What gameplay features would you want in the next 2D Sonic game?

I mean, there’s nothing to be gained from a thread of “what would you like to see in a new 2D Sonic” if the only answer is just “new levels” either. Kinda just left to go in circles, there.

 

You can try to state your case without casting aspersions.

It's no more complicated than people liked Sonic Mania and would like some sequels. Wanting a sequel to a cool video game isn't a mental disorder rooted in deep-seated childhood trauma.

That's a very strange hypothetical you're putting forward. If the choice is between a lifetime of Sonic games that maintain a consistent gameplay premise, and are all good, or a lifetime of Sonic games that are wildly different, but all bad, then I'd take the good games.

But that's an imaginary situation with no basis in reality.

I don't know what else can be said here.

TL;DR: Recently there have been a lot of bad Sonic games and one good one. It would be a good idea if they made sequels to the good one.

 

I don't think the other ideas people have mentioned are terribly imaginative things that we haven't seen before though. Everything else is just a vague "they should change things" attitude without any real purpose behind a change in direction.

And again, you haven't really answered my question. How does my desire for a couple of Mania sequels imply that I want nothing but virtually identical Mania clones for the rest of time?

 

That could apply to 2010 too. A lot of bad games: Sonic 4, Black Knight, Sonic Chronicles. And one good game: Sonic Colours. And we did get sequels to the one good game: Generations and Forces... oh...

 

This is such a pointless discussion. Some people want more sequels in the mold of S3K and Mania, having loved said games. Others would rather get something more risky, wanting the series to stay fresh. Can't we leave it at that? Why does each side have to repeatedly justify their preference or question the other side's reasoning? This is a thread asking what you would personally like to see in the next 2d game, not a thread for analyzing others or debating what kind of approach would be the best business decision.

 

So like, aside from a Mania 2, what type of 2D Sonic would be desired? I could go for another entry in the Rush series. I'm not itching for anything in the vein of Colours or Generations, but I would play it. There's the unmade Sonic 4 ep. 3... Or perhaps we could return to the style of Chaos and Triple Trouble, or something as yet undefined.

 

Sonic & Tangle.

Tangle's tail is a grappling hook, similar to the ninja rope from Worms. Double jump to extend tail, defaults to an up-forward diagonal, but can be aimed by pressing a direction before the second button tap (like Hyper Sonic's double jump). Hold the button to stay latched on, up and down to extend tail, left and right to swing back and forth, release button to un-attach. Momentum and physics based - can send Tangle flying through the air. Can be used to pull/stretch parts of the scenery to reveal secrets. Also has the standard Sonic 2 move-set: spin jump, roll and spin dash.

Sonic has the same move-set from Sonic Mania, but his roll/spin dash is stronger than Tangle's, so he can break through walls that Tangle can't. (An inverse of Sonic & Knuckles.)

Brand new way to play a Sonic game, without breaking Sonic himself or turning the game into another genre.

 

1. It's important to remember that some people may have wanted more boost gameplay, but they didn't specifically ask for this horrifying 33%-boost-33%-classic-33%-build-a-bear-shovelware-adventure game. We can't be blaming people for wanting more Colors because we.... didn't get more Colors. There are a LOT of factors separating Forces from Colors that made one a decently-received game and the other a laughing stock. The return of Unleashed gameplay isn't what sank that ship.

Similarly, if we get a Mania 2 and it's awful and poorly-designed and laden with issues, we can't just say "smh they wanted more classic gameplay and look what we got!" We have to remember that people are usually saying "we want more of this - but better". Nobody is saying "we want more of this - but please execute it in the worst way possible".

2. When we're saying "these people want more of the same", we should stop and consider how relative our idea of "same" can be. Some people may want more of the classic gameplay for example, but that doesn't mean they want the exact same thing, and as I said above they certainly don't want it to be worse.

In the "How Would You Remake Sonic Adventure" thread, you see a great example of this. People may want to see the return of Adventure gameplay, but people can think of tons of ways that they could improve that style of gameplay and take it to a new level. If you want Sonic Team to completely change up the game for their next release, of course that idea might seem like "more of the same". But I think really people just want Sonic Team to take a formula that performed somewhat well for them, and then improve and elevate that formula to new heights. Nintendo illustrated this perfectly with Mario Odyssey, a game that retains SO MUCH of that familiar 3D Mario formula, and improves upon it in ways that make it new and refreshing without completely changing the ballgame.

I actually see the opposite complain a lot too, with people saying that Sonic Team tries to completely change the game every time they make a mainline Sonic title. I sympathize with both sides of the coin, all I'm saying is I think the bigger issue by far (at least when it comes to poor critical reception) is Sonic Team's execution, regardless of which route they take.

3. Also I 100% agree with Blue Spikeball that the discussion surrounding defending our preferences or asking others to justify theirs is probably worth abandoning. I don't think we should ever be talking down to anyone who wants a certain type of game.

Sorry IDK how to add a quote to a previous post, but I love this idea a lot.

