How you would have made a Sonic RPG

I think the most joy I got from it was seeing Sonic's special moves (the first few times anyway) and humming along to the Central City music since you're there for most of the first half of the game.

And the second act feels like a chore. The final boss was way too easy, the Super Sonic fight was bullshit, and the ending was only worth watching due to Omega's dialogue during/after the credits.

 

The Dark Legion was cool, don't see anything worth complaining about there. Enemy character designs could've been better. Big's personality was the only one that seemed off to me (he's slow, but he isn't retarded), everyone else's character was enhanced as far as I'm concerned. It's not like Knuckles and Sonic are the best of friends, so this sort of interaction between the two hardly unnerved me, and when you consider that Sonic had allegedly been absent for over a year without any contact with his friends whatsoever, I can imagine they'd be a bit cross. Besides, Sonic was clearly the biggest dick in the game, and frankly, I think that's the way it's supposed to be; better he actually live up to his reputation of copping an attitude for once than prattle on about the power of teamwork for the nth time. Dude, it's fucking Shadow, how is he not in character? "Useless job for the Chaos Emeralds"? Who the fuck cares? Haven't they been used as a major plot device enough in the past? God forbid they attempt a different angle. The music was shitty. You get an item for defeating the final boss? Again, who fucking cares? I really like what they did with the Gizoids. Scylla and Charyb were particularly awesome. They failed to make decent references? More likely they went over your head, and I wouldn't put it past you at this point.

Sorry, but I just had to split this horseshit paragraph right here. I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Are you talking about the character mugshots, or the game's art in general, including the background art? I hope to god it's the former, because I can't think of a single explanation that'd justify the latter without depicting you as being the product of a gross biological mistake. I mean, are you colorblind? Or is it something far more malignant- were you a victim of mercury-induced neurotoxicity while you were still developing in your mother's womb? If that's the case, she was probably ingesting far more canned tuna than is recommended in a deliberate attempt to passively abort you, and it's a shame that she didn't succeed.

Look at this. Look at this. I understand that it can be hard to appreciate what's been done here when you're viewing it up close in-game, but when viewed as a whole, I don't think there's any disputing that much talent and effort was expended in the creation of these backgrounds, and you'd best learn to appreciate it, as it's unlikely the Sonic franchise will ever look this good again. Just as well, though; Sonic doesn't deserve art like this, and neither do we, obviously!

You've already established quite firmly that you're a man of vulgar taste, but I'll finish what I've started:

The battle system was admittedly lacking, yes. I had no trouble navigating the menus. Considering the length of the game (read: too short), they gave us all the special skills that we need. It's just about the only thing they did right with the game's combat- having a limited number of special skills encourages the player to use the entirety of the game's cast, while still for the most part allowing you to stick with the party you most prefer. Experience points are broken? How? "Stat and skill allocation", we've already established that the game's combat is lacking. Special move inputs, see above. The 3D models are terrible. Items had nothing to do with Sonic? It's an RPG, what on earth were you expecting? Invincibility monitors? Rocket shoes and pogo springs? There's a dearth of Sonic-centric items that would make any sense in an RPG setting. Sidequests are drab, yeah, be glad they aren't mandatory. Skill points, aforementioned shitty combat system. You were complaining about how they "failed to make decent references" above, and then you turn around and say the SWATbots have no good reason to be in the game? Enemies in the 2nd act: That's what armor piercing attacks are for, genius. You'd think the icons for the field moves would've been explanation enough.

Jesus Christ. Go to bed.

 

I had mixed feelings about the game, the battle system was indeed kinda lame. I can see what Bioware were attempting by crossing traditional turn based gameplay with more active "Sonicy" elements. It always felt unfinished though, like you were building up to that killer formation of moves and characters that you'd love and never quite got there before the game was over (and the newgame+ didn't help as it's just too easy).

