New game Ideas?

[Frozen Nitrogen]

Venom and Phos are right. I love this game, and Sonic's always been there along with Tails and the Tornado in the good ending. In fact the bad ending is nothing but scary, with the Metallix Metal Sonic ruling over a burned world.

Not to derail, but was there ever any game explanation of what Giant Red Metal Sonic actually WAS?

The wierd sequence just before you fight him (

), isn't much help. It seems that Robotnik's screwing around with a giant ring, or... something. It might be a wierd Chaos-Ring-Super-Form of blue Metal Sonic, or just a really big robot, or what?

(I should add that in Fleetway, the big red dude was called Emperor Metallix and he was totally awesome.)

[Solid SOAP]

Oh, and Sonic's face makes a cameo in Tails' Adventures.

Where? I don't recall.

[Rusty Spy]

Where? I don't recall.

There's a collectible item called "Sonic". I forgot what it exactly does, but I do know it let Tails do one of Sonic's abilities. There's also one for Knuckles and Fang.

[Gamenerd]

I've got an idea that, whilst a little cheesy, I think could work. It could provide adequate nostalgia, new elements, and mend some of the problems Sonic faces in 3D such as linearity and death pits.

The story would go that, hypothetically, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles share a big house. At some time, for some reason, Eggman shrinks Sonic down to a size no bigger than a penny, and he reverts to a chibi-ish form, looking somewhat similar in design to his Sonic Jam model. As penny-sized Sonic, and later on, maybe penny-sized Tails and Knuckles, you have to do things in the different rooms of the house (rooms basically being levels and the hallways being the hubworld) to collect emblems/macguffins to progress the story forward, like the stars in Mario, for various different things. The reason I used the concept of a house is because it promotes non-linearity in its shape so the levels wouldn't just be forward-facing pathways in the sky. In each room of the house would be many self-contained missions that can be activated by going to a certain area in that room. Some emblems are simply hidden in the deepest depths of the house as opposed to being found via mission. Many missions are activated via NPCs like talking toys, badniks-turned-good or people who have been shrunk and dropped into the house. There are also GTA-esque story centric missions that span various areas of the huge house and must be completed to progress.

Let me paint you a picture. Imagine your bathroom (or another persons bathroom if your is quite small). Now imagine your bathroom, only this time, it is browny yellow in colour scheme, Labyrinth imagery is present on some of the wall tiles (you know, those bird carvings), the water in the tub is green and penny-sized burrowbots are patrolling around. Simple as that, you've got a crossover between your bathroom and Labyrinth Zone. Or imagine your garden, but with penny-sized springs, checkered grass, little floating platforms everywhere and mini Caterkillers and Motobugs replacing actual bugs. These are the kind of levels you'd see as well as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles' bedrooms. Sonic's room would be coloured in the classic brown, green and blue of green hill, with checkered bed sheets, maybe a scalectrix track (with a loop-de-loop), some toy cars and a DVD rack full of Sonicverse parodies (I'm sure there's a thread about that somewhere). Tails' room would be orange, with plushies of Sonic characters (he is a bit of a poof after all), everything neatly organised, and being a techie, he could perhaps have all of SEGA's old consoles wired up to the television. Can you imagine that? An inch-high Sonic running across SEGA's back catalogue of consoles is a moment that would go down in history. Knuckles' room would be significantly dirtier and plainer than the others since he spends most of his time on Angel Island. In fact, perhaps Knuckles's room could be all rocky looking (he never had time to decorate) and is infested by Sandopolis-esque ghosts (and full-sized ones at that, making it a major hassle for mini Sonic to tackle). They say a person's living space is representative of their personality, and I think exploring the home of these characters (as a midget) could develop them further, as well as opening up endless room for parodies/references, like instead of a normal television, their TVs could look like the monitors from Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Sonic would maintain about the same kind of speed as in Sonic Adventure, so he can run from one side of the room to the other relatively quickly despite being only an inch high. There are various ways to get between levels other than through the door, for example jumping out of the window of Sonic's room would lead to the garden, and so forth. There would be no loading screens either, making for seamless transition from level to level. The levels in the game are as follows; front garden, hallways (hub zone), main room/living room, dining room, back garden, kitchen, Sonic's room, Tails' room, Knuckles' room, bathroom, spare bedroom, basement/games room, dusty attic and rooftop. Despite some of these rooms sounding rather plain, every single room would be chock full of physics play, interactivity and cameos/references as far as the eye can see.

Chao's would also return to the game, with new features. At certain areas of the house there would be mouse holes in the skirting board that lead to Chao Gardens, with three of them like in SA, and all of the race/karate features of SA2. When you destroy badniks, they drop out tiny animals or chaos drives that are shrunk like Sonic, although you can find proportionally correct animals and Chao at points in the game. You can also mix Chao with machine parts to make biomechanical Chao - for example if you kill a tiny Motobug and it leaves it's metallic shell, you can give it to a Chao and it will raise it's stats as well as giving it Motobug wings but a Chao can only display three mechanical features at a time so it will always be more Chao than robot.

