What approach should 3D Sonic take next?

I don't disagree with you. SA2 marked an absolutely extreme change in everything from tone to level design to music, and is the source of the game design philosophy that underpins basically every 3D game afterwards (yes, even the boost games, only to a lesser extent). I only mentioned SA2 there because it at least retained the physics and engine of SA1, even if the level design was drastically constricted and automated. Then heroes came along and the games stopped having even the pretension towards classic-ish physics that the Adventure titles had. At this point, the only real thing that's left is differing jump heights depending on slope angle.

 

Rails and Grinding is one of SA2's capital sins xD
But yes, SA2, while a follow-up to SA1, was a radical departure of the Classic Formula, in my opinion.

 

The absolute irony with rails and grinding in Adventure 2 is that they were arguably, to-date, one of the few (if not the only) 3D game mechanics introduced that were actually influenced by momentum physics. You could actually build/lose speed when grinding downhill/uphill rails, and whatever speed you had going in was maintained when grinding and kept going out.

Then Heroes came along and threw all of that out of course, and the fixed speeds in that title set the standard for later games...

 

See, this is why you're one of the good ones, Frostav. xD The ability to acknowledge the flaws, or at least the _history_, of the things you like, and find common ground with other fans, the ability to try to see WHY they like the parts of the series you don't, instead of digging your heels in and insisting that whatever you like is the One True Ideal and anybody would be a fool for liking anything different... I've been feeling pretty bummed about the fandom lately, and I needed a reminder that most of us really AREN'T like that.

But yeah, I agree completely. The trend running through 3D Sonic games, with the _arguable_ exception of 06 and Lost World, has been a toward easy momentum. It's gotten easier and easier to GO FAST:

• SA1 had a spammable spindash, and the introduction of splines and boost pads.
• SA2 made SPEED HIGHWAY the backbone of the game design with more linear, execution-focused stage layouts.
• Heroes turned Sonic's controls into a slippery mess by making him EVEN FASTER, and rarely gave you interesting things to do WITH that speed.
• 06, at least in SOME stages, brought back the more open-ended level design of Adventure, but y'know... it was 06. As if it was insecure about the rest of the game being Too Slow, it also attempted automatic high-speed segments, and we all know how that turned out.
• Unleashed brought back the speed-focused gameplay of SA2 and went ALL-IN on it. The bounce bracelet became the stomp, the abundance of speed boosters and mostly-linear stages were back, and Sonic has a MUCH wider range of movement abilities (drifting, wall-jumping, high-speed dodges with L and R, etc etc). The boost gameplay was plucked from Sonic Rush, ensuring that NOTHING COULD STOP YOU, and while future games would tweak this (Colors simplified this system and was more platformy, Generations featured shorter stages, but more complex, tightly-packed level design and alternate paths, Forces... uh, was the "hold right to win" of the boost formula), this is where 3D Sonic has been ever since.

The thing is, I've never thought of this as a BAD thing. Sonic's speed is the most famous thing about him, obviously, and it makes a LOT of sense to make that the focus of his 3D design, when the perspective and technology can CONVEY that speed to such a great extent. My dream game when I was a kid was something that would let me BE Sonic in CD's intro, and a great 3D Sonic game gives me that. Tearing down the building in Speed Highway, drifting across the water in Dragon Road, leaping through an asteroid belt and running on the rings of Saturn in Asteroid Coaster, tricking off downhill ramps in City Escape... it's a spectacle that gets more spectacular the more I play it and the better I get, and there is NOTHING else out there even remotely like it.

With that said, I can appreciate that striking the right balance here is going to mean different things to different people. I'll always maintain that SA2 has a WHOLE lot more in common with Unleashed than it does SA1, but SA2 wasn't as PURELY focused on speed, and that made it easier to design emblem missions, hide secrets, and vary the tempo of individual stages. Unleashed and Generations take everything I'd loved about SA2 and do it _even better_, but I can see why that wouldn't be true for everybody.

I think a 3D take on the Genesis formula is LONG overdue at this point, and I'd love to see it. But 3D Sonic never necessarily HAD to follow the same rules as 2D Sonic, and there's nothing at all wrong with giving the player near-unlimited access to that superpower as long as the game is designed well around it.

