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« on: January 21, 2010, 12:40:54 PM »
Notes: I apologize if this is a tl;dr. I don't hate Sonic, and I'm not even that big a fan of Mario (tho I am a Yoshi fan, take that as you will). I make the Mario comparison a LOT, not because Sonic needs to become a slow platformer, but mainly because it's essentially the only other pure platformer on the market (Wratchet's half-shooter, and even that only brings us to three. There have been more 2D fighting game franchises released in the last couple of years, ffs.) Also, I'm pretty sure I pulled most of the foul language out, save for the occasional acronym, but if anything isn't kosher, I'll change it immediately.
Thrice now during this console generation, Sega has tried to reboot sonic. Thrice. First with the 2006 "Sonic The Hedgehog", a standard reboot title much like "Prince of Persia" in 2008. Then they tried it again with "Sonic Unleashed", featuring the "Hedgehog Engine", and now they're attempting to do it again, in the same 5-year-period, with "Project Needlemouse".
Every time Sega releases a new Sonic game, every Sonic fan in a three mile radius can be heard collectively sighing, and the same tired comment comes out, which was seemingly birthed at around the time of Sonic Adventure 2's release (or, arguably, with Knuckles Chaotix on the 32X, but I can count on a single finger how many people I know that every actually owned a 32x).
"Dear God, Sega, please don't include any more of Sonic's crappy friends".
There's a strange sentiment around Sonic fans, that Sonic's forestful of playable, colorful critters is what's ruined the franchise for the past ten some odd years, and I think it's about time we killed that myth right off. The problem with the Sonic franchise isn't that they add friends to each subsequent release.
No, the problem with the Sonic franchise is that Sonic team will not let go of a bad idea.
They'll bandage it, they're cover it up, they'll try to ignore it's a problem, but they will never outright let go of a bad idea, and this isn't anything new with them. In fact, there's a pretty easy example to go by from Sonic 2 (That's Genesis Sonic 2, not the 3D or GBA one). Sonic 2 brought us Tails, one of Sonic Team's best ideas. He was, essentially, a 100% completely optional co-op player. Someone could hop right in and play as him, but, unlike the beat-'em-ups of that era (Final Fight, TMNT), if they decided to leave the room, you wouldn't be stuck with an on-screen friend prevent you from progressing into the game. Tails being on-screen was not a requirement, and him going idle simply resulted in the CPU re-taking control of his actions (which was essentially a time-delayed mirror of whatever Sonic did). Tails was a co-op friend who was nearly always helpful (it's nice to have someone around who could attack but not die in any meaningful way, especially against a boss), and it was nearly impossible for him to become a hindrance.
Of course, this came with one exception. In underwater levels, Tails could grab an air bubble. While underwater areas had a slightly higher risk than land areas for Tails (he couldn't "fly" into water in Sonic 2, so his death meant waiting for Sonic to surface), it still lead to situations where it could get Sonic killed (2 seconds away from death, the bubbles are on a 3-4-second interval, and Tails steals your bubble), whether controlled by the CPU or a friend.
Now, in all honesty, Tails really didn't need to run the risk of drowning in the first place. It did nothing to improve the fun or challenge of the game. If Tails couldn't drown, but Sonic could, the player would still need to manage the air supply to continue into the game, and it would be in keeping with the concept of Tails, and the player wouldn't have to actively think about him being around. Tails grabbing air bubbles or drowning is a feature that Sonic Team really should have removed from the game entirely.
But instead, they bandaged it. Instead of an air bubble coming out of the ground in Sonic 3, two did, one clearly designated for Tails.
Moving beyond this overly-digressed example, we walk directly into Sonic Adventure, Sonic's first 3D foray. I'm not entirely sure why, but Sonic Team essentially skipped an entire console lifespan (the Saturn) with which to continue the legacy of their most popular franchise (I know exactly 2 other people who have ever played PSO). My guess is that they spent 3-5 years on and off trying to figure out how to make Sonic work in 3D. Their final result was a horrific failure, but to explain why, we have to inevitably bring up Sonic's primary competitor in his hey-day, Mario.
