"Sonic's shitty friends"

Characters as skins would be interesting...Shadow for Sonic, Knuckles and Rouge etc...would play the same but look and sound different~

 

Well, the characters as skins would be interesting, but what about the design of the levels? Characters like Shadow, Metal, and Blaze could go through Sonic's high speed levels, but what about characters like Tails and Knuckles? The level design seems to be more horizontal rather than vertical, so I'd imagine it'd be difficult to integrate Tails and Knuckles in the current level design. But Sonic always changes, so maybe later, we'd get a 3D version of stages like Generations's Planet Wisp, and those types of levels would be perfect for Tails and Knuckles to utilize their abilities to their advantage. Tails can speed through the difficult ground work, by flying through the air and finding new paths, or just using his flying abilities to finish the level faster than Sonic (kind of like what he did in Sonic Adventure), and Knuckles could use his climbing abilities to gain advantages similar to the advantages Tails has with his flying. In terms of Tails and Knuckles, there's my two cents. Thoughts?

 

They could always do what Rush did, just make give the player the option to choose the character before the level starts. As for the plot, Tails in there because he's Sonic's best friend, Amy is there because she's a stalker, and Knuckles either has master emerald shit to take care of or he just got dragged along against his will by Tails/Amy.

Awesome. As long as they don't force players to go through only one route in the stage as certain characters, I'm all for it.

 

You know what? I was going to post a completely different opinion on the matter, but I had an epiphany.

Most of us hate the majority Sonic's Shitty Friends™, or at least the a large percentage of the ones that came after Sonic Adventure. I happen to like very, very few of them (Tails, Knuckles, Honey the Cat, Mighty the Armadillo, Blaze and Silver sorta. That's it.)

You know how SEGA have said that they are always experimenting and changing the gameplay for the Sonic series, right? You know how they can do that without fucking up the series forever?

Spin-offs.

Oh wow, I just kinda turned you all off, didn't I? Well, shut the fuck up and listen because I have a good point to make.

Shadow the Hedgehog was a shittacular game, yes? Well, Knuckles Chaotix wasn't. Great soundtrack, great graphics, and an interesting and unique spin (pun not intended) on the Sonic Formula. Tails Adventure was pretty fun too, if a bit hard (Tails' walking animation in the game is fucking ADORABLE by the way.). Most of you haven't played this game, as I've come to realize, but it's worth a try, but by no means is it a game everyone's going to love. It plays almost nothing like a Sonic game, unlike the other two examples. Still, I thought it was a fun and unusual treasure of a game.


Spin-offs would be a way to experiment with the Sonic series without having a dud in the main series. Sure, not a whole lot of people would be interested in Vector the Crocodile: Crocin' and Rockin', but imagine the core gameplay of a game like this having what could be the next Sonic. All of these games would have a similar pacing and basic gameplay to what the Main series would get, should this game receive a halfway decent score from any reviewer that is not IGN, GameSpot or GameInformer.

This way, the only way we'd see the Shitty Friends™ would be in their own games. They wouldn't have to shit up main Sonic titles ever again.

Now I am aware that Sonic Team, or whoever would be churning these out would have to be VERY up front about this plan from the getgo, so as not to have reviewers think of this as just another shovelware title trying to capitalize off the Sonic name. But wouldn't this at least be better than having shit Sonic games? I mean, fuck, nobody would actually buy a Vector the Crocodile game. That was just a comedic example, but I would definitely buy a Silver the Hedgehog game, if they did psychokinesis right, and I would buy a Blaze the Cat game, since she's basically Sonic with fire. Blaze would be the purrfect (useentwutididdere) test bed for something like this, actually. Likewise for Mighty, should they bring him back.

Alternatively, they could do what Archie Comics did with Sonic Universe. Universe focuses less on Sonic, and more of the important characters around him, and whatever happens in this comic directly affects the main book. The latter part doesn't matter so much, but having a game revolving around characters that aren't Sonic would be kinda cool. Maybe Sonic has finally met his match, and his Shitty Friends™ have to pick up the slack and actually help him for once. Like Sonic Adventure but the differences between characters are more profound, but still contain the same basic Platforming that make Sonic games worth playing.

This is a pie-in-the-sky idea that would have course never happen, especially with the bad rap SEGA is only recently trying to shake off, but this was just in my mind.

 

I totally agree. If Sonic Team was split into two development teams, one producing spin-offs and the other working on Sonic games, it would allow SEGA to release a retail title each year, while the games got two years in development, it makes sense.

 

The colors team seemed to have struck gold, then.

