What YOU Think of Sonic Forces

[Diogenes]

19 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Some people really don't understand why Sonic uses automation. 2D gameplay cannot just translate flawlessly into 3D. Have you seen those effort-filled but embarassing 3D fangames that insist on minimal scripting, like Paradise and Utopia, where the speed is all wrong, the game fucks up on loops and it's just a clusterfuck of pacing/jumping embarrasment all around. You can't just not have any scripting around these set-pieces, otherwise the player would mess up because of how incredibly precise these speed setpieces are.

Utopia plays fine, only loops can get a little sketchy. And if something doesn't work right in 3D, the proper response is to not do it, not have the game take control every 30 seconds so you can watch it happen.

19 minutes ago, Plasme said:

AND FUCKING NEWSFLASH; the 2D Classic Sonic games used scripting and automation for their setpieces too. Have you actually seen Sonic 2 played with the scripting and automation taken out? You don't make jumps properly, the game slows down, loops fucks up and large 'flashy' jumps fall short. The whole code of Sonic 2 is a garbled clusterfuck that had to be patched together. So I'm finding this fawning over a mythical time when Sonic never had automation pretty fucking ridiculous.

What the hell are you even talking about? Where are you seeing so much automation in Sonic 2? You'll get the occasional S-tube or something in the classics but you do not get control taken from you anywhere near as much as in any 3D Sonic.

[Chris Knopps]

6 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Utopia plays fine, only loops can get a little sketchy. And if something doesn't work right in 3D, the proper response is to not do it, not have the game take control every 30 seconds so you can watch it happen.

What the hell are you even talking about? Where are you seeing so much automation in Sonic 2? You'll get the occasional S-tube or something in the classics but you do not get control taken from you anywhere near as much as in any 3D Sonic.

S-tube?

Are you talking about those sections like in S3&K when you're on the Death Egg being hurled around by those ring laser things?

[Cornelius Fudge]

Well, I'd say automation has increasingly gotten worse to the point where I felt in some levels that the game tried to hold your hand when your performance should've been contingent upon your mastery over the controls and the game's level design. Sonic Color's Starlight Carnival for example had majority of its 3D sections where it was scripted without you even having control over Sonic or Sonic Unleashed's Mazuri where it literally held your hand through its 2D platforming. It was certainly never as bad as it was in Force's Green Hill Zone which was absolutely ludicrous, but it has certainly been more prominent since the Classic and Adventure days.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

6 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

S-tube?

Are you talking about those sections like in S3&K when you're on the Death Egg being hurled around by those ring laser things?

No,  he's referring to stuff like the tunnels you spindash/roll through in Green Hill zone, Angel Island Zone,  etc. 

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Chris Knopps said:

S-tube?

Are you talking about those sections like in S3&K when you're on the Death Egg being hurled around by those ring laser things?

No I mean the things from GHZ, Angel Island Zone, and probably a few other places I'm forgetting that put you into a roll and usually give you a little push in the right direction so you don't get stuck.

The thing Mayor D screenshotted from Forces' GHZ, in a post you quoted just last page.

[Indigo Rush]

55 minutes ago, Plasme said:

AND FUCKING NEWSFLASH; the 2D Classic Sonic games used scripting and automation for their setpieces too. Have you actually seen Sonic 2 played with the scripting and automation taken out? You don't make jumps properly, the game slows down, loops fucks up and large 'flashy' jumps fall short. The whole code of Sonic 2 is a garbled clusterfuck that had to be patched together. So I'm finding this fawning over a mythical time when Sonic never had automation pretty fucking ridiculous.

Wow. I'm convinced you're just trying to bait. Aren't you the guy that said this place was too toxic? 

[Tracker_TD]

19 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

Wow. I'm convinced you're just trying to bait. Aren't you the guy that said this place was too toxic? 

Look man, Sonic's a sensitive fictional character. Point out his new game looks bad too many times and he might like, cry or something. 

[Celestia]

1 hour ago, Indigo Rush said:

Wow. I'm convinced you're just trying to bait.