Like in my previous ideas, things would have to be changed somewhat to work appropriately. For example, ring and monitor respawn criteria - when should rings come back once you've collected them? As a solution to this, rings and monitors would respawn in a room after you've visited two other rooms, or if you die, meaning that rings are in good supply. Also, the life system would be changed somewhat, though not much. Rings are collected and lost just like the old games in the sense that you lose all of your inhand rings when harmed instead of just some. However, every 100 rings you collect gets taken and banked into your ring deposit, which can be used as currency with NPCs and for Chao activities. Collecting 100 rings does not give Sonic lives because he now has infinite lives; dying simply cancels any mission you were participating in, respawns you at the entrance of a room and takes some of your Ring savings if there is any to take.

Throughout the game you could fight big Eggman robots (or rather, common Egg Pawns and such that look massive from mini-Sonic's point of view), and smaller bosses, such as a toy Metal Sonic. At the end of the game you would fight against Eggman in his egg-o-matic on the roof, and you'd have to find a way into his Egg-o-Matic, somehow get into the insides of it (the circuitry and engine) and wreck that bitch up. His Egg-O-Matic would crash, but Eggman, still being enormous compared to penny-sized Sonic, fights you without technology. You have to, when he's standing still, run up his sloped feet, up his legs and body onto his face and homing attack him. After running up him and twatting him in the face three or four times, he falls over, and releases the shrink ray in his grip. You press the undo button on it, return to normal size and break the shrink ray for good.

I know the plot is cheesy as hell (though given Unleashed's atmosphere it doesn't seem out of place), but I think it has potential. tl;dr explore every single nook and cranny of a big house as an inch-high Sonic doing Mario 64 style missions, only pretty much everything in the house and the surrounding land is pure Sonic parody/nostalgia, such as having a Station Square train set, mini Caterkillers replacing real caterpillers, and all of the plant pots containing big, GHZ style plants. The game wouldn't be outside of referencing non-Sonic titles either, so for example, ultra-nerd and flying enthusiast Tails could have lots of small figurine planes in his room, including After Burner jet planes.

Opinions?

Edited June 4, 2009 by Gamenerd

[Thirsty Pocket]

Well. I'm probably not going to make any friends with this post... But they ought to completely rip off the New Super Mario Bros Wii idea.

Not down to the exact bits obviously. It would recreate classic Sonic feel ( speedy platforming, not extreme speed plus a hint of platforming ) with colorful 2.5 D graphics, and, you guessed it, Co-op.

Obviously the game is speedy, so you can't kill people by getting them off screen ( like it appears that way in NSMB Wii ) but if one player speeds too far ahead, the other players would reappear in their own way. I assume the camera follows Sonic, who would be player 1... so let's say Tails does his classic thing... Knuckles glides onto the screen... and... ...well let's say player 4 is Shadow, who CC's onto the screen.

... But if I think back to trying to play as Tails on Sonic 2 with my friend as Sonic, that doesn't sound so appealing. So lots of tweaking will need to be done...

[ovarloard]

Well. I'm probably not going to make any friends with this post... But they ought to completely rip off the New Super Mario Bros Wii idea.

Not down to the exact bits obviously. It would recreate classic Sonic feel ( speedy platforming, not extreme speed plus a hint of platforming ) with colorful 2.5 D graphics, and, you guessed it, Co-op.

Obviously the game is speedy, so you can't kill people by getting them off screen ( like it appears that way in NSMB Wii ) but if one player speeds too far ahead, the other players would reappear in their own way. I assume the camera follows Sonic, who would be player 1... so let's say Tails does his classic thing... Knuckles glides onto the screen... and... ...well let's say player 4 is Shadow, who CC's onto the screen.

... But if I think back to trying to play as Tails on Sonic 2 with my friend as Sonic, that doesn't sound so appealing. So lots of tweaking will need to be done...

I'm not sure how the game would work, but all I can say is that I love the idea. That would be a must-buy for me.

[Eternal EX]

Wow i just had the worst idea. What if in the beginning sonic doest defeat eggy. And someone takes over for eggy and becomes sonic new main villian? No I dont mean metal or shadow I mean someone BRAND FREAKIN new. New black doom anyone? *crawls into a corner and cries* NO more eggy? wahhhh

This idea came from sonic 200th issue. (archie)

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Eggman is way too valuable for the series to ditch. He can step out of the limelight for brief times and let another (well made, to prevent backlash) villian take the pedestal in place of him, but he can't be replaced outright.

And provided that Eggman doesn't get stepped on as he usually does, the new villian could be well recieved. But we shouldn't be shedding tears if Eggman doesn't play the villianious role or doesn't show up outright...well El Gran Gordo, might.

[Badnik Zero]

Eggman is way too valuable for the series to ditch. He can step out of the limelight for brief times and let another (well made, to prevent backlash) villain take the pedestal in place of him, but he can't be replaced outright.

