General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

@Yakuzu: That actually makes a lot of sense. Sonic games generally take practice to get good at. Aquatic Ruin is a lot more fun if you know how to take the top route without falling off, and Unleashed's day stages require some sharp reflexes to get through without a scratch.

Plenty of recent reviews of Adventure 2 make emphasis on that aspect being the key behind its replayability. Not just playing fast, but playing WELL being rewarded, is really appealing.

I grew up with the Genesis games, but I never understood the pushback when it came to the Dreamcast games onward. That specific divide never made sense to me. Sonic had been adding new things and new characters pretty consistantly up to that point. Suddenly getting even more characters wasnt a downside for me at all.

Me neither, but that's the popular narrative and the vocal minority.

So, which is it? The popular narrative or the vocal minority?

Really though, I know this one. I don't think it was the introduction of the characters themselves that was really the issue. I think it was the way they took the spotlight off of Sonic, and off of Sonic-like gameplay.

Sonic's gameplay style was very well-regarded in the Adventure games, but things like mech shooting, treasure hunting, and fishing were much more divisive. Some felt the game was padding its run time with things that weren't as fun, interesting, or unique as the core Sonic gameplay.

Unfortunately, it wasn't perceived as a game design issue. Even before SA 2 came out, there was a growing sense that Sonic's awful friends were dragging the series down. But I think if the other characters been optional ways to play like they were in the classics, and/or they had played more like Sonic, and/or they had just been more fun for the majority of players, the backlash wouldn't have been nearly what it was.

This is the same thing we see nowadays with a game like Forces, where Classic Sonic or the Avatar or the story or whatever it is someone doesn't like gets framed as a fundamentally bad idea, rather than the way the concept was executed. The resentment I've seen growing in some circles for Sonic's old-school design in particular reflects perfectly the resentment I saw for ol' green eyes 10 or so years ago. It comes from the same sort of Fan Myopia, and it's really sad to see that bubble up again.

But I digress! "Sonic's awful friends," were eventually considered so conceptually flawed that it became the focus of that horrible "Sonic Cycle" meme that dominated mainstream discourse for years. I disagreed with the cynical lack of nuance then, and I still do.

Edited by GeekCritique on Nov 29th 2020 at 6:40:32 AM

As I mentioned a few pages back the big deal for many people wasn't new characters, it was new gameplay styles that were the significant issue. Tails and Knuckles played like Sonic but with variations and in Adventure 1, A to B platforming was still the thing with Tails and Amy while Knuckles/Gamma/Big's segments weren't really long enough to become an issue. While there likely was some grumbling at the time, the novelty of the experience and the tendency for games of that generation to be ambitious made it pretty inoffensive.

Adventure 2 not only expanding both the Treasure Hunts and Mech Shooting, but slowing both down (and thus drifting the kind of play even further from Sonic's) is when the dislike really started to grow. With the perceived gimmicky nature of titles after (the questionable execution of teams in Heroes, guns in Shadow the Hedgehog, autorunning in Secret Rings, the roulette wheel of gameplay that was Sonic 06, swordplay in Black Knight) the problem got even worse and by the time Unleashed came around, that the Werehog was still technically Sonic and not one of his "s***ty friends" did little to curb the blowback that title received for its night stages.

And you can see the result as Sega has gone with variations to Modern Sonic in the games since, whether its Classic, the Avatar, or the Shadow stages in Forces. Furthermore, its telling that while the hardcore fanbase has been very mixed on those inclusions, whatever complaints from critics and casual fans have towards them has never been close to what experiments in the 2001-2008 era got.

Edited by BorneAgain on Nov 29th 2020 at 10:41:58 AM

I'm so glad that people agreed with me, thought I was going crazy.

I guess you could day that's why Sonic is inherently controversial. Mario and Kirby have conditioned people to accept that platformers are lighthearted and accessible affairs. So here comes Sonic and he kicks you in the dick and demands you to git gud.

@Sonic's friends: Long story short, gaming outlets grew tired of them, fanbasw was growing tired of them.

As mentioned, the complaints about Classic Sonic are nowhere near what the complaints around 2003-2006 reached, because complaints about classic Sonic are from the vocal minority.

