7 hours ago, PerfectChaos said:
From Lost World onwards I figured they'd try and move away from it to make development easier and stuff. I suppose Forces was probably in development at the same time as Lost World, though?
I don't think so, I think they went back to it becauseLost World bombed.
6 hours ago, The Deleter said:
There's a pretty big discrepancy that you might not be considering for your Unleashed video, in what physics differences there are between the original Unleashed and the Unleashed Project. Not only is the speed cap able to reach much higher peaks in the former, it's also significantly looser to control Sonic in 3D than the latter. And I feel that impacts the automation by quite a bit, tbh.
That's true, I'll give you that. The physics were different indeed, and it affected how you can approach the levels themselves.
6 hours ago, The Deleter said:
Like, the section after exiting the forest and the grind rail. In the Generations mod, it's fairly easy to hit it and doesn't really effect the game by much other than locking you on a path, but with the Unleashed version, since the handling is so loose in comparison, it's less a question of whether you want to hit it, or whether you can. Should you, you receive a line of rings to refill your meter for a rather fast depleting boost gauge over perilous water, and a short "break" from navigating in a 3D space to reassert yourself for the rapidly approaching challenge up next.
This is what makes Unleashed's 3D and automation pretty different from the later games, imo, and is sort of a formula the rest of the game follows. The automation is there, yeah, but it depends entirely on your ability to react fast enough, or navigate Sonic well enough to hit it in a 3D space to be "safe" again. The sections afterwards that rail, for example, rely on this by a good amount as well. A line of rings for, at a first-playthrough's point of view, precious boost energy, needs to be followed precisely enough to pick up, the bottleneck directly afterwards requires you to reassert yourself and thread the needle, or get flung in the wrong direction by the angle/drown on impact, and immediately afterwards is a few springs on a completely missable pathway, requiring a last-second attempt at precision in order to finish off the section and make it onto a "safe" path again. The alternate route dash pad in the same area is even harder to nail.
Sure, you can call this "fake difficulty" or "unfair level design", (I don't think that's inherently bad game design, as people love rhythm games on their own) but whether it's the best fit for the series overall in the long run or not, the twitch-based gameplay was pretty different from how the later boost games handled it, and sells the concept of the boost the best as-is, in my opinion.
The boost is dangerous, yet also inherent for survival, rather than being an easy speed button. The hallways are linear, but pose a decent threat often enough to be constantly engaging, rather than a tired bore to navigate. The automation exists, but more as a reward and the only reliable resting point in blistering, breakneck level traversal, rather than a crutch of bad physics and player trust. And overall, it's less about having the ability to go fast at the press of a button, and more the ability to survive that speed's potential intensity, at all costs. That, is what makes Unleashed's boost gameplay the best version, imo, even with the occasional niggles like qtes and such.
Ok, so, that is true, as I remember that rail being a "safety point" in the level, but that does not justify complete automation in anyway.
In Sonic Unleashed the player's constantly fighting against the character itself, since it controls very loosely and sometimes it's really unresponsive. I had to die something like 40 times before being able to drift on that Skyscraper Scamper curve in the beginning, and that's not because I could not drift correctly, it's because the outcome would vary too much each time.
Anyway, this still doesn't justify that even if it's one of the last levels in the game, and it's a very hard level for sure, the difficulty comes mostly from the loosely handling character and not from the terrain or hazards. Most of them are cheaply positioned too, giving the player little to no time to react.
This is why Generation's mod reveals how shallow the level design in Unleashed actually is. Once you're not fighting to control your character anymore, you're left with stages that almost play themselves. This is the very reason I chose to go with Jungle Joyride, since it's one of the last stages in the game, but many other are even worse. Windmill Isle, Savannah Cittadel, Rooftop Run, every 3D section is very barebones and most of the gameplay happens during the 2D ones.
Besides that, you seem to be forgetting that the quickstep sections were very long in the original game, and I just wished I could skip them some times, like you do with a cutscene, because there's nothing to differentiate them one from the other, and the mechanic itself, as I said in the video, is very shallow and does not offer much.
Unleashed liked to throw rails at the player too, and they posed no threat at all, except for deciding which one was the right path to take. It's basically quickstep all over again, so. SA2 did rails well, since they were affected by slope physics and you could actually fall off them if you didn't balance right. From ShTH and on rails became the way we know them now, and I don't like it, that's something else that has to go.
Lost World did rails in a different way, and I liked that approach, even if it felt more like a Donkey Kong game than a Sonic one, but that game as a whole screamed "Nintendo clone", so.
3 hours ago, Gabe said:
Over the years I'd say I've become a really big stickler on the quality of level design in Sonic games. I still hold the level design philosophy ofclassicSonic games as the bar to strive for, and I feel few of the games since then strive to match its principles and/or offer level design that while not exactly the same, are genuinely enjoyablein their own right.(My personal shortlist includesSonic 3D: Flickies' Island, Sonic R, Adventure 1, Advance 1, and classic Sonic's half of Generations, based off ofwhat I've played of them. Though I'm pretty confident Mania will nail it to a T.)
