Honestly, no. I think the original Sonic games were slightly better. Like, with the physics. In Sonic 1, when you approached a slope, you would slowly walk back down. But in sonic 4, most often you would just stand there, all sideways. But I think Sonic Generations may be the one to turn this around. I'd like to see original play come back, but with some modern twists on the game, like homing attack.
We're talking about the gameplay introduced in Sonic Unleashed, not the shitty pseudo-classic stuff in Sonic 4.
I think if they do take the current formula any further, they should dedicate themselves to the quirks of it. It's a unique style, this racer-platformer combo, but I don't think it'll gain a whole lot more praise than it is currently unless they embrace it fully. Give us multiplayer racing, Sonic Team - it's been ages since we've seen that in a 3D Sonic title and it deserves to come back in the current formula, as long as the engine can handle two high-speed hedgehogs at once. And why so much 2D? I do adore a good 2D/3D hybrid, as games like Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 show off well, but it should be at least 70% 3D in my opinion. From there, some other racer-esque features wouldn't go amiss. Take another leaf (not the Raccoon kind, hurr durr) from Mario Galaxy 2 and give us Ghost saves for levels? Or the ability to watch replays of our best playthroughs of levels? And since there's so much trial-and-error death, they should probably go for a Life System more like the one in SegaSonic Arcade, where you respawn right near where you died, without any sort of reload time; it'd just make things run so much smoother, although it'd mean the age-old tradition of the Checkpoint/Starposts would become redundant, and I enjoy the fact that tropes like that have lasted so long from the older games. Just ideas I'm throwing out there. They can either keep striving for this old-school vision of Sonic that the fans keep asking for, or they can just do their own thing and make the current formula the best it can be, in spite of breaking the odd tradition and playing up the racer aspect of it. EDIT: I'm aware that I keep posting in this thread with entirely different ideas on what direction they could take the Modern Sonic formula in. I guess that's just a statement on how many different directions there are to take Sonic in, and that none of them are necessarily the "right" one.
That's just what I was thinking. Since Sonic's practically going at insane speeds, he should start to embrace the racing genre more than the platforming. I particularly want his stages to be more of a racing track instead of this "go completely straight/up/down." But still allow springs, bumpers, speed boosters, and whatever objects that a platformer needs. Wouldn't it be awesome to manually control Sonic and completely stop then boost at a sharp turn? One of the things I'd also like Sonic to do is in a non-running boss battle, Sonic would do a homing attack, bounce off from the cockpit, keep the momentum by drifting or pushing off the ground, and do another homing attack.
Adding onto what the above two posters said, they could easily use the Sonic Unleashed/Colors/Generations format to make a sort of sequel to Sonic R. Try to picture Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Metal Sonic all racing around a track like Rooftop Run, and the players are all scrambling to gather enough Boost to either get ahead or ram the other players off the track.
Honestly, each time I play one of the new Sonic games I can't find myself becoming enthusiastic about playing it, so usually the game gathers dust. I mostly play the Sonic games that predate the Dreamcast.
I guess that Modern Sonic's gameplay is perfect for the 3D. I mean, it could use less "boost-to-win" actions, but it's not bad at all. I'm a great classic fan, and since Colors I didn't gived a fuck about Modern Sonic even through I'd played all the games and completed each one of them. But still I found them in the need of some tweaking on the gameplay and I wanted seriously a better level design, which was granted to us by Sonic Colors. And for what I'd saw in Generations I'm, for the first time since Sonic 3D transition, very, very excited for what I'm seeing. Modern Sonic's Chemical Plant looks simply delicious for example. It this thread were created two or three years ago, my answer would be "Fuck no!", but now all I have is a "It's good, I like it, just need some adjustments to be perfect". :3
Agreed. It's still Sonic. For me, Sonic has always been about interesting, engaging gameplay, regardless of what form it comes in. It's delivered this from the get go and it still does now. I frickin' LOVED being in Empire City. The place oozed coolness in day and night and it was just fun to play.
