I wonder if they'll finally ditch Hedgehog Engine and switch over to Unreal Engine 5 this time around like the Heroes Remake rumour suggested. Would be interesting.
UE5 is still too new to say for sure how well it works for open world games. The only open world dev that's confirmed to be moving to it is CDPR, and they're a long way off from releasing TW4. We'll see.
That's true to be fair. I honestly wouldn't mind them using UE4. I think the main reason Square Enix used UE4 for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is because it has a more proven track record than UE5 which is still new and devs are still learning how to use it. I imagine we probably won't see the next 3D Sonic until 2026 or '27 (Which isn't that far away but still seems like the distant future to me).
For what little it might be worth, there's a spiritual successor to The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall in development by some of the original devs, and they're using Unreal Engine 5. We'll see how that actually pans out, and if it even gets completed, though.
It's less that they can't use UE5 yet, and more that it's heavily based on Remake which uses UE4, and instead of wasting time porting anything to UE5 they just continued using UE4 cause it is enough for their purposes and no real or tangible reason to use 5 yet, and they still have a 3rd game to make , all part of a one remake project to cover one story so not wise to dedicate more time using new engine when the reason they even made it 3 games so they can release them as fast as possible otherwise they are switching from UE4 to UE5 in KH4 cause it was early in development One big benefit that they showed for UE5 is how fast it can stream data in open world, so if anything, it's perfect for a new sonic game and should be the first choice for a new engine if they chose to go this way
Re: balance, I think it’s necessary to avoid the game becoming boring, ironically enough. Like almost every Sonic fan game that focuses on translating the classic physics into 3D way overtunes it to the point that Sonic gets so much air time for free. Like sure, you can get big air time in the classics, but it requires quite a high degree of skill and level knowledge to navigate the necessary badnik bounces for this since you’re pretty much flying blind. It’s a fundamentally different experience in 3D and I think it’s a big reason why just making a faithful translation of those physics just isn’t productive and is part of the reason it’s not been done officially, even though Sonic Team could likely do it with relative ease. I think Rolling Rascal’s kickstarter demo is really good about this honestly, with level design only giving you a few set points to get that massive air, which makes it much more of a spectacle rather than being the default gameplay.
Had me but you lost me with the Rollin rascal mention. I haven't had the chance to play anything from it but everything I've seen of it makes it look like more of Sonic GT, and GT had me on the definition of autopilot at one point in the city level and I just haven't forgotten that. And that's my biggest fear of what the real games could turn into.
You're not wrong. I played the demo and the more you play the more samey it feels. I honestly have no idea how are they gonna get a whole game worth of stages. I got tired halfway through the first one
Going 3D simply allows you to go faster than 2D does since the "I can't see where I'm going" problem doesn't exist. Being in the air in a 2D game mostly consists of seeing nothing until you hit the ground--it's not visually impressive or fun in the way getting big air in a 3D game would ever, so it makes sense that 2D Sonic goes for a much more grounded playstyle than these 3D translations of the formula. Even SRB2--probably the most faithful 2D-to-3D-translation fangame, has much more soaring jumps than 2D Sonic ever does. The problem that Sonic will always face is that if you do actually try to translate the classics and their gameplay into 2D, the result is a very hard game (source: things like SRB2 and Sonic GT which I've seen lots of people say is extremely hard compared to most 3D platformers) and Sonic will unfortunately always have to pass the "can a four-year-old who can't read yet beat this" test. I find this kinda ironic because 2D Sonic is if anything easier than most of its contemporaries like Super Mario World, Mega Man, Donkey Kong Country, etc. but the thing is that "fast 3D character" will be very very hard to control even with perfect controls and physics. You're making effectively F-Zero: The Platformer, or put more broadly, the resultant game has surprisingly a lot in common with a racing game--except instead of a mostly wide and flat course, you have a tangled mess of Platforming Stuff. I'm one of those people think Sonic GT, Spark 3, and Rolling Rascal fuckin' rule, but I also love super hard and fast racing games so go figure, and I'm not gonna deny that the fundamental design of these games is incredibly challenging in a way that Sonic Team would never do even if they wanted to.
if the intent of the frontiers sequel is to be iterative, an engine change is way, way outside of the scope and effort for that. They'd be best served waiting for tackling a new concept and then using UE5 for that. ^ similarly. It's like trying to shoot and cut LOTR with different camera and editing equipment for each film, you just can't do that without throwing everything into total disarray and having an inexplicable long gap in between releases. And FF7 is in a better position than Frontiers to do that, as I assume Epic has tooling for converting projects to the new engine version, whereas Frontiers is bespoke and they'd have to do all that themselves.
