I don't think it makes sense to criticize people for caring about how the series turns out when we're all posting on a Sonic forum the same as we have been for years. And I don't think because the things I liked (ie Adventure) having flaws means that equates or cancels out any negative perceptions I have on Frontiers, or there is this inevitability to giving up. Like what is the point other than a "gotcha" or a "stop caring"? Because I mean if we truly stopped caring, we wouldn't be here. lol
Nobody is criticizing you man, but like... I think most of us just have better things to do. It doesn't really take a lot of energy to just post something here and go about our business. Like... if you wanna keep fighting against Sonic Team, be my guest, I'm not gonna stop you.
Man, what. I post on SSMB or Retro once every few months now, I do have a life far outside of this. I'm on here way less frequently than y'all! I'm just not settled on 3D Sonic having to be middling-to-bad. That's all. Damn. lol
I'm not a fan of discussing members' private lives, especially if we're just speculating, so here's an opinion that might be unpopular -- not so much because it's controversial, but because absolutely no one cares: goal rings are stupid. Well, not because they're rings, exactly. But like why does the stage end there? What does it even mean? It means nothing. A stage's end often feels arbitrary, but 2D games always employed the smallest tricks to make you feel the end is approaching (the camera locks, there's sometimes a sort of long and empty road that lets you know the end is coming) and, since you can't see what's ahead, the sensation of closure mostly works. In turn, 3D Boost games always make the end of a stage feel so abrupt. You're running really fast, now you're not: you're in some sort of dead end where a giant ring stands, but it's not like it's a portal or anything. You're not collecting them either. And you can see what's ahead, and nothing's ahead. It's just so not-properly-staged or directed. What's up with that? Liberating flickes is so much better! There. The smallest nitpick ever.
I was about to fight you but I used my single neuron to read the rest of the post and realize you weren't going to talk about S1/CD's Goal Rings. Yeah, I would like a better end of stage presentation in the 3D games. If they're going to keep the rings, then at least make them warp rings with a cool results transition screen.
It's perfectly fine to think Frontiers is unacceptable despite loving SA1 and wanting its direction back. Their brands of jank are completely distinct from each other. Is a tiny Eggman billboard you have to touch to magically change to a different picture really any more clear of an ending signifier? I certainly wouldn't say it works better than a literal giant 'GOAL' sign despite it also being stupid diegetically. Either way it makes sense they changed it for the 3D games. I've been praising SRB2 a lot but the billboard's hard to find even in the official levels sometimes. The animal capsule works OK but it's annoying to have to stop your momentum to land on a small button. Yeah I don't see the problem.
No, the billboard isn't any better because it's not that they're rings that makes them stupid. It's the whole presentation like Chimpo said.
Making them portals requires changing every game's story but Generations'. The billboards also don't have any clear purpose in helping you progress. I just don't get what the goal rings are distinctly doing wrong.
Had I phrased it as "I like it when a stage ends with a satisfying feeling of closure and 3D Boost titles don't do that" would it make sense to you? It's not about the ring. Even if Sonic simply touched the ring and kept running into the distance, the sense of closure would be better delivered. It doesn't need to be diegetic: 2D games by definition don't let you see what's ahead of you, so it's easier for a player do exercise creative geography and just accept that a stage comes after the other. Touching a billboard or a ring is unimportant to this effect. In Sonoc Advance 2, Sonic just keeps running on a track, and doesn't really touch anything. Still good. You don't need to change stories to make rings warp you because it's not about stories, or something you need to explain. in any case there's absolutely no proper direction to those games' end of stage sequences. Sonic just stays there in an empty space that isn't conducive to the idea that there is a next stage and Sonic stopped because there was nowhere else for him to go, and you can see that. It's just unsatisfying, and I don't know why you keep bringing the billboard up when I made it explicit it's not about the object, exactly.
I really don't get that nitpick at all, especially specifically targeting the 3D boost games when they're no different than any other 3D Sonic game.
I don't see how imagining Sonic getting from Emerald Hill to Chemical Plant in S2 takes less creative geography than imagining Sonic getting from the Apotos goal ring to the hub (that's clearly in the same town) in Unleashed. I'm making comparisons to earlier precedents in the series because I think pretty much every game in the series but 3&K and Mania would be guilty of your problem as I understand it. I could just be dense! I independently observed recently that the billboard can be legitimately annoying in 3D so I've definitely been projecting a bit there.
