What approach should 3D Sonic take next?

No I still see 2006 as being SA3 in everything but name. Honestly it's pretty stupid imo to pretend like it's not. It's like pretending Sonic CD isn't a classic game just because it's not a numbered sequel in the title. "Sonic CD isnt called Sonic 3 (since it released after Sonic 2), so it's not a classic game" , that's the logic being used here. And Sonic CD was fairly different than Sonic 1, 2 and 3 in a lot of ways but it kept the same core gameplay foundation. That is exactly what 06 did. The only reason people have a problem with this, is because the quality of 2006 was lower than SA1 and 2. For me, 06 can very easily be said to be the unofficial SA3, I don't even know why people bother debating this now.

The analogies between Forces and Generations definitely exist, and it's exactly what I thought it was when that trailer first dropped. I was disappointed to find out theyd changed it for the worst. Maybe the same can be said about 06 but it doesn't change the fact that it has everything in common with SA1 and 2, except the actual Chao garden. Call it SA3 or not, it will never not be associated with those games because it contains the same ideas, just worse. Even if SEGA decides to release a game titled SA3 someday, it's not like Sonic 06 is going to disappear from memory. It still has basically everything in common with those games and will still be likened to them.

 

A "fast" 3D Sonic game even in the style of the current fangames is kind of a mistake to me.

2D Sonic was only fast sometimes, and when you control Sonic from a stop he feels heavy and weighted - it takes time to get fast, and at the end of the day "fast" was a secondary objective. I think that if you want "fast" Sonic 24/7, you should go with a racing approach, or if you want "platform" Sonic, you need him to be heavy and slow - and it takes messing with momentum to get him fast. Have the sandbox levels all be almost a skate-park-like environment where you learn to mess with momentum to get to places you want or hit certain speeds. Trying to do both at the same time doesn't really feel or look right to me.

 

I would agree with you 100%, but Sonic isn't heavy. If anything, he's accelerating slowly. From a cognitive perspective, that's a big difference, I think. (Also, back then video games had to deal with sprite limitation and such. Let's not forget that.) SA1 pulled it off without being clunky somehow.

 

Compared to characters like Mario Sonic does indeed feel a lot more weighty and heavy in the 2D games. That isn't a bad thing, it's just how the games work due to their physics emphasis. In SA1 they definitely made Sonic more snappy...probably TOO snappy, admittedly. The Adventure games have major problems with accidentally flinging yourself off small platforms because Sonic accelerates quite fast but can't stop on a dime like most 3D platformer characters, while turning has the exact same problem in reverse where getting Sonic to make a gentle curve is just...impossible holy shit lol he just immediately pivots in the direction of the stick and flies in that direction.

The more I have played SA1 and SA2, the more I realize how badly those games were hampered by the complete lack of a right stick on the Dreamcast. Playing games like Utopia and SRB2 really, REALLY, REALLY show that Sonic needs free camera controls, more specifically panning the camera to make him turn while still going straight and using the movement stick/keys for more complex/slower stuff. Mario could get away with it because he wasn't fast and the parts of Mario 64 and Sunshine where you have to go fast and still make turns like the blooper racing missions or the slides are the worst parts so even Nintendo didn't know how to do it right

(You know one of the things that drives me up the wall about Sunshine is that the complete lack of slope physics means that when he's on a rotating cube/platform/whatever he'll stick to it perfectly and jump perfectly straight until it's one degree too steep and he just plummets. I'm glad Sonic games at least have slopes make sense. Good god I hated those fludd-less sections for almost exclusively this reason...)

 

I just caught up on the thread after taking a break from the forums and I think now I know what acid must feel like.

Seriously, do people REALLY think that Utopia and pals are a good template for mass consumption? I guarantee, if something like that was pushed to the masses, you'd get an outpouring of complaints about how the combination of controls, camera and physics is too fiddly.

Fuck it, Sega should do it just so I can get my "I told you so" license and everyone else can say "Oh but [Utopia-style game] would've been great if only they had [three paragraphs describing an entirely different game]".

Personally, I would much sooner suffer death-by-camera in SA3 a hundred times, and I'm not even that big an Adventure fan.

 

People do that shit with Sonic anyway, fact is that the core fundamentals of the series are just inherently off-putting to a certain amount of people and there's nothing that can be done about that. I would rather Sonic Team simply accept that.

 

Fiddly controls, cameras and 3D momentum-based physics are core fundamentals of the series?

Yup, this is definitely acid. I'm gonna go sleep this off and hope that I don't wake up to purple leopards holding a tea party in my spaceship.

 

Nobody thinks that Utopia by itself, exists as a complete blueprint to something successful. Its strange that you'd even suggest that people think a demo of an engine is something that people are asking for. Clearly that's not the case.

What it is, is a very nice concept that utilizes the classic momentum physics in a more dedicated way than any of the 3D games ever have. But it shows them off in away that can be expanded upon, within a truly 3D, open environment unlike most Sonic games, including the adventure games which are quite linear and not very open despite being 3D games. What people want is a fully funded and expanded game based on this type of idea.