I mean...it clearly worked. :/

1 hour ago, Plasme said:

AND FUCKING NEWSFLASH; the 2D Classic Sonic games used scripting and automation for their setpieces too. Have you actually seen Sonic 2 played with the scripting and automation taken out? You don't make jumps properly, the game slows down, loops fucks up and large 'flashy' jumps fall short. The whole code of Sonic 2 is a garbled clusterfuck that had to be patched together. So I'm finding this fawning over a mythical time when Sonic never had automation pretty fucking ridiculous.

First off, do you have an actual source for any of this or...

Second, I'm willing to believe there was some trickery involved with the classic games. They could get away with that now, too, if the base physics felt more natural.

Third, I'm not sure if you understand people's criticisms in the first place? Like I was implying with my last point, I think some level of scripting is fine. Loops in 3D games, for example. I know that kind of misses half the point of their original purpose, but I'm fine with keeping them around even if just for spectacle.

But that's not the only kind of automation that goes on in these games, and a lot of it is really, really, really silly. Boosters in particular are annoying, in large part due to baffling placement choices. It's (sometimes) possible to organically get through sections that boosters will carry you through, but it's become such a habit that they throw 'em in anyway.

I still enjoy these games just fine and I'm tired of it. If you don't care that's fine, but the aggression really wasn't called for.

[Milo]

The argument that "2D (Genesis) Sonic doesn't work in 3D" being made under the presumption that Sonic Team has been actively trying and failing to bring the 2D Genesis gameplay into 3D for the past two decades...is, without question, one of the most obnoxious and pervasive myths regarding Sonic gameplay today. Anyone who seriously argues this in earnest I would argue has absolutely no idea what they're talking about. That, or are --either accidentally or knowingly-- arguing in bad faith.

Sonic Adventure never had rolling or momentum as the focus of the gameplay and that has been to date Sonic Team's only real attempt at preserving the original 2D mechanics (the rolling physics were actually decent but were never put to use by the game's level design). Adventure 2 made the rolling worse, Heroes made it an afterthought (the partner attack move with Speed characters), and its been pretty much excised from 2006 and onwards. No, Lost World doesn't count either--for all of the game's hype about parkour mechanics, the game bogged it down by having a brick-ton of grid-based scripting for wall-running and ledge-climbing, on top of having no momentum whatsoever. Never mind that --as with Sonic Adventure-- parkour wasn't the real focus of the gameplay anyway.

Moreover, none of the introduced 3D mechanics --Homing Attack, air dash, boost-- have ever allowed players to build or play with momentum, and standard Sonic game objects like springs and dash panels that actually had some dynamic interactivity in the past were retooled to be fully automated/static in motion as well. The one exception to the rule I can think of was grinding in Adventure 2, but by Heroes and onwards, momentum was stripped from that mechanic too. The absolute icing on the cake is that these gameplay mechanics/changes and all of this automation that have been argued as supposedly necessary to hold up 3D Sonic gameplay...they gradually started overtaking the 2D gameplay too; culminating in a game that was marketed as the developers revisiting the roots (Sonic 4) but had the gameplay absolutely FUBAR'd from the originals and was drowning in automated objects and scripted elements.

Meanwhile, Mario has hardly, if ever, needed to automate his gameplay (including, but not limited to, needing a homing attack move) when it comes to his 3D titles. As for the preemptive retortions that  "well duh, Mario is not Sonic"...Crash, Spyro, Donkey Kong (DK64), Banjo, Rayman, Jak and Daxter (referring to the first game, though the sequels might count here)...they're all pretty different from Mario as well, but they didn't need tons of automation to glue their gameplay together either. Neither do hybrid 3D platformers like Ratchet, Sly, and Knack, for that matter. And the majority of those series didn't start out in 2D games, they were 3D right off the bat.

...and yet, people are compelled to make the argument that Sonic is a special snowflake exception that does need all of this automation? Considering the heavy automation in Sonic games is hardly praised, let alone saves most of the 3D Sonic games from being mediocre at best; I find that breathtakingly difficult to believe. Especially so with the reception Mania's getting, and that's the first Sonic game in years to have minimal automation/scripting in play.