Sonic's gameplay is especially tricky because many platformers that have endured to today followed the Mario model rather than his, and thus being familiar with that and going to a Sonic Mania (especially when you're older with specific kind of gameplay instinct) feels like one heck of an adjustment.

I would say that 3D titles would be served if slower paths down below served as a punishment rather than bottomless pits. A lot of Unleashed's stage design is great, but certain levels feel almost close to Dragon's Lair in making you pay for not having good memorization. Doing the former would still be friendly to beginners, but with the rewards tied into being faster and level rankings, it still creates incentive for mastering the platforming the best you can, lest you get stuck on the less speedy sections and likely a lesser rank.

Here's the thing; classic Sonic level design is actually a lot more vertical, so levels are designed to not be as punishing.

The jump to 3D saw levels become far more horizontal in design, probably to accommodate for Sonic's faster speeds but that inevitably led to more bottom less pits.

I do feel the 3D games alleviate this somewhat having easier paths and hard paths. The end section of Metal Harbor is a good example; if you take the risk and go beyond the normal endpoint, you're rewarded a higher score for it. I suppose the threat of death shouldn't be the punishment tho.

I appreciated Exo figuring out the "Sega Learning Curve," but him describing it that way was kind of as much a revelation to me as it was for him. When Sonic was first convinced, and when I got into gaming, that whole concept of ramming headfirst into the game design until you got good was just kind of... how most video games worked.

Like a lot of aspects of old-school game design, it was this way because it HAD to be. In the NES era, only the beefiest RP Gs could hope to last a skilled player more than a few hours, so it didn’t matter so much how long a game would TAKE. What mattered was how long it would LAST. Replay value was one of the core measures of game reviews. THIS is the industry where Sonic was born, and this is where the Sonic formula excels. It's easy to learn, difficult to master. Levels feature a variety of alternate pathways and hidden secrets. The whole game design is built so the better you get, the faster you can go and the more fun you'll have.

It is telling that back in the day, the reason Sonic’s detractors gave for not liking it wasn’t that it was too at odds with itself or too frustrating… it was almost the opposite. Before the past decade, I often had to defend the idea that Sonic was too EASY, that it was all spectacle and no substance, that it was bad because it could be finished too fast. So before it was too easy, now it’s too HARD. The narrative has flipped, and in BOTH CASES it comes down to a lack of appreciation for replay value.

But really, it was games getting so much BIGGER in the mid-late 90s that really impacted Sonic's formula. And Sonic Team's been struggling to resolve that divide ever since, between a character whose superpower demands a game that’s built for replay value, and an industry that increasingly doesn’t VALUE replays. That's why we got all those alternate gameplay styles and Werehogs and character creators, because they felt Sonic alone couldn't last long enough to carry a contemporary title. Personally, I always felt they could have built on stuff like emblem missions, rankings, Red Star Rings, or alternate story paths to offer motivation for replayability, without taking away from the core gameplay. But Sonic Team loves spitballin'!

Yeah, great point about most platformers following Mario's model. In most platformers, your movement is much more rigid and predictable, and you can turn on a dime in mid-air. But Sonic is built on momentum; even his jump arc isn't as snappy. I played a hack called something like "Mega Man X in Sonic 2" a while back, and even as someone immensely familiar with Sonic 2's bosses, it was noticeable just how much easier they were to dodge and weave around. Learning to move Sonic and control his weight and speed is a fundamental part of learning to play, in a way that it usually isn't in other games.

Edited by GeekCritique on Nov 29th 2020 at 8:12:12 AM

That potential reward of story content is a solid point as that could be something that would not necessarily take a lot of development time, would not alienate casuals/gameplay focused players (as cutscenes could be skippable), and would be significant to a lot of the base that have been wanting any kind of Sonic narrative with meat to it.

If they stuck the landing with the various character's gameplay, you could very well pull off a better modern variation of Sonic Adventure's format of various stories all eventually making sense once completed. Just throwing ideas out, but a plot where Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, & Amy are all scattered from each other via plot event and have to gradually go through their own little developments before reuniting could very well work.

And its not even too terribly difficult to see how events could tie into each other. Tails has to outthink a Metal Sonic that's damaged and you don't know how the latter got in that state until finding out he had a battle with Knuckles. Sonic is inexplicably helped by various critters in a battle with an Egg Robo, but Amy's playthrough reveals she had earlier rescued them and told them about Sonic. Just basic setup and payoff that could tie into their individual arcs if handled well enough.

