What gameplay features would you want in the next 2D Sonic game?

Drop the condescension. No one is saying they literally cannot do anything different from 3K, but this series absolutely does not have a good track record with "evolving its formula". Fun as Adventure was, every game after it chipped away at what actually worked in it, ultimately culminating in 06. When they switched to boost, they actually seemed to iterate on it, and slowly improve on it, and then threw it all away to make Lost World, because...who fucking knows? When that failed, they made Forces, which, like Adventure's follow-ups, took worse came before and made it worse.

I'm fine with evolution, but you seem to be proposing revolution. "New for its own sake" is a massive gamble, one that has screwed Sega over in the past, and I'm tired of it.

 

When did I ever mention reviews? If I call something bad, I do call it bad on its own merits.

 

Assuming your opinion lines up with the majority is the definition of Confirmation Bias, because it means you're straight up disregarding the opinions that don't line up with your own, no matter how valid they may be.

And your point about profit is almost moot; Pokemon Sword and Shield has probably the largest amount of controversy of any mainline Pokemon game to date, and it is currently the third best selling game in the franchise.

There's too many factors at play here to make assumptions that you're saying. You're right, there ARE consensuses, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're correct.

And just because a game isn't getting 10/10's across the board doesn't mean it's a bad game either. That's why it's called MIXED reception, the reception ranges from good to bad and does not lean in any particular direction.


EDIT: Oh damn, this site doesn't combine new posts to the old ones? dammit.

 

lmao the series sure as hell wouldn't have been on the level of acclaim it had at its best if Sonic 2 never came out.

 

I could understand trepidation if we were talking about Sonic Pocket Adventure or Sonic Advance 1. They were run of the mill Sonic games that didn't particularly do anything that hadn't already been done better in Sonic 2. They were also the most authentic Sonic experience you could get on a handheld gaming system at the time, so that was fine. But Sonic Mania? Even with 8 returning Zones it was packed to the brim with new ideas and level gimmicks. Are you not entertained? There's no doubt in my mind that the dev team would be able to come up with more than enough fresh ideas for an all-new-Zones sequel, without radically changing the core gameplay.

This gets into "What even is "good" anyway??" territory.

Obviously there's no objective measure of whether a video game (or film, or book, or play, or painting, or statue) is good or bad.

The only measures are personal opinion, and overall consensus (there usually is one).

In my personal opinion, most 21st century console Sonic games have been sub-standard. That is also the critical consensus and the reputation the series has gained in the larger video game fandom.

In my personal opinion, Gran Turismo is dull. I know I'm in the minority there, and that people who have an affinity for that kind of thing find the Gran Turismo series to be excellent.

We can stroke our chins and ask "Who's to say whether Super Mario Galaxy is good?", "Who's to say Sonic and the Black Knight is bad?" - but that's not particularly useful to anyone. We know who says.

If someone likes Sonic and the Black Knight, then more power to them, everyone should enthusiastically and unashamedly enjoy what they enjoy. If that same person hates Super Mario Galaxy, that's fine, everyone has their own tastes.

But when talking about the trajectory of the Sonic series, it's not useful to pretend that swathes of poorly received games weren't actually poorly received, or that the series hasn't had a massive fall from grace. That would be a denial of reality.

Nintendo isn't going to look at Super Mario Galaxy and say "I don't think people liked this one. I think we screwed up. Let's try to bury it."

But over the years Sega has outright admitted that they've released too many poor games and have lost the trust of older fans. Reception matters. Reputation matters. Optics matter.

 

What are you talking about? Everyone loved Sonic Adventure 2 until around 2012, when YOUTUBERS came along.

 

Rereading your post, I'm not sure where I got that impression.

My bad on that - I must've had the whole review thing in my mind from some earlier posts, and got mixed up

 

Sorry for coming off condescending. I just don’t really appreciate feeling like everyone’s lacking an open mind to anything outside of “more of the same”, and being talked at as if I’m crazy for wanting more than it in a new title.

