My solutions for some complaints about Modern Sonic

So, it's basically been all but confirmed that Sonic's maingames will for the foreseeable future, be following the Boost style ofgameplay. And while I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, there are flawsto it and a lot of people do dislike it. So, I wanted to make a post about howwe can “fix” Sonic's gameplay in the most recent games. (I say that in quotesbecause, to be honest, it isn't really broken anyway.)

First, I wanted to give my opinion on the boost games. WhileI didn't start with them, my first Sonic game was Adventure, I enjoy the Boostto win games a lot. I always enjoy rushing through the stages at light speed,trying to find the fastest way through, and practice it, getting as good withthe games as I can. Getting the timing of everything right allows you to shootthrough EVERYTHING and it's so, so satisfying.

One the positive end of the spectrum, the gameplay reliesmore on the timing of the player's actions to smash through a level in style.In Sonic Unleashed, you go through a loop that sends you downwards onto aspring, which you bounce off of, Homing attack a couple of enemies, and jumpinto a cannon, where you can see a boost ring, so you aim upwards, and air dashinto the ring. This is a very small case, but the game rewards the player fortheir timing by allowing them to shoot through a level in style. This can gofor using your speed to get onto alternate, faster paths, or just reacting intime to GET onto an alternate path. Say you're in 2D, there's a long hallway,and at the end, an up/down fork in the road. The bottom sends you underwater,slowing you down. The top is gotten to by jumping to a platform on the otherside with a pulley. Jump in time and you get to take the quick route.

But like I said, there are flaws with the gameplay. Thetiming isn't too difficult to get as it depends more on reaction rather thanknowledge of the stage. The amount of automation in the game is kind of silly,with any sort of physics that existed in the Adventure games (06 doesn't countfor… obvious reasons) and the classics is replaced with automation. Loops,running on walls, in moments like this it relies on spectacle to reward theplayer instead of telling them that THEY are the reason they gained enoughspeed to run across the wall and now get to take the fast lane, quite literallyin the case of something like Speed Highway. And the big one, the boost. Peoplesay it removes challenge from the game and while it does make it easier, I dobelieve people have over-exaggerated it. You blast right through enemies but youalmost never run out of it, and there's no reward behind using the boost inareas where you shouldn't or for using it sparingly, because as I said, youalmost never run out.

So, overall, the system as it is, isn't broken at all, andfrom a design standpoint, works pretty well. But it does have its problems, andI wanted to find out how I could fix some of them. And I think I have a goodidea of how it could be done. So again, the things we're fixing are…

- Over-reliance on spectacle when control has tobe taken out of the player's hands

- The amount of automation used when a situationwould be too much for a player

- The lack of physics, unlike the classics

- The boost being too powerful with no reward forusing it in areas where you otherwise wouldn't or for using it sparingly

So, I'm going to focus moreso on GAMEPLAY rather than leveldesign or anything. Note, I am not limiting myself in what I can do with the gameplay,so long as it stays similar to the gameplay of Unleashed through Forces. So let'sget started. I think I'm going to start with controls, first. I will be usingForces’ ideas as a base, and you'll understand why later. I will be using theXbox Controller as an example as it is the easiest for me to write here, whilstnot confusing anyone because Nintendo's is “backwards” (It's not- The Xbox'sis. The SNES, the first standard controller to have 4 face buttons to myknowledge, was far before ANY Xbox system, obviously.)

So, to start with the obvious stuff, the Left stick is tomove, and the A button is to jump, which carries your momentum, and for ahoming-attack-like move. The Homing attack will…

-Not slow you down

-Bounce you off enemies at the same speed and angle that youhoming attacked them at, with the angle inverted upwards if applicable

-Has no limit, or an extremely short limit, on how long youneed to jump before you can use it, or how fast in succession you can use it,so long as there are things you can target

Boost is moving to the Right trigger, and is being replacedwith more of a fast-run, with no limit, however, it grants you noinvulnerability. The Boost will become a powerup, which will grant you a bar ofBoost energy that you can use with the Y button (Or maybe LT, not sure yet). Xbutton will be used for context-sensitive actions. It'll be used for aGrappling hook, which I'll explain the reasoning behind later (I told you I wasbasing it off Forces’ ideas), as well as a Slide-like move when on the groundthat will not slow you down either.

Okay. For the grappling hook, there are 2 modes I've thoughtof. Swing and Drift. There are objects in the stages that will have a specialtarget on them, signifying you can Hook them. To Swing, you jump then press Xto essentially homing attack the target. If you're already running, you canjump, hook the target, then press X to immediately fly forward with a smallboost of speed. You can move the stick in the direction you're swinging tospeed up, Y to switch directions, though your swing will be slowed a largeamount, and in 3D, left and right to turn.

Drifting is only available in certain parts of the level,and is activated by pressing X whilst on the ground in that area. Whiledrifting, a tension mechanic is activated, where you have to move the controlstick in the direction you're turning, lightly for smaller turns and harder forsteeper turns. If you let go, the line will break and you'll be flung off ofthe path. If you turn too hard, you'll risk flying off towards the target, orsmacking into a wall.

Now, here are some practical applications of these.

Once building up speed, the path ends in a bottomless pit,and has a trail of enemies to the bottom path. However, because of your speed,you could homing attack the first enemy, bouncing off of them upwards slightly,which gets you to another enemy you can bounce off to get onto another path.

Another example.

You find a boost item, then the path winds 90 degreesupwards, and then forward again. There's a small road with a bunch of enemieson it. You have the boost, so you smash right through them. The path windsdownwards again, and in midair, there's an enemy. You just boosted through theenemies, so the speed from that can be used to bounce off the enemy to acollectable/alternate path.

What do you guys think? It doesn't fix everything, there arelikely other problems with the boost games that I haven't realised. But I wantedto think of a way that some of the common complaints could be solved, and that Idid. So the question is: did I do it well? That's up to your discretion. I'm nopersonal game designer so I don't know if there's any other drawbacks to this I'munaware of so if there would be problems with these ideas, let me know so I cantry to solve them. Thanks!