 

Giving the player near-unlimited access to super speed isn't wrong in itself, but it hurts when you're building games of that style in a genre that doesn't support it. Something like Unleashed or Generations would likely hold up pretty well if your competitors were in the vein of Need for Speed and Mario Kart, and could probably even be considered a unique, underrated contender in that realm. But they're being sold as the answer to games like Mario Galaxy 2, Banjo-Kazooie, and the original Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon trilogies. In the realm of 3D platformers (whether you pick sandbox or linear 3D), they're considered to be rather lacking in a lot of crucial design principles in the genre, and it can be argued that the focus on speed in their design is a major reason as to why they fall short against those titles.

It also hurts when the original games that helped launch the series weren't derived in that super-speed style to begin with. So while Sonic never had to follow the same rules of the 2D games for a 3D game; I'd imagine that for a lot of people, a game like that is still something they would love to have more than anything else. "A 3D take on the Genesis formula" should had never been overdue to begin with IMO.

At some point Nintendo finally recognized that while the newer, more linear 3D games like the Galaxy and Super Mario 3D series were successful and they have their fans, there still existed a demographic who were longing for the older sandbox games like 64 and Sunshine made years ago. They finally returned to the latter style with Odyssey; and given how tremendously successful that game was, I'm sure they'll aim to alternate between (or simultaneously cater to) both styles of 3D Mario in the future. If only Sega could recognize that for Sonic, with having "traditional" (Genesis/Adventure) 3D games and "Boost" 3D games.

 

Truth be told, Josh, I'm starting to realize that I like SA2 more for nostalgia than its own merits, lol

I had this epiphany yesterday as I played it again, after adding a mod called Chao World Extended that does pretty much what it says on the tin. I realized while grinding chaos drives with Eggman that SA2 to me these days is The Chao Garden Game that happens to star Sonic characters. Every positive trait of SA2's gameplay is done better in SRB2 or Utopia or Spark 2 or whatever, and I can't really enjoy the story as unironically more with the hindsight that the series would immediately focus on its worst parts and literally immolate its own reputation like five years later and ignore any of the good parts.

I pet my chao and I realized I have no idea what the hell I actually like about this game besides a side mode that I have to mod and speed up with a save editor to actually enjoy.

Funnily enough SA1 now impresses me more outside of the chao garden, because at least its levels had interesting themes and gimmicks, though everything is just...painfully undercooked. But I really wanna get a Dreamcast and play SA1's original version through. Hell, the chao garden is even quite different in it! though pretty much a beta compared to the Gamecube games.

 

I mean, the potential is there. It's kinda been done before, albeit on a much more simple scale:



Honestly, I think that a fair amount of the "open world/sandbox" 3D Sonic fan projects that have come around like Utopia, Islands, Paradise and the like have laid some really impressive groundwork set up for such a Sonic game to be designed with that in mind, due to how expansive their stages are built. It's just that the overall goal or point for those worlds is almost strictly for just finding the end of the level or showcasing the physics/mechanics, rather than actually setting up a gameplay framework of various objectives that can be done within them in a similar vein to something like Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie.

My mind's running crazy with the objectives you could potentially set up in the colossal playground Utopia boasts. Like discovering an Eggrobo spying on you somewhere, and then you have to chase and eventually catch him. Or fighting a giant Eggman machine that's polluting the rivers surrounding the stage. Or having to use the level design/physics to your knowledge to reach one of the Palmtree Panic-esque mountain formations from one of the ramps on the elevated platforms/ramps. That's not even counting some of the more basic ideas like just finding some of the secret locations like the waterfall formations, or collecting special animals in special badniks (Sonic 3D a la mode). Add to that the basic "end-of-level" goal at the end of the stage and boom, you've got at least six objectives to do already.

 

I'm still a bit bummed that Sonic JAM's Sonic World didn't have 3D Knuckles, Amy, Eggman, Metal or the Emeralds.
Catching all seven Emeralds could've made for a nice mission on that space xD
And having the other characters there would've been an amazing service for fans at the time.
Not wanting to sound mean, but Sonic R and its LQ character models didn't make Saturn Sonic justice...

 

By that logic, I could say "Oh you want a new boost game? Well it can't be one unless it has Wisps and Classic Sonic." It sounds pants-on-head dumb, doesn't it?

 

Not the same. Nova's point presents a valid question: Is "Sonic Adventure" defined solely by how Sonic himself plays, or is "multiple characters each with different playstyles, emblem collecting, and a Chao Garden" included in that definition? I always feel the need to clarify that I want the return of "Sonic's Adventure gameplay" because I'm not sure how I'd answer that question. Not every boost game had Wisps and Classic Sonic. Every Adventure game had multiple characters/playstyles and Chao.

