I can try. By Collision Chaos Act 2, you should already know that different times have different entrances and paths. So finding a dead end like that should, at worst, make you write a mental note that says "something else, at some point, might happen if I come here at a different time". Which is mildly obtrusive, sure, but it isn't really that different from any Metroidvania, is it? You'll lose like 5 seconds and be like "oh okay". Like everyone has been saying, exploration for its own sake is fairly low stakes in Sonic CD and in 2D Sonic games in general. I'm not getting out of my way for any monitor that I can't see and that I don't strictly need whatsoever. So if you never see the paths these tunnels lead to, it straight up doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. You could say it ends up being confusing, and while I'm ready to minimize that, I'll acknowledge it can be. Then again, the only stage that I can say ever gave me trouble in this department was Metallic Madness Act 2. To this day, I have no idea what to do if I don't take left at the first intersection. I get completely lost. But other than that? It isn't even a nuisance. I'm not playing time attack here. I'm playing for rings, worst case scenario. Knowing I can always come back to where I started honestly feels more reassuring than thinking "well this might lead me to a path I can't come back from and that might suck". However! The easiest way to find what happens to maps in other times, right from the start, is by dying. Which doesn't happen a lot in Sonic CD, but hey: it might happen. And if it does, you have new options right from the get-go that weren't there at the beginning. It's a very streamlined opportunity to do things differently and explore not because you wanted, but because you felt you needed. This kind of "new, but different" approach that could very well happen, especially in the Past and even more especially if you don't know where the Transporter is, makes finding new stuff very satisfying. Not in a strictly intrinsically motivated kind of way, but in a way that uses the life system and its objective structure very well.
Inspired by the Shadow Generations thread convo, I've got some real niche opinions (possibly unpopular ones) that truly do not matter: For context: Sonic Adventure 2 was the first game to have letter grades as ranks. As such, it invokes direct comparisons to letter grades in school. At least in the US, that goes in the following descending order: "A", "B", "C", "D", and "F". SA2's rankings reflect 80% of this, only they replace "F" with "E". Hot Take #1: On the one hand, I think this is dumb and my intuition tells me that "E" should have just been "F". On the other hand, "F" represents failure, and if you finished the level you did not fail, you succeeded (only, poorly and sloppily, and possibly even barely). There should be an "F" rank, which represents failure. It should only be conferred for stages you started but never finished, either because you quit out or got a Game Over. You did not pass, you failed. So, I guess I'm in favor of keeping "E" as the lowest passing rank, but there should be an "F" rank too. It could be funny. Hot Take #2: Adding "S" above "A" is fine, and inspired given that Sonic's name starts with the letter "S". But adding "S" is dumb if you're just going to start removing the lower ones to compensate. At that point it's just the "A" rank with a different name. That's stupid! Also, having "C" (which usually means "average" or "satisfactory") being the lowest or next to lowest is dumb. The "A" through "E" scale should represent the extent to which you meet the target or complete the prescribed objective. "S" should represent going above and beyond that objective, a reward for flexing to the maximum degree, like, idk, some combination of getting every ring, killing every enemy, getting every red ring, not getting hit or dying once, etc. Something like that. It should feel special and extra, something for the maniacs and diehards, something I would personally probably never accomplish. Not just "the one everyone's trying to go for"; that's what an "A" should be.
What's the point in an F rank when you've already Game Overed or quit out of the level? Kicking the player while they're already down doesn't make a good experience. They already know they've not finished the level.
I mean I did say it could be funny. But fair enough. I am less committed to Hot Take #1, and more committed to Hot Take #2.
I thought Shadow did a good job of masking the S rank. The highest rank you see in the score tally is A. The lame part is that getting the S Rank isn't that much higher. It should demand an extra level of commitment in order to obtain.
quick addition, Sonic 2 also has some prototypical Sonic 3 stuff there, in that later stages like Metropolis and Mystic Cave just have inexplicable checkpoints hidden in alcoves specifically to give you more tries at special stages. and doing well in the special stages, Emeralds aside, can give you enough of a high score to get continues and extra lives too. It's kind of funny how you can see the design sensibility evolve from Sonic 1 to Sonic 3 so explicitly.
