It's what defines "Sonic" to me. It has to be loop-de-loops. That's the selling point. Also, I wasn't aware of that. I've been living under the rock.
Nostalgia for a fangame that has had radical changes and improvements to the point that it might as well be labeled a new game.
I went back and replayed 2.2 just to see if I missed anything. Once you get to THZ Act 2, it takes a nosedive. It took me 6 and a half minutes to clear compared to Act 1, and that's because of not only a bunch of rough platforming sections that you have to back up and redo if you fall off, but a puzzle element in regards to raising the muck level where, despite me having played this level multiple times since following its development all the way back in 2006, I still had no idea what the hell I was doing wrong. It required far more precision that was necessary, and seemed to trigger on its own. DSZ starts off by being sprung and expected to do a precise landing on a platform in the middle of the room, which a new player is almost assuredly guaranteed to miss their first time. That isn't too fun. The rest is ok, I guess, apart from funneling the player to a door they can't open. Oh, and a hallway underwater with crushing pillars that could easily crush a new player without warning if they were moving at anything other than top speed. CEZ I ran out of lives in after a shielded enemy bounced me into a bottomless pit and got hit by a rotating spike ball positioned right over some springs I needed to hit to get up, after a checkpoint that had almost no rings between the two. At that point, I gave up. Fangames and romhacks in general will never have the kind of design polish that Yasuhara put into the originals. Fan content is great for finding creative ideas, or unique and inspired visuals. I have seen some of the prettiest artwork in fangames. But when it comes to actual level design, they almost always miss the mark in some way. I don't think I've ever once played a fangame with levels that truly resemble official design philosophies. The cream of the crop, After The Sequel, makes a solid effort, but even then, at worst it's messy, and at best it still doesn't flow the same way Sonic 2 or 3 do. Mania benefits from most of its levels already existing that they just built on top of, because Titanic Monarch is not fun. People often deride the game for having too many old levels, but I truly think that if they had made all-original levels, the game just wouldn't have played as well. And it still has issues with levels, and especially bosses, taking way, waaaay too long to beat. Actual game design is hard. Like, really fucking hard. 90s SEGA, and even Dimps to some degree, were really good at making it inoffensive at worst. Fangame developers don't have the luxury of being able to playtest with hundreds of random everyday people, they don't have the experience of years and years of a college education in game design, and they don't have the financial motivation to put their heart and soul into it.
On the subject of loops and fan games in the Unpopular thread. I didn't like Sonic and the Fallen Stars. A majority of the experience that I remember after playing it is just zooming past incredibly long stretches of levels and constantly going through loops. I don't think there was a single act where I didn't at at least get flung into 7 loops. Game was also hard to visually parse. Object and character sprites kind of just blended in with the background for me. It seems more like it was a game that wanted me to watch than play. I didn't care enough for what my initial run presented to try and play it on a high level.
This is criticism I'd leverage against most fangames. There are very few fangames that don't feel like they were made for Youtube playthroughs instead of being played. They all seem to think a Sonic game is better the more stages feel like Chemical Plant -- which is not how it works and is not how it has ever worked. It's like they are so infatuated with the Ideal Sonic Gameplay that they can't for a second rationalize there's a reason why Sonic 1 isn't Green Hill six times over. Which is how Fallen Stars feels -- it's riffing on the archetypical Sonic Stage, but never really engaging with its fundamentals. But that's perhaps to be expected: if you are making a Sonic fangame, you probably love Sonic a lot. But to there be a good game, you really have to allow yourself to hate him sometimes.
Still waiting for the game that matches the sane energy as this video... The jump sequence at 26 seconds has been living rent free in my head for 17 years.
I got a sonic confession to make. I was the little sibling, and I grew up mostly watching games be played rather than playing myself. One day i realized that all my memories of crash bandicoot were second-hand and I don't think I've actually played that game myself. This is to say, despite being very opinionated about the sonic franchise I have never actually played the adventure games. I hear people say the collision is buggy and the homing attack doesn't work and I just internalized that, but I've never even picked up the damn controller. I'm a fraud, a phony, I just like hearing negativity without verifying it myself. So the other day I bought adventures 1 and 2 on the steam summer sale. I followed Blaze the hedgehogs tutorial on how to mod adventure 1 to be more dreamcast accurate because I think the model is cuter. In the seven years since that video came out, the modding tools he's recommended have gotten a lot more streamlines and all the settings and mods he recommended were there by default. I haven't followed his SA2 modding tutorial yet because it seemed more complicated. I plan to play with infinite lives because I am bad at video games. The only game I've really played at all the past few months is spelunky 2, I have almost 500 hours in it and I still havent made it to Hundun. So like, don't expect much. I'm going to play through SA1 and 2, and finally make an informed opinion on it. Who knows, maybe I'm going to be a contrarian and think the constant railroading set pieces are fine actually. God help me if I end up liking Big's story...