[PKGaming]

6 hours ago, Plasme said:

Some people really don't understand why Sonic uses automation. 2D gameplay cannot just translate flawlessly into 3D. Have you seen those effort-filled but embarassing 3D fangames that insist on minimal scripting, like Paradise and Utopia, where the speed is all wrong, the game fucks up on loops and it's just a clusterfuck of pacing/jumping embarrasment all around. You can't just not have any scripting around these set-pieces, otherwise the player would mess up because of how incredibly precise these speed setpieces are.

AND FUCKING NEWSFLASH; the 2D Classic Sonic games used scripting and automation for their setpieces too. Have you actually seen Sonic 2 played with the scripting and automation taken out? You don't make jumps properly, the game slows down, loops fucks up and large 'flashy' jumps fall short. The whole code of Sonic 2 is a garbled clusterfuck that had to be patched together. So I'm finding this fawning over a mythical time when Sonic never had automation pretty fucking ridiculous.

As Sonic Team have said numerous times over, the game has to use automation to provide for a fun gaming experience. I know everyone and their dog seems to want magical organic gameplay that never messes up, but you'll have to keep dreaming in candy land for that.

 

I freakin LOVED Utopia. It's definitely got room for some polish, but honestly, it's pretty much exactly what I wanna see from a 3D Sonic. I don't even dislike the Modern Boost gameplay, but after experiencing Utopia, it's hard going back. 

[Sonikko]

8 hours ago, Celestia said:

Third, I'm not sure if you understand people's criticisms in the first place? Like I was implying with my last point, I think some level of scripting is fine. Loops in 3D games, for example. I know that kind of misses half the point of their original purpose, but I'm fine with keeping them around even if just for spectacle.

If they don't want to deepen the loops like Utopia is doing (Sonic can roll off the sides and use them as ramps too, that's why they're not splined), they could always have them splined, have a rail on the center like they do now, but they could keep the player's natural momentum while avoiding completely automating them.

As you said most of the automation that goes into Sonic games is completely unnecessary, or at least approached in the wrong way. I agree that moving a character like Sonic in 3D is way harder than moving Mario, but the way Sonic Team changed up Sonic's gameplay is too radical and decharacterizing.

Most of these instances would just need a spline to be approachable by anyone who picks up a controller, taking away control and momentum from the hands of the player is completely inexcusable. As Gabe said, no other 3D platformer feels the need to do this and I don't see why Sonic should either.

The Homing Attack, for example, Utopia did that wonderfully, it keeps momentum but it's still homing, I don't understand why it's something so hard to understand for Sonic Team.

The grappling hook from Forces, it could have been a great mechanic, had it been actually thought out. Imagine having a grappling hook that kept momentum and didn't frigging stop the character in mid air. I don't know what reason they had to make the character stop while using a grappling hook. Imagine Sonic with Spiderman's power. Imagine Sonic keeping the momentum he gained on feet, hooks up to a ledge and flies off in the distance, starts rolling in mid air and lands on a downward slope, going even faster.

How does that work in Forces? You're moving at a set speed, oh look a grappling hook thing, *hook* *stop in mid air* *you get pushed towards the hooked thing* *automated animation of the character rolling around said thing* *you're sent exactly where the developers wanted you to, just like a spring does*.

I'd want people to understand that these talks about modern Sonic gameplay being too stripped back and automated, do not reduce to "boohoo it's not classic Sonic, I want classic Sonic, if it's not 2D and exactly the way I think it should be then I won't buy these games.". It's much much much more than that.

Just imagine you're a fan of a TV show, it starts out with a serious tone, action-oriented. By the time the third season comes around they start turning it into a comedy/action (kinda like Boom) with a completely different focus. And at first it's not that bad quality-wise, it's hitting some right spots while keeping some of the old, but fourth season comes around and they throw out everything that made the tv series stand out from the rest of the sit-coms that air on tv, while putting out a subpar comedy.

