I'm going to have to disagree. Colors took out the Werehog and it was still a sequel to Unleashed. You say a game with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles wouldn't be an Adventure game, yet you consider Sonic Unleashed an Adventure game?
Coldplay is a wildly successful band and Hitler was a wildly successful dictator. I happen to dislike both of those (albeit unequally) but if being wildly successful is your goal (as it is Sega's) pleasing the most people has to be their plan.
If you think making an Adventure 3 will please 'the most people', you're arguably very mistaken. Firstly, Unleashed and Colours are very different games design-wise and I've never argued any similarity between the two besides the same basic gameplay formula. Level design and game flow are totally different across the two? I don't know why you're bringing that up as it's not really comparable. And I never claimed Unleashed is an Adventure game? At least to my knowledge?
No, seriously, he's right. There's a very vocal minority who scream "Adventure 3" constantly but there's a reason Mania had the highest critical acclaim - and sales - in a long long time.
I mentioned Colors because it, along with Unleashed, and Generations are colloquially referred to as the "Boost Trilogy", and as you mentioned, share the same basic gameplay formula. My apologies for making that accusation, though the initial argument was in relation to why I didn't consider unspecified other games as "Adventure 3", and the games that people refer to when saying "we've already had an Adventure 3" are usually Heroes, Shadow, 06, and Unleashed, you seemed to imply in previous posts that you were on the "we've already had an Adventure 3" page - forgive me if I misinterpreted. At any rate, what it all comes down to for me is just wanting a well-polished 3D platformer featuring Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. I couldn't care any less if it's called "Sonic Adventure 3" or not, but I also don't see an issue with such a game being called that. If you think a game called "Sonic Adventure 3" has to have stuff like mech-shooting, emerald hunting, Big the Cat, etc., then we're gonna have to agree to disagree.
No argument from me there. I agree good games sell better than bad ones. I'm just saying if you made a *good* game that hearkened back to SA2 it would probably do better than a *good* boost game like Unleashed or Colors.
Arguing this misses that the Adventure games, primarily Adventure 1, are the only games in the franchise to A) be 3D, B) have Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles playable, and C) have any smidgen of quality gameplay at any point, all at the same time. I get where you're coming from, but this is such an unnecessary thing to harp on when it's obvious why anyone would latch onto Adventure 1 as a reference point for this desire. Like, painfully obvious. Also, This take is garbage, and you should've reconsidered even leaving it in your post when you edited it to clarify yourself.
The only reason people want a "Sonic Adventure 3" game is because SA1 and SA2 are considered to be some of the better games in the series. The boost games have always had some huge caveats, for example werehog, Classic Sonic who controls like garbage, or just having the majority of it being a 2D game a la Sonic Colours. Compare this to SA1 or SA2, it's clear if you stripped those games back to their core fundamentals, and remove the "now this is what the Dreamcast can do!" mentality from them (eg Big the Cat showing off the water simulations), then the game that would result would certainly be pretty great. The idea behind it isn't "copy SA1/2 and give me exactly the same", it's "take what made these games great and do a proper follow up that builds on top of it". Look at Sonic 3K compared to Sonic 1. There's more spectacle, levels are larger, and the style is the same yet more polished. Levels have differing music and changing colour schemes to give atmosphere. Same gameplay, but with polish through the roof. This is what we need for any sequels of any 3D games, to take what worked and give us something with more polish. More of the same, just with a higher production value. This quote is perfect. We haven't really had a well-polished, good game since SA1 and SA2, seeming as every game after those were either not very good (Heroes, 06), or had boring or broken gameplay styles stapled on (Unleashed werehog, Colours was almost fully 2D, Generations and Forces Classic Sonic, etc etc). At this point, I don't care about whether it's boost, or not. I don't care whether it has Sonic, or Sonic and his friends. I don't care whether the game has Hesse's Sonic design, or Modern Sonic's design. I just want a new game, that I can enjoy, and I can point at as a glowing example of fun gameplay. Sonic Team is painfully inconsistent with the quality of their games, and painfully aware that their games are not very well received. They are so insecure, they feel like they need to bolt other gameplay styles on, in a bid to artificially extend the length of the game, and to ensure someone has something they can like. Only problem with that, is most the time it leads to all of it being mediocre at best, which is not what Sonic needs. He needs a streak of just quality games.