Playing Mario 64, you'll note a large abundance of changes Nintendo made to the gameplay formula, and you'll also note that the entire premise behind all of them were to make platforming work in 3D. It's a variety of fixes that, sadly, other developers don't seem to have learned. (Though it helps that the market for 3D platforming is nearly nonexistent, aside from Wratchet, which is also half-shooter)
First off is the ever-present issue that jumping from platform A to platform B in 3D is HARD for a player. You're going to overshoot or undershoot a LOT of the times. This is a genre where a missed jump often leads to death. And Super Mario 64 had SEVERAL fixes for this.
1. Mario leaves a shadow DIRECTLY BELOW HIM at all times, regardless of light source. This has nothing to with the graphical capabilities of the console he's on, as it's been the case in Sunshine and Galaxy as well. This is a situation where gameplay is more important than graphics, as it allows you to track where Mario will land.
2. Mario has a new move, the butt stomp, that allows him to IMMEDIATELY cut off a jump arc and go straight down. Combined with #2, it makes it very easy to avoid over-shooting a jump, especially when jumping onto smaller platforms. Once you see the shadow where you want to land, you just butt-stomp.
3. If Mario misses a platform by a hair, he'll auto-grab the ledge. He'll also do this if he slips off of a ledge. This is a ridiculously important feature, and it's the biggest criticism I have for nearly every 3D platformer on the market. (Seriously, try the Sonic 2006 demo on the Xbox 360. Try to NOT accidentally fall off a ledge to your death. ) It really comes down to this, to any developers of 3D platformers reading: NINTENDO didn't figure out a better solution for barely-missed jumps than to auto-grab ledges. Who the HELL do you think YOU are, that your game doesn't have this feature? Yes, Tim, I'm talking to you.
I could go on for hours, but this isn't a 3D Mario introspective. However, in addition to the various movement enhancements (Mario up until 64 had 3 jumps at best: Jump, Full-Sprint-Jump, and Starman Flip. Mario in 64 has a jump, triple jump, wall jump, sideways jump, and a backflip), Nintendo realized that even they didn't have the resources to make level design identical to the 2D days. In a 3D game, you can't just make 40-60 some odd levels in full 3D. There's too many issues in terms of balanced design and collision issues (there's a LOT of testing that has to be done in a game to make sure players don't fall through the floor, or get stuck). Your options are to either add depth to the few levels you can make (hence the multiple-objective approach in the series since), or to essentially make a platformer on rails, ala Crash Bandicoot. After long delays in development, Nintendo made the first approach work.
Yuji Naka made a platformer on rails.
There's a major problem with a platformer on rails. It's the same problem that light-gun shooters have, it's the same problem Starfox had, it's essentially the same problem that every on-rails game has.
They're REALLY short.
Sonic Adventure was fun, I won't contest that. But Sonic Adventure was 3 hours long, at best. The biggest problem Nintendo had during the N64's launch period was that in the two weeks that followed the release of Mario 64, they had a lot of folks returning their games (and sometimes consoles) because they'd already beaten it.
Sonic Adventure had that problem on day one.
Being a platformer on rails was a problem, and part of the problem was that it wasn't Sonic. Sure, everyone who remembers Sonic on the Genesis, especially given the marketing campaign, remembers the running. But Sonic also had a LARGE degree of solid platforming. Especially in the first one, before the implementation of the spin dash, there were large stretches between running downhill and through loopty-loops where Sonic would pick up coins, take out enemies, and look for power-ups. There was the lava level, where between sections of running from pouring magma, Sonic would actually spend a great deal of time moving slowly through a level whose floor was near-instant-death, much like some of the "Bowser's Castle" levels in Super Mario 3 'n World. Sonic was a platformer. Faster than most, and clearly more linear than the direction Mario took (e.g. no overworld map), but still a platformer.
