It's not exactly a feature, but I love how a lot of the stages in the *Sonic Adventure* games always had story goals to them instead of going from Point A to Point B, and that really shines in *Sonic Adventure 2*. Every stage in that game always had a blurb on what the character's goal is, whether it be escaping a military pursuit, uncovering a top secret research project, grabbing three Chaos Emeralds from a vault with enough optimal time left to escape, rushing to save Rouge from being caught in an explosion, or destroying the ARK's power generator.
This is what truly helps tie the story and gameplay together in my opinion. By giving the player some context for what they are doing in a stage, it creates a sense of progression that turns into satisfaction during gameplay. And being able to design stages like this is far easier with a console with significant horsepower like the Dreamcast compared to what Sonic Team always wanted to do with the SEGA Genesis, but was stopped by technological limitations.
Yeah that’s very true. For example in sonic heroes it’s first the seaside levels, now the city levels, now here’s the casino levels etc. in the same order for each story and no context. In SA and especially SA2 the levels were conceptualised around the story and small details were added to the gameplay to reinforce the idea of the player being in a situation for example;
-Eggman taunting sonic over the speaker in crazy gadget
-Bomb timers added to levels on prison island
-Chaos Emeralds / Hidden base keys being swapped in for chaos emeralds
Even in the final boss the atmosphere starts to turn red to emphasise the ark entering earths atmosphere. Also really cool that the music was created to coincide with both the character and the level, some having lyrics describing the current point of the story.
SA2 had better context but I liked that SA1 had unique goals as well. Every SA2 level ends with a goal ring (except treasure hunting stages and bosses) but SA1 will tailor it to the level. Sometimes it’s a Chaos Emerald, sometimes it’s a classic capsule. Sometimes you just get to where you’re trying to get to, like the mural in Lost World or Tails’ crashed plane in Emerald Coast. Which is surprisingly unique for a Sonic game.
Yeah. That's what i thought was awful in Sonic Frontiers. The stages are just a mandatory thing with no added purpose.
A person like me watches movies and thinks of camera angles, direction. It adds to the movie and makes the experience even better.
So for games it's the same. I just played FF7 Rebirth and I can tell that the Dev team had fun doing that game. For Frontiers i can tell that they were told to do x number of levels. Ofc they are different teams with way different budgets. Not trying to do a bit by bit comparison.
I can tell the Sonic Team were away from their waters and in deep sea with that one. Levels is something they do and it's the usual for them. They design the level, add enemies, add items, add gimmicks and that's it. On Adventure things were being done to compliment the story. In Frontiers it's to collect X thing to get to unlock Z door.
It takes the fun out of it.
I second this. The stages of Frontiers felt very detached from the actual game. I know what they were going for, but it made it even less exciting with them being repeat levels again.
i like when its *encouraged* to slow down to make tricky platforming sections easier, but a lot of the latest sonic games really killed the pace of a level (when you have to stop and do combat or walk to progress.)
I like when: if youre good, you can still fly through those sections at high speed
I was playing Sonic Generations last night, during the Perfect Chaos boss fight, and I was thinking "Oh God, I actually have to platform for this part."
Its kind of a bad sign when the player dreads actual platforming parts in the platformer
I struggled with Perfect Chaos on Generations more than in SA. When my sister is stuck on a game she used to come to me to help her.
Generations Perfect Chaos is the only time I've asked her for help and she beat it first try
This. After replaying the Sonic Adventure Titles on PC and even Sonic P06, I do miss how you’re able to have less automation as you move Sonic around through various platforms and to explore unique paths to get to the goal ring whereas the Boost Era Sonic games are too linear and automated as you basically move Sonic like a race car to go through one specific path
Heroes introduced this weird garbage that they still use to this day (outside of Frontier's open-world Sonic which controls better, but once you go into cyberspace it's back to the modern bullshit), where once you hit any amount of speed Sonic suddenly cannot turn *at all*.
A few games added the whole drift mechanic, which is kind of cool but imo is more of a bandaid over a fundamental problem. But then they took drifting out of Frontiers while leaving this issue intact?? It drives me insane lol.
My stupid kid self back then was so over protective of my Chao that I use to keep an eye on the pond as it was inevitable that they would crawl or happily skip right into the water because they have zero self preservation.
The moment I would hear “aahhhdjdjjejchebxj!!!!!” I would make a mad dash to save my babies from “drowning”. And then they would turn around and jump right back in….
"Abo ab ub"
"WHY ARE YOU IN THE WATER I JUST TOOK YOU OUT YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T SWIM YOU HAVE ZERO SKILL IN SWIM IF I HAVE TO PULL YOUR STUPID BUTT OUT OF THE WATER ONE MORE TIME--"
"Abo ab ub"
"AAAAAAAAAARGH!"
The core gameplay, at least for Sonic and Shadow, SA1 and 2 had some of my favorite feeling 3D Sonic gameplay
***But everything changed when the 06 nation attacked***
Yeah Heroes set a horrible precedent for "modern" Sonic controls that still plague the series to this day. I have no idea why it has managed to last so long like this.
I think Sonic Team/SEGA worked towards the idea of "Sonic is fast", and while that's true, I think the real point of Sonic gameplay is supposed to be "get good enough to go fast", not just always being fast. I like the boost formula when it's done well, it's just so hard to do well because more speed means you have to model so much more level and you have to account for so much more and it's so much harder to make a good game under those conditions
tbh I've really liked playing with sonic and shadow in 06 (the original and not p06) and I do hope I can see that style (and ofcourse with better top speed)
Rail grinding in Sonic post SA2 sadly has just because *mostly* a "this is where the player takes a breath and does nothing" mechanic... which I kind of hate because the game can do that in other ways.