If Eggman ever gets his own game, they could introduce a new villain in that. Instead of the typical Sonic vs. Eggman fare, we could have an Eggman in exile kind of story, where a more dangerous villain takes away his own robot empire.

Then you'd play as Eggy to win it back. So Eggman doesn't take a backseat, and the new villain establishes himself as a threat.

Edited June 8, 2009 by Weedle

[SuperStingray]

I don't think that Eggman should have to be replaced for any reason. I think a good way to introduce new villains is to create new loyal, elite minions for Eggman that are treated individually yet remain loyal to him. I mean, Eggman creates sentient robots so who says they can't work as villains in themselves?

[Diogenes]

... But if I think back to trying to play as Tails on Sonic 2 with my friend as Sonic, that doesn't sound so appealing. So lots of tweaking will need to be done...

That's really the main thing...co-op's great, but it doesn't work so well with Sonic. Unless all the players are doing pretty much the same thing (and even then...), they're not going to stay on screen once it's time to start running. You'd have to take an ax to the basic Sonic formula to make it work, which kind of defeats the purpose.

[Phos]

That's really the main thing...co-op's great, but it doesn't work so well with Sonic. Unless all the players are doing pretty much the same thing (and even then...), they're not going to stay on screen once it's time to start running. You'd have to take an ax to the basic Sonic formula to make it work, which kind of defeats the purpose.

I had an idea a while back as to how it could work. It's more along the lines of the Galaxy's co-star mode, but with an onscreen avatar. 1P would play as Sonic, and 2P would be Tails. Tails would be attached to Sonic by a Chaotixs-ish link, only not shown on screen, and Tails doesn't exert any weight on Sonic. At higher speeds, the link gets shorter. The second player is able to do all his Sonic 3 stuff, such as hitting things without worrying about it and carrying Sonic. I guess I'd also throw in some kind of radar gizmo that can detect secrets or something.

As for a more true form of Co Op, I'd just go with a split screen, and the point of the mode to just go through the game along with someone else. That's basically Co-Op in most older games, such as Gunstar Heroes. Perhaps I'd also add an easier way through harder parts of the level that require two people to take advantage of. For example, you could scatter buttons around Flying Battery Zone that control the electromagnets (Not a specific example, just the kind of thing you could do).

[Gamenerd]

Since I'm bored, here's another idea from yours truly.

Sonic Tempo is yet another Sonic game concept of mine, taking one of the most renowned features of Sonic - musical excellence - and taking it to the next level. After all, has there ever been a bad Sonic game in terms of music alone? I'm not sure there has been. Even as Sonic rollercoasters up and down in terms of gameplay quality, the tunes, from Chaotix to Next-Gen to Rush, has forever been top-notch, aside from maybe a few of the 8-bit games, which were lacking in most departments.

The game has some sort of storyline involving Eggman as the main villain. Basically, Eggman starts to pull miles-long segments of Earth, one by one, from our dimension, and moves them to a blank dimension, where his Egg Generator lies. He does this to power his new Egg Generator, because since the laws of matter are a tiny bit different in the blank space, rotating 40 landmasses around a generator core in a certain sequence creates the very essence of all that is and ever will be; the golden Pixel, a small cube of pure energy that could fuel an enormous army of Egg robots for eternity. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, in the blank Universe, there exist special chunks of matter called pixels, which are basically cubes of matter that are powered by external movement and tempo. Because of this, Eggman has used these versatile building blocks as the basis of his new robots and traps, creating contraptions that look a little like blocky sprites with extra dimensions given to them.

Unfortunately, due to his ignorance of planning ahead, one of the chunks of land Eggman pulls from Earth has Sonic and Tails on it, and destined to stop Eggman yet again, Sonic decides to get to the bottom of things. For some reason or another, Sonic must collect at least 1 macguffin from each of the 40 landmasses from Earth, each preserved with an artificial atmosphere, to defeat Eggman.

The gameplay would at first seem to build on the gameplay of Sonic Adventure, with 40 average sized levels (Mario Galaxy had 40 levels, so why not?) to run through, from cliches like a miami-esque beach to absolute oddities like a candyland. Things aren't quite like Sonic Adventure though - there is much more emphasis on capturing the energy of speed, so speed has more uses, and is presented in a very clean manner - you run like you do in Sonic Adventure, but as you speed up, the camera starts to follow you directly and get all shake-y amd semi-realistic. Also, aside from his trademarks like the spindash and homing attack, Sonic has parkour moves galore, with wall-running, wall-jumping, ledge-hopping and more. Visually the stages look like they've directly taken Genesis-styled Sonic games and 3Dified them, like how Street Fighter IV very closely follows the visuals of its predecessors despite now being in 3D, although it is perhaps more stylised than your average Sonic Genesis game. Also, despite being in another dimension, the levels still have normal looking skies and such due to the artificial preservation, although the game still reminds you of the scenario, by having the sky flicker like a screen with static and having Eggman constantly taunt Sonic through radio through to the landmasses from his Egg Generator, similar to the Joker's commentary in Arkham Asylum. Many of the interactive or harmful features of stages are comprised of pixels, those small 3D blocks.

