As a couple people mentioned, yeah, I mean if they actually put some effort into a update, or perhaps if it was just coming out for the first time now, and the game was designed as such.
Crisis wrote: SA2 cut away this freedom and forced you to take a linear path that often had me disappointed, forcing me to play a game I didn't want, just to get to the game I did, and having far fewer game modes in general resulting in less variety.
One good thing that came from this was it jumped you from stage to stage -- a feature I sorely missed in the Rush series. Don't get me wrong -- I actually enjoyed the adventure fields -- but an option to pick a character and play all their stages in order would have been great. Unfortunately, SA2 mucked it put by mashing all the characters together. Wups.
CM August wrote:Actually, about the scoring system. What's the general consensus when it comes to the score resetting to zero apon dying? I remember a few here complaining about it. Should there be a better means or is it fine as-is?
I think something like halving your score (as it was when you hit the checkpoint) would be better than zeroing it out. Completely obliterating it removes any reason to keep going other than not wanting to wait for the stage to reload, but if it was reset to whatever it was at the last checkpoint you could just die whenever something when wrong.
As an aside, I could do without that whole grading system.
Kogen wrote:
Xyton wrote:How would you all feel about it if it came out today (Same gameplay but better graphics, etc.)?
Why is Sonic having a seizure when I tried to walk up some stairs?
Did anyone got to Casinopolis without getting the light shoes? I did bwahaha. Sonic Adventure 1 had this spindash super high jump trick that was very awesome to pull off.
Too bad you still needed the shoes for Red Mountain, ah well.
I'd be a little unhappy if they took out the grading system. It's a good extra challenge for after you beat the game once. It's not like it gets in your way if all you want to do is play through the story once. And I like the idea of a smaller penalty in your score if you die. It could be cutting the score in half or it could be something like an extra minute added to your time. That way the score stays the same, but you don't get as much of a time bonus at the end of the level.
Theoretically, I'd like to see Sega try a Sonic Adventure 3 without any extra gimmicks, just refining the SA/SA2 formula. They could even take out the extra characters and chao for all I care (although it probably wouldn't be called SA3 in that case). The first two attempts at 3d Sonic gameplay were fun and it'd be nice to see that style refined more, rather another brand new attempt, faster than ever.
I still think that whichever game is the best one - SA or SA2 - really depends on which one was played first. I mean, I still have to meet someone who first played the original one on the Dreamcast and liked the sequel better, or the opposite situation (whether with the Gamecube ports, or the original versions). It's really a matter of comparing your first experience with "the other game".
gr4yJ4Y wrote:I'd be a little unhappy if they took out the grading system. It's a good extra challenge for after you beat the game once. It's not like it gets in your way if all you want to do is play through the story once.
I will crawl from the woodwork to second this. I learned how to get A ranks in SA2 through a lot of experimentation and exploring, which made me appreciate the level design more. There's a beautiful irony in that I had to carefully explore a level in order to find the quickest way through it.
I prefer the first adventure by far, and would even say its in my top favorite Sonic games of all time. (I guess if I made a list that wouldn't be saying much though) The levels were large, varied, expansive, and actually felt like environments. There were enough secrets to keep me wandering and the games style and music was just really memorable to me. While a simple graphic revisit to Sonic Adventure wouldn't really entice me, I'd love to see it remade and get the attention it deserves in an appropriate next-gen way.
I feel SA1 was the last real attempt at translating the 2D games into 3D. I didn't particularly enjoy too much about Adventure 2, but I can see why many people did and its okay in its own right. However, it just doesn't seem as much of a Sonic game as the first Adventure. It was less of a traditional platformer interpreted in 3D, and more of an action game in its own jurisdiction. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact that Sonic was in it, I don't know how much attention I'd pay to it. It definitely could have been a decent experience with or without Sonic, but SA1 felt much more keen to its origin and you couldn't separate the two.
Almost makes me wish SA2 wasn't a part of the series. Even though it was one of the last enjoyable games it really could have had its own perception. It didn't help that many people jumped on the bandwagon at SA2's GC release, diluting the fanbase and overall giving people the "Sonic is all about running fast" impression.