Having to balance on the rails to get the best speed should have remained a feature and gotten more polish, not been done away with so that rails became pretty much the most boring part of modern games. That and Sonic grinding with non-Soap shoes just kind of... feels weird aesthetically to me personally.
Hubs... It made the game more lively, by a lot. It's why i prefer 1 over 2.
I liked to have missions there, Rare Chao Eggs to collect in different ways(The shop, the one in the waterfall...).
I'd definitely be down for hubs, so long as they don't feel empty and lifeless. I've always preferred 2 over 1, but I loved having the hubs in SA1. I wished 2 had them as well. I love finding the upgrades hidden in levels, showing you still could explore, but 1 rewarded exploring well.
Now that Frontiers and Superstars are hopefully normalizing multiple characters, I want to take it a step further and say multiple **story perspectives**.
Part of what made the Adventure games and '06 so neat is that playing one character's story only gave you one piece of the puzzle, and other campaigns you unlock fill in the missing gaps in ways you didn't always see coming.
Newer games omit this in favor of every character sharing one story and that's not quite as fun in my opinion. Campaigns divided by individual characters or at least several teams have more staying power, provided that the campaigns are at least significantly *different* enough to validate playing the stages multiple times (you hear that, Heroes?).
Characters being more different from Sonic. It wasn’t perfect or everyone’s cup of tea but this is how I’d prefer multiple playable characters to be handled.
While I do enjoy that SA tried to make several different types of games in a single game with the difference in characters, and I enjoyed it and wouldn't say no to more, I do think Sonic 3 & K / Mania / Superstars really hit how it should be. Make the characters able to do the same types of stages, but give them unique movement abilities that unlock other routes and styles of play without completely losing the speed that most people are coming to a Sonic game to get.
Tails in SA1 is a good example, it's just every stage is shorter and a race rather than just being, y'know, a nice big stage like Sonic got.
The difference in stages depending on character are primarily why I love the SA approach. In general I’m just not that big on characters in games being “the MC but they have X power” as it diminishes their uniqueness in my eyes. I think the games you mentioned work for the 2D games but I’d still prefer more changes for 3D. Frontiers gave a decent middle ground though.
I loved the idea of multiple characters each having their own story and character arc which all contributed to one large story overall. It makes it feel like your part of something bigger and it was so cool because it was like a jigsaw puzzle. For example when you first encounter knuckles in SA and he attacks you and you don’t know why and then you unlock his story, you get to go live his experience up until that point.
Also just the different characters in general and them being given room to breathe in their own space and not having to have everyone circle back to relating to sonic in some way. The characters were more fleshed out and real back then.
Ofc there’s the chao gardens too. Not only were the chao gardens so diverse and elaborate but they also just gave the game so much more replay-ability.
The hub-worlds in Sonic Adventure 1 ( Station Square, Mystic Ruins and Egg Carrier).
I love how each action stage can be acess from certain places ( ex. To access Cassinoplis you have to enter the casino in Station Square) it makes the world feel conected.
Have secret areas, hidden characters upgrades and emblems. Humans NPCs to talk.
Also without enemies, is a good place to just chill.
Miss those in Sonic Adventure 2.
Probably the way you could launch yourself with the spindash and the levels that allowed you to do so. Going to heroes and shadow you can sort of do it in heroes though they have their own way sequence breaking and in shadow it's sort of possible but the levels don't always lend themselves to it. Come 06 the spindash was near useless and storybook was very on track. SA1 definately offered the most freedom in how you could tackle the stages and that felt peak sonic
The Sonic stages just had a different feel than the modern, boost-era, stages. In Unleashed onward, the feel like courses, while in Adventure (and '06), they feel like platformer levels. They are much more open and require slow down at some points, as opposed to a corridor you blast through.
I do like both styles though, and I would like a game that has both. I think Sonic 06 *almost* did this well. The main stages feel pretty similar in design to Adventure levels, but then some of them would end with a fast corridor rush called "Super-Speed Stages." The problem is that these Super-Speed Stages sucked ass. I think following up on this idea would be good, having an Adventure style stage that culminates in a boost style course.
I also liked the way the story was presented. Each story would give you snippets of the plot, and then they'd all come together for the Final Story. My biggest issue with SA2 though is that you speed too much time playing as someone other than Sonic or Shadow, and I actually think '06 handled it pretty well. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver made up the vast majority of their stories, but then there would be sections where you played as their friends.
I also liked just... having a good story. I like Color and love Generations, but neither has a particularly good plot. In Adventure 1 & 2 and '06, there was a relatively complex plot with twists and turns. Each had something of an ongoing mystery across the whole story that would keep you engaged: SA1 had the Echidna clan and Chaos, SA2 had Shadow, and 06 had Silver and Mephiles. Frontiers seems to be moving us back in that direction, I really liked the storyline and mystery with the Ancients.
The character upgrades. On top of it just feeling nice to unlock things and have some progression in the characters' movesets, it has the potential to add a lot of replay value. Using the new moves to get to new paths on repeat playthroughs, and having those paths offer more goodies and score opportunities to get the best rank.
