Sonic Forces | PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC "The Next Generations"

[shdowhunt60]

Any one of the above are more than ample enough to carry a story. It only takes the absolutely creatively bankrupt to say there's not potential in any of those.

[Diogenes]

7 minutes ago, Kellan said:

Hanging threads that I can name off the top of my head:

But where do we go with any of this?

The eclipse cannon still exists, sure. So what? We've had two games about the thing already, what more is there to do with it?

Team Dark works for GUN. So what? What about that leads to a story, and specifically a story with serious elements? That Shadow is working for GUN implies he's pretty much resolved his issues with them, so what is worth exploring here?

And the mere existence of characters does not constitute a meaningful story hook.

[Kellan]

I'm not going to write the whole game right now. You wanted threads to build on, there you go. Maybe G.U.N. wants to take over the Eclipse Cannon, and Sonic opposes them. Maybe Team Dark has to choose between loyalty to Sonic, loyalty to G.U.N., and loyalty to each other.

That sounds kinda stupid, but I'm not a writer. My point is that the seeds are there, you just need a competent writer (So, not Pontac and Graff).

[shdowhunt60]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

The eclipse cannon still exists, sure. So what? We've had two games about the thing already, what more is there to do with it?

Maybe it's something best relegated to the comics, but there's plenty of potential political conflict over who exactly is it that gets the low-orbital planet-destroying superweapon or even if someone should have it. Like Kellan said, having GUN being a potential antagonist could be a nice mixup from one-off collossi and a completely ineffectual and uninteresting Eggman.

You could even marry that with another thread, that Tails can make fake, yet fully operational Chaos Emeralds. GUN's already proven itself to not be the most ethically clean of organizations; I could easily see a conflicted arising where GUN has control of the the ARK, and GUN attempts to abduct Tails to try and coerce him into making fake emeralds.

You could even bring Eggman in on the fun. GUN needs someone to make the ARK fully operational, why not Gerald's own grandson? Not that Eggman plans to get along of course.

I mean, hell, I'm just coming up with this on the fly, and I can think of plenty to do with this, and I'm not a writer either.

[DarkRula]

Just chipping in with this to say it's not just about the story when it comes to this.
It's about making sure there are enough levels to fit the game and they are different enough from the other.
 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

But where do we go with any of this?

Wherever you can to build off of it.

Eclispse cannon still operational? Create a plot that revolves aroubd whether it's necessary to still have around or destroy it--the cannon was used to threaten the Earth, but it was also used to save it, so that dilemma can be used to create conflict.

Team Dark works worh GUN? Cool, now they can get involved into their owb heroics, but given how ruthless GUN has shown themselves while trying to do good (in their own bizarre way), one could make a plot that has them cross paths with other heroes and create conflict in how they differ with heroics.

This is storytelling 101, it's not like you can't take any of these idea into new places much like they've taken the Chaos Emeralds or Sonic himself into new places. These things don't lie in a vacuum of being unable to provide anything else beyond their debut.

[Diogenes]

The point isn't whether or not you can throw existing elements together and make some kind of coherent story out of it, it's if the elements can relate meaningfully to the core characters and world. What does Sonic care about GUN and the ARK? He has no meaningful connections with either.

Like, that's the kind of thing that could've worked for Shadow, if they didn't have a game that ends with him basically abandoning his past. He actually has connections to GUN and the ARK that could make the conflict interesting. How does he feel about the ARK after everything he's been through there? Does it feel like a home to him or has it been tainted? How does he feel about GUN nosing in on it again, considering how tragically it ended the last time? That sort of thing could actually be interesting, unlike "Sonic fights GUN because...he's the good guy I guess???"

[Ajavalo]

I want to mention here the completely made up cover Google is currently using as a "thumbnail" for this game -I don't know if it's exclusive to Google Spain; search Sonic Mania and you should see it-.
 

Spoiler

What do you think about it? BTW, they previously had a thumbnail with the title "Sonic Resistance".

[Badnik Mechanic]

26 minutes ago, Ajavalo said:

What do you think about it?

I think I might abuse googles image algorithm too.

[Multikaris]

11 hours ago, Kellan said:

Hanging threads that I can name off the top of my head:

The Eclipse Cannon still exists and is presumably operational.

E-123 Omega still wants to kill Dr. Eggman.