I'm largely going to share some talking points about some of the biggest problems I think the games get wrong, but will note that if we're talking level design, I'd like to link to what I feel are very good outside sources to look into when discussing level design. Retro has some pretty good threads (Sparks' 2D thread andP3DR0's 3D thread) to use as a basis. There's also a huge, hugearchived thread over at the Sega Forums from the Sonic 4 sub-forum by local member Saberclaws about automation, which I feel is integral to level design quality for the Sonic series. Sonic Science, while long-abandoned and incomplete, has some really good comparisons about the qualities of thelevel design of the classic games, which he then compares to the faults ofthe level design of then-modern games (it was last updated February 2007, so it was essentially in reaction to Sonic Team's level design philosophy as of Sonic 2006). Last but not least, I can't talk Sonic level design without bringing up Zone 0, which a very through guide about each level forSonic 1, 2, CD, and 3&K; complete with level maps of each act, tips, secrets, and other information out the wazoo.
- Level design philosophy for 3D levels is one-note and stagnant. I mentioned this in more detail in the Bad level design thread from a while back, but I think one of the most enduring problems that Sonic games have with 3D level design structure is that they seem to be made purely on one template--very linear in structureand the level is being suspended over, or surrounded by, bottomless pits. Or in other words, designers from Adventure 2 onwards looked at Speed Highway and said to themselves "Hey, let's use this level as the basis for all 3D Sonic levels going forward." These type of levels aren't bad in itself, but they seem to be the only way to design Sonic games according to Sonic Team. There is hardly any variety or an attempt to have contrasting levels to balance these levels out; compared to other 3D platformers. They become especially bad when you have these levels in level settings/locations in which they don't make sense contextually. Bottomless pits in a level like Final Rush, which is at a space station?Sure. Bottomless pits in City Escape, a level based on downtown San Francisco?Why?
- Level design philosophy for (recent) 2D levels are generic. While I think this problem is emblematic with 2D levels of the Boost gameplay overall, I think this is especially visible withMorio Kishimoto-directed Sonic games such as Colors, Lost World, and based off of classic Sonic's GHZ footage, what we're going to see with Forces. You have probably heard these complaints from myself and/or others before. Level designed being mostly flat in terrain, with little if any slopes to speak of. Platforming structure being more about timing and aiming your jumps, rather than based on speed andmomentum, aka precision or "block" platforming. Level design being absolutely devoid of branching either, with only one singular route in sight and no secrets to speak of. This is level design that would probably be more fitting in a platformer other than Sonic, maybe some sort ofmediocre Mario clone. But in the context of Sonic gameplay, which has mechanics that are usually designed around building/maintainingspeed andplaying with momentum? It's highly out of place.
- Levels are very lacking in gimmicks. Levels in recent Sonic games usually don't tend to emphasize level or even zone-specific gimmicks much in their levels, and even when they do, they are only used a few times and then tossed to the side. This alongside the lack of variety in zone structure and automation (which I'll touch on below) I think makes them come off as level structurally blending in together, despite levels being in different locations.In contrast, levels from the classic games would use several gimmicksconsistently throughout zones, with Sonic CD and Sonic 3&K in particular upping the ante with having a handful of exclusive gimmicks per act(or even per timezone, regarding the former).Think of Mystic Cave, with its ceiling/floor crushing pillars, rotating trios of boxes, slowly-extending spiked steps, chute-like bridges, and vertically moving handlebars. Or the king of all bumper levels that isCarnival Night, with the red-and-white swirling barrels, giant meshrotating cylinders, the balloons, the spring corridors, the one-direction funnels, the floating bumpers...there's probably more, but you get the point.Can you imagine these levels if they didn't have these gimmicks? Meanwhile, what does something like Desert Ruinshave? There's ramps...half of an act where you're being chased by a tornado...some quicksand pools...and there's not much else. Or how about Metal Harbor? Erm...I'm coming up with blanks. Rails? That could count, but rails are a staple of the entire game, so it's not really a unique gimmick. The whole bit with racing up to the rocket under a timer and snowboarding back down to earth is unique...but's that more of a level setpiece / sequence that's part of the act, rather than a gimmick within the act. Meanwhile, Mania's Studiopolis has the TV station teleporters, thegiant film projector connected to rotating platform conveyor belts, the yellow/black-striped springs, the red springy bumpers, the rising/lowering director's chairs, and so on.
