Sonic the Threadgehog

The 3D stuff is misunderstood, they perfected it in generations. They are basically high speed assault courses with amazing graphics, multiple routes and hard as nails red stars to collect. They also work as time trials with constant replays to get your pb. I love them and think they get a bad rap.

I think generations is one the best games of the 360 era and now it’s 4k 60fps on Xbox it’s perfect. Spend an hour on it and you are hooked

Yes when done well, 3D stuff can be amazing. The first level of Sonic Adventure with the beach and the Orca for example, great stuff.

I think the key to it is that Sonic can stay "on rails" for most of it, either literally or like with bits where you have to kind of steer him along a fairly narrow pre defined path which you can get better at and perfect. But it has to have accessible enough transitions from rails to semi open bit, so the player doesn't keep falling off and break the game play.

The transitions especially on the easy levels must have things that if you go towards where it looks like you should go, there is something there to go to, it's fine to have the quicker bits and short cuts to be accessible only via "the knowledge" of course, but it has to be immediately playable, otherwise it loses to Mario right off the bat.

I think they should have lots of checkpoints all over the world. That way, if you fall off a rail, you can just press a button and restart from there, without having to backtrack all the way on top. But they would need to be a whole lot of checkpoints.

Still, the potential is there. And Sonic nowadays is the biggest that he's been in the last fifteen years because of the movies, so I hope they are feeling the pressure to release something a bit better than usual.

I got 150 A-ranks back in my days. Not quite all 180 of them, but pretty close.

Went back to the game last year, and... well, I won't say it was bad (I finished the last story), but definitely not something I'd invest that much time into again.

Surprisingly, I never played SA1. I started the series on the Gamecube, SA2 was one of my first games for the console. But by the time Sega ported SA1, I didn't really care enough anymore.

Trying to emulate Mario wasn't working so they're trying Zelda next

I never liked Sonic Adventure 2, but I loved the first one.

well, to be fair, I enjoyed the Sonic and Shadow stages in SA2, and hated everyone else's. So I liked 33% of the game.

it looks a bit stop-starty. Which isn't a good feel for Sonic. The best Sonic levels, 2D or 3D is that they had a good flow, like a roller coaster. There might be alternate routes but there was a sense of direction and purpose. Get to the end.

With this the routes don't look clear so I fear it might be a bit woolly.

To be fair to the footage, it all seems a bit contextless. Enemies are removed and everything there is just a jumble. It feels more like a tech demo for the movement and general idea of what an open world Sonic game is.

The movement itself looks quite good and could be fun when it all flows together. There is a lot of stop/starting though, which doesn't fit at all.

I was initially optimistic about the idea of an open world Sonic, but I'm now not so sure how good you could ever make it. That constantly change between moving quickly and trudging along to find the next path to take feels like it will be inevitable.

I guess it depends whether there will also be more focused levels and how much time you spend in those compared to the open world. I assume there must be actual levels and if those are of a good quality and you are spending as much time in those as the open world than it could work.

You might be on to something here, mate

I just don't understand what you're supposed to be doing in this?

I can only hope this is their Ugly Sonic movie reveal moment and they are waiting for it to be panned before having a rethink. Looks fucking dreadful.

One idea I don’t mind is that ‘beating groups of enemies by running round them’ thing, because if nothing else it reminds me of Nights.

My interest is quickly going.

Those are some seriously charmless enemy designs as well. That boss looks more like an angry building than an enemy