If a full Adventure remake is in play, here's how I'd structure it: Station Square/Mystic Ruins are sort of like Unleashed's hubs - small, but fun to sort of just mess around in, talk to people, and buy upgrades. They lead to the levels The hubs have entrances to zones (e.g. Emerald Coast, Speed Highway). The zones are like the maps in the DS version of Colors: two main acts, two missions, and a boss. Each act should take between 3-6 minutes. You've got the option to skip the sub-games if you don't feel like playing them (e.g., you don't have to do Sky Chase twice if you don't want to) It might be a bit much, but I think it'd be cool if every character went through every stage, but with different layouts. This is actually one of the few areas that '06 actually succeeded in IMO; each level was tweaked enough so it didn't feel like you were going through it over and over again. Then after beating the levels, you unlock Time Attack (where you get rankings like S, A, B, etc.). You get emblems by completing the missions or other stage objectives. I think Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles as-is are completely fine abilities and control-wise (I actually think Knuckles is the best after Sonic, partially because I like collect-a-thons). Amy feels too heavy and doesn't have much momentum, and Gamma just needs more stage variety. I would REALLY be interested in Big if they made his gameplay some sort of wacky Werehog-esque beat 'em up that involved his fishing pole and obesity. That'd be really clever and hilarious to see him bouncing all over the place like a rubber ball. And then... bosses should all be unique and tailor-made for each character. I hated having to fight Chaos 4 three times. Do all this, include the original Adventure as an unlockable bonus, and you'll have an instant 10/10 in my book.
I don't mind the levels being quick, SA2's sluggish level gameplay got on my nerves. Most good Sonic levels are able to speedrun through, but the key is that the player must have mastered the game to be remotely able to do that. Some of SA1's levels DO follow that suit (especially Sonic and Amy's) but others feel far too short or empty. Knuckles and Gamma's early levels in particular feel patronising (despite the openness making them fun) while Tails more or less just cheeses a small portion of Sonic's. Only Big's last level has anything leading up to the fishing pool. To me Sonic's levels are about the right size, they just need to stream together better, that awkward cut between loading sections made sense in the Dreamcast era, but as shown in Generations' Speed Highway, this can be done away with now, making it a more fluid experience. Do the same to the Adventure Fields, merge all the segments of each one together and also add a bit more gameplay field to take advantage of the player's abilities, like maybe Tails can fly up roofs, or Sonic can rush up buildings or jump on window sills. The main problem with hub world gameplay is that it's not very fun, just bland walking from cutscene to cutscene until you finally reach a level, with none of the six character's abilities changing how you go through it. While Next Gen was largely a downgrade, I do think it shown how to tune up these areas pretty well. The hub worlds and character specific pathways feel better implemented a lot of the time, even if they still used crappier gameplay.
What I think would be a fresh of breath air and would be pretty interesting is Modern Sonic going into Classic Sonic’s world, where modern still has boost, but more complex levels and completely 16-bit and 2d. I think the problem with doing this, though, is cutscenes... But do we really care about the cutscenes anymore? The writing in them is mediocre to irritating.
SA1's stages are already split into acts. Of course, they could (and should) be expanded further, but it was SA2 that finally abandoned act structure, though both it and Heroes keep weird offshoots of it somewhat and even Shadow baaaaaaaaaaarely does and then it got completely left behind by 06. ...you know, actually, the series never truly got rid of the idea of acts, now that I think about it.
I'm 100% sure that the only reason Heroes doesn't technically have two act zones is so they could brag about 14 GINORMOUS LEVELS! or whatever in their marketing. Having 7 2-act zones doesn't allow for that and would make Sonic Team come off as lazy. Of course they could have cut the other 3 teams to focus strictly on Team Sonic and make more levels, but then that would just mean more Sonic Heroes, so that wouldn't actually be better.
Truth be told I think SA1 did a better job moderating the level amount and length than SA2 and Heroes did, at least for Sonic. Those later games had so much enforced fake longevity in them, bland interchangeable routes that just went on and on and loads of puzzles that felt more to waste your time. Stuff to make you THINK the game was huge when it was just time consuming and tedious. Say what you will about SA1's Sonic stages, but they rarely ever felt boring. They tended to go on for as long as they needed and the 'act' structure and area changes meant that time was usually fresh and enjoyable. At this point I think the bigger issue with Sonic's levels is the buggy gameplay and gimmicks that, characteristic of SEGA, were made too early for their time (Sky Deck especially) BOTH of which can now easily be fixed. Other than that it's the arguable case there isn't enough of them (though 10 multi 'act' levels plus several minigames and bosses is good in terms of a 'classic' Sonic game), and again adding levels would have to be done delicately, either by abiding by original plans or by improving the original's flow instead of deviating from it (I wouldn't be surprised if Sand Hill was meant to be a full level at some point for example, or maybe a final Crisis City type level within flooded Station Square). I mean Sonic's story is kinda artificially lengthened as it was, Speed Highway, as iconic as it is, is pretty much a padding level that doesn't progress the plot in any way.