It sounds a lot like Ristar, but with plenty more ways to use your grapple for movement. Also sounds a bit like Vertebreaker, that kickstarter game that Stealth wanted to make. I feel like I sound like a broken record at this point, but I LOVE depth of movement, and it'd be really cool to see characters who give the player more ways to interact with the environment and develop their own personalized way of traversing levels.

 

I couldn't agree more with your entire post, but especially these parts.

I think it's tough, because like... we really do have a teeny-tiny subset of fans who really only like ONE style of Sonic game, and treat anything that deviates from that form as an aberration. Moreover, we have a larger subset who STRONGLY PREFER one style or another, and that's where tribalism can fester.

I have to stay mindful of it: It's hard for me as a fan of boost, Classic Sonic, and 2D gameplay to see all this vitriol directed at those elements, and not start to become vitriolic myself in response, to over-emphasize my own preferences, if that makes sense. Toxicity breeds toxicity. Echochambers and fandom in-fighting alike make it easy to forget that your preferences are not your beliefs.

But there's also an issue with like... how difficult it can be to appreciate the merits in the things you don't like.

For instance: I don't like Kingdom Hearts. It was a cool idea, and it's my wife's FAVORITE VIDEO GAME SERIES EVER, but I never really saw the appeal. I know some fans had a lot of issues with Kingdom Hearts III in comparison to the earlier games, but from my perspective as a non-fan, it just seemed like more of the same to me.

This is also why we in the fandom raged about Sonic 4, while to everyone else, we just seemed to be mad about "green eyes." From a non-fan's perspective, Sonic 4 might have looked like more of the same. It was a lot harder to see how many of those fundamentals they'd gotten wrong.

But it's also harder to see what's RIGHT. If you thought the Adventure games were buggy, unfocused, poorly-aging disasters, or at least you didn't like them AS MUCH as the classics, it was very easy to point to the disaster that actually was 06 and be like, "See? This is what it was always like!" Perception of 3D Sonic was on shaky ground long before 06, but the bottom dropped out with it.

Similarly, if you never saw the merit in boost and thought it lacked substance, it'd be easy to point to Forces, a game which actually *IS* the definition of shallow boost-to-win level design, and hold it up as proof of everything wrong with the formula.

 

The real gameplay style we need back is Riders, all other Sonic games can go into the trash

 

Did auto-correct get confused? You seem to have accidentally typed an "iders" after the letter R, there.

 

Clearly the autocorrect went of after the "Ri". He clearly meant Sonic [and the Secret] Rings.

I mean we already got Secret Rings 2. It's called Sonic Forces. Zing!

 

What I'd want in the next 2D classic-styled Sonic game are all the concepts and ideas I have in my mind but haven't had the chance to show or put into action. Well, it would need more than one game to realize everything, but I'm not kidding. I know this is like a massive "do this for me" kind of claim we sometimes see around the forums that are frowned upon, but I'm saying this more in the sense that I'd like to know how these ideas would work in the real world, put in an official game to be judged by the general public.

I know this is quite off-topic, but I've read all what you've said about experimenting or not, stay true to its roots or make something more in the line of what games are these days, and I've thought a lot about that this year, about how far we could push the Sonic boundaries before it becomes something else. I'd really like to have something real to show you and anyone else, but, unfortunately, I can't right now, and who knows when (read my signature to figure out why). I'll just say I have, among other things, a 3-button setup that still allows you to play with the single classic button the whole game, an RPG system with a good bunch of character classes, and, for individual games, a Sonic CD sequel that would show you the real way to play with time.

(Sorry for the rant, just venting some frustration here, you can go ahead and back on topic.)

 

Before introducing any significantly different new features or planning their development, one of my top priorities for a next 2D. Sonic game would be to allow the required development time and schedule to craft unique level designs for each playable character for every Zone and Act in the game.

As much as I adore many aspects of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, one of the things which irks me about it the most is the significantly inconsistent application of Knuckles-exclusive level design. It bugs me how much of a mixed bag it is: You have some levels with entirely unique Knuckles level design, such as Angel Island Zone Act 2, but then its boss at the end is largely the same as Sonic/Tails; then you have Marble Garden Zone, which has some unique Knuckles sections at the end of Act 2 along with a unique Knuckles boss, yet the rest of Marble Garden Zone is mostly identical to Sonic/Tails.

So yeah, I'd prioritise equal distribution of character specific level designs and bosses above anything else. I understand that this would be a large development time sink, but given optimal management leniency, budgets, ample development deadline wiggle room etcetera, that's what I'd personally shoot for first and foremost.

 

I thinks thats a very tall order and in some respects kind of undermines the appeal fron a dev standpoint of having multiple characters, since its supposed to encourage replayability via experiencing the existing levels with new characters.
Even while strictly sticking to the Mania cast, thats essentially 5 versions of every act of every level that's being asked for.

 

Yea but that's 1 character. Whatsmore is his route uses the same map as Sonic/Tails as opposed to being a completely new level even though it might as well be for all intents and purposes.
Doing anything similar for 5 whole characters is something else entirely.

 

I think no more than two playstyles with significant differences between them should be applied to the same map. Putting small secrets here and there may be possible, but fully or mostly separated routes/maps for more than two playstyles is overkill. A map for Sonic/Amy/Mighty and a map for Tails/Knuckles/Ray, for example, could work: separate maps for each group, and smaller alternate routes for each character of the group.

 

Very fair counterarguments, and I should elaborate my thoughts on this matter.

In terms of being a tall order, I totally agree, it's a very ambitious plan to actually set out accomplishing it properly. It's definitely something that could be done much more comfortably over a long period of time (Many years, even.) in a typical independent/very-small-team fan-game scenario, rather than with an official SEGA game, due to typical budget and time/deadline constraints. It's for those reasons why (Unfortunately in my opinion.) it's unlikely to ever actually happen in an official capacity.

With regards to undermining the appeal of multiple characters, this is where I both agree and disagree with implementing completely unique level designs for every character. One the one hand, yes, it does sap away a good degree of the "magic" of revisiting a previously blocked path, and finally breaking through it with Knuckles after a prior playthrough with Sonic, for example. However, one of my big problems with that is it leading to an inconsistent Sonic:Knuckles ratio of level design split. This is absolutely mostly my Autism (To clarify, I mean this unironically and diagnosed, not as a common Internet slang term.) speaking here with things like this, but that kind of imbalance bugs the shit out of me, feeling awkwardly lopsided.

Okay, so what if each level had closer to a 50:50 split between Sonic and Knuckles exclusivity? That's cool and all, but then you run into the problem of having level designs for each individual Act becoming too fucking big. Additionally, if you want to keep that vibe of revisiting the same areas while also exploring new ones in and around it, this inherently means sharing some of the same level design between both characters, which is an inconsistency that doesn't sit quite right with me either. Furthermore, I have a big distaste for Tails' unique paths in Sonic 3 & Knuckles being substantially fewer than Knuckles' unique paths, and even with the latter character, he still gets the short end of the stick in several Zones by sharing a lot of Sonic/Tails level designs.

Ultimately, I would decide to cut my losses of the "magic" feeling I mentioned above in favour of having unique level designs for each character, because I feel quite strongly that the positives outweigh the negatives. Also, in general I cannot stand any significant imbalance in anything in life, hah, so that's another major factor; my belief is that if you're going to include exclusive level designs for a character, either commit to that approach in full with every character, or don't bother at all. While I'd much rather a full commitment to exclusive level designs, if you're not going to apply that consistently (For whatever the genuinely understandable reasons that might be, such as aforementioned typical official game development limitations.), I'd say I'd rather you didn't do it whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, I totally get that the circumstances of Sonic 3 & Knuckles were far from optimal, and they were squeezing everything they could onto and across 2 cartridges under probably high stress, low development time environments. It's no wonder the exclusive level design was so inconsistent, and the file size limits plus general technical limits are also undoubtedly major factors in this. Additionally, the similar and different level design choices tie into Sonic 3 & Knuckles' narrative elements, so it's understandable from that viewpoint as well. That being said, we're very far off harsh technology limitations nowadays, and thus I think that flexibility ought to be used to its advantage via going all-out with exclusive level design. With this level design approach, you can also take this opportunity to intertwine a narrative (Including other elements such as level transitions/cutscene animations.) in a way which isn't a blatant Sonic 3 & Knuckles retread.

I'll also make clear that when I say "unique" or "exclusive", I don't mean to the extent of creating Badniks and gimmicks which are character-specific. Rather, I'm thinking in the context of each Zone having a shared set of Badniks and gimmicks, which are simply rearranged in different locations in different level designs for each character. Adding to this, I don't think it'd be too taxing to design sets of Badniks and gimmicks to work well when used/interacted by/with multiple characters, particularly considering the Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Mania Plus characters all share very similar base gameplay. Besides, this wasn't even an issue in Sonic 3 & Knuckles nor Sonic Mania Plus anyway, at least as far as I'm aware.

In fact, even the bosses for each Zone could be shared across the characters with minimal issue. I should clarify that the main reason I brought unique bosses up before was due to me thinking about Marble Garden Zone Act 2's boss being significantly different for Knuckles. Even from my perspective though, I'd opt for sharing bosses across characters. After all, sharing bosses and Badniks across characters helps to retain that "magic" of familiarity from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, while at the same time using them in otherwise significantly different level designs. This, in my eyes, would bump a game up a notable notch above Sonic 3 & Knuckles, by taking the unique level design aspect which that game introduced, and fleshing it out more fully by taking advantage of modern capabilities.

Moreover, this creates a nicely balanced outcome, resulting in each character being a more equally appealing pick for further playthroughs, as opposed to the lopsided "I'll do a Knuckles playthrough because it's different enough, but I'll give a Tails playthrough a miss/put it off for later, as it's not really that different from Sonic's levels."

Granted, you can never have anything be 100% balanced 100% of the time, there are simply too many variables and subjectivity which exists, and I fully accept that. However, I feel that my approach to unique level designs would bring things far, far closer to being balanced. I believe that it would also substantially increase replayability, and for all characters too!