I brought them up because they're the ones in which I distinctly remember feeling jarred. They're not the only games with goal rings, sure, and not all stages use them (and I'm very much okay with breaking those wisp machines, it's pretty cool if you don't like stopping to hit a small button). But compare Aquarium Park Act 3 with Ocean Palace. I might be cherry picking, but I just feel Ocean Palace is much better staged: there's a unique set piece, after which the stage kind of widens and you g up a stairway (a very uncommon element in this stage); the team, still where you left them, do their thing and turn to the camera. There's closure. It feels nice. Aquarium Park Act 3, on the other hand, has a unique 2D section full of rings after which it looks like a 3D section like all the others is going to start, but all of a sudden Sonic just bumps into a giant ring, the screen fades to white and Sonic is in Background Land looking like an idiot. The whole presentation just feels... weird. But maybe all 3D Sonic games are like that.
You want a great example of what @Palas is saying? SA2, Metal Harbor to Green Forest. Sonic is specifically trying to escape the military base in Metal Harbor, and does so by riding a missle, only to land back into said military base in the middle of the ocean with no solid ground nearby. But then he touches a goal ring and suddenly the next level starts up in the middle of a forest. Whilst I don't necessarily agree with the point that's being made, this one example always sticks out to me because there's such a hard line drawn between gameplay and story, even though SA2 is normally very keen to integrate the two.
This is not about traveling between stages. Like here's a stage that I think is very well directed: Scrap Brain Act 2 starts outside a building, which you enter; you go through all kinds of challenges, then you get out of the building through a point of no return and face a completely empty section ahead. The game even makes a point of giving you an extra second of nothing, so you can release all tension you may have built up before you can even see the goalpost. Scrap Brain Act 3 starts here: There is the faintest implied spatial congruity between them, and it doesn't matter how Sonic got from one to the other, or even how long it took. It's just so much smoother than, for example, Windmill Isle Act 3: Which starts with Sonic already in movement and on the loop that will define the stage until the end-- rails. Then you grind on them until, all of a sudden, you just butt heads with a Goal Ring standing on a platform in the middle of nowhere. You've completed a lap, but this is not what it feels like. There's no buffering or downtime to anything. You can't really take in what just happened. Of course, it might be unfair to compare the role of Scrap Brain and Apotos in their respective games, and the transition aspect is probably a different issue from the whole "conveying a stage is ending" thing. But surely you see what I'm getting at? Which is completely crazy too because Metal Harbor up until the missile launch is just really good in this regard. Sonic starts in movement because he's in a rush; the stage more or less circles around the missile launch platform; once you reach the platform, there's a countdown and you can clearly feel that the stage is ending. Even if there was a goal ring there to end the stage instead of Sonic riding the missile, I simply wouldn't complain. It'd just work -- but no, Sonic just drops for another 10 seconds of rolling around.
Why doesn't the tunnel after the missile count as one of those "long roads letting you know the end is coming" that you specified? I always saw the missile launch as the climax of the level you have to get through to earn the breezy bit of falling action you then get in the tunnel. It just never felt off to me the way it is. But we don't all have the same nits to pick. It ending on a random platform is kinda dumb but so is Sonic going from a flooded ruin to a casino. The problem there is just SA2 otherwise being much more consistent about picking up where the player left off. I'm gonna do some creative geography and assume he just hitched a ride on another missile, since the first one clearly was for fun.
You're right-- I suppose it could and it'd be another way to end the level, but there's a good 10 seconds with hands off the controller before that and it already fulfills that purpose. But if it was necessary, then I'd much have preferred if it didn't have anything and ended inside the tunnel, kind of signalling Sonic has escaped and is now very clearly safe.
Not sure I'd consider Aquarium Park and Windmill Isle Act 3 as the standard for boost Sonic level ending goals or whatever when one is from a game full of levels that were (lazily) chopped up into pieces to artificially extend playtime, and the other is a bonus level made of simple assets. Better comparison would be looking at the main day stages for Unleashed (aka the ones that most people actually play) or Colors' original stage list, and you can see for the most they telegraph when the end is coming and its usually into some kind of plaza or stage-ish area, like the rest of the 3D games. Can't really see how this is any different than the 2D games aside from stuff like S3&K which has cutscenes. Gens and Forces even more so aren't any different.