Metal Sonic occasionally likes to gain sentience.

Shadow, Rouge, and Omega presumably still work for G.U.N.

Tails is capable of making fake Chaos Emeralds.

Almost none of the characters have any sort of backstory.

Wasn't there something going on with Little Planet?

Sonic may or may not remember Sonic '06.

The Zeti are either dead, or still at large

Fang, Bark, and Bean are still at large.

The Babylon Rogues are still at large.

Eggman Nega is still at large.

Dr. Eggman is still at large.

etc.

Also, Battle implies Chaos is still at large. Eggman Nega was sealed with Ifrit, and I believe Sonic Team disowned the Hooligans amongst many other characters. Eggmanland also seems to still exist.  And let's not forget "how did Eggman escape White Space?"

 

EDIT: Even I forgot Vector's debt to Big Louie and Small Louie.

[FriendBot]

7 minutes ago, It's a Very Merry Miru said:

 And let's not forget "how did Eggman escape White Space?"

And let's not also forget, "why are we considering a game blatantly made to be a celebratory game for 20th anniversary as canon?"

[Lucid Dream]

I dunno why you guys are making it seem like Sonic can't do dark stuff. What makes a story actually dark isn't just some murder, or torture. It's not guns or swearing or just some darker, muddy paint or colours. All of that is very superficial. Shadow the Hedgehog is not a dark game, it's a very light and childish game. Shadow goes to kill the leader of the United Federations like it's just some kind of boring day job. It's superficially dark, it doesn't make you question morals, or anything really. It's a shallow, superficially dark game, and that's why people hate it for trying to be dark.

Something is dark when it is treated in a serious way. And surprisingly, that's something a lot of people don't have enough guts to do. Emerl is a good example, although the whole meeting everyone for the last time was quite cliche. When he did die, he didn't end it off on a happy note. He clearly tried too, saying that he was happy that he met everyone and so on (it's not that unrealistic for a dying person to say that, at first anyway), but then he broke down and said that "I don't want to go... I'll miss all of you. Shadow... shoud I be glad I was born?" and then died. He wasn't dying happily, he was dying with regret, physical pain and uncertainty. Sonic didn't even confort Emerl, he just panicked and couldn't even process/accept what was going on, unlike how practically every other protagonist is when they see a dying friend. And yea, all of that is shown through only the text. It didn't need dark music, dark art styles, swearing or crying. To make a dark story, you just have to take dark matters seriously. Except for that very last scene where Sonic went all gung-ho and was like YO EMERLS GOTTA BE ALIVE YEA! And Tails was trying to give some random moral message. Seriously,  At least Cream cried.

Gamma was also taken fairly seriously too. Although it hinged a lot more on effective use of music and sound effects (which was well done). I know both scenes have their issues, but nevertheless they are serious moments that I would consider quite dark. And that's all I'm really asking for Project 2017, if it's going to try to be dark, I want it to not have more superficial crap but rather some depth and well balanced seriousness. 

[DaN]

I like some of your ideas about a potential story for this game, and I'd also like something along the lines of Adventure/Brotherhood. 

I think the Sonic lore is pretty messed up though. Even with the first Adventure Game (which I prefer the most) there are big plotholes like the presence oh Humans and the setting being the Earth (Sonic X tried to explain it making things even worse).

What I'd really like for Sonic is a retelling or a soft reboot, but I guess it will never happen

I find it extremely hilarious that we are brainstorming 1000 ideas about a serious setting for this new Sonic game when it is almost cerain we're going to get the same quality of a Teletubbies cartoon

[JezMM]

I think a lot of the hanging threads in the series are too far gone to ever really expect a MAJOR follow-up to without alienating newer or more casual fans.  At best we could hope for a throwaway anecdotal line that longtime fans can appreciate there is ACTUAL lore behind, while new fans will just see it as a throwaway off-camera incident.

For example, (the most offensive one for me) Sonic 4's unresolved plot could very easily be wrapped up with a simple joke line.  Eggman tells Orbot and Cubot to dismantle his last failed project and collect up the scrap metal to recycle into new badniks.

Cubot: "Oh man that's gonna take hours!"

Orbot: "Look on the bright side, what about the time his last failed project was that planet-encompassing space station?  I think we missed a significant number of conquests working on that one."

Cubot: "That was a loooong weekend..."