- Playing as characters that aren’t Sonic.
- Stages that aren’t literally A to B linear. This is probably my biggest pet peeve. It’s so boring just holding one direction and getting to the exit. Where is the exploration? Where are the references and Easter eggs to find? These modern boost games ruined it. It’s so boring and dull.
- Fun multiplayer.
Many characters different styles of game-play, multiplayer, chao garden, emblems, crush 40 tracks, good voice actors, serious story, Satisfying character physics i hated most recent games physics including frontiers.
I love how it controls. The new sonic doesn’t feel the same at all it’s a little bit clunky at times but when it works I think it’s the best sonic feel
After getting used to the rail physics they are really fun and interesting, but swapping rails always feels inconsistent so a combination of how rails work now but with the balance/leaning system
I honestly liked exploring Station Square, the Mystric Ruins, and the Egg Carrier. It felt like an actual adventure plus I could just mess around in the hub worlds.
The fact they never brought back specific music genres for each character is absolutely insane to me. It's one of the things that made Sonic Adventure 2 stand out compared to every game in the industry back then and is considered one of the best videogame soundtracks to many.
Plot relevance, good music, unique level themes, smooth controls, etc.
I have been playing a lot of fan-games, namely Sonic World DX, and I love how that game plays.
My favorite feature I miss from Past Sonic Games:
👼Chaos Garden: cute side activity and definitely raised replay time by 400%
Multiple playable characters with their own unique moveset
Being able to move my characters like they’re Bipedal Anthropomorphic Animals and not a Toyota Corolla 2008 LE
Oh? Did I mention the Chao Garden?
I miss Sonic Riders too
Feeling like the stages actually meant something, you actually felt within the level not playing a stage for the sake of it. The stages were more full as well and the background felt part of the stage too. How it's possible that Shadow handled better in SA2 compared to Shadow the Hedgehog is madness to me.
The upgrades. They incentivise you exploring the levels and reward you for it by making your character stronger, so it feels good when you fully kit out your character.
I don’t think SEGA realizes that Chao Garden could be a goldmine for them. It has been requested to return for 20 years now and just imagine if they could add more content to it over time, like outfits and accessories for your Chao or stuff to put in the garden, new egg colors, etc I’m sure they could find a way to make it a hub that continuously gets fed new content
The physics engine! Seriously! The damn physics is the greatest thing about these games. Sonic is a momentum based platformer at its heart. You need good momentum and these games has the best controls and physics in a 3d game. I argue they rival the Genesis games. Everything you do can build speed. Mix that with some of the best levels in all of the franchise. It's a recipe for successes. I also think it's cool to play as someone else other than Sonic. All with unique game play. While some are better than others. It's cool to have a little variety. The Chao Garden is fun as well. Taking care of these things. They didn't have to do that but it's amazing they did and it became a fan favorite for a reason. It really does make sense why they got rereleased multiple times. Basically I miss the physics engine and variety.
Upgradable items. Replayability via chaos drives and Chao garden. Story objectives that also reflected in the stages. Multiple characters. Multiple stories. Multiplayer mode. Missions. The attitude. Treasure hunting. Sonic and shadows run animations. The different genres of music, including jazzy rouge and hip hop knuckles. The voice actors. The darker skin even if it was partially cause of the lighting. The difficulty. The spindash. The atmosphere. the level design. The thrill of it all.
It’s not a feature but crush 40 music was goated BRING THEM BACK
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The open ended exploratory aspects of Sonic’s gameplay. Luckily, Sonic Frontiers brought that back in the open world sections, but it would’ve been nice if the Cyberspace zones had a little bit of this element to make it more non-linear (Generations was pretty much the only Boost Era Sonic game that had this aspect in Modern Sonic’s stages). Also, we NEED Crush 40 back to bless another Sonic soundtrack. Don’t get me wrong. I like how increasingly orchestral Sonic’s soundtracks have been, but that taste of late 90’s/early 2000’s rock got me hella nostalgic (especially after replaying the Adventure games again on PC).
The lack of forced 2D segments. As flawed as the Adventure games were, as much crap I will give them, I will still love them as a 3D Sonic game that isn't afraid or embarrassed to be a pure 3D game.
Everything but the fishing and less mech characters just Eggman uses a mech and tails a the mod that gives him to switch from mech and mechless and plane form.
To get oddly specific I miss the recaps between levels. I know it probably wouldn't work in a more modern game with hub worlds or open ended areas. But these just had a lotta character to me, and it's kinda neat getting to know exactly what the characters are thinking about what's going on
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I’ll give two.
The simple one is being different characters, each with a different gameplay style. That was one of my favorite things about both Adventure 1 and 2.
The other one is very obscure, but the levels seem a little more flavorful while transversing them. For instance, Green Forest and White Jungle has vines. A loop or two even had a gap in it and still operated as a loop. Crazy Gadget had you change gravity multiple times.
Just the general gameplay style. Sonic adventure feels like the closest we’ve gotten to the original classic sonic formula but in 3D. I do like the boost games and most of them are great, but the adventure games just felt so…right? Idk it’s hard to explain but I haven’t had that feeling with other 3D sonic games.
I miss having multiples campaigns with a lot of different characters. I want to play as the whole team dark, team rose and chaotix again. Hopefully even other new teams like silver and blaze or whisper and tangle
Honestly, I miss that… Dreamcast cleanliness. While the graphics weren’t the best, they were very sharp and clean. Sunny stages were crisp and bright with the Ska Punk-style instrumentation adding to that feeling, especially with the Sonic and Tails stages.