Or do you remember the time your favourite band started shifting focus and then turned into some weird mediocre generic thing just to please a larger fanbase?

This is what happened to Sonic, it has been stripped out of his identity so much, that saying "Modern Sonic has no standards" is not something wrong to say. Sonic needs standards, Sonic IS about something, Sonic has potential, so much inexpressed potential. Sonic in 3D could be the most awesome thing I could ever imagine, but it's being held back so much for weird reasons.

3D games should be about freedom of movement, adding another axis to the player movement so that he can approach the environment in even more ways. 3D Sonic games do the opposite, they confine the player to narrow corridors and take out control from the player's hand all the time.

It just doesn't make sense.

[Plasme]

Sonic Utopia is an embarrasment. It has incredibly stiff controls, if you jump in a given direction then you are pretty much locked in that direction, with no clear way of moving left, right or backwards. It might make sense rationally, but it makes for an incredibly stiff and unfun gaming experience. There's no way to adjust your jump if you make a mistake, and with the way the homing dash functions you can't rely on that to adjust your jump either. I know it's trendy now to make out that fans are ALWAYS better than professional developers, but people really need to stop blindly praising fan projects which are a downgrade from official products.That's not even getting into how the ground textures typically suffer from fans' not understanding how to work textures/art properly and so they create an optical illusion and mess up your eyes, the unfocused and messy level desgin, and the lack of actual platforming/speed challenges outside of 'jump across platforms really fast'.

Also, all the Sonic games have tons of automation in them, it's something I learned from years of hacking the game, something I imagine most of you guys don't know seeing as you are disagreeing. It's really obvious in S Tubes, as someone brought up, you can't actually go through the tube in a natural way without hammering the spin dash within the tube without the automation. Even if you approach an S Tube at really fast speeds, you still won't make it through properly without the game's automated code knocking you through. But it's not just with the S Tubes, large jumps (the one's where you do a huge jump into a pile of rins in midair) and even some of the loop de loops have subtle automation which keep you going at a steady pace. You don't notice it when you play normally, but if you play the game after removing much of the game's automation, as I have, and it becomes really obvious. And I don't have video footage of all this, because most people dont bother to record this, but I'm not saying anything here that's outrageous, ask any Sonic hacker (like on Retro) and they will confirm what I've said. And yes, even with Sonic 2's garbled, uncomprehensible code. It's evene more blatant after hacking the game how rushed it was.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with the Classic Sonic games using a lot of automation, but I get annoyed at the fans who keep insisting that there was this mythical time when Sonic games didn't have automation. WELL GUESS WHAT; Sonic has always had automation, deal with it!

[Tracker_TD]

3 hours ago, Plasme said:

And of course, there's nothing wrong with the Classic Sonic games using a lot of automation, but I get annoyed at the fans who keep insisting that there was this mythical time when Sonic games didn't have automation. WELL GUESS WHAT; Sonic has always had automation, deal with it!

And folks already went through why the relatively rare moments of automation in the Classics weren't so much of an issue as it in something like Forces, where it's beyond parody.

...deal with it. I guess. 

[Alienrun]

10 hours ago, Plasme said:

Sonic Utopia is an embarrasment. *insert words here*

Sonic Utopia is a proof of concept, I refuse to believe its an "emarrasment" in that regard when there is literately noone embaresed by it.

Also ditto what Gabe said, that post is spot on!

[Badnik Mechanic]

11 hours ago, Plasme said:

WELL GUESS WHAT; Sonic has always had automation, deal with it!

In all those years when hacking Sonic games.

Did you ever find any code which went along these lines?

 

If (Sonic runs down hill == true)

 { place booster}

Else

Place ramp.

 

Just that you keep saying they always had automation and you are right. A few sections did.

The conversation we're having here is now nearly half the level at best is automated as opposed to around a tenth.

[rosedust]

all i want is an actual story with more characters than just sonic and have more character development within the characters, not just sonic.