They advertise it like that because they know trying to find every robot generator and projector and every stage without a guide would be equivalent to beating sonic 1 three times
I think like most games, things probably got chipped away for deadline and budgetary concerns. They had this grand idea for 6 characters and 6 stories and 6 different styles of play, but Amy only got 3 levels - that feels like a compromise. Some levels could be inserted into each character's campaign with the mildest of story tweaks. In Tails' campaign, after Froggy swallows the Chaos Emerald he could run into the Lost World pyramid, instead of Sand Hill. Bosses too - maybe you could actually fight Chaos 1 this time? Maybe Mecha Sonic and Metal Sonic could be freed from their capsules? Adding optional levels, unlockable from the hub areas, might be an approach worth taking as well. Using Tails as an example, you wouldn't have to play Emerald Coast to progress through his story, but it would still be accessible by the hotel pool. Maybe you find a rare Chao egg at the end of these optional levels? And should Tails' levels still be bite-sized snippets of Sonic's levels? There's so much in the game that can be expanded upon and modified in ways that feel natural. Maybe they could bring back the Sonic Adventure 2 style split screen (and online) multiplayer? Sonic vs Metal Sonic, Gamma vs Beta, Knuckles vs Metal Knuckles, Tails vs Cream, Amy vs Honey, Big vs Bark. It was split into sections where new assets had to be loaded, but it was still a single level. I'm talking about having two Emerald Coast levels, two Speed Highway levels, etc.
In terms of expanding Tails' levels I can think of two key openings. One is that Tails' game starts you off in Emerald Coast, though skips after a quick cutscene. They could easily have something like a backwards trek race through the level, which if anything would be a cooler 'expert' turn on Sonic's run concept that most of his levels (admittedly it might not be the best take for a starting level to get equipped to Tails, so I can see maybe why they didn't go for that, but then again the starting point instead is a BOSS battle). Sand Hill always strikes me as a level that didn't get completed so got trimmed down into a minigame (there's even an unused 'desert' level placement in the game's memory which I wouldn't be surprised if it was meant to be Sand Hill's platform section). Turn Sand Hill into a race for Froggy, likely against one of the other E-Series who are conveniently looking for him round about the same time in the game. In terms of adding new levels I think it would have to be added delicately to still keep in tone with the game. Mostly levels that were planned in beta stages, or if they DO make new concepts, ones that flow the story together better rather than redirecting it. I could see a Launch Base type level for the Egg Carrier working well for example, maybe that's where that unused door in Final Egg was supposed to lead, branching them together. One segment could be the swamp base where it first launches (likely for Big and Knuckles to reach) and another could be its crash site made of debris streaming from the jungle to the ocean (likely where Amy and Gamma would reach near the end of their story). Such a concept would definitely be beneficial for Amy, not only giving her relevant extra level but streaming some of her hub searching together better, giving her a reason to reach Final Egg while also having more between the trekking from cutscene to cutscene. And again a Crisis City level in flooded Station Square where Sonic has to reach Tikal and Perfect Chaos before facing him would make a cool build up and break up the excess slog of cutscenes in the final story. As for level expansion I admit that's where things get complicated. One cool way around it I suppose is doing what SA2 did and adding more missions. Maybe the 'hard mode' mission for Tails could be a longer fuller run of each level. I'd love multiplayer to be included into SA1, though I admit I only see certain gameplay styles working in multiplayer in full, largely the ones that were such in SA2. Actually the sandbox Adventure Fields add even more potential for multiplayer, imagine E-Series battle mode in them.
It's interesting how this year we got two different approaches to remakes that a potential Sonic Adventure remake could follow: Resident Evil 3 and Final Fantasy VII. Both criticized for markedly different things, the former for cutting content and being too short, and the latter for creating content for its own sake and needlessly padding out the experience. If we did cut all the "fluff" out of SA1, you'd get people complaining about cutting content and the game only being like 4 hours long (Why did they cut Big the Cat? He was integral to the experience!). Expand them all into their own sections and you get people complaining that the pacing is poor. (God, why didn't they cut Big the Cat, he's so boring to play!) I'd just have a core package of Sonic, Tails & Knuckles with the other characters as eventual DLC campaigns. And then you piss off the "They cut content and sold it back as DLC" crowd. Eh, can't win em all. (If only Classic Sonic was DLC for Forces, then I could choose to never play it.)
