General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

You can restore an old car and make it new again.

You can also put a lives system to work making your game more engaging the way Freedom Planet 2 is, but that's not really what you seem to be suggesting.

Keeping something around because it's been around just makes things stagnant and tiring.

Or it just affects nothing.

And has no impact whatsoever.

You shouldn't want games to be frustrating. That's a bad thing.

Care to elaborate on these? I recently got into Resident Evil and Final Fantasy, and I've been a fan of Metal Gear for years, but I don't recall any extremely outdated mechanics from any of the ones I've played.

Resident Evil and Final Fantasy are actually awful examples since the latter constantly reinvents itself and the former rather famously revamped its gameplay to the much acclaimed over-the-shoulder style in 4 that still sees use as recently as the more classically flavored RE 2 Remake.

Even Metal Gear Solid 5 departs pretty heavily some of the archaic if not iconic elements of the older games.

Pokemon keeps chugging along doing what it does to no criticism though, so there's one.

(4) But change for the sake of change is reckless and disenfranchising.

Update the system? Fine, but I don't think it's necessary. Remove the system? No.

Edited by Soble on Apr 22nd 2019 at 3:51:29 AM

Pokemon is honestly the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Of course, its marketability and moneymaking prowess is why it's the exception — for better or worse (because Lord I couldn't stand its stagnancy so much I left the franchise for good).

x4 Games being frustrating is only bad depending on the person.

Clearly, some people don't really mind.

gonna ask to elaborate for persona too, cause I'm not seeing it.

• Dark Souls
• Resident Evil
• Super Meat Boy
• Every game that has ever had an "Extra Hard" or a "1 hit and you die" difficulty setting (Survival, Legendary, Akumu, Dante Must Die, Non-stop Climax, etc)
• "Can you beat [x] with ONLY a [weakest weapon in the game]?" Youtube videos
  • "Can you beat Sonic 3 without collecting any rings"

I don't think I need to go on.

The point is still that a checkpoint resetting you at 3/4 of the way through a level is far less challenging, and admittedly frustrating, than having to restart the level itself. Tedium and difficulty are not exclusive.

Metal Gear still had cardboard boxes, CODEC, and allowed/forced an isometric view up to the 4th game. You still had Snake going into combat zones with no weaponry whatsoever. 5 was the first game to abandon these concepts.

Resident Evil has kept the same creepy voice saying "Resident Evil" in every entry. You sure still need keys to unlock most doors despite firearms and grenades being regularly available. Most games still start you with an eerily limited amount of ammo/and/or a knife despite the logical inconsistencies it presents in any game where you are a trained/recognized agent or decoared soldier in active combat.

Final Fantasy still had turn-based combat and random encounters up until about it's 11th or 12th entry. It still has the same stylized logo and basic start menu design. We still have treasure chests, rampant burglary, and save points.

None of these things are absolutely necessary - save points could be replaced with auto-saving, title screens can be made more interactive, battles can and largely are be in real-time, having an "in-game support team" can be and was done away with, treasure chests don't really need to exist, and most shooters shouldn't require you to use currency to buy weapons unless you're playing as some kind of mercenary - and yet they remain in place.

Edited by Soble on Apr 22nd 2019 at 4:55:00 AM

Lives aren't aesthetic. A title screen is entirely different from how a game plays, or how it punishes you for failing.

And everything in that last paragraph is bad. Just because a game features something doesn't make that thing automatically a good thing. Lots of games keep archaic elements for years only to take a step back and dramatically improve their formulas by pruning them. A tiny handful continue on as they are to continued success and acclaim, but I don't think that's particularly sustainable in the very long term.

Monster Hunter was popular in Japan but it wasn't until they examined the game closely and fixed a lot of its less appealing shortcomings that it knocked it out of the part and was a multi-million selling world wide hit the way World is.

Edited by Hashil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 5:52:45 AM

Soble, can you explain to me how, if a level has 0 challenge until one super precise jump at the very end, but it takes 5 minutes to get to that point from the beginning of the level, going through the whole level from the beginning after failing the one jump adds to challenge and not just tedium when you could just have a checkpoint before the jump and take as many tries as you could possibly need? I’m speaking hyperbolically, as I doubt any published game hits those extremes, but maybe I’ll understand where you’re coming from if you can clear that up for me.