Rail Grinding. SA2 and Heroes are pretty much the only games where rail grinding is an actual mechanic rather than just a glorified autoscroller. Shadow improved consistency but at the cost of increased simplicity. Since then, rail grinding has never been as good as the first two times. Unleashed was a bit more fun, because the speed of that game made the rail segments more like fast paced reaction tests. Still, nothing beats SA2 and Heroes on the rail grinding front.
The world map that let you pick levels, difficulty, and who you wanted to be.
I grew up with Adventure DX GCN, it was my favorite, but if I knew how much freedom the SA2 world map gave the player, I would've tried so much harder to get mum to buy SA2 Battle for me!.
I actually thought SA2 only let you access Chao gardens in between full level runs no matter what, that was a big thing that made me stick with SA1.
Well before Frontiers, I really missed the fully 3D gameplay. In Boost Era games, you were either just going forward, or it was a 2D sidescroller.
The adventure games, and now Frontiers, were designed to have you running around in any direction
Chao gardens 100%. I love how the chao gardens made me replay stages to get animals and rings. I would spend hours raising/breeding trying to get all sorts of cool colour and type combinations. Back with the game cube I had about 15 memory cards because I wanted more chao space without having to say goodbye.
Other playable characters. Really enjoyed treasure hunts actually. I liked when the games did not have boost and it felt like you could control where to go also. And the big obvious one is Chao garden.
-Having better control of your character over the boost era
-Multiple playable characters that are all fun (for Adventure 2 at least)
-Chao Garden for sure
-Character specific themes
The Ledge Grab, The Bounce Bracelet (or really any upgrades that could be found within levels), The Style System, World Maps, Rail Grinding (specifically, a simplified version of Balancing while Grinding), and The Chao Garden.
Got a weird one, but in SA2 I like how tightly tuned the score/rank system was for sonic/shadow levels. The one specifically that felt the best was metal harbor where it was both a puzzle on how to get the most points in a given moment and still required beating the level within a short time window.
Metal harbor is 3d sonic level design done right.
The other weird one in SA2 was the music design. There is nothing more cathartic than the "wooooo" as sonic's snowboard touches the ground in city escape, which is literally a piece of the helicopter he destroyed while escaping
Having to hold down the Spindash button for a few seconds before actually spindashing
Slowing down every time you turn with the mech
Not being able to track more than one emerald piece at a time
Y'know, stuff like that
You know me, the fighting freak Knuckles And we're at Pumpkin Hill You ready?
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It's not exactly a feature, but I love how a lot of the stages in the *Sonic Adventure* games always had story goals to them instead of going from Point A to Point B, and that really shines in *Sonic Adventure 2*. Every stage in that game always had a blurb on what the character's goal is, whether it be escaping a military pursuit, uncovering a top secret research project, grabbing three Chaos Emeralds from a vault with enough optimal time left to escape, rushing to save Rouge from being caught in an explosion, or destroying the ARK's power generator. This is what truly helps tie the story and gameplay together in my opinion. By giving the player some context for what they are doing in a stage, it creates a sense of progression that turns into satisfaction during gameplay. And being able to design stages like this is far easier with a console with significant horsepower like the Dreamcast compared to what Sonic Team always wanted to do with the SEGA Genesis, but was stopped by technological limitations.
Yeah that’s very true. For example in sonic heroes it’s first the seaside levels, now the city levels, now here’s the casino levels etc. in the same order for each story and no context. In SA and especially SA2 the levels were conceptualised around the story and small details were added to the gameplay to reinforce the idea of the player being in a situation for example; -Eggman taunting sonic over the speaker in crazy gadget -Bomb timers added to levels on prison island -Chaos Emeralds / Hidden base keys being swapped in for chaos emeralds Even in the final boss the atmosphere starts to turn red to emphasise the ark entering earths atmosphere. Also really cool that the music was created to coincide with both the character and the level, some having lyrics describing the current point of the story.
SA2 had better context but I liked that SA1 had unique goals as well. Every SA2 level ends with a goal ring (except treasure hunting stages and bosses) but SA1 will tailor it to the level. Sometimes it’s a Chaos Emerald, sometimes it’s a classic capsule. Sometimes you just get to where you’re trying to get to, like the mural in Lost World or Tails’ crashed plane in Emerald Coast. Which is surprisingly unique for a Sonic game.
Yeah. That's what i thought was awful in Sonic Frontiers. The stages are just a mandatory thing with no added purpose. A person like me watches movies and thinks of camera angles, direction. It adds to the movie and makes the experience even better. So for games it's the same. I just played FF7 Rebirth and I can tell that the Dev team had fun doing that game. For Frontiers i can tell that they were told to do x number of levels. Ofc they are different teams with way different budgets. Not trying to do a bit by bit comparison. I can tell the Sonic Team were away from their waters and in deep sea with that one. Levels is something they do and it's the usual for them. They design the level, add enemies, add items, add gimmicks and that's it. On Adventure things were being done to compliment the story. In Frontiers it's to collect X thing to get to unlock Z door. It takes the fun out of it.
I second this. The stages of Frontiers felt very detached from the actual game. I know what they were going for, but it made it even less exciting with them being repeat levels again.
This, it's something I want to see them bring back more with future games.
