General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

Sweet Mountain at least made sense in context. Dessert Ruins just comes out of nowhere.

As in, as a level it's not as good as SM.

Speed Highway

Although I do enjoy the city levels a lot myself.

Anyone here a fan of Hydrocity Zone, or Sky Battery? I love their themes.

No one was talking about how good it was.

Those ventilation shafts and big fans from Casinopolis were in the Sewer...that entire level's thing is just weird.

I like the Runaway Guys' interpretation of Casinopolis's weird caverns, that it's the casino's dungeon where they throw all the cheaters.

Or people who ove them money.

All casino's have a direct link to the bowels of the underworld. It's great for employment purposes, but it generates a hell of a lot of heat.

Vice is indeed sinful, and what more exemplifies vice than gambling?

They don't call Vegas "Sin City" for nothing.

So the guy who sung the Undertale parody of Stronger Than You did something...

Unusual for April Fools this year.

This puts me in the mood for some parsley. Mixed with coconuts.

Ah, I can finally post this now.

HAHAHAHA!

Also, I've played through S3&K, almost done, up to Lava Reef Zone with all regular Chaos Emeralds.

Relevant;

Mania will have more classic levels than new ones...

Shit, I knew Iizuka would hold that project back somehow.

Excuse mwah?

Classic levels = dollar bills... ryo... damn it, what is Japanese currency again? Yen. Yes, that.

Sonic Mania seemed to be a love letter to classic Sonic fans so I don't see why having more classic levels would be a bad thing. If the ratio's 3:2 they're not bloating the game with new level designs that may or may not...

...screw the math. Let's face it. They're trying to Win Back the Crowd. More classic levels makes sense given the amount Generations didn't feature. They're playing it safe, but people almost always complain when Sonic does something new. Fewer complain when Sonic's doing something he already did. It's not bad strategy.

And for whoever was disappointed that Modern Sonic wasn't getting his own game, Mania having more classic levels could mean more room for modern levels in Project Sonic.

edited 22nd Sep '16 8:41:20 AM by Soble

Would Advance 1, which did much of the same, be a much better game if it the majority of its levels were recycled from S3&K? Sure, I can understand reusing Video Game Settings since there are only so much of them, but to take their exact aesthetics, gimmicks, and names?

No, people want Sonic to do what he does best mechanically, not in terms of revisiting a bunch of old levels just because.

They already recreated the physics 1:1 as far as we know, and recreated Team Sonic's character abilities on top of that. They should have built new things on top of that while keeping what Sonic does best.

Both are made by different people; don't know why you brought this up.

I only played Advance 2 and 3 unfortunately. However those games are an outlier where changes to the Sonic formula were praised - as far as I know, nobody complains about those games in particular. You have more examples of new features and mechanics that were poorly-received than not.

So what new elements of Sonic have been introduced while keeping to what Sonic does best? I mean I really don't think you're going to convince anyone with an argument of "Sonic games need more features" with anybody, least anybody here.

It's an anniversary game.

It's not unheard of for two studios to work together and/or glean ideas from each other. And since these games were announced at the same time I'm led to believe that their focuses/ideas were pitched around the same time.

And while my hypothetical degree in videogame design usually leaves me with a sense of confidence, I'm willing to admit I can't be 100 percent sure if these two teams were considering each other at all, or if these two projects have anything to do with each other. But I haven't seen any evidence that says otherwise.

I mean if it were me, in charge of Sega, I would think, "I've got one cluster of fans here who probably like this gameplay, and another cluster that like this gameplay. I've announced two projects that have very different focuses. Maybe the one with the classic feel should have classic levels, and the one with the modern feel should have modern levels."

Generations had different levels in the DS version. Since they've already done this, putting more classic levels in Mania wouldn't be that far of a leap.

edited 22nd Sep '16 11:22:58 AM by Soble

Actually, Advance 1 is the only one of the Advance trilogy that's universally well-received. Advance 2 is divisive because it feels like a Boost-less Rush, and Advance 3 is divisive due to its poor obstacle and enemy placement.

So what new elements of Sonic have been introduced while keeping to what Sonic does best? I mean I really don't think you're going to convince anyone with an argument of "Sonic games need more features" with anybody, least anybody here.

Bounce attack was a pretty good new element. So was the Lightspeed Dash. And the Light Speed Attack. And while Boosting fundamentally changed the pinball nature of classic 2D Sonic, it at least kept true to the speed hallmark of the franchise.

I may come up with more if you want.

Sonic Mania will have more remixed levels than fully new ones.

EDIT: Derp, someone already posted this,

edited 22nd Sep '16 1:52:02 PM by Grounder

Grounder, that (pitifully short) article is what everyone here is already discussing.

I meant Advance in general. I haven't read as many complaints about that line of games as opposed to games like TDR, Secrets Rings, Unleashed, etc. That might just be due to them being on a smaller platform.

Major gameplay changes like going to Boosting, Mach Speed, the Werehog, bosses that are giant ferris wheels, guns, emerald hunting, forced multiple characters, and Parkour have been criticized, haven't they?

edited 22nd Sep '16 12:50:59 PM by Soble

Of course they're criticized; they're major.

Granted, not all of Sonic Team's attempts to keep the series fresh have been all bad, as I have pointed out with boosting (then again, we can credit that to Dimps instead), but given their track record with it, a game like Mania, even if it's outsourced to a team of fans, is a good thing.

But what bothers me is that even though said team is clearly capable of creating cool new levels as we have seen with Studiopolis, Mania is mostly going to recreate old levels. They could have just taken tried-and-true level tropes and made new levels out of them (see: all the Green Hill expies), but going this route? There's no reason why they should do this, especially since the last good Sonic game in our memories did just that.