In all honesty, after Sonic Adventure they really should have just dropped the on-rails aspect and fleshed out the world Sonic moved around in.
However, that requires time and research that Sonic Team probably didn't have the budget for (It probably didn't help that Dreamcast sales started plummeting a year in and Sega really didn't have the time for Sonic Team to build something like this). Instead, they bandaged the hell out of Sonic Adventure's short play-through problem. That's where all the current hatred of the franchise comes from.
Think back to Sonic Adventure 2. Was the inclusion of Knuckles and Tails (and, of course, Shadow/Rouge/Robotnik) really the problem? Was it honestly Shadow the Hedgehog that people didn't like? No. God no. And sadly, to explain this, I have to go back to that Italian plumber nobody wants to hear about anymore.
Nintendo's made modifications on Mario's gameplay before. Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) featured 3 extra playable characters. Toad could pick enemies up faster, Luigi could jump higher with a bit more difficulty over control, and Peach could float for short periods of time. Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan) also featured a Luigi that could jump higher but was slightly harder to control, and that's become a running theme for the character. Super Mario World featured Yoshi, who could eat and insta-stomp-kill small enemies, and even walk on things that were otherwise dangerous for Mario alone to walk on. Not to mention all of Super Mario Bros. 3's power-ups.
The thing is, all of these changes either made the game slightly easier or were a trade-off. They never made any changes to the fundamental nature of the game, and they never made the game substantially harder (not more difficult, but harder, and more frustrating) for no discernible reason. And they were nearly always optional.
Let's go back to Sonic Adventure 2 and point-nobody-liked number one. So you start a level, and you have to play as Tails. Fine, no big deal. Suddenly you're in a large bipedal mech. This mech is SLOW. This mech gets ONE JUMP. And very often, you're going to DIE because you missed said jump.
Let's go back for a moment to Mario. Imagine if, in Super Mario World, Yoshi moved a LOT slower than Mario. Also he couldn't jump as high. Also, you started the level on him, and you couldn't get off until you finished said level. Really clear now, right?
The problem wasn't that they added Tails as a playable character. It's that HE COULD JUMP OUT OF THE MECH AND DO A BETTER JOB (yes, I am shouting). Only that wasn't an option. Sonic Adventure was too short a game, and rather than make levels that didn't revolve around going from point A to point B (which was really the problem), they simply made going from point A to point B a lot slower. And the "Tails Levels" were a requirement. It's not even that the levels were required that made them annoying; calling them "Tails Levels" is really disingenuous. They were "Slow mech that doesn't in any way resemble the game you bought" levels. A lot of people didn't like Raiden supplanting Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2 or The Arbiter doing the same to Master Chief in Halo 2. Now imagine if Raiden spent the game in a wheelchair or if The Arbiter walked on all fours and couldn't aim his shots (e.g. you had to walk him in the direction he shot in). Much like these theoretical scenarios, you'd grow to hate the concept of "Not playing as the main character" rather than realizing that what you really didn't like was "Playing a game that in no way resembles the game I thought I bought". It's like if, halfway into Bust-a-Move, the bubbles stopped sticking, little pegs showed up in the well, and suddenly it's Peggle. Nobody walked into Halo 3 or MGS3 (and the latter even had a completely different main character) dreading that they'd be playing as someone other than the main character. Doesn't that tell you something?
This leads us to the second largest mistake Sonic Team's made: Alternate (let alone forced) playable characters that control nothing like Sonic.
I won't even go into the Knuckles levels, in which Sega decided to get rid of the rails in exchange for a gameplay concept that could BARELY functioned as a mini-game, and proceeded to stretch out the gameplay length and shrink the windows for success as the game progressed. They essentially built a third of the game on trial-and-error gameplay mechanics, something that would get any other game returned on day one. (unless, of course, the entire game consisted of hand-drawn animation)
Sonic Adventure 2 was atrocious because, rather than drop the concept of a "platformer on rails" (which isn't even really a platformer), they decided to "fix" the short play-length problem by turning it into a game, for over 2/3 of the experience, that was as far removed from a Sonic title as one could manage. Sonic 3 also had Tails and Knuckles as playable characters, and nobody hated that game. Why? Because they could do the same *basic* things that made a game a Sonic title (Jump reasonably high, run, spin-dash), and on TOP, had their own special abilities (flying, climbing walls).
