A fun little analysis game of sorts...

[VectorSatyr]

Sega made F-Zero and loops worked in that. Why can't they do it in Sonic?

Because the controls differ.

I'm tired of all this useless picking at Sonic Team, who will continue to make retarded mistakes regardless. It's tiring having to justify them when it's so easy to find more and more dissapointments.

[Aaron C-T]

Boycott. They put out crap 'cuz they know we'll buy it. Boycott. Logical answer.

[VectorSatyr]

They put out crap 'cuz they know we'll buy it.

Amazingly true. Let's not forget there's a whole new generation that doesn't know who Sonic is, and won't care much for our complaints...

[Draco Icebane]

There'd be no fall-to-your-death

This the same Sonic 3 we're talking about?

[Asuma]

Sonic 3 Remix project?

[Aerosol]

scatta, they tried to mix it up. they failed. They lack the capacity to do both to an acceptable level. Those windy valley sections don't feel nearly as fast as they should. You know why? because for some reason you can't run straight. you always start veering to the left or right. That and they just feel fake, lazy and are a bit boring.

[shadowgoten]

I know, but Sonic Team is part of SEGA. It shoudn't be too hard for them to ask for help from the F-Zero team.

Sega helped out in putting out the F-Zero AX arcade machines. I dunno if they actually developed the game but their logo is on all the machines in the US

[Serephim]

First off, F-Zero used a mucchh different engine than sonic did. All you had to do was basically go foward, sonic games require running, jumping, sliding (>_>, homing attack..ing, and alot of other things. That, and the loops on sonic are a bit more extreme than they were on F-Zero.

I wouldnt really care for controlled loops anyway. They wouldnt make a difference, your going to go past them anyway. Unless you mean controlled as in affected by physics, because most 3D sonic games completely ignore that. (Seaside hill, superuberverticalloopofawsomeness.)

And DW, ive been complaining about Sonic Team's neglect of rolling for a good miniute now. Even sonic adventure half-assed it, and im gonna take a shot at why.

3) No more inclined planes, slopes, ramps, or corkscrews.

Dont feel like looking up pictures to go with this, but basically they havent made a 3D sonic game YET with any slopes in it aside from Heroes. (Aside from Green Hill zone from SA2.) The only corkscrew i remeber in a 3D game would be in Radical Highway, Speed Highway, or Pyrimaid Cave.

Seaside Hill, Ocean Palace, Grand Metropolis, Power Plant, Frog Forest, and Dark Forest (forgot the name of act 2) alll had good slopes and ramps, but only 2 of those stages (Grand Metropolis and Power Plant) had corkscrews, which is the main reason why i defend Sonic Heroes. Its level design was pretty damn fun when it comes to using Sonic. You diddnt get slowed down by previous engine screwups. And aside from the old oil slicked platform joke, in my previous playthough['s] of Heroes, i dont think i was ever killed by sliding off a platform, and i maybe only lost a maximum of 3 lives from Homing Attack screwups. (Homing Attack on heroes was ____ing awsome.)

I personally think the lack of rolling physics derive from not having any inclined slopes or ramps, or even the lack of gravity physics during loops.

Now, i havent heard ANYONE talk about that new Sonic game since it came out....but im sure that it doesnt have very many slopes or ramps either.

PS.

( I JUST got sonic rush. Never died on a sonic game as many times as i have on this one. I like.)

[Khorney]

from what ive seen, sonic next has gimmiks abound. in the first level there are 2 corkscrews, one right at the start, and one leading up to the end. also, from whating vids of the demo, the levels seem to have excessive amounts of alternate paths, which please me most. i imagine SA2 had such short and narrow levels is because the hardware would have been able to handle massive exansises of levels. in heroes the levels got even longer, but there was slightly less pitness (apart from those god awful grinding levels...the last section of the last level has got to be the most frustrating part of the entire game. i had todo it on flying formation and super slow, hovering on the spot when the lazer was about to fire, clinging on to my last remaining life..)

[Eraysor]

I have just one point to make. F-Zero GX is the bomb, Sonic next is not.

[Serephim]

The Final Fortress laser scene was frigging awsome. Who the hell uses Flying formation to grind?

The two grinding levels on Heroes were actully pretty damn fun. (They had plenty of gimmicks during the grinds, like the robot's destroying the rails.)

Maybe people hated Sonic Heroes because they just wernt that good at it. I used flying formation sometimes near the end of the game to get on a rail i wasnt sure about staying on (which only happened in Mystic Mansion.), but i never used it to fully grind. That rapes the fun entirely.

And SA2 level design could have been as long as they wanted, the sonic games never load the entire level. (Get Sonic Heroes for PC and a hacking trainer. If you float pass the level really quick, youll see the game has to load the level as you go, kind of like Phantasy Star Online did. SH levels were WAY too huge to simply store in memory.)

[Eraysor]

I think the only Heroes level I actually enjoyed was Rail Canyon or whatever its name was.

[Kain]

The difference between 3D Sonic and genesis Sonic? Well, this for one:

3D Sonic has neve understood the beauty of something as simple as that.

[DimensionWarped]

Maybe people hated Sonic Heroes because they just wernt that good at it. I used flying formation sometimes near the end of the game to get on a rail i wasnt sure about staying on (which only happened in Mystic Mansion.), but i never used it to fully grind. That rapes the fun entirely.

XD. I just got all A ranks in SH a while back, and I can assure you, I still hate it.

Sonic Heroes is hated because its even less of a Sonic game than Sonic Adventure is. Case closed.

