General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

I enjoy casually screwing around in Sonic Adventure, but it's way too much a product of its time to play totally seriously (in a manner of speaking).

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[x4]

Good to know someone feels as enthusiastic about Advance 3 as I did, one of the most underrated games in the entire series for me.

The bosses stand out to me quite a bit as they're all different, look awesome, have awesome music, and are challenging enough to feel like more than an afterthought. Even the best sonic fangames seem to always drop the ball on boss quality, and maybe they should take a page out of Advance(or Rush even)'s book instead of the classics when it comes to that.

Also an extremely obscure and underrated music track from Advance 3. I would love to see it remastered or remixed someday in the main games as it's a lovely tune.

edited 4th Dec '15 3:44:43 AM by Vertigo_High

Personally, I love the special stage music and the super-70s-sounding boss clear music, the latter of course helped by the psychedelic background the characters inexplicably appear on once clearing a boss. That song also has one of the best percussion tracks in any Sonic game, and it's only 24 seconds long.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

And then they run forever diagonally toward the horizon!

Though I think what really makes the regular boss music work is those chords from Sonic the Hedgehog 3's final boss music.

And it's the last game with the original English voice cast, so everyone realizes this is the last time we ever hear Deem Bristow say "Ow!", "You little," and "You're going to pay for this!"

So Brainscratch Commentaries replay of Sonic Adventure 2 got me thinking: What kind of Sonic level design do you guys prefer? Ones that reward you for your skill, speedrunning and multiple replays, or ones that emphasize exploration, and a more methodical design with multiple goodies.

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

Because that's basically what the Genesis games were

Moon◊

Can you at least elaborate a little bit more :V

A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

I kinda figured it was self-evident. There was a tried-and-true path that speedrunners would take, but several alternate paths and multiple hidden rooms scattered about to whet the appetite of more explorative players.

Moon◊

Only really in Sonic 3&K and CD, and I'd argue the former didn't really do it so great. (But then I'm apparently in the minority in disliking 3&K's level design—I think it's a mess.)

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I like Sonic 3's level design, but hate Sonic and Knuckles' level design, which is one of various reasons why I never lump the two together into a single game like most people do.

Sonic 2 had the mix between speedy and pacing/platforming as well, though whether there were substantial alternate paths and a variety of areas depended heavily on the level (most stages had the "good" path, and then the path you took when you screwed up on that path).

edited 4th Dec '15 11:28:06 AM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I'll give that Sonic 2 has some alternate paths, but not in a ton of levels, and the alternate paths aren't the most interesting, beyond them generally being a little more tedious or dangerous (e.g. Mystic Cave Zone).

I do like how Oil Ocean Zone lets you literally skip the level by jumping on the oil.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I mean, the obvious path is, well, obvious in most cases.

But then you have things like the cache of rings and a shield in Green Hill 2, accessible either by jumping leftward over some spikes (in a relatively non-intuitive move, as it would appear to be a death pit if you weren't already in the know) or by smashing through what'd appear to be a solid wall, followed by a Speed Shoe powerup that would let you easily jump on top of a nearby-ish loop-de-loop to obtain a 1Up if you were quick about it.

The hidden path in Marble 3 that lets you cut out a third of the level, provided you can squeeze out around the spike crusher that the path lets out directly under.

The non-obvious switch in Labyrinth 1 that actually summons a tiny floating platform back above the water, which floats rightward over the entire pool and takes you to a shorter upper path (a path which was very visible in Debug Mode, but with such an obtuse means of reaching it that I wasn't fully aware of the correct method until fairly recently).

The shortcut in Scrap Brain 3, where outrunning the descending platform at the very start of the stage would let you take an upper route that renders the stage about 30 seconds long.

How holding directions in Chemical Plant's tubes takes you to different paths altogether. In addition, the hidden upper path in Chemical Plant 2, accessed by jumping leftward off a small hill in the ground into what looks like a solid wall, which lets you skip the difficult rising Mega Mack gauntlet and drops you off just before Eggman.

The swinging platform that breaks off its chain in Aquatic Ruin 2, which floats along the water to a hidden route (despite no other platform in the game doing this).

The alternate upper path in Hill Top 2, which is considerably easier than the standard lower path (although if you botch a few easy jumps early on, you drop down to the standard path and have to head back to the junction point - if you can - to get back on the upper path again), including replacing the rising lava room with a rising floor room instead.

That Star Post in Mystic Ruins 2 that's hidden in an otherwise solid-looking wall, directly above the level start (absurdly early for a checkpoint, although since it's an additional Special Stage attempt I can kind of understand its existence).

Jumping into an exposed vacuum tube as Knuckles in Carnival Night 2, letting him tackle Sonic's route instead of his own. Then, at the end, deliberately avoiding the quicker exit Knuckles's route has, and instead making the tedious climb up the non-functioning vacuum tubes just to the left, all so you can fight the stage's boss regardless of what the game wants you to do. (The boss works properly, too, not glitchy or anything. Even loads Egg Robo's sprites instead of Eggman's. I actually make a habit of doing this; I can't remember the last time I actually played Knuckles's CNZ 2 properly.)

Accessing a hidden area at the very end of Mushroom Hill 2 just by jumping onto the left hangbar instead of the right hangbar on the final hangbar-raising-machine-thing, then hitting the red spring and finding you go through the half-pipe on the ceiling instead of around it. (Those machines probably have a name. I don't know what it is.)

