Sonic’s future is on rails
Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 4:47pm by Staff
A quick confession: I don’t think I’ve played a Sonic title since the days of Game Gear. Well, strike that, I asked for Sonic Rush for Christmas in 2005, played it once and never progressed past the first stage.
Some may think that’s a act of gross negligence (Sonic is a gaming icon, right?), but I see it as a silver lining of sorts — by not playing Sonic for so long, I missed out on all those stinkers that have dropped in the blue hedgehog’s name over the past decade or so. This includes the painful transition from 2D to 3D; a transition, if you’ll remember, that has garnered some intense debate amongst Infendo writers and readers in the past month.
But now there’s this Wii title coming out, Sonic and the Secret Rings. What’s the secret? Might be that this is the first Sonic title in a while that will not go belly up on the poopsky meter. The reason, I think, is that this title represents what Sonic should have looked like when Sonic made the jump to 3D. It’s the rails. Early Sonic’s were on a 2D rail, and it worked. It allowed the game to progress at a lightning pace. It was simple. In my opinion, 3D fully explorable environments just mucked everything up (the plethora of crappy secondary playable characters didn’t help much either). Mario, on the other hand, works in 3D because he’s a slow, chubby little plumber with a bit more character (and a better development team). Sonic, for all his fans and titles, really is a character with a one track mind: race to the finish as fast as is humanly hedgehogly possible. Of course, this could lead into a similar, but different debate altogether: Do games in this day and age *need* to be 3D to succeed, or can the side scrolling days of old make a comeback? But I won’t go into that one today.
By putting the hedgehog back on rails in a pseudo 3D environment, I think Sonic Team might have a winner on its hands. What say you, too constrictive or just right?
February 10th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
“Do games in this day and age *need* to be 3D to succeed, or can the side scrolling days of old make a comeback?”
It all depends. I think our generation (or as I like to call it, The Nintendo Generation) would love to see some sidescrollers in today’s gaming world. But the fact of the matter is that a good portion of gamers are from the Sony Generation. You’d also be surprised by how many graphics people are out there as well. It’s a nice thing to think but I doubt we’ll ever see another sidescroller epic on a console. 3D has been the way it’s been since the N64/PS1 era. It’s a shame as well.. 3d doesn’t age as well as 2d does. Look at LoZ:LTTP or Secret of Mana for instance.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
The fact that sonic team isn’t developing it gives me hope.
All the recent sonic team games have been at best mediocre which is a shame due to there well deserved awesome lineage.
I am hoping this other team that is handling sonic and the secret rings can take an objective look at sonic and see why going fast is fun.
I just hope it is as good as it could be.
February 10th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
I really enjoyed Sonic Rush, you missed out on a great game.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
The last Sonic game i touched was Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive (Genesis). i too skipped Sonic’s entire foray into 3D, and boy am i glad….but, if i had wanted seigures from seeing a 3D world flash past on my TV, i’d be all over em. unfortunately i didnt.
Ive been reading reviews on the Secret Rings game, and it looks like they have found an acceptable control scheme, but they have fudged it up with a totally bizzare story-line. “Arabian Nights” theme ? Now admittedly i had no problem with an Italian plumber, trippin on shrooms trying to save a princess from a dragon-of-sorts. but couldnt they have just recreated the levels from Sonic 1&2 for Sonic Wii ? or even use the same simple story with totally different levels ? Why combine 2 seperate themes(which are both amazing i ntheir own right mind you)..it’s like Alien vs Predator all over again.
I have downloaded Sonic 1 on the VC and absolutely loved playing through it all over again. And im definately looking forward to playing Sonic 2. Sonic and the Secret Rings….. looks interesting, but unless it’s truely worthy of being on the same shelf as Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, ill probabaly pass.
Cheers,
Hawkeye
February 10th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
The secondary characters in the first 3D Sonic games weren’t any more or less crappy than Sonic was. That’s a blatant lie!
Also: rails are probably good. Maybe people will stop whining about the gameplay now. As for the puke-inducing dialogue and voice acting: yeah, it sucked. I have nothing to say in defense of that.
Also wik: Mario > Sonic. =D
February 10th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
The rails will bring back the unbridled speed that mad Sonic one of the only contenders to Mario ever, and I think that’s great. I like Mario better, and I always will, but this is definately something I’ll rent and maybe eventually buy.
And for the record, I kind of like Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for GCN, and I like the other characters, though truthfully, they were too similar to their rival counterparts (like how Sonic and Shadow were almost exactly the same, minus the color schemes).
February 10th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
@ma5h
Sonic Team IS developing it, only this is Sonic Team Japan as opposed to Sonic Team USA who were responsible for Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic 360/PS3.
February 11th, 2007 at 1:06 am
exactly, i hope they move away from gimmicks like silver the hedgehog and shadow with guns and get back to the whole point of it, ie. speed and fun.
February 11th, 2007 at 3:51 am
I think Jack really hit the nail on the head here when he talked about “explorable environments” ruining the Sonic feel. If you remember Sonic R for Sega Saturn (which you can play on Sonic Gems Collection for GCN), the game while mainly a racer allowed players to go in any direction and sort of force the camera off the course of the game in order to find hidden areas and short cuts. The game was kind of fun overall, but the exploration element ruined the gameplay because Sonic R (and arguably all other Sonic games) was about racing- and you don’t want to stop in the middle of a race to look in a cave for a hidden passage.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Jack, you lost me the moment I read “early Sonic’s were on a 2D rail, and it worked”.
Do you honestly believe that? Because if you do, it re-inforces my belief that about half the people out there complaining about the current games haven’t played a Sonic game in years. “2D rail”? What the—? You can’t honestly believe that, because you couldn’t be more dead wrong. Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 don’t have a 2D rail system—-far from it! Everything Sonic the Hedgehog 2 onward featured multiple paths and Sonic wasn’t “forced” to go anywhere any more than any protoganist of a 2D platformer is. And for genuine on-rails platforming goodness, you can alwaus play one of the moving levels in Super Mario Bros. 3.
I’ve given up arguing with people about the “speed” of the original games. If some people want to believe that the original games were nothing but incredible non-stop speed and thereby ignore the existence of zones such as Aquatic Ruin Zone, Labyrinth Zone, Marble Zone, Metropolis Zone, Mystic Ruin Zone, Wing Fortress Zone, Casino Night Zone, Lava Reef Zone, and Sky Sanctuary Zone, then so be it.
February 11th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Heh. I just took a look at my comment above and realized that I mentioned a whole game’s worth of classic, memorable zones that aren’t fast.
February 11th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Excellent post, Jack. I, for one, liked your 2D rails similitude. Gets me excited for Rings (even having already played the game’s fun hprototype back at E3 last year).
February 11th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Poochy
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The original games were really not the all-out speed-fests that everyone thinks they were. There was a lot more platforming going on in those games. There was an occasion level that got you going, but the majority was nothing like that. Sonic Rush for the DS seemed to be the first game I played that had you running through the entire course for much of the game. I still think the original games were better, but Rush was definitely fun. Kind of like the next-gen of Sonic games in 2D.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:26 am
@Shinn: Though I mostly agree with you, I have one comment…
“It’s a nice thing to think but I doubt we’ll ever see another sidescroller epic on a console.”
The new Paper Mario game?