Yeah! I've said it before, but Shadow the Hedgehog's branching paths is another example of a great concept that was ruined in the eyes of the community and seemingly Sega itself by how lousy it was executed. The path you take through a stage determining which zone you go to next and impacting the story you get is one of the best ideas they've ever had to add replay value.

It's funny because we're seeing a resurgence of that type of gameplay nowadays, what with the Crash remakes, and Breath of the Wild's and Super Mario Odyssey open sandbox type of games.

And that style never fully went out of style, as franchises like DMC and Dark Souls run on that type of "difficult to master" type of mindset, but they're explicitly way more niche than Sonic. Can't throw a 10 year old into Dark Souls and expect them beat it in one sitting lmao.

But Sonic's need to force gimmicks kind of dragged the overall game down sadly.

I guess I'll throw my opinion out there as someone who doesn't actually like 2D Sonic much. I agree that the games can get better on repeat playthroughs, but I don't don't really look at is it getting more fun because I got better at the game. I don't think the games are very hard even on a first playthrough, they're usually pretty generous with rings and lives so you aren't getting a game over easily. I think the issue is if you go into a level without having played it or knowing what it looks like, then the game is really mindless. If I don't have any information what's going to happen in the level or what I should be doing to beat it easier, then there's not much to do other than hold right and see what happens. I have no real decisions to make for myself and I keep running into things I didn't know were coming, so it just ends up being both monotonous and annoying.

In contrast, the 3D Sonic games (at least the Adventure era ones) don't have this problem. The 3D perspective inherently fixes the issue. I can see anything coming up ahead a good distance away and I can look around the level and see what it looks like. I can therefore actually think while playing, even just for low level thoughts like "how should I approach these couple enemies to not get hit?" or "how can get across this area the fastest?"

I don't know how to fix this issue for 2D games, other than just giving the player a map of the level to look at either during or before the level. That way you have some idea of what you're actually going and can make meaningful decisions instead of just holding right.

Absolutely, my entire playthrough of Crash 4 was brming with moments where I'd go, "Sonic could learn from this." Most especially its approach to alternate playstyles: They're almost totally optional if you're not going for completion, they integrate well into the story, and they use the same fundamental gameplay and rules as Crash's segments, but with new abilities and gimmicks built on. You're not exploring as Cortex or brawling as Tawna, the game is still a linear 3D platformer. They're a fun value-add, and they never feel like something the game makes you do so you can have more "good" levels.

Edited by GeekCritique on Nov 29th 2020 at 8:23:23 AM

Its rather...curious that so many people who don't care for 2D Sonic games see it as "mindless". Ted from Brainscatchcomms said the same thing in their Colors revist, and it kind of sparked a debate between him and Lewis about it.

There seems to be some level of disconnect as many people who aren't familiar with or don't care for 2D Sonic games, generally see it as "mindless hold right to win"

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Nov 29th 2020 at 11:25:12 AM

I do think the widescreen nature of Mania (and the widescreen variations of the classics) alleviate a lot of potentially cheap moments in the games' designs.

It definitely makes one wonder if they've dived deep into Sonic 1 or CD where the platforming and level design very much doesn't allow you to coast through many of the levels by any means.

Edited by BorneAgain on Nov 29th 2020 at 11:27:41 AM

A lot of people seem to have bought into the hype that Sonic is just spectacle with little substance, so that if you're not going fast and looking cool, it's not well...Sonic. And that's definitely the general consensus around the series given that's what it's marketing campaign was built on. And the 3D games just reinforced that mindset by adding more scripted sequences of pure spectacle.

I wonder how things would have gone if Sega hadn't gone multiplatform?

Like, the problems arguably began when we started seeing Sonic games on other systems, which meant Sonic-Team had to learn other development kits or whatever.

But if the Dreamcast had been successful, and Sega had stayed in the console race, they'd have been working with their own hardware and maybe would have been able to actually fix a lot of the issues their games had.

At the least, they might have decided on a more stable gameplay style, and maybe found a way to bridge the gap between classic, adventure, and modern fans....hell, maybe there'd be no gap.

I suppose we'll never know.