Brazillian Cara wrote:I still think that whichever game is the best one - SA or SA2 - really depends on which one was played first. I mean, I still have to meet someone who first played the original one on the Dreamcast and liked the sequel better, or the opposite situation (whether with the Gamecube ports, or the original versions)
Yo. I used to like 2 better by a slim margin, but it's kind of evened out by this point. And I played both on the DC as they came out.
Xyton wrote:One good thing that came from this was it jumped you from stage to stage -- a feature I sorely missed in the Rush series. Don't get me wrong -- I actually enjoyed the adventure fields -- but an option to pick a character and play all their stages in order would have been great. Unfortunately, SA2 mucked it put by mashing all the characters together. Wups.
When applied to SA2, what you wished for is basically a square peg in a round hole. In cutting the adventure fields they went for an all-action game structure, and in addition to having half the distinct character types, each character averages 5 stages apiece. A one-character-at-a-time story mode (ala SA1) doesn't fit with this without major major overhaul of the plot, and even then it would have unquestionably looked flat in comparison to SA1. I think in other words, both games were tuned to take advantage of what they did or didn't have (adventure fields).
Kogen wrote:
Xyton wrote:So it seems that many people on this board (including me) find Sonic Adventure to be Sega's best attempt at this whole "make a Sonic game in 3D" thing. Why is that?
Because everyone involved quit after.
Maybe if you believe Oshima and the other founders of Artoon wrung the thing together with their bare hands, but no dunce, quite a few of them are still making Sonic games.
Blank wrote:It didn't help that many people jumped on the bandwagon at SA2's GC release, diluting the fanbase and overall giving people the "Sonic is all about running fast" impression.
Oh no, they were laaaate to that boat. It's worse now of course, but the sentiment was already in place before then.
As for the rankings, just remember whatever system they come up with has to depend on how the rest of the game plays - ie, Rush Adventure's is fairly different from the first Rush and almost nothing like the similar setups used in the console series. (and the storybook games are another beast entirely.) That said, for the death penalty, I thought of slashing the score racked up, but I don't know if that would be forceful enough for whatever the circumstances are. Tacking on extra time - no, that's artificially-enforced bullshit.
Finally, when I see someone describe how offended they are by the presence of a ranking system, with some of these people i'm tempted to think "lol, so you're intimidated by letters of the alphabet".
(No Imagination) wrote:Sonic Adventure is more awesome than any other 3D Sonic game simply because it's got Big fishing really slowly and annoying the crap out of all the omg gotta go faster faster teens that plague his fandom today. Go Big!
FlashTHD wrote:When applied to SA2, what you wished for is basically a square peg in a round hole. In cutting the adventure fields they went for an all-action game structure, and in addition to having half the distinct character types, each character averages 5 stages apiece. A one-character-at-a-time story mode (ala SA1) doesn't fit with this without major major overhaul of the plot, and even then it would have unquestionably looked flat in comparison to SA1. I think in other words, both games were tuned to take advantage of what they did or didn't have (adventure fields).
I was talking about an extra mode -- a Stage Attack if you will. I had written that out last time, but then my browser crashed, and apparently I forgot to put it back in. Sorry about that. ;)
The only problem that I have with the grading system is that it's extremely arbitrary. It rewards you for stuff that isn't generally much use in actually finishing the stage, such as say, jumping off a rail at a specific place (usually the end, but irritatingly not always), or chaining a bunch of enemies in a single homing attack, or responding to a particular gimmick in a particular way (which sometimes feels uncomfortably close to a QTE). It does reward you for finishing the stage quickly, thankfully, but it also demands you complete a whole checklist of bullshit along the way. It also refuses to reward you for collecting rings, unless you decide to collect every ring, which I think makes you borderline psychopath.
It's one way to make you explore the stages, I suppose, but the Genesis games never made you kill 15 enemies in a single jump or whatever and they were still fun to peek about in.
