Professor Beef
Banned
After experiencing nearly 10 years of shitposting regarding anything Sonic related on this site, I no longer give anyone the benefit of the doubt.
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I don't understand how you're supposed to play Sonic games.
- Thread starter digitalrelic
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Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
That's more on you than
Theslammer
Member
And what do the question mark boxes do? Should I go after all of them? What does it garner for me?
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
Except we're talking about the perception of Sonic to new players and the expectations of the game as a result.
What other traits has Sonic been heavily marketed by, other than speed?
Because you could slot in any game into the op's arguments and questions and the results would be the same, as people have done in this thread.
It's just a mindset that completely ignores the fact that these games, and indeed most games, teach you how to play them in the first 5 minutes. It paints Sonic as being something incredibly obtuse when, in reality, it is perhaps the most simple platforming formula you can get. Move left to right, choose one of three paths (high, middle, low), get to the end, use special stages to get a better ending (which you find out once you beat the game without getting allt he chaos emeralds).
It's not exactly dwarf fortress.
And wtf? You don't even know what's in the blocks until you hit them? So I have to stop and hit all the blocks? But I thought I was supposed to get to the end of the level. And there's a timer too! What if I run out of time when I'm exploring? I'm confused.
"I get it" as far as you just explained it to me. I still feel it's a bunch of mechanics that don't work together, that don't play well and that are confusing as a whole since they want two completely different things from the player.
Sonic is confusing. The fast segments get stopped for obstacles and overcoming those obstacles feels bad. And now we reached the point in which this conversation becomes a circle.
Couldn't have said it better. It's part of the reason I shy away from sonic games. They tell you to go fast but then there are a billion things that get in the way that breaks your pace such as enemies, walls, spikes, moving platforms.
I got Sonic CD on steam and it made it even worse because there are like supposedly several endings and the whole time travel thing or something.
It's hard to imagine anyone expressing confusion about the classic Sonic games doing so in good faith because, and I want to reiterate this because this is the core issue, the games are braindead simple. They were designed to be played by 5 year olds.
This isn't even about liking or hating. A lot of people don't like Sonic! That's fine! People have preferences!
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
Except those arguments aren't actually making a point. The discussion here is the conflict between speed and exploration when, before you know anything about the game, the only expectation you have from Sonic is that he should go fast.
It's a discussion that's long been had specifically about Sonic and people new to the 2D games but not new to the character.
The ๖ۜBronx;246191416 said:
The perception is based on marketing.
Fans note this and discuss in detail why the marketing isn't fully representative of the games while offering insight into how they're played as has been quoted a bit above you.
People still insist that, no, Sonic is literally all about speed because marketing says so.
At some point, fans aren't going to be patient.
ScaryShark
Banned
Just like 1-1 in Mario, Green Hill Zone explains nearly all aspects of Sonic quickly and concisely.
The thing I always liked, especially as a child, compared to Mario is how much messier I could play Sonic and still progress and enjoy myself compared to Mario games. The how to play is very much up to you.
The thing I always liked, especially as a child, compared to Mario is how much messier I could play Sonic and still progress and enjoy myself compared to Mario games. The how to play is very much up to you.
Professor Beef
Banned
Finishing your sentences is on you, though
Indeed, hand any 5-year-old a Sonic game and they'll know what to do immediately. These are literally "baby's first video game", and I don't even that in a condescending way, but rather in that they are designed for literally anyone to be able to play and understand.
Glass Shark
Banned
I dont agree. As someone who had a Genesis in the house growing up and having owned Sonic 1 & 2 and playing them from time to time, I never felt like the games adequately explained what the best approach was. The fact that this thread exists is evidence of that. People going on about how speed isnt actually what the game is about, that it was just part of the marketing is absolutely crazy to me when its one of the first aspects of the game you encounter. I mean, this thread explained the concept of multiple tiers or paths in a level better than the games themselves do. Thats pretty damning to me.
Again, Im glad there are people who like these games. But you have to understand thats not everybody. I just think its really childish to look at any criticism or even questioning of the game as an attack, or shitting on the game.
MurkyZebra2417
Member
The ๖ۜBronx;246191604 said:
So, if he should go fast, but you die to obstacles because you are too fast, maybe you should go slower in certain parts? There are fast parts/paths and slower parts/paths, what is so hard to grasp?