And of course, the big new feature. The Tempo system - this system actually has little to do with tempo but it sounded like a cool name. Like many of the cinematic games of this generation, the soundtrack is dynamic and changes to suit the action. This means that running fast creates a faster drum beat, etc. However, this expands out into a very big system. For example, collecting rings increases accelleration time, and speed increases the tempo and volume of the drum/bass in the BGM. However, everything made out of pixels (which can vary from badniks, to moving platforms, to swinging bridges and flamethrowers) is powered by tempo energy. So as you increase speed, the music increases in speed, and as the music increases in speed, so do badniks, spike traps, etc. This branches out further however. Music tempo is not exclusively changed by Sonic's speed - if a big robot appeared, the music would get tenser, so the badniks around it would go faster, with the only way of slowing them down being to defeat the big one. There are other uses of music too - stringing combos on badniks/monitors/springs to the rhythm of the main melody of the BGM (which unlike the percussion stays static mostly) gives you more rings and points, and in gravity-defying moments, the music raises in pitch, and in caves/water the musid goes lower pitch. There are also many non-pixel machines/traps in the game that work to the rhythm of the main melody of the song. To sum it up, the music can alter the gameplay experience, but the gameplay experience can also affect the music. It would be a very complex system with many variables, but you would not need to understand them all to have fun toying around with them and you definately wouldn't to complete the game. Every stage has three missions, like Mario Galaxy. Some of the alternate missions simply have new routes, timers, or race objectives, but some have different music, which affects various components of the level, causing it to play differently.

Because there are 40 stages in the game, SEGA would have to stretch for variety. However, all 40 stages would vary and all music would be fitting. There'd be a Miami-esque beach, a coral reef, a pine forest, Green Hill Zone, an icy volcano (two cliches in one), a golden Eggman fortress, a Moscow area, somewhere resembling Chicago, somewhere resembling San Francisco, somewhere resembling Dubai, a candy factory, a music world, ancient Mayan ruins, thick green jungle, a Labyrinth Zone ripoff, a Chemical Plant ripoff and even a stage taking place in a huge shopping mall. There'd be real-life locations like Unleashed, completely surrealistic stages like Sonic 1 and NiGHTS, and levels inbetween. One thing every stage has in common is the presence of pixel contraptions. The menus and stages of the game all inherit the pop-art style of older Sonic games (the Japanese versions at least), and many levels have strange neon creations floating about as decoration even if it doesn't particularly suit the level.

The music itself would be some of the most varied in Sonic ever, ranging from the kinds of variations of music we saw all throughout Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, to smooth Genesis-esque music, 8-bit synth-pop ala

or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rCettjpxuQ, to jazzy trip-hop music akin to Jamiroquai. 8-bit/trip-hop/dance/pop/acid/jazz/electronica/folktronica/R&B/disco make up much of the soundtrack, although the levels would deviate if it did not fit their motif.

And now to go more indepth into the graphical style. The style is, like I said before, stylised-yet-beautiful so it retains some of the atmosphere and shading of the Genesis titles, but with lighting like Sonic Unleashed or Mario Galaxy. The characters all retain their Unleashed appearance and things like Flickies return. The menu's of the game have the kind of pop-art style also seen on the menus and Japanese boxart of Sonic 2, 3, Knuckles and Chaotix. The hub world, which is the inside of the Egg Generator, has a strange retro-futuristic style, similar to that seen in games like Head Over Heels and Cosmic Spacehead - you know, imagery of what people from the 50s thought the future would look like, but with heavy black backgrounds and Eggman insignia. The levels are all aptly cartoony, although some, like the Miami and Chicago levels aren't very cartoony at all. However, they all show elements of surrealism, with floating neon bars and what have you that pulse to the music. And as an avid supporter of the Blue Sky In Games campaign, many levels would be happy and without a cloud in the sky.

I'm not sure what else I'd write about this idea, but in concept, it's a game with 40 Sonic Adventure-like levels (running at a similar speed too), but with more alternate routes, more uses for speed, Mirrors Edge styled parkour, a storyline concept that isn't quite like most, and a system that allows interaction between the gameplay and the music and vice versa. Also... perhaps a Chao Garden to satisfy those who still haven't gotten over it's loss?

Comments?

Edited June 27, 2009 by Gamenerd

[azoo]

Gamenerd, I've been planning a 3D Sonic project for quite some time now (about, let's say, roughly 4 years), and over the past couple of months, your ideas have highly inspired me. Thanks to your concepts I think I could officially say that I have a solid ground on what I want for a Sonic game to have. It's all on one big website:

Say hello to Project : FreeRunner.

