Combat in Sonic The Hedgehog

[StaticMania]

Sonic Frontiers is a game that exists...

And because this game decided to exist, I realize that SEGA has frequently tried to make combat a thing in Sonic games. Isn't that such a weird thing for a platforming series so focused on speed and...to a lesser extent flow?

Why would the developers ever want to do something that brings the pace of the game to a halt? Especially something as dedicated as Combat?

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But you have games like Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic Nex Gen all featuring enemies with health bars. Health bars and sections of the level that very pointedly don't allow you to progress until you deal with them. Not to mention these games having more combat focused attacks and abilities that solely exist to deal with enemies easier.

Considering SEGA's whole deal with making Sonic games seem worth the price of admission, it's clear that these games only ever do these sections in order to pad the length of not only the level but the game as a whole.

Even a game like Sonic Unleashed, not even in the combat-centric Werehog levels, some of the Day Time stages have this as well.

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But it never really worked out I feel. In games like Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Rush, these sections literally don't add anything to overall experience and the games aren't built around them either. They just bring the gameplay to a screeching halt for no reason.

For the other games though, the combat is just to simple and/or pointless. Why, for example, would you ever use the punch combo in Shadow the Hedgehog?

In Sonic Heroes all the Power characters just have 2 attacks and really only serve to kill enemies faster (when not level 3 with speed) as well as big defensive enemies. You don't really do anything interesting to defeat the enemies, you just button mash and the level design isn't interesting either...any time you have to deal with enemies there's practically nothing else around.

Sonic Nex Gen doesn't fare any better. Sonic has a tornado sweep kick, the bounce attack and...that's it. You literally can just kill every enemy with the homing attack and the bounce attack. Shadow just has a homing attack that you can mash after it connects. Silver just has the ability to stun and pick people up.

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This would lead into a bit where I discuss how enemies in Sonic don't really do enough to be a threat, but I've already made a thread about that...

Now, I don't think Sonic Team can handle such a thing, but...I personally believe that combat can work in a Sonic game. Sonic Frontiers has kind of convinced me that it can work and I think the only problem is that Sonic Team was focused on the wrong aspect of how it can be implemented. Not that they chose to disable combat mechanics in the Cyberspace levels with how they ended up doing it.

Sonic Frontiers is too focused on the punchiness, the flashy spectacle that practically requires you to stop and dedicate yourself towards every enemies that you interact with.

I think they're better off focusing on the actual movement aspect of Sonic's combat. Using slides to slip past enemies, activating the Sonic Tornado (or the Cyloop) to either make enemies dizzy or knock them up in the air to use as a platform, the quick step allowing you to dodge enemy projectiles and activate a bullet-time effect that allows you to quickly homing attack an enemy from far away, using a stomp to instead do a stronger bounce off of enemies.

Sonic's combat should be simple, but simple in the way that it can easily work within an actual level...and give actual versatility to both Sonic's moveset and the way they approach level design.

I dunno...

[Palas]

Here's a hot take: there's nothing inherently wrong with combat or health bars in Sonic. A possible reason why they have always tried to include it is because the combat and the threat aren't, in itself, the point. More than halting the gameplay, areas with enemies you must destroy before you proceed reset your tempo: the "game" knows you won't leave the area with an empty boost meter, for example, so the next section is basically ensured to flow without stopping. This sort of "standardizes" gameplay, with new players and experience players alike being able to feel enough levels of excitement and being equally able to parse a level, making the games more welcoming in the end. It acts like a miniboss and some sort of checkpoint.

It's not that I like how moves quickly become completely obsolete, or how often Sonic's movement isn't a factor at all, or like I have ever personally enjoyed these moments. But combat is an element of flow, not of challenge in Sonic. So I don't see it as a cheap method to pad the game's length, but as a resource in level design that makes gameplay easier to handle for a somewhat more homogeneous experience. I agree Sonic Frontiers focusing on the spectacle of each movement isn't ideal, too... but I wouldn't frame Sonic Team as incapable of designing something like a good combat system. Because it's often just not about that.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Another thing, and I've said this before Frontiers ended up doing exactly that, is that enemies shouldn't be damage soaking tanks that take too long to destroy.

Heroes, Shadow, and now Frontiers have enemies where even the weakest take more than one hit--Frontiers isn't as bad as the previous games, however, barring the Final Horizon update, but it still has enemies where the basic ones swarm you and take multiple hits to put down.

I think one way to accomplish better combat would be to reframe how enemies take damage and how the character you play deals the damage. For instance, the weakest enemies require one hit point, and the tankiest enemies can take maybe 4-6 hit points max. Meanwhile, the bosses take 8 hits to destroy. It allows for fights to go at a much faster pace than what we normally get.

On top of that, you have a range of attacks that can shave off chunks of hit points per hit, which can allow you to vary abilities based on characters. For instance, you take Sonic and Knuckles. Sonic is a speedster who can deal 1-2 hit points of damage per hit, using his speed to get up close or dash away toward his enemy. Knuckles is a heavy bruiser who can deal 2-4 hits points of damage per hit, sacrificing his lesser speed for more brute strength that can destroy enemies quickly. With this system, you can make a wide range of options for a variety of other characters if you so choose.

