If Sega only cared about pandering to YOU, what kind of Sonic game would they make?

So, I'm going to expand upon this a bit further. If I were to design a new Sonic Championship/the Fighters, I'd incorporate the following, among anything else I could come up with later on:

- Doubled roster count at least (including Honey as 'original', since she ascended to playable)
- However, everyone gets updated to modern appearances (sorry, classic Amy fans. Maybe the dress as an alternate costume?)
- Redone models; no more hard-edged rectangles.
- Gameplay tweaked to about 80-90% of current 'speed', as the original always felt a little too fast to really make decisions
- Overhauled 1P mode. Rather than a single set course, or just all random, use the expanded roster and have a new, player-chosen 'path'. The goal is still largely the same: Collect the (now back to 7) Emeralds, go fight the bosses. Except now, you'll get a secondary character select consisting of 10-14 (enough for a few 'dud' entries) other characters, 7 of whom actually have one of the necessary Emeralds. You pick an opponent, a short intro plays that shows whether or not they actually have one, then the match begins. Choose next opponent on win, continue screen on loss. Challenge the bosses when all 7 are collected. Sure, this adds an element of luck, but it's the single-player mode, not Evo.
- Balance tweaks, naturally
- Barrier system overhaul. Start with stock of 5 as usual, and certain moves can still break a barrier, but no move can break more than one barrier per use (Looking at you, Sonic Down+P). Barriers will now also regenerate over time, depending on current stock count (2 seconds for recovering the first, then 3, 5, 10 and 10). This however does not mean you can always just pop Hyper Mode at any time, as you will be limited to a total of 5 activations in any match, indicated by a Barrier stock on the HUD being solid or transparent when full. Adding onto that, while Barrier stocks break and regenerate in one direction (outermost in), Hyper Mode activation consumes the 'solidity' of the Barriers from the opposite direction, and you must have a solid Barrier stock in order to activate, which will also be consumed (like in the original). This will make the first activation easiest, and make subsequent ones that match progressively harder.
- Anything else I can come up with that would be fun and make it more of a competitive-viable game.

 

Sonic Superstars is pratically what I wanted.

 

A proper sandbox Sonic game experience. Not open-world. Sandbox. Big difference.

Controls (Xbox):
Left Stick - Run
. Tilt the Left Stick to move Sonic.
A Button - Jump/Jump Dash, Homing Attack
. Press A to jump. Press A in the air to dash forward.
. Press A in the air near an enemy to use the Homing Attack.
B Button - Somersault, Bounce/Stomp
. Press B to somersault, working both as an attack and a quick brake.
. Press B in the air to bounce, dribbling Sonic like a ball.
. Hold B in the air to stomp, sending Sonic straight down.
X Button - Quickstart, Vault, Tricks
. Hold X at a still to prepare to run. Move the Left Stick to dash forward.
. Press X on ledges, fences, obstructions and ramps to vault into the air.
. Press X while grinding, vaulting, during a Homing Attack, or off a ramp/spring to do tricks.
Y Button - Interact, Light Dash
. Press Y near NPCs or objects of interest to interact with them.
. Press Y near a trail of Rings to use the Light Dash.
L Bumper - Look
. Press LB to look in first person. Press LB again to exit.
. Tilt the Left Stick to look around. Tilt the Right Stick to zoom in/out.
. Press A to place objective markers.
R Bumper - Slide/Drift, Wallride
. Hold RB to slide. Tilt the Left Stick while sliding to drift around corners.
. Hold RB when jumping into a wall to wallride.
L Trigger - Center Camera
. Press LT to pull the camera behind you.
. Hold LT to keep targeted on an enemy, character or object of interest.
R Trigger - Spin Dash/Roll, Drop Dash
. Hold RT to charge a Spin Dash, or press while mobile to roll.
. Hold RT in the air to charge a Drop Dash.
. Both the Spin Dash and Drop Dash can be revved further by tapping A.
Right Stick - Camera
. Move the Right Stick to rotate the camera.