It kind of ties back to what I was saying... getting good at Sonic means learning the nuances of the physics system, but if you don't enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay (which is fine! different strokes), it's going to be very unlikely you'll ever approach that. The only fun parts will be when you're holding right to make awesome things happen, and that's not nearly as impressive now as it was in 1991.

But I don't think it's fair to say it's down to rote memorization to make the games fun. The first time I played Mania, I couldn't have known the level layouts, but I found it incredibly engaging and a blast to play. It never felt unfair or frustrating to me. But I have an outsized familiarity with what a classic Sonic game should feel like, and since most of my favorite games in general require super-snappy reaction times, I can see why my experience wouldn't match everyone's.

That's why I mentioned last page that Sonic games are like Fighting games; if you don't actually enjoy the learning curve, and just wanna mash buttons/Go fast then you're not going to enjoy yourself.

A lot of game reviewers have to review tons of games at once, and just don't have the time to sit down and learn a game, because they have a deadline they have to meet, and get the review out. So if your first run of a Sonic game is filled you dying and not being able to react to obstacles, then you're not going to be kind to it.

The same idea applies to many adult gamers who just don't have the time to sit down and pour hours into a game like they used to, so they prefer something simple and easy to breeze through.

It makes Unleashed's review scores make a bit more sense, because yes, that games asks a LOT from the player that you're not likely to get on a 1st time playthrough. It was still rated way too low, but I kind of get the reasoning now.

Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Nov 29th 2020 at 11:52:53 AM

And among other reasons explains the positive response to Colors as its very nature is pick up and play, with relatively short stages that can be done in bursts, and two replay mechanics (red rings & wisps) that aren't completely required to get a decent experience out of the game as a whole.

It's also why many feel Colors doesn't "feel like a Sonic game" because it eschews a lot of the series' iconography for the sake of accessibility. Same with Lost World's simpler artstyle and Forces` reliance on spectacle and significantly toning down the gameplay. They even mentioned specifically that they wanted players to not have to worry about controls and just breeze the game as easily as possible.

A lot of what makes Sonic...well, Sonic is what many just don't like about the series and might explain why the feeling that Sonic is an archaic relic from the 90's is prevalent. It's never updated it's game design around modern standards, which means severely dumbing things down for the sake accessibility...

I don't think Fighting games are a good comparison though. Even if you're not very good at fighting games, they're still inherently games that require a lot of thought and decision making to play. Any given moment of a fight you're going to need to factor in what your character can do, what the opponent can do, what position are the characters in, what is the opponent likely to do, etc. And it's because of that that the game is fun. The only way a Fighting game can really be mindless is if you're fighting CPU opponents who are so easy you can literally spam one combo without caring about what the opponent is doing and still win.

When I say 2D Sonic games are mindless, I mean they literally just don't give you enough information to know what exactly you're doing or make an decisions for yourself. The screen is too zoomed in, I can only see things 2 feet in front of Sonic's face, I don't know how the level is laid out, there can easily be important things just off-screen I have no way of knowing are there. I'm left with no option then but just run forward and see what happens, and if something pops up I'll just need to quickly react to it without having time to really think about it.

It should be noted that boss fights are fine. By their nature, all relevant info is clear to the player even on the first time playing so it's possible to play it normally. But when it comes to levels the only way I've found to really enjoy them is to look up maps of the levels on the internet so I know what I'm doing. I can think about the level as a physical space to navigate and look for signs of where I'm at and use that to make decisions on where to go and what to do.

If you find simply reacting to things as they pop up quickly on the screen fun, then that's fine. But I think it's boring for the same reason I think Rhythm games are boring. It's just hitting the correct buttons at the correct times with no real input from the player. Even if a rhythm game is hard, there's nothing to keep my mind from wondering off while playing, which I would call mindless.

But that's a similar philosophy to Sonic games, just without the person to person interaction. You have to study the level layout and make quick, on the fly judgement calls.

If you want a better comparison, look at character action games like DMC and Bayonetta. Sure, you could just mash the same combo over and over and get the same result, but that's missing the point of the game. Same with Sonic, you could just hold right and just learn to react to things, but that's the most boring way to play Sonic games imo.

But this disconnect is probably why the games get such mixed reception; most people just wanna go fast without having to think about it, while others have no problem with the trial and error and actually mastering the game.