 

Just an example of stuff they could do IF they wanted to take the opportunity to just quickly tidy up the canon wherever possible.

[Joellui]

For me personally, I would love to know what type missions GUN tells Team Dark to do. As well see the relationship between GUN and their overall influence in the world in more depth.

I would like the Sonic Team do something similar the Archie comics do, having two different comics, the Sonic Universe and the main comic book line. In which Sonic Universe shows other characters and their lives, during the events of the main story line, which would be great. BUT I feel the Sonic Team just don't have the foundation (for the lack of a better word) to make such an ambitious game or story for that matter. Although in this case it would be two games one mainline game and then a spinoff of sort, or maybe even a DLC, but now I'm just rambling.

As for Sonic '17, I just think it's going to be another game that is going to be in same length in story and gameplay as the last couple of games. I really hope they prove me wrong this time. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

9 hours ago, Diogenes said:

The point isn't whether or not you can throw existing elements together and make some kind of coherent story out of it, it's if the elements can relate meaningfully to the core characters and world. What does Sonic care about GUN and the ARK? He has no meaningful connections with either. 

Like, that's the kind of thing that could've worked for Shadow, if they didn't have a game that ends with him basically abandoning his past. He actually has connections to GUN and the ARK that could make the conflict interesting. How does he feel about the ARK after everything he's been through there? Does it feel like a home to him or has it been tainted? How does he feel about GUN nosing in on it again, considering how tragically it ended the last time? That sort of thing could actually be interesting, unlike "Sonic fights GUN because...he's the good guy I guess???"

That's like asking what does Sonic care about the Death Egg and Robotnik back in the Classic era. What meaningful relation is there to that when all there was to it was "Sonic fights Eggman because he's a good guy and Eggman's the bad guy?" What meaningful connection is that?

As far as the whole GUN/ARK scenario goes, how about he cares about them the same thing he did in SA2, a potential threat to the world in the wrong hands that a well-intentioned, yet shady group built and can likely lose control of again? Only difference is that Sonic wouldn't be framed for a crime, but now he's going against likely allies who see value in the weapon while he doesn't think it's worth any risk. 

And this is really just a general summary that can be built even further, and it's one that he has plenty of connection to it given how he was inadvertently dragged into both in SA2, so it's not like there's nothing relatable you can make from all this. But it is strange how things like the Ark and GUN require a higher degree of literary analysis to core characters more than others than things like Little Planet or the Death Egg which don't have all that much to them beyond being plot devices and settings--them having more narrative than the other is one thing, but that doesn't mean they require more relations to be involved when the others can just as easily be summed up to "Sonic fights X because he's the good guy" like it always has been.

Like really, you make it seem like it should be meaningful as something one would find in Shakespeare, as fun and interesting as that would be. But the simple gist of it is that these other things can be reused and built upon for future plots--great if one wants to put some meaningful relation to GUN and the ARK, but like the Death Egg and Little Planet before it, it's doesn't have to have all that much to it as you make it out to be beyond the general excuse plot we continue to have to this day.

[Shadowlax]

6 hours ago, Hero said:

I'd enjoy seeing some more serious themes in this game, it'd be good for the series to get back to some of the things we saw in the Adventure era. I'm just concerned it's wishful thinking with the way Sonic Team has handled writing in the past, something that's just a milder form of what we got in Shadow would be disappointing. 

In general though, I'd like to see some overall development for the characters. More akin to the adventure style of games, where everyone ends up developing in character in some sort of way. It's been too long since we've had that around. For example - Shadow seemingly works for GUN but the only game he's done actual work for them in had it's story retconned out of existence - what kind of missions does he go on? Did he know anything about what the Eggmans were planning? It doesn't seem like GUN would let something as serious as the destruction of a city go on without a fight. In general, what does Team Dark even do now? The same could be said for Chaotix. 

Depending on the route they're going they could quite easily deal with some unanswered questions we have as well. But yeah, wishful thinking either way. 

The thing with shadow and Gun, while that's interesting, and i'm for development. That's one of those things that I feel like would work best in a spin off game, I feel like spin off games I feel like something sega should invest in more smartly for the sonic franchise. I feel like a lot of the coplaints were on variant gameplay styles, ok, fine. Here is a character action game, you play as shadow and sometimes rouge, its 40 bucks, made by platinum. I feel like investing in more spin off for your more popular character can strait up allow sega to go " ok do care about story, here's the thing and for all those who want sonic to go fast here is the main thing" and everyone could strait up be happy. 

