This might be a completely baseless opinion but, honestly, I feel like Izuka and Kishimoto bringing up Sonic Adventure so much lately just tells me that Adventure-type content is planned to appease fans but not that a full-fledged sequel is planned to release any time soon. In any case, if you stalk my profile, you'll easily see that I'm very fond of the Adventure games so I would love a continuation that picks up the story, tone, gameplay, and music of the Adventure games. I could see many possibilities: it could continue the Sonic/Shadow stages of the Adventure games, it could have Sonic as a sole playable character with sections that offer different gameplay styles (like shooting, emerald-hunting, platforming, or fishing) as seen in '06, or it could have various characters with the same core movement that adapt the classic gameplay into 3D with purpose-built stages for each character. It could blend the abstract aesthetics of the classics with the realistic environments of the Adventure games as seen more in the first Adventure game. There are countless possibilities as long as it adheres to the core Adventure fundamentals (whatever we consider them to be). It's always good to dream.
Let me tell you something. The Adventure brand is associated with big, expensive titles, but what if not? If they ever make a Sonic Adventure 3, I would want it to be a smaller scale project, more in the veins of the first two. I went a bit back and forth between SA2 and Sonic Frontiers and I must say, SA2 still kicks butt.
It would be a bad idea because SEGA have never done genre roulette well and genre roulette is fundamental to the identity of Adventure. The Chao Garden is also something that is very much tethered to its time and is almost only requested because of nostalgia. It's also not very smart to start designing multiple playstyles when they can't make Sonic control well after 20 years. But you know what. I'd say fuck it and make Adventure 3. Would be a better idea than anything Sonic Team are doing nowadays. When people say it's a bad idea I think they forget that Sonic Team discussion is always a case of comparing one bad idea with another stupid bad idea they'd come up with in their next game. Who even knows. Sonic meets Tomb Raider. Something baffling like that will be next. It would at least be interesting and would cause fan discussion to see Sonic Adventure 3. Sonic is so boring nowadays.
Trying to do a "you can't do this!" as a gotcha doesn't make the core fact any less true. We've HAD SA3 four different times now, you can't just gloss over it.
You can change the title to "Do you want a Sonic Adventure 7?" if you want. The actual point is just asking if anyone wants another game like that that doesn't suck ass. Doesn't actually matter how many there have been.
No Chao Garden = not Sonic Adventure 3. (Half sarcasm). Sonic Team knows that there are expectations that come with that title which is why they’ve avoided it. Iizuka has said this in interviews. If Heroes, Shadow, and 06 were SA3, they’d be called that. Heroes was a deliberate change in order to attract newcomers, Shadow is a spin-off, and 06 was clearly going for a soft reboot, not a sequel. I would like a Sonic Adventure 3, but it’s not the right time. I think there’d need to be a seriously high-quality SA1/2 remake first in order to acclimate the dev team and I’m not sure they could currently pull it off without a substantial investment. SegaSammy has been dumping more money into their consumer games division (i.e. Sega) lately, so it’s possible but I think it’s not the next game. However, I was thinking earlier today how Frontiers’ story could serve as a nice buildup towards a bigger plot in the vein of what SA1 and 2 had, so maybe there is something coming.
Basically what @Wraith said. I was just trying to prevent a needless debate over whether we've already had SA3 or not. I feel that's a topic for another thread, and would distract from the actual question I'm trying to ask, which is whether or not you'd want another Adventure styled game.
I’ve always felt Sonic Adventure was the wrong direction for the series. Many of the classic Zone mechanics and obstacles were dropped. There was an increased focus on insta-speed with things like dash pads and showy sections that weren’t very interactive. Even the shift away from the fantasy world of the classics to the more-human inspired world of Adventure was somewhat disappointing (and yeah, I know the classics had real world inspired stages, but I feel they did a better job of giving those inspirations more of a fantasy spin. And yeah, I know SA has a fantasy spin on everything, but it didn’t feel the same as did it in the classics). None of these issues I’ve listed were a (major) problem in SA1 itself (in fact, I think it does a decent job with them), but they set the direction for future games where they became problematic. I personally would love Sonic Team to go right back to the drawing board with 3D Sonic, looking at the classics and seeing how they would stay true to that experience in 3D without being influenced by Adventure and everything that followed. But if we have to revisit Adventure, I’d much rather take SA3 or Adventure Mania over a remake of the original. (I wouldn’t mind an “Adventure Mega Collection” or even “Adventure Ultimate” to make the original available to new players. But I wouldn’t want a full on remake).