(Imagine game feel like a smoother Sonic Adventure / SA2. One with heavier rolling physics and a slew of new moves. Or if you played the fangame Sonic Islands, imagine that with a cleaned up control scheme.)

Basic Game Design:
The game throws you to the start of an island and asks you to get to the other side, where Eggman's base resides. A classic Sonic premise, except now seamless. Zones take up different parts of the island (a total of 7, 8 counting Eggman's base). But because of the path you take in the game, you're bound to only go to around 3-4 of them on your way there. This effectively means that by the route you take or the objectives you complete, your journey starting on a new game can be slightly different every time.

However, you still need to visit all seven Zones, because in each Zone is a hidden Giant Ring altar that grants access to the Special Stage. You must unlock all seven altars and acquire all seven Chaos Emeralds to receive the true ending to the game. If that seems tedious then fret not, as Zones beside each other all have ways to weave and interconnect into each other. So no need in getting Tails to fly you back to the start of the island.. although that is an option if you want it.

The further you progress in clearing the map and connecting these paths together, the game quickly becomes an endless playground that loops and laps all around and back into itself. You can theoretically keep moving back and forth across the map in an endless run of fast speeds and crazy stunts.

Level Design & Progression:
Level design is somewhere between a Sonic Adventure, Super Mario Odyssey, and Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. Maps are large and playground-esque, with many stage gimmicks, hazards and unique characters to interact with; every location feels like a perilous theme park. Stages vary from being long and wide horizontally without much height but a lot of twists and turns, to more compact but tall and vert-heavy. There's a large variety of platforming, curves, slopes, ramps, halfpipes and loops that run above, under, around and through each other.

Every Zone has Missions to complete; many directly aiding in progressing through the storyline / environment of the game, but also often optional (with said optional ones usually given by NPCs). Missions, while all varying in objective, encourage fast play, route-making, and stringing together combos using tricks between actions. When completing a mission, Sonic is scored between A to E rank, and is given 1-5 Emblems depending on that score.

Emblems are used to upgrade your base speed & ring counter, as well as purchase cosmetics such as outfits for Sonic, alternate music to play in a Zone, special effects & poses for use in Photo Mode, and other surprising features. You can replay missions to regain Emblems, so they're not quite a scarcity, but you do still have to earn them. You can even cash in Rings to trade in for Emblems.

There's one more collectible in this game besides Rings and Emblems: Flickies. Much like you may expect of the classic games, Flickies are in every Badnik, but are also found in certain Eggman-operated machines, or in abundance in Egg Capsules (usually found after fighting bosses, but sometimes placed in hidden areas). Flickies are the only ones that can open the Giant Ring and grant Sonic access to the Special Stage, so you have to be sure to save them!

Aesthetics:
Crazy, colorful fun. A bright shiny optimism exuding all things Sonic while the cartoonishly sinister oozes from everything Eggman makes. A lot of shoutouts to Saturn and Dreamcast era Sonic world and robot design. That flashy Y2K era graphic design all up in the menus. Bright and exciting jazz-rock with electronic and hiphop influences all mixed in the soundtrack.

Stuff Just For Me:
Sonic only talks as much as a Nintendo protag, except that in the rare moments when he does, it's the coolest shit you've ever heard and he's wearing a shit-eating grin and/or an irritable brow-furrow. Eggman is loud, manic and ruthless like our best days with Baldry and Bristow, and he's constantly present throughout the game giving Sonic hell. Tails wears his little pilot helmet and flies the Tornado everywhere (we see the OVA house at least once). Blaze is Sonic's girlfriend he texts funny pictures across dimensions. Knuckles is wearing his hat. Vector is an NPC who constantly recurs in every zone and says shit that makes me laugh. You get to race a really souped up crazy Metal Sonic.

That's about everything I could ask for.

 

Except for the “Just for me” stuff (mainly Blaze being Sonic’s gf, the rest sounds fun, especially the OVA house), this is pretty perfect.

 

I threw that in just to see if anyone actually would read all that lmao

So kudos for taking the time to!