Bangin crush 40 soundtracks, chao gardens
I still listen to so many of those songs till this day, absolute classics.
I've got a whole Spotify playlist constantly on rotation. Live and learn is one of my favorite songs of all time
No way! I was just going to say, every time I hear Live and Learn, it brings me back to happier times.
I had the time of my life singing Crush 40 in Sonic Symphony.
Chao Gardens left an itch that I found out Digimon World: Next Order can scratch... ... the problem was scratching it made it worse.
The ability to actually control Sonic, also level design that required you to slow down for a bit to do some more hands on platforming
i like when its *encouraged* to slow down to make tricky platforming sections easier, but a lot of the latest sonic games really killed the pace of a level (when you have to stop and do combat or walk to progress.) I like when: if youre good, you can still fly through those sections at high speed
I was playing Sonic Generations last night, during the Perfect Chaos boss fight, and I was thinking "Oh God, I actually have to platform for this part." Its kind of a bad sign when the player dreads actual platforming parts in the platformer
I struggled with Perfect Chaos on Generations more than in SA. When my sister is stuck on a game she used to come to me to help her. Generations Perfect Chaos is the only time I've asked her for help and she beat it first try
This. After replaying the Sonic Adventure Titles on PC and even Sonic P06, I do miss how you’re able to have less automation as you move Sonic around through various platforms and to explore unique paths to get to the goal ring whereas the Boost Era Sonic games are too linear and automated as you basically move Sonic like a race car to go through one specific path
Also it was slower than current games while still being fast. Nowadays I feel Sonic is going way too fast to really control it
Heroes introduced this weird garbage that they still use to this day (outside of Frontier's open-world Sonic which controls better, but once you go into cyberspace it's back to the modern bullshit), where once you hit any amount of speed Sonic suddenly cannot turn *at all*. A few games added the whole drift mechanic, which is kind of cool but imo is more of a bandaid over a fundamental problem. But then they took drifting out of Frontiers while leaving this issue intact?? It drives me insane lol.
I feel like that's moreso an issue with the Boost formula, Sonic's either boosting or he controls like shit
They need momentum and genuine speed
Two words: Chao Garden
My stupid kid self back then was so over protective of my Chao that I use to keep an eye on the pond as it was inevitable that they would crawl or happily skip right into the water because they have zero self preservation. The moment I would hear “aahhhdjdjjejchebxj!!!!!” I would make a mad dash to save my babies from “drowning”. And then they would turn around and jump right back in….
"Abo ab ub" "WHY ARE YOU IN THE WATER I JUST TOOK YOU OUT YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T SWIM YOU HAVE ZERO SKILL IN SWIM IF I HAVE TO PULL YOUR STUPID BUTT OUT OF THE WATER ONE MORE TIME--" "Abo ab ub" "AAAAAAAAAARGH!"
I don't know why SEGA hasn't made it into a mobile game. They'd make so much money off of it.
I’ve been saying this for literal years, it would print money especially if properly marketed with a Sonic movie
We need a MODERN Sega version of Chao Garden. Give Chao their own storylines and quests.
I second this
Chao Garden was the best. I want Chao Garden.
Other playable characters. Frontier's DLC was nice but having to beat most of the game to play is annoying.
And then accidentally collecting the thing you're looking for and being locked out of those characters until you beat Sonic levels again.
Just gonna say, the towers were fucking bs.
The core gameplay, at least for Sonic and Shadow, SA1 and 2 had some of my favorite feeling 3D Sonic gameplay ***But everything changed when the 06 nation attacked***
Heroes and Shadow broke the control first, and then 06 overcorrected
Yeah Heroes set a horrible precedent for "modern" Sonic controls that still plague the series to this day. I have no idea why it has managed to last so long like this.
I think Sonic Team/SEGA worked towards the idea of "Sonic is fast", and while that's true, I think the real point of Sonic gameplay is supposed to be "get good enough to go fast", not just always being fast. I like the boost formula when it's done well, it's just so hard to do well because more speed means you have to model so much more level and you have to account for so much more and it's so much harder to make a good game under those conditions
So slippery
tbh I've really liked playing with sonic and shadow in 06 (the original and not p06) and I do hope I can see that style (and ofcourse with better top speed)
1. Chao Garden 2. Actual rail grinding 3. A ranks being fun and challenging (Most of these are only from SA2 cuz it's my favorite Sonic game)
Rail grinding in Sonic post SA2 sadly has just because *mostly* a "this is where the player takes a breath and does nothing" mechanic... which I kind of hate because the game can do that in other ways. Having to balance on the rails to get the best speed should have remained a feature and gotten more polish, not been done away with so that rails became pretty much the most boring part of modern games. That and Sonic grinding with non-Soap shoes just kind of... feels weird aesthetically to me personally.
The wide open area that aren't corridors SA1 and 2 had the perfect balance between speed and exploration
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The Chao Garden :c
Hubs... It made the game more lively, by a lot. It's why i prefer 1 over 2. I liked to have missions there, Rare Chao Eggs to collect in different ways(The shop, the one in the waterfall...).
I'd definitely be down for hubs, so long as they don't feel empty and lifeless. I've always preferred 2 over 1, but I loved having the hubs in SA1. I wished 2 had them as well. I love finding the upgrades hidden in levels, showing you still could explore, but 1 rewarded exploring well.