With only a little imagination it's not hard to see what could develop from a concept like Utopia. It present possibilities for Sonic that we really haven't seen before. And truthfully, I think it is the best concept for an actual 3D Sonic that exists. Up until now, 3D Sonic games have mostly been designed around the same exact style of gameplay (physics notwithstanding) as the 2D games, which every single time has presented challenges for the developers because the games content is too short, because the levels are completely designed as linear, rollercoaster like pathways over bottomless pits and use tremendous amounts of resources to build levels that take 2 minutes to complete. In other words, 3D environments molded around 2D gameplay. That doesn't really work and doesn't make sense. Even Mario realized when it moved to 3D it needed to keep the important elements of his brand of platforming but change the context to work in 3 dimensions.

This concept Utopia is the first time I've seen something like that for Sonic, that can actually be used as a foundation for something greater. Instead of a linear Rollercoaster ride that's over in 2 minutes, a huge playground type world that Sonic is free to move in, with many different things to do, places to go, people to save, etc.

 

My original comment was more about what kind of game I would like to see, I personally couldn’t care any less about the name. The title of the thread is “What approach should 3D Sonic take next?”, not “What does a game need to have in order to be called Sonic Adventure 3?”

However, given that I wanted to see Adventure-style platforming and multiple characters (but not the multiple playstyles aspect, I just want to do a level with Tails and Knuckles without hunting Emeralds and such, just like the classic games), I thought “Sonic Adventure 3” would be a fitting title. I just didn’t know people would make a huge fuss over the idea of such a game being called “Sonic Adventure 3”, but I guess it kinda makes sense because the Adventure games weren’t very focused. But the Sonic levels always stood out to me as the “main” thing, hence why I mistakenly assumed that, to most people, SA3 meant “a non-boost 3D platformer” as opposed to “mech-shooting, emerald hunting, Big the Cat, Shadow saying ‘Maria’ in a solemn tone”.

So to make my point clearer, I’d like to see something like an attempt to replicate the atmosphere and gameplay of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but in 3D, and I’d like to see it done well. I don’t care what it’s called.

 

I mean, I'd love to see that too. I'm not sure why "a mix of other gameplay style that aren't even fun" is the adventure series lasting identity when it's a crime that all 3D Sonic games are guilty of to an extent.

So I hope you won't mind if I start calling the Boost quadrilogy by their real names: Unleashed, Unleashed 2, Unleashed 3, Unleashed 4 etc. They contain totally the same ideas after all.

 

Reading the comments on Sonic Utopia, I now kinda like the idea of of making a Sonic game like the City run mechanic of Kirby's Air Ride. An open world where you collect things, and do missions, and random stuff happens in the city, then either as a time limit or some other trigger starts a level with the upgrade you've collected throughout the city. Not a perfect match since that was a race/battle game, but I like the idea of a sandbox overworld that has its own collect-a-thon and missions to do, then go to more traditional sonic levels.

After writing this out, I'm aware it sounds a lot like SA1 or Sonic 06, but I'm thinking more like Kirby's Air Ride with a Utopia-style sandbox overworld.

 

Colors is the second Unleashed to about the same extent as Sonic Adventure 2 is the second Sonic Adventure, so, yes.

 

SRB2 and Utopia have fine cameras so lmao what

And yes, momentum physics in general are core fundamentals of the series--or should be at least.

 

Yeah like, while I feel that Sonic feels "heavy" (for lack of a better term - you nailed what I meant) in the classic games, in SA1 especially he feels extremely light even by 3D platformer standards (compare S64, where Mario does seem kinda weighty in that game). Not even in terms of instant turning, but also in terms of his distance while jumping and his height, which is fine when you're crossing things while going Fast, but is awful in the levels where you're expected to go slowly (basically everything past Red Mountain). Attempting to do precision with Fast-leaning controls is both difficult and vexing, even for someone who knows the game very well, let alone anyone who hasn't really played any of the series (aka, most people these days at this point).

(This is also a problem I have with the first Sonic Advance - which I realized while doing Angel Island as Amy and finding that it was suddenly much easier because she's slower and jumps higher)

 

Yup, and 06's final stage, End of the World, was also just one big homage to SA2's final stage, Cannon's Core. Both have you switching between every character in the game except for 1 character (Shadow in SA2, Sonic in 06), both start with you playing as Tails, and both stages end with you playing as a hedgehog (Sonic in SA2, Shadow in 06). As disappointing as it is, 06 was basically a spiritual successor the Sonic Adventure games (with some elements of Heroes and Shadow's game mixed in). At least 06 wasn't called SA3, though (instead it shares the same title as Sonic 1, since it was intended to be a reboot of sorts, which might be arguably worse), but Sonic 4 is Sonic 4, and that's a permanent stain SEGA can't undo, so it's probably for the best that they don't use the 'Adventure' title anymore.

 

Minor addition: the Light Dash should absolutely have had a dedicated button. B and X do the same thing anyway, why not let the Light Dash have X all to itself? Then you could have a puzzle where you could, say, homing attack enemies halfway across a pit, then Light Dash across a trail of rings the rest of the way.

Without instead bouncing to oblivion, course.

 

I'd rather get rid of the boost meter. Its only purpose is to make sure that you're not overshooting everything all the time. I mean, you don‘t wanna do that anyway (because it's no fun), but because platforming sucks in the boost games, it's the easiest way to cheese certain sections.