Just wanted you guys to know there's now a mod that allows the other playable characters in cyberspace.
It requires jumping off an upward slope while going fast, in some cases not even that like in the first S-tunnel in Green Hill. Badnik bouncing on an enemy in SRB2 to fly up to a higher path and beat a level quicker takes no less skill than doing the same thing in Sonic 1. It's a matter of how you design the game in 3D, and whether or not this hypothetical fangame gives Sonic too much to do in the air is entirely dependent on its mechanics and level design. Regardless though I honestly don't get what's so inherently bad about the player getting this "free" airtime, as opposed to free boost or free anime combat special moves in the official games.
Every "momentum physics in 3D" fan game: Through a combination of physics and level design, these games all seem to obsessively focus on ridiculous airtime instead of running and jumping. Sonic always seems to have an aversion to staying grounded. It's completely unlike the Classics. In said games, you're limited with when and where you can get into the air and how much you can do whilst you're up there. But in 3D games you've got so many more directions to go in once you're airborne, so the gameplay begins to become focused on "falling with style". Even Frontiers manages to veer towards this territory a few different ways, and it's not a direction that fills me with confidence for the future. Between the homing dash, rail launching and the ludicrously overpowered spindash, everything about speed in Frontiers feels like it's encouraging you to ignore the level and fly over as much of it as possible instead. At a very high skill level you can do this in some classic levels, but its not easy. With fangames and post-update by in Frontiers, it's just the standard way to play. Translating Sonic from 2D to 3D isn't easy. Sonic Team made a great start on the Dreamcast but haven't come close in the decades since. The route fangames repeatedly take is almost entirely style over substance. They end up making a mouse-sized Sonic in a gargantuan world, and very few have come close to cracking the level design problem.
It's odd that you think the Dreamcast games were a good translation to 3D if this is such an issue to you. I know this isn't the standard way to play, just like how flying over the level isn't the standard way to play SRB2, like you insist because...Toy Story. I think it's just a valid, fun way to get through the level given the physics and level design, and there's simply no inherent issue with Sonic Team just letting you do it, or a fangame embracing it.
Sonic's got some clear weight going on there. He's not slowly floating through the level. You can clearly see him descending rather quickly in that clip. You look at something like Utopia or SRB2 and most of your air time is spent floating.
What? SRB2's physics are based off the classics. Sonic's default jump height is like half of SA1's. I guess there's nothing to argue about if you guys are just going to be disingenuous like this.
I've been trying to find the right way of wording it but this is pretty much how I feel about the whole airtime thing. I haven't played Rollin' Rascal's demo. It looks fine as its own unique thing, but I get the impression that soaring over the levels with ease is bound to end up with diminishing returns each time it happens. I kind of got this feeling from Zelda Tears of the Kingdom a while ago. There's an ability called Recall which can be exploited to cheese your way through a lot of the puzzles in that game. The first time I figured out this was possible it felt like a huge breakthrough. By the 50th time of doing this exact same thing in the exact same way, the charm had worn off. Players think they want boundless freedom, but really we need some restrictions. Tears of the Kingdom reached a point very early on where I figured out very easy ways to exploit the game. You could argue that's the main selling point of that game but why would I ever want to engage with the game's main mechanics on a deeper level if I'm already figuring out easy ways to progress without them? In theory I'm fine with Sonic being able to gain excess airtime if those moments are handled sparingly or require some kind of creative thinking to achieve. Maybe they could have some sort of fall damage that kills your speed completely if you don't roll onto the ground at the right time or something. As long as there's some kind of active element that stops it from becoming mindless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not really. I mean, they might claim that, I don't know, but actually playing the game tells a different story. Character speed and acceleration in particular is horribly unlike the classics to the point that it's not enjoyable to control most of the time. At one point I went to the trouble of editing the character stats somehow. It wasn't perfect, but what I changed was a huge improvement.
They have the same fundamental principles, but the actual handling is significantly different. Jumping is less effective, acceleration is exponential instead of linear, and the gravity is really low. It feels very unorthodox to play, and it's a big reason why newcomers/casuals tend to have a hard time with the game.