Just got though running through Sonic 2 again (well… Sonic 2 up until Sky Chase. I quit the moment tbe level loaded up because I have no desire to do an auto scroller right now) Haven’t done that in a while. But the Game’s fun (obviously.) I didn’t really have too many problems with it design wise outside one instance in Mystic Cave where they do the exact thing I feel they should not do as far as transitioning from sections where you’re likely to have a ton of speed into sections where you have to land more precisely on something… …By which I mean they did not transition into it. And so if you didn’t already know that platforming section was coming up, you were going to come into that section with a ton of momentum and was not going to be able to stop in time midair to land on that. However, it is a section it was also very easy to get back up out of it. And outside of that, I personally noticed very few instances like that. Though I do attribute that at least partially due to level memorization from how many times I’ve played the game. Give you an idea. I don’t even remember the last time I went for the emeralds. But I got all of them in Emerald Hill on this run first try. That was until I came across this section here. I actually peel outed up the ramp at first, which shot me up even faster, but because I had rings I didn’t die. But I wanted to fully capture what was happening here so I intentionally threw myself at it again, this time with a Spindash, just to show what would likely happen to someone who didn’t know that was there, didn’t have rings, and so we can imagine a situation where they didn’t have any lives and this happened. I personally didn’t have much a problem with it. Sonic 2 is fun, and this was such a brief moment it had no impact on that. Honestly, more than anything, I just found it funny. But I bring this out to provide one of the demonstrations of what I am talking about when I say Sonic does not actually know how to handle difficulty spikes. (Heh) Sonic level design has essentially 2 modes. Easiest freaking thing in the world as far as platformers go, and it’s only really engaging when you’re abusing the physics and stuff. Or stuff like this where it’s debatably unfair. Again, we have a section where the player is supposed to have a ton of speed. This time because there is a freaking momentum based obstacle that REQUIRES you to get up speed to overcome it. But if you don’t know about an oncoming hazard, that speed is just going to cause you to slam face first into it. i mean, not exactly the most reaction time in the world. And it’s not challenging at all. If you just know it’s there in advance, it’s not hard to just start preemptively braking or tone the speed down a little bit. And that’s the problem. Or at least, that’s my problem. It’s not “real” difficulty. In my view, real difficulty in an action platformer like this is, “Even if I know what to do, the level of precision needed to do it means I’m probably going to practice this a few times before I get it right and get it consistent.” Sonic doesn’t really do that. When it tries to add difficulty, it just does stuff like this. And while I honestly don’t care when actually playing the games, you have to question if that’s the greatest design ideology in the world to be sticking with. And also while I honestly don’t care when playing, I must say I would likely find these games way more fun to just run through without becoming a tryhard if they could get some legitimate stuff in there.
I find this silly in a number of ways. First, you said it yourself: collectibles as part of the life system make it so that any mishap like this, even if you couldn't possibly have seen it coming, is very minor and affects your progression very little. You can try many times to jump at the exact right time to get to the other side, even! That's all in the learning curve. It's just there. Second, and this is something I've noticed in your posts since forever: real difficulty for you seems to only ever be related to Shovel Knight Academic Correct Game Design-esque teaching something and then testing it, with the player being able to account for every consequence out there. Shall we call it perfect information challenges. But risk management is a skill you can train, too. You're in Eggman's base for God's sake. He wants you dead. The stage wants you dead. If you die, that's just. Expected. If you took any other cheap hit before, you'll probably approach a section where you can't see what's ahead with more care. You don't have perfect information, but you have tension in a broader challenge that's simply getting out of the stage alive -- which is sometimes better, I'd say. That's how you get moments of thrill in which you don't even know how you pulled off something amazing. And would you look at that! Too much care will make you not be able to get through this section! So you do have to shoot yourself anyway, but by then you may have seen the spikes, or even taken a hit. Then, a "perfect information challenge" will have taken form.
I’m going to pretend that I fully understood what you just said, and say that for some reason it just doesn’t work for me. Like, it works in the special stages. There is a ton of tension there about not slamming face first into bombs, especially when rounding corners or coming up inclines as you can not see that far ahead of you in those situations. It’s kind of a similar deal to stuff like this, though I think you have slightly more reaction time, at least in CW remake. And if you have not played them so many times you have essentially become a freak that can sort of halfway predict ring and bomb placement due to having some internalized idea of how they place that stuff, then it is serious reaction based gameplay. Even if you can predict the stuff, got to stay on your toes so as to make sure you’re right or if you need to do some last minute swerving/jumping. Honestly, it is pretty fun (though I would not say it is ideal because of the sometimes unreasonable demands and other particular level sections where you aren’t doing much) And I think that maybe that is what they’re shooting for with stuff like this. However, (and now I am about to sort of contradict myself) I think the reason it works in the special stages is because you actually care about taking damage. There are real potential consequences to that to where, if you do, you might not beat the level, that is reach the chaos emeralds. So for me, I feel a degree of tension and focus that I just do not feel playing through the actual levels casually. The whole “1 rings all I need” and the abundance of rings and that sort of thing. So I get nothing out of it. As I originally said, I honestly just don’t care about stuff like this while actually playing for the most part. And so I find I have to like make myself pay attention to experience any sort of stuff like what it seems they are going for. And if I’m not already doing that, when it comes to situations like this where I would essentially need to switch to the mindset instantaneously in order to properly deal with the threat in front of me? Well…. Well man, it’s just not going to happen. And I don’t think it’s going to happen for a lot of people. The only time it works is if I am already in the mindset by default of not taking damage. Such as if I need enough rings for a special stage entrance. Because now there’s actual consequences, and so I am more concerned about playing better… …though it also means I might tend to slow down a bit. But let’s say I am actually concerned about not taking damage so I can meet a goal like that, and then something like this happens. Very frustrating. And in such a case, I think I would very much have appreciated “perfect information challenges”, as I believe you called them, rather than this crap. As far as risk taking, I think that should be about taking on optional challenges more difficult than just playing it safely and that have potential consequences… …but that you still do have all the information you need. Like trying to squeeze another trick midair in a Tony Hawk game. Or trying to just squeeze by traffic for near misses in a Burnout game to keep your boost up. Or in games that have it, (can’t think of an example off the top of my head rn) trying to time a parry within a narrow window of opportunity rather than just holding block to block the coming attack. Here, the “risk” is solely dependent on you. It’s about will you actually have the skill to pull this off? It’s not about “we’re just going throw stuff at you at random that you probably won’t be able to see coming and that you’ll probably slip out of the mindset of dodging due to how infrequent it is and the little risk. So…. Try to predict that or something?” I respect that former design a lot more.
