How to Make A Better Sonic Game
-
NeoShogun_Zero
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:22 am
How to Make A Better Sonic Game
In order to make a better Sonic game, I propose a few changes. First and foremost, all the characters will be forced to wear some kind of clothes to make clear that they are, ahem, fully functional. Secondly, redesign all the stages so that blinding, pee-your-pants speed is king. Now, for Knuckles, his stages, instead of searchin' for the emerald shards, he should beat the ever-lovin' crap out of a whole bunch of enemies to get them back. The emeralds lodged in some enemies should make them a lot stronger. Also, we should not let Naka anywhere near this one. My theory is that in his car-humpin' hysteria, he lost the ability to make games that are any good at all. Reply with ideas to help this project along.
-
J.C.14
- Douche Bag
- Posts: 214
- Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2004 3:12 pm
- Location: Los Angeles, California
- Contact:
Re: How to Make A Better Sonic Game
speed is what brang it down, speed is unchallengingNeoShogun_Zero wrote:In order to make a better Sonic game, I propose a few changes. First and foremost, all the characters will be forced to wear some kind of clothes to make clear that they are, ahem, fully functional. Secondly, redesign all the stages so that blinding, pee-your-pants speed is king. Now, for Knuckles, his stages, instead of searchin' for the emerald shards, he should beat the ever-lovin' crap out of a whole bunch of enemies to get them back. The emeralds lodged in some enemies should make them a lot stronger. Also, we should not let Naka anywhere near this one. My theory is that in his car-humpin' hysteria, he lost the ability to make games that are any good at all. Reply with ideas to help this project along.
-
NeoShogun_Zero
- Posts: 20
- Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2004 1:22 am
You kinda missed the point
The point was to give me suggestions on how to improve this, not point out errors. Try giving me ideas next time. Oh, and by the way, I may be an awful human being, but. . . umm. . . I do not know how to finish this thought.
Clothes on Sonic? That's just not right. Not right at all. Downright wrong, in fact.
The main solution as I see it isn't to focus on making the stages fast, but rather on fixing the controls so that the characters are manouverable enough to handle that sort of speed without dashing right off a cliff or right into an enemy before you have a chance to react.
The main solution as I see it isn't to focus on making the stages fast, but rather on fixing the controls so that the characters are manouverable enough to handle that sort of speed without dashing right off a cliff or right into an enemy before you have a chance to react.
Agreed. Speed is nothing without control. What made sonic fun (for me, at least) was being able to pull all those incredibly smooth and stylish maneovers succesfully at high velocity. You know, dashing through the green hill zone in 30 seconds in one controlled combination of moves. You go really fast, and sonic looks really cool doing all those stunts. Like tony hawk, really, only simpler and more elegant. That would be a sonic game I would buy.
I would furthermore state that putting clothes on sonic would be so wrong as to serve as a golden universal definition for very wrong things.
I would furthermore state that putting clothes on sonic would be so wrong as to serve as a golden universal definition for very wrong things.
-
BlazeHedgehog
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:11 am
- Location: Colorado
- Contact:
I think, in essence, the fundimental problem with all Sonic games since 1999 (some would say even before then) is level design.
As someone who has recently been studying level design in videogames very closely, I have discovered that one of the many keys to what made Sonic so fun wasn't just the speed... it was something else.
I'll spare you the lengthy speech about level design, but allow me to say this: flow is key. Flow is when you can race through an entire stage, never stopping once, never turning around once. It is perfectly positioned enemies so that you hit them as you go, collectable items all in the right spots, etc. Games like Super Mario Brothers (the original) and Donkey Kong Country are perfect, pristine examples of flow done right.
What made Sonic great, is he could run up any surface - he could go in litterally, any direction possible, meaning level design could lead you ALL OVER the place in a roller coaster ride of high-speed fun. It produced a brand new dimension for level design flow.
In comparison, the 3D Sonic titles have not utilized this unique aspect of Sonic's game design. While there are brief portions where Sonic can run up a wall, they are hardly utilized in such a frequent and crucial mannor that they were in the original designs - when looking at the two designs side by side in this sort of way, you can almost say that the new Sonic titles have given us somewhat generic 3D platformers with a Sonic coat of paint. Indeed, recent Sonic titles give us gameplay physics that almost punish us for running up walls - in both Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, running up the side of a wall to get a special item was very difficult because it was difficult to control him, and to even make sure he could run that far up the wall you had to make sure he was running very fast - a sort of hit-or-miss process, really, and in Sonic Heroes, if you run up the walls to the ceiling of the special stages, you immediately fall down because running all the way up there caused you to go too slow. (and, indeed, the physics weren't ment to handle it, either) Outside of that, the only wall-running-up Sonic does is when the game initiates an auto-camera loop.
So far, strangely enough - the only 3D Sonic game that seemed to understand this concept was, infact, the ill-fated Sonic X-Treme. Level designs in X-Treme were strange, almost surrealist block levels with no center of gravity -- Sonic could run up any surface at any time, which continued the depth of level design derived from the 2D titles.
We can also blame level design on many of the recent complaints of Sonic titles - the bottomless pits of Heroes, and Sonic Adventure 2, for example, are a direct result of poor level design. The row-after-row of dash plates that litter 3D Sonic titles stem from poor level design as well. The Sonic Advance series has never, EVER had good level design. One could say the 3D Sonic titles might be really, really awesome if they could learn how to correctly implement the finer points of Sonic gameplay without it looking as awkward as Sonic X-Treme.
As someone who has recently been studying level design in videogames very closely, I have discovered that one of the many keys to what made Sonic so fun wasn't just the speed... it was something else.
I'll spare you the lengthy speech about level design, but allow me to say this: flow is key. Flow is when you can race through an entire stage, never stopping once, never turning around once. It is perfectly positioned enemies so that you hit them as you go, collectable items all in the right spots, etc. Games like Super Mario Brothers (the original) and Donkey Kong Country are perfect, pristine examples of flow done right.
What made Sonic great, is he could run up any surface - he could go in litterally, any direction possible, meaning level design could lead you ALL OVER the place in a roller coaster ride of high-speed fun. It produced a brand new dimension for level design flow.
In comparison, the 3D Sonic titles have not utilized this unique aspect of Sonic's game design. While there are brief portions where Sonic can run up a wall, they are hardly utilized in such a frequent and crucial mannor that they were in the original designs - when looking at the two designs side by side in this sort of way, you can almost say that the new Sonic titles have given us somewhat generic 3D platformers with a Sonic coat of paint. Indeed, recent Sonic titles give us gameplay physics that almost punish us for running up walls - in both Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, running up the side of a wall to get a special item was very difficult because it was difficult to control him, and to even make sure he could run that far up the wall you had to make sure he was running very fast - a sort of hit-or-miss process, really, and in Sonic Heroes, if you run up the walls to the ceiling of the special stages, you immediately fall down because running all the way up there caused you to go too slow. (and, indeed, the physics weren't ment to handle it, either) Outside of that, the only wall-running-up Sonic does is when the game initiates an auto-camera loop.
So far, strangely enough - the only 3D Sonic game that seemed to understand this concept was, infact, the ill-fated Sonic X-Treme. Level designs in X-Treme were strange, almost surrealist block levels with no center of gravity -- Sonic could run up any surface at any time, which continued the depth of level design derived from the 2D titles.
We can also blame level design on many of the recent complaints of Sonic titles - the bottomless pits of Heroes, and Sonic Adventure 2, for example, are a direct result of poor level design. The row-after-row of dash plates that litter 3D Sonic titles stem from poor level design as well. The Sonic Advance series has never, EVER had good level design. One could say the 3D Sonic titles might be really, really awesome if they could learn how to correctly implement the finer points of Sonic gameplay without it looking as awkward as Sonic X-Treme.
Never thought the opportunity to go running up the walls was such an important asset to the series. But you're right. Those square walls that are such a pain to get around do detract from the gameplay, particularly in the Advance games.