The biggest problem with the score system is arguably the penalty for falling into a bottomless pit. When you run into an enemy you just lose all/some of your rings, which gives you a chance to advance, except with a lower score (since rings give you points at the end). When you fall into a pit, you immediately lose a life and your score resets to 0. Pits are hazards just like enemies, so they should be at least as forgiving as them, if not more due to their abundance and (usually) terrible level design.
The Sly games avoid this by making your character flap his arms in the air, and almost immediately return to the spot he was at before falling, at the cost of some health. I think the same could work for Sonic. You lose a few rings, a small time penalty is added (due to Sonic getting back on track) and your score is reduced as a consequence. Except then you wouldn't lose a life and all your points, and you wouldn't have to restart at the last checkpoint. Why is this so hard to do?
Oh man. To take "Pits are hazards just like enemies" the other way, it would be terrible if your score got reset every time you got hit.
As far as the Sly-style pit recovery goes, I don't really think that would work. I mean, they could have Tails zoom in and grab him or the like, but for one, that has a lot of potential to feel cheap, and for two, think of how many pits they use now. Imagine how many there would be if they didn't set you back to a checkpoint. My other concern is that checkpoints have been a mainstay of the franchise since the get go, and I would be sad to see them gone. Or do you mean still using them if you die from being out of rings and falling in a pit or other means?
As an aside, does Sonic still need lives? I don't really remember having issue with them in SA or SA2 unless I was playing just a particular stage (and therefore started with three or whatever) and was either trying for a perfect run or having a bad day, but in Unleashed [day]or in Sonic '06, the stages were so damn long that if you did run out of lives it would be bad news. I don't even want to think about if I had game-overed on Eggmanland. I like that they keep you from slamming your face into something until you get it, but with all the instant death, it seems harsh at times. Maybe if falling in a pit didn't cost you a life? Halve the score, reset the timer, move Sonic back to the last check point, but leave the lives alone. Or have him jump back on track or what have you. That way if you're actually dying to something there's a penalty?
Storyline and presentation-wise, I prefer Sonic Adventure. It has perhaps the most ambitious plot of a Sonic game without also being terribly confusing and shitty. And I like the cheesey-but-unjuvenile lines because it makes Sonic and his crew seem more like regular joes instead of invincible superheroes, heighting the sense of conflict between them and Eggman and Chaos.
Gameplay wise, I prefer Sonic Adventure 2, no question. The characters (with the exception of Eggman and Tails) feel authentically speedy. Moves are (usually) simple to execute and the stages are built around quickly and decisively executing them, resulting in great flow. Whereas the highlight of SA was each stage's individual gimmicks, the highlight of SA2 was how the highly maneuverable characters themselves.
Xyton wrote:I mean, they could have Tails zoom in and grab him or the like, but for one, that has a lot of potential to feel cheap, and for two, think of how many pits they use now. Imagine how many there would be if they didn't set you back to a checkpoint.
But pits are already everywhere, so there's not a lot to lose with this approach (if anything, it would just make them less annoying). I like the idea of Tails swooping in. They did a similar thing in Rayman 3 with Globox, and it did reduce your score too (though only by 1 very expendable point). I agree that the score should reset to 0 if you die, but I'm against all the instant pit deaths because they're so abundant and cheap. Either reduce the pits considerably or make it so that they only make you lose rings and time. This would make the gameplay much less of a frustrating trial-and-error experience and more of a "whoops, I screwed up just now, but I'll just keep going and try to make up for it" thing.
Xyton wrote:My other concern is that checkpoints have been a mainstay of the franchise since the get go, and I would be sad to see them gone. Or do you mean still using them if you die from being out of rings and falling in a pit or other means?
Yeah, checkpoints should still be there if you lose all your rings and die. If falling into a pit only made you lose rings, checkpoints would still have their purpose if you fell too many times, or if you got killed by enemies.
Sonic's speed is another problem, but that horse is dead and I'm not gonna flog it any further.