Oh man, imagine if they teamed up with the Unleashed/Generations team.

 

SONIC'S SHITTY FRIENDS GAME IDEA #1: A New Chaotix Game
============

Espio and Vector are the only ones playable. Charmy is a Support Partner character. (MAYBE Unlockable Playables or Support Partners after beating the game/getting all the numbered set of optionally collectible macguffins of special stages?).

Espio and Vector share common moves:
-Ability to wall climb/walk
-Spin Jump
-Spin Dash (tornado spinning in Espio's case)
-use Charmy for Support (Maybe Tails-style Carrying or the Whirlwind Platform from Generations).

But they have their own individual moves.
Vector:
-Eight-directional Air Dash (if 2D.)
-Bite Attack. Can pick up objects this way and throw/spit them.
-Able to destroy breakable blocks with ease.
-Swimming and underwater Deathroll attack.
-Has the best Throwing Arm for throwing objects/the partner.

Espio:
-Walk on Walls/Ceiling
-Spindash on Walls
-Grappling Hook... no screw that, Grappling TOUNGE... maybe.
-Maybe turn invisible.

2P MODES
-There's Offline and Online Co-op as well as Versus Multiplayer.
-Offline Multiplayer has Splitscreen when players move far enough apart.
-Offline Co-op has the option of a Second Player or a CPU Partner that you can issue commands to (or switch between characters freely).
-Players can call each other by spending 10 rings like in the original Chaotix.
-No Combi-ring tethered shit. (Unless maybe it's some power-up junk or a crap co-op mission, for lols.)
-Players can grab and throw partners like in the first Chaotix Game.

THE STORY: Uh... The Chaotix are Looking for Mighty... and maybe Ray. Fang the Sniper is the villain-for-hire by Eggman for some reason.

 

Fuck the Chaotix, I want Tails' Adventure 2.

Or a spin-off where Blaze is the star of the show. That would be boss.

 

Back in August, Volpino and I were actually going to make a Tails' Adventure 2 fangame using Construct but we ended up canning the project because making a worthy successor to that wonderful game was more effort than we felt was worth it. We came up with a ton of ideas but the project is no more. :/ Some of those ideas will likely be put into other projects though. Didn't help that Construct lacked tutorials and was discontinued for Construct 2. We didn't get very far anyways. My engine was atrocious and only one sprite was completed for it.

It's a shame Sonic Team doesn't make more spinoff platformer games. Tails' Adventure 2 and Sonic 3D Blast are considered spinoffs, yet they're some of my favorite games in the franchise. I actually considered the idea of trying to make a sequel to Sonic 3D Blast but that would've been insanely hard to do for a first game project. Actually, now that I think of it, making a fan-made sequel to any specific game is a terrible idea for a first game project. What the hell was I thinking? o_O

 

A Blaze the Cat trilogy in 16-bit 2D 2.5D styled graphics would be pretty cool. There's already awesome box-art for it too I forget which one of us made it though., by trakker.

 

That would be the ultimate trolling on their part. After the fans beckoned SEGA for God knows how long for a new 16bit Sonic game, they finally give it to us... in the form of Blaze the Cat in what's to be assumed as a Sonic Rush-esque spin-off.

 

Though, to be fair, I'd love to play a Blaze spin-off as long as they actually make her something other than a Sonic clone, who knows what kind of neat stuff she could do with her fire powers. Funnily enough, in Sonic 06, despite basically being Sonic/Shadow with a different moveset, she was pretty much the only playable character in that game I could earnestly say I derived enjoyment from.

 

Blaze is maybe the only character out of the recent crop with a decent design, a gimmick that doesn't suck and a genuine aura of coolness. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her.

 

I like all of the female characters except Cream

 

I don't get the Cream hate. Her voice is ear rape but this could easily be changed. Her origins are more fitting of the classic series than anyone else post SA1, except maybe Blaze. She's an innocent, young rabbit that lives in the forest with her mother. Compare that to a hedgehog/alien hybrid created in a lab, a government agent and hedgehog living in a hellish future.

 

I really don't understand it either. The only reason I ever hated Cream was because of her VA, which as you said is a changeable and variable thing. I enjoyed playing as her in Advance 2, and her character as a whole works pretty well conceptually and visually.

 

Yeah, it really wasn't until I heard her voice actor in Sonic Heroes and later in Sonic X that I began to dislike her. Before that, I didn't mind at all, and as stated by SteelBrush, her backstory is the least convoluted of the modern characters.

 

Have rambling thoughts on how I'd do a Silver the Hedgehog game for the DS.




I'll try to organize this thing eventually.