Side note that Izuka removed the spindash from the game because play testers used it more than the boost. Perhaps there was more utility found from using the spindash? Or it could have just been easier to use than the boost, and maybe was a unbalanced mechanic that broke progression. Does someone have the exact quote Izuka said?
This is the first I've heard of this, seems like a pretty dumb reason if true. Maybe it was probably unbalanced? Ig if it could still damage enemies while maintaining speed?
Spin Dash is cooler than boost. That's it and that's all. Not Lost World's thought. You clowns go away.
I think it can work but it has to be extremely well balanced. In the context of Sonic Speed Simulator's Rebirth update, you have the spindash essentially as it was in Sonic Adventure, with the alteration of it using the same energy as the newly added boost. Both function as you would expect, but, boosting is more useful for gaining/keeping speed going uphill while spindashing/rolling is better for downhill. I don't think their implementation is particularly good because you can do some gravity defying stuff that's kind of unwanted but that's the basics of how it could be approached and I even think Kishimoto said that's how they did it in Frontiers before they axed it.
Watch me be edgy. The importance of rolling physics and the proclaimed depth it adds and the degree of exploration to Sonic's gameplay is massively overstated in the fandom. Let alone the overdemonizstion of spectacle. Most instances of rolling physics in the series were effectively used as a form of automation. *sips tea*
Importance of rolling physics overstated? Maybe. Importance of physics that uses slopes to influence characters’ speed and jump trajectory (that can be compounded by rolling)? Core to the game.
Physics are more about game feel than any really strict mechanical use. But game feel can be important too!
How is (for example) using the physics to get to a higher path in the level not strict mechanical use? What is your definition of game feel?
Vast majority of instances of it weren't core aspects of the game. There is never a point in the game where you have to or are expected to do any such thing to progress. It's conflating "the mechanics let me do X" for "the mechanics were designed to do X and X is the core point of the game". I'd be like saying the core point of Mario was using the Super Leaf to fly over ceilings to find Warp Whistles. Agreed, and I feel too much discourse loses sight of this. To the point of deeming entries in the series good or bad purely based on this frankly consequentia aspect of how the classics felt to play. Spectacle and automation aren't inherently bad and they don't stop being such or magically stop being such just because they are done with rolling physics. That's my hot take.
Being able to use the physics to get to a higher path (or sequence break or whatever) is exactly why rolling physics setpieces are different from automation. As in they aren't automated. Not to say that official 3D Sonic has ever properly managed it but that's exactly my problem with official 3D Sonic. And occasionally skipping a few seconds worth of level with a physics trick in Sonic is not at all the same thing as warping past whole worlds in Mario 3.
But like, we are simply not being honest claiming this is at all the vast majority of the application of rolling physics in the classics. The vast majority is it being used to have Sonic run/roll through set pieces and the player is punished for pressing anything by resulting in their interruption. Yea, you can exploit a lot of the games with it in ways that are fun but that isn't the same as intent of design, point or majority of the application. You can choose to skip scripted sections in other games. That's hardly evidence that doing so is an integral aspects of the design. I personally believe this dichotomy is criticizing the wrong thing.
I wonder if that's right at all, down to the definition of "set piece" you might be using. Sure, the point of Sonic isn't to exploit Sonic levels, that'd be something of a contradiction. But you'd be hard-pressed to point how the majority of the application of physics is to overcome a particular, scripted challenge, otherwise you'll be punished for interrupting it. I can think of maybe three levels across S1-S3&K that work like that most of the time (Chemical Plant, Flying Battery and Hidrocity), which are like 1/16 of their respective games. The S-Tube in Green Hill. Some sections in some other stages. But to say that's classic Sonic as a whole? Automation and spectacle? Definitely not the case. Labyrinth, Marble Garden, Hill Top and Sandopolis are just as "core" to Sonic as these stages and sections. And the fact that this punishment doesn't immediately amount to redoing said challenge, but being thrown into a lower path that notably doesn't facilitate any spectacle -- and these sections are the ones that make up most of your playtime as long as you're still learning how to play -- is a telltale sign that what you're construing as "set piece" is in fact just what a player draws across an area of a certain level, but the gameplay is a lot more organic than that. EDIT: whole point is, the vast majority of the application of rolling physics is you getting good enough at the game to be able to build up spectacle, and for that I'd say the importance of Sonic's wrong, inefficient motion play is, in fact, underplayed by us because 9 times out of 10 we're thinking as people who've played for years.
I...didn't say this. I said the majority of the application of the physics is for spectacle and automation. Slopes and such exist in Sonic primarily for smooth continuous movement as opposed to being "tools for physics manipulation". It usually doesn't even do the latter. It usually just results in the set piece being ruined or requiring the player backtrack in order to do it properly. Although there are cases where you just die from it like GreenHill Act 1. (Though that's more a case of programming limitations) though it suggest the devs never intended or expected the player to manipulate the physics in such a way in the first place but I digress. I would like an elaboration...given I hadn't made any explicit examples, it's odd you seem to have an idea in your head of what I am supposedly referring to that is supposedly inaccurate. I would say any section that starts with a wall spring, booster or steep hill the devs expect you to roll down into a loop of level gimmick that isn't even lethal is a set piece generally speaking. The starting loop in PalmTree Panic is a set piece for example. The Launcher Tunnels in Carnival Night that send you zooming over candy cane pipes are a set piece. etc.