Honestly though, I don’t think sticking hard to your laurels is gonna make a bad game, or that it’s even a bad decision. But it’s a safe decision, and I’m not really a fan of those when you want to keep things fresh. After all, Mania wasn’t really a safe decision either, putting a big risk on an indie title with a pixel art style by a major company in such the scale they did.

The way game design decisions are made doesn’t have to be a black or white situation where you make something super risky and inherently doomed to fail OR something safe and secure in its quality due to its ineffable setup.

There is no point in sitting still, especially if the only reason you’re not is because cynicism over doing something new has driven you to not believe in it anymore.

I think we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree on it, and leave it at that.

 

It's kind of ironic that for a series where the main character's life philosophy is always moving forward as fast as possible with no regrets, most people just want him to stay in place.

 

Reception and reputation absolutely do matter, but they are not the only thing that matters either.

I just find it so incredibly sad that this fanbase is so damn traumatized by the series` fall from grace that the mere idea of doing anything that's not "what works" is met with this much opposition.

You make constant comparisons to the Mario series, but even that series takes far more risks than Sonic does nowadays and Sonic was initially conceived as the alternative to the "boring and safe" Mario.

The series has absolutely released tons of mediocre to outright awful games and is nowhere near the juggernaut it was in the 90's, that I will never deny. But then so what? Why are we so obsessed with reliving this series` glory days in some vain attempt at recapturing a position we've lost for twenty years now? Sega has no console to compete with, and the platformer genre isn't the top in the industry anymore. So what exactly are we aiming for?

Do you think that just releasing a string of good games that the people who make fun of the series are just going to stop, because I can tell you right now they won't.

At this point, I'm just gonna agree to disagree on this issue because it seems like we just have two opposing viewpoints. I just find it incredibly ironic that a series that prides itself on boldly moving forward has a fanbase that's so opposed to that and would prefer to stay in place and live in the past, but *shrug*

You're usually way more reasonable than this, so I don't really appreciate this type of post even as a joke, because it makes me feel like you're trying to downplay any point the opposition might have.

 

Josh said what he said for a reason: there really is a small subset of Adventure babies who truly think this, that people will believe something solely because they're told to. I've had this accusation thrown at me personally: the person in question really thought I called Sonic Adventure 2 "has good parts but bad as a whole" solely because YouTubers "told me to". It certainly couldn't be that my opinion differed from his, it certainly couldn't be that my tasted have changed over the years, or a game has flaws that I could once ignore that really grate on me now, no: I was just a mindless sheep, blindly believing whatever My Lord And Savior YouTube said. Obviously this doesn't apply to all Adventure fans, but these people do exist.

 

Well no one is saying that here so I’m not sure why it needs to come up, other than to snark the opposing argument into silence. lol

 

Well it's here now, so no point in whining about it. "lol"

 

My joke wasn't meant to be read as a slant against either argument. I haven't jumped in seriously today because I haven't found much to say, and I've just been enjoying the discussion. I think a lot of strong points have been made from everyone involved. What Pengi said just reminded me of egregiously bad-faith arguments that get thrown my way a lot (some have accused ME of being the reason people don't like Sonic Heroes, for instance), and I know a lot of us have seen that sort of thing lately, so I decided to pop in and make a joke about it.

I'm sorry that my joke made it seem like I was snarking on anyone involved here. It wasn't my intention.

And I should also add, when people act this way, it has nothing to do with their preferences. Tons of Sonic fans go through a phase where they attribute the reason people dislike the series to The Media, rather than, you know, other individuals having different preferences.

Heck, when SADX came out and got such awful reviews, I blamed it on anti-Sega haters who were still taking unfair potshots at the Dreamcast, because I was about 15, and I didn't have the perspective to see how it could be perceived any other way... so they must be LYING. I get where it comes from.

That it's often the youngest part of the fandom acting this way right now is an affectation of their age, not what part of the series they like the most. Lots of us go through it, but fortunately, most of us grow out of it.