Are you aware of Sonic and the Moon Facility? It seeks to address a lot of the issues you mentioned, specifically the overly-simplistic level design. They haven't had much activity in the past few months, but it's worth paying attention to.
I'm aware. I'll probably check it out. Still seems to have the same visual issues I had with the previous game though.
I get that people are more forgiving towards them due to how groundbreaking they were, and I definitely have immense respect towards LakeFeperd, but this exact reason is why I was never super impressed with either BTS or ATS. Just take a look at 1:09. The player is thrusted into a long, 90-degree downwards slope where the weather effects and the environment completely change. It looks very impressive and cinematic, but it's immediately followed by a slow, linear and blocky platforming section where none of the speed you just gained is of any use. It's the polar opposite of official, fast-paced levels such as Hydrocity, Launch Base or Press Garden, where long stretches of speedy ramps and such are always followed by multiple routes, with your skill determining which one you manage to reach. It's because all of these levels were designed to raise inexperienced players' curiosity to encourage them to improve at the game, whereas it feels that BTS' and ATS' levels were designed with the mentality of "Oh man, Chemical Plant Zone and the Sonic CD intro are so fucking cool!"
genuinely don't know what to say to this. sorry you had that experience, i guess. i could nitpick your characterization of the level elements individually but it'd be fruitless because it's clear that we're just not engaging with the game in remotely the same way. i would never have imagined that someone would describe the button in THZ2 as a "puzzle element" and i also never would have imagined someone would describe landing on the platform in the DSZ1 opening as a "precise landing." so, let me get this straight: you think that titanic monarch is uniquely unfun compared to scrap brain, wing fortress, metallic madness, and death egg? what exactly is supposed to be so much more offensive about that level compared to literally any final level in classic sonic? i happen to like titanic monarch on its own merits, but even if i didn't, i genuinely cannot even imagine arguing that it is worse than any of the other levels i just listed. classic sonic finales are chock full of horseshit unreactable obstacles, bottomless pits beneath awkward precision platforming, and extraordinarily long stretches without rings. death egg in sonic 3 is definitely the best of the original set, but i'd be lying if i said i looked forward to playing it (and s3&k is probably my favorite sonic game!). in what world is metropolis zone "inoffensive" at worst? in what world are s3&k's levels not at least as long as mania's on a first playthrough? have you played the back half of sonic rush recently? these arguments just do not make sense to me when put in the context of sonic team's actual level design pedigree. i certainly don't think that all fangames are unequivocal improvements on their work, but i also do not think that sonic team's actual output is in some kind of privileged class above the lowly fangame. that claim just seems totally inconsistent with the documented history of the franchise.
I do find Titanic Monarch uniquely annoying. That's an unpopular opinion I've voiced before but it bears repeating. See, I like horseshit unreactable obstacles, awkward precision platforming and extraordinarily long stretches without rings. It's the final level, for God's sake. Eggman hates me and wants me dead. I expect nothing less. The problem with Titanic Monarch is that all other levels you mentioned give off a generally dangerous vibe. You're at the mercy of the level at any point, but you're always in control. So if you die, that's only on you. Mostly, sure, because Metropolis does take control away from you and throws you in danger, which everyone hates. But even Metropolis manages to maintain tensions high all throughout its course. Titanic Monarch, though, thought it was a good idea to not only bring back the yellow wall bumpers, but also make micro-puzzles out of them! In fact, it's full of tiny skill checks that demand you to jump exactly at the right spot or the right way (from a wall or on the right specific bumper) or you simply won't proceed. Death Egg and Metallic Madness are far smarter, either generally offering you a more dangerous option to pure platforming or putting you through survival gauntlets, of which you either get out alive or you just die. And when you're not solving these platforming challenges, the stage just isn't dangerous at all. Instead, it takes control away from you and puts you on some boring automated section that maybe feigns to threaten you, but a spring will always appear out of nowhere to save you and keep the automated section going. Which would have been fine as a one-time thing, especially if the rest of the level is dangerous. But that's not the case, so you just end up waiting for it to be done with you. Which sucks-- these are rarely presented as tough choices, of which Death Egg is full and are absolutely the best way to handle it. All that to be one of the very few levels in Classic Sonic, even for final levels, that presents itself as a Time over hazard. And it does so by constantly trying to waste your time. Which is fine! Death Egg does that too. Metallic Madness Act 2 too, especially if you take the wrong tunnel. But the way Titanic Monarch does it is so, so much more boring.
