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Things that were wrong with sonic 06


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  • 4 weeks later...

The biggest problem I had with Sonic the Hedgehog was the control. The story and cut scenes, I could care less about. People who are into that sort of thing complain about it a lot, but the control is bad. The most important part of a game is actually being able to play it. The PS3 version handled a little better than the 360 version, but they're difficult to control either way. Sad, really. I looked forward to a new Sonic game when it came out, but what we got was just rushed cash-in.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't even think it was a cash-in. It was...just...bad. Really, sonic 06 was so incredibly bad, across the entire spectrum, that if Sonic Team had actually held a meeting and decided to make "the worst sonic game ever", it wouldn't have been as shitty as Sonic 06 was. 

 

 

The things that made Sonic 06 bad were deep rooting, and I think so lowly of Sonic Team as of late, that I honestly doubt they could make it that bad on purpose if they tried. They'd probably fuck that up too, and it'd be the best sonic game ever.

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I don't even think it was a cash-in. It was...just...bad. Really, sonic 06 was so incredibly bad, across the entire spectrum, that if Sonic Team had actually held a meeting and decided to make "the worst sonic game ever", it wouldn't have been as shitty as Sonic 06 was. 

 

 

The things that made Sonic 06 bad were deep rooting, and I think so lowly of Sonic Team as of late, that I honestly doubt they could make it that bad on purpose if they tried. They'd probably fuck that up too, and it'd be the best sonic game ever.

 

When reinventing the wheel, one must actually take the time to make sure it's wheel-shaped.  Otherwise, don't reinvent the wheel.

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The thing is, they wern't re-inventing the weel. They took a look at the Adventure games, mashed them up, wrote a shittier story, and rushed it out the door.

 

They had great character physics in Adventure 1 and 2, then threw it out the door with Heroes, and again in Shadow.  By the time Shadow came around they really had to completely rebuild character physics from scratch.  Without any sort of conservation of momentum, '06 hardly has "physics".  More just like... controls.

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They had great character physics in Adventure 1 and 2, then threw it out the door with Heroes, and again in Shadow.  By the time Shadow came around they really had to completely rebuild character physics from scratch.  Without any sort of conservation of momentum, '06 hardly has "physics".  More just like... controls.

Oh, so you were thinking about the gameplay engine while I was thinking about the game's general design philosophy.

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They had great character physics in Adventure 1 and 2, then threw it out the door with Heroes, and again in Shadow.  By the time Shadow came around they really had to completely rebuild character physics from scratch.  Without any sort of conservation of momentum, '06 hardly has "physics".  More just like... controls.

 

yeah, adventure 1&2's physics engine was shady as hell. Grinding in SA2  was the only real, WORKING "momentum based physics" that 3D sonic has ever seen.

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yeah, adventure 1&2's physics engine was shady as hell. Grinding in SA2  was the only real, WORKING "momentum based physics" that 3D sonic has ever seen.

Not entirely true. Both SA and SA2 actually do allow you to gain speed while rolling down hills and they both allow you to do really high jumps by using slopes.

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SA1&2 were pretty rudimentary, but it was far better than what came between them and Unleashed.  Heroes' physics canceled a lot of momentum in weird ways (mostly vertical, which includes going off ramps), and there wasn't even a way to just walk.  Holding the movement lightly only slowed acceleration rather than the desired speed.  Then Shadow's basic acceleration was slow while deceleration was far too sudden, and the turning was really slippery, and momentum got canceled all weird.

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Not entirely true. Both SA and SA2 actually do allow you to gain speed while rolling down hills and they both allow you to do really high jumps by using slopes.

 

Well I was speaking on the programming itself. Grinding was pretty solid though, and I think a stage like Final Rush was only possible using SA2's rails. If a similar stage was built off slopes it would have been unplayable in SA2's engine.

 

 

SA1&2 were pretty rudimentary, but it was far better than what came between them and Unleashed.  Heroes' physics canceled a lot of momentum in weird ways (mostly vertical, which includes going off ramps), and there wasn't even a way to just walk.  Holding the movement lightly only slowed acceleration rather than the desired speed.  Then Shadow's basic acceleration was slow while deceleration was far too sudden, and the turning was really slippery, and momentum got canceled all weird.

 

Heroes and Shadow really made no attempt to include those types of segments into the game, and I feel like those 2 games had more than enough stuff to do in any given stage that its irrelevant. Point is, the physics being ideally perfect in 06 wouldn't have made anything else any less terrible.