You died because you were too fast, why would you go too fast again just because the marketing told you so? Sonic is really as basic as it gets.
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
Yeh I get the complaint to those persistent "no this is how the game should be played" responses to the fans, I feel like our lines may have crossed at some point as I was only ever talking about the question raised in the OP, which I feel is valid and far from new.
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
Grow up plz it's not that deep
NoctisVsStar
Member
Go fast and jump on things.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
I'm not a huge Sonic fan, but some of your questions are pretty ridiculous even as a newcomer to the series.
Should you be trying to kill them all or is it okay to just run past them?
You can run past enemies in most platformers aside from bosses.
Should you be seeking out every TV to smash? What rewards do these garner?
Items? Should you seek out every question box in Mario Bros?
Nothing wrong with seeking advice but you're asking people to explain Sonic to you like 5...and most people didn't have a problem figuring it out then.
Snarky(HEART)
Banned
I wonder if anyone's ever made a thread asking if you should collect all the coins in a Mario level
Magicpaint
Member
For me the appeal is a sense of speed (which is why Sonic 2 and Rush are my favourites). So exploring is something that only happens to me by chance. I don't think the controls encourage precision platforming either.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
Hey everyone, this is Dusk Golem aka AestheticGamer. I have posted on NeoGAF since 2011, and have decided to resign. I have enjoyed posting about horror games here for years, but I no longer wish to support the site and will be leaving for good. I will still be around the internet, I go by AestheticGamer on YouTube, I make games on Steam as Yai Gameworks, and I plan to go by Dusk Golem on other forums. I'll be joining an off-set of the GAF community leaving to try other ventures like ResetEra (Official Twitter for that here: https://twitter.com/reseteraforum ). I hope some of you who read this may consider it, and I plan to try to expose more people to horror games in the years to come. Just not here.
I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
I hope you all are having a good day, and know I always loved the community, and in the end it's the community I'm going to stick with, not the site itself. If you want to follow me, my official Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/AestheticGamer1
And as someone who also played the Genesis games when I was like 4, I understood going fast was a reward and making mistakes meant I get hit or have to go slower through harder sections (and that exploring beyond the normal path usually meant secrets, aka bonus stages or extra lives/ring monitors). I dunno I never had to have it explained to me.
I get that the marketing for Sonic is against this, but playing the older games and Mania it was obvious to me without it being explained that speed was earned.
Woah so that's actually a good point! I should say I've never complained about this, but i found Super Mario World super confusing when I first started playing. I was like "wait which power ups should I be using? Should I drop Yoshi? Should I focus on collecting everything or should I just be trying to get to the end in the safest route possible?"
Obviously now I know those questions were dumb because you just play it however you want, but that was my first 2D Mario, and I just didn't get it! So I guess its what you're used to.
Telephone Man
Member
This "I somehow can't play Sonic therefore it sucks" meme is tiring as hell.
digitalrelic
Banned
As has been stated several times, the themes and general character qualities of Sonic are oftentimes directly counterintiutive to the level design of the games he stars in. That's where the confusion comes from.
It's not like Mario can also sprout wings at any moment and just fly over the whole level to get to the end. If that were the case, many people would be asking "What's goal of the game? Why are there so many areas that Mario can just fly past without ever exploring?".
It's like you people are being purposefully dense about the confusion over this series' contradicting themes.
I think it's sad that when people are confronted with an open ended game they just freeze up. Play them however you choose. It's up to you to decide what you want to prioritize: running through the level as fast as possible, collecting the most rings, or even finding all of the secret goodies in a level.
And for all of those people who keep saying "Sonic is about going fast but there is a bunch of stuff in the way" I'll say this as loudly as possible so people won't miss it:
PART OF SONIC IS GOING FAST YES, BUT THAT COMES WITH PRACTICE AND LEARNING THE LEVEL LAYOUT FIRST. YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO MINDLESSLY BLAZE THROUGH STAGES UNTILL YOU HAVE ALREADY FOUND THE BEST POSSIBLE ROUTE AND HAVE PRACTICED THAT TO A T.
just like how in megaman you are expected to die many times before things get easy, here you are expected to stumble a couple of times before you know enough to go as fast as possible, beit through knowledge of cool shortcuts or gaming the level's gimmick to your advantage.
