I don't get it, the original Sonic games were just really fun platformers.
I'm pretty sure today's state of sonic and the fanbase just mean people assume the old ones were crap too.
I don't think they're over-rated either, as I've never really heard anyone say that they're the best games ever...
[QUOTE=Qwerty Bastard;45537145]This would be fair, but even during the "normal" platforming segments, sonic moves like an old man building up into a jog. The movement mechanics were clearly designed for you to go fast as often as possible.[/QUOTE]
No, they were designed around keeping momentum, not speed. You never had to go sanic fast with the games, hell when I was a kid I kept a reasonable pace without constantly stopping because it was more fun than going as fast as possible.
If it was all about speed you wouldn't have variable speeds to your spin dash, you wouldn't be able to slow down by releasing the control without stopping.
Even if you agree, you have to realize the video and their argument is terrible. No shit Sonic was a marketing strategy. It was an exceptionally good one. How does that prove your point? I also don't want to believe that footage is of them actually trying to play decently. It's too tragic.
I really don't want to come off like most of the shitty Sonic fandom who will defend Sonic 06 and Shadow the Hedgehog, but come on.
Says somewhere in AVGN's Rob the Robot video that Nintendo sold their console originally as something other than a video game system. The Rob the Robot games sucked but people bought it so that Nintendo could start to market games to kids again.
Doing this sort of thing modern day would be inexcusable regardless of whether or not the ends justified the means. Both companies are guilty of "baiting and switching" in their early years.
I'm confused as to why they called Crash Bandicoot bad. Those games were anything but bad.
[QUOTE=The Robster;45537724]Says somewhere in AVGN's Rob the Robot video that Nintendo sold their console originally as something other than a video game system. The Rob the Robot games sucked but people bought it so that Nintendo could start to market games to kids again.[/QUOTE]
I looked that up because that sounded fishy, but hey you're correct. Comparing that to the way Sonic was marketed is a bit of a stretch. Sonic was a game first plain and simple. The TV shows, merchandizing, etc. was only the result of the game and character being popular. Plus, unlike today, companies used their marketing strategies to attract skeptical buyers to a product that they knew would be well received if only given a chance in a relatively stagnant market, instead of hyping up the same game every year with a different number on it to people ready to eat whatever shit comes their way. The ethics behind Nintendo and Sega during the 90s is an interesting topic worthy of its own thread.
[QUOTE=All0utWar;45538088]I'm confused as to why they called Crash Bandicoot bad. Those games were anything but bad.[/QUOTE]
They don't know what they're talking about. You see it a lot with older Mario fanboys, if it isn't Mario they immediately think it's bad. They're the kinds of people who praise the shit out of Super Mario Brothers while ignoring its flaws.
I don't even care if they're right or wrong, for some reason it's soothing to hear them talk.
It really felt nitpicky to me, especially with how long they went on about Robotnik and the concept of kidnapping animals and such. It'd be if I made a video about Mario, and spent a solid 5 minutes talking about how goombas and green koopas walk right off the ledge.
And I buy into the more complex level designs as variation in gameplay. There were sections where you were allowed to go fast, and then the more complex, maze-like or platforming sections. I got the feeling that these guys only expected Sonic as a game to be one thing, and when it deviated from that, they called it bad game design. When they seemed to express the loop-the-loop sections as bad level design, I disagree. Sure, you might not actually be doing much, but you [I]felt[/I] like you were zipping around these fancy landscapes. How it's percieved to the player is more important than what's actually happening.
When I kept running into enemies? I realized I just press down on the d-pad, and Sonic starts spinning, thus I never got hit by enemies.
Sonic may have been made to be a mascot to counter Mario. I never did any research on that topic. However, the game series succeeded and became an icon because they [I]were[/I] genuinely good, to a lot of people. Mario appeared, was given a chance, and succeeded. Fans were just told "Try this! Sonic will be good," and it was satisfyingly so. And when people say "edgy," the first thought to come to my mind isn't "classic Sonic games." Colorful landscapes with cute animals? Far from edgy. He had one or two animations where he displayed some kind of impatience or attitude. It shows [I]some[/I] kind of personality to a character, even if it is a bit of an attitude. Look at Fzero and Metroid. Those definitely feel like they were trying to be more edgy than Sonic felt. And all in all: edginess isn't bad if it's done well and well recieved.
Overall, I feel like these guys have a bias, and were looking at things that stood out about Sonic, and tried labeling them as "bad."
[QUOTE=jA_cOp;45531673]I think these guys have missed the fact that Mario and Sonic are not the same kind of game.
The mechanics of the Sonic games are built around speed-running, everything from the novel (at the time) physics engine to the health mechanics and level design.[/QUOTE]
Did you watch their video? Their point was that the games aren't. A game that you have to memorize to get a feeling of speed is not a game designed for speed.
I liked jazz jack rabbit.
[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;45534686]i don't think this is nitpicky at all. it's pretty obvious sonic was meant to be a mascot from the start, and the whole level design thing seems pretty spot on
[editline]29th July 2014[/editline]
and there ARE tons of segments in the sonic games where you literally don't have to control your character[/QUOTE]
Sonic CD was way better with this why is it whenever an argument about level design in the games comes up people never mention Sonic CD?