But as long as I'm here, maybe don't frame it like we're necessarily on opposing sides. We all care enough that we're posting on a Sonic fansite, and while our ideas and opinions on how it can get there might differ, we all want this series to be the best it can. Keep an open mind, and try to find common ground.

 

I don't even see the point in bringing it up as a joke, because nobody here has done that as far as I know. I'd like to think I've brought up fair points and been nothing but respectful and not be called an "adventure baby."

If you know they're bad faith arguments, they're not even worth bringing up, this isn't a Youtube comment section or a twitter post.

 

Nobody has referred to you as an "Adventure baby," and they shouldn't. My last post was partially a response to the use of that term.

Look man, I don't know what else you want me to say. You don't have to accept my apology, but I'm allowed to make light of things. It's not directed at you, or at anyone else here. On the contrary, there's a camaraderie here that I don't always find lately outside of a place like Retro. I feel like I can be myself here, which is probably exactly why I end up making sarcastic jokes the same way I would to my friends.

Like, saying something like this here led to some nice discussion. Some people liked the idea, some disliked it, some were confused as to WHY anyone would want something like that. Some attacked the idea, and that's fine, but nobody attacked ME.

If I'd said the same thing on Twitter, whatever enjoyable discussion it spurred would have probably been drowned out by a group who was angry at me, personally, for even suggesting it.

Man, I <3 you guys.

 

So? Sonic 2 wouldn't have existed without Sonic 1. And even Sonic 2 introduced innovations to the series (co-op, Super Sonic, a separate competitive mode).

 

Coincidentally, I saw a post on a Sega Facebook group yesterday, from someone playing Sonic Adventure 2 for the first time. So obviously a Sega fan, and obviously someone who likes Sonic, but also isn't a hardcore Sonic fan.

"I was deceived by Sonic adventure 2!
Too massive missions, plus the terrible fact that you play more with Knuckles and Tails than with Sonics itself.
Sincerely, I am disappointed!"

And one of the OP's replies:

"But I thought I would play with Sonic most of the levels ... if they did as in the first game, it would be much better"

That's an ordinary video game/Sega fan going in with a positive attitude of "I like Sonic, I'll check this out" and feeling hoodwinked. Those same sentiments existed in 2001. (There was A LOT of "Why is Tails in a mech? I want to play regular Tails!")

The shooting and treasure hunting stages were decent, but weren't what a lot of people were buying a Sonic game for.

You're asking "Does it matter if the games aren't good?".

I want Sega to release good Sonic games, because I like to play good Sonic games. It's nothing more complicated than that.

Why would I want to play a lousy game when I could be playing a good game?

Sonic Mania is a very good game. I want another very good game. I think the Sonic Mania team is capable of making another very good game in the same style. If the levels, level gimmicks, enemies and bosses are all new and inventive as Mania's new stages and Act 2s, if there's a new playable character, that's all fresh enough for me.

I have very little faith in "changing up the formula" for 2D Sonic, immediately after the release of the best 2D Sonic game since 1994. I think now is the worst possible time for that.

Sega has a very bad track record when it comes to "changing up the formula" of Sonic. I have little reason to expect "changing up the formula" to yield good results.

 

Im confused.
Why did this thread turn into a discussion about gripes with the Adventure games exactly?
Shouldn't this be about a potential Mania sequel? I think it would be nice to get back on topic.

 

I'm not saying you meant anything by it and I accept the apology; I just think its a weird thing to bring up in this context is all, nothing else.

I'm asking if it matters if the series is on par with Mario.

Not every game is going to be good, especially when they're trying out new ideas. But guess what, that's the risk you take when you're developing a game. Not even Mario releases a consistent string of good games, despite what the media will tell you.

I think everyone can agree that they want a good game, but having a good game game doesn't have to come at the expense of never experimenting again because "it doesn't work" and just because a game isn't 10/10 perfect doesn't mean that there's no merit in it whatsoever.

Stop thinking in absolutes; there's a whole range between "god awful" and "Pretty good"