I don't find much meaningfully different between "sonic adventure [insert number here]" and, say, sonic 06, outside of the fact that s06 was being more intentionally derivative/referential in many of its level structures. Sure, SA1 was too but it was at least adapting them by going from 2D to 3D. If Sonic 06 isn't an example of a "sonic adventure" game then the only obvious defining feature they could bring back is the Chao garden Which, in an era where people are expected if not outright obligated to have smartphones, is something that I think would be a good idea. Why NOT have a pokego-like chao adventure game on your phone?
Sure we can, because by that logic we've also had a "new classic game" four times times before Mania came out, the game most consider to be the 'true' Sonic 4. Pulling out the "well, this playstyle was done badly in a later title" card is completely pointless when talking about revisiting anything in this series because it applies to all of it.
Do I want a game that contains the same type of 3D-only platformer gameplay as the two Sonic Adventure games, the same emphasis on story and narrative, the same ambitious amount of content, and the chao garden? Yes. Do I think that a game needs to be called Sonic Adventure 3 to be that? Eh, not really. Do I find it very annoying when people say "oh you want SA3 including all the pointless parts like shooting and treasure hunting that weigh the two Adventure games down, HUH"? Yes. I find that insufferable. "Adventure" to me isn't just a word in a title, it's a vibe that supposes a certain level of endearing reckless ambition that Sonic Team has strayed away from for years at this point, only to finally go back on that track with Frontiers. SA1 was a console showcase and system seller; SA2 was a swansong for SEGA's last console. They are filled to the brim with stuff in a way that's often incredibly messy, but yet incredibly endearing anyway. The fact that both these games include an bizarrely detailed tamagotchi-esque raising sim inside of them that is completely optional and yet so in-depth Cybershell needed an hour+ video to recap all of it is emblematic of how much Sonic Team put into these games. I want that vibe back for Sonic more than I specifically want a game called "Sonic Adventure 3".
I'm afraid Frontiers has "ruined" any possibility of an Adventure follow up. Everyone seems to agree that this is the way Sonic should be in 3D, i couldn't agree LESS!!! It may be an OK game (maybe even "good" or "great" to some), but it's just NOT SONIC AT ALL. My hope remains with the fans, it isn't that great, but I AM an optimist
While I agree in regard to the open zone design (I like them, but I believe there should be more to the games than them), I think Sonic's actual movement in Frontiers is more solid than anything we've seen since SA2. My personal wishlist: - Decrease air drag when jumping from the ground (possibly increase it when jumping off a rail too - you can fucking soar and while it's fun, it's a bit too exploitable) - Enhance the strength of gravity/terrain on your movement - Enable freer 360º movement in the air - as it is, you sort of just steer Sonic and it doesn't feel when correcting an overshot - Increase the non-boosting top speed
Because saying "you already got SA3 in the form of 06" is like saying to a classic fan in 2015 "you already got a sequel to 3&K" because Sonic 4 exists. Like, in that case, the game is literally called Sonic 4 whereas 06 (and Unleashed) aren't called SA3. When people say "I want X", you can usually assume that "...and also I want it to be good" is implied.
I'd say 06 is more like "Sonic Adventure retread". Heroes feels more like a 3rd Adventure to me, but I don't think most fans are satisfied with the differences it has compared to Adventure 2
I'd say it's definitely valid to call '06 the third Adventure game, since it follows the same format and has a similar plot structure and tone. Sonic Team even outright said they meant they were trying to evoke the Adventure games when they said '06 was going back to Sonic's roots. Heroes, Shadow, and Unleashed definitely have Adventure DNA but are too different in tone, gameplay, and focus (only Heroes features an ensemble cast while Shadow and Unleashed both focus on a single character, and all three have pretty different gameplay compared to the Adventures) to call them "Adventure games".
It always seems to me that, if 06 was called SA3 back then, no one would be saying today that it doesn't look like a real SA3. It's not like Sonic 4 in relation to the classics, because the difference in gameplay is much more obvious. The thing is that 06 is atrocious so it's better to let him away of the Adventure games so it can't tarnish the reputation.
