1 up's 5 step process to saving sonic

[shadowgoten]

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3157060

Hmm oddly enough, they are saying the exact same thing everyone else here usually says.

[Aki-at]

Lawl the header for my browser read "How can SEGA save Sonic the Hedgehog from 1up.com"

And er, I'm surprised they didn't mention level designs honestly!

[Mark the Echidna]

Lawl the header for my browser read "How can SEGA save Sonic the Hedgehog from 1up.com"

Lol.

Well, talking seriously... I do see the point of 1, 2, 3 and 4... but not of 5... I mean, I know Sonic and a human girl was a terribly stupid idea. But I don't think Sonic doesn't mix with deep storylines. They just need to make the characters look convincing, and not to start a completely new (and idiot, but take that aside) plot every single game. I mean, they should make the story develop slowly, like, for example, on the Metroid games, making references and showing stuff from the previous games, but instead they always make a new story loosely connected to the previous, and retcon stuff all the time (For example, the appearance of the Master Emerald altar in SA2).

[VectorSatyr]

These "suggestions" depress me more and more each day.

[DimensionWarped]

Pure crap. You have 3 story suggestions and the typical urge to speed up the gameplay.

There isn't one practical suggestion there aside from telling them to release less often, and really that never helped them before.

If they followed this suggestion, you'd end up with another Sonic Next in 3 years from now with just Sonic and having it being more unplayable than ever and with far far less emphasis on game design.

Let's face the facts: Sonic the Hedgehog is a game about a lumpy blue rodent who runs really fast and saves woodland critters from being turned into robots. That's fine -- we don't need an epic laden with Sturm und Drang (et gravitas) to make Sonic fun. We just need a flimsy excuse to jump through hoops, run through loops, and snag tons of rings.

I think this explains the scope of their analytical abilities perfectly. They didn't quite manage to figure out that the game started as something called a "platform game".

[Aaron C-T]

. . . Anyone who finds truth anywhere in this needs to be shot.

[TRD]

*Loads up shotgun*

[Steven M]

1. Sonic's got too many shitty supporting characters.

2. Shadow's next-to-useless.

3. The games are generally better when they're not concerned with shooting or treasure hunting. Or fishing.

4. We need less spinoffs.

5. And less epic-fail epic plots.

I dunno... I've heard it all before. Care to argue why this article isn't relevant to our interests?

[Blues]

get rid of sonic's gay friends

make better levels

make the engine not suck ass

done

[TRD]

But I don't think Sonic doesn't mix with deep storylines.

Sonic Adventure felt kinda deep to me, I dunno I guess it was because of the city being destroyed, tikal being trapped into the master emerald, her debut and not to mention her depressed looking appearance, her clan being slaughtered by Chaos because of their greed, Perfect Chaos, and that Tails scene where he first met Sonic. I'm not saying it's the deepest btw, matter of opinion.

[Aaron C-T]

Blues: Yea, sure. 'Cuz having Sonic, Tails and Knuckles playable in Sonic 3 was so horrible. As was having Sonic and Knuckles in, gasp, Sonic and Knuckles. Oh and Tails in Sonic 2 as well. Also, watch your use of "gay."

TRD: I wouldn't say Sonic Adventure was "deep" persay, but it was a great storyline.

As far as spinoffs. Spinoffs in themselves are not a problem, they just need to be done better.

[Steven M]

Blues: Yea, sure. 'Cuz having Sonic, Tails and Knuckles playable in Sonic 3 was so horrible. As was having Sonic and Knuckles in, gasp, Sonic and Knuckles. Oh and Tails in Sonic 2 as well. Also, watch your use of "gay."

You know what he means - the Adventure-and-onwards supporting characters that lacked the personality and backstory to gain the audience's sympathy. He simply assumed we'd assume Adventure-and-onwards because 1UP wasn't talking about how to improve the Mega Drive games. Also, cocks and queers.

[Aaron C-T]

When have the characters ever had backstory, Steven? I honestly don't know. The only thing I'm aware of is that Knuckles is destined to guard the Master Emerald. There was never any other backstory to the Sonic games. Sonic, himself, doesn't have any real backstory and, in the original games, he had little personality because he didn't actually say anything. Almost all of the personality he has comes from shows, comics and the way he was drawn (although there are plenty of non-badass pics of him to be found looking anything but badass). So, really, don't give me any of this "you know what he meant stuff."

However, if you can show me actual backstory- I repeat actual backstory from the original games- I'll withdraw this point, however I don't believe there's any backstory to the characters themselves. It's also worth mentioning that Sonic games carry their stories very loosely so there's no real "timeline" present in any of the games either. So even bits about Tails meeting Sonic in the Sonic 2 manual are pretty much useless. And my point still stands that taking out characters won't improve the game very much if your still doing the same old crap.

As for your blatant idiocy with that last remark, you're walking a very thin line with some of the others. I suggest you watch it.

[Steven M]

When have the characters ever had backstory, Steven? I honestly don't know. The only thing I'm aware of is that Knuckles is destined to guard the Master Emerald. There was never any other backstory to the Sonic games.

Dunno about you but I figured since the Adventure games and onwards tried tying more 'plot' into the games, they would add more to the characters than present-tense material. Gives you some idea behind their motive. We know why Silver's around, we know why Shadow was created, we know why Tikal shows up in everyone's head, etc. Doesn't mean they have to show up in the next game afterwards, but there you go.