Most of what was written was built off of your concepts and ideas, and into an all-new game concept, in which I hope to make reality (or at least, a fanmade reality). To summarize the entire page, it's a free-running (hence the name) sandbox platformer, built around a mixture between Genesis-Sonic's pinball physics and level design, Unleashed's overall controls and handling (with a change in the Sonic Boost ability that makes speed a reward), and Mirror's Edge-like parkour moves for just about every situation; all of this built in a world designed like a crossover of Sonic 1 / CD meets Unleashed.

[Gamenerd]

Gamenerd, I've been planning a 3D Sonic project for quite some time now (about, let's say, roughly 4 years), and over the past couple of months, your ideas have highly inspired me. Thanks to your concepts I think I could officially say that I have a solid ground on what I want for a Sonic game to have. It's all on one big website:

Say hello to Project : FreeRunner.

Most of what was written was built off of your concepts and ideas, and into an all-new game concept, in which I hope to make reality (or at least, a fanmade reality). To summarize the entire page, it's a free-running (hence the name) sandbox platformer, built around a mixture between Genesis-Sonic's pinball physics and level design, Unleashed's overall controls and handling (with a change in the Sonic Boost ability that makes speed a reward), and Mirror's Edge-like parkour moves for just about every situation; all of this built in a world designed like a crossover of Sonic 1 / CD meets Unleashed.

Well I'm glad I could be of inspiration.

The sheer magnitude of 3D Sonic idea's coming from me are based on my desire to look into the development process and see why they haven't been able to do Sonic in 3D quite as well as they'd like. Which is why I haven't simply spewed out a "make Unleashed 2 with 100 day levels and make it even faster" because I've learnt that the developers had their own reasons for not making a game like that - making 100 levels at the speed by which Sonic runs in Unleashed would be impossible due to the fact that a faster character means you must create longer stages to fill the same time gap. This is why I've experimented with many ideas to provide a temporary solution to this problem - a Mario 64-esque mission structure, use of Procedural Generation in level development, slowing Sonic down to Adventure speed, reusing assets for other purposes, sacrificing graphics for gameplay, unifying the playfield, and various other ideas to that effect which would give the developers leeway to create an average-sized game out of Sonic gameplay and Sonic gameplay alone. I've not perfected anything yet, because every idea has its drawbacks, but I've learnt that working at Sonic Team must be far harder than people assume, because having a purely speedy character is a flawed concept in terms of development, and yet every workaround for this problem has some pretty big ramifications.

[azoo]

Oh yes, Sonic is most definitely hard to even think about for a 3-dimensional enviornment. All in itself, the concept of proper use in the pinball / momentum mechanics is faulty for Sonic's step into 3D; not only does it have to be extremely accurate, but a camera that can properly keep up with the unpredictable jerky movement of rolling. Like said before by Blacklightning in another topic, cookie-cutting Genesis Sonic into an extra dimension just won't work if you really want to do Sonic right in 3D. So, take note everybody, Sonic cannot forevermore live off of nothing but running, jumping and rolling. Sure, it worked in SA1, but limiting the player to three actions isn't really a good turn (I don't care how much the level design impacts the player ) and it also will not aid attracting both new fans AND old fans alike. The player must have a feeling to do anything.. something a 3-control-system can't survive on (like I said, not even with innovative level design). Now don't get me wrong, I love the innovative level design. That's how I want my game: no bottomless pits, billions of routes, explorable underwater sections, many of easter eggs and more loops than you can shake a Caterkiller at. But just because the classic games had this element and little to nothing else doesn't mean it'll work in the newer games (don't get me wrong here either, IMO Genesis >>>>>>> Modern).

When I played Unleashed's daytime stages, I felt a feeling I hadn't felt as a Sonic fan since 1999: that special feeling of speed and true excitement; but yet it was an all-new take on it: what if Sonic actually controlled realistically? This left me incredibly impressed, as I'd had the idea for quite some time now (yes, even before Unleashed) that if Sonic were to control realistically, he would have to handle somewhat like a car (ie: drifting). This was also the first time Sonic has ever had physics in a 3D title, which upped my love for it as well. The Sonic Boost is something left to be desired, however; Sonic games should never instantly gratificate you with top speed & invincibility. Sonic should gain speed on his own, without any help of Rings, tricks, robot-kill-combos. Just pure speed.

Copypaste Powers Activate! (From my gaming manual / blog):

"Press and hold the X Button to go into the Sonic Boost, a blast that sends you past the sound barrier, with the ability to destroy any enemy or breakable object that you come in contact with. But before Sonic can use this ability, he has to gain enough speed so he can fill the Speed Gauge up to Level 3. Level 1 speed is top speed running across solid ground (or ordinary speed given from a Spindash), and Levels 2 & 3 can be maintained by collecting speed via running or rolling through various obstacles (ex: slopes, ramps, loops, corkscrews). After collecting enough speed to fill Level 3's bar, you can finally use the move, but not for too long, as moving that fast a long amount of time sends the Speed Gauge on Overdrive, which slows Sonic back to ordinary speed, meaning you have to charge your Speed Gauge all the way back up before being able to Boost again. (It really is less difficult than it sounds..) Also, watch out for large objects or obstructions, as they could easily break your dash altogether."