I liked what they did with the start of the plot and the characters though. Some of the characters really shone and I liked the fact Sonic and Knuckles didn't see eye to eye, I liked their old rivalry returning instead of supabuddybuddybestfriends! And Rouge amused me no-end every time she was talking :P

How would I have done a Sonic RPG though? I would have started with a completely different basis. Picture this if you will...

Plot:
The next Emerald Guardian has awakened. Sealed deep in a tomb somewhere on Angel Island, Knuckles' replacement has awoken to take their place as the protector of the master emerald, upon reaching the surface however all is not as they imagined.
When they were put to sleep the Echidnas were a prosperous ruling tribe...and now they're all dead?! This will not do at all!
So this is our villain (yeah it's kinda like Sonic Chronicals but I thought of this first! >.<)
Our villain then sets about their mission; collecting the 7 Chaos Emeralds to unleash the most powerful of echidna weapons; "The Golden God".
Before any major war, one chosen warrior would go through a ritual resulting in them being bathed in the light of the 7 jewels, transforming them into a powerful, unstoppable beast of combat (we know this as "going Super").

So our villains motivation is to basically go super and wipe out anything that's not an echidna, nice and simple. It also gives us a reason to travel all over the place and collect the emeralds before they do, this is important for the gameplay as that need to find x number of important items is important.

Gameplay:
Metroid. Metroid is the best way I can think to describe the style, a large 2D open Sonicy world ranging from Earth to Angel Island and inevitably a space station of some sort. At the start of the game the player may pick between Sonic, Tails of Knuckles, all of which have different starting stats and abilities.
As you go through the game, defeating enemies, you gain EXP which levels up your chosen character, increasing the number of rings they can carry, how much damage they do per hit (so Sonic jumping on an enemy might not kill it instantly at the start, his Spindash is stronger but needs to be charged etc. Knuckles can probably kill most basic enemies from the start and Tails is the physically weakest of the three).
Defeating bosses gives items for our heroes to equip, new boots, bracelets, gloves etc which gives us upgrade-based gameplay (Sonic cannot continue past certain points until he has Grip Boots which allow him to walljump or something, naturally such an obstacle would not be a problem for Tails or Knuckles so picture Metroid with branching paths based on character).

Thinking about it, forget Metroid, 'Castlevania: Symphony of the Night' is fairly spot on. Imagine that gameplay but with Sonic in Sonicy style environments. So it'd look pretty much like a classic Sonic game and for the most part play like one too, but with a stat screen and equippable items.

Ooooh, sort of like Tails' Adventures! Oh man that game rocked o.o Dammit now I want a remake!

 

Sonic realizes he's a video game character, looks at his recent titles, and sets out to lay the beatdown on SEGA. The plot is shallow; rather, the game relies on amusing writing to make its story interesting. The first Paper Mario is an excellent example of how to do this; the sequel's plot is a bit too heavy for a Sonic game.

Battle system relies on a stamina gauge, which is depleted by attacks and refills very slowly. When it's empty, you can't run or attack, just slowly walk away from danger to rest. More powerful attacks take more stamina. Attacks deplete stamina too- get hit with no stamina, and you lose Rings. Get hit with no Rings, and you die. This is the only way a battle system could work for a Sonic RPG, in my opinion.

At some point, Tails and Knuckles are unlocked. You can switch characters during battle at a whim; AI controls the other two. Items are used via hotkeys, in real time. This means you can only use three different kinds of items in battle- planning is important before going in.

Battles are seamlessly connected to the overworld. When you encounter an enemy or group of enemies, the screen locks and the controls change slightly to facilitate combat.

At high levels, you can simply plow through weak enemies Unleashed-style.

In the overworld, there's a high focus on platforming, similar to the Genesis games. The overworld should play like a Sonic level.