 

In terms of movement, i feel like SA2 is the best in the series. It's the only sonic game that had a kinesthetic link with the characters and controls, since they visually reacted to almost every input. The games afterwards kind of do away with that aspect and focus more on pushing sonic along through the muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch larger and faster maps. 

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Heroes and Shadow really made no attempt to include those types of segments into the game, and I feel like those 2 games had more than enough stuff to do in any given stage that its irrelevant.

They might have had plenty to do in them, but that doesn't really make it irrelevant. Having those elements of being able to use your speed and the terrain to go beyond the normal confines of the gameplay are a big part of what makes a Sonic game IMO. Without it, Sonic just becomes another boring 3rd person platform game, only they tend to lack the polish of their contemporaries.

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I don't think SA1 and SA2 had shoddy engines. Programming platforming engines that work at high speeds and with the unusual requirements (walking on walls and ceilings) of Sonic games are very difficult to do. It's far more complex than programming an engine for a Mario style game.

 

Mario and Sonic games are like a car vs a rocket. Cars are much more reliable than rockets but don't go nearly as fast. The trade of is rockets tend to blow up.

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I don't think SA1 and SA2 had shoddy engines. Programming platforming engines that work at high speeds and with the unusual requirements (walking on walls and ceilings) of Sonic games are very difficult to do. It's far more complex than programming an engine for a Mario style game.

 

I do not buy the idea that Sonic is THAT much more difficult to program than Mario, so much as to require a game have a shoddy engine. I think it's completely fine to enjoy it all the same, but i'd never attempt to justify it with an excuse like that. The adventure games honestly weren't even all that fast, I can understand horsepower possibly being an issue with the Dreamcast, but that would be a laughable notion as of the last 7 years.

 

I think that if Sonic wanted to renew itself, with momentum-based gameplay at the root of its design, it would have happened already. But seeing as Sega can't even be bothered to make it work in its current 2D games, or games like Generations (or colors) where that renewal is the literal concept of the title, I can only assume they really just don't care.

 

I'm sure if nintendo's Mario development team was given the task of making a 3D sonic game with classical gameplay, they'd promptly put Sega to shame. There are simply too many games with similar movement concepts that manage to have themselves work.

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It's the speed, momentum and running on ceilings at certain speeds that makes Sonic game engines more difficult. I could program a half decent Mario engine when I was 13, but even to this day at 26 I would still have trouble coding a Sonic engine. That's only the 2D engines though I shutter to think of the 3D ones. So yeah it's THAT much more difficult.

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Just because something is difficult to program doesn't give you a free pass to make it on a crappy engine. Sonic physics are really not that complicated, I think the problems you're describing have alot more to do with gameplay and level design than the physics engine itself. There are things like camera positioning and orientation with input, the way sonic's states are managed, striking a balance between speed and character control, and just overall stage design philosophy that very easily change pretty much everything about a Sonic title. (Or any game)

 

The last 2 Sonic titles to change all of those things at once have been Unleashed and Lost World, and they're both drastically different titles from SA1, SA2, Heroes and one another. Unleashed was generally praised for its accomplished sense of speed and thrill, but the gameplay style and physics engine it aimed for left very little room for momentum-based gameplay. Lost World went for a slower, more gimmicky approach to physics, controls and camera, and as a result the whole game felt like a giant gimmick rollercoaster, none of which included classical momentum-based 3D gameplay.

 

On the other hand...you have a game like Super Mario 3D World, which honestly didn't really change anything in regards to 3D Mario physics, but took a completely different approach to how it handled its camera and level design. And as a result, you get a 3D mario game that essentially plays like a 2D classic mario game...sacrificing nothing to include 4 simultaneous players and an extra dimension. And even a sense of competition.

 

There's no reason to believe Sonic couldn't do something like that. They just aren't trying to, or they're incapable of executing it correctly. That's it; that's the only reason it hasn't happened yet. I dont think it has shit to do with physics or programming an engine.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Sonic series has basically been schizophrenic up to this point. As Serephim said, the Mario series found a working formula. Sonic is either worried too much about relevance or stagnation that it can't find its comfort zone. The Sonic series worries far too much about trying to reinvent the wheel instead of finding something that works and expanding upon it.

Edited by Shane
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