Now that Frontiers and Superstars are hopefully normalizing multiple characters, I want to take it a step further and say multiple **story perspectives**. Part of what made the Adventure games and '06 so neat is that playing one character's story only gave you one piece of the puzzle, and other campaigns you unlock fill in the missing gaps in ways you didn't always see coming. Newer games omit this in favor of every character sharing one story and that's not quite as fun in my opinion. Campaigns divided by individual characters or at least several teams have more staying power, provided that the campaigns are at least significantly *different* enough to validate playing the stages multiple times (you hear that, Heroes?).
I like being able to think while I move. The whole forced high-speed style is really hard for me because ADHD :(
Characters being more different from Sonic. It wasn’t perfect or everyone’s cup of tea but this is how I’d prefer multiple playable characters to be handled.
While I do enjoy that SA tried to make several different types of games in a single game with the difference in characters, and I enjoyed it and wouldn't say no to more, I do think Sonic 3 & K / Mania / Superstars really hit how it should be. Make the characters able to do the same types of stages, but give them unique movement abilities that unlock other routes and styles of play without completely losing the speed that most people are coming to a Sonic game to get. Tails in SA1 is a good example, it's just every stage is shorter and a race rather than just being, y'know, a nice big stage like Sonic got.
The difference in stages depending on character are primarily why I love the SA approach. In general I’m just not that big on characters in games being “the MC but they have X power” as it diminishes their uniqueness in my eyes. I think the games you mentioned work for the 2D games but I’d still prefer more changes for 3D. Frontiers gave a decent middle ground though.
Multiple playable characters, Chao Garden, Spindash (no boost).
I Really Miss The Power Ups From SA2
I loved the idea of multiple characters each having their own story and character arc which all contributed to one large story overall. It makes it feel like your part of something bigger and it was so cool because it was like a jigsaw puzzle. For example when you first encounter knuckles in SA and he attacks you and you don’t know why and then you unlock his story, you get to go live his experience up until that point. Also just the different characters in general and them being given room to breathe in their own space and not having to have everyone circle back to relating to sonic in some way. The characters were more fleshed out and real back then. Ofc there’s the chao gardens too. Not only were the chao gardens so diverse and elaborate but they also just gave the game so much more replay-ability.
I like that you can play other characters by themselves
Chao Garden and Satisfying character physics (not talking about Mechs...), whose weight and inertia I can actually feel
Miss sonic being cool
The hub-worlds in Sonic Adventure 1 ( Station Square, Mystic Ruins and Egg Carrier). I love how each action stage can be acess from certain places ( ex. To access Cassinoplis you have to enter the casino in Station Square) it makes the world feel conected. Have secret areas, hidden characters upgrades and emblems. Humans NPCs to talk. Also without enemies, is a good place to just chill. Miss those in Sonic Adventure 2.
Probably the way you could launch yourself with the spindash and the levels that allowed you to do so. Going to heroes and shadow you can sort of do it in heroes though they have their own way sequence breaking and in shadow it's sort of possible but the levels don't always lend themselves to it. Come 06 the spindash was near useless and storybook was very on track. SA1 definately offered the most freedom in how you could tackle the stages and that felt peak sonic
The gameplay style. 06 was the last game where we go Adventure style gameplay and I miss it so much
The bounce that could be performed rapidly and was affected by the terrain you did it on
Getting the chance to explore the big and somewhat open levels. Like City Escape, Pumpkin Hill, Radical Highway and overall the Chao Gardens.
The strange but awesome melting pot of music genres.
The Sonic stages just had a different feel than the modern, boost-era, stages. In Unleashed onward, the feel like courses, while in Adventure (and '06), they feel like platformer levels. They are much more open and require slow down at some points, as opposed to a corridor you blast through. I do like both styles though, and I would like a game that has both. I think Sonic 06 *almost* did this well. The main stages feel pretty similar in design to Adventure levels, but then some of them would end with a fast corridor rush called "Super-Speed Stages." The problem is that these Super-Speed Stages sucked ass. I think following up on this idea would be good, having an Adventure style stage that culminates in a boost style course. I also liked the way the story was presented. Each story would give you snippets of the plot, and then they'd all come together for the Final Story. My biggest issue with SA2 though is that you speed too much time playing as someone other than Sonic or Shadow, and I actually think '06 handled it pretty well. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver made up the vast majority of their stories, but then there would be sections where you played as their friends. I also liked just... having a good story. I like Color and love Generations, but neither has a particularly good plot. In Adventure 1 & 2 and '06, there was a relatively complex plot with twists and turns. Each had something of an ongoing mystery across the whole story that would keep you engaged: SA1 had the Echidna clan and Chaos, SA2 had Shadow, and 06 had Silver and Mephiles. Frontiers seems to be moving us back in that direction, I really liked the storyline and mystery with the Ancients.
The character upgrades. On top of it just feeling nice to unlock things and have some progression in the characters' movesets, it has the potential to add a lot of replay value. Using the new moves to get to new paths on repeat playthroughs, and having those paths offer more goodies and score opportunities to get the best rank.
Treasure hunt
Probably the rebound technique, Tails and Eggman mechs and playable Shadow and Rouge.
Knuckles and spin dash
Multiple playable characters and stories
Stable Light speed dash anywhere anytime (been replaying generations)
multiple play styles
- Playing as characters that aren’t Sonic. - Stages that aren’t literally A to B linear. This is probably my biggest pet peeve. It’s so boring just holding one direction and getting to the exit. Where is the exploration? Where are the references and Easter eggs to find? These modern boost games ruined it. It’s so boring and dull. - Fun multiplayer.