 

As you said perfectly, the ground work exists. I have no idea what ST is thinking these days, but it'd do a lot for my sanity as a fan to know what they think about this type of idea. I think it's been around in some concrete form for the last 4 years now, basically since Utopia dropped. As soon as I saw the concept in full I knew I'd finally seen the answer to the 3D Sonic problem. This is finally, truly IT.
There's a whole lot that can be built with gameplay foundation like this and it would be the truest representation of that Sonic CD opening, that ideal sense of freedom, momentum and exploration blended together, even moreso than what people think with SA1 being polished (count me in that).

Again, it would do a lot for my sanity as a lifelong fan to know that ST has seen this idea. I find it hard to believe they haven't seen it, especially with Yuji Naka liking it on his Facebook but I'd really really like to know what they think about it. All bullshit aside, they need to give it a try. And they need to hit us up, and let us know theyre not blind haha. It's right there, come on.

 

Well no, because Unleashed had neither of those things. The adventure games were actually defined by the character/genre roulette and rpg/story telling elements, it was a deliberate inclusion to pad out the gameplay as stated by Naka himself, because the Sonic portions as designed weren't enough to carry the full game. So you take that out, you may as well call it something else. And I don't see what the problem is with that. The adventure games were an important first exploration of Sonic in 3D but whatever future solution isn't going to share too much of those things.

 

(Bold emphasis is mine)

And the Boost games... weren't? Werehog? Wisps? Classic Sonic? Avatar?. It's still an ill-fitting gameplay style.

06 didn't have Chao, so it can't be an Adventure game now right?

The problem is people using both to "mean" both. Adventure is both the specific 3D Sonic gameplay style and the wider game structure of a genre roulette. But like I said: the actual structure hasn't changed since the old days. We're still getting multiple gameplay styles of varying levels of fan appreciation. All that changes is the set dressing. Sometimes we have hub worlds, sometimes we have map screens. Sometimes boost is given by rings, sometimes it's wisps. One day it's Werehog, the next it's classic sonic. Just like SA2 had mech shooting and 06 had Silver.

That's why I said generalizing based on features was beyond the pale of stupidity. If you want to say "Adventure games are when you play as someone other than Sonic", then we've only gotten two non-adventure games in Sonic's entire 3D career: Colours and Lost World. And even then Lost World had a sort of genre roulette with flying levels, pinball levels, stealth levels, 3D levels, 2D levels, yet nobody calls that an Adventure game. The real changing value in the franchise was the core sonic gameplay when it changed from free roaming 3D exploration to platforming racing combination. That's really all that changed from a gameplay standpoint.

*Sigh* I guess I'm just tired of the double standard that gets the adventure games raked over the coals while the boost entries get off mostly scot-free for doing pretty much the same thing. When 06 does something it's the worst thing since unsliced bread, yet Forces does the same thing and it's merely mediocre.

 

Funny, I don't see the word Adventure on this box. Can you help me find it?

 

Don't worry, I wasn't planning to continue beyond one throwaway joke.

 

If you're saying 06 isn't an adventure game then... I agree. Primarily because it doesn't have it in the name. Funny how people can accept Forces isn't Generations 2 yet a lot of people cling to the vapid 06 = SA3 comparisons. If you accept one then shouldn't you rightly accept the other?

 

I wasn't trying to give the boost games a pass. I don't in general. Particularly with Unleashed, it commits the same crimes as SA2. SA2's I think are even more pronounced because Sonic(and shadow) himself is less than a third of the entire game.

With the adventure games though, it's not just that there are diverging styles. It's that the entire game, story, structure is designed around Sonic's friends and their stories/gameplay being put on equal footing with the series titular gameplay offering and the main character himself (although SA1 is the least offensive here, since Sonic gets the most and the longest levels) getting lost in the background. It's more like "Sonic and friends" or some other band name rather than being a Sonic game because the majority of it isn't actually Sonic. SA2 is the biggest offender but most of those games have that in common.

With games like Colors and Gens you cannot claim that. They may be gimmicky, but they're not wildly diverging styles and not tons of different characters and stories shifting away from the narrative and focus of the main series. Even unleashed had just two styles (which were aspects of the same character handled differently---not well of course---with one story) , not 6 separate stories with almost as many styles. That's what separates the adventure games from the boost games and other games in the series. Other games in the series did not do that, there was a concerted effort by Sonic Team after 2006 to make sure of it.