I can concede that there are stages that prepare you for the end well, like Windmill Isle Act 2; but why should I focus on the Sonic Colors that Would Be and not the Sonic Colors that exists? Or why should I ignore that Windmill Isle Act 3 does that when a) it's a level that is in the game b) other stages do that too, (the 2.5D ones mostly; Rooftop Run Act 2, Dragon Road Act 2, etc)? The levels being chopped up in Colors are probably the root cause of this being weird enough for me to notice, and I don't owe the game leeway because it wasn't supposed to be like that wtf EDIT: Also, Forces is so focused on taking away your control to be being cinematic at every turn that it actually finishes stages reasonably well. You're more likely to find a set piece or a breather before the end, and the setting is usually very meticulously made. The scenery changes a lot and you can really anticipate the ending. Egg Gate is an absolute chore to play, but it announces its movements fairly well! That's something I can appreciate abut Forces, in fact: it does try its best to have stuff happening around you at all times, and to give the event a proper beginning, development and an end in every stage. Strangely enough, the story as a whole doesn't do that.
Well, these levels are completely optional and not part of the story at all. The levels don't serve even the slightest narrative purpose of "Sonic is going to a place", they are literally levels that are there for the sake of being extra content. It feels like complaining that the Blue Spheres minigame just suddenly has all the spheres explode in the air when you collect the last one instead of having you walk down a parade first. But for the levels that are part of the story, I agree. The classic games did have a few oddities like this, like Sky Chase - both from the end of Metropolis just being "deep in factory to suddenly in sky" and after encountering the airship still having a random bunch of turtles before the game's like "okay we'll move on now". But the 3D games do have more of this problem, but that's because rather than have the level design fill a narrative role they put cutscenes between levels instead, and the only story told by the gameplay is "Sonic is going to a place". I think Sonic 3 & Knuckles hit a good balance where the gameplay itself covers a reasonable amount (things being set on fire, floods, ground collapsing etc.) and then cutscenes within the gameplay, without camera cuts, to fill out what needs to be more explicitly shown, and I agree that Forces does some of this to its credit too. The Adventure games are just as bad as the boost games in this regard, but I think there's one very tiny thing that they do that makes a big difference to how it feels: "Escape from the military base!" Each level in both Adventure games have multiple missions associated with them, and the first mission is the one you see when playing through the story. Adventure 2 especially flavours this first mission text to describe what the character is doing at this point in the story itself, but it also tells you "this level ends when I escape the military base", so you can get a feel for the end of the level that way. I think simply having this flavour text on screen for each level, and designing the level such that the text makes sense, goes a long way to solving the problem. And yes, while the better solution would be "show, don't tell", telling is still better than neither showing nor telling.
But I mean. Blue Spheres does end with Sonic decelerating while he sort of walks toward the emerald. It's charming and well delivered on its own, and you could even call it a small parade -- and I don't think you need a narrative purpose to have sensible directing. For what it's worth, I mentioned Windmill Isle Act 2 as a positive example because I find it cool that you're thrown into the air and fall onto the ring to end the stage: there's your neat two-seconds of releasing tension. And Sonic does reach a plaza that's actually in the town. But narratively, it's a pretty weird level: Sonic is looking for clues about Chip's identity, and it cuts from the end of the stage straight to nightfall, with Chip distraught that no one recognizes him. I mean, who would? The gracious directing there isn't tied to the narrative, necessarily. Just a sense that the stage you're in wasn't cut short because someone thught "ok that's enough let's just wrap it up". All in all I understand bonus levels, being suspended from the main progression, can't really point to any direction with how they end. But I don't think it makes it less jarring to just bump into an object you could barely see and have the screen fade to white. As a matter of fact, probably even if Sonic just continued and the fade effect took longer, I might be more satisfied? I don't know really, I'm thinking as we go. It's not an issue I gave some deep thought before posting. You know, you're right. I think that's a great nod. As soon as you see whatever it is that you were looking for, you get a sense that everything is clicking, and it was just one line that propped this up. It's really smart and simple! So anyway, I of course get that it isn't a big issue. Just something I wish they'd work on the tiniest little bit more, even if it's a bonus stage or something.
I don't like that much when 3D games use the Mega Drive sound effect for spin-dash. I wish it could have a unique sound again like Sonic Adventure 1-2 / Heroes.