[Speedi]

50 minutes ago, rosedust said:

all i want is an actual story with more characters than just sonic and have more character development within the characters, not just sonic.

It's not enough to just have a story with all of Sonic's friends in it, they need to serve a purpose and not feel like they were just added in for the sake of fanservice (Like Knuckles and Amy in Lost World). Also it might just be my memory, but when has Sonic ever gotten any character development in the main series? He's like the most static character in the entire series. At the most he might be used to develop other characters around him (Like the Knights of the Round Table, Shara, Elise, etc), but he's never the character growing over the course of the story.

[Sega DogTagz]

1 hour ago, Speedi said:

but when has Sonic ever gotten any character development in the main series? He's like the most static character in the entire series. At the most he might be used to develop other characters around him (Like the Knights of the Round Table, Shara, Elise, etc), but he's never the character growing over the course of the story.

Lost World?

Sonic's cocky, arrogant and act first persona got him into a bit of trouble on multiple occasions over the course of the game. Then his desperation to make things right and fix his mistakes threw a wedge in his relationship with Tails and pushed him to form an unnecessary alliance with Eggman, which opened the door for the Doctor to get what he wanted at the end of the game. By the end credits, Sonic was apologizing and learned a legit lesson.

Might not have been handled the best way, but that is character development. Sonic will probably lean on Tails a bit more in the future.

[Sonikko]

On 12/7/2017 at 3:03 PM, Plasme said:

Sonic Utopia is an embarrasment. It has incredibly stiff controls, if you jump in a given direction then you are pretty much locked in that direction, with no clear way of moving left, right or backwards. It might make sense rationally, but it makes for an incredibly stiff and unfun gaming experience. There's no way to adjust your jump if you make a mistake, and with the way the homing dash functions you can't rely on that to adjust your jump either. I know it's trendy now to make out that fans are ALWAYS better than professional developers, but people really need to stop blindly praising fan projects which are a downgrade from official products.That's not even getting into how the ground textures typically suffer from fans' not understanding how to work textures/art properly and so they create an optical illusion and mess up your eyes, the unfocused and messy level desgin, and the lack of actual platforming/speed challenges outside of 'jump across platforms really fast'.

Git gud. The game plays wonderfully when you get accostumed to the controls, and that's exactly the same thing that was required for the classic games. Once you get a grasp on how Sonic moves and interacts with the terrain, it's easily the best Sonic has ever been in 3D.

On 12/7/2017 at 3:03 PM, Plasme said:

Also, all the Sonic games have tons of automation in them, it's something I learned from years of hacking the game, something I imagine most of you guys don't know seeing as you are disagreeing. It's really obvious in S Tubes, as someone brought up, you can't actually go through the tube in a natural way without hammering the spin dash within the tube without the automation. Even if you approach an S Tube at really fast speeds, you still won't make it through properly without the game's automated code knocking you through. But it's not just with the S Tubes, large jumps (the one's where you do a huge jump into a pile of rins in midair) and even some of the loop de loops have subtle automation which keep you going at a steady pace. You don't notice it when you play normally, but if you play the game after removing much of the game's automation, as I have, and it becomes really obvious. And I don't have video footage of all this, because most people dont bother to record this, but I'm not saying anything here that's outrageous, ask any Sonic hacker (like on Retro) and they will confirm what I've said. And yes, even with Sonic 2's garbled, uncomprehensible code. It's evene more blatant after hacking the game how rushed it was.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with the Classic Sonic games using a lot of automation, but I get annoyed at the fans who keep insisting that there was this mythical time when Sonic games didn't have automation. WELL GUESS WHAT; Sonic has always had automation, deal with it!

I'm not a modder, I don't have counterproof. I'm pretty sure you're exagerating stuff, but EVEN THEN, even if all you are saying is completely true, it's still pretty different having triggers that help the character get through the level, while keeping the player in control and keeping momentum and speed, instead of taking away control from the player and setting their speed to a set amount, which is something the modern games do all the frigging time.