In Sonic Advance 2 the poor level designs inevitably resulted in Sonic himself being the crappiest character of the game. Every time he fell down to a lower level it meant that you, the player, were screwed for a chance to get into the special stage; and it becomes clear just how good the Genesis games were, because there Sonic's speed was a valuable asset for exploration and he could reach just about any corner of the stage without too much hassle (and barely any death pits FYI)
In Sonic Advance 2 the poor level designs inevitably resulted in Sonic himself being the crappiest character of the game. Every time he fell down to a lower level it meant that you, the player, were screwed for a chance to get into the special stage; and it becomes clear just how good the Genesis games were, because there Sonic's speed was a valuable asset for exploration and he could reach just about any corner of the stage without too much hassle (and barely any death pits FYI)
Re: How to Make A Better Sonic Game
Is my phone ringing?J.C.14 wrote:speed is what brang it down, speed is unchallenging
Blaze is right... level design is the number one culprit. There is this sort of "elevated race track" phenomenon going on in the 3D games' level design... its gotten to the point where you can practically see more similarities between Sonic Heroes and F-Zero GX than you can between Sonic Heroes and Sonic 3 and Knuckles. It makes the levels too linear and robs them of any exploration value, it dramatically increases the number of deaths-by-bottomless-pits, and it makes the environments just plain boring to look at.
Meanwhile, in Sonic Advance 2 one basically spends the entire game holding forwards, randomly tapping the jump button and hoping for the best. Contrary to popular belief, the original Sonic titles were not about going fast all the time -- there were plenty of segments of enemy-fighting or platform-jumping. What made the original level designs so good was that they found "natural" ways to slow Sonic down before he arrived at these segments. You could run full-tilt in the faster sections without fear, because very seldomly would you be shot off at full speed into enemies, spikes or bottomless pits.
Marble Gardens is a perfect example... after rocketing around down steep hills or riding on one of those tops, you'd be plopped into a wall or something, bringing you to a complete stop, and would then be deposited into one of the "slower" underground segments of the levels. You could naturally tell that this was a different kind of section, full of enemies and obstacles worth slowing down for, and the layout was designed so that you couldn't get to a high speed, even if you wanted to. Conversely, Sonic Advance 2 is all speed, all the time. Unfortunately, while they did get rid of the "slower" sections of level design, they sure didn't get rid of the enemies, spikes or bottomless pits. Ouch.
This is a problem that I feel was largely corrected in Sonic Advance 3, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. There is plenty of bottomless pit dodging, tricky platform jumping and spike avoiding, but Sonic is usually slowed down before reaching these challenges, rather than being launched into them at top speed. Now don't get me wrong... this is no Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and there are still too many cheap hits. But there are far less of them -- this time they are the exception rather than the rule.
Meanwhile, in Sonic Advance 2 one basically spends the entire game holding forwards, randomly tapping the jump button and hoping for the best. Contrary to popular belief, the original Sonic titles were not about going fast all the time -- there were plenty of segments of enemy-fighting or platform-jumping. What made the original level designs so good was that they found "natural" ways to slow Sonic down before he arrived at these segments. You could run full-tilt in the faster sections without fear, because very seldomly would you be shot off at full speed into enemies, spikes or bottomless pits.
Marble Gardens is a perfect example... after rocketing around down steep hills or riding on one of those tops, you'd be plopped into a wall or something, bringing you to a complete stop, and would then be deposited into one of the "slower" underground segments of the levels. You could naturally tell that this was a different kind of section, full of enemies and obstacles worth slowing down for, and the layout was designed so that you couldn't get to a high speed, even if you wanted to. Conversely, Sonic Advance 2 is all speed, all the time. Unfortunately, while they did get rid of the "slower" sections of level design, they sure didn't get rid of the enemies, spikes or bottomless pits. Ouch.
This is a problem that I feel was largely corrected in Sonic Advance 3, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. There is plenty of bottomless pit dodging, tricky platform jumping and spike avoiding, but Sonic is usually slowed down before reaching these challenges, rather than being launched into them at top speed. Now don't get me wrong... this is no Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and there are still too many cheap hits. But there are far less of them -- this time they are the exception rather than the rule.
-
BlazeHedgehog
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:11 am
- Location: Colorado
- Contact:
It's easy to make a better game than Sonic Advance 2. By comparison it's therefore VERY good. But if you compare SA3 to Sonic 3&Knuckles, then it's not very good at all.BlazeHedgehog wrote:I really feel like I'm missing the boat with Sonic Advance 3, for some reason. Everybody keeps saying what a good game it is but I can't help but think it just feels poorly constructed and very rushed.
