I'm gonna admit I can't play the original Sonic 1 anymore because of the speed cad, spike bug and many other reasons, so I always play the 2013 version or a ROM hack lol.
So glad to see people with the same opinion, haha Sonic 1 might be slow paced and awkward in a few places, but it’s still an excellently designed platformer and a blast to play even to this day And then Sonic 2 is 50% "hold right and watch Sonic go brrrrrr" and 50% "the worst fucking zones in any classic Sonic game", and none of these things are particularly compelling to me. My personal ranking of the classics would be 3K>1>2>CD…sorry to all the 2 and CD fans out there, but they’re not on the same level as 3 and 1 imo
Same. As a matter of fact, if I had to choose one Sonic game to play casually, I'd probably choose Sonic 1 over any other Sonic game, bar Sonic 1 (MS) and maybe Sonic CD. It's as straightforward as it gets, so motion play becomes effortless and such a necessary part of playing it that you don't even notice you're doing it.
Inspired by the conversation happening in the Frontiers thread, but my final point is extremely not on topic for the Frontiers thread; and it seems to be an unpopular opinion, so posting here I don't really think that bringing back the Super Emeralds and Hyper Sonic would represent this shift towards power-scaling which would invite even more new forms, or whatever. At most I could see one more on top of that happening, but even that would be a stretch. The Chaos Emeralds get powered up by the Master Emerald. That's it. They have a close relationship with the Master Emerald, so it makes sense that one would be able to bolster the other. To justify subsequent forms, you'd need to beef the Chaos Emeralds up even more. How would you do that? I mean I can think of ways you might do that, but none of them seem as organic as with the Master Emerald, which already has a direct relationship with it. The Sol Emeralds are like their counterparts (?), so I guess if they wrote some shit like "the Super Emeralds fused with/absorbed the Sol Emeralds", they could get away with a new form. Beyond that? I really don't see it. The World Rings are in a story book and have no relation to the Chaos Emeralds, so there's no built-in organic reason for them providing further supplement. The fact that the new escalating forms would need to be tied to adding more shit to the Chaos Emeralds would serve a pretty adequate explanation for "why don't they always just do this?" Sol Emeralds are in another dimension. World Rings are in a story book. It wouldn't exactly be convenient. And the Master Emerald has been shattered twice, already. Easy insurance for making Super Emeralds more difficult for the heroes to use. And I don't want to hear about "but that would get repetitive" with a series about scientist man trapping animals and collecting gems (and sometimes awakening ancient evils) to make robots to take over the world. Mechanically, I especially don't see the issue. Thinking about it purely as it might be executed in a more traditional 2D game: in terms of gameplay loop, more "forms" would mean more rocks to collect, which would mean more optional pace-breaking side games for the player to indulge in (something I'd be more welcome to if they resembled Mania's special stages). Doubly so if the Master Emerald gets shattered and now you gotta get shards, too. Or maybe they can be scattered about the stages, maybe collecting them is necessary for the good ending, maybe the vanilla shield can be upgraded to act like a radar which blinks more the closer you are to them (making its inclusion less redundant alongside the elementals), facilitating exploration and more expansive level design. And on top of that, one thing that Hyper did that Super didn't, in 3&K: added another platforming ability to my platforming character in my platforming game. In terms of adding further mechanical OP-ness to a subsequent form above Hyper Sonic, go the extra mile: make him immune to crushing; give him access to the Egg Reverie-like flying state, and have him automatically enter it if he would fall into a bottomless pit.
I've already said in this thread that I think S2 is the worst of the classic games, and it's that way entirely by design. The time travel story wouldn't have fixed it; it needs some actual level design (I think Mystic Cave and Metropolis are the only two zones which do a decent job in this regard), completely different special stages, and no extensive unskippable cutscenes completely destroying the flow.
This is my issue with Sonic 2 and I am also of the mind that (most of?) the scrapped levels would have been just as dull. I am entirely aware that the interest in them is all in the "what could have been" and "grass is greener", but the game as designed is just so hold-right-to-win that it doesn't matter that we got Hill Top over Rock World or whatever. That said, I was genuinely surprised to see how much gimmickry would have been in Cyber-cide City thanks to the revealed maps. Maybe that would have actually been interesting. It's in this way that I kind of find the Advance games analogous to the Mega Drive games. Emphasis on "kind of". Sonic 3 didn't have worse physics than Sonic 1 or 2. Add me to the list of people who'll go back to Sonic 2 the least. There's nothing there. It's ironic that Chemical Plant Zone is my favorite zone in spite of everything I just said, though. Something about that zone hits the spot anyway. Oil Ocean is 2nd favorite, which is the real unpopular opinion. The rest of the game I want nothing to do with, so it's not worth playing through for all of two zones. Mania has both of those zones which makes original retail Sonic 2 obsolete. Let me also add that Remaster!Hidden Palace Zone also looks really interesting to me, save for the boss and the fact that its ridiculously short, but I never played it. It's not kosher with Sonic 2's usual level design and fits more with 3/CD's but that's what gets my attention. I'd probably love most of it.
As someone who agrees that 2 is maybe the "sloppiest" of the classics (CD might take that cake depending on my mood though), I don't at all see how half the game is hold right to win. I could see that (somewhat disingenuously) applying to EHZ, CPZ and maybe even ARZ a bit. But past that? Yeah no holding right isn't going to work at all. Ask little kid me who was usually hard filtered by HTZ wanting you to do actual platforming and a bit of exploration. Really the only zone that drags hard is the obvious clunker Metropolis but I find even that zone can be pretty fun by just expanding Sonic's moveset like what's done in Origins, or in my case Sonic 2 CC. The instashield makes those crabs a breeze and the drop dash adds a lot of needed momentum to act 2. I guess my relevant hot take here is that 2D Sonic feels incomplete with just the roll and spin dash IMO. Oh! Oh! I have an actual hot take! Sandopolis Act 2 is one of the best acts in 3&k, at least with Sonic. All the block pushing segments are skippable and I just love the almost light horror sense of tension you get with both the ghosts, the descending doors and the quicksand all compounded. It might be that the level just so happens to be attuned to my odd preferences but I think Sonic levels could more often give you explicit, tense reasons to go fast. It just gives me a jolt that other levels don't.