[Sega DogTagz]

2 hours ago, Sonikko said:

Git gud. The game plays wonderfully when you get accostumed to the controls, and that's exactly the same thing that was required for the classic games. Once you get a grasp on how Sonic moves and interacts with the terrain, it's easily the best Sonic has ever been in 3D.

LOL

Best he's been in 3D? Utopia is a WIP proof-of-concept on its best day. It doesn't stand up to Generations or Unleashed in terms of fun factor. Shoot, I'd say it even pales to Adventure 1 and 2. You can't compare something like that to a polished, finished product. Its not gonna even be close.

 

All Utopia does is provide a tech demo to give people an idea of what a open world physics based platformer might look like. It doesn't have any solutions as to how it would make its gameplay engaging or fun. How it would justify its existence after the novelty wears off. So many people latch onto it as the definitive version of the future despite it having less of a direction than any of the play-styles Sega has thrown at us in the 3D space.

 

 

[Milo]

Can't say the putdowns of Utopia in this thread surprise me much. I remember back during the Sonic 4 saga, people outright laughed off or scoffed at the arguments pushed by classic fans that high-profile fan projects were better-realized efforts at classic Sonic gameplay than Sonic Team and Dimps' attempt at "the sequel as you truly imagined it." Sonic Fan Remix was dismissed as a graphically overblown tech demo, Sonic 2 HD was discredited due to its troubled production, notorious DRM demo, and cancellation; etc.

Some people were also quick to also insinuate Taxman and Stealth were incapable of making a good Sonic game when people talked about Sega picking them up to make an official Sonic title; and even when Mania's announcement showed Sega was doing exactly just that (alongside bringing PWG along for the ride), certain people were quick to dismiss all of the praise around the unveiling as people getting hyped over nothing more than "an official ROM hack/fangame." 

And yet, here we are knowing which one of the two Sonic games coming out this year is carrying all of hype and E3 accolades from the press and general community...

[Sonikko]

1 hour ago, Sega DogTagz said:

LOL

Best he's been in 3D? Utopia is a WIP proof-of-concept on its best day. It doesn't stand up to Generations or Unleashed in terms of fun factor. Shoot, I'd say it even pales to Adventure 1 and 2. You can't compare something like that to a polished, finished product. Its not gonna even be close.

 

All Utopia does is provide a tech demo to give people an idea of what a open world physics based platformer might look like. It doesn't have any solutions as to how it would make its gameplay engaging or fun. How it would justify its existence after the novelty wears off. So many people latch onto it as the definitive version of the future despite it having less of a direction than any of the play-styles Sega has thrown at us in the 3D space.

 

 

Utopia is indeed a WIP proof-of-concept, and its mechanics are still more sound and coherent than anything you'll find in an official 3D Sonic game.

The fun from Utopia comes from approaching the environment, kinda like Mirror's Edge. It's a perfect translation of the Classic gameplay in 3D, and the demo was open world just to give people a playground, the rest of the game is going for a more linear approach. The things Lange has talked about sound really interesting, and I really doubt the game is going to fall flat on its face, since it has been very competent from the very beginning.

Sonic was never about some gimmick or powerup, the fun stemmed from the environment itself and the various ways it could be approached. I myself have spent more than 10 hours on Utopia so far, and that's a lot for a single level proof-of-concept demo.

That single level has more freedom and interesting stuff going on than the entirety of Colours or Generations. It has so much going on, so many small details that are missing from the official games, so many moves Sonic hasn't been able to do for some reason that were the norm in the classic games. Speedrunning that demo is so much fun, and it's always different everytime you try it, every playthrough is different.

So many things Utopia is doing should be the norm in the official games. The way it approaches the homing attack, the way slopes and ramps work, the way it handles momentum.

SA1 was going for a similar direction at some point too, which must mean that Utopia isn't that far-fetched.

I can see your point, as it stands now Utopia is too WIP to stand against the official games, but the concept behind it, and the execution of said concepts so far has been so so much better than anything ST has put out in decades. It's Sonic. It finally feels like Sonic in a 3D environment. That's something you can't say about many of the official games.

Just look at how Utopia handles the Homing Attack, and how Forces handles the grappling hook.

[Sega DogTagz]

39 minutes ago, Gabe said:

And yet, here we are knowing which one of the two Sonic games coming out this year is carrying all of hype and E3 accolades from the press and general community...

Thats not even applicable to this situation. Mania's succsess stem directly from Whiteheads ability to recapture and reinvigorate a formula that we know works. That is time-tested and time-approved. He's painting a Picasso from a blueprint. Is Mania impressive looking, sure it is, its still looks like a Picasso, but no small amount of credit for that goes back to the original classic games. Its not like he designed the playstyle from the ground up.

The fans behind Utopia are rediscovering the wheel. Porting over the momentum based gameplay and the freedom of an open world are things that have never been done before in a 3D official capacity. Fan produced or not, where Mania finds its succsess is in the footprints of the originals. Utopia is its own tangent. The scrutiny curve is going to be different. Trying to compare its evolution to Whitehead's journey from fangame to official developer is total bunk.

28 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

It's Sonic. It finally feels like Sonic in a 3D environment. That's something you can't say about many of the official games.

And this is where we hit the all too famous divide. While I can appreciate the openness and the momentum, to me Unleashed felt more like Sonic in 3D than Utopia did. It provided an adrenaline rush, and a sense of awe that can't be replicated by Utopia's easier pacing and catering to personal freedoms. Unleahed was the fist 3D title where the core gameplay felt like it gave you the keys to being the blue blur. Utopia attempts to recreate the magic of the 2D formula, but never actually came across as what it would be as a game. Its just something to look at.

[Chris Knopps]

I think...

If they combine what we saw in Utopia as well as what we had in the Sonic/Shadow stages in the two Adventure titles we'd have a pretty good 3D title.

[Sonikko]

12 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

And this is where we hit the all too famous divide. While I can appreciate the openness and the momentum, to me Unleashed felt more like Sonic in 3D than Utopia did. It provided an adrenaline rush, and a sense of awe that can't be replicated by Utopia's easier pacing and catering to personal freedoms. Unleahed was the fist 3D title where the core gameplay felt like it gave you the keys to being the blue blur. Utopia attempts to recreate the magic of the 2D formula, but never actually came across as what it would be as a game. Its just something to look at.

I can see your point, but the adrenaline rush of Unleashed gave us was there mainly because of low framerate and clunky controls. The low time windows for QTE together with low fps (so not much time for player reaction), more often than not screwing up wasn't on the player, but on the game itself.

I found myself afraid of drifting on each curve, because it's so hard to tell the output of said move.

Many traps in the levels can't be avoided if you don't know they're there, because the game constantly dips at 10 fps, and the reaction time just isn't there. I was just afraid of what was next because I couldn't react to it in time.

Besides that, the only Sonic-y thing Unleashed had going on was that very adrenaline rush, and most of that didn't stem from the gameplay or the level design itself, but from those issues I've pointed out. Try replaying those levels in the Generations mod project, at 60fps and with better physics. Fixing those issues really show how lackluster the original effort was.

And I can't really see your point about Utopia, I mean... Sure you can finish the level without putting much effort into it, but it's going to be a bad playthrough. Try and run fast without screwing up, explore while still going at max speed. The slopes, the loops, they finally have some meaning and the game entertains me a LOT even by just running around and exploring. Rolling off those huge ramps and landing on a downward shaped slope does give me adrenaline rushes.

I think most of the complains I hear about Utopia come from the fact that people didn't really understand how it was meant to be approached, or didn't put much time into it. The first time you boot Utopia up it's not going to be the best the game has to offer, but that's true of the classic games too.

I mean it's ok if you don't like it, and I agree with you on many many points usually, but I think Utopia really gets it, and with a more focused level design it could really be the best 3D Sonic ever was. The current demo is barebones, but as you said it's a proof of concept, and as a proof of concept it's astounding.