Unpopular Sonic Opinions

If those things are "crutches", I'm not sure what exactly the games are supposed to look like without them. A normal platformer except with a really high top speed? Sounds frustrating.

 

Those aren't crutches. That's actual fucking thought out game design to make the gameplay actually work. Your dream game exists and it sucks.

 

A game where taking damage has consequences to discourage careless play but is not overly punishing, and where avoiding taking damage does not involve memorization, slowing down, or the use of systems and abilities that are either debatably unbalanced or cripple you, but just simply good reflexes and precision (particularly precise timing)

Honestly, I have no idea how to achieve that, especially in a 2D platformer. I just know these solutions to the problem and the solutions to the problems these solutions create aren't exactly ideal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Eh, I used to care a lot more about this type of nonsense than I currently do. Mostly because I use to care a lot more about what other's think about Sonic than I currently do. But now, I actually like (Classic) Sonic again, so believe it or not, I really don't care that much at all, even if this is still how I view things. The source of the change?

I used to go out of my way to speedrun Classic Sonic very rarely, if at all. Without a ranking system or other objective to reach out for in time attacking, and with the knowledge that Classic Sonic games have so many paths to consider and route your way through, I just did not have any motivation to bother with this.

But relatively recently I finally decided to give seriously speedrunning a Classic Sonic game a shot, and my opinion of the playstyle, at least as executed in Mania (the game I tried it with, and a game I actually like now), has changed considerably.

I no longer care what the experience of just "beating" Classic Sonic games, getting a good ending, or even playing a level so many times that you can make it flow and take little to no damage is. I don't care what that experience is, because that's not how you get the most out of these games or come close to uncovering how fun they can truly be anyway. If that's how people want to play, and they find the game either frustrating or not that satisfying because of it, my attitude now is honestly, "Who cares?"

It is now my view you have not actually played Classic Sonic unless you've taken up the attitude of grinding replays of these levels over and over again, trying to get through as quickly as possible, not being satisfied with a run until you nail it all. That's where the real satisfaction comes from. And for that?

I am perfectly fine if they just leave everything as it is. Just give me an instant restart mechanic like what's in Mania's time attack mode, and have level design fun enough to make this worthwhile, and that's honestly all I need anymore.

A sentiment that isn't uncommon, but I only now agree with.

 

(this is not intended to be a response to the above post)

I think people overstate the importance of both flow and speed in Sonic.

For me, the core gameplay loop of the ideal Sonic game boils down to:

• Level design encourages the player to move in a specific way, or go in a specific direction
• The player uses the movement tools at their disposal to go a different way, and is rewarded with powerups/big rings/emblems/etc.

Think of the many times in Sonic 3 where you get a shield or something if you jump over a horizontal spring placed against a wall. The game usually leads you towards hitting the spring, but you're rewarded for jumping over it and slamming into the back of the secret alcove behind it.

Doing things like this all the time requires a lot of stopping and turning around, which breaks both flow and speed. So I don't think either of those are essential to my Sonic experience. Any setpiece-like 'fast sections' are fun for me to navigate around, but not quite as much fun to just run through.

I dunno. I play a lot more methodically than most people do, looking at the level the same way I imagine a playtester would, trying to 'break the flow' as much as possible and see what happens. (Count me as another Sandopolis fan.)

 

Interesting how all of this is diametrically opposed to everything I would like to see in Sonic. I see little merit in designing a game with speedrunning in mind since speedrunning is, by essence and definition, defiant of a game's "normal" behavior. So it's always on the player to do it. I like doing certain stages a fat as possible, and I like pulling off stunts like jumping from curved platforms at weird angles to reach other platforms. But I honestly can't see how damage has no consequence while you're beating the game. You can't actually mellow mode your way out of Sonic, because you will end up dying. You'll learn to look for safeguards around you and then you'll learn how to use Sonic's skills. It works pretty well actually. A game like Super Meat Boy maybe fulfills what you seem t be looking for, and maybe Sonic could go that way and make a good game out of it... but then we're talking about different frameworks altogether.

As a fellow Sandopolis fan, I agree a lot! Breaking flow and speed is essential to attaining flow and speed. I just don't think of these as rewards. A shield only has value insofar as you think you're in danger. You'll hardly get out of your way to collect rings if you already have 200 of them, but you probably will if you're on the verge of dying. From my pint of view, "normal" Sonic flow isn't fast at all, and you'll die more often than not. So you break the flow not because you'll be rewarded, but because you absolutely have to, otherwise you'll die again. I see backtracking, changing paths, pulling off neat tricks and looking for secrets as survival tools first and foremost, as a necessity brought up by the game.

 

Sonic wasn't originally as just "blazing through the zones" as it may seem to be nowadays.
It was a platformer, set to incite the player to explore, to find the best route throughout each act and hone your skills to be rewarded with both speed and gifts as you progressed.

Given his profile bio, fans might've gotten very into the "speedrunning each game" portion of it, and Sonic Team ended up going that way too as time went on.
SA1, for example, might've been the last game to follow the original formula, rewarding speed and gifts by controling and guiding Sonic the best way possible throughout a stage.

All this, not forgetting the player's satisfaction for getting better and better at the game ^^

 

You're talking about the exploration playstyle of Sonic. I lop this in with "getting the good ending" style of playing Sonic, perhaps because in games like 3K and Mania this is how you find big rings and stuff.