So, really, don't give me any of this "you know what he meant stuff."

Seriously. He didn't say "Get rid of Knuckles and Tails" or imply Genesis-era characters should go away. He just said "get rid of Sonic's gay friends", gay also being the slang for rubbish. Define a 'rubbish' character? One who's underdeveloped? And we go full-circle.

However, if you can show me actual backstory- I repeat actual backstory from the original games- I'll withdraw this point

You're arguing about Genesis games, when the games were run-and-jump platformers rivalling the Mario series. I was talking about 1999 and onwards, where the games have multiple cutscenes with voice-actors and attempting to drive more story into the game and zomg facial expressions. If you can count SA1 as 'facial expressions'. Erk. See first point.

However I don't believe there's any backstory to the characters themselves. It's also worth mentioning that Sonic games carry their stories very loosely so there's no real "timeline" present in any of the games either. So even bits about Tails meeting Sonic in the Sonic 2 manual are pretty much useless.

Fair enough.

And my point still stands that taking out characters won't improve the game very much if your still doing the same old crap.

Which is where we talk about the engine and the bugs therein, right?

As for your blatant idiocy with that last remark, you're walking a very thin line with some of the others. I suggest you watch it.

[Remark] [Request to cease similar remarks] [ironic use of similar remark with the sole intention of pissing the previous person off]

I'm not saying 'queers' for the sake of pissing off homosexuals, Ok? I'm saying it because you told the other dude not to use homosexual slang when he wasn't trying to annoy any homosexuals either.

"But how do you know if-" You'd have told me by now, surely.

[DimensionWarped]

Anyone who even remotely suggests that characters matter is officially a retard.

It goes against every ideal of gameplay first.

Shadow isn't what is wrong with the story. Poor writing is whats wrong with the story. But none of that matters. What matters is that the game works.

Whenever I hear douchebags going on about how characters need to be removed from the series, I think... where the hell do you draw the line? Popularity? Origin? Hatability? Its all bullshit. Every bit of it. Why waste time concentrating on such a bullshit issue when you can talk about something tangible and directly analyzable on more than a pure opinion basis like Level Design and Engine.

Oh, and it goes without saying that Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles personalities are just as shallow as Big's, Rouge's, and Shadow's. I don't know how it is that everyone fails to realize this.

Story is and always will be nothing important to the franchise. So just suck that up and deal with what does matter people.

[Steven M]

Wonder what Sega thinks of the policy 'Gameplay first'. Certainly they seem to disagree with the story being 'nothing important to the franchise'. =/

Anyway, we're going back to how people are able to fall through floors in the current engines, right?

[Slingerland]

[Remark] [Request to cease similar remarks] [ironic use of similar remark with the sole intention of pissing the previous person off]

I'm not saying 'queers' for the sake of pissing off homosexuals, Ok? I'm saying it because you told the other dude not to use homosexual slang when he wasn't trying to annoy any homosexuals either.

If you haven't noticed, we're trying to cut down on the "gay" slang. Lol political correctness. Just remember that next time.

[shadowgoten]

rofl I never said I agree'd with this article. I do think they need to boot everyone post sonic CD (to keep amy in the mix).

Just think about storyline though, mario games have VERY minimal storyline. Mario 64 the storyline starts out with "OMFG MARIO COME TO THE CASTLE I BAKED A CAKE". You get there and go ohsnap bowser took the princes AGAIN. Now that we kicked the weak plot to the side, let's play a great game!

[Steven M]

If you haven't noticed, we're trying to cut down on the "gay" slang. Lol political correctness. Just remember that next time.

Fair enough.

[Pheonix Gamma]

1) Make the gameplay easy to learn, but with a fair enough difficulty curve. If you're going to make a 3D Sonic, at least make it so that the Homing Attack isn't a quicker way to leap into an endless abyss. Also, no hunting or shooting plz.

2) Replay value within Single player. No minigames or crap; just make me want to play the levels more than once.

3) If you're going to throw cutscenes at me, at least make the script interesting, and hire decent VAs. Story isn't essential, though.

[DimensionWarped]

Wonder what Sega thinks of the policy 'Gameplay first'. Certainly they seem to disagree with the story being 'nothing important to the franchise'. =/

Anyway, we're going back to how people are able to fall through floors in the current engines, right?

Yeah, you are right. They consider story to be important to the franchise and drain the budget on it. For some reason though, they leave the writing of those stories in the hands of incompotent writers and simultaneously keep the series child-friendly while filling it with bestiality scenes.

And SEGA has run amock with morons... so thats understandable.

[Steven M]

=/

So, Sega Mega Drive Collection for the PSP. Worth getting?

Edit: Assuming either A) I'm not a master-hacker with a downgraded-upgraded PSP or I am but the emulation's annoyingly imperfect.

[tentril]

I still don't get the argument against Hunting missions. They didn't really break up the speed that much. Shooting, however, sucks.

[Aerosol]

shooting was fun. Except eggman's stages. I never liked his. But does shooting belong in a sonic game? I know someone that'd yell NO from the rooftops.

[tentril]

My only problem with shooting was how slow you had to move. Also I want gun power-ups like spread shot and the like.