Am I the only one who honestly gives zero shits about the Chao Gardens in SA1/2? Surely I'm not. It certainly wasn't what I bought Sonic Adventure for, the things are the anti-thesis of what you'd expect from a Sonic title. They also likely wouldn't have even existed had Tamagotchis not been a thing at the time of release, which they certainly aren't now. (and for those about to chime in with "but a change of pace!!!11one" - you could just play another video game if you want something drastically different.)
Couldn't agree more. They're a neat little distraction, but they ultimately have nothing to do with the main game and the game would hardly change if they're removed. Of course, purists and critics will lose their minds if Sonic Team removes anything from an Adventure remake, even if it's crap that no one likes and Sonic Team provides a really good rationale to remove it. I mean, I imagine that if they remove Amy, it'll go down like this:
I'm not really sure if removing stuff actually improves the game much, streamlining is one thing but taking something out completely is making the game less than the sum of its parts. I'd rather they just tried to make it GOOD. Taking it out and throwing it away feels like just giving up. The sad thing is that Amy feels like an element they put work into, while she only has three levels, they're fully designed and have tons of mechanics built around her. Hell she plays the longest version of Hot Shelter, the one level Sonic doesn't play, as well as the one minigame that Sonic and Tails don't access. I generally think making Amy work requires only mild tweaks (eg. making her faster, and even then only mildly such, hardly to a degree she plays just like Sonic). Even Big can be adjusted to be more enjoyable. I think that was the appeal of Sonic Adventure, the selection. If you didn't like something or wanted to change of pace, you could just pick something else in the game (even if you'd lose out on unlocking the odd extra, but at least it's not like SA2 where the other character levels are mandatory just to play another level of Sonic's game). i loved that kid in a candy store type feel about SA1, even the weirder campaigns and minigames were fun to drift in and out with at whim.
I don't actually want them to remove Amy; I was just using her as an example. I do think that the vast majority of Amy's issues relate to her controls which would be easily fixable.
Admittedly some of her momentum seems really erratic and odd based on slopes and terrain. Like she goes WAY faster when going UP a slope. It's almost like they programmed her stats into the wrong entries. I know some modding programs can fiddle with these stats, I wonder if a solid Amy can be made just by switching some of them around.
If I recall correctly, Dude made some nice edits to Amy's physics in his Sonic RDX hack, making her a bit floatier than usual. EDIT: Couldn't find video of it; maybe it was a different hack? Either way, I think that floaty, acrobatic gameplay suits Amy more than simply "faster" gameplay. There is already precedent of this in moves like her Hammer Jump.
yeah, come to think of it, I always had a lot of fun with her crazy hammer jump. Maybe instead of just having her run around very...slowly...and use a questionable pick up mechanic to do puzzles, hers can be solely platform-based, using verticality and similar. Her being slower means that she'd be easier to control for those, like with how she made Sonic Advance extremely trivial, and you can redesign Zero to be a floating robot slowly chasing her throughout the stage, as a time pressure. They put Chao in TSR and had an animated short about them because most people who grew up with the games miss them. Removing them can and will piss off the many Sonic fans who mainly care about Adventure for the Chao Garden first and the gameplay second. What they can do is make it completely optional. I don't even mean just not having emblems tied to Chao Races or such, I mean also, when you pick up animals, have them count as points at the end of the level (a la the flickies in Sonic 3D maybe?) and then have them automatically stored offscreen like the rings are, as opposed to the animal bar at the bottom inherently bugging you from level to level (and have to make go away by going to the garden) about the feature you don't want to mess with.
The chao are already optional. Just because there are emblems for chao races, etc. doesn't mean you have to do it. I would be irked if the emblems were removed in a remake. The only thing I think they should really consider making optional in a potential remake is Big's story.
That's easier said than done. Everyone loves Big. You guys keep forgetting that there's more to a good video game than the core mechanics... What if it's been the camera's fault all along? Heck, what if they turned the whole game into a 2D game? Yes, even the fishing sections. I know what you're thinking. They first have to nail down the controls. But over the years fans got used to them, so why not just streamline some of the design? Is it really necessary to do the exact same thing again? Probably not, 'cause this time there's no Dreamcast. Technically, there's no holding back! All this led me to think that there is no right way to remake SA1. Big's story could work in a similar fashion to the Chao Gardens from SA2 and Amy's sections play from a top-down perspective, no one would give a damn as long as they don't mess up the characters. What if they turned Gamma's story into a short film of some sort?