So what have you got to say about it then?
I didn't play Sonic CD growing up, and when I finally did try it out I bounced off it pretty quickly. Part of that was just how different it was - playing CD after living with the rest of the series growing up was like playing someone's fan game re-imagining. Suddenly everything's different, the sprites, the animation, even the scale of the level and the way the camera moves. Everything was 'off'.
Then there was the time mechanic, which coming into the game blind just caused confusion. I had no idea whether I wanted to be time travelling or not.
So the level design. As many people have stated, the Sonic levels (3+Knuckles in particular) have a flow to them, with multi-tiered paths. Navigate well and you get the 'best' path, usually the fastest, but also with many trails. fail, and you fall onto a slower path with more platforming, but again, at critical junctures, you can pass a challenge of some sort and get back to a better path.
Sonic CD's levels didn't feel anything like that. Compare the level maps here:
Hydrocity act 1 from Sonic 3
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/s3z21.png[/t]
Very clearly shows the upper quicker path above water and the lower platform heavy map below, but more than that you can see how each section flows into the next.
Palmtree Panic 2A from Sonic CD
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/scdz12a.png[/t]
There are upper and lower areas, but you can clearly see there's nowhere to go in the lower areas - they're just pits to climb out of. There's no real rhyme or reason to each section coming after another, I can't chart a path through it without being familiar with playing the level.
But of course the Sonic CD level is designed so that you can explore it, that you can backtrack and find that elusive machine, fast areas put in frequently to facilitate the time travel mechanic. I just don't feel it was executed very well.
By all means though, explain how this is all wrong. I've not really played Sonic CD for any length, so I may not have had the design click, not had the realisation on how it works best for the game's mechanics.
[QUOTE=subenji99;45542183]So what have you got to say about it then?
I didn't play Sonic CD growing up, and when I finally did try it out I bounced off it pretty quickly. Part of that was just how different it was - playing CD after living with the rest of the series growing up was like playing someone's fan game re-imagining. Suddenly everything's different, the sprites, the animation, even the scale of the level and the way the camera moves. Everything was 'off'.
Then there was the time mechanic, which coming into the game blind just caused confusion. I had no idea whether I wanted to be time travelling or not.
So the level design. As many people have stated, the Sonic levels (3+Knuckles in particular) have a flow to them, with multi-tiered paths. Navigate well and you get the 'best' path, usually the fastest, but also with many trails. fail, and you fall onto a slower path with more platforming, but again, at critical junctures, you can pass a challenge of some sort and get back to a better path.
Sonic CD's levels didn't feel anything like that. Compare the level maps here:
Hydrocity act 1 from Sonic 3
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/s3z21.png[/t]
Very clearly shows the upper quicker path above water and the lower platform heavy map below, but more than that you can see how each section flows into the next.
Palmtree Panic 2A from Sonic CD
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/scdz12a.png[/t]
There are upper and lower areas, but you can clearly see there's nowhere to go in the lower areas - they're just pits to climb out of. There's no real rhyme or reason to each section coming after another, I can't chart a path through it without being familiar with playing the level.
But of course the Sonic CD level is designed so that you can explore it, that you can backtrack and find that elusive machine, fast areas put in frequently to facilitate the time travel mechanic. I just don't feel it was executed very well.
By all means though, explain how this is all wrong. I've not really played Sonic CD for any length, so I may not have had the design click, not had the realisation on how it works best for the game's mechanics.[/QUOTE]
The first level is a bad example. Sonic CD's levels are really well designed because they make you work for enough speed to time travel and are more complex letting you plan out how to get point a from point b. Even then you have to choose what zone fits better for what you're doing since Past and Future Layouts can have differences.
Stardust Speedway's a brilliant example of this executed perfectly:
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/scdz61c.png[/t]
Same with Metalic Madness:
[t]http://www.soniccenter.org/maps/scdz72c.png[/t]
The games focus isn't predominantly on speed, it's getting to the desired speed by picking the right path. In early sonic games this was not fully present as you could hold right and get through most of the level, in sonic CD you needed to take into consideration where to go as no path was straight forward. Add the time travel mechanics tendency to switch things up and it made for a really fun game. Because honestly, yeah sonics fast but just giving you a path where you mostly press right isn't as fun as figuring out where to speed up now is it? Not to mention that in most levels barring the very first one you can quickly make your way across regardless if you play right.
And Sonic CD DID have the same kinds of challenges you described, at the same points where you were dropped into a slower pathway.
[editline]a[/editline]
What I'm saying is the focus was less on rushing it because he was SO FAST COOL and more on speedy platforming because y'know, it was a platformer
When taking into account Sonic CD I have to say that while I find the level design almost genius (it's by far the most fun I've had speed running and not that after a while you just "get it" almost by instict even if you don't know it), I've only "got" the level design in the 2011 remaster. The original Mega CD version physics never felt fully realised with the level design as the 2011 remaster did. Oh and S2 spindash makes more sense, even though I get what they tried to do with the original.
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