Crisis wrote:The only problem that I have with the grading system is that it's extremely arbitrary. It rewards you for stuff that isn't generally much use in actually finishing the stage, such as say, jumping off a rail at a specific place (usually the end, but irritatingly not always), or chaining a bunch of enemies in a single homing attack, or responding to a particular gimmick in a particular way (which sometimes feels uncomfortably close to a QTE). It does reward you for finishing the stage quickly, thankfully, but it also demands you complete a whole checklist of bullshit along the way. It also refuses to reward you for collecting rings, unless you decide to collect every ring, which I think makes you borderline psychopath.
It's one way to make you explore the stages, I suppose, but the Genesis games never made you kill 15 enemies in a single jump or whatever and they were still fun to peek about in.
I think you're missing the point of the grading system. It's not supposed to be about doing things that are useful for finishing the stage. Finishing the stage and moving onto the next is its own reward. The grading system is all about racking up a high score, not merely getting to the end but doing so whilst reaping as many rewards and exploiting the stage as much as possible. If it was solely about finishnig the game quickly then it would be a Time Attack mode, which is something Sonic games should have, but is entirely different to a high score table. Sonic Adventure 2 was the first game that made the player pay attention to the high score in the top left corner since Sonic the Hedgehog 2's (excellent) 2 player mode.
Xyton wrote:So it seems that many people on this board (including me) find Sonic Adventure to be Sega's best attempt at this whole "make a Sonic game in 3D" thing. Why is that?
Because everyone involved quit after.
Maybe if you believe Oshima and the other founders of Artoon wrung the thing together with their bare hands, but no dunce, quite a few of them are still making Sonic games.
The art designer, programmer, and level designer not being there is kind of an issue.
Crazy Penguin wrote:Sonic Adventure 2 was the first game that made the player pay attention to the high score in the top left corner since Sonic the Hedgehog 2's (excellent) 2 player mode.
Which, ironically, didn't have the score in the the top left corner! Or anywhere on the screen, for that matter!
Crazy Penguin wrote:Sonic Adventure 2 was the first game that made the player pay attention to the high score in the top left corner since Sonic the Hedgehog 2's (excellent) 2 player mode.
Which, ironically, didn't have the score in the the top left corner! Or anywhere on the screen, for that matter!
It is a mystery to us all!
Well, my memory's shot, but keeping track of rings carried, total rings collected, enemies defeated, item boxes and time is close enough.
I'm probably biased because SA2 was my first Sonic game, but I really liked how each character had his/her own set of stages. Sure, some of them were similar thematically, and there were only three playstyles, but by binding each stage to a character, that stage could take on some of the characteristics of that character. There was also the fact that the two sides of the story weren't slightly different breeds of heroicism (like in Heroes or SA1), but in fact antagonistic toward another. The biggest downside is that the bosses weren't very creative (the Egg Golem is about as close as we got to a normal, Sonic vs. Eggman fight), but it really fueled the intrigue to be able to be your own worst enemy.
SA1 had a good deal of merits, but it hasn't aged well; it feels a bit lopsided and bare-bones. By reusing stages, the game feels a lot smaller than it really is. That's not to say it isn't fun, but it doesn't really feel like there's a lot of depth to be had. It was a bit better about divergent level flow, but still not on the realm of 2D Sonic games. Even though I came to the franchise through Nintendo, I would have to say SA1 is the most "Sonic"-y game I've played. Perhaps because it was in fact the first one I played (at a friend's house), but perhaps also because it had a somewhat straightforward story - Chaos doesn't overshadow Eggman in the main game, which is good.
Crazy Penguin wrote:Well, my memory's shot, but keeping track of rings carried, total rings collected, enemies defeated, item boxes and time is close enough.
I think you misunderstood me. The score tally accounts for score, time, rings, total rings and item boxes, but the in-game HUD only displays time and rings.
SA and SA2 are very different in my opinion, and the move from one game to the other pretty much sum up the problems with 3D Sonic games, in their own way. At least that's what I think. I'm not even getting into story stuff, even though that's important as well, just mechanics and design.
SA is a lot more about exploring, it feels so much more like the older games. The thing is Sonic stages were always huge, filled with different paths. You could almost say there weren't any paths, only a nice, big area filled with interactive stuff (enemies, springs, rings, monitors, whatever) for you to explore as you like. As the games were 2D, they would expand upwards and evolve forwards, meaning if you go up or down, you'd find more stuff, if you go right or left, you'd get nearer/farther to the end of the level. Plus, the mechanics gave you lots of possibilities to go whenever you wanted if you were willing to put the effort (jump on a spring or take advantage of the ball and motion physics... etc etc). When you go 3D there's this whole new dimension you can expand to, something SA used beautifully. It is a lot more straight forward than the 2d games, but it's the closest they ever got. The game is filled with areas you can just explore as you like, high places you can go by spindashing in the right spots and ramps, not just the in the zones themselves but also the adventure fields, Mystic Ruins is almost like a huge natural playground if you fiddle around with jumps and spindash and ramps. You can enjoy the game just by walking around, trying to get somewhere that's apparently inaccessible, as if you were imposing objectives for yourself. That's kinda like what happened to me in Shadow of the Colossus, where I'd try to get on top of anything I could even though I knew there wouldn't be any reward there, just for the simple reason of doing it.
Now SA2, even though it is a good and fun game, and I love playing it, doesn't give you that. Levels are a lot, and I mean a LOT, more straight-forward. Just look at City Escape. It's a fun level and all, I played it a lot when I bought PSO and got the demo disc, but it's mainly straight-forward and very restricted. It feels like you are always walking through small alleys and you can't really explore that place, opposed to the freedom that, for example, Emerald Coast gave you and represented, maybe that was intentional (big city being restrictive, etc. etc.) but almost every level felt like that, even the ones that should be huge and open, like the forest levels. Knuckles' exploration levels felt like a breeze sometimes, since I could go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. Also that's when they first screwed up the physics, taking out the iconical spindash and introducing the almost useless sommersault. You can't turn into a ball as Sonic, something that would give you momentum when going down big hills and the sorts. That's where they first screwed up with the robot design too, even though the ugly, square, lifeless robots had the excuse of being GUN robots, and not from Dr. Robotnik, they made for very bland and uninimaginative enemies. Eggman's robots were ok, but too few. Then... there's the grinding. I think the grinding was iconical for the downfall of Sonic games because they are even worse then the "just press forward" thing. Here you don't have to press anything at all!, there's no control, just one occasional jump, and that's what sucks, because these jumps don't work well. Easiest thing in the world is falling from the rails of those Ark levels, and we all know what we think about bottomless pits. And the grinding was here to stay, it is something now so imbedded in the Sonic games, and I still have no idea why. It sure looks cool, but is it fun? I never like the grinding parts in Sonic Unleashed because if I'm not very concerned that I will not see something coming and die instantaneously, losing my whole score, I am just simply bored because i'm just watching Sonic sliding over a rail. The rails should work as a means to a place you have to reach, not as half of the level's road.
So I dunno. SA1 was on the right track, in my opinion, but I'd ditch the humans from the game.
Opa-Opa wrote:Also that's when they first screwed up the physics, taking out the iconical spindash
Except they actually sorta fixed it by not letting you mash the button over and over to gain ridiculous speed, since now you have to hold down the button for a while, forcing a bit of delay between spindashes.
I think rails have potential. They allow for some cool paths or bonuses if you make a hard jump, but you shouldn't be on them for long enough for it to get stale. Also, I never really found rhyme nor reason for why I would sometimes turn sideways and stop, then fall off the rail. Balancing didn't seem to make a difference -- it would happen about as often if I tried to balance as if I didn't.
Xyton wrote:Also, I never really found rhyme nor reason for why I would sometimes turn sideways and stop, then fall off the rail. Balancing didn't seem to make a difference -- it would happen about as often if I tried to balance as if I didn't.
Um...don't hold the crouch button all the time? That's the only mistake I can think of that you're making.
Opa-Opa wrote:I am just simply bored because i'm just watching Sonic sliding over a rail
And I thought my attention span was bad. I'm not arguing against how ineffectively grinding tends to be used, but come on.