I think, to be honest, that Sonic can be good with Modern gameplay, but just not always "X = Boost, so use it." Here are two snippets of posts from a discussion (that went waaaay off topic) that intrigued me. TheKazeblade got me thinking. "Manually" changing from Adventure to Unleashed gameplay sounds a little... odd, to me. However, something similar kind of doesn't. You all know how SEGA gave Classic Sonic 3 different button controls as opposed to "every button is jump" this time, right? A is jump, B is crouch, and X is hold-for-sp[background="#000000"]am[/background]indash? Sounds similar to Sonic Adventure gameplay, except for crouch. Well, here's a proposal; since Adventure gameplay was virtually just that (jump and spindash) without any powerups (of which usually and annoyingly (SA2 light dash >>) used the spin button), I don't see why that can't happen in 3D. In fact, according to Polygon Jim, it can, just with actual 3D spindash programming (preferably not broken). For those who like to rev it up manually, they can crouch and repeatedly tap "A" to pick up their speed. For those who find that uncomfortable or whatever, they can go the Sonic Adventure route and charge their spindash through the use of the X button (like in 06, yes. >>). Now, that covers basic SA gameplay, which is what a lot of people want. But Unleashed gameplay can be fun when you want to go fast. Though, to my recognizance, most people's gripes with the boost is its instant gratification of 200MPH speed, right? Now here's what I'm thinking. If the player wants to go fast, he'll start running, right? That's what Unleashed gameplay is all about, running at Mach 4. But of course, sometimes, even in a Sonic game, it's good to slow down a bit and explore your surroundings, especially if your surroundings are pretty damn beautiful. Speedrunners might disagree, but I'm sure most of you would accept the fact that free roaming is always acceptable in a Sonic game, right? Well, Adventure gameplay (make that REFINED Adventure gameplay) would work wonders for that, as it has for many of its fans. I myself thought Speed Highway At Dawn was simply wonderful, and Adventure's freeroaming ability allowed me to explore the cityscape easily. Based on City Escape, I don't think Generations will have too much a problem providing a similar experience, but Sonic is built purely for speed in that engine, so you'll be fast paced even when you're just strolling along. On the flip side, you have Sonic running down highways and a huge building that's arguably taller than the Empire State Building. Although that experience was pretty awesome in Adventure, it was at a fixed speed and it was easy to hit into things (though I don't remember if anything actually had collision data in that run... maybe was a bug in DX for me?). The Unleashed formula is perfect for that. Boosting when you need to pick up speed, quickstepping to avoid those nasty obstacles, occasionally jumping over them as if they're hurdles... It just works. Though many would argue it's a boring experience to just boost down the side of a building, but if done right it could actually be fun. It seems the problem here is that, when we need speed, we would like Sonic Unleashed gameplay. On the flip side, when we don't need to rush through everything as if our life depended on it, Adventure's free roam system would be a warm welcome back. Since this issue seems to come from how fast your going, it seems the answer may be clear... A speedometer mechanic. Think about it for a second. You're in a level like Marble Zone in 3D. You need to make those precise jumps, and not much speed is involved here. You can explore the level, probably find some goodies-- coming across 1-ups would be handy-- and then suddenly, a wave of lava! You need to get out of there fast, so you start running. Your speedometer says you're running at about 100 MPH now. Out from the speedometer comes an energy gauge. It has some juice in it. It tells you to press X. Suddenly, you're speeding away from that lava flow like it's nobody's business. Sounds good, eh? Then you escape the lava and can continue on your endeavors. Either you can keep going at the speed you desire, or-- what's that? A path on your right you want to check out? You halt your running, jump onto the platform on your right and you find an alcove. You press X again, charging your spindash. See what's going on here? The speedometer only lets you go into crazy fast boost mode if you're running fast enough. So you don't end up having a button that gives you instant speed unless you count the spindash, but if you didn't mind it in Adventure, then there's probably no reason you'd mind it now. The same button that lets you run faster than sound itself curls you into a ball that's charging its energy when you're not moving at blinding speeds to begin with. I don't know, this is just a little idea I cooked up with since I noticed many complaints about the boost was instant gratification. This isn't so instant, as you can't simply be standing one second, running like fuck the next; rather, you need to pick up enough speed to gain the ability to go as fast as you can. Of course, this alone wouldn't make a game very enjoyable unless the levels are designed to work like this. I'm sure that SEGA's more than capable of that at this point, looking at City Escape. Using the Dreamcast levels as a base, SEGA can probably make some pretty damn awesome open world areas that also contain tracks you can shred on. Am I alone on this idea? </wall>
It needed some work from Unleashed, but then Colors came along and the gameplay really shined. I say I quite like the new direction, and can't wait to see where it goes in Generations. I have to say, I'm actually anticipating Modern Sonic running through the Classic Stages more than Classic Sonic running through the modern ones!
That's not momentum. That's not even a type of momentum. That's strictly input from the player keeping him moving, in other words keeping you in total control. Momentum is something that already is that you need to manipulate and redirect to keep you going where you want to go. Bouncing around with your magic bouncing bracelet and magically aligning and accelerating towards things to keep a combo going is just arbitrary movement. The idea is mass with velocity. That is to say, some body with some amount of inertia going a certain speed and in a certain direction. Instantaneous changes in velocity like what you use in SA2 to chain combos are basically the opposite of that. It's plain to me that what people are saying when they say they want the 'gameplay' to be 'momentum based' that they are actually saying they want to be more at the mercy of the terrain and their current state of motion and less at the mercy of arbitrary movements and the need to constantly hold in one direction to keep the player moving.
What? Sorry, not trying to be a "classical supreriority dick" but where was the diversity? Unleashed undeniably takes several chucks and ideas out of other stages (mostly quick step sections and the like) and collectively has less defining stage gimmicks than either the Adventure games. Anyway, I voted for the third option. The gameplay is rather limited in its functionality and diversity making the game linear because of lacking on options and feel shallow when options are presented because they're rehashed. If this were merely limited to gameplay, it probably wouldn't be so bad, but level design reflects by not even taking advantage of the fact that it's supposed to be 3-FUCKING-D. When 3D game feels more limited than a 2D one, we got problems. Simply put, the Unleashed gameplay refuses to take advantage of 3D exploration because it can't; it's afraid to. Sonic only has two non-standard techniques of traversing: boosting and homing attack. And only one of them is ideal of platforming exploration.
I feel that the game play in the modern sonic games aren't that bad. There are times where it seems quite linear but you can still feel the speed. The strong point in modern sonic games is the graphics and how they look while sonic is running. The game play itself isn't phenomenal but it is a step in the right direction. I really liked the previous 3-dimensional sonic titles like sonic adventure 1 and sonic adventure 2. If sonic team brings this kind of game play back, sonic fans will be pleased.