That said, I like that Frontiers made fighting most enemies optional, so that's a plus side to Frontiers' combat over all the other games that attempted it--barring maybe Fighters and Battle which are different games entirely.

[Sega DogTagz]

40 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

That said, I like that Frontiers made fighting most enemies optional, so that's a plus side to Frontiers' combat over all the other games that attempted it--barring maybe Fighters and Battle which are different games entirely.

That's one of the core strengths of the frontiers formula. The devs were not joking when they kept harping on the idea that you can stick to the gameplay loop that most appeals to you. Even in update 3, you don't have to touch any of the tougher enemies on the world map if you don't want to. You don't have to set foot into cyberspace if you don't feel like it.

If you don't want to engage, you can just choose not too. Which is both fitting thematically of a Sonic game, and a great excuse to have the buffed up tank enimies in there for those that do want that kind of experience.

[Diogenes]

I'd really just prefer that they didn't.

I don't come to Sonic looking for a combat-heavy action game, I come looking for a platformer. From the start this was a series that minimized combat even compared to the average platformer; no projectile weapons to aim, no melee attacks to time and space, not even the precision necessary to stomp a goomba, you simply threw yourself at enemies and as long as you were spinning and they were unguarded that was enough, you'd cut through them often without even a change to your velocity.

Obviously it's expected that a long-running series will evolve in complexity at least a bit, especially in going into 3D, and enemies are always going to be an element that you'll need ways of dealing with; I'm not suggesting he have nothing but rolling and spin jumping. But when you're including mechanics and enemies complex enough to call it a combat system, I feel like you've probably missed the point of Sonic. I want Sonic's interactions with enemies to be about how they affect his platforming first and foremost, not about the effort that goes into destroying them.

[JezMM]

Yeah I'm not keen.  One thing I like about Frontiers is that in most cases, getting the Guardian to expose their weakpoint is a mini platforming challenge of sorts, about character movement to some degree or another.  But once that weakpoint is exposed, it's more or less just "are you good at remembering combos and know how to string them together?  Have you collected a certain number of red seeds of power?  If yes, the guardian is dead.  If no, do that mini platforming challenge again, exactly the same as you just did.  If you're doing a no-levelling up run, perhaps a third time too."

 

Just... man, if we're going for spectacle, I want playing as Sonic to feel like the Sonic CD or Sonic Unleashed opening cut-scene.  As soon as you're locking on and circling around enemies in a little arena, you've lost me.  It's why Ghost is my favourite Guardian in Frontiers - it's the only one that cuts the bullshit and you just damage it in set amounts like a traditional boss for doing the thing.  There's no padding it out with wailing on it for 10 seconds while hoping to god you can just chip that last little bit of health bar down before doing all the first stuff again.  Asura isn't too bad either though a single homing attack that HAS to be timed through the lasers would be more fun than 3-4 hits in the air and hoping it doesn't tilt in a weird way that makes you touch the lasers and fall off.

I wish all the platformy ones worked like Ghost and Asura - like traditional platforming boss fights - and that either completely non-platformy ones like the Ninja were cut or... well, there were a few more of them?  Ninja is kind of an outlier for being just about the combat in it's purest sense while the others just have these tacked on phases where you're often just unleashing combos on a non-hostile target that you unlocked through doing a scripted platforming sequence (sometimes an autoscroller to boot).  If there was a bit more variety than just Ninja, depending on your preference you could choose to fight the platformy ones or the hand-to-hand combat ones for gears.

 

But as said, I'd rather lose them entirely.  Treat regular enemies as part of the platforming experience where they are designed function first and serve to add wrinkles to traversing the level design around them, save anything that takes longer than 10-15 seconds to take down for boss fights.

[StaticMania]

I completely agree with the idea that enemies should mainly be used in service of platforming, but...the function of environmental enemies in Frontiers left me feeling somewhat saddened.

Some of these enemies would make for excellent set pieces as well as obstacles in real levels.

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I don't want combat based sections to take any significant amount of time, though I realize that it only works if Sega were to keep those "defeat all the enemies" sections.

[Kuzu]

I wouldn't even have as much of a problem with the combat if it wasn't so amateurishly designed.

Every move Sonic has just resolves just one or two button combinations and then you just watch Sonic do the attack with no further input or any consideration of the enemy's position and the like. 

And then as you progress through the game, the Guardians just add more phase before you're even able to damage them. As mentioned, Asura and Ghost are fine because you need to do some platforming to damage them and Ninja and Tower are pure combat encounters. Hell, Sumo might be the best one because it's the only time the game remembers Sonic's primary power is rolling into a ball and not being some wannabe DMC character.

It's the usual Sonic Team shit where they copy more popular franchises, but have no idea how and why those concepts worked there, so you just get the "at home" option.

 

They either need to actually study other character action games and see how this shit is supposed to work if they insist on having it be a permanent fixture in the series for the foreseeable future or just nix it entirely and remember that Sonic is supposed to be a platformer.