Making the transformation from developing 2D to 3D is no easily surmountable task. The Mania team are legends, but I don't think they have the right experience and knowledge to make a 3D game just yet. It's exponentially more difficult to pull off. That's why I say they should give Nintendo the helm for a 3D sonic game and see what happens. Let some innovative veterans take a crack at it- it would have to be halfway decent. Right?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m_HRcSdBz4 For those who are curious, here are all the unlockable outfits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJk33BcIW_8&t=0s Also here's some Shadow gameplay on the Switch
What part about what I said is "half-wrong"? They have worked for many years on Classic Sonic titles in official and unofficial capacity and have grown up in a world in which 3D gaming is prominent as opposed to 2D and witnessed everything the series has gone through. They've witnessed two decades of technological advancement and I'm positive have a basic knowledge of some of the major changes. They know what has happened to the series in terms of critical reception and the additions to the series since...What could I be missing here? Naka and company didn't have this advantage when they started on Sonic Adventure in 1996. So Team Mania has a major advantage to the Sonic Team that pioneered 3D for the franchise. The current Sonic Team (minus Naka) has not shown a basic understanding of the original gameplay and have admitted in interviews that they don't get it. The time they've spent toying with ideas with Sonic in 3D, has not shown to be too fruitful---Note that I'm not slamming the good games they have made (Generations. Colors) but saying that they haven't had a success on the level of Mania or the classic because they don't know how. This is why I said Team Mania, if interested, would be as prime as anyone.
Spoiler But he's totally not Mephiles. Also he has a complete fucking meltdown after Stage 2 for hardly any reason at all and I couldn't keep a straight face, just look at this:
Yup, that was some glorious silly edge :v: But I liked the remixes. For those curious the remixes are as follows: Stage 1: Westopolis Stage 2: White Jungle Stage 3: Supporting Me World Map: Shadow the Hedgehog menu theme.
Thinking that development of a classic 2d Sonic game would be the same as a 3d one. Assuming Team Mania wants to make a 3d Sonic game. At this point, you'll probably say something generic like, "Adapt the classic formula in 3d" or some shit without explaining the in's and out's of game design in a three dimensional space followed by "Team Mania is super awesome and can do anything" or something similar. Whatever...
I don't know how you extracted that from my post, especially since it's been discussed to death in these forums how 2D Sonic gameplay does not directly translate to the 3D plane. It has to be rethought. What everyone is wondering is who best should take on that challenge going forward. I'm making a case why I think the Mania Team is better equipped than anyone else today. My post says that Team Mania is, right now, at approximately the same level of experience that the original Sonic Team (the ones who developed the classic games) was in 1996 at the start of the original Sonic Adventure. The differences are that Team Mania has had 2 decades worth of historical lessons to draw from and the huge benefit of technological advancement. Nowhere is it implied that this is an easy task for anyone. What I'm suggesting is that if anyone is to be given the task going forward, it should be the team who has proven that, at minimum, they understand the basics far better than anyone who has worked at Sonic Team since Naka left. Another thing my post said directly, is that we cannot assume that team Mania is even interested in this task. You should not put words in my mouth. The current Sonic Team has proven, without doubt, by their own words and efforts that they do not understand this core gameplay. Their inconsistency should not surprise anyone. They, alone, should not be trusted with this task.
To be fair to Sonic Team, they haven't ever said "We set out to make a game that translates 2D Sonic into 3D". They see Modern 3D Sonic as it's own thing, with it's own audience, and they've more-or-less been iterating on the Sonic Adventure formula for 20 years, which never set out to be like the classics in 3D. It will be interesting to see if they change course regarding the direction of the series in the Mania/Forces post-mortem, considering that Eurogamer interview with Shun Nakamura. I personally think they need at least 5 years of restructuring, smaller projects, experiments, tool refinement and work on new or older IPs before they even think about production on the next Sonic game. EDIT: derp
Somebody, When you get the PC version get Infinite's model put it in a model viewer and reveal his face!
I guess I'm the only one that remembers the days when reproducing the classic Sonic gameplay was considered a literal feat of God to do so (before Taxman's CD remake not only proved everyone wrong, but reproduced the gameplay so well people thought it was a port rather than a remake), claiming that high-profile fan projects were better-realized efforts at classic Sonic gameplay than Sonic Team and Dimps' attempt at "the sequel as you truly imagined it" was ridiculous enough for you to be laughed out of the room, and suggesting Taxman and Stealth should be approached to make an official project was met with retorts that they were incapable of making a good Sonic game. Even when Sega literally took the fans' advice on the last suggestion and Mania was announced, some people were quick to dismiss the enthusiasm around it as "people getting excited over an official ROM hack/fangame." Even if all of the above were fair points to make, we've already seen Sega greenlight BRB's Project Apollo/Sonic Synergy project, which was not only already completely removed from what people expect out of Sonic even before Sega/Sonic Team/the Boom producers took control and reworked it into what we know now as Rise of Lyric; but was also being made by a newly-formed studio who didn't even have one game to their credit prior. I argue we are no longer in any position to question the capabilities of most people other than Sonic Team/Dimps on whether they can make a good style of Sonic game; when at this point the latter two can't even make a good game off of fundamentals alone, and the former was willing to hand the series over to developers who didn't even have a pedigree in quality games, full stop. Sega really don't have a lot to lose handing the keys over to someone else; as much as people hated the frequently-pushed idea/meme, I'm sure even Nintendo could shit out a superior 3D Sonic game than any 3D Sonic game we've had. Freaking Mario Odyssey has better rolling physics than any 3D Sonic game as it is. And while it is true that there are design differences between 2D gameplay and 3D gameplay that do have to be acknowledged and accounted for, I think it's still worth highlighting that Mania's development team not only demonstrated a quality understanding of the specific type of Sonic gameplay they aimed to reproduce, they also produced a quality game even when you break it down to its basic structure. Which is far more than I can say than the majority of Sonic Team/Dimps' products in years, Forces especially. I don't think they would be able to make a 3D Sonic game by themselves as they did with Mania (which was for most of its development put together by only five-six people). But get them together with a studio/division who are seasoned in 3D games and are on the same page on how they think a Sonic game should be designed, and it's not too hard to imagine that a great 3D Sonic game could come out of it.