Most people that enjoy soulsborne games will tell you the entire point of the games are to be challenging but not frystrating by some random fake difficulty bullshit, so the comparison with lives doesn't seem that well-thought out to me. Same goes for super meat boy. The entire reason more people than masochists plays them is that they feel very fair in their challenge most of the time.

Soulborne games do not arbitrarily reset you a checkpoint back if you die five times without making progress and everyone would be screaming bloody murder if you ever attempted to incorporate something like that in those. Same goes for meat boy.

Self-imposed challenges have very little to do with the matter at hand because only the people who know the game like the back of their hand will ever attempt those.

that whole post is just a random mishmash of things that either aren't gameplay at all (title screens), things that aren't outdated (turn based combat isn't made obsolete by real time combat just like 2d platform isn't made obsolte by 3d platform because the two end up being very different experiences to play that have both different merits), and various game elements that actually serve a purpose within the games, unlike lives in recent sonic games, so I'm not seeing it.

Remove the limited inventory in resident evil games, you remove the tension inehrent to having limited ammo and being in hostile territory, turning the game into a braindead shooter - the exact thing that was reproached to RE 6 and 5. Make it a game where you can make your way through anything with grenades, and you destroy the level design of the game and dramatically change player experience. There nothing obsolete about that. Remove treasure chests in final fantasy, and you remove the player satisfaction of finding cool loot through exploration. If you replace safe points with autosave, it also means your game's difficulty is no longer balanced around from checkpoint A to checkpoint B but around individual battles. It's fine, but it changes player experience again, so it's not actually obsolete since it leads to a different player experience.

But lives in sonic ? lives are pretty much purely aesthetic at this point since it's rare to ever run out of those.

Which is precisely why they can go away. Because they serve no purpose. A game where lives still matered and game overs are frequent occurences can keep those, because it means losing progression is meant to be part of the experience. A game that has lives on top of saves and where lives are so plentiful you have to go out of your way to run out of is just bad design. And since sonic doesn't intend to become the next meat boy, I don't think they'll ever be relevant again anytime soon.

They're a gameplay element so irrelevant they're relegated to aesthetic. Except for the one time where it shouldn't be relevant but is because the design team fucked up and didn't saw the difficulty spike in That One Level, that leads to a much harsher punishement than expected by the game design. Gameplay elements that have so little impact they become aesthetic except for the one time they do not are none of the things you listed, but the problem with sonic lives.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 2:24:31 PM

I'm not particularly dedicated to removing a lives system, but I also think the games can function well without them. I tend to enjoy platformers the most, especially a lot of the Sonic ones, when I'm in the groove— er, when I'm maintaining doing well smoothly. In that sense, death can already be punishment enough — play a little annoying jingle, stop me for a moment and put me back a bit.

Forces, and a lot of the games, tend to encourage the replayability of specific levels; the classic example might be going back to get an S rank, etc. As far as Sonic is concerned, I think it's enough encouragement to, say, prevent players from achieving that if they die continuously, or otherwise reward and incentivise good play, whilst keeping a more traditional checkpoint system. That way more challenge-oriented players can still get the rush of running through a full level as perfectly as they can, while struggling players aren't forced to redo content they've already beat at somewhat arbitrary points.

(Is there any pain worse, than to know you are struggling at one particular bit, but then to be forced far back every now and then to parts you've already got down? Potentially, it could prevent you from tackling your actual challenge! And please don't punt me into the main menu! I do suppose there, lives can act as a sort of a natural breaking point every now and then, an encouragement to leave and come back later to ward off player frustration. But if I don't want to leave Lavaeolus gets mad at needless menu-ing!)

Edited by Lavaeolus on Apr 22nd 2019 at 1:24:11 PM

Pretty sure they stopped doing that since Resident Evil 7.

EDIT: re-posted below

Edited by Soble on Apr 22nd 2019 at 7:08:21 AM

i dont have as much time to play games anymore so while i dont want to be coddled i would appreciate games not make me waste more time than necessary

Monster hunter world :

-genrally stops playing like your character is a 40 tons with an entire stick factory stuck up their asses, as the character is globally a lot more agile and flexible than previous games (using item used to force you to be completely still while you can now walk at a reduced speed while using them). It's important to notice because this thing barely changed over 10+ games dating back to the ps2.

