General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

How about instead of just making statements, you back it up with reasons why you think that? Cause you're just coming off as a contrarian.

It has much better level design than the Adventure games, and ESPECIALLY Heroes, and even with Silver's physics sections, there is still nothing in it that is as abominable as those treasure hunting segments with Rouge and Knuckles in Sonic Adventure 2. At least in the 06 game, everything you need to find is in a set, clearly signposted spot, instead of forcing you to play hot/cold on overly huge maps with no obvious landmarks.

Sonic Adventure 1 was clearly just starting to come to grips with this whole 3D thing, while Heroes levels were just too long and bland.

Sonic the Hedgehog was where Sonic Team finally started to get the hang of 3D Sonic level design. Levels like Flame Core and Kingdom Valley, for instance, easily tower over anything in the previous games.

And don't give me that stuff about the gameplay of the supporting cast. It's like the werehog in Sonic Unleashed: you ignore it because the Sonic parts more than make up for it.

Except in Sonic Adventure 2, where only half of the Sonic/Shadow levels are any good. There just isn't enough there to make up for the rest.

edited 6th Oct '15 3:55:35 AM by Haruhater

Better level design?

Crisis City was so broken they had to build the layout from scratch for Generations. Wave Ocean has such disjointed and poorly-scripted automatic segments it makes Emerald Coast look like Zone of the Decade. Flame Core had several segments with broken scripting and even worse pacing with the layout decisions cutting speed segments short for more (ugh) grinding, and Shadow Story brings out the worst of the post-Heroes Dream Era badnik toughness inflation. No mook needs to have almost as much HP as a lategame boss.

Adventure was a tad rough, but it had lots of heart, and captured the Classic-Era speed physics more effectively than any other 3D Sonic has done.

Adventure 2 had more polish, the best portrayl of the competency of the Good Doctor, and gives him a motive for conquest and revenge. Not to mention City Escape was so good they wholesale copypasted several segments from the original layout into the Generations version, and the multiplayer was actually very playable compared to some of the later games. Also the Homing Attack here was the most effective incarnation before Unleashed revamped it. The only Hedgehog levels that were of questionable quality were the Final Rush variants, the others were all SOLID.

Heroes had some wonky levels and very unusual art decisions, but it also has excellent blending of multiple styles of play and some of the best boss fights of the Dream Era. Too bad the Homing Attack code is a little less refined than the Adventure 2 incarnation. I will agree that Bullet Station is too overloaded with grind rails and could use an actual layout.

edited 6th Oct '15 4:55:53 AM by AceOfScarabs

Oh, this is not going to end well.

Actually, Crisis City was copied and pasted into Generations, and I like the twist they used in the Classic version, the end goal flying away in a tornado.

Again, I like 2006's mach speed segments, frustrating as they were, I'd still put that game over Sonic Boom, and the story writing (as much as that counts for anything) I'd put over Colors, Unleashed, and Lost World, if not purely out of spite for the characterizations of Sonic and Eggman in those games, "baldy mcnosehairs", and Eggman's gradual shift into comical ineptitude.

I mean 2006 Eggman got a realistic design, built a time machine, and got to be intimidating.

edited 6th Oct '15 5:06:26 AM by Soble

They took only parts of the layout for Modern and basically created the Classic layout from whole cloth, using mainly the general city shape and art direction.

Honestly I liked the way the Dream Era painted Eggman as having a motive for his conquest plans and gave him a source of money and hardware.

'06 Eggman also gets props for "stealing" his own Meteotech security robots for the invasion of Soleanna. It's the easiest way to smuggle an invading army in, ship them in legitimately as sales stock, then hijack the whole shipment and you're good to go.

edited 6th Oct '15 5:01:09 AM by AceOfScarabs

We'll just have to agree to disagree. I'd easily put 06 Crisis City above Dreamcast City Escape (which in my opinion is only a good level if you had played the game as a kid, because I can't even begin to describe the disappointment I felt playing it the first time in Adventure 2 after so many runs in Generations), I see nothing wrong with the other speed levels, the mach speed sections are actually pretty fun once you learn to press square, and I still only see Eggman as a credible threat in this game, rather than in the Adventure games, in which he was halfway to being a buffoon.