 

I have to admit that I was actually just skimming by that point. I scrolled down to reply after reading the beginning of the level design description which is when I saw the final section. I knew it was written at least half-jokingly, but now that it’s not 2:30am and I’ve read the rest, “…texts funny pics across dimensions,” I feel stupid that I even acknowledged it haha.

 

They'd make a new NiGHTS game. Ten levels, no story, good music, original flying momentum, every stage has a mirror mode/alternate layout for maximum score attacking. I'm sure there's a dev out there who could do it justice.

If I'm forced at gunpoint to choose a Sonic game then...make a disgusting mutant hybrid of Sonic Robo Blast 2 and Sonic Utopia. Just for funsies.

 

Honestly, this may be weird, but Frontiers comes PRETTY close to what I've wanted in Sonic.

The main things I'd change, though:
Make switching between the "open" world and the "traditional" stages more seamless (hopefully the sequel isn't tied down by the Switch's hardware so it can make use of the SSD for this).
Improve level design for spindash/momentum optimization. More loops, more "natural" level design built into the world itself, not the same 3-6 inorganic platforms laid out in the same 5-10 ways over and over.
Don't reuse level aesthetics for cyberspace. More biomes. And for the love of god, have Cyberspace and the open world play the same in terms of physics and allow the use of the sliders, especially turning.
Remove or significantly lower the homing attack delay..
A more traditional Sonic aesthetic.
Ability to skip ALL cutscenes.
Playable Super Sonic in both the Hub and Cyberspace.
Remap the Spindash and make it available from the start so level design can account for it, even if you have to nerf it. You can remove either the dropdash or the slide, if you can't figure out a more ergonomic solution otherwise (holding down L3 for so long is not comfortable).
Remove the memory token requirement for the story.
Remove fishing requirement for upgrading Sonic's stats (at least don't make it the most efficient way to do so).
Don't have the Starfall Slot Machine as the best way to grind out Fishing Tokens (hell, I'd prefer neither Starfall Slots or Fishing to return, but if they must have some downtime minigame, then don't make it so tied to important things).

My main inspiration for what to make it more like is Spyro the Dragon.

 

It's kind of wild to me how many of my pipe dreams have more-or-less come true in the last several years. I was pining for an "open world South Island game" in some of my earliest posts here in 2008, hoping for a "Generations 2" and a "Sonic 5 using the Retro Engine" back in 2012 when the existence of "new games for 2013" was confirmed, and wishing for a "classic styled game with online co-op" back in the Mania thread. Frontiers isn't "South Island", Forces isn't the "Generations 2" I was hoping for, and Superstars isn't exactly using the Retro Engine nor does its co-op appear to be online. These aren't exactly what I was wishing for, but they're close enough that I'm still loving it.

Gonna try and manifest games approximating Gizoidvania and Sonic Runleashed into existence, next.

 

Another Sonic Rush game. That'll do.

 

I'd like a Character Action game starring Shadow, due to his already focused nature on combat. This is merely an idea in my head, not fully fleshed or thought out.

Gameplay: tl;dr game plays like Bayo/DMC.
Chaos abilities like Chaos Spear could be used as ranged weapons.
Melee combat could feature things like; his fists and rocket shoes, and perhaps a stolen version of Badnik weapons. Example, the sword/spear from Heroes.
His special form could be removing his inhibitor rings for a temporary period. Limited time could be explained as him losing himself/going crazy if he doesn't put them back on. Or he could have a finisher like Chaos Blast.
He could have a gap closer using Chaos Snap, something like you see in Sonic 06 when you warp to enemies.
Dodging would be like having witch-time, but in this instance could be Chaos Control.
I think Shadow would be ripe for the combo based fighting game style of these games, and I wish they would give it a chance.

For the story, I think having a purely Shadow vs Metal Sonic game would be excellent, and you could come up with some BS why Metal is going rogue again.
*edit* I changed my mind on the music, some of the songs in StH like "Waking up" would be a cool base referral to make combat tracks or level music.

 

Sonic Mania 2, but all new zones (so Superstars basically), and HD 2D art like Cuphead, so it looks like playing a Tyson Hesse cartoon. The Sonic Freedom fangame is a good approximation visually.