What was up with the stained glass background pieces in TMZ anyway? It felt strange to randomly see stained glass among all the machinery, unless it's supposed to show Eggman's descent into madness.
Where did I say, or even imply, that Scrap Brain and Wing Fortress were so much better? They're not. Wing Fortress is one of, if not the, shittiest levels in Sonic history, almost entirely because the designers had to make it within two weeks. Scrap Brain and virtually every other level in Sonic 1 that isn't GHZ is infamous for not having a ton of polish put into it. Metropolis suffers from being haphazardly shifted from being the 5th stage to being the last stage, but the only real unfair bullshit comes from Asteron and Slicer, and not from the stage design itself which is otherwise fine. But at least with those zones, I can point to crunch as the culprit, and not a lack of design skill. Death Egg, however, is as perfect as a last level can be. It's full of the toughest platforming in the game, and it's very long, yet none of it feels unfair, and it's paced to where it doesn't feel padded or exhausting. Palas broke down TMZ's problems better than I could. The difficulty of that zone almost entirely comes from being a confusing, boring mess of micro-puzzles, and not from any actual platforming challenge.
Because the level was 50% Eggman's doomsday war machine, 50% Heavy King's castle. That's where all of the banners and flags come from, too.
For me this is exactly it though. Okay, not the "just boosting forward" parts, I've complained about those too. But slow platforming with boost Sonic feels about as fitting as a moving block puzzle in Halo - it just doesn't belong. You can skip some of the platforming in Generations with boost jumps but it's clearly not designed that way and leads to a bunch of jank. Unleashed is Sonic as a racing platformer, with levels designed around Sonic being a rocket. Generations is the same game but with regular platformer levels, and platforming in a car isn't fun. That's why I prefer Unleashed's Day levels over Generations' Modern levels.
You said Sonic Team/Dimps' level design was of a higher pedigree compared to fangames and "inoffensive at worst" but you don't even actually think that. Unless the "shittiest level in Sonic history" is inoffensive to you, in which case I'm not sure why you're so bothered by fangames.
kazz covered my main objection to this post but i just had to add the general observation that basically every single sonic team project is a victim of crunch and / or understaffing. if those are valid reasons to hand-wave away criticism of the end product, then there's basically no point in criticizing any mainline sonic game.
A lot of fangames want to make an experience with the "freedom" and "momentum" of how the classic games move. A carnal desire developed from watching the Sonic CD intro a bit too many times, I'm sure. I've been there, believe me. But these days I feel like the "freedom" of the classics has long been overstated and mythologized. The classics are filled with areas that "break" the flow of the level design or hold down the player. Not abruptly, mind, but they do know how to pace between high and low speed areas, and the games do a good job of walling you in to keep them from flying off the handle. Players just don't often notice it because they're 2D games, and the idea of walls being barriers and guide-rails is never taken into account because the existence of a wall in a 2D space is taken for granted. So when you ask a fan to turn Sonic's gameplay 3D, they don't consider the importance of walls or guide rails, in fact they usually hate them and say they constrict the "freedom" classic Sonic provided. I've always really liked the Sonic Adventure games and respected many (but not all..) of their choices. Pits are a bit of a brutalist way of going about it, but invisible walls, literal walls, sections that pull the pace of the stage down to require non-speedy platforming, areas with cramped space to encourage more subtle movement, uphill or even curved-wall/upside-down traversal, they're all tools for the designer to use to craft an evenly paced experience. I even respect the boost games' decisions more than most do here, as they understood that when you ramp up the tempo of the game that high you're gonna also need to ramp up both the linearity and the hazards to keep the gameplay feeling focused and sharp. This is ultimately why I'm not particularly fond of most 3D Sonic fangames. They try to give you this astonishing amount of speed AND freedom, but it just trivializes the gameplay because the slightest movement sends you flying with nothing to hold you in. You just soar over everything, evade every deliberate decision the game designers made, and hardly engage with the game in a meaningful way. And because the designers knows this, they need to stretch out the world to be as biiiiiig and wiiiide as possible to accommodate for the distance you'll cover. I understand why people like it, though. It's a power-trip; a long desired one after being chained down by Sonic Team's automation for so long. But I don't think it makes a terribly good game. It just feels like everyone's dodging the real problems, that maybe Sonic doesn't need to be so fast, and maybe enforcing level design is a good thing. I dunno. Anyways I'm almost sure I've had this exact ramble in this topic here before, but it continues to be an unpopular opinion, so here it is. A lot of Sonic fans want the next Frontiers to essentially be what I'm describing (seen one too many mods of Sonic rocketing over Kronos with the DLC Spindash), so I guess it's worth reiterating.