Not only am I 100% in support of this, I actually do believe it is should be the ideal choice for SEGA right now. Sonic Team is tired and they don't get it. Give the new, fresh and motivated guys (assuming they are) a chance. They have already proven themselves on a fundamental level and the market agrees, even with the little backing they had.
I'm sorry but this is completely wrong...SA2 threw it all out, but SA1 was clearly an earnest attempt to create an experience similar to the classics with momentum physics and colorful/fantastical stages, even if they ended up leaning too hard on automation and linearity.
Agreed, though Adventure 2 to its very small credit did actually have some momentum to its rail-grinding mechanics. (Only for Heroes to throw that out and make them automated/scripted.) It also doesn't make sense to say Sonic Team has been iterating on the Adventure formula for the past twenty years when they completely threw it out and rebuilt 3D Sonic gameplay from scratch with Unleashed. The two playstyles are significantly different.
I would agree that Sonic Adventure 2 was like the first with anything resembling the classic games removed, but I would say that I personally don't find Unleashed and SA2 that dissimilar. It's still run down a corridor, grind down a corridor, homing attack chain, speed boosters through loops. The difference is you're not holding down the X button the whole time in SA2.
Imagine the Sonic Heroes (and subsequent games) we could've had if Sonic Team hadn't been forced to throw out the SA2 engine to go multiplat. Billy Hatcher used the SA2 engine and wouldn't you know it, it was centered almost entirely around rolling physics.
Imagine if Metal Sonic's development from Heroes wasn't immediately forgotten. He could be more than a recurring boss. He could have even had a redemption story after making himself independent from Eggman like he did. I honestly thought that's where Sonic 4 Episode II was pointing. Beating Metal Sonic in that last race made me feel bad for him, especially after playing Episode Metal. Maybe it was just because the race was so easy. Idk. Is that a weird thing to think? That Metal Sonic could have had some kind of real story after Heroes and S4E2? Idk if I'm alone here.
I agree with a lot of the points made in this thread; I totally wish for a quality 3D Sonic game under a new team. Thinking about the technical side of making such a thing, I'd say: Never underestimate the power of an in-house engine. Part of why Mania was executed so well, was because the main developers had their own engine literally built around their experience with the platformer style. Part of why Generations and Forces gameplay/physics are so lacking is because the engine *wasn't* designed around any specific gameplay style (Hedgehog Engine focuses on graphics, not gameplay). I'm positive that other games like the Super Mario platformers benefit greatly from being developed with an in-house engine that was optimized to be easily tweaked for a specific gameplay style. The important thing is: Mania was able to gradually refine its engine through the team's successful Sonic Genesis era remakes; Mania most likely would not have been as nicely executed(technologically) if it were the team's first ever published 2D Sonic game. The same logic applies to the team's first ever 3D platformer game; Mania's team hasn't published a full 3D game before, so they would need a chance to refine the technical side of it before they did the full out AAA 3D Sonic game people probably want. I think there needs to be one more game to ease 'a new Sonic team' into 3D. The safest thing would be, another 2D platformer using their own physics engine, but with full 3D graphics and all original levels. It would still get a ton of hype, since not even Forces had all original levels; And gameplay wise, a Taxman 2.5D engine would have drastically better gameplay and level design capability than Generations/Sonic 4 ever could. That theoretical game could have small teasers of full 3D gameplay in it, while sticking mainly to the proven Mania 2D gameplay style. It would be like the ideal game after Generations that a lot of people were wishing for. (Better physics, better 2D, original stages). At least on paper, it looks like Mania's team have a clear idea of how levels would look in 3D, take a look at this Sonic Mania manual: Still, "Mania gameplay with all 3D graphics" would require a lot of time and budget. But all the actual gameplay and physics code of Mania's engine would be reusable, cutting down a lot of the gameplay and level design related costs. Refinement is the key here, Sonic 3 & Knuckles was so good because it was built on a refinement of the prior Genesis Sonic games. Sonic Mania was so good, because it was built on a refinement of prior Sonic remakes. For a proper 3D Sonic game to be good, it needs to be built on a refinement of Sonic Mania, not just in concept but hopefully in gameplay code that can be extended for a 3rd dimension. So yeah, a 3D Sonic game that is built on Mania's physics and gameplay engine. Ideally they would start with a 2.5D game staying in 2D Mania gameplay, with all 3D graphics and just a small tease of full 3D gameplay. If *that* type of game could be pulled off and does even better than Mania; THEN it would be feasible to go all out on having the Mania team lead development of a full 3D AAA Sonic game that gets a physical release and can compete with 3D Mario finally.
I don't like the idea of Metal Sonic overthrowing Eggman like he did in Heroes but I always thought that Metal Sonic would make a great right hand man for Eggman. Instead he gets thrown in as a kind of mid game boss usually. I don't know. All I know is I'd prefer to see Metal Sonic in place of Orbot and Cubot. Even if he stayed silent I feel like he might add something to cutscenes and the like. He kind of filled this roll in the later Archie comics and I liked how they handled him. Question. Has the patch gone live yet?