 

I'd basically have made a platformer with an overworld, except experience (thus levels) are earned for doing awesome things like combo-strings (see EHZ1 speedruns), fast play or no-hit runs. Since I'm dead-set against the idea of earning abilities over the course of the game, the character levels would really equate to statistics (1 stat point per level - awarded upon zone completion - , go play Guardian Heroes then come back to me; I'd handle it like that game). There would be a multiplier at work to prevent useful bottom-feeding (playing first levels over and over to become super powerful) -- in fact a binary-based multiplier would be useful in this regard (Assuming seven zones, which is the norm: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 multipliers aren't getting silly) meaning that you'd simply HAVE TO play the latter zones.

Of course, this would be wildly unpopular with fans of RPGs since it's a genre favoured by people with no gaming skill whatsoever. And you guys would hate it because you suck.

But, it'd basically be like an enforced score/time attack game because that would work from a gameplay standpoint; no turn-based shit for a fast character, and very little of what's accepted RPG convention -- since the term "Role-playing game" should mean actually playing a role rather than managing statistics

Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. Oh, and Sonic Chronicles is a pile of shit.

 

So you would make an overcomplicated platformer that treasures itself in constant repetition of the exact same 7 areas? Leave it to Jay to always come up with the dumbest ideas.

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Do what Capcom did. Avoid the traditional jRPG formula and try to come up with something different that goes well with the license and can still fit in the role playing genre.

You can't tell me that you've seen Battle Network's battle system done before.

It's a perfect blend of action and strategy. If you're use to menus, you're going to fail. If you use nothing but the buster, you're going to fail. If you put random cards into your folder, you're going to fail.

Network essentially went against the traditional stats and menu based jRPG formula and made the player actually be involved in the fight. Your only upgrades was a better Buster and a bigger life (and later on in the series, some minor enhancements and forms) The strategy element came from the cards. Being smart about how to properly manage what chips should go into your folder, and then being fully capable of using the said chips in battles takes skill. Not to mention that the faster your deletion rate, the greater your reward, pretty much encouraging to be at your peak in every battle rather than just hit the standard kill all spell and move on.

Sonic needs something unique and fast pace to keep the action in battle going. Not just some EBA rip off.

 

Eggman Nega has turned all of Sonic's friends into cards. AGAIN.

Are you hedgehog enough to stop him?




...hm, actually that might be a decent setup. Still, Sonic's never been combat-oriented except the most recent 3D titles, really, so it still doesn't quite sit perfectly with me.

 

Funny that, I pretty much described a simpler version of Unleashed :v:

 

Sonic 3D Blast/Labyrinth + Paper Mario = Perfect Sonic RPG.

Honestly, all you need to do is add a good RPG battle system and equippable upgrades to S3DB/Labyrinth, and it would make the best Sonic RPG ever. The Paper Mario system would have worked great because it's simple and fun, and there's a lot of action involved. It's not overly complicated or overly boring. In fact, this is what I was expecting Sonic Chronicles to be like and why I was looking forward to it to begin with. In addition, the Sonic 3D control scheme and map layout would have worked perfect. It wasn't an RPG, but it allows for Sonic to move through vast environments without losing that sense of speed (or for that matter, having to do stupid things like click the screen to go through a loop).

You could still jump and spindash and everything - all they needed to do was add some dialog and characters, a few items here and there, turn the "special stages" into shops, and make you battle all the badniks RPG-style when you run into them. If they wanted to they could even keep the whole Flicky system and make a sequel to S3DB that people actually like.

 

Does that really sound overcomplicated to you? The design isn't that hard to grasp - all of these things have been tried out previously.

- There is an overworld.

- You are rewarded for doing cool things (speed runs, action combos, etc.) with experience points.

- The statistical progression is basically lifted wholesale from another game (Guardian Heroes).

- Later, more difficult levels allow you to score more points and thus make quicker progress than if you were to repeat early stages.

I mean, what exactly is so complicated in that design? The points system sounds like something you'll have likely dealt with before at some point, as it's just a combo system and some conditional bonuses. Similarly, any RPG would have you make more progress by tackling later areas - if you're grinding in an RPG, you're always going to be grinding the toughest creatures you can confidently kill rather than the slimes from the beginning of the game.