And for all of those people who keep saying "Sonic is about going fast but there is a bunch of stuff in the way" I'll say this as loudly as possible so people won't miss it:
PART OF SONIC IS GOING FAST YES, BUT THAT COMES WITH PRACTICE AND LEARNING THE LEVEL LAYOUT FIRST. YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO MINDLESSLY BLAZE THROUGH STAGES UNTILL YOU HAVE ALREADY FOUND THE BEST POSSIBLE ROUTE AND HAVE PRACTICED THAT TO A T.
just like how in megaman you are expected to die many times before things get easy, here you are expected to stumble a couple of times before you know enough to go as fast as possible, beit through knowledge of cool shortcuts or gaming the level's gimmick to your advantage.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Vipershark
Member
This thread is dumb.
Ask yourself those same questions within the context of Super Mario Bros.
Is the question now ridiculous?
There you go.
You go right and beat the game. How hard is that to figure out?
Ask yourself those same questions within the context of Super Mario Bros.
Is the question now ridiculous?
There you go.
You go right and beat the game. How hard is that to figure out?
digitalrelic
Banned
Read my post above buddy.
Snarky(HEART)
Banned
"Mario can jump to destroy blocks, but a lot of the blocks don't break when you hit them! Are you supposed to break blocks or not???!!!!"
" someone please tell me the optimal way to play this game or it's impossible for me to have any fun at all !"
" someone please tell me the optimal way to play this game or it's impossible for me to have any fun at all !"
Aenima
Member
Sonic games are about speed. Completing them fast as possible colecting as many rings as possible evetually you will have a boss fight in the end of the level and thats the only time you shouls slow down to precise attacks and move to strategic position. The level design are designed around sonic speed, so if you go too slow u cant even do certain loops and things like that. Its also a game about knowing the level design. These games was designed to be replayed alot of times, the better u know the level design of a certain stage the better you wil perform. The new and crappy 3d sonic games are diferent things.
Glass Shark
Banned
Maybe youre just smarter than me then. I mean, listen, I will give Sonic Mania a shot when it comes to PC. But the original games never clicked with me personally and the new one seems so similar that I probably wont like it either. The thing that irks me the most about the responses in this thread is so many people coming to it and saying Hey, I feel like that too! only to be dismissed as This is literally a game for children, why cant you understand it?
MurkyZebra2417
Member
The question seems to be "I GOTTA GO FAST" but there are things that kill you in the way so i can't go fast!
Without thinking about it for 5 seconds you could very well argue that the game sucks. Or you go slower and figure out the levels. I don't know anymore, seems like rocket science.
You play it however you want. It's a platformer with cool physics that you can use to your advantage.
It's less about the thrill of the challenge -- the health system renders the game fairly easy -- and more about self-betterment so that you control the game better and bump into shit less often. It's that arcadey, pinball-esque reward of becoming more efficient and faster while doing it. There's like a near-infinite skill ceiling. It's also about self-expression and exploration. Nailing ramps and tricking to higher places is a lot of fun in that skateboarding kind of way because in countless runs you'll rarely hit the same slope the same way (unless it's one of those set-piece rollercoaster moments).
I have a tough time sticking with Mario games because they feel so rigid. Mario World was the most Sonic-y of the Mario games, and it's my favorite. Likewise, I like Sonic 1 the least since it's the most Mario-y of the Sonic games.
It's less about the thrill of the challenge -- the health system renders the game fairly easy -- and more about self-betterment so that you control the game better and bump into shit less often. It's that arcadey, pinball-esque reward of becoming more efficient and faster while doing it. There's like a near-infinite skill ceiling. It's also about self-expression and exploration. Nailing ramps and tricking to higher places is a lot of fun in that skateboarding kind of way because in countless runs you'll rarely hit the same slope the same way (unless it's one of those set-piece rollercoaster moments).
I have a tough time sticking with Mario games because they feel so rigid. Mario World was the most Sonic-y of the Mario games, and it's my favorite. Likewise, I like Sonic 1 the least since it's the most Mario-y of the Sonic games.
Earthbound64
Banned
Again, my qualm isn't with people who don't like the game. Everyone is allowed to have their opinions, it's fine if the formula doesn't work for you. What I find to be the issue here is that people consider the formula to be confusing. Even the responses given to such things make little sense when in the first level of EVERY GAME, there are sections where traditional methodical platforming is required. The response of, "But I thought this game was all about speed" is literally subverted within 30 seconds of pressing start. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how people are still confused by that.