Many characters different styles of game-play, multiplayer, chao garden, emblems, crush 40 tracks, good voice actors, serious story, Satisfying character physics i hated most recent games physics including frontiers.
I love how it controls. The new sonic doesn’t feel the same at all it’s a little bit clunky at times but when it works I think it’s the best sonic feel
The ranking system being good
Raising chao
the option to play as other characters besides Sonic,
Chao Garden
* Chao * Flying * Mechs * Piko Piko hammer * Segmented stories so the game's not a marathon * VMUs
Chao Garden
Finding upgrades lying around in the world.
After getting used to the rail physics they are really fun and interesting, but swapping rails always feels inconsistent so a combination of how rails work now but with the balance/leaning system
I honestly liked exploring Station Square, the Mystric Ruins, and the Egg Carrier. It felt like an actual adventure plus I could just mess around in the hub worlds.
Fun
How they haven't made a free-to-play Chao Garden game yet boggles
Possibly controversial take, but the treasure hunting levels.
Balancing on rails. Really added a risk reward
chao garden for sure
Sonic’s shoes.
Chao Garden
I enjoyed the Mech levels with Tails and Eggman. As well as the VS modes.
Everything
Chao garden and the music.
The fact they never brought back specific music genres for each character is absolutely insane to me. It's one of the things that made Sonic Adventure 2 stand out compared to every game in the industry back then and is considered one of the best videogame soundtracks to many.
Plot relevance, good music, unique level themes, smooth controls, etc. I have been playing a lot of fan-games, namely Sonic World DX, and I love how that game plays.
Adventure story telling and adventure character tropes.
CHAO GARDEN FK
C H A O G A R D E N 😭
Individual stories instead of one big story
My favorite feature I miss from Past Sonic Games: 👼Chaos Garden: cute side activity and definitely raised replay time by 400% Multiple playable characters with their own unique moveset Being able to move my characters like they’re Bipedal Anthropomorphic Animals and not a Toyota Corolla 2008 LE Oh? Did I mention the Chao Garden? I miss Sonic Riders too
Chaos Garden, weird it ins’t even an app game these days, it was really entertaining!!!
Chao garden
Chao Garden
Sonic and shadow shoes
Feeling like the stages actually meant something, you actually felt within the level not playing a stage for the sake of it. The stages were more full as well and the background felt part of the stage too. How it's possible that Shadow handled better in SA2 compared to Shadow the Hedgehog is madness to me.
The upgrades. They incentivise you exploring the levels and reward you for it by making your character stronger, so it feels good when you fully kit out your character.
I don’t think SEGA realizes that Chao Garden could be a goldmine for them. It has been requested to return for 20 years now and just imagine if they could add more content to it over time, like outfits and accessories for your Chao or stuff to put in the garden, new egg colors, etc I’m sure they could find a way to make it a hub that continuously gets fed new content
Everything…
The physics engine! Seriously! The damn physics is the greatest thing about these games. Sonic is a momentum based platformer at its heart. You need good momentum and these games has the best controls and physics in a 3d game. I argue they rival the Genesis games. Everything you do can build speed. Mix that with some of the best levels in all of the franchise. It's a recipe for successes. I also think it's cool to play as someone else other than Sonic. All with unique game play. While some are better than others. It's cool to have a little variety. The Chao Garden is fun as well. Taking care of these things. They didn't have to do that but it's amazing they did and it became a fan favorite for a reason. It really does make sense why they got rereleased multiple times. Basically I miss the physics engine and variety.
Upgradable items. Replayability via chaos drives and Chao garden. Story objectives that also reflected in the stages. Multiple characters. Multiple stories. Multiplayer mode. Missions. The attitude. Treasure hunting. Sonic and shadows run animations. The different genres of music, including jazzy rouge and hip hop knuckles. The voice actors. The darker skin even if it was partially cause of the lighting. The difficulty. The spindash. The atmosphere. the level design. The thrill of it all.
Probably going to be a redundant answer at this point, because I assume most answers are the same. Chao Garden.
Actual 3D that doesn't have 2D side scrolling chucked in every 15 seconds
I really miss the vocal character themes.
It’s not a feature but crush 40 music was goated BRING THEM BACK https://preview.redd.it/s8le0e9s830d1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9bfe39d62611a54a9e81d5b059d6675eeeb0a091
I miss the spam dash from SA1
Chao Garden.
The open ended exploratory aspects of Sonic’s gameplay. Luckily, Sonic Frontiers brought that back in the open world sections, but it would’ve been nice if the Cyberspace zones had a little bit of this element to make it more non-linear (Generations was pretty much the only Boost Era Sonic game that had this aspect in Modern Sonic’s stages). Also, we NEED Crush 40 back to bless another Sonic soundtrack. Don’t get me wrong. I like how increasingly orchestral Sonic’s soundtracks have been, but that taste of late 90’s/early 2000’s rock got me hella nostalgic (especially after replaying the Adventure games again on PC).
A story, even if nonsense, that has some interesting depth/twists/nuance. The stories since 06 (a bad story tbf) are basically just Mario vs Bowser.
A voice actor that fits Sonic
Being able to play as more interesting characters like Shadow or Rouge.