 

A Sonic RPG... Okay? If a new one has to be made, I might prefer something with these points (that I've made completely out of my ass).
-Retelling the story of S3&K in the same crazy fashion of M&L: Superstar Saga. Sonic and Tails can communicate with each other on getting through the island/stopping Dr Robotnik. They may also get contact from the outside when needed. (Through a walkie talkie, maybe?)
-Maybe Knuckles can be playable (like Bowser in M&L: Bowser's Inside Story) interacting with Dr Robotnik while going against that one Eggrobo.
-Artstyle can be similar to these pics from that other topic (1, 2). Animated like, you guessed it, the M&L games.
-Every area is a zone, one including a zone in Little Planet (I'll get to why).
-As for gameplay, something like the M&L and Paper Mario games but even more focused on combo skills (maybe something like Final Fantasy XIII). Instead of HP, make it rings so the player shouldn't get hit so much. (Remember, talking out of my ass.)
-Optional features from side-quests.
—Going through special stages for Chaos Emeralds to become Super Sonic when the player wants to (that of course drains rings but it has an on/off choice).
—Going through a different set of special stages in that Little Planet zone for Time Stones so the player can retry any battle when lost (like the retry clocks in M&L, but permanent).

:specialed:

 

There sure is a lot of love in this topic.

Anyway, on the subject of making a Sonic RPG - I wouldn't. It just wouldn't work. The type of gameplay the Sonic series promotes (smooth, seamless gameplay with little to no glaringly obvious transitions from "fast" gameplay to "methodical" gameplay) would not translate well into an RPG (not even the overworld), given the type of gameplay it promotes (slow, methodical exploration interjected with sudden, blatant changes of pace into battle sequences - with a few exceptions, of course, but they're rare).

An open-world, Metroid-esque Sonic title might be a more interesting direction to go into, where you have to earn abilities in order to move from Zone to Zone - but it'd be remarkably tricky to pull off, so best of luck to whatever poor brave soul attempts it.

 

I will admit that those are some pretty level art bits there, but if you showed them to me out of this context I would not believe they have anything to do with Sonic at all. Ever.


They really don't exude the sort of charm I'd come to expect from the games, especially not the older ones. They look good, but they lack that Sonic essence.

 

I would want the overworlds like really big Sonic Adventure Adventure Fields and the battles similar to Super Smash Bros.

The leveling system would have to be similar to Perfect World and Diablo; with every level, you get 5 or so stat points to put toward whatever build you want Sonic to be.

 

Why don't we take a game that had some RPG elements in mind (overworld, storytelling, NPCs, etc.) and add/subtract from that to get the Sonic RPG we want? Here, let's take Sonic Unleashed, since it's newer and more expansive than Sonic Adventure, and go from there.

I almost see how Unleashed could be considered an Action RPG (of sorts). You're given experience points at the end of each level, you can choose which stats to upgrade (maybe give Sonic more stats, like QTE reaction time and grinding skill), and the special moves gained in the hubs could almost be compared to buying the latest weapons, etc. when you get to the next shop. On top of that, Sonic's world in Unleashed is pretty deep, and the extra missions and things give you more of a reason to interact with Sonic's world outside of the Action Stages.

 

Shit, now I'm really wracking my brain. Action, strategy. I'm stumped here. A turn-based RPG involves strategy, but it's much too slow. An Action RPG (where my head keeps going) would be faster and more involving, but it's difficult to think of any battle strategy besides "Don't get hit". Sure, I can make an excuse and go "Yeah, but you have to switch your special attack when fighting certain enemies blah blah blah", but the appeal of that is not going to last the whole game. I don't like Battle Network for some reason, but I loved the battle system, it was one in a million.

Maybe if I made a list of all the types of battle systems that have already been done before, we can build a new, more engaging, strategic system based off the old ones. So there's...