As other people have said, it's like being confused by the fact that Mario has warps, or branching paths or shortcuts or alternative exits.
Okay, all that being said.
If you're listening to people who say this, then yes, I understand your confusion because it is VEHEMENTLY not true. Hell, in Sonic 1, if all you're trying to do is go fast, you probably never finished that game.
The à¹ÛBronx
Member
You're intentionally missing the point to make another juvenile response.
The discussion is with the conflicting ideas in a Sonic game, and has been had since the first games came out. Mario has no such issue as the entire basis of his character wasn't centered around speed and going places as fast as you can.
Tarextherex
Banned
Terrible posts. Those games are actually intuitive, you switch strategies so you can do the main thing required to win(block to punish in fighters, reloading so you can keep shooting, etc). There is clearly a risk/reward.
Sonic is just unintuitive for its conflicting objectives. The levels favor exploration but the game feels better when it's just linear obstacle courses that you clear as fast as possible. Not having this crazy momentum, having to walk and jump around just feels awful. Sure you could say that you need to replay levels and such but this is the laziest implementation of arcade-style design, feeling like you play a game wrong simply doesn't motivate you to get better at it. This is a kind of flaw that GAF has difficulty to understand just because "at least those games are stylish and are actually about gameplay unlike aaa trash", Platinum games aren't gods for this reason either.
Mario(Yoshi and DK too) just feels much more intuitive. You clear the level, if you go out of your way there's some secrets to get so you 100% it. Each mechanic has a clear purpose, the exploration aspect is very natural and doesn't conflict with the game's general pacing at all. They still had very notable differences in terms of mechanics that made them not play identical to each other, even though the objectives are similar. Those games simply did a better job of communicating their design to the player, whether it's through the freaking marketing or the gameplay itself. Before yall disregard my arguments because Nintendo or something well know that I don't get Kirby either, shit just feels too aimless to be a platformer. I may not have played the defining games of either series but when they failed to properly hook me with their core gameplay loop(something that is usually very easy to do with platformers), well this doesn't encourage me to give them more chances
The ๖ۜBronx;246191820 said:
My serious question to you is, in the context of asking out of sheer confusion, do these feel like serious questions to you?
These questions basically apply to all games. Assuming OP is a 30is-year-old who hasn't played the game yet, they come across as insincere to me, and also not the kind of questions you'd ask about a game that's new to you. It's the Mini-Bread Catastrophy, but I'd like to assume the OP isn't asking if it's ok to explore in a game because they actually don't understand if it's ok.
Snarky(HEART)
Banned
The ๖ۜBronx;246192588 said:
Millions and millions of people figured out how to play sonic games just fine
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
People never understand that money and fanboysm do exist, in an era of Sega vs Nintendo war Sega needed a mascot that was comparable to Mario, so Sega and fanboys pushed Sonic as much as they could(just to be clear i don't care about sonic and mario)
Sonic (classic)games ARE bad, a good game not only let's you go fast OR collect rings OR explore if you are casual or just want to relax, a good game also let's git gud gamers go fast AND collect rings AND explore, instead in sonic games one thing excludes the others and in fact as glass shark(and many in this thread too, op included) says:
non fan/nostalgic gamers feel like there's no correct way to play it.
All of this without counting other clearly unexcusable things like the too close camera, the foreground and background often not clearly dinstinct and so on.
There are so many examples of well done gotta go fast levels in other platformers(rayman games for example), Sonic should learn from them.
Sonic (classic)games ARE bad, a good game not only let's you go fast OR collect rings OR explore if you are casual or just want to relax, a good game also let's git gud gamers go fast AND collect rings AND explore, instead in sonic games one thing excludes the others and in fact as glass shark(and many in this thread too, op included) says:
non fan/nostalgic gamers feel like there's no correct way to play it.
All of this without counting other clearly unexcusable things like the too close camera, the foreground and background often not clearly dinstinct and so on.
There are so many examples of well done gotta go fast levels in other platformers(rayman games for example), Sonic should learn from them.
Don't overthink it and don't think you will find everything the first time through, or that you are supposed to. You can go back to the levels later and explore to find the extra stuff.
Rings are just mushrooms that are a bit more forgiving because you are moving fast and there are traps that are less avoidable than in mario.
Rings are just mushrooms that are a bit more forgiving because you are moving fast and there are traps that are less avoidable than in mario.