Yes it would, because it is very obvious in SA1 that those three are the main stories and the other three are more bonus side stories (even if the game gives the same prominence as the main trio). Amy and Big's stories in particular are almost comically short and Gamma's has almost nothing to do with the main plot. Not to mention, the main trio in SA1 still are clearly built off the same base like in the classic games, and the basic gist is the same (each character has a separate story, with SA1 taking the extra step of making the order of stages different and remixing them slightly between each character...though that usually means just locking Tails and Knuckles to one part of the stage X__X) The game Chaos Rush is describing is basically just SA1 with better controls and level design and only three characters. The fact of the matter, that some people just don't want to accept, is that an unfucked and polished game with the same design principles as SA1 or SA2 would basically be a "3D Classic game", because really, SA1 in particular was an intended evolution of the classic titles (regardless of its flaws and divergences). But that wouldn't fit their classic grognard "Adventure was some completely different shitty thing that has nothing to do with the classic games and lacks any positive traits or good ideas whatsoever" canard so No one is asking for stupid shit like cart racing or mech sections (I didn't actually mind them but still) back or shitty automated level design or bad physics, what I want in particular is just SRB2 really but with the modern cast. and a chao garden
I don't get what's so hard to understand about people wanted a return to Adventure-style gameplay. SA1 is literally the only 3D Sonic game to even come close to feeling like classic gameplay in 3D. This is why so many fans want a Sonic Adventure remake. At least 75% of Sonic Adventure's problems have to do with the fact that it was developed in 1997-98. I want to see the gameplay from SA1 realized with functional physics, so that Sonic's movement has real momentum, how it was meant to be. Whether this is a remake, an "SA3" or a new game with an unrelated title, it doesn't matter. The boost games aren't reminiscent of any facet of the classic games. Nothing that makes the classics great is in any of the boost games. They aren't that fun.
I've been playing SADX with my wife this week and it has really stuck me how good the level design is. Every Sonic level has similar mixture of speed and platforming as the Genesis titles do. You run really fast down a hill and ramp into the air and land on a platform where it's obvious that it's time to be more precise Just like the Classics do. Also there aren't many bottomless pits. Most of the time if you fall off a precision platforming area you either fall to a slower part of the stage or have to find your way back up to where you were. Also like the Genesis titles. This kind of level design would go far towards making Sonic games fun again. The Classic games had very few bottomless pits.
To bring this back to the title of this discussion, what should 3D Sonic take next, here's my answer: Remember Luminous Forest? (I don't blame you if you don't, Forces levels were so forgettable) Remember how all the 3D sections were just "Hold Boost and go forward"? Nothing stopping you except bottomless pits? My answer is literally anything except that.
Say it loud and proud. Chao Gardens are great. They add endless replay value, the creatures fit into Sonic’s world far more seamlessly than Wisps and already have lore that ties them into things established in the classic games (Angel Island and rescuing animals), and the gardens themselves are completely optional and separate to the main game so people that just want to play the story don’t have to worry about it getting in the way. They could even make a mobile app to replicate the thing they had going on with the VMU’s/mini Chao Garden in the GBA Sonic’s, and the Pokémon GO/HOME market might have a worthy competitor. (Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d rather SEGA worry about nailing the actual Sonic gameplay before thinking about adding optional side content.)
Steps to making a profit: 1. Forget making Sonic games altogether 2. Make Chao Garden mobile game 3. Add micro-transactions 4. Straight up print money
Boy howdy then do I have the perfect suggestion: When I think about all the incomplete trilogies in gaming, I get so upset about the great potential lost to time. Half-life 3, Star Fox 3, Jazz Jackrabbit 3, Chameleon Twist 3, Super Mario Galaxy 3, and Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 3 all stand as some of the most highly anticipated and desperately needed titles to provide resolution to long standing gaming cliffhangers. However, one unfinished trilogy stands out among the rest as the most deserving of attention: The "Sonic Storybook Series." I cannot believe SEGA has left me, no, us, in the dark about what the 3rd game in their "Storybook Collection" is. They teased us on the front cover of Sonic in the Black Knight, clearly stating that this Wii title was part of a "Storybook Series." Two games makes not a series, SEGA. With that said, it's time to demand the most robust conclusion possible for the Storybook Series: Sonic and The Canterbury Tales. Now I can already hear the replies, "but lopinjop, I don't think there is any kind of interest in this crossover and I know very little about The Canterbury Tales other than what I've retained from my years in grade school." This is understandable, but fear not retro forum members. A quick glance at Wikipedia informed me that The Canterbury Tales themselves may be incomplete! There are more stories to tell within the Canterbury format. So, not only would Sonic and The Canterbury Tales provide a fresh new direction for Sonic, it would complete TWO trilogies at once! Finally, we would have a satisfying resolution to the Sonic Storybook Series, and a thrilling conclusion to Geoffrey Chaucer's original Canterbury Tales. Now, what about gameplay and content? There's only one studio with the chops to carry out this vision. That's right, it's time for Bioware to produce Sonic and The Canterbury Tales, a fully fledged always online multiplayer live-service experience in which a crew of 100 players read their own Canterbury Tales to each other in a virtual environment after creating a Sonic-styled avatar. These virtual story sessions will take place on The Blue Typhoon, the space ship featured in Season 3 of Sonic X. Between story sessions, your crew will compete in meticulous motion-controlled mini-games to perform upkeep on The Blue Typhoon as it travels through space to a mysterious destination. Hints about what this destination is will be given through regular season pass purchases, but players will never reach the mysterious destination, ensuring steady profit. This is the only direction that will result in total revitalization of the Sonic franchise, Bioware, and The Canterbury Tales.
There are more than two stories in The Canterbury Tales... Spoiler I think the Sonic storybook series would be much better served using Pride and Prejudice instead
That is something literary scholars debate to this day. Spoiler I now very much want Sonic and Pride and Prejudice as the fourth entry in the Storybook Series.