Sonic Advance 3 isn't on brilliant, but IMO it's pretty decent. I'd probably call it the best traditional Sonic platformer ever made outside of the original Big Five. I would agree that it does feel rushed, particularly graphically, but it sort of succeeds in spite of itself.
I can tell it's not as good as the old games, but at the same time, it's the first title in the Advance series where I find myself bothering to get all the emeralds, or taking runs through already-beaten levels just for the hell of it. I guess what I'm saying is... I actually find it fun to play. I like the partner system, I like the hubs, I (for the most part) like the level design, I LOVE the music, I like most of the boss fights, and I like the bonus rounds (not the special stages though). I'd call it a great game if it weren't for mediocre graphics in places, a few too many cheap shots, and two boss battles that are really, REALLY annoying. (If you've played the game you know which two.)
I can tell it's not as good as the old games, but at the same time, it's the first title in the Advance series where I find myself bothering to get all the emeralds, or taking runs through already-beaten levels just for the hell of it. I guess what I'm saying is... I actually find it fun to play. I like the partner system, I like the hubs, I (for the most part) like the level design, I LOVE the music, I like most of the boss fights, and I like the bonus rounds (not the special stages though). I'd call it a great game if it weren't for mediocre graphics in places, a few too many cheap shots, and two boss battles that are really, REALLY annoying. (If you've played the game you know which two.)
About clothes...
I don't mind the male Sonic characters wearing clothes for special time-based events, downloads, or just an alternative costume as a reward i.e. the Christmas, Halloween, PSO costumes, etc. In general though, male Sonic characters should be mostly naked sans the gloves and shoes. Though, I wouldn't complain if they were given accessories for example, goggles and a pilot's scarf for Sonic of Tails.
Many of the members already echoed my sentiments on the problematic level design in the recent games so I'm not going to further go into that.
I don't mind the male Sonic characters wearing clothes for special time-based events, downloads, or just an alternative costume as a reward i.e. the Christmas, Halloween, PSO costumes, etc. In general though, male Sonic characters should be mostly naked sans the gloves and shoes. Though, I wouldn't complain if they were given accessories for example, goggles and a pilot's scarf for Sonic of Tails.
Many of the members already echoed my sentiments on the problematic level design in the recent games so I'm not going to further go into that.
-
BlazeHedgehog
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:11 am
- Location: Colorado
- Contact:
I really dug Sonic Advance 2, though. I, much like Esrever toward 3, thought that it was the most solid Sonic game since the original console games. Generally in Sonic Advance 3 I just run around Route 99 a lot and maybe Sunset Hill once or twice because those are pretty much the only two stages I enjoy.It's easy to make a better game than Sonic Advance 2. By comparison it's therefore VERY good. But if you compare SA3 to Sonic 3&Knuckles, then it's not very good at all.
With Advance 2, I usually would play up until Sky Canyon or even Techno Base before I'd quit, or start over from Leaf Forest with a different character.
To each his own, I guess.
-
Light Speed
- Sexified
- Posts: 2529
- Joined: Sun May 23, 2004 4:08 pm
- Location: Park City, Utah
- Contact:
I don't get why everyone hates Advance 2. I didn't really notice the endless pits aside from Sky Canyon. I thought the trick system was done nicely and kept you on your toes. The bosses on the other hand were retarded and I have yet to see a Special stage. Also I have yet to beat the game with anyone except Cream.
I have no money otherwise I'd probably buy Advance 3 out of blind fanboyism. I'm still trying to break away from that. I managed not to get DX or Mega Collection. :/
I have no money otherwise I'd probably buy Advance 3 out of blind fanboyism. I'm still trying to break away from that. I managed not to get DX or Mega Collection. :/
-
Segaholic2
- Forum God
- Posts: 3516
- Joined: Fri May 21, 2004 11:28 am
-
BlazeHedgehog
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:11 am
- Location: Colorado
- Contact:
-
BlazeHedgehog
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 9:11 am
- Location: Colorado
- Contact: