experiences work much better than open world ones. However, open world games have the potential to have a lot of replayability if done right.

Don't get me wrong - despite what I said about it, I like Burnout Paradise. But much like it's namesake, I burnt out on it pretty quick.

The races blend together far too much, and the track design is worse compared to the earlier Burnout games. In saying that, I really enjoyed the free roaming and messing around in the overworld. I loved the time-trials as you roam the city, doing the various challenges and collectables, unlocking cars by wrecking them (which you encounter naturally in the open world). I think all of those would work great in a Sonic game, alongside ME's player races. But, the core gameplay - it's racing - becomes boring due to lack of variety and polish in it's tracks.

I can see a Sonic game having much of the same flaws.

 

Sorry. In which game is Sonic 104px high? The area occupied by his sprites may be of that size, but his height is still 40px in classic games, and I don't think we're talking about later games with 3D models or anything like that. But I agree Mario is faster and feels faster if we compare the 8-bit games of both franchises.

 

Sonic is not 104 pixels high. He's 40 pixels high. Also I literally took that into account IN THE PART THAT YOU QUOTED.

0/10 must try harder

 

I think because I already described this in detail in a post 1 page prior, so it was just more of the same exact point

Regardless, I think this is now a Burnout Paradise thread. Or maybe a Mario's height thread? I'm not sure.

 

Besides, we were already discussing the perception of speed over in the unleashed thread I started. No reason to split one discussion between two threads, right?