Speaking of, I wish more games would use a boingy jump sound effect. It doesn't have to be the 16-bit one exactly, SA1's more modern take was cool too. But some version of that sound effect is just so iconic for Sonic, and I always wondered why they started replacing it with a boring little "whoosh" in most of the 3D games after that.
Lost World combined them together and y'all slept on it the same way y'all slept on everything else that was cool in that game
Recently with the new Frontiers DLC I’m seeing a lot of people saying that Eggmanland from Unleashed PS3/360 was really hard. Was it really that hard though? When I played it I beat it without too much struggle, I might have died a few times but I never got stuck for days or anything - I beat it during the hour it takes to get through the level. The level itself was long, and literally takes an hour to beat, but I don’t recall stuff like the obstacles/enemies being difficult. Perhaps people say it’s difficult because it’s long, but I think of length and difficulty as two different things.
Eggmanland isn't hard. Eggmanland hot dog missions, on the other hand, where you have to get through the entire level without dying (with a time limit that's so generous it may as well not exist)...
Eggmanland has no more "press X to not die" moments than any other level in Unleashed (because Unleashed's level design isn't great). The problem is that it's so long that your focus eventually starts to slip and you start making careless mistakes that you otherwise wouldn't make. You can only keep your attention strained on the same repetitive actions for so long. So in a sense, length and difficulty aren't too far apart from each other.
I tried to marathon all the hot dog missions for Unleashed just recently. I got burnt out when I maxed out all my stats and realized there was no reason to do any of it anymore.
Somewhat related, this is why I think it's fine for Sonic levels (2D and 3D) to be relatively short. Not Forces short, but something like 2-5 minutes is a good length to target. Everyone remembers how exhausting S3&K's marathon levels can get, and a lot of the criticism for the unpopular parts of many 3D Sonic games is because they overstay their welcome. Honestly even stages around 1-2 minutes can be done well as long as it feels satisfying and doesn't feel like a tease, something Forces fails at and something Frontiers' better Cyberspace levels excel at.
I've always thought the perfect Sonic level lasts between 2 1/2 minutes to 5 minutes. It depends on the game, really, but I think in general that as far as Sonic games (particularly the 3D games) go, anything under 1 1/2 minutes tends to be too short while anything over 7 minutes is too long. In fact, I'd say the worst thing a Sonic level can be is too long. It's a big part of what kills SA2, Heroes, Shadow, '06, and Unleashed for me. Levels drag on and on and ON and I'm like jesus bro I just wanna get outta here
Sonic is very much an arcade game at heart, and when you have arcade games with time limits they tend to be about 4-5 minutes in length (e.g. OutRun), so it makes sense to me that that would be the sweet spot for Sonic levels too. Personally though, I love the longer levels and would gladly play one that takes literal hours to beat, especially if it's Unleashed Day-style. Just don't make me do the whole thing deathless.
Counterpoint: I would play the SHIT out of a Sonic game structured like OutRun, checkpoints and all, even if it was Unleashed Day-style. I'll say more: Unleashed itself would have been pretty cool with an OutRun structure, because it'd be a proper World Adventure every time, and every new route would feel fresh. Anyway. I don't mind longer levels, but what really kills them is not having any margin of error. Dragging out is bad, but needing to complete 100% of an objective or getting absolutely nothing is much worse.
Long levels depend on having enough variety to not get boring. This is what makes them annoying in Heroes, Shadow and 06, because the basic mechanics of those games range from "annoying" to "braindead". They're not too bad in Unleashed, but boost levels are often kind of "segmented" such that if a level doesn't have a good ratio of boost-stuff to actual platforming (Cool Edge is one of the worst stages in the game for this) it can be really drab. It's also got more of the do-or-die level design that can be a real pain in a game with limited lives (this is also a problem in the prior games, they're just easier). Having to restart a stage that takes more than 3 minutes after you've already felt the annoyance of repeated death is truly gross. Thinking about it, the Sonic game with the best execution of "long stages" would be...Rise of Lyric.
Honestly the Eggmanland hot dog missions aren't that bad once you know what you're doing. The most troublesome spot is probably the furnace area because it's more-precise platforming over frequently oblique camera angles.
Is missing the Sonic Twitter when it was run by Aaron Webber unpopular? I remember a lot of people not liking it but I personally loved it. Shit was hilarious.