Opinion: Ian Flynn and SEGA need to stop rewriting old games. Every time they've they've gone back to an older game, it is comparatively worse for various reasons. That does not mean Ian Flynn is a bad writer, as his work on new projects, like Sonic Frontiers and Shadow Generations, is great. They could use a bit more focus, but they're otherwise excellently done. It's just when he and SEGA rewrite old stuff where things go to hell. Second Opinion: The Lore Team aren't doing a good job. Shadow Generations has a contradiction within itself regarding one character whom doesn't even appear in the game, plus a few other snarls after their formation, even giving them a pass for Sonic Prime since that was outside their control and apparently that creative team ignored input.
Yes; see Origins. The stories of the classics were poorly established until Origins finally set everything in place with no ambiguity. Lots of people will argue that Origins watered down the stories, and introduced some needles headscratchers (such as Death Egg crashing into Hidden Palace right at the start of S3).
The Death Egg didn't crash into Hidden Palace, just the robot somehow. And the biggest issue is Robotnik knows where the Master Emerald is, but never grabs it while Knuckles is distracted by Sonic to power up the Death Egg, rather wasting resources on boosters.
Tbf Eggman's hands are too tied in Sonic 3's plot by throwing himself and a dozen miniboss mechs at Sonic and Tails the entire game. And Knuckles may be away from the ME while playing henchman, sure, but he's usually pretty close to where Eggman is at all times throughout the game. It wouldn't have been wise for Eggman to pull a heist on the ME until Knuckles was properly distracted.. which he was, when he was taking Spin Dashes to the face.
Robotnik has the EggRobos that can do the same job, as literally shown in the game in Knuckles' portion. Knuckles is an entire zone away in the opening, and even then Knuckles wasn't so distracted too latch onto the Master Emerald and Robotnik shocks him right off. It just doesn't track: even if Knuckles insisted Robotnik remain close at all times, just have an EggRobo grab it for him and get the Death Egg airborne, then fly off.
Eggman probably didn't think of it. Seems like a recurring bit in the games that he's one track minded to a fault. Put all his focus on killing Sonic, idk. It's not out of character for him to have not thought things through.
And there's the problem: the guy who built an army of robots and various airships, plus a Death Star, didn't think to finish his endgoal of getting the Master Emerald to the Death Egg before engaging Sonic, via a very simple solution of "get one of the robots to grab it while no one's looking." It makes him look like an idiot who would waste resources via constructing thrusters in lieu of a single robot to grab what he needs, rather than just someone who is being delayed by the fact he doesn't know where the damned thing is, and built a backup plan for Sonic's arrival (aforementioned thrusters) just in case... Still, this is why it's in the Unpopular Opinions thread.
I think the issue with the cutscene is that you have to headcanon or speculate your way out of it to justify Eggman not gunning for the Master Emerald immediately. I think that's why it doesn't work for some people. Maybe Knuckles put a blindfold on Eggman while leaving the Hidden Palace. Maybe he was going to get it after having the Death Egg on the air again and went for it after Sonic took it down again as a last resort. Maybe Knuckles was just that good so Eggman didn't have a chance till they fought. But again there's a little bit of disconnect between the ctuscene and then the events in Sonic's campaign. I get the feeling that they wanted the audience to get introduced to the Master Emerald and only had so much time to do it. Maybe they could've had Eggman meet Knuckles and see the ME in a new mural done for the animation or detect its energy through a radar and then just let the S&K cutscene be the introduction to the ME. But again, it's easier for me to have these ideas but not know what went on during production.
or, Eggman didn't know how he'd utilize the Master Emerald at first? it doesn't technically work the same as the Chaos Emeralds...
