How would you all like puzzles/using your brain more in Sonic games?

[Shiny Gems]

Now, I played and completed Super Mario Bros. Wonder recently, and it was a fun game. With that said, it did have some elements to me that I really liked. It did require you to solve puzzles or even use your brain to do things, such as using enemies or objects to reach Purple Coins of 10 in areas, think about how to avoid enemies or obstacles to get through, thinking about how to reach a certain area, possibly safely, how to use timing to get to something or somewhere, using enemies to break obstacles to pave the way, etc.

With that, I would like to ask; would you all like to see puzzles and using your brain more in Sonic games more? Why or why not? If yes, how should it be done?

I personally think Sonic or other playable characters could use enemies chasing them to break through walls to reveal hidden routes, and I also think there should be sections where Sonic has to run on a pathway in a certain way, or even figure out ways to maintain speed to reach an area that requires you to maintain that speed all the way up to there.

I do think this was in Sonic Frontiers to an extent (I could be wrong), but what about you all? What do you think of this?

[Palas]

If there's something I don't want from Sonic, it's puzzles of any kind.

Sonic is at its best when figuring out ways to maintain speed to reach an area feels like it was your idea, a transgression of some sort. The sequence may as well have been planned, but Sonic is one of the very few games in which you will run a certain way, achieve something with it and feel like you did it because you wanted to. You formulated the hypothesis and you tested it. It's your achievement. Puzzles are at best a handshake between you and whoever put it there.

Games already have too much figuring out. If there was one thing I'd ask of Sonic, it'd be for it to be as intuitive and heuristic as possible.

[Maple Syrup]

As much as I like puzzles, Sonic isn't the type of franchise to have them. Sonic has games which are fast-paced platformers and also I even have to use my brainpower to pass them because I absolutely suck at video games. For me I don't need more but the thing is it won't fit.

[Shiny Gems]

I probably should have mentioned, (Not that it changes anything) that I would think the puzzles in Sonic games would have to require less brainpower than what other games would require. I mean, the puzzles of Super Mario Bros. Wonder did not require that much brain power, to me at least, and the puzzles could work best if they were optional to complete a stage.

I do think that stopping to do a puzzle or doing complex puzzles is a no no for Sonic; like those in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. I'd say have simple, and easy enough for Sonic game players and have them tie with the speed of Sonic games in some way. You know those bigger Koco from the second update of Sonic Frontiers that had paths to get to them that required some brain work? Maybe something like that could work?

[Salamander]

In the sense that certain platforming set-ups can be described as a puzzle - maybe.  There are one or two set-pieces in Sandopolis Zone which I would call puzzles, for that matter.  But I don't think it's really the right franchise for long spells of sitting and thinking, and I say this as somebody who is a huge fan of puzzles and is disappointed that meaningful puzzles are vanishing from the games I like.  Puzzles would need to be of a breezier kind - something intuitive, with a focus less on riddling out what to do and more on figuring out how to do it, and then executing that.  SMB Wonder is probably a good point of comparison.

[Palas]

12 hours ago, Thankful Gems said:

I probably should have mentioned, (Not that it changes anything) that I would think the puzzles in Sonic games would have to require less brainpower than what other games would require. I mean, the puzzles of Super Mario Bros. Wonder did not require that much brain power, to me at least, and the puzzles could work best if they were optional to complete a stage.

I do think that stopping to do a puzzle or doing complex puzzles is a no no for Sonic; like those in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. I'd say have simple, and easy enough for Sonic game players and have them tie with the speed of Sonic games in some way. You know those bigger Koco from the second update of Sonic Frontiers that had paths to get to them that required some brain work? Maybe something like that could work?

I can definitely echo the sentiment that more things should happen in a stage, objects should interact with each other more etc. That'd make stages feel fresh. I would definitely love badniks to somehow open more paths (by shooting at walls, for example, destroying chunks); I'm just not a fan of framing it as a puzzle. If you can trick an enemy into shooting at a wall to unblock a secret path, I'd like it to feel like pure serendipity and not like I figured out what a middle-aged man wanted me to do.

Edited November 14, 2023 by Palas

[Iko]

Puzzles have always been part of the series though.

Figuring out how to get out from the infinite looping slider section in Labyrinth (and Lost Labyrinth in Sonic 4), using a piece of a falling bridge to reach a lower platform in Bridge Zone, the same zone where you have to figure out that if you bounce on a monitor that's placed over a bottomless pit, you won't die because you will bounce back to a safe platform; often you had to figure out how the new gimmicks work, and there are bosses like the one of Aquatic Ruins that require some thinking and observation (you can climb the arrows to reach the weak spot).

It's all part of level design and it's required in order to make things interesting; without level design puzzles, it's all just a mindless running forward.

Puzzles that are part of the level and don't break the flow are ok, though puzzles like having to stop and rotate some lasers to brute force a combination, play a crane game, or being forced into a Puyo Puyo match, no thanks.