The saddest thing? Both of those sets of skills would have made for a great, traditional, 3D platformer. Super Mario 64 got re-released on the DS with 4 seperate playable characters, and even they had nowhere near the level of flexibility in capability that the Sonic trio did. Imagine the level design that allows only characters that can fly or glide to reach certain areas, or sections that are too high to fly to (Tails had a tendency to get tired after several seconds of flight), but with nearby walls to climb (and of course, some sort of speed-up to Knuckles's climbing ability to avoid tedium, such as being able to jump straight up mid-climb). Or even areas that Sonic Adventure hinted at where a series of flying enemies could be placed that sonic could homing-attack his way through (that were too long for flying and gliding).
Almost none of which Sonic Team could do with a platformer on rails.
Sonic Heroes almost had the right idea, but by not dropping the rails, level design really didn't offer much between the 3 gameplay styles, and felt ridiculously contrived as a result.
Sonic Unleashed traded friends for a werehog form, but problem #2 was still there: you weren't playing a platformer for well over half the game. And once again, the "on-rails" segments, not a great idea in the first place, went by way too quickly.
Even the 2D title, Sonic Rush, failed the concept in its second iteration. Once again, we go back to the "Nintendo doesn't dare do this and they're the market leader"(New Super Mario Bros. has sold 10 million copies in two months' time) reasoning. Think back to every Mario title you've ever played. Think back to the portion of the game where you play something that's substantially different than the rest of the game. In Super Mario Bros. 1 & 3 it was swimming. In Super Mario Land it was the submarine. In World it was the "balloon" special stage. Or auto-scrolling stages. How many levels are in each of these games? Approx. 30-70, depending on the title. How many levels featured these substantially different gameplay mechanics? Right, somewhere between 3 and 5. We're talking less than 10% of the game as a whole. In Sonic Rush 2, the "mini-game" levels have to be done at least once every time you go to a new pair of stages. Since Sonic went 3D, the stages where you don't play as anything that even vaguely resembles a Sonic game tends to account for over half of your play time. Sometimes over two-thirds.
I won't even touch upon the "bonus stages" much. In a Mario title, getting a "full game completion" required a higher order of skills in the game you were playing. In Sonic games, it has traditionally required a higher order of skills in a completely different style of game.
In the final "Nintendo doesn't dare do this" example, I'd like to point out that they're not above releasing entire games with substantially different gameplay concepts, featuring Mario characters. Yoshi's Island and Wario Land even featured Mario in their SUB-titles to get them off the ground as spin-offs, and cut it off after both of their initial forays (both of which played FAR closer to the Mario formula than their sequels did, especially for Wario). However, in the one "Mario" game to not feature any platforming whatsoever, Luigi's Mansion, even Nintendo didn't have the balls to even include the word "Mario" in the title.
I could go on for hours, as I haven't even skimmed across the Wii Sonic Games, which are far closer to being "on-rails" than even the Sonic Adventure series, or the PSP games, which essentially turned Sonic 2's versus multiplayer into a "full" game.
I conclude all of this with a great degree of skepticism for Project Needlemouse. It being a "Sonic-Only" game is not a good sign, in the slightest. If Sonic team had the ambition to make a true 3D Sonic game, there's no way they'd leave Tails and Knuckles out of it. Something with exploration, real platforming, and even the simplest of puzzles (scavenger hunts aren't puzzles) would benefit substantially from characters with slight modifications to the main character's abilities. It's a direction they'll probably never head in, and if they stick to the platformer on rails, their only real options are to either make the game a 0-day GameStop return or find some new way to bludgeon Sonic's only real differentiating feature: He moves really fast.
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