[Diogenes]

7 hours ago, Conquering Storm's Servant said:

That's like asking what does Sonic care about the Death Egg and Robotnik back in the Classic era. What meaningful relation is there to that when all there was to it was "Sonic fights Eggman because he's a good guy and Eggman's the bad guy?" What meaningful connection is that?

First, the Japanese manuals establish that Sonic and Eggman have already been fighting each other even before Sonic 1; they have history, even if we don't know what it is. Also there's the issue of Eggman booping his animal friends into robots to give him a bit more of a personal motivation.

Second, when you start a series, you're free to set its rules. With the first game, you establish what the series is about. You naturally have more leeway there than 26 years and god knows how many games in.

Third, it's different because it's not meant to be serious. That's what this conversation was originally about, not "can you tell a story of any sort", but specifically about including darker and more serious elements. Sonic didn't need some deep connection to Eggman or a major character arc because the story was only meant to be a basic good guy vs bad guy framing for the gameplay.

[Joellui]

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

First, the Japanese manuals establish that Sonic and Eggman have already been fighting each other even before Sonic 1; they have history, even if we don't know what it is. Also there's the issue of Eggman booping his animal friends into robots to give him a bit more of a personal motivation.

Second, when you start a series, you're free to set its rules. With the first game, you establish what the series is about. You naturally have more leeway there than 26 years and god knows how many games in.

Third, it's different because it's not meant to be serious. That's what this conversation was originally about, not "can you tell a story of any sort", but specifically about including darker and more serious elements. Sonic didn't need some deep connection to Eggman or a major character arc because the story was only meant to be a basic good guy vs bad guy framing for the gameplay.

If that's the case then the Sonic Team should've stopped making games between Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Generations and start back again with Sonic Lost World when Eggman was using animals as energy source for his robots again. 

I don't really see what's the problem about making games that expand the world. Uncharted 4 did it nicely in my opinion, no one knew that Nathan Drake had a brother yet, he still made an appearance and was a major a character of the game and it worked very well. 

All in all, it can be serious, it can be dark, or deep, but it just has to be executed correctly is what matters the most and how they handle the story. Cause if it just become a basic good guy vs. bad guy, it would come repetitive and redundant really fast. 

[Diogenes]

2 minutes ago, Joellui said:

I don't really see what's the problem about making games that expand the world.

There's nothing wrong with making games that expand the world. That's not what I've been talking about. The problem is that their attempts to do so have largely been random, largely self-contained ideas, with little to no relationship to existing elements of the world.

6 minutes ago, Joellui said:

Uncharted 4 did it nicely in my opinion, no one knew that Nathan Drake had a brother yet, he still made an appearance and was a major a character of the game and it worked very well. 

It's like you're dancing right around the point I've been trying to make. Uncharted 4 doesn't just introduce some random guy as your new sidekick and expect you to believe Nathan would care so much as to risk his life for him. It introduces the brother he thought was dead. This has obvious and significant meaning for him.

[Joellui]

 

15 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

There's nothing wrong with making games that expand the world. That's not what I've been talking about. The problem is that their attempts to do so have largely been random, largely self-contained ideas, with little to no relationship to existing elements of the world.

It's like you're dancing right around the point I've been trying to make. Uncharted 4 doesn't just introduce some random guy as your new sidekick and expect you to believe Nathan would care so much as to risk his life for him. It introduces the brother he thought was dead. This has obvious and significant meaning for him.

I totally understand where you are coming from. What the Sonic Team has to do is to have structure and consistency in their games. We can't just be jumping to each new game without any closure or conclusion as to what happened in the previous adventure Sonic just went through. I feel like that only happened between the classic games and then SA - Shadow the Hedgehog and those stories from SA  and beyond was still executed badly in their transition to another game with still mentioning the previous ones as well.

I think this is what you mean more or less?

[JosepHenry]

We really don't need less color or less lighthearted moments to make a dark game, as someone said before, look at Majora's Mask (Or even Mother 3)!

Sonic is in his Unleashed/Generations style again! Things are looking grim, but I still can see the game being lighthearted, with Sonic traveling through colorful lands. A city is being destroyed by Eggman (or whatever) is still Sonic.