I thought that this idea of using speed to get to machspeed was not just an overall better idea than the "Ring Energy Gauge", but yet also made PERFECT SENSE. =P Plus, wouldn't running that fast for that long hurt Sonic? (Remember, this isn't Sonic X-world)

[Azrael]

Sonic Gimmick (RTS, 3D Platformer)

A Sonic game with TONS of customization. This game uses all the gimmicks from all the Sonic games. I don't know about stages, zones, or story, (except the final zone and Super Fight) so these are just pipe-dream gameplay ideas. One story, with numerous ways to play it!

Eggman sees something sticking out of the sea, so he goes down to see it and discovers Atlantis. Well aware of Sonic's hydrophobia, he moves EggmanLand (SD & HD) to Atlantis and submerges it. Later he finds the sleeping body of Leviathan and wakes it up. His last step is to give Sonic an ultimatium: Face his greatest fear or let Leviathan submerge the world!

Extra Boss: Eggman and Leviathan. Now that Levithan listens to Eggman, Super Sonic faces quadruple trouble underwater! Not only are the two trying to kill him, Super can't breathe underwater and must catch his breath in an air bubble without getting hit, not to mention sustain his Super Form with Rings! Playable with Super Sonic, Hyper Sonic, Super Tails, Super Knuckles, Hyper Knuckles, Teams SuperSonic (shielded Tails), HyperSonic and Light (Super Shadow with shielded Rouge and Omega), Super Silver and Burning Blaze

Selectable characters, compatible (and selectable) gamplay styles and How to Unlock Them:

Sonic: Classic, Adventure, Ring Energy

Eggman: Search for and Destroy Sonic, TPS

Tails: Yellow Emerald; Classic, Adventure, TPS

Knuckles: Red Emerald; Classic, Chaotix, Treasure Hunting, SA3, Brawling

Amy and Cream: Blue Emerald; Advance, Adventure (Amy only)

Big: Purple Emerald; Fishing, Heroes (Power)

Shadow: White Emerald; Adventure, Alignment and Guns

Rouge: Light Blue Emerald; Treasure Hunting, Stealth Missions, Adventure (infinite flight)

Omega: Green Emerald; TPS

Team Chaotix: Find 3 Combi-Rings; Chaotix, Treasure Hunting

Chaos: DLC; Werehog (0, 1, and 2), Ecco (3, 4, 5 and 6) Werehog-Ecco Hybrid (7 [Positive Perfect Chaos])

Gemerl: DLC, Battle, Brawling

Silver: DLC, SA3

Blaze: DLC, Ring Energy

*All characters are compatible with the "Riders" gameplay style*

How to Unlock the Gimmicks:

Classic Controls: Pick Sonic, Tails or Knuckles as your character

Chaotix: Unlock Team Chaotix

Upgrades: Pick Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, Eggman or Silver as your character (Find [sA1, SA2 & Unleashed] or buy them [sA3])

Team: Unlock Tails and Knuckles (Sonic); Amy, Cream and Big (Rose); Shadow, Rouge and Omega (Dark) or Team Chaotix

Ring Energy: Pick Sonic or Blaze as your character (Advance, Rush, Unleashed)

Alignment and Guns: Pick Shadow as your character

Partner: Pick Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy or Cream as your character

Tag-along: Pick Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy or Cream as your character, Pick Shadow or Silver as the first character

Super Forms: Collect the Chaos Emeralds

Hardcore Difficulty: Beat the final boss on Hard difficulty

What is Eggman's new monster? (Extra Boss): Collect the Chaos Emeralds

Riders: Find Robotnik Corp. and MeteorTech (Air & Gravity)

DLC:

Characters (Chaos, Gemerl, Silver and Blaze), Hidden Palace (Bonus Stage, Hyper Forms when conquered) Orange Chaos Emerald [The S3K glitch] (Reduce Ring requirement for Super Transformation to 25) 3D Blast graphics, tiles and sounds (16-BIT mode)

Customizables: Gemerl's moveset, control schemes, Hyper Form appearance, accessories (alternate outfits, clothes, etc.), Difficulty, Ring Loss (Classic, Rush, Unleashed [sD or HD]), voices (English, Japanese, Silent)

Chaos Emeralds can either be found or won in Special Stages (Maze, Half Pipe, Sphere, Bridge and Platform, Tunnel [Chaotix's], Tube and Waterbike Race). Remember Hyper Sonic? Download the DLC and tear your hair out finding needle-in-a-haystack Power Cores [upgrades Chaos to Super] or bolting through hard-as-nails Super Special Stages.

I know these will NEVER happen, but they ARE ideas.