- removed the concept of areas being a succession of little enclosed space connected by loading screens in favor of big, seamless maps, which changes A LOT of things regarding monster aggro and healing since you can't just roll through a loading screen to escape an attack and heal in the other zone while the monster is still in the other

-finally added damage numbers to your attacks so you can have a clear understanding of whether what you're doing is working or not.

-generally added basic quality of life features such as auto-crafting of the most vital items, replenishing your item pouch to the max, the mini map no longer being an item you have to go take at the camp in a game where spawning at the camp isn't a given

-changed entire weapon's moveset to accomodate the new mobility of your character (Greatsword used to be an extremely static weapon, while now the little steps you take for each windup can actually be used to outspace some of the nastier monsters)

-Finally has informations in game such as "what parts of a monster do I need to break to get this item ? how rare is it ?" instead of having to constantly parse a wikia. It's also a lot easier to know if a monster is ready to be catpured or still kicking, and no longer investing in skills specifically to know if you're below the caputre threshold.

-Actually tries to have a plot and endgaging characters.

The list goes on, but as a seasoned player of the series, world puts every single of it's predecessors to such a shame I have trouble repalying them despite having technically less time on world.

Not many of the fans were actively complaining about most of these. But nobody is hearbroken that they're gone, and much more people played the game. You do the math.

Also, I'm not knwoledgeable about every series you name, but metroid is another great case of a franchise pruning some of it's older elements to critical acclaim (metroid prime is And You Thought It Would Fail precisely because it didn't looked like any of it's predecessor).

Conversely, federation force and other m failed because they are flawed games, not just because they are different. As proof, see samus returns, who ended up taking very similar ides to other M and implemented them to a much better reception.

All of the examples of games getting panned because they changed have one thing in common - they are terrible games regardless of what they were originally. Battlefront rebooted and fallout 76 are barebones fonts for microtranscations, which would have been bad regardless of what license you would have showed them into.

Also, while MH world largely covers what you asked for, resident evil 7 is also a great case of a game shedding 20 years of traditions in favor of innovating and was critically well received.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 3:44:07 PM

Not at all what I was saying. My point was, most levels designed to be a test of skill fall into that mold, just not to those extremes, and usually multiple times stitched together. Maybe one minute of a moderate challenge that once you have it down once, won’t be bothersome a second time, followed by a spike, maybe for example bouncing across tiki drum heads in Donkey Kong Country Returns. The main exceptions are the Super Meat Boy, Celeste, etc. on the market of today where “levels” are rapid-fire challenges, disjointed from each other from a gameplay perspective. Or the occasional Brutal Bonus Level a la Darker Side of the Moon where you really do need to have a section mastered or beating it once doesn’t mean you’re able to not get stuck on it if you fail later.

Of course, I may not have the right perspective to talk about this, as someone who takes on games like Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy as relaxing weekend endeavors.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 22nd 2019 at 9:20:59 AM

I mean, it's true that the level was flawed in the first place when an obstacle ends up unreasonably difficult compared to the rest of the level.

But the notion of lives becomes an aggravating factor to that oversight in design, making a bad situation worse.

And the thing is, this is also the only gameplay impact lives are ever gonna have, since in normal gameplay, correclty designed, you don't run out of those.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 3:23:26 PM

Resident Evil got rid of its fixed camera angles in favor of an over the shoulder camera (some fans dislike this, but so many more people enjoy the new way it plays it almost doesn't matter), improved the pacing and removed most of its backtracking, made inventory management much less tedious, added systems to upgrade weapons, and made its bosses more engaging and not just bullet sponges the way the tended to be prior to 4.

A lot of those things might be considered iconic or integral to the series's DNA, but it went on to be a whole lot more successful without them.

And I'm not even going to get into what Breath of the Wild did to Zelda. The game that had a 102% attach rate and continues to be one of the best selling Switch games on the system.

Edited by Hashil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 7:46:53 AM

oh yeah, botw's a good example.

There's also Persona, which reinvented itself basically from scratch starting with persona 3, eschewing a lot of its SMT roots of alignement system, general tone and plot, choice endings, in favor of an Urban Fantasy, day-to-day life management, emphasis on dialogue and develope d secondary characters instead of dungeon crawling, and it's Atlus's most popular title while shin megami tensei and it's slew of spinoffs is still barely known for that one time siding with lucifer against god was the good ending twenty years ago or so, or, more commonly, as the thing modern personas are derived from.