I just want all of the characters getting in the mood this time. I'm looking at you Adventure Tails.

Sonic can be dark if the story takes itself seriously yet remembers that it is from a game about a cartoony blue hedgehog. The execution matters.

Is hard to explain. But it can work. 

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

While I'm really not inherently against the idea of telling more serious stories for Sonic (though, to be honest, in light of the poor track record the series has with this and the fact that you can never please anything close to the whole fanbase no matter what, I've almost given up on the idea...), I do feel like Diogenes is getting at something that has been bothering me about the Sonic series narratively for a long time. I keep feeling like the premise and stories of many games just don't feel "Sonicy" to me, and I think it's because, again and again, they don't really connect to anything previously established, and certainly not to anything fundamental about the Sonic series and what it's supposed to be about. I mean, elements that are fundamental to the series are involved, but a lot of it is completely unrelated.

For example, honestly, I feel like GUN in general is a rather strange and awkward element to put into a Sonic game. I just don't get why you would put a realistic military into the Sonic series. What connection is there between the military and Sonic? Well, of course the connection in SA2 is that Sonic is falsely believed to be a national security threat, but the only reason that happened is because they decided to make Shadow exist and be a military project, which they didn't have to do (note that I do like Shadow as a character, but I still ideally don't like the military being too heavily involved in Sonic). If they maybe made GUN a little bit cartoonier and gave them some sort of reason to come in conflict with Sonic that actually has to do with who Sonic himself is, I might be able to see that working.

While I haven't actually played that much of the game, I also have a problem with the way Sonic Unleashed handles things; in and of itself, its narrative is pretty good by Sonic standards, but for a game which you could say is about "world building", it sure seems ridiculously self-contained. I mean, it just seems weird to me that pretty much everything in the game has to do with elements, locations, and beings that have never been seen before and will never be seen since (though, a special note needs to be made of Eggmanland, which actually does connect very well to the fulfillment of Eggman's previously established desires). When Sonic Adventure introduced its own destructive god, it's nice that it actually tied in to Angel Island, the history of the race of one of the main characters, and the history and even nature of the Chaos Emeralds. Light and Dark Gaia don't tie in to much of anything previously established, as far as I can tell; I mean, they may have a connection to the Emeralds, but in a sense, I don't really see what the "ultimate connection" between the Emeralds and Gaia is, other than them serving as a power source for the temples. In Sonic Adventure, the emeralds were front-and-center; the echidnas' desire for their power is what made Chaos destructive and vengeful to begin with, and their connection to emotions (a new and interesting fact about the emeralds' power that the game established) is ultimately what empowers Super Sonic, "cures" Chaos, and saves the day.

While I'm talking about one of the few games that actually built on the fundamentals of the series (Sonic Adventure), I might as well go back even farther to talk about other games that did the same thing. Sonic 3 & Knuckles builds on the idea of Chaos Emeralds by introducing us to their guardian and to an even more powerful gem that's related to them, the Master Emerald, as well as tying into the previously established plot thread about the Death Egg from Sonic 2. Sonic 2 obviously just builds on the idea of Sonic fighting Eggman by giving Sonic a sidekick and having Eggman hatch a sinister new plot.

Sonic CD is a bit of an outlier in not involving the Chaos Emeralds and in fact taking place on a different world entirely, and I actually will admit, I don't think it's as good as the other classic games as maintaining that sense of connection with the rest of the series; but A. it's somewhat more forgivable in that it's sort of a "secondary Sonic 2" in terms of when it was developed; if they had made it the "actual" Sonic 2, it could very well have established new conventions for the series, and B. the focus is still squarely on Dr. Eggman and his new evil scheme involving his evil machinations (from Metal Sonic to all the machines and pollution in each "bad future"), and a set of magical gemstones are still important. So overall, it still feels "Sonicy" enough.

Honestly, yeah, it's all a little subjective. But I guess I just don't think it's too much to ask the series try harder to focus on and develop things off of the fundamentals - Sonic is a freedom-loving adventurer who likes to do his own thing but who also has friends, Eggman is an evil genius who likes to build robots and machines and wants to take over the world, the Chaos Emeralds are mystical gems of power which Eggman would like to use in his schemes. I just wish the series would try harder to build off of those concepts, rather than a writing process that feels more like creating unrelated scenarios and concepts and then injecting Sonic, Eggman and the Chaos Emeralds into it, but them not being the main focal point. Not all games are as bad at this as others, but overall, it's something the series has struggled with for a long time and I can't say has really gotten over yet.