[Phos]

freerunner

Because it seems like you're actually going to make this, I'll give you my take on it:

With properly sorted controls, a lot of Unleashed's moves are redundant. The only point of the drift is to compensate for them not letting Sonic turn sharply enough. The idea was to make rounding corners at high speed require skill, but that just turns it into a case of remembering where the turn in points are. While I believe that doing something like that is a pretty bad idea regardless (more of that damn "design by storyboard"), this is especially relevant for you because learning turn in points in an open world is something that isn't going to happen. The stomp is there because Sonic has a ridiculously low maximum -y velocity, and the quick step is there for the game's numerous "secret rings" sections, and the homing attack is there because Sega couldn't come up with anything better for the Dreamcast games and now they don't see the need to (oh yes, the need is most definitely there). If you really want to make a game that plays like the classics, you're going to have to re think lot of this.

[azoo]

Because it seems like you're actually going to make this, I'll give you my take on it:

With properly sorted controls, a lot of Unleashed's moves are redundant. The only point of the drift is to compensate for them not letting Sonic turn sharply enough. The idea was to make rounding corners at high speed require skill, but that just turns it into a case of remembering where the turn in points are. While I believe that doing something like that is a pretty bad idea regardless (more of that damn "design by storyboard"), this is especially relevant for you because learning turn in points in an open world is something that isn't going to happen. The stomp is there because Sonic has a ridiculously low maximum -y velocity, and the quick step is there for the game's numerous "secret rings" sections, and the homing attack is there because Sega couldn't come up with anything better for the Dreamcast games and now they don't see the need to (oh yes, the need is most definitely there). If you really want to make a game that plays like the classics, you're going to have to re think lot of this.

Well, the fact is that this is planned to have two control modes: Genesis Mode & Modern Mode. While Genesis Mode is traditional Genesis / SA1 gameplay (tight controls with the whole run/jump/spin deal), Modern Mode is for the people who preferred Unleashed's daytime stages (or wanted to try a new spin on the controls / handling). And even so, extra moves you feel that you don't need (ie: Homing Attack, Stomp, etc.) can be disabled via the Preference mode in the pause menu.

Sorry I didn't write that down in the production manual yet. Haven't had the time.

EDIT: I decided to nuke the control setting. Back to SA1 style, it is. It is true, why would a freeroam game need drifting? Let's just say this: Unleashed has a nice style of gameplay for what it is. However, it's sad to say that Unleashed's daytime stage gameplay won't work in any gamestyle other than,... well, Unleashed. Sure, there's many games to come from SEGA with this new gameplay, and quite honestly, let them do it. It's fun, and it's fresh. However, even it has it's flaws, which is why an Unleashed-controlset + freeroam game = bomb. So, now expect FreeRunner to have a SA1-esque control set.

Edited June 28, 2009 by Azukara

[Rusty Spy]

EDIT: I decided to nuke the control setting. Back to SA1 style, it is. It is true, why would a freeroam game need drifting? Let's just say this: Unleashed has a nice style of gameplay for what it is. However, it's sad to say that Unleashed's daytime stage gameplay won't work in any gamestyle other than,... well, Unleashed. Sure, there's many games to come from SEGA with this new gameplay, and quite honestly, let them do it. It's fun, and it's fresh. However, even it has it's flaws, which is why an Unleashed-controlset + freeroam game = bomb. So, now expect FreeRunner to have a SA1-esque control set.

So does that mean the boost is out?

And another thing that I'd like to critique on is the lives system. At this point in time where you can simply retry levels forever without any need to worry about losing all your lives should no longer be a problem. Now that video games are no longer restricted to arcades which just give you a limit for every coin you put in, lives are now just a minor inconvienience when they kick you out of the level, forcing you to retrek back through the whole level which is more of an unneeded nuisance than a limit for failing too many times.

Edited June 28, 2009 by VirgoTheCougar

[Gamenerd]

So does that mean the boost is out?

Sonic Adventure's Spin Attack (but only in SA - not in SA2) was basically an infinite, easily-spammable boost once you learn how to control it.

[azoo]

So does that mean the boost is out?

Depends on what you guys think. Do you think it should stay, or by any chance, did you like my idea on the Sonic Boost? Once again, Copy-Paste Powers, ACTIVATE!!:

"Press and hold the X Button to go into the Sonic Boost, a blast that sends you past the sound barrier, with the ability to destroy any enemy or breakable object that you come in contact with. But before Sonic can use this ability, he has to gain enough speed so he can fill the Speed Gauge up to Level 3. Level 1 speed is top speed running across solid ground (or ordinary speed given from a Spindash), and Levels 2 & 3 can be maintained by collecting speed via running or rolling through various obstacles (ex: slopes, ramps, loops, corkscrews). After collecting enough speed to fill Level 3's bar, you can finally use the move, but not for too long, as moving that fast a long amount of time sends the Speed Gauge on Overdrive, which slows Sonic back to ordinary speed, meaning you have to charge your Speed Gauge all the way back up before being able to Boost again. (It really is less difficult than it sounds..) Also, watch out for large objects or obstructions, as they could easily break your dash altogether."

