How fast should Sonic go?

Depends upon the style of the game, different speeds work for different gameplay types. If it's something like Unleashed, the skies the limit, because the way you play Unleashed requires you to go at insane speeds. For a classic style game, Sonic should be able to go fast, but not too fast, and you should only be rewarded speed if you're skilled enough.

 

Damn this thread was over quick.

I think must have us agree with the above post.

 

Right, it depends on the game. If this thread was inspired because of Sonic 4, yes, I think Sonic goes and accelerates way too fast in this game.

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Especially the last sentence. Speed is a reward, not a necessity.

 

Yea Thunder Solid SOAP nailed it right on the head. Speed should always be rewarded tied in with lots of platforming when it comes to 2D games, so Sonic should move at a pace where the player feels completely in control of Sonic's actions. When it comes to 3D like Unleashed or whatever else, Sonic can go as fast as he wants as long as he's not sliding off the edges all the time. Control is the key word here again. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 had it perfect.

 

you mean like jumping mid loop causing you to end up running faster upon landing?...

I agree....

 

I disagree that Sonic can go "as fast as he wants to" in 3D. Speed should be an element that highlights areas and makes stages more exciting, not just "runrunrunrun" all the time.

 

true, but running fast for longer times works better in 3D because you also have the option to go left and right, so you still have that control, whereas in 2D, going fast for long times starts to feel automatic pretty quickly.

 

Sonic Adventure 2 hit the nail on the head for how fast I would want Sonic in 3D. Games which have made him faster came with slippery control schemes (Sonic Heroes, Shadow) or started to veer too far into trial-and-error gameplay (Sonic Unleashed) for my liking.

Sonic Adventure 2 was fast, but it was controllable and still left you time to plan ahead.

 

I never understood that obsession with speed anyway. The whole marketing around "Sonic is super duper fast" never reached these parts much, and I liked the game because the mechanic of accelerating by going down hills and then using the speed to go up and beyond was intensely rewarding.

I don't think Sonic need to be that fast, at least not when running normally.

 

Am I the only one who liked Unleashed's speed and control scheme? I feel it resembles the 2D titles a lot more than SA1 and 2 in that Sonic feels weighty and moves smoothly along the ground, unlike in SA2 where he runs almost like a real person and does that bouncy thing while he turns.

Mind you, Unleashed wasn't perfect. The boost made Sonic faster and you had the option to level up his max speed. If they ditched those two mechanics and kept Sonic at his default Unleashed speed, I'd be happy.

 

Sonic should be at a controllable speed for any segments that require players to make decisions or avoid obstacles. The only time for ludicrous speed should be either a short burst to cross an area that isn't obstacle heavy or coming out of some kind of gimmick. The only time you should need superhuman reflexes or guesswork when going at peak speed is for completely optional things like landing on the stretching platforms coming out of that one segment where you go ridiculously fast across the water in Hydrocity.

During most segments, a typical speed like that of Mario running in SMB3 or SMW is perfectly acceptable. Doubly so there is a need for heavy jumping.

 

At the speed of sound like he's supposed to?

 

While I will agree that SA2's engine was a perfect fit for how Sonic should feel in 3D, the rest of the game (shooting/hunting) was what made it not-as-good.

 

Problem is, most humans don't have the reaction time necessary to navigate through a level at that speed.

 

I think Sonic should be as fast is humanly playable without pure memorization (in 3D).

Sonic Unleashed had a few areas in which you were going too fast to play the game properly without memorizing layouts, and that's bullshit. Making the gameplay too fast forces it into a game of trial-and-error, and that kind of design is outdated by over a decade.

 

But some of us are not human. With Sonic, the power is different. No matter how hard I push, he wants to keep going.

When I'm over 200km/h, it's like it stops being just some other game. "More. More!" you urge me. As long as I'm playing Sonic, I feel like I can't lose. Go, Sonic!

There's no way I can lose if I play Sonic.

+100pts for guessing the reference.

 

I hypothesize that the way to determine sonic's proper speed/acceleration values may be derivable formulatically using several factors, namely the relationship of sonic's size to the camera distance and scale of the environment. For example, how many 'screens' can sonic pass in a set number of frames at maximum velocity, and how quick is the human response time to obstacles at that speed. After deriving the mean response time of various players at various skill levels, that should be the speed cap at which sonic can go under his own power. In the interest of the illusion of speed, the exact formula for sonic's acceleration would need to weighed heavily towards the first few moments after a dead stop, then slowly increase until the speed cap is hit. To make the gameplay more technical one could implement a way for a highly skilled player to defeat the speed cap at some sort of a sacrifice. Once these formulas related to speed are figured out, they should be the only thing rehashed from game to game.

 

Sonic Labyrinth speed.

:v: