The GHZ Forum

Here's a new interview to prove it!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... _full_.php

The conversation mainly revolves around his overall game design philosiphy and approach, which he certainly has a lot to say (and randomly sketch) about. A thoroughly interesting read with some Sonic discussion towards the end. Not sure if any of it is groundbreaking news, however I personally wasn't aware that Sonic was chosen to be blue simply because it represented the colour of the Sega logo! I suppose that should've been kind of obvious though....

Have a read if you'd like to get inside the mindset of the most important (yet barely appreciated) member of the classic Sonic development team! Clicking will also let you admire some of his assorted doodles which represent how he displays gameplay concepts to his development teams.

I'll definitely read this when I get the chance. Yasahura's sketches (at least they sure looked like his) in the Japanese manuals for Sonics 1-3&K were charmingly simple and one of my favourite surprises in Sonic Jam's museum mode. It was really neat to see how he envisioned the layout, obstacles and enemies of a level in comparison to their in-game versions.

The man is totally right - we need more character games. They seemed plentiful around the era of the PS1, but lately haven't been terribly easy to come by - Ratchet and Mario are about all that really come to mind. Sonic too, but Sonic sucks now, so he doesn't count.

And if he wrote a book, I'd totally buy it.

James McGeachie wrote: Have a read if you'd like to get inside the mindset of the most important (yet barely appreciated) member of the classic Sonic development team!

Obligatory "rage rage, that title would belong to Naoto Oshima!" here. But yeah, Yasahura was pretty cool. I much appreciate his Sonic 1 level designs and especially his utterly perfect Sonic R ones. Sonic 2's were good as well, the only good thing about the game *runs*.

And err, I always thought it was "Yasuhara" until now...?

Hilarious typo is seriously hilarious.

And on a "most underappreciated game guy competition", Yasuhara kicks Ohshima's ass every day of the week (?).

Any chance someone could edit the title? It's a pretty easy mistake to make at least considering how rarely we actually see his damn name anywhere!

Anyway I didn't enjoy a single second of Sonic CD due to what I consider abysmal and disjointed level design, which is one of many reasons I consider Yasuhara to be be the most important member really, his great design sense is what made the levels fun to play.

James McGeachie wrote:Any chance someone could edit the title? It's a pretty easy mistake to make at least considering how rarely we actually see his damn name anywhere!

Anyway I didn't enjoy a single second of Sonic CD due to what I consider abysmal and disjointed level design, which is one of many reasons I consider Yasuhara to be be the most important member really, his great design sense is what made the levels fun to play.

Did you play SCD in time attack mode? Because that's what the levels were designed for, no, tailored to, and where they really shine. As you get into TAing it, suddenly everything makes sense! That slope being there so you could jump off it at the right angle to gain speed or do a high and/or far jump! That enemy seemingly randomly placed there in the air is just there so you can bounce off it on your route! SCD's levels aren't very fun to casually play though, but once you start time attacking them you'll suddenly realize how fucking brilliant and perfectly designed they are.

P.P.A. wrote:

James McGeachie wrote:but once you start time attacking them you'll suddenly realize how fucking brilliant and perfectly designed they are.

I find it amusing that these days we consider it a flaw when you have to play through a level several times memorizing the layout before it becomes enjoyable, yet you seem to think that is actually a good thing about Sonic CD's level design.

If they're not fun to "casually play through", then quite frankly they're not "fucking brilliant and perfectly designed".

Thank you. I was afraid I was the only one who didn't find Sonic CD to be some immaculate revelation. The first batches of levels were enjoyable enough, but somewhere around Wacky Workbench's floors shooting me up to the ceiling every time I touched them, I realized this was the video gaming equivalent of the White Album, but less Dear Prudence, and more Revolution 9. The conveyor belt boss only cemented my position.

^Wacky Workbench is an exception. I hate it with all my might.

Hybrid wrote:

P.P.A. wrote:

James McGeachie wrote:but once you start time attacking them you'll suddenly realize how fucking brilliant and perfectly designed they are.

I find it amusing that these days we consider it a flaw when you have to play through a level several times memorizing the layout before it becomes enjoyable, yet you seem to think that is actually a good thing about Sonic CD's level design.

If they're not fun to "casually play through", then quite frankly they're not "fucking brilliant and perfectly designed".

I disagree. Games that offer few replay value and are simply designed to play through once or twice and then be forgotten rarely interest me. That's one of the reasons I don't like Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda Twilight Princess or Half-Life 2, but would gladly play Sonic CD, Super Mario World or Sunshine, Zelda Wind Waker or Team Fortress 2 at any given time.
I can have fun with a game the first time, but I only grow to really like it if it gives me a reason to go back to it later. Be that via rewarding multiple playthroughs (Riviera for example), time or score attacking (SCD, Sonic R, Senko no Ronde), lots of side quests and other things to do after you're done with the main game (Zelda WW and MM), fun online multiplayer modes (TF2, Senko no Ronde), or just being generally simple fun that's always there for a quick round (Outrun 2/SP, Super Mario World). That may be just my stance though, and other people probably give a single but enjoyable playthrough more credit that I do.
And mind you, it's a difference whether a game forces you to play through each stage multiple times just so you memorize where the next invisible bottomless pits and cheap enemy hits are, or if it's just a not as pleasing experience to play through once but in exchange offers near endless replay value and motivation.

Um... am I the only one who thinks Sonic CD's levels ARE fun for casual playthroughs? I always enjoyed figuring out how to get to the Past, beat the enemy spawning machine, then get to the corresponding Good Future in every level I was presented with. Thus, with regards to exploration and so on, I felt they were perfectly designed - hell, I've still not seen every nook and cranny of every time zone of every act, so there's always that desire to go back and find some of that crap.

And Yusuhuru isn't much of an improvement. Might as well call him "Yusohari" or something.

I was afraid I was the only one who didn't find Sonic CD to be some immaculate revelation.

I don't know what forums you've been hanging out on but it has always seemed to me (at least ever since people without SegaCDs were able to play it) that Sonic CD gets heavily slammed on in any discussion I've ever seen about it. It's a game very few people agree on.

I'm with Shadow Hog though, Sonic CD is possibly my favorite and it's for the exact reason he specified.

The thing about Sonic CD that's fun for Time Attack is that for one thing, they actually include the mode, and almost every level can, given enough exploration, produce a time that is under a minute, so the time actually invested in replaying the levels over and over is not especially large. If you screw up, restarting is not a big issue. If you don't like that sort of thing, then it's obviously not relevant, but if you try the same thing in Sonic 3, the level design is just not conducive to it.

I'm liking how the edited title is still wrong, good work.

It displeases me that people's quotes are messed up and it looks like I'm praising Sonic CD when it was P.P.A as the game sickens me in all honestly. Even the "CD quality soundtrack" was complete and utter shit for me, other than "You can do anything" (or whatever the real name of Toot Toot Sonic warrior is).

The boss fights were another factor that stood out for me as pretty bad. Sure some of them have interesting concepts I guess but I don't recall finding any of them even remotely fun.

Perhaps I played the game with too negative an attitude right from the very beginning though, as the jump sound effect was constantly driving me up the wall from as early as the first stage.

James McGeachie wrote:It displeases me that people's quotes are messed up and it looks like I'm praising Sonic CD when it was P.P.A as the game sickens me in all honestly.

My bad, I didn't remove the extra set of of quote tags to begin with.

P.P.A wrote:Games that offer few replay value and are simply designed to play through once or twice and then be forgotten rarely interest me.

But you're ignoring my point that the levels aren't "fucking brilliant and perfectly designed" if the only way to enjoy them properly is to do the whole memorization thing. "Good replay value" and "Fun the first time" aren't mutually exclusive; If Sonic CD's levels are only fun when you've played them a thousand times and know all the tricks, then they may be perfectly designed for TA'ing but obviously fall short outside of that.

Of course there could be debate about whether SCD's levels are fun or not during the initial playthrough, but let's ignore that for a moment because it seems you accept they're not great unless you're TA'ing them.

I remember the first time I played Sonic CD all I could think of was how amazing that intro movie was, how awesome Sonic looked running with his feet looking 8-shaped, how cool it was that he could travel through time and how the fuck would I ever play that not having a CD-ROM drive. Also, Metal Sonic and Amy seemed like a great add to the series.

It's not really bad when playing through the first time, it just doesn't bring forth its excellence as much as TAing it. Even if you only play the main game, it's still at least as good as Sonic 1 or Sonic 2 if not much better.
And yeah, exploration. I forgot that factor. When I'm not speeding through the stages at high speed I also do some ring attack runs once in a while. And am always amazed how relaxing the game can be, how huge, explorable and open the stages when a few minutes earlier you were zooming straight through them.

P.P.A. wrote:Even if you only play the main game, it's still at least as good as Sonic 1 or Sonic 2 if not much better.

Leave.

Isuka wrote:

P.P.A. wrote:Even if you only play the main game, it's still at least as good as Sonic 1 or Sonic 2 if not much better.

Leave.

Well I admit the main game of Sonic CD lacks some of the simple yet very charming appeal of Sonic 1, and the level design isn't as suited for normal playthroughs as S1's is. While above all I would TA Sonic CD all day I'd probably rather chose to normally fully play Sonic 1 rather than SCD if asked to do either.
Still your reaction is quite extreme I'd say. I'm a fan of Sonic 1 as well (2nd favourite Sonic game, and the one I grew up with), but SCD just kicks its ass in almost every way possible.

CD is the king of explorative Sonic games. There are secrets in it like no other. I had to use debug mode to find some of the secret rooms and I'm sure there are things I'm still missing. A great example was in wacky workbench where you have to let yourself get crushed by a particular piston, which will shoot you into a hidden pipe and pop you into a bonus room (you can see the room and the pipe emptying into it, but finding the other end is the challenge). There was another one behind a pass-through wall that had nothing but a gold Robotnik statue in the bad future (I think it laughed at you or hurt you). There are trails of invisible blocks in midair in Palmtree Panic. I've heard that if you press up on one of them, Sonic tears through the backdrop and comes out somewhere else in the level. The levels may be annoying to navigate at times (and getting to another time period is almost always a hassle), but at least they reward you.

Frieza2000 wrote:There was another one behind a pass-through wall that had nothing but a gold Robotnik statue in the bad future (I think it laughed at you or hurt you).

It drops bombs from the ceiling. If you go to that same spot in the Past, you'll find a statue of a mystery woman who dispenses rings out of her hand!

I haven't seen that PalmTree Panic one, but it sounds like one of the breakable walls where you end up moving through an invisible "tunnel" and then smashing out of the background later (complete with a Sonic-shaped silhouette in the wall where you emerge). You don't need the platforms for that one.

That's the one. Which act is it in? I've never found it.

Oh, it's in Zone 1. You just get here:



Go into that "hole" on the right, and there you go:

And the WW1 statue. Such a lovely detail in a place few people would find anyway. Sonic CD is truly the king of level design for both exploration and time attacking. :(





Another key experience for me was when in Zone 1 of Palmtree Panic, I landed on that ledge right below the end of that giant ramp. (The best TA route requires you to drop off it to the right.) For some reason I went left and ended up falling into the shaft there. But to my utter surprise, it was not empty and with a bottomless it at the end! There were invisible blocks and a tube that led you outside again! All that hassle even though you can hardly ever reach that palce anyway! Fantastic.

Are the statues only in the Past and Bad Future? How do you get to them?

Crazy Penguin wrote:Are the statues only in the Past and Bad Future? How do you get to them?

Only in these two time zones, in the others there's just solid wall. To get to them, you need to take the lowest path. Stay low and you should come to a couple of moving platforms passing below a wall with one of those ice spewers handing from it. Right after that there should be a large slope at the bottom. In this slope to the left is the entrance to the room.Your best bet is probably to stand at the bottom of it, do a peelout or spindash to the left and then you come down again, hold left.