 

Bro? Where's your gunplay?!

 

A full-length boost game with a pixelated 3D visual style evocative of Saturn/DS games. So think this:

But it looks like this:


The zones:

• Coastal Chaos
• Desert Delirium
• Frosty Fury
• Melting Megalopolis
• Gruesome Grotto
• Train Track Terror
• Jungle Jamboree
• Ruinous Rumble
• Aquatic Amphitheatre
• Eggman Empire

Each zone is split across three acts followed by a boss; the acts follow this pattern:

1. The first act is a blend of platforming and speed that introduces all the zone's unique mechanics.
2. The second is speed-oriented with a strong focus on bombastic set pieces.
3. The third is platforming-oriented with a focus on a specific gimmick introduced in the first act.

The playable characters are:

• Sonic, who is the fastest and has the homing attack, but his boost can't kill enemies
• Tails, who is the slowest and can't boost, but can fly and has the focused homing attack from Lost World
• Knuckles, who is the strongest, can kill enemies with his boost, glide, and climb, but he can't jump high and can't homing attack.

All three can roll and spin dash.

The soundtrack would be composed by David Wise. The first two acts and bosses would be original Wise tracks. The third act would feature remixes of prior Sonic themes but reinterpreted in the style of the zone's new music.

tl;dr, my wet dream

 

Something original, without nostalgia pandering, that still captures the spirit of the classics (e.g. Sonic and the Fallen Star)
It should have a story and tone that takes itself fairly seriously, without being too convoluted or melodramatic
2D or 3D, I don't really care, but either way I'd prefer open ended level design (e.g. Sonic CD, Sonic Utopia) wan
Art style should capture some of the surreal trippiness of Naoto Ohshima's work (again like CD)
I guess what I really want is basically Sonic CD 2

Edit: Absolutely no Green Hill Zone under any circumstances
in fact, I'd not even have any GHZ Analogue type level. The first level can be a city level or something

 

I don't need a game. I just need Shadow in Fortnite. He already has guns and he can bust a move.

 

Yes, honestly, this. I used to fantasize about sonic team wanting to understand 2d physics and implementing them into a game. Without playing it yet, I'm very satisfied with the potential we are seeing

 

Frontiers comes fairly close to what I wanted, in terms of structure. Just take Frontiers and:

• Remove automation. Give Sonic parkour abilities and a way to run up walls.
• Have one big "Generations" size act for each island, with smaller bite-size acts where the cyberspace portals are. NO REUSED LEVELS!
• Bare minimum, at least 8 zones. 15 maximum.
  
• Instead of having multiple big islands, have one world that gets bigger in size with multiple regions (zones) for each level. This naturally means each region needs to be much smaller, but denser, with less boring paint-by-numbers puzzles.
• Rework how boost works. Now it works like a gas pedal.
• Remove the homing attack. Have Sonic do a melee attack instead that the player must time properly.
• Rework combat. More Kingdom Hearts, less...whatever you want to compare the combat to. Bayonetta?
  
• Completely rework the voice acting. Drop the cast, including Mike Pollock. I want him and Roger out of there. The director too.
  
• Bring Maekawa back. Have him on story AND character-interactions. No need to use Flynn as a crutch.
• Get the speedrunning community involved for promotion. Have in-game leaderboards community-run, and connect them to speedrun.com.
• Have more stylized, "Sonic-y" art direction. Not photorealism with Evangelion robot things.
• Get My Chemical Romance back together for a credits song. I don't fucking know. See what happens.

Of course, I have my own autism-born ideas for a complete reboot of the series. 6 games, with an ending. But that's for another day.

 

100% on these.
I respect Mike Pollock as Eggman, but I really don't care for his voice too much and would like a more serious Eggman back. Deem Bristow/Jim Cummings were the peak Eggman/Robotnik to me.
I really want the Naoto Oshima/Greg Martin kinda abstract art style back

 

Are they not still back together? I just saw them last June in Munich. I’m not a giant fan so I don’t keep up on news about them. Very good show by the way. Better than expected.