Ducking just to the right of Knuckles in Sky Sanctuary Zone, triggering a unique "go on without me already!" animation used nowhere else in the game that probably shouldn't have required ducking to trigger.

That's just scratching the surface, really. There's tons of cool stuff hidden in those stages that you miss if you just zoom by.

Moon◊

For Scrap Brain, I always take the shortcut.

I don't really have much of an opinion because I tend to not go alternate routes most of the the time.

edited 4th Dec '15 1:03:33 PM by powerpuffbats

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

I think I don't like shortcuts because they make me feel like a sucker for ever playing the rest of the level.

I hated Sonic 2's Special Stages, and those absurd checkpoint placements are one of the reasons why...

I do writing, feel free to check out my stories here! https://numbugwritingblog.tumblr.com/post/686233243868102656/numbugs-shared-heroic-uni

Admittedly, I'm not a fan of Sonic 2's Special Stage, either. I vastly prefer how the idea was executed in Sonic Rush.

Experience has taught me to investigate anything that glows.

If I'm honest, I thought the Special Stages in Sonic 2 were pretty screwy too.

Yeah, Rush did them best in my opinion.

Sonic 2's were just pure memorisation, which means you had to go through them multiple times just to learn the pattern (which makes Emerald 7 worse when it has a section with rings randomly scattered everywhere), plus the fact that the Special Stages being tied to the checkpoints meant that they were often hidden from view, meaning that you usually had to start a level from the beginning if you died.

I do writing, feel free to check out my stories here! https://numbugwritingblog.tumblr.com/post/686233243868102656/numbugs-shared-heroic-uni

I mean, Sonic the Hedgehog was basically designed with an arcade game mentality (given that Sega has been and still is huge into arcade development since basically forever), and a bit of trial-and-error memorization is kind of the name of the game with that style of game. At least the main game tends to be more forgiving about it, with the ring mechanics almost eliminating the frustration of cheap shots. (Almost, because bottomless pits and crushers still exist.)

Although yes, the final stretch of the 7th Special Stage is taking that whole "memorization" angle waaaaay too far. That's practically random.

Er, no, there was almost always 2-3 checkpoints right on the beaten path in Sonic 2. The ones hidden from view were generally just extra ones to expedite the emerald collection for those playing for htose.

edited 4th Dec '15 7:36:50 PM by ShadowHog

Moon◊

You can literally get Super Sonic in Emerald Hill.

I prefer Blue Sphere myself, though.

You know, I have to wonder why Pit is obsessed with this site. It’s gonna ruin his life!

I've always been terrible at all the emerald minigames, especially Sonic 3. Back when I was a kid, I used to start over the entire stage to get another shot at Blu Sphere.

Is this a Jo Jo reference?

I don't think I've ever gotten all the Emeralds in any game where the story didn't just automatically give them to you. Closest I've come is in Advance 3, and that's only because its special stages are relatively easy compared to most other games'. As for Rush, I never even knew how to get to the special stages in that game until I watched Clement's LP of the game—I always thought those swings were just crappier versions of the swings from Advance 2 and 3.

Y'know, why didn't SEGA ever release official arcade versions of Sonic 1 and 2? I'm sure those would've torn up the arcades. Hell, my dentist's office always had a SEGA Genesis with Sonic 2^note as well as various other Genesis games that I never paid attention to in it, and you can bet I always went straight to that every time I went there (even after he got an N64 with Super Mario 64; for the record, both of those are still in that office to this day), always getting right up to the end of Chemical Plant Zone before I either died or had to go in for my appointment.

I've played Emerald Hill and Chemical Plant Zone a lot.

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(arcade_game)

https://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_2_(arcade_game)

De Romanīs, lingua Latina gloriosa non fuī.

Heh, one time in Sonic 1 I was doing well, was opening a special stage every level, and had only missed the third Chaos Emerald. Then on the next four tries, I still missed the third Chaos Emerald, and I was so mad that the next time I got there, I just let the stage play out without touching the controls, and Sonic actually lasted a lot longer before hitting a Goal. It wasn't quite a Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing, but I found that if I simply let go after Sonic slipped off the diamonds I was working on, he would end up in a seemingly infinite loop where he would roll against a Goal but never actually trigger it because it requires a direct jump or fall, so I could last several minutes in there and only had to make minor adjustments to get at the center safely.

Is Sonic 1 considered the most trap-laden game? I figured the problem there is the screen resolution being too small to see dangers coming, especially with those spikes that swing behind the foreground, so I bet those recent high-definition remakes I heard about are fairer for the beginner—although if you have to play them on smartphones, I imagine your thumbs would obscure a lot of that new area anyway. It's like how Sonic CD's special stages are probably easier in HD with smoother rendering to be able to see more details without having to get so close to things.

I also heard all the ports of Sonic CD shorten the running time required to time-travel, which was the biggest annoyance for me as a beginner. It helped when I read the Sonic Physics Guide and realized that the time sparks must react to only ground speed, which is frozen while airborne. That's why it's no good to simply jump on vertical springs to gain the speed, but getting launched straight up by a curve lets you keep the sparks the whole time even as Sonic hangs in mid-air for a second. It's also helpful to remember when holding forward caps Sonic's speed, which is bad when I want to long-jump, but good if I don't want to travel so far to time-warp.