Sonic Unleashed: The Post-PC Port Discussion Thread

SA1 and Unleashed gave Orbinauts and Spinners drastic redesigns to match their respective robot styles. A far cry of the classic badniks in Colors and Lost World, were they were obviously designed to look close to their original designs. Kikis debuted in SA1 AFAIK, even if they were reminiscent of Aiais.

Classic through Unleashed show an evolution from animal-based robots to more abstract and advanced-looking robots. Classic were based on animals with a few exceptions. Adventure were also mostly based on animals, but with more details and more complex-looking (compare Orbinauts). Heroes had fewer animals, brighter colors, simpler and sleeker designs, and introduced the Eggman-esque grins. '06 looked more advanced and "realistic" than ever, did away with animals altogether and grins. Unleashed backpedaled from '06 (which I can't blame it for), but it still showed a progression from Heroes: the grins and bright colors were back, but now they had neon lights, more abstract features, more futuristic designs, and were shinier.

Regardless of whether or not they show an evolution in design style, my point is that we used to get a different set of enemies per era, made up of new robots and the rare returning one with a proper visual upgrade to bring it up to current standards. Colors and Lost World threw that away, bringing back classic badniks en masse with designs resembling their original looks.

 

Colors' redesign of classic badniks follow most of the same principles of updating as Adventure, including changing the eye design. It's not that radical a difference.





The idea that these are all supposed to be identical to the genesis games just does not scan with me.

And I don't agree that they're that similar, there are still plenty of newer enemies, and the classic redesigns aren't particularly more or less faithful than before.

 

While I see the differences, those Colors designs still scream "nostalgia pandering" to me, as does the ratio of returning badniks.

So I guess by this point we can only agree to disagree and move on.

 

If using established mooks and having a consistent identity is "nostalgia pandering" then pander it all they want.

I don't see anyone making a fuss over glided koopa troopas.

And frankly every robot in Unleashed looks like an Egg pwan off-shoot. Doesn't help that the same robot type is thrown at me in mass in every night stage.

 

I agree it can come off like nostalgia-pandering when they aren't even willing to change the color palette like they used to. The differences on the SA1 redesigns are much more obvious which does make the Colors redesigns look blandly similar in contrast. The only noticeable difference are the blue eyes which aren't really an improvement.

 

They do change the colors, actually. SA1 has red uniduses (I just didn't have a picture) just like the classic games, Colors has pink choppers, black motobugs and silver spinners, and Lost World has giant pink caterkillers, gold and silver ball hogs, among all the new badniks it designs to fit in with the others.

 

The existence of classic badniks in Colors likely has way more to do with the game originally being planned as a Generations Wii port than any kind of nostalgia pandering, especially since enemy designs are basically identical between it and Generations.

Besides, I think the designs are great and the badniks are used pretty well in Colors' levels. Also adds a ton of visual variety to the enemy roster that the series hasn't had since SA1

 

Yeah calling the Genesis badniks in Colors "nostalgia pandering" is silly. The franchise has reused badniks all the time, and in Colors' case they were just finding a way to prevent assets that'd been created for the Wii version of Generations from going to waste. Colors had a level of badnik variety that hadn't been seen in the 3D games in over 10 years so I was more than fine to see Motobugs and Buzz Bombers back.

 

Funnily enough I think the generations games (especially shadow) have the highest enemy variety in basically any Sonic game, because you get very different kinds of robots for nearly every stage, instead of just different kinds of animals or Egg pawns wearing continually fruitier outfits like other sonic games that try to have enemy variety.

 

The previous 3D games before Colors never used classic badniks so directly. Nostalgia pandering was definitely a part of it, Sonic 4 came out around the same time. It was an improvement after all the 'robotic whatever' we got in 06 and Unleashed but SA1's approach is still more inventive.

 

Is sonic a video game where enemies having the widest variety of functions possible is desirable, or is it a vehicle for fans to powerscale? If you want the latter you have plenty of manga to read. Arbitrarily locking yourself off from the badniks just for some sense of "progression" most players won't even notice is dumb. Every other long running series mixes new enemies in with old ones to give player a large pool of problems to deal with. Why can't Sonic?

 

I wouldn't call a black motobug "the widest variety possible" especially when it replaced what was a unique enemy beforehand. I don't know what SA1's superior badnik variety has to do with power scaling.

 

I always liked the motobug race in Colours, I think it's a pretty fun idea for a Sonic game to have a fast enemy that chases you around.

I don't see the problem in bringing back older enemy designs. I think it's kinda silly to tie things like character design or gameplay mechanics to "canon", I don't think it needs to be that deep. I don't see why Motobug can't be the Sonic equivalent of Mario's Goombas lol.

If the next game brings back the more serious enemy designs from Frontiers I think it'd be quite fun to also throw in some of Eggman's goofy ass badniks just to juxtapose the two.

I also really prefer the designs from Sonic 4, I think the badniks were the best thing to come out of that game. They're like a step in-between the classic and modern designs.


They'd feel right at home alongside the Adventure enemies

(I was not a fan of the generations redesign of Kiki lmao)

 

I liked how the enemies in superstars had the classic eyes and the bosses had the modern eyes. I thought that was a cute touch in an otherwise uninspired game

 

he's right about the werehog being weak as shit, how come I have to do a bunch of combos as the werehog but regular sonic can just take out a robot with one single homing attack lol

if, for whatever mad reason, they decide to bring the werehog back they should make him faster paced. Let him use his stretchy arms to swing around like Spider-Man lmao

 

I liked the Werehog swinging mechanics. Create a 3D Ristar mod! (No way to grab enemies from afar and move towards them though…)

 

Werehog gameplay if Sega cooked:

 

"It's not nostalgia pandering when the game I like does it"