And another thing that I'd like to critique on is the lives system. At this point in time where you can simply retry levels forever without any need to worry about losing all your lives should no longer be a problem. Now that video games are no longer restricted to arcades which just give you a limit for every coin you put in, lives are now just a minor inconvienience when they kick you out of the level, forcing you to retrek back through the whole level which is more of an unneeded nuisance than a limit for failing too many times.

No lives? Hmm, lives are in just about every game regardless (if not it's replaced by a health bar / hearts). Although taking them out would break the overall tradition of gameplay, I do indeed believe that having unlimited lives should be something built into this game. (Because the last thing I want my game to do is make people cry and scream insanely when they come across a game-over screen. XD)

Sonic Adventure's Spin Attack (but only in SA - not in SA2) was basically an infinite, easily-spammable boost once you learn how to control it.

True, true. However, this rendition of the Spindash will feature crouching and tapping the jump button. And yes, while holding B and tapping A with the bottom-half of your thumb is painful (believe me, I tried it, it IS), you have the optional Trigger Buttons (on 360) as optional buttons. Pressing and holding B or the Triggers does nothing more than make you crouch. =)

Edited June 28, 2009 by Azukara

[Rusty Spy]

Depends on what you guys think. Do you think it should stay, or by any chance, did you like my idea on the Sonic Boost? Once again, Copy-Paste Powers, ACTIVATE!!:

"Press and hold the X Button to go into the Sonic Boost, a blast that sends you past the sound barrier, with the ability to destroy any enemy or breakable object that you come in contact with. But before Sonic can use this ability, he has to gain enough speed so he can fill the Speed Gauge up to Level 3. Level 1 speed is top speed running across solid ground (or ordinary speed given from a Spindash), and Levels 2 & 3 can be maintained by collecting speed via running or rolling through various obstacles (ex: slopes, ramps, loops, corkscrews). After collecting enough speed to fill Level 3's bar, you can finally use the move, but not for too long, as moving that fast a long amount of time sends the Speed Gauge on Overdrive, which slows Sonic back to ordinary speed, meaning you have to charge your Speed Gauge all the way back up before being able to Boost again. (It really is less difficult than it sounds..) Also, watch out for large objects or obstructions, as they could easily break your dash altogether."

Well then allow me to critique.

I've for a long time favored the way the boost worked in Sonic Advance 2. It's activated automatically when running at full speed for a few seconds. The boost itself raises the speed cap and acceleration to a great level, allowing for incredible speed. But it deactivates once you drop your speed below a certain point, at which point you have to build up your speed again. You could say it's very similar to your version of the boost, but without the levels and without manual activation or need to limit it's use. You could go through the entire stage while in the boost with enough skill.

One thing that makes this boost very intuitive is that it takes advantage of the physics and the various obstacles (ie. slopes, loops, ramps, corkscrews) which increases your speed faster, and in turn, activates the boost faster and works in conjunction with the spindash which allows you to reach top speed. Your normal acceleration, while it starts out a bit slow, will increase as you collect more rings. All of these allow you to get a quick start from standstill to activate the boost as fast as possible. It's an incredibly simple concept(ie. run at top speed for a little while), but it has a lot of influence on the enviroment and level design and it all works with the boost in perfect harmony. It could even help decrease the amount of speed pads in stages drastically if included in games, since the boost can be activated instantly with them, they would only be needed for areas where the boost would be most helpful.

Edited June 28, 2009 by VirgoTheCougar

[azoo]

So basically it's exact same thing as my boost, except it automatically does it when it reaches that certain speed, and doesn't exactly overheat?

Works for me.

EDIT: Okay, so here's the final moveset (360 controller setup):

.Left Stick - Run

.Right Stick - Camera

.A Button - Jump / Air Slash / Elemental Shield

.B Button - Crouch / Roll (also done with Triggers)

.X Button - Homing Attack (OPTIONAL. Can be disabled)

.Y Button - Special Action

.B Button + A Button - Spindash Attack

.A Button + B Button - Jump Cancel

Edited June 28, 2009 by Azukara

[Badnik Zero]

I was thinking how overrated Chaos is for someone so underdeveloped. So I thought of a game story involving him. Something for Chaos and Tikal taking place in the past, like an alternate history thing. I dunno if it's too far into fanfic territory, but I like it.

Instead of the Emeralds' Chao tribe getting attacked by the Echidnas, a somewhat more militant Tikal has her father removed from his warchief position and becomes the first Queen of the Knuckles tribe. This leads to a friendship with the Chao that resembles guardianship, only without the destruction of the Mystic Ruins civilizations. Chaos awakens during a great Echidna war, and Queen Tikal crushes her opponents with the power of a god at her side.

Actually, I'd be happy if this was a twist Bioware threw at us for a Chronicles sequel. That Argus was a benevolent being who removed the Nocturnus for the world's sake, because their presence would've triggered something larger. Who knows.

Edited July 14, 2009 by Badnikz