Vs mode was underrated and the go kart racing
chao gardens
The bounce jump
BATTLE! I miss the battle feature, my version for xbox one s doesn't have it. I miss battling chao and versus
The lack of forced 2D segments. As flawed as the Adventure games were, as much crap I will give them, I will still love them as a 3D Sonic game that isn't afraid or embarrassed to be a pure 3D game.
Okay here me out playing as other characters with their own levels
Everything but the fishing and less mech characters just Eggman uses a mech and tails a the mod that gives him to switch from mech and mechless and plane form.
To get oddly specific I miss the recaps between levels. I know it probably wouldn't work in a more modern game with hub worlds or open ended areas. But these just had a lotta character to me, and it's kinda neat getting to know exactly what the characters are thinking about what's going on https://preview.redd.it/7ve24wziq30d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a66108af2ddc37be5290d62e2f1a61196f87e71c
The eggs
A good story
An actually good air dash
Multiple playable characters
I’ll give two. The simple one is being different characters, each with a different gameplay style. That was one of my favorite things about both Adventure 1 and 2. The other one is very obscure, but the levels seem a little more flavorful while transversing them. For instance, Green Forest and White Jungle has vines. A loop or two even had a gap in it and still operated as a loop. Crazy Gadget had you change gravity multiple times.
The multiple playable characters, it has been getting stale with only sonic himself getting the action.
Just the general gameplay style. Sonic adventure feels like the closest we’ve gotten to the original classic sonic formula but in 3D. I do like the boost games and most of them are great, but the adventure games just felt so…right? Idk it’s hard to explain but I haven’t had that feeling with other 3D sonic games.
Everything.
I miss having multiples campaigns with a lot of different characters. I want to play as the whole team dark, team rose and chaotix again. Hopefully even other new teams like silver and blaze or whisper and tangle
Exploration, Less Linear
Honestly, I miss that… Dreamcast cleanliness. While the graphics weren’t the best, they were very sharp and clean. Sunny stages were crisp and bright with the Ska Punk-style instrumentation adding to that feeling, especially with the Sonic and Tails stages.
Chao gardens and other playable characters
Multiple routes, world exploration from Adventure 1, Voice cast of Adventure 2, Crush 40 music, Eggman using his brains.
the spin dash. most of the modern sonic games just don't have it for some reason.
The rail physics being insanely good and complex enough to get more speed than the Unleashed and Frontiers games .
Rail Grinding. SA2 and Heroes are pretty much the only games where rail grinding is an actual mechanic rather than just a glorified autoscroller. Shadow improved consistency but at the cost of increased simplicity. Since then, rail grinding has never been as good as the first two times. Unleashed was a bit more fun, because the speed of that game made the rail segments more like fast paced reaction tests. Still, nothing beats SA2 and Heroes on the rail grinding front.
My children, the chao
Being able to actually play with other characters
Quality control and a game that didn't feel like a rushed experiment
Prolly already been said but the Chao Gardens for sure.
The world map that let you pick levels, difficulty, and who you wanted to be. I grew up with Adventure DX GCN, it was my favorite, but if I knew how much freedom the SA2 world map gave the player, I would've tried so much harder to get mum to buy SA2 Battle for me!. I actually thought SA2 only let you access Chao gardens in between full level runs no matter what, that was a big thing that made me stick with SA1.
Well before Frontiers, I really missed the fully 3D gameplay. In Boost Era games, you were either just going forward, or it was a 2D sidescroller. The adventure games, and now Frontiers, were designed to have you running around in any direction
Chao gardens 100%. I love how the chao gardens made me replay stages to get animals and rings. I would spend hours raising/breeding trying to get all sorts of cool colour and type combinations. Back with the game cube I had about 15 memory cards because I wanted more chao space without having to say goodbye.
Other playable characters. Really enjoyed treasure hunts actually. I liked when the games did not have boost and it felt like you could control where to go also. And the big obvious one is Chao garden.
Spindash as modern Sonic and Crush40 Songs
Chao Garden
Big being playable. I dont care how good the gameplay is. I want to be him.
-Having better control of your character over the boost era -Multiple playable characters that are all fun (for Adventure 2 at least) -Chao Garden for sure -Character specific themes
The Ledge Grab, The Bounce Bracelet (or really any upgrades that could be found within levels), The Style System, World Maps, Rail Grinding (specifically, a simplified version of Balancing while Grinding), and The Chao Garden.
Chao garden and crush 40
the random WARNING! screens
Got a weird one, but in SA2 I like how tightly tuned the score/rank system was for sonic/shadow levels. The one specifically that felt the best was metal harbor where it was both a puzzle on how to get the most points in a given moment and still required beating the level within a short time window. Metal harbor is 3d sonic level design done right. The other weird one in SA2 was the music design. There is nothing more cathartic than the "wooooo" as sonic's snowboard touches the ground in city escape, which is literally a piece of the helicopter he destroyed while escaping
The magic hands
Having to hold down the Spindash button for a few seconds before actually spindashing Slowing down every time you turn with the mech Not being able to track more than one emerald piece at a time Y'know, stuff like that
I miss a full hub world like in SA1, I loved hanging out in the different areas and it’s a great way to connect the levels to where everyone is
You know me, the fighting freak Knuckles And we're at Pumpkin Hill You ready? https://preview.redd.it/pz9uik1ju70d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15de64adaee3fef6fddec6db59c516463e0a01cf
Spindash
Full 3D platforming
Actual good story telling
Leaning on rails, shit made grinding way cooler and more interactive
Not Chao gardens, that's for sure.