[Asuma]

Um, to repeat myself. Sonic 3 Remix?

[Aaron C-T]

Aero: Are you suggesting it won't work? Comments all over the internet have these same sorts of discussions. A boycott from the us, while the new generation would still lap it up, would cause a significant decrease in sales. And that's basically all that needs to happen. Don't buy the next 3 Sonic games unless it's something that's actually decent. If Wildfire is awesome, then buy buy that. Don't buy crappy ports of old games, even if they are the classic games. Don't buy Rivals, don't but the next DS game. They'll get the hint went half their Sonic sales go down the drain.

Aerosol: Play Sky Deck and note how certain sections are more platformer-oriented. The area where the canon is shooting out the floor and you have to run. The area towards the end where the ship tilts and objects are hurled at you as you climb up the ladders and the like. Then look at the area when you're on top of the ship running as the sections of floor fall out from under you, and planes are taking off. In that same area canons are shooting rockets at you. That area would work so well SA2/MachSpeed-styled. I can't see why that level in Sonic Next where you're chasing the train Elise is on couldn't have a machspeed section with SA2-esque level design integrated into the chase scene. Why not position robots on those mountains, and make them fire their guns at you as you're running by? SA2-level design would work well there, and it'd make for a more interesting machspeed section. Why not have Sonic actually get on the train at which point SA-esque styled platforming would come into play as you work your way to the front of the train? Hell, stage a boss battle ontop of the train. Granted, this is a sketchy idea that I haven't put much time into. It shouldn't have to be one or the other. Believe it or not the 2D Sonic games weren't always just running like a maniac. There were plent of levels, such as the second level of Sonic 1, where you did more stop-and-jump platforming than anything else.

Edit: Had some stuff in here about how Sonic Next pretty much only adopted Adventure Fields from SA and that most of their "inspiration" appears to have come from later games. I also had some stuff about how Next is halfassed in terms of trying to merge SA 1&2 and that just because someone halfasses something doesn't mean that they truly tried and put forth the effort (there are no SA-styled platforming sections from what I can see in the vids). Then there was something about machspeed areas proving this because they're designed in a stupid way (who's idea was it that after you slam into a tree you should pass through it whilst tumbling in the air?).

[VectorSatyr]

@Scatta: Actually, I haven't bought any Sonic games after Sonic Adventure 2. All of my Sonic entertainment was through rentals and Sonic Mega/Gems Collection. Of course, I wouldn't have bothered with Mega/Gems if I didn't own Sonic3&Knuckles for the Genesis (which I still have). And you can be sure I won't be getting Sonic NextGen, since my house will be obtaining the Wii instead...

[Eraysor]

They'll get the hint went half their Sonic sales go down the drain.

I have to say, with the absolutely terrible effort made with Sonic next, they may have done the job for us. I'm looking forward to next week's games charts.

[Pheonix Gamma]

Psh, I'm sure the game will achieve average sales as usual. It won't be a Player's Choise, but it'll sell. It's ____ing Sonic.

[Ligar]

Psh, I'm sure the game will achieve average sales as usual. It won't be a Player's Choise, but it'll sell. It's ____ing Sonic.

lol, if its blue, has spikes and runs fast, then people will buy it

[Guest Shadix]

I thought about that when I saw how the mach speed areas functioned...

How on earth can you expect them to function and keep up with a pretty fast pace... Some of the hurdles Sonic Team "halfassed" on would be pretty magnificant technological hurdles if a way could be found to control them.

[Aaron C-T]

Machspeed areas should simply be areas that are designed similarly to parts of SA2, only tons faster. None of this dodge 50 trees nonsense.

IMO, the series needs better AI- especially with a move as cheap as the homing attack. To quote Aerosol: "it's like BAM BAM WHOOSH." You run towards them, they wait till you're like 5 feet away before doing anything, but by the time they do you've already nailed each of them in the face 5 times. They give you moves like the slide thing, but they don't force you- no that's not right- they don't give you a reason to use it. Force would be like in SH where they make you take down an enemy a certain way. It'd be awesome if I actually had to fight them. Even some of the badniks in the old games required some skill to beat them- spikes that can in and out, some had to be killed only from behind, some had springs on their back, some launched rockets when you jumped above them, etc. Give a mech a gun and a shield, program it so that depending on my actions (and what the other mechs are doing) it can either open fire, throw it's shield at me, or block. ::shrug::

[Aerosol]

expanding on that, they could have enemies that made you use the environment in cool ways. Like imagine an area inside a vertical tube dotted with zip pads. It'd be cool if the aim of this bit was to pick up enough speed that you created a whirlwind vortex that picked the robot in the middle apart. Ofcourse, having to do this EVERYTIME you go through the level would be annoying. So how about putting it on a seperate path you have to make an effort to get to. Reward? Well how about...

GASP!!!

Giant Rings Transport To Special Stage For Benefit Of Glorious Game Of Sonic.

[Aki-at]

You don't even have to make the badniks clever to make them immune to the homing attack, think if like this, some of them have springs to send you flying away if you use the homing attack, others are surrounded by spikes and the sort. I'm tired right now and can't think of many badnik variation now though ;__;

And how about non-scripted loop da loops! well they can automatically push you forward of course, but you have control to move left or right (kinda like Sonic R) and KEEP THE CAMARA BEHIND SONIC I want to see the world go upside down! just like that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Japanese commerical!

[Slingerland]

Um, to repeat myself. Sonic 3 Remix?

http://s3k.ocremix.org/

I love this topic. When I have time, I'd like to participate as well.