In retrospect SA2's secret level is really bizarre.

You literally wrote a long post complaining about how camera complaints are overblown. So I responded to it. Wouldn't have written it otherwise.

In regards to your OP, I just don't have much to say. Sorry.

 

Even the level design philosophy feels like a fangame level in all the worst ways.

 

That's because there isn't a level design philosophy. It's just a remake of green hill 1 in 3D.

 

I always thought the biggest issue with GHZ was how visually jarring it is it is. When you're a kid it looks sick, but when you pay any attention to detail at all you see the..... well, let's start with that skybox, which looks like they literally just took a screenshot of Sonic 1's background and had it drawn and quartered. Poor thing. The checkerboard pattern is super tiny and you can see a lot of seams where the pattern gets interrupted or cut off. The S-tube makes almost no sense in 3D, but I think they just put it in there for the sake of making a faithful adaptation of the original. It's just very weird.

And then you have things like the dancing sunflowers, the badniks, the spikes, and other things that are adapted very well. It's just such a mixed bag, and it gets weirder the longer you look at it.

The gameplay itself feels fine to me and I enjoy "speedrunning" it, I think they've got some bright ideas in there but it definitely seems like it was thrown together pretty quickly just for the sake of it. I agree the level design definitely has some potential, there's a lot of little skips and tricks you can do in there purely because they can separate its multiple paths on a 3D plane. It's very short for the amount of work it takes to actually unlock it, but then again... most people who 100% SA2 are just in it for the glory, and some dope Black Market unlockables.

 

Annoyingly, GHZ and the dark chao garden are 2 parts of SA2 that I still have not played to this day.

GHZ always seemed too far away (180 emblems!) and I literally only found out there was a dark chao garden within the last year.

 

I found Green Hill in SA2 kinda off-putting for two reasons. First, it looked so awkward, fake and sterile. Simply putting the original GHZ background on a flat mesh didn't make it feel like the original level brought into 3d; it instead made me feel like I was in some studio with a backdrop. Add to that the fact that the level was basically a corridor in the middle of a void. I know that when I played Sonic 1, I didn't picture GHZ like that.

But more than anything, I found it off-putting because it showcased the limitations of the SA2 engine and its dumbed-down physics system. The iconic loop-de-loop was now an automated set piece. They were able to recreate the famous "roll down an S-tunnel and take a ramp that sends you into the sky" section, but only by replacing the ramp with an automated jump plate. And of course, the tunnel was also automated -- no matter how fast you went before entering it, you always slid down it at the same speed. There was a point in which you could run down a hill ending on a non-jump plate ramp, but doing so only sends you a few meters into the air, and you can't roll on the way down.

It's kinda funny. They added the level to invoke nostalgia, and it succeeded, but not in the way they intended. It made me nostalgic for the original games by reminding me of everything we lost in the transition to 3d.

I feel Generations' Green Hill was a much more successful recreation. Not only did it actually update and adapt the visuals for 3d (rather than simply copypasting the old graphics onto boxes and meshes), but its layout was designed around the engine, rather than trying to force the original layout into a game it wasn't made for.

FWIW I agree about those two particular fangames having having more interesting level design than the official 3d games.

 

For the record...I was not disparaging all fangames. I said "in the worst ways". If GHZ was well-designed, I might've said "in the best ways" since there are for-sure some very well-designed Sonic fangames.

What I was trying to say is it feels like some kid messing around with Roblox or Dreams attempted to translate a 2D Sonic level to 3D.

 

It's more a bonus for the completionist that may or may not feel the effort was ever worth it. I did A-Rank it after unlocking it for the hell of it because why not? Sonic Adventure 2's Green Hill is a bit interesting but at the same time not exactly worth stressing yourself in trying to experience it if you're not that into the game or a completionist in any way. Sonic Generation's 3D Green Hill is a lot better.

 

@Frostav you are one of my favourite members on Retro. Just thought I might as well say that. I like your posts because they are very different from everyone else and while I usually don't agree with anything you say (lol) I think you have an important role here in giving a different view.

So don't be disparaged from not posting. It probably sucks to post a thread like this and then everyone disagrees. Lol. But I still enjoy reading it.