This is simply untrue. I have to jump off a rolling physics setpiece in Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 to get to the upper path at all, and that's just one incredibly obvious example. The classics and even to some extent the 3D games seem clearly designed for you to sequence break. How would I get those goodies on top of that Speed Highway skyscraper just watching Sonic automatically skip past it on an adjacent loop-de-loop street? That's what SA1 Speed Highway's first automated setpiece is, after all. And yet I can jump off it at a certain moment to land on said skyscraper. Hate to be a Gamer about this but this does just kinda sound like a skill issue.
That's an interesting opposition. Because these aren't opposed. The smooth continuous movement is already physics manipulation, because there's nothing really guaranteeing you'll be rolling. You may or may not roll, and even if you do, the success you'll have that depends on where you started, and that in turn depends on the point in which you landed on the route. There are in fact so many variables that any time you attain smooth and continuous movement, it's because you manipulated the stage geometry in your favor. The stage won't, most of the time, do that for you. I honestly don't have a retort except "no, it generally does work like that". Take any map. What does "being ruined" entail? I mean, you're still there. Think Chemical Plant. If you, for whatever reason, don't get enough speed, you won't just die out of the blue. You just won't reach what yu might call the "intended" path, the the game goes on. The game is still running. You're, at worst, more vulnerable and might die exactly because you didn't have enough speed to skip some hazards. Since you're the one who's claiming the majority of the application works the way you say, I'm assuming any given example I bring up can be used as counterproof and, in a more general sense, since I can't really find good or enough examples of what you're describing, then we probably understand these concepts differently. Which we do, because I wouldn't call "any section that starts with a wall spring, booster or steep hill the devs expect you to roll down into a loop of level gimmick that isn't even lethal" a set piece. After all, I simply don't think "the devs expect you to roll down". The level accounts for it, but you'll generally progress even if you don't. I take "set piece" to mean any binary outcome event with a prescribed "correct" sequence of inputs. Like boss fights, or QTEs. But the outcome of most sections you're talking about aren't binary. They're not generally do-or-die, and if you decide to do them again, it's by your own volition, and there are steps you must take to do so that are very active -- and that sometimes depend on manipulating physics too! Like accessing higher routes, or earlier setpieces (re: your definition), so you can backtrack. Again, Sonic just... seems to me to be a lot more organic than what you're describing. I wouldn't call it a skill issue, but I do have the opposite experience too. In my experience, the less I wrestle for control by somehow "outsmarting" the stage, the more I actually just die. If I let the sequences take me wherever they're already headed to, I'll just end up where said sequences are no longer possible, and generally in a pinch, with few rings and more hazards all around. EDIT: in fact, isn't this where all "sonic sucks because it wants me to be fasts but i get punished for being fast" complaints come from? That's not to say there isn't any automation and spectacle in classic Sonic, just that... it tends to be sort of a soft trap. Spectacle that is made entirely by you styling on a stage is also the most efficient survival strategy, netting you rewards along the way. Speedruns aren't, by any means, the point of Sonic, but you'll notice they're the playthroughs in which the player actually encounters less problems.
Overstated or not, I think it would be wrong to suggest that the rolling physics (which, really, apply even while Sonic is running) are unimportant or don't add mechanical depth; they make for a very distinct sort of game feel and movement style among platforming games, and in turn facilitate some interesting platforming mechanics, intended or otherwise.
This one gets brought up everytime, it's frankly become a cliche. Nothing about that is an integral part of the game design. it's just something you can consequently due as a consequence of the physics. ...it really isn't. Me holding right up and down a hill or pressing down to roll on one to I reach the speed cap to make it through the set piece is about as much physics manipulation as holding the boost button in a modern game.... When I say "opposition" I do not mean the two concepts cannot exist in the same space. I am saying that the idea it is an integral part of the design is untrue in contrast to the former. Most of it is just the player rolling down a hill on the main path to watch Sonic roll through a set piece like most of Starlight Zone.... Most of everything else is people doing the equivalent of wavedashing in melee rather than engaging with actual integral aspects of the game design. Why? The whole point of those is just to watch Sonic run through a flashy section while you hold down or right. What else would one describe it as? This seems wishy-washy to me. The whole point of the section is flashy spectacle where you get to watch Sonic run/roll fast in a section where Sonic more or less can't do anything else of worth with very few exceptions. And these exceptions actually get less prevalent as the classics go on, suggesting instances are more consequential rather than intentional in most cases. This sounds more like a question of level layout knowledge than anything to do with the nature of the speed sections in classics being primarily just automated spectacle with more steps. I'm not particularly interested in arguing the latter statement because I don't think it has any real weight. The Ring system exists for a reason.
How is a mechanic reinforced by the level design not a part of the game design? Is it just that you think it's cliche to talk about or whatever?
I said it isn't a core part of the game design. It's just something you can do as a byproduct of the mechanics rather than a core part of the gameplay. Sonic isn't a game about manipulating physics. It just has em and you can do cool stuff with em. They didn't design Sonic around doing stuff like the Chemical plant act 2 water section skip. I question how much the devs even knew it was in the game. It's the only instance of that in the entire classic series. EDIT: Guess my post was edgier than even I expected.
I get what you're saying but you're fumbling on your point by making it strictly about the physics system. It's more of a level design issue and not the core movement mechanics. The way people love to describe the physics system in the old games makes it sound like a completely different game than what is actually presented. The games feel good because of it, but they never demand you to actually use it in any interesting ways. You're never presented with something like a puzzle that requires a knowledge check. I agree with you 100% on that. I don't think those knowledge checks are necessary for the game to be good, but people romanticize that aspect at a ridiculous level sometimes.