Edited by Yumil on Apr 22nd 2019 at 3:52:51 PM

Nitpick, but SMT merely doesn't have Persona's international acclaim; it's quite popular in Japan. But, naturally, the more than one country > just one country.

Edited by erazor0707 on Apr 22nd 2019 at 6:52:54 AM

Yeah, sorry, should have mentionned "outside of japan". It is true the series is popular enough to warrant os many spinoffs in japan, just like monster hunter was popular before world made it bigger.

So, as I've brought up before, I've been watching these sort of personal retrospectives on Sonic games as they come out. The Geek Critique, not the first time he's been brought up in the thread. Anyway, this one is on Sonic Advance.

I'm still finding them a relatively interesting watch. He's pretty positive on the game as a whole, praising the physics and what new character elements there are. The aesthetics and level design, he's more critical on.

For this one, I haven't played the game in a long time, and I never actually owned it. So I don't think I really played around with Amy in there. She sounds interesting; can't ball up or spin dash like the other characters, but with a few more unique special actions/moves. For those who played the game a bit more thoroughly: what'd you make of her, in practice?

Edited by Lavaeolus on Apr 22nd 2019 at 3:07:34 PM

note: Had to relocate. Post is fixed now.

Their presence on-screen is. I've said two things: lives aren't bad mechanically because they punish the player and the punishment isn't as bad or as vestigal as others are making it out to be. And lives have aesthetic value in Sonic's case, value that is similarly represented in other games with features (like title screens) that continue to stick around despite being outdated.

It doesn't. But if a game has featured something for several main entries with minimal complaint then it is probably seen as a good thing, and changing it just to be modern is generally not a good thing. Sonic falls into this category with extra lives.

I doubt it's a tiny handful.

And for as many that have pruned their formula there are those have done so and failed miserably - Far Cry 5, Dead Space 3, Silent Hill Homecoming, Shadow The Hedgehog, Fall Out 4, Battle Field Hardline.

And while we're speaking broadly - I doubt stagnation isn't sustainable when it comes to video games. Everybody says they want innovation in their game but that's a lie. We all want the same package re-sold to us with slightly newer features/graphics to keep up the illusion of playing something wholly new, with little exception. We'll all play the same Call Of Duty, the same Mario Bros, the same Soul Calibur, and what are largely the same shallow knock-offs of World Of Warcraft/Bejeweled/Minecraft/and Team Fortress 2 until the sun burns out. We'll keep seeing more and more remasters and nostalgia collections because people love owning Skyrim on every console imaginable. People love playing Final Fantasy 7 on their tablet.

Never played it. But what less appealing shortcomings were changed from "Monster Hunter in Japan" to "Monster Hunter the World Wide Hit?" Because to my understanding it was a console exclusive for the longest time until World, and that would seem to be responsible for a great deal of its success on top of having a larger budget/superior hardware/greater production values in general.

My answer to that would be "if a level has 0 challenge until [a jump] at the end [...]" then that jump itself is the challenge, and the rest of the level was poorly-designed. Having or not having a checkpoint wasn't the problem.

What you'd see as tedium - 5 minutes repeated again and again to nail that super precise jump - is what makes a lot of video games so memorable and challenging. Tedium is when you're trying to get a character to Level 9999 in Disgaea. Tedium is when you're trying to collect 200 feathers in Assassins Creed 2 so you can get a pointless gameplay item that makes it easier for the game to lob enemies at you.

Having a checkpoint is nice for me, as a player, because I find it less frustrating and tedious than having to go back through the level. Most people would agree that having money is better than not having money, yes. Being able to Save Scum is great, but not objectively superior or more fulfilling.

It's a case-by-case basis - certain games like Super Meat Boy would be aggravating if you couldn't start back at the beginning of the room that just killed you. Other games, like Kingdom Hearts or Sly Cooper or any Sonic game really, would have little to no challenge if I could restart halfway through a boss battle or through a difficult platforming section.

Games like Dark Souls thrive on having you repeat entire sections when you die - you have checkpoints but they're spaced pretty far out. It would be more grueling if they weren't there - but a level in Dark Souls is far longer and more involved than any Sonic level I've ever played.