1) Turn-based battles, of course. To spice it up, various methods have been used. A bar that indicates when it's your turn that can be affected by status effects and magic (Final Fantasy), having enemies attack you whether you're done thinking of strategies or not to increase suspense and the speed of the battle (Chrono Trigger), tapping circles with good timing to strengthen attacks (Elite Beat Agents), and briefly selecting your special attacks before a round of action starts, then repeat (Megaman Battle Network). There's also timing your attacks by button commands (Super Mario RPG), timing your attacks to the beat of the battle's song (Mother 3), timed button combo commands of the player's choice resulting in using one of several possible attacks (Megaman Command Mission, Legend of Dragoon?), and an overworld that changes to a fighting game like setting (Summon Night: Swordcraft Story). A lot of systems are based on timing, that's I all I can think of for now. Anyone else have turn-based systems I'm not thinking of?

2) Action RPGs! There's attacking, and defending, and running around to avoid getting hit, and...well shit.

Today is Saturday, so I'm probably going to think about this for the rest of the day. I know it can work somehow.

 

Dark Brotherhood sucked. It was supposed to be an RPG, but you could play for hours without encountering a real dungeon. RPGs are supposed to have dungeons! The first one you enter, in order to save Knuckles - and he's standing in the entrance, having already escaped! You meet Robotnik (sorry, Eggman) and Shadow right after one another, without either being showcased in the story or gameplay in any meaningful way. The characters are all with you at all times, but for some reason only feel comfortable re-arranging their party formation in the familiar surroundings of Tails' workshop (upon the entrance of which your party formation is automatically lost). Oh, and the menu system sucked so much ass there was a world shortage.

On topic, I think that saying "I wouldn't make a Sonic RPG" or "I'd make one, but it'd be an Action RPG without turn-based battles" is a little cheap. The whole point is to challenge yourself to see how you could make Sonic survive the RPGification. Sonic is actually pretty resilient, and could easily support a wide range of gameplay types, RPG among them, if done well (of course, by definition, anything would be good if it was done well). Just because Sega fucks everything up doesn't mean that sucking is the natural or default state of affairs. I guarantee you if STI had made a SatAM RPG in the Genesis days, it would have been fantastic.

If I made a Sonic RPG, I'd definitely make it turn-based, but it would have to be like Mario & Luigi, where player control dictated the effectiveness of attacks (but not restorative items). The battles should be incredibly fast paced, with no long winded spell animations or stupid camera swinging, and no long beginning and winning animations. If you want to see how to make perfect fast paced battles, look at Phantasy Star IV.

I'd also make it like Phantasy Star I, and only have 4 characters (I don't really need to specify which 4, because depending on the setting it could really be Sonic and any other 3), a party that you build up and then use from then on. Sonic should be simple, and not having to deal with a platoon of juttering morons would be best. An RPG needs a party, so you have to have some other characters, but only enough to make a party. With each one you add, after all, Sonic gets less and less of a slice of the action.

 

It'd be a nice effect for a random battle transition if Sonic ran onto the battle field and skidded to a stop, especially if you were already running at full speed in the overworld or whatever. If you were walking, Sonic could walk onto the battle field and do a funny animation like point and count all the enemies and shrug or wave at them.

 

How is an Action RPG cheap? It's only cheap if there's no strategy, something myself and a few others have acknowledged, and something I am thinking hard about this very minute.

Why does it have to be like this or like that? Again, this is Sonic we're talking about here, he will need a distinct Action RPG or turn-based RPG battle system of his own. Interspersing that with more complaints about Sonic Chronicles doesn't strengthen your point.

Now wait just a minute, I call bull. An RPG does not need a party. That basically discredits a lot of action RPGs that only had one playable protagonist (Illusion of Gaia, for instance). These games may not have had a party, but they had many elements of an RPG like leveling up, magic, finding armor, weapons and important items, etc. The idea that you need class systems or a party is just because those are common conventions of the genre, but they shouldn't be the rule. Otherwise, RPGs are not going to be flexible enough to be seen as enjoyable and different. Also, look at Battle Network. One playable protagonist, no party. Still an RPG, and with its own unique methods of powering up and fighting to boot.