Personally, while we know almost nothing about it, I feel like Sonic 2017 at least has the potential to maintain the Sonicy feel even while going in a somewhat more dark and serious direction. I mean, it's at least promising that the teaser trailer shows robots prominently, meaning that maybe Eggman could be the main villain. If the entire story is just about Eggman being more successful in his world conquest endeavors, I could see it sort of as being equivalent to the Bad Futures in Sonic CD but as an entire game, if that makes sense, and that could certainly be interesting. Not going to set my hopes too high or anything because we don't...really know anything about the game, lol. But that's my hope, anyway.

[Shadowlax]

5 hours ago, Hero said:

A Platinum-made game for Shadow does sound pretty interesting, but I'm not sure if Platinum would keep the game true to it's roots though. Shadow's style of gameplay should really be akin to Sonic with more of an emphasis on chaos power, something like a mix of abilities between what we got in Shadow The Hedgehog and 06 without the poor execution would be great in my opinion. 

I don't think so. I would actually make them different, like sonic battle, in sonic battle shadow's fighting style was strait up different. To be quite honest if they really really wanted to. They shadow has all the tools to have his moveset to be a strait homage to devil may cry. Like If you play DMC4 SE vergil's move set is like strait up how shadow would play in an action video game. 

5 hours ago, Hero said:

I agree with what you mean about Sega tapping into the other characters, Generations would have been a great game to make use of the others in a playable form, but they didn't really do anything with it. I feel like a spinoff is unnecessary though, and Sega trying to pander to fans rather than do it's own thing hasn't really worked in the past. Alongside that, dividing up the fans up even further is not going to do much good. The compromise seems to be just having optional gameplay styles, though the people who just want to go fast will probably be the ones who only play through Sonic's story anyway. 

I don' think spin offs would actually divide fans though. Not everyone would get spin off, as much as I love amy and the chaotix hypothetically they problably wouldn't be getting the spinoff treatment by themsellves. But super popular characters like tails and shadow, getting spin off games with different types of gameplay not only allow for seperate parts of the fanbase, it will also allow for new people to be apart of the fanbase. 

Like not to be rude.. but mario does this. I don't think luigi's mansion and the occasional wario ware and land games take away from mario land, but if you were to shove those things into mario oddessy people would probably be upset. 

It allows for people to play as a character they like, a different style of game play and to not upset people who like the orginal one, they can just play the regular game. You could make a tails, adventure mystery style game, I would play that. 

5 hours ago, Hero said:

Variant gameplay styles can be done easily if you just make the stages with it in mind. The viability of it all is solely dependent on what kind of game they're making, and what kind of stages they have in mind. Adventure pulled it off pretty well, and to a lesser extent 3&K with the alternate pathways. Part of the problem is just making the styles similar enough to Sonic so that people don't complain about not going fast. That's not really an issue with say, Shadow or Espio for example, but for characters like Knuckles or Omega it's a little more apparent. People seem to like the pace of Sonic's stages so to actually satisfy this with the other characters they need to match it in some way. Things need to be different enough so that we don't get the equivalent of a wisp as a gameplay style though, and I think Black Knight did this pretty well for what it's worth. 

 

I disagree completely. 

I like sonic adventure and will defend 2 as a good game, but I think it worked for its time. I think we live in a time, whether it be movies, comic books, TV shows, brands , where separating those things and creating an actual world ... works. To cram every thing into one big thing works every once in a while but things can be separate, thats' kind of how it works now. 

They could just do that you don't have to shove everything into one thing, platinum is probably looking for work right about now. Just get them to make a shadow character action game, you all say you all are upset that you all make HD assets and people run past them too damn fast to see them. If you had a game that was about  beating things up and being not so fast. Or an adventure mystery game starring tails where it emphised you looking around in those areas SEGA you could probably get your monies worth with reusing assets. Obviously game design is harder than, drop the files into the new game folder, but I feel this solves a lot of problems. Like a lot of problems that sega and the fanbase have 

[Badnik Mechanic]

Platinum Games would likely laugh and then block Sega from their twitter account if they were approached to make a Shadow the Hedgehog game.