I seem to remember a while ago *maybe like 10ish years or so* gimmicks were considered a bad thing. I've always seen Sonic as a platformer with speed, not a racing game with platforming. So gimmicks to challenge you to learn individual levels are my favorite parts of Sonic games, they make each level more memorable. I won't be radical and say Sonic 2 is bad, far from it, but Sonic 2 is my least played of the main 4 simply because there isn't really anything special about it other than going really fast and maybe the final 3 zones. So count me as one of the weirdo's that likes Sonic 1 more than 2.
“Hold right to win” is a terrible phrase that completely and disingenuously simplifies any Sonic game that it’s used to refer to. I wish I could wish it out of existence.
Yeah, I WISH some levels could be that simple. Beyond GHZ Act 1 that's not really a thing, if you ask me. My graduating year in high school, I remember this freshman chiming into a conversation I was having with a friend and saying "Sonic was the most pointless game ever. Swear, like you all you do is just go right and win". I shook my head and thought "which version have YOU been playing?". I remember thinking it can't be Sonic 2 but it MUST be Sonic 2, because even for being the most popular title in the classic franchise, let some people tell it, that was the ONLY installment worth discussing — so like what game was he referring to and what kind of platformer-god or total drama King is this guy? xD Anyway... Speaking of level design, someone up above gave a little bit of props to HTZ and honestly, as redundant as it was compared to EHZ, I have to agree. That as well as Oil Ocean, in my opinion, kind of gives you just a taste of that exploration that was to come with S3/&K. I can see where they were TRYING to do this with MCZ, but I feel they relied too heavily on death gimmicks with that one. Between trying to avoid getting crushed or pecked from above by those Godawful centipedes, it was a perpetual parade of spikes which were either creeping up on you while you attempt to make a jump or a springboard would pelt you face first into them (that happens, right? I haven't played this fucking level in so long. If it doesn't, it might as well). Then of course we can't forget the generous serving of leaps of faith with a side order of jumping literally feet first into the abyss lol. Even after I finally 'gaht gud', the whole thing still felt like one giant death trap. It was both clever and terrible at the same time. Metropolis might've been a smidgen less aggravating had you not gone through all that nonsense two zones earlier. I trusted very little in this game after that "infamous drop" in MCZ lmao.
Mystic Cave is also significantly breezier with the drop dash, easy to zip under the centipedes with it. Kinda don't like the boss with the RNG stalactites. Not hard per se but the ideal strategy of wiggling back and forth is pretty lame.
Here's one I've been knocking around in my brain for quite some time. This concerns the Sonic 3 Complete hack. Yes, I'm going there. At least just this once. Before that hack came out, I really wanted the Sonic 3 & Knuckles title screen to just show 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' without the '& Knuckles ' because I always thought that looked weird and tacky. Then, the Sonic 3 Complete mod by Tiddles and co. came out to much fanfare and it removed the '& Knuckles' from the title screen...as it should. Great. But then, I changed my mind and wanted the '& Knuckles' back on the title screen but would rather play Sonic 3 Complete than the original locked-on game. I think one day I just thought to myself...'everyone refers to it as Sonic 3 & Knuckles anyway that the title itself has its own legacy and even has been used as a meme. Maybe it actually would be cool to include it but playing Sonic 3 Complete eliminates it fully.' All in all though, it's still the only way I play that game even if that hack was discontinued ages ago. I'll get around to A.I.R. eventually but I am super big on real Mega Drive/Genesis hardware for what it's worth so I'm slow to move on to much else.
Even though I said MCZ and MZ were the standouts, I can't help but agree with "both clever and terrible at the same time". OOZ does start to lean into the S3K design philosophy but it lacks any clear direction and it's so easy to get lost in; it does have cool gimmicks though and I can see why it was one of the zones Mania used. I can't agree with HTZ though. It literally starts with a bottomless pit as its first obstacle, and is almost as linear as Marble Zone without the interesting platforming challenges, and don't get me started on having to wait a year for the ground to rise if you decide to take the upper of the two routes through HTZ2... I will say though, it's definitely the cooler EHZ.
I do agree Hill Top Zone is cooler than Emerald Hill Zone. I used to not like Hill Top Zone's music but then a girl I dated while I was a teenager named Shinequa was really, really into the Hill Top Zone music and I changed my mind after that. She bought a SEGA Genesis because she loved that level and its music so much. My biggest complaint about Hill Top Zone is the way the lava keeps 90° square edges when it rises above the ground. It looks weird as hell.
Frontiers is something that interests me only on the merits of what it could evolve into than me really enjoying the game. Talking about the actual game and not possible good future games, I found the game boring as well. I dont really care for the empty realistic landscapes (most of which look the same) with it's bland puzzles, bland combat, and bland automated "zone" level design shoehorned into it. Everything feels like it's fighting for your attention too and I personally don't care for it either. The most fun thing in the game for me is rail launching. It's brings a new use to rails that benefits from Boosting. Ever since they took away everything interesting about rails in SA2 it became a rail switch spectacle tool than a level design element. There isn't any real level design value to it (In this game) that rewards experimentation like say spin dash jumping in Classic/Adventure, but it is enjoyable to do.
