Actually I’ve thought about Knuckles too. His gameplay should also be reworked to something more interesting. I was thinking his stages could be more puzzle based. Instead of wondering around at random all the time Knuckles could already know the location of the broken piece due to his radar (they don’t need to be separate shards this way). You have to navigate your way to them because they’re out of reach. You’re right about Tails racing Sonic. Makes no sense at all. Instead of racing Sonic you could race a robot that Robotnik made to follow him and get in his way.
I’ve been really thinking about what the next Sonic game should be, and genuinely I think it should follow the way the world is set out in Breath of the Wild, and not just because I love that game, but because I really think it could work for Sonic. Firstly, surely you’d be able to traverse the world quickly with Sonic, right thus breaking any sense of scale or wonder? Wrong! BotW can make you go pretty fast without really making much progress - the bike goes at a fast pace much like the speed of Sonic in the Dreamcast games without sacrificing details or the loading of the world, so this is definitely do-able. Sonic also can’t climb and his world is full of winding roads, twists and turns which, when coupled with obstacles, would make it more difficult to run the whole world. Also, whether you traverse most of the world quickly is irrelevant, as you’d still have loads to do and specific levels to enter and complete. Imagine having a whole world to explore for Sonic that slowly transitions to different level tropes: walking through Green Hill Zone up high but then running (or rolling) down the mountains to Labyrinth Zone style architecture. You could run straight to the final boss if you’re good enough but you’d need to power Sonic up by collecting power-ups (I.e. like Wisps to give you added abilities), to really stand a chance, and obtaining the 7 Chaos Emeralds (as a side objective) allows you to become temporarily invincible if you have rings like normal. Sonic Team could bridge the gap between games and really world build. You could collect rings around the world and use them at places such as Station Square to buy goodies or even just things for a secondary museum such as Sonic Generations. You could go offshore and visit locations such as the Egg Carrier, or you could find parts of Tails Plane scattered across the world to take a trip to Angel Island which forms part of the overworld. They could still insert some boost-style levels by, for example, making a route to a city that you can’t get to off-map which when traversing loads you in to a solo level to play through (bit like the Shrines in BotW and also similar to how you access levels in Sonic Adventure, but avoiding the issues of not being able to actually just get there yourself). Players could have great fun with physics - you could jog, run or roll across the land with a lot of freedom, going through loops, doing your own thing, taking in the cool scenery, and with the open-style of the main world it would largely avoid the camera issues we’ve always faced. Sonic Team could incorporate camera styles from, say, skating games when doing tricks on the scenery to ensure the camera doesn’t go whacko there, or even just follow the way the camera works in Mario games and ensure the level design in the overworld isn’t too tight to cause issues. I really think SEGA could learn from BotW about natural difficulty progression and I have a tonne of ideas about this but could spent hours listing them. I really think it would be a good idea and it would bridge all the 3D Sonic games play-styles in a way that seems coherent and relevant.
Instead of attaching gimmicks to each character (i.e., racing Sonic, searching for emeralds, run away from a robot, etc.) I’d rather just do full levels with those characters but have alternate paths and such for each character. Just like the classic games. Also serious question, what’s SEGA’s budget for Sonic games these days? Sonic Forces seems like it was cobbled together out of Generations and Lost World assets. Realistically, can they afford to do an Adventure remake and the new assets that it would require?
@SpeedStarTMQ Wouldn't it be like taking the blurred backgrounds from Sonic Lost World, trying to make a level out of it? I'm kinda intrigued. Wait a minute, I have seen something like this before somewhere...
Forces was shorter than others but I don’t think it was cobbled together. Now that I think about it could it be because Mania came out basically at the same time? I can’t believe it never occurred to me. 2 major games came out within months. I know from different developers but still. They must have been in development at the same time right? They also tie together even if you don’t need to play both. I looked over the release dates and it’s never happened before from what I could tell. Every game had its own dedicated year of release. Again I know multiple games can be in development at one time but this is the same franchise in the same timeframe. ———— Really like the open world idea. Would love traveling and exploring through a fully connected game.
I mean, it depends what criteria you follow. S4E1 came out the same year as Colours. Pocket Adventure came out the same year as the international release of Adventure. The noughties had a 3D game every year, as well as a portable game most years. Most of the nineties had a 16-bit and an 8-bit game released every year. So, I'd hardly say it's unprecedented for Mania and Forces to release the same year. Forces was a Sonic Team game, Mania was a Headcannon game, just the same way that Dimps and Aspect used to be development partners. The only real difference is that in the case of Forces and Mania, the 2D budget title was vastly more popular (and, arguably, a better game) than Sonic Team's own offering.
I’m not talking necessarily about the length of it but the overall level of polish and presentation gives off kind of a “low-budget” feel compared to say, Unleashed and Generations, and places like Green Hill and Chemical Plant seem like they’re there not for nostalgia purposes but rather because they already had HD assets for them ready to go. The game was even sold at a “shovelware game” price. I don’t want to derail this into a Sonic Forces thread, but stuff like Forces’ overall production quality and that Sonic racing game last year using slideshow cutscenes makes me wonder if SEGA can even afford to make an Adventure remake since they apparently can’t even afford making a game with brand new levels (aka brand new HD assets) ONLY.
Ya maybe you’re right. I did notice Sonic 4 and Colors released the same year but being cut into episodes I don’t know if that would be considered a same thing. I haven’t played Team Sonic Racing but I wouldn’t say including classic stages were just “left overs”. They’re recognizable locations and Classic Sonic is part of the storyline. To me price would reflect the length again. Maybe they knew it wasn’t as big a game as they planned or wanted. Presentation and gameplay is fine to me. Difficulty could have been higher though. Most of the game is pretty easy imo unless you go for 100% completion. Anyway I’m sure Sega made a good profit on the movie.
Returning to a hypothetical SA1 Remake... I wonder what ST might've had in mind for their "Sonic RPG", back in the Saturn era. AFAIK, it was after switching to developing for Dreamcast that SA1 got properly born. Who knows, maybe the ideas for a "Sonic RPG" could be applied in said SA1 Remake. How I wish Aaron Webber could (somehow) unveil Sonic Bible secrets to the world...
Now this is what I'm talking about. It's obviously not perfect but I think this does a good job of balancing platforming and speed - but most importantly shows that a fusion of the boost and Adventure styles is most definitely possible. Plus tons of alternate paths that take advantage of each character's abilities.
It has the same issues as all the others. Where's the challenge, where are the obstacles to overcome? Why is Sonic so small in a huge environment with everything so spaced out? Why are Sonic and Tails able to zip past most of the level without having to engage with anything? Why aren't their skill sets harmonious with the environment? A lot of 3D Sonic fan games are more concerned with presenting a large, open environment than they are in crafting a stage in a platform game. It's cool as a fan project, and I'm sure it's what its creator(s) want it to be, but it's not a fully realised game concept that could be pitched to a publisher.
Uh, the world isn't huge, there are tons of obstacles, and their skills work perfectly in the environment... I'm not sure what you're talking about.
In the Tails playthrough, how much time is spent engaging with the environment, rather than bypassing it? The other characters have the same issue, but to a lesser extent.
I mean, Tails has been like that since Sonic 3, ESPECIALLY in Adventure. He's always been the character for people who just want to cheese through levels. Notably, Sonic's dialogue in the Tails mod for Generations even makes a joke about it.
I don't think that's the right mindset to take with things like this. Just because he's been like that, doesn't mean he should be like that. It doesn't try to fix the problem (Tails can cheese the levels), instead letting it sit around for what amounts to legacy purposes. Imo, his moveset is fine, but the level needs to be worked around it. Like, maybe he should be constrained a bit more when flying in his flying bits, or he should be forced to go further and use up all of his flight meter - or even need to move around enemies/flying bombs. In regards to the video, I feel like that's good in terms of routes, but the scale seems far too big. It's kinda like that Angel Island one - the enemies need to be bigger, or the levels smaller. I'm not sure why people opt for this "huge grand scale where you run through everything" for pretty much every level. If that's what they want, more power to them - they're making what they want - but I don't think that's the right approach for Sonic. I think, in a scenario like this where you want this massive, sprawling level, and didn't want to draw inspiration from other 3D Sonic games, it should be designed more akin to Super Mario Galaxy, rather than Super Mario 64 (as an example). Most fangames seem to try and go for the latter. Combine that with the fact you're designing around Sonic's speed (so levels are naturally bigger), and you have a recipe for potential disaster. But, there's a good reason why Sonic's always been constrained to narrow paths in his 3D ventures, with brief interludes into big areas. And even then, those big areas are linear and have a definite path to follow.
Playing as Tails was not like that in Sonic 3, his flight was slower and time limited, there were obstacles and enemies to navigate around, the levels were designed so the player would spend more time on foot than flying. That demo is more like having a permanent P-Wing in Super Mario Bros. 3. That kind of thing is fine for a fan project, but Sega couldn't release a game where one of the main characters can just fly over every level and bypass every obstacle.
...my major problem with it is the disorientating camera turn speed and how quickly the characters get up to top speed honestly. It's like the pre-patch Spyro Reignited camera rotation blurring but somehow worse.
What about SRB2? With v2.2 just out, and the 3D Models mod, feels a lot like a Sonic game. It doesn't have loops, and the characters move a bit sloppy, but still seems quite nice to play.
The reason Tails couldn't cheese quite as hard in S3 had nothing to do with that--it was because the game was 2D. In 2D you're always fundamentally boxed in. Tails couldn't fly past obstacles, only over them, so the problem in 3D of him being able to obviate challenges literally didn't exist. Even if you flew super high, you'd hit a ceiling or a floor of another route or something that boxed you in. Truthfully, Tails' moveset is fundamentally busted in 3D in a way that can't really be fixed without making it utterly useless like in Heroes. Even SRB2, probably one of the best examples of an actual set of real levels for a 3D Sonic game we have (yes I know like three levels aren't finished, do not even try to pretend that the rest of the game is an unfinished beta we can't gleam any insight from), kinda just throws its hands in the air and says "WELP" when you play Tails. Shit, Knuckles almost breaks a good portion of the stages in that game too. I spent some time thinking about what movesets I'd come up with a Spark 2-esque game--i.e a game that was heavily inspired by Sonic but did its own thing--and I eventually decided that my Tails-esque character would instead have a set of three chargeable upwards air dashes that carried momentum, solving the problem of her being able to obviate obstacles while also letting her exploit her air mobility for shortcuts and alternate routes. Because really...how do you make the ability to literally fly at whim not broken in a 3D space while not making it useless? There's probably a good reason why basically no 3D platformer, not even a Mario one, has let you do this.
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with just having significant limits for characters like Tails and Knuckles in regards to general 3D gameplay, and only loosen those restraints for specific scenarios. The main issue IMO is that you have to determine a good balancing act on ensuring their abilities are not broken enough to use them to surpass chunks of the entire level with (little) effort, while also keeping them from situational to the point of having no use beyond being tools to obvious platforming obstacles (Heroes and Sonic 4: Episode II come to mind as big offenders). Pengi isn't wrong. It's still very possible to have a 2D level where with characters like Tails and Knuckles, you could breeze over the stage design using their mechanics if the level design isn't built with them in mind. I unfortunately can't find it at the moment, but there was an interview about the development of the Sonic 1/2 mobile remasters (I think with both Taxman and Stealth), and it was mentioned about how Sega/Sonic Team had concerns about Tails and Knuckles being implemented as playable characters in the pre-S3&K games, due to concerns with the level design originally not being made with those characters in mind. (Knuckles in Sonic 2 notwithstanding, anyway.) I will say in your defense though that in a 3D world, it's much, much easier to flub this principle of design compared to a 2D world; due to how much more open level design can be. Although I don't agree with it as the ideal way to handle the characters' 3D gameplay, the argument can be made that Sonic Team changed Knuckles' gameplay in SA1 (and later did the same to same to Tails in SA2) to specifically avoid having to deal with their abilities in a 3D platforming context.