The only truly good level in Adventure 2 is Metal Harbor. And maybe Final Rush, but that's it.

Eh, the closest the Doctor has got to killing Sonic was when he figured out Tail's fake emerald ruse and gave Sonic the boot with a rigged escape capsule.

The only real good thing about 06 was its music.

Oh no, I'd be crazy to put Crisis City over City Escape. That level is the shit.

Check it:

You start out falling from a helicopter and ride a scrap of metal down a hill causing ridiculous amounts of property damage, with Homeland Security on your ass the whole time.

City Escape is definitely the definitive 3D Sonic level. Alongside Metal Harbor

Yeah, but then you actually star playing it.

City Escape is iconic for a good reason. It has kickass music, a great layout, and is super fun to play.

Then you start playing it and everyone comes out with different judgement.

With that apparently out of the way, Runners now updates us with this work of art◊

Also, Zazz confirmed for somehow looking like a rooster. Or more reasonably, Wisps & Knuckles confirmed blind.

edited 6th Oct '15 7:27:41 AM by Demonfly

Omega Pumpkin...that is truly the kind of stress reliever I've been needing.

Fantastic three!

What the HE double hockey sticks is that?

Is that an Eggman robot? What was he thinking?

Well, this was unexpected. Sonic Lost World is getting a Steam release on November 2nd.

Free DLC and if you preorder, you get Sonic and All Star Racing Transformed free.

I actually thought Adventure 2's level design was the weakest of the Adventure era games (that is, Adventure, 2 and what little I've played of Heroes). With only a couple of exceptions they were very linear without not a lot of variation in platforming or area design, relied a lot on gimmicks for content, and generally seemed to have less in them than the games that came before or after. It's also where the series really started relying on homing chains and light dash for cheap get-from-a-to-be segments in lieu of platforming, plus tons of arbitrary obstacles that required situational powerups to get past - all that started in Adventure 1, of course, but it wasn't until here that it became outright ubiquitous.

There are exceptions, of course (Green Forest, for example, had a lot of variety and interesting areas iirc), but even stages that I really like (like Metal Harbor) had those problems. Pyramid Cave is a particular is a good example of a stage that's just running constantly in a straight line with little variation but periodic breaks to do a gimmicky key puzzle, and it's one of my least favorite stages in the whole franchise because of it.

That said, the design for Knuckles' and Eggman's stage are almost unanimously the exception to that. Though I'm apparently in the minority about the treasure hunting stages, Eggman had some of the best 3D levels in the series period.

I also have to admit that while City Escape is very overrated, it's not that bad design wise.

edited 6th Oct '15 10:59:57 AM by KnownUnknown

So what's anyone's ideal Sonic level design? I notice there doesn't seem to be a consensus on that yet.

Linear in the grand scheme of things, but with wildly-branching alternate paths open to those who stick to higher areas without falling, and (usually) some means of returning to those upper paths by backtracking should you fall. Other than that, try to make the most use out of momentum and rolling physics as possible, so lots of ramps and curves to accomodate that. Try to avoid bottomless pits in stages that aren't explicitly high up in the sky; opt for forcing players onto lower routes instead.

That's my take, anyway.

2D. That's it.

There's been so many different takes, its hard to make a preference; but I definitely prefer level design that caters to "constantly moving forward", I like exploration as much as the next guy but Sonic is fast and I want to fucking run fast.

So yea, something linear and to the point is fine with me honestly. Exploration can be saved for characters like Tails or Knuckles who have abilities suited to that type of stuff.

I guess this is just yet another opportunity to bemoan the sorry state of Nintendo.

I wonder if PC gamers will rationalize it or disregarde it because you can mod better levels into Generations.

Eh, modders will find some value in it, I'm sure.