"Multiple" new Sonic games planned for 2021

I feel a lot of this Mario 64 criticism is being unfair to the fact that it was basically a tech demo that had to cut corners to work while also needing to be extremely polished and Sonic Adventure came out an entire console generation later with people having a better idea of how 3D worked and what worked.

I'd still argue Mario's ideas worked out better for the long run because it didn't just try and put 2D Mario in 3D and instead tried to make something new using familiar elements while Sonic Adventure just trying to chase the classic's in 3D left the franchise in a weird position on where to go next that, even now, has never been figured out fully.

 

Oh man, that's hilarious. I have pretty much the exact opposite opinion. In fact...

Yeah, that's about right. Mario 64 is probably my favorite Mario game, and one of my best memories in gaming is playing it on launch day. I'm 103 stars in on the All Stars release, and having a blast.

But when it comes to 64 vs. DS, I think it's probably likely that both are playable, but they're different enough that it's exceptionally hard to get your bearings if you're coming from one to the other. 64DS has just never felt right to me. But how could it? The original game was literally how I learned to use an analog stick.

For the most part, which one people prefer seems to come down to the one they played first, and they were released far enough apart that there's not much crossover there. It's rare to find someone who grew up with 64 and preferred DS, or vice versa.

 

That's fair. When 64 was new, I played it once, at a friend of a friend's house, for a few minutes, so I can't rightly say I "grew up with it." 64DS I played a ton.

 

Sonic Adventure was also a tech demo, and the lack of polish shows that Sonic Team probably struggled with 3D programming, etc. Sonic Jam was pretty simplistic, with Adventure becoming a lot more complex. If you're taking SM64's context into consideration, you have to do the same with Sonic Adventure. Saying "an entire console generation later" is also a bit disingenuous IMO. It was two years.

If only they had kept chasing the classics after SA1.

 

64DS’s controls weren’t nearly as bad as people make out. Unlike the holy mother that all Nintendrones must bow down to, Sunshine, you can actually move the character one step without feeling like sliding on ice constantly.

I tried to replay Sunshine not too long ago and I might like 64 for what it brought to the table but Sunshine was beyond awful considering what came before it.

Do agree about the aesthetically pleasing graphics vanishing from remasters and being replaced with more Westernised, “real” designs. :/

 

The bump in capabilities between the N64 and Dreamcast shouldn't be something I have to talk about because it's pretty obvious but the capabilities of 3D hardware in those 3 years were unbelievable.

Mario 64 was the ONE OF THE FIRST 3D PLATFORMERS EVER. It had the burden of trying to make something work that had never been done before, with nothing to guide it, and it had to make it work on new software at any costs.

Sonic Adventure had Crash, Spyro, and the pre mentioned Mario to get an idea of how to get characters moving in a 3D enviorment. It had learned so much from where those games sometimes fell short and could avoid some of their pitfalls. It still managed to fall into many of it's own and with so many games that existed as guides for how and where to go with the ideas they had, it shouldn't be this way.

I'd argue most of Adventure's flaws come from unpolished gameplay, even. Moving Mario and Spyro feel natural but I can't tell what Sonic is going to do half the time when I homing attack and it's led to a lot of unfair deaths.

But if you're going to compare a tech demo game that existed mainly to show that gaming can work in 3D and a game that came out after many others had dropped lessons to be followed and had the grace of even skipping a generation to be realized then by all means do so.

 

I understand what they were going for but in the context of the storyline Sonic and Tails are on the same side. A fellow good guy should not be your “enemy”. Especially not the main character.

Like what, is Sonic trying to beat Tails to the punch or leave him behind? It’s out of place.

Racing against a robot sent out to get in his Tails way would have made way more sense. It didn’t have to be a major villain. Just a minion who’s mission was to disrupt his progress.

 

I never saw it the way you do. Sonic and Tails are friends/rivals. That was the relationship they had in the Genesis games and it was kept here. It makes sense for them to be racing especially when it's clearly just in good fun and not out of a desire to "defeat" the other but use each other as a means of continuing to better themselves.

Maybe that's just me though.

 

I don't have much of a horse in this race, but this is disingenuous. It wasn't the first, others were in development in parallel with Mario 64. Even before Mario 64, there had been more than a few attempts at 3D platformers. Mario 64 is important for how it's movement handles incredibly well, and how it was fun to just mess around with Mario. But calling it "the first ever" is silly when other games released in the same year faced the same issues Mario 64 did. It's not like all of the various 3D platformers released in 1996, after Mario 64, suddenly got the ability to learn from how M64 did things, they were in the end of development. Especially when Mario 64 did have some minor guidance through more niche 3D platformers that had released prior - such as Jumping Flash (which released a year before SM64). I'd imagine at least someone tried it out of curiosity, and took something away from it.

Using Crash as an example (and while I do love Crash, don't get me wrong) is also silly, because it's ultimately 2D platformer with 3D graphics. I find it more comparable with things such as Tomba or Klonoa. Could Sonic have used it as an example? Sure (and it kinda did - look at Sonic Xtreme) - but Sonic Adventure didn't go down the road of Crash. It's more akin to Mario 64 and it's ilk, where everything is much more open, and you have multiple ways to traverse to a single objective. Besides that, looking at Crash would've been silly. The movement in Crash 1 isn't even great - it's serviceable, but it feels slightly clunky. There's a reason why the sequels (which made Crash feel much better to control) are more popular.

I also find you saying that Sonic Adventure could've learnt from Spyro funny, because Spyro released three months before Sonic Adventure.

 

I said one of the first so I won't be responding to anything you said here.

 

I dunno why people think Sonic should've taken more cues from Mario 64 or Crash. Sonic still had to go fast first and foremost, and even today people can't seem to figure out how to make 3D levels out of the momentum physics-based platforming of the Genesis games. Sometimes I feel like SA1 Sonic's gameplay was the best they could have possibly done at the time, janky as it was.

 

Sometimes I think about a hypothetical "first 3D Sonic" that would've been somewhere between Sonic Jam's "Sonic World" and SA1, in terms of overall speed and kinetic level design. Not entirely sure how it would've worked, but I feel there could've been a good game there.

 

Knuckles' stages? Sure.

Everyone else's stages? Linear.

 

I would like a compilation of Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 if they were truer to the Dreamcast versions, were great ports, and added some bonus content, like putting the multiplayer characters in stage select. I wouldn't want a barebones re-release because you can get both on Steam. Both games have aged poorly but they are fun to play and I don't really care. When I replayed Crash I realised that the core gameplay there has aged poorly in terms of lives and the trial and error gameplay but it was still fun.

I guess Sonic Heroes would be fun to have? I'm not a huge fan of the game but I know some people like it. The only problem with a 3D compilation is that only the Adventure games are really fan beloved. Unleashed is getting renewed appreciation but a lot of people still really dislike it. Generations is great but Adventure-Adventure 2-Generations would feel like an odd selection.

I guess they could do a double pack of Adventure and Adventure 2 Remake. Could be fun but I worry they would mess it up.

 

Adventure 1's stages are linear, but they take more from Mario 64 than Crash. They're open, they have multiple paths (intended or not), you can explore around (usually with some minor rewards) or continue on the path. I am mostly referring to Sonic's stages (as those seem to be the basis for the other characters, anyway), as half of the cast has gameplay reasons why they're not like this. Tails is always pushed forward, Amy is constantly chased, and Gamma has a timer that counts down - so there's little incentive to explore as those characters. The closest comparison to Adventure, imo, would be something akin to Mario Galaxy, or Crash Twinsanity. Both are linear (like Crash), but saying that Galaxy or Twinsanity is like the original Crash trilogy is, well, wrong.

I did misspeak and imply they were big, open areas that aren't linear, but imo, Crash and Adventure have two very different designs. Crash is a 2D platformer on the 3D axis. Sonic Adventure is a linear 3D platformer. It might seem like semantics, but the distinction makes a huge difference in how they play, and how the levels are designed. That's what my point was, and why I feel like comparing Adventure to Crash is a silly notion. They're not close in the slightest, outside of being linear platformers.

 

I reckon a good Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 pack would sell. Re-releases of other 3D games of that era (Shuffle, Heroes, Shadow, 2006, etc) would probably have to be attached to SA1 and SA2. In terms of full scale remakes, I can't see them doing both SA1 and SA2 together. The first one alone would be a huge undertaking (if given the full overhaul it needs) and should be able to pique people's interest without needing the sequel.

A Sonic Unleashed/Colours/Generations compilation would probably be an easy sell. I think it's fair to say that they're closer to modern game standards than their predecessors. Plus it would be really nice to see Colours upscaled to HD, with the sidestep mapped to the L/R triggers.

 

https://twitter.com/sega_official/status/1294438674675851264?s=21

Green drinks

It's happening guys! :specialed:

 

Wow in the new game Sonic is an alcoholic what a bold new direction for the series

 

I'm sorry, but every time I see one of those unreal demos, this song is what comes to mind now. XD