I used to be really into this, and I still think it's a good element to have and build levels around (Though you'll never see me praising Sandopolis with it's slow elevator sections and push mechanics). It's just something not AS relevant to what I now view to be the most fun and engaging ways to play these games.

But you can have level design and general design that caters to both playstyles. In fact, this is exactly what Mania does from my experience so far.

From what I've read in interviews, I thought this is one of the things that Sonic was supposed to basically be about originally. Replaying levels (read the entire game) until you get better at it and learn the layouts so as to get through them faster. That this was the true basis of Sonic's speed. Am I remembering wrong?

It's one of the things the Mania team did as well from what I've read in interviews.

I honestly don't really agree, but I'm not pushing that.

This is part of what speedrunning is and what I mean by it.

My issue with this is how "controling and guiding Sonic the best way possible throughout a stage" means skipping almost everything with spamdashing and spamdash jumps.

I am all for speed not necessarily being the end goal, but merely a tool used to reach stuff easier/faster in the exploration playstyle, or perform skips, reach better paths and stuff in the speedrun style. (As I say all the time, going fast, even super fast to where you shooting past the screen, does not in itself do anything for me in Classic Sonic anymore.) But if the way of using speed as a tool doesn't actually require that much effort and precision, and speed as a tool is so powerful it basically breaks the game, I don't really agree with that...

...and that is exactly what happens in SA1 from my experience.

The only appeal this really has is when your first discovering new ways to use speed. But when you have figured that stuff out, you're only left with the fun of execution. And if the execution doesn't really call for much, eventually as you keep replaying these levels...

Eh, I really wonder if I want to go down that road again.

 

You're going to have to be more specific. Do you mean this?


Or this?


I mean, I still agree with you on either front here.

Spoiler: Best Labyrinth

 

Labyrinth Zone is a chill as fuck zone and I always enjoy my time in it. Can't get mad at the stage when it has such a banger theme.

 

I love Classic Heroes cause I can just switch to Tails in Labyrinth and it instantly becomes so much better. Same with Knuckles in Marble Zone. Origins kinda fixes this too but I wanna be Sonic the rest of the time.

 

People often think I'm crazy because Labyrinth Zone is my fave zone in Sonic 1. It always has been. I am glad I am in good company here.

 

i listen to the us soundtrack of sonic cd more than the japanese one

at first it was because i wanted to get used to hearing it, but i actually like it a lil more

this is gonna sound douchey sorry but the jp soundtrack feels superficial, like every dork on twitter knows about stardust speedway bad future.
but the real big brained kids can appreciate some of the more lesser known tracks, and the us soundtrack as a whole. mostly because i feel the us soundtrack has more.... soul???? i guess

people loove to hate MM GF US but i prefer it because it got that atmosphere(a word you hear alot when people talk abt the us soundtrack), unlike the JP one which is just happy af with no inner meaning but idk

 

SS GF US probably is one of the best songs in the game.

 

Despite the entire JP soundtrack being legendary I think US might be more fitting in-game. The lonely guitar weeping in Collision Chaos US evokes the atmosphere of being alone and stuck in a badnik-addled pinball city after your gf just got kidnapped much better than the groovy, punchy synths of the JP version. And I just love the boss music and how much it still freaks the internet out lmao. Certainly sends a tingle down your spine for the impending boss despite WORK DAT SUCKA TO DEATH being easier to headbang to. Stardust Speedway BF actually sounds like a race and IMO you generally 'feel' the weight of the bad futures harder with the US soundtrack. And need I even mention Sonic Boom? I think there's something to be said about how well-suited US can really be and yeah the ports/remakes seem to have somewhat obfuscated it compared to JP.

No past music or unique final boss theme are its only real blunders but in the former case it was nice to still get a taste of JP before the remakes. Also an arguable issue is that some of the Good Futures maybe don't sound particularly 'good' but I myself appreciate the unintentional layer of ambiguity.

 

The US soundtrack does bring out something very special about Sonic CD that the JP soundtrack kinda doesn't do: most songs in the US soundtrack feel desolate, idyllic or eerie somehow, which works with a game that feels lonely, so very lonely.

In the Past, you're either thrown into a time so distant there couldn't possibly be anyone there or to a time when there is stuff being built, but you don't see anyone building it. Both the good future and the bad future have mechanisms working as intended, but you can't quite see what for, since even the badniks are worn down in the Bad Future, and you can't really grasp what kind of future the Good Future is. It's all just pretty (or ugly) by itself, and works for itself.

 

I like this explanation for why the US Good Futures have a sometimes ambiguous sound. Like the sense of celebration is awkward and fleeting since Sonic is now in a timeline that he doesn't understand or have any actual purpose in, unlike the one before that he just worked so hard to change.
But yeah I don't think most nowadays come to classic Sonic for a sense of ambiguity lol. They (understandably) want the music to be catchy foremost like the other games which JP gives them.

 

Exactly how i feel (except it isn't poorly written)

 

Many US Sonic CD tracks don't tonally match the graphics on screen. There's too much of a disparity between what the music is doing and what the game is. I'll always say that the US soundtrack has some nice tracks in isolation, but not as part of the game itself. I still think half the US tracks are straight up boring and forgettable. I couldn't live without JP Stardust Speedway Present lol.