But yeah, probably best for us all to chill sometimes. Lol.

 

Hey, for what it's worth, I don't think anyone is trying to dunk on you, really. Some posts may come across as cold or dismissive, but I'm sure the attitude isn't directed at you, but at the matter at hand. I know it feels horrible to bring up a detail you've been thinking about, only to have the issue talked about in a way you weren't expecting. And I know it's sometimes not easy to believe it's not directed at you, as a person.

So all I can say is that everyone posts for different reasons and in different ways, and people aren't really trying to own you in any way. The discussion you brought is interesting, and you're a cherished member of the community.

 

My turn.

Good old Frostav, overly dramatic and sarcastic, we were missing you! Seriously, I'm with Laura, you're necessary and appreciated, and while you're more moderated behaviour lately is better for a forum, these occasions tell us when you're really invested in what you're saying and we should put more effort to get your point. While the way you replied might be inappropiate, I'm a bit with you in what you're saying. You're loving something and people pops the balloon by paying more attention to the raw topic than what you were trying to share (if that makes sense). I understand you got pissed off by that, so I'll try to improve my previous reply to make you know my POV isn't that far from yours.

For starters, I felt the glimpse you talked about when I played that level. As you also said, it's not that you find it perfect, just that there's more of what you want from a 3D Sonic game in that design, and I felt that too, albeit really rough for the effort invested in unlocking it, hence why I said it should have been unlocked earlier (same goes for SADX extras and base Chao Gardens, Sonic Team were a bit sadistic back then). The failures (plenty of them) where there, and they indeed should have done a better job with the graphics, but it didn't look (keyword: look, not play) that different from Sonic X-Treme levels. I guess they run out of time to finish it. I think everything that gives you options of exploring or go crazy is good, and surely that's not how they designed 3D Sonic games most of the time.

But it's also true that oversized platforms and pits show how rough and automated were the physics in that game, so I'm not surprised other people saw just the issues. Don't be angry with them, they're just not noticing you in fact want the same they do and that, judging by that single level, there could have been hope for all of us getting a better 3D Sonic in later games if they followed that path. The worrying thing, though, is all that people that make 3D fangames and don't get it either.

 

I think Green Hill Zone in SA2 is pretty comparable to a fangame like Utopia or Green Hill Paradise. It's a nice little novelty and a neat experiment to see how 3D Sonic would work if you just copied and pasted (in this case) the level design of the classics, much like how a lot of fangames try to recreate the physics of the classics. The problem is that's all it really is: a novelty. It wouldn't work if that mentality was applied to a full Sonic game, in my opinion.

 

As is, of course. Those fangames and that rendition share that trait, but Frostav wanted us to look a bit further.

 

I do get where Frostav is coming from wrt GHZ's level design. It can be pretty fun, but the camera issues are definitely real and might be why SEGA generally avoided making levels like that for SA2. Some developers think its better to play it safe than to try something more ambitious and getting criticized for it.

As for why they didn't do so for later games when the camera controls got better? I think just inertia. SA2 was popular and many Nintendo fans first exposure to Sonic, so might as well continue with how it approached level design. Not to mention, Heroes kinda inherently relies on more linear design because of its beat em up elements.

 

Green Hill definitely does stand out among SA2 levels. Its segments lack that feeling of copypaste that most of the levels in the game had. It manages to feel even more artificial due to its boxiness and weird skybox, though.
Having more-natural environments, with more in the way of unique setpieces and terrain, really made SA1's level design memorable to me. I loved the way that game would use 3D space, and it was often in ways that no other game in the series would really try.

 

I don't know if you guys will agree with me or feel the same way, but a catch that SA2's GHZ seems to have is that it "solves" the main problem of 3D (orientation, more than camera) by making you always look down. The level feels more awkward the more you're looking and going up, not only because you lose any reference and sight of the ground and potential pits, but also because they seemed to place the next section of the level on a lower ground than the previous one. It feels like you're always in descending motion, ultimately.

Which is also bizarre, and a feature that the original doesn't have, but it makes sense. Left and right stop being absolute references in 3D, but up and down don't, so the orientation becomes "when in doubt, go down".

 

Guess who learned about Dark Chao garden Just now