[Shiny Gems]

2 minutes ago, Iko said:

Puzzles have always been part of the series though.

Figuring out how to get out from the infinite looping slider section in Labyrinth (and Lost Labyrinth in Sonic 4), using a piece of a falling bridge to reach a lower platform in Bridge Zone, the same zone where you have to figure out that if you bounce on a monitor that's placed over a bottomless pit, you won't die because you will bounce back to a safe platform; often you had to figure out how the new gimmicks work, and there are bosses like the one of Aquatic Ruins that require some thinking and observation (you can climb the arrows to reach the weak spot).

It's all part of level design and it's required in order to make things interesting; without level design puzzles, it's all just a mindless running forward.

Puzzles that are part of the level and don't break the flow are ok, though puzzles like having to stop and rotate some lasers to brute force a combination, play a crane game, or being forced into a Puyo Puyo match, no thanks.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

27 minutes ago, Palas said:

I can definitely echo the sentiment that more things should happen in a stage, objects should interact with each other more etc. That'd make stages feel fresh. I would definitely love badniks to somehow open more paths (by shooting at walls, for example, destroying chunks); I'm just not a fan of framing it as a puzzle. If you can trick an enemy into shooting at a wall to unblock a secret path, I'd like it to feel like pure serendipity and not like I figured out what a middle-aged man wanted me to do.

I still think puzzles can work in a Sonic game, just not in a traditional sense, but those which don't break the flow of the gameplay like Iko said. I was thinking more of a "Gotta go fast" kind of way for puzzles, or in this case, "Gotta do it fast".

[Palas]

2 minutes ago, Iko said:

Puzzles have always been part of the series though.

Figuring out how to get out from the infinite looping slider section in Labyrinth (and Lost Labyrinth in Sonic 4), using a piece of a falling bridge to reach a lower platform in Bridge Zone, the same zone where you have to figure out that if you bounce on a monitor that's placed over a bottomless pit, you won't die because you will bounce back to a safe platform; often you had to figure out how the new gimmicks work, and there are bosses like the one of Aquatic Ruins that require some thinking and observation (you can climb the arrows to reach the weak spot).

It's all part of level design and it's required in order to make things interesting; without level design puzzles, it's all just a mindless running forward.

Puzzles that are part of the level and don't break the flow are ok, though puzzles like having to stop and rotate some lasers to brute force a combination, play a crane game, or being forced into a Puyo Puyo match, no thanks.

You raise a good point. As long as you can see an object and think, "how do I get there?", you'll have puzzles. What I like about the ones you mentioned though is that, in all of these cases, solving them involves doing something extremely counter-intuitive. Jumping without knowing where that'll get you, purposely falling where it would kill you in all other instances, outright jumping in a spike pit (Master System's Labyrinth emerald, unless you're invincible), jumping to your death in Bridge Zone Act 2-- it's not so much about figuring something out as it is about taking your chances. You don't feel smart as you do it: you feel like a daredevil, which is all the more important and perfectly ties into the feeling of doing something that feels wrong or forbidden.

So if those are the puzzles you'd like to see, @Thankful Gems, then I agree with you. Though I wouldn't even call them puzzles. More like the game daring you to do risky stuff.

[Shiny Gems]

2 minutes ago, Palas said:

You raise a good point. As long as you can see an object and think, "how do I get there?", you'll have puzzles. What I like about the ones you mentioned though is that, in all of these cases, solving them involves doing something extremely counter-intuitive. Jumping without knowing where that'll get you, purposely falling where it would kill you in all other instances, outright jumping in a spike pit (Master System's Labyrinth emerald, unless you're invincible), jumping to your death in Bridge Zone Act 2-- it's not so much about figuring something out as it is about taking your chances. You don't feel smart as you do it: you feel like a daredevil, which is all the more important and perfectly ties into the feeling of doing something that feels wrong or forbidden.

So if those are the puzzles you'd like to see, @Thankful Gems, then I agree with you. Though I wouldn't even call them puzzles. More like the game daring you to do risky stuff.

I was trying to say it, but yeah, those definitely are the kind of puzzles I would like to see, or should I say "puzzles" with the quotation marks since you personally would not call them puzzles?

Either way, yeah, anything more than that, the more complicated and longer puzzles are a no-no for Sonic.

[Palas]

Nah it's cool you don't have to use quotes. It's probably just me who has a mental image of a puzzle that's more about having to understand something. You've made yourself clear and I can see it better now. I agree with you.

[juiceDpunk983]

Oh yes please! I'd like some very hard Silent Hill inspired puzzles. Imagine that you need to do a Shakespeare book puzzle in mystic mansion with the Chaotix to get to the main hallway.

I want to be locked in a level for 3 hours trying to figure out, if there are 16 echidna statues and I have to destroy the one statue that clues us into the past that one naughty echidna was working for a different tribe, but if I get it wrong I lose a life, that'd be awesome.

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