I always only ever liked playing as Sonic, or Sonic & Tails. Never liked Tails or Knuckles alone tbh, I felt that their powers slowed the games down.
I don't think the two characters differ in speed at all. Or anything else! Isn't that why this thread was created, to ask why the option is there when it changes nothing but cosmetics? Really? You think they just forgot it? I'm infinitely more inclined to agree with the implications of your second suggestion: I was thinking earlier that perhaps the levels were designed without Tails in mind, meaning that enabling flight later would have made them ridiculously easy (just look at Knuckles in Sonic 2, even). So, is it known how far development had got before Tails was added? Maybe I'm totally wrong.
Yes...this is it in a nutshell. Very hard to misinterpret unless you're TRYING to. I was also thinking how cool it would be to have a temporary dual screen function where when Sonic is separated from player2, player 2 can see where they are on a smaller portion of the screen. That was the most frustrating part of playing 2 player sonic: Sonic would lose Tails every 5 seconds and respawning took forever.
But only Tails has tails flying around out of his ass. I'm surprised no one brought up the slight visual differences as being aesthetically pleasing. Spinning tails > spinning feet.
Yeah, I don't see why anyone normal would want to play as an anthropomorphic animal when they could play as Sonic instead. :specialed:
Why play as either Sonic or Tails when you can plug your Sonic 2 cartridge into your Sonic & Knuckles cartridge and play as Knuckles instead? See he plays differently than both Sonic and Tails since he can climb up walls and glide. Plus he has a shorter jump and therefore provides more of a challenging final boss and to me that gives a greater sense of accomplishment for beating the game. Unless of course you cheat and use debug mode, then that just throws all sense of accomplishment right out the window.
Honestly I'm not a fan of Super Sonic. I feel it cheapens the game. So yeah I use Tails on most plays.
No need for special stages. Basically the same as Sonic Chaos in that regard -- no special stages there either!
Just to add my little bit to this. Why bother adding a second character for Sonic 2 and then not allowing them to be "Played With"? I personally don't use Tails and find him a hinderance in the Special Stages especially as he mimmicks your every move about a half second after you do it... you jump and avoid a Bomb and he hits it and loses rings.... "Not Enough Rings" TAILS YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!! lol The only other character I've used other than Sonic in the MegaDrive/Genesis Sonic games is Knuckles. I've also played Sonic 2 & Knuckles as they actually let you use Knuxx's abilities in Sonic 2 which at the time I thought was really cool and added something back to Sonic 2. I agree with someone who mentioned perhaps it was lazyness or like HPZ and other cut zones maybe time Constraints came into it? Perhaps there was a plan to give Tails his ability to fly in Sonic 2?
You can just do that anyway! With the possible exception of the final boss, which I don't think is much more difficult, Knuckles totally breaks the game. You can just glide over most of most acts, and the pass marks for special stages were reduced dramatically to levels that even I'd call easy, with rings now retained after exiting a star post just to make it even more comedically ludicrous.
If you play as Tails your sprite is ONE ENTIRE PIXEL SMALLER and this changes the whole game dynamic. Your matrix of thoughts, reactions, actions, and potentials is redefined.
I think people would feel like sega had wronged them if they'd made tails available in 2 player or 1 and a half player mode, but not available individually. Although it really bugged me as a kid, that he would fly back onto the screen if he died following Sonic, but you couldn't make him fly if you were playing as him.
Sonic 2 Tails is basically just SMB1 Luigi. Handles identically and is playable just as a novelty. The designers were clearly preoccupied with designing levels around the abilities of a single character- what easier way to implement another than by making it behave the same?