- Levels are heavily automated/scripted. We've pretty much covered this quite a bit recently, whatnot with Sonikko's video and discussion on Green Hill in Forces, but it still bears repeating. Levels frequently have way, way too much automation and scripting that take away any freedom of the player and heavily restrict the gameplay. Levels are chock-full of dash panels and springs (and while not necessarily the same thing, homing attack chains), and are filled scripted elements in slopes andlevel setpieces. We're even seeing this use of automation rise to really questionable level design decisions like having rows of enemies put before dash panels in Sonic 4 (those of which make the player curl into a ball, so the game is literally giving you into easy kills)and as of that Forces footage, dash panels during / shortly after high-speed scripted loops. And while its overall hard to tell what exactly the developers did, Sonic 4: Episode II's slopesoperateso oddly (with reports of players gaining little speed during one act on one slope, but getting a ton of speed doing the same thing on a similar slope in a different act)that it has been speculated that the designers decided toscript movement for every slope in the game as opposed to simply improving the physics engine. Said this before as well, but dash panels in particular are also guilty of having no variety either--it's largely beenthe same giant Chemical Plant dash panels we've been seeing for a while (as of Lost World, Generations, and Sonic 4), there are no attempts to make them looklike they fit the context of the level, let alone look or behave differently--and honestly, this too is itself a form of automation.
- Levels demand moves to be used in order to proceed. The introduction of the homing attack with the 3D games has made this a long running problem,which has from Adventure 2 onwards has been frequently utilizing homing attack chains --having a series of enemies lined up in a row, placed over a bottomless pit-- to force usage of the homing attack. But it seems to have become more prevalent in recent titles as well--Sonic 4: Episode II and Sonic Lost World featured levels that demanded the use of co-op moves (Epi. II) or Wisps (LW) in order to proceed. This also occurred in Generations (Planet Wisp) and some areas of Colors, though they were significantly more minor in their implementation of this manner.The use of homing attack chains have also been saidto have leaked into the 2D games as well as early as Rush, its use became especially notorious in Sonic 4: Episode I's use of constant Bubbles chains. It's become a visible worrying trend that seems to have growing in its use. For comparison's sake, neither the shields or character abilities in the classic games (save for some segments of required climbing/gliding for Knuckles for his alternate routes), or the character upgrades in the Adventure series, demanded the use of abilities in order to continue through levels.
- Levels treat the players like they don't know how to play the game.I am referring to the inclusion of warning signs for bottomless pits, and --in the case of Sonic 4: Episode II-- tutorial signs for combo moves. These things may be necessary for other genres and other franchises, but Sonic is a relatively accessible series that doesn't get particularly difficult or complex that would require them (in my view). Moreover, these warning / tutorial signs are big, glowing, floating objects that are placed at the most obvious locations (warning signs especially) andbreak the immersion of the gameworld completely, they come off as obnoxious and patronizing. It's like the designers are assuming the player has never played a platformer before. With that said,this (thankfully) doesn't seem like to be happening as much anymore, but I think its still important to address.
Those are the six major points I think could really stand to be corrected through dialing them down if not cutting them out completely in level design for Sonic games. There are probably more issues I have, but these are all of the big ones I could think of when I spentthe past couple of hours writing this up. As I've said before, Mania looks like it's doing a great job avoiding all of these and aiming closer for classic Sonic design philosophy. While we have yet to see more of Forces, that gamehowever looks to be perpetuating most of them, unfortunately (or even accelerating them--no pun intended).
Great, great post. Thank you for writing this, I enjoyed reading it a lot.
About the level design in 3D games:
I agree but most of Adventure 1 was designed like that aswell.
Actually, the first game that tried doing something different from that is Unleashed, but that's only because the bottomless pits on the side were replaced with fancy buildings.
About the modern 2D games:
That's exactly it. I'm not against platforming in a Sonic game, but it has to be done in the right way. It has to be integral with how the character handles, it has to be built around momentum (This is why I love some parts of Generations, they seemed to understand that). I don't like Colours for that very reason, since it's 80% 2D and the whole game is built like that.
2D Sonic is not about waiting for platforms to move or jumping on square blocks (except for Labyrinth zone but I don't think anybody actually liked it).
This happened a lot in Lost World too, and the 2D stages were the worst portion in the game. This is happening again with Forces even if they were able to do much better in Generations. But that has to be because this game is being directed by the Colours/LW guy.
About the levels demanding moves:
Wisps are the worst offenders, and I really want them gone or heavily redesigned, they stop the player to a halt, they change the game too much and it doesn't feel part of the whole, it feels like many small obligatoryminigames and I've never been a fan of those.
I think they are there because Sonic Team feels like the main gameplay, may it be boost or Lost World, is not deep enough or not engaging enough, so they have to literally change it up.
If that's so, they should just scrap it and go for something more deep in substance.
About the levels treating the players like they don't know how to play:
That's also an issue, but I was glad I could turn those signs off in Generations. Besides it also comes from cheaply designed levels, since a player should always be able to tell which empty space is safe and which one isn't.
There's no point in having "bottomless pits warnings" plastered all over the place if the level is well designed.
Ultimately I feel like the levels don't differentiate them too much one from the other. If you take one level structure, change it's aesthetics up, it could belong in any zone. There should be some element of novelty in each zone, something that sticks out and is memorable.
The levels in the boost games feel like they're made out of pre-composed layouts switched around.
