In a review I wrote about Sonic 3D: Flickies Island I started it off with the line "There are far too many awful Sonic games" in a somewhat lazy attack at the entire franchise and its pathetic attempts to remain relevant past its Mega Drive/Genesis days. That concept in itself makes you stop and think, it is easy to simply blame the introduction of 3D gaming into the franchise for the downfall, but what if the problems were buried in the series from day one and were ignored at the time due to the foggy mist of "blast processing" and "Sega does what Nintendon't" and the general trend of gaming publications and reviews at the time being shit.
I tried to Google for some articles about classic Sonic design and I was stunned by the complete lack of content there is on the subject. There's a LOT of stuff about what Sonic games are the best, what ones are the worst, a lot of lists and that style of feature, and a lot of "what went wrong" kind pieces referring to more recent titles and some talk about what 3D Sonic games "aren't as bad as people say". It's kind of odd that every time I read something about how 3D Sonic aren't that bad there's a whiny sort of apologetic tone to the article, it's almost as though the writer knows they're wrong.
In any case, from what I've seen there's not a lot actually analysing and breaking down the original Sonic titles and concluding whether they're actually good or just a 16-bit dream held together by nostalgic energy of every 90s kid in the world. I've been playing Sonic games for over 15 years now from when I was very little, and as I get older and more cynical I'm starting to lose a lot of the respect for the word "nostalgia", to me it just resembles some low form of brain damage where the sufferer honestly expects me to value their opinion of something when they were six equally to my opinion as an adult. So nostalgia goggles are OUT THE WINDOW so let's break down the roots of this stupid franchise, starting off with a quick overview of the early games.
THE GAMES
THE GAMES
Sonic 1
When you play through the highly appealing first zone of Sonic the Hedgehog it's easy to see why Sega decided to can the archaic Alex Kidd and hop in the Sonic armour to fight Mario. However, Sonic 1 is the game that fanboys try to not talk about too much about because it's kind of rubbish, when you get past Green Hill Zone the game turns into some kind of preserve waiting room simulator. Marble Zone mostly involves standing on floating blocks, Spring Yard Zone mostly involves getting bounced back off stuff and waiting on vertical scrolling platforms waiting to jump on more stuff, and the Labyrinth Zone is quite possibly the most obnoxious water level in any game ever. Just stop and think about how strong that statement is...
Looking at it retroactively and completely unfairly, it's ridiculous that the need for a "spindash" move didn't occur to Sonic Team right away. Getting hit and losing all of your momentum in Sonic 1, especially if near a sleep slope or loop de loop is a nightmare of backtracking and building your speed back up which completely murders the already tedious pace of the game. There are also the horrible game design sins of having a low amount of lives with no continues and getting instakilled by getting hit and falling into spikes.
The game has its charms and it's not hard to see why kids took to it as strongly as they did, but honestly it's way harder to see the good in Sonic 1 than the bad playing it today. You'll notice I stop listing the zones at the Labyrinth when there's another two after that, that's pretty much because I rage quit this game during one of those four zones every single time I give it another go. It's hard to invest yourself in making progress when all you know that's waiting for you is the Starlight Zone which is somehow even more annoying. We'll get back into difficulty progression a little later on.
Sonic 2
On top of fixing a lot of the stuff I just bitched about, Sonic 2 is a much more streamlined game in general. For the most part the game is a far simpler method of just running to the right until you win aside from a few gimmicks to distract you. You could hang out in the slot machines in Casino Night Zone if you wanted, and you could go sightseeing on the little ski lift things in Hill Top Zone or you could just jump to the bottom and get where you need to go YOU PONCE. Out of all the traditional 2D Sonic games, this is the best one to do a speed run of.
There's one thing I despise about this game specifically though. Now, the inclusion of Tails wasn't a bad idea, despite his infamously and hilariously awful AI he had gameplay benefits of helping collect lost rings or getting an extra hit on a boss, but one place he should have been cut from the game was the special stages. Even though this game is my favourite Sonic game overall (how much that statement means if anything will be clarified as we go) it's the one I've never bothered to get the chaos emeralds since I did it once for the sake of bragging rights.
Tails just runs into bombs on the special stage and screws you over constantly, not having him at all and making it harder to collect rings would have been FAR preferable to giving him to ability to take rings for you then lose them....as playing this game with the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge attached proves. I'm sure someone will argue that not knowing how to steer Tails around the special stage (which shouldn't be part of the game in the first place) is just me being crap at the game but I DON'T CARE it's just not any fun to go through this crap and the true ending isn't that good anyway.
And on a more general overview sort of note, there's something a bit....sexless about Sonic 2 which is hard to put your finger on. Graphically it's stuck between the adorable simplicity of the first game and the console pushing loveliness of the third game, and there's probably the least zone diversity here. In Sonic 1 and 3 the game felt like you were taken to a different world with each zone, aside a few standout stages Sonic 2 just feels like a big obstacle course. It's probably the reason why a lot of people claim to like Sonic 3 more even though they don't and I can prove it. STAY TUNED.
Sonic CD
I'm not going to talk about Sonic CD too much because it's a diversion from the main series with mechanics that were never returned to, and it was on the Sega CD meaning only about 3 people at the time actually played it...plus this game is just weird. I never got the time travel concept, the special stages are definitely among the most hideous and annoying in the series and the level design deserves some kind of award for how obnoxious it is. I swear there are entire stages where you're just constantly bouncing off every single surface until you get catapulted into the level exit.
Sonic 3
This is one of those lovely "late gen" games where you can tell the developers really have mastered the platform they're working with and max it out. It's possibly the best looking Mega Drive/Genesis (and I'm going to say Mega Drive from now on and you yanks will just have to deal with it) game out there and has my personal favourite soundtracks and levels in the entire series. Having said that, this game is a complete mess, it's almost disturbing how incoherent this game is. WE ARE SO GETTING BACK TO THIS STICK WITH ME.
Sonic & Knuckles
It's fairly well known that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally supposed to be one huge game and developmental issues caused the game to be cut into two. But before anyone tries to defend the latter title for being an "add-on", it was sold as a full price game at the time and absolutely has to hold up on its own merits to be considered "good". And yea, it doesn't.
There's barely enough good ideas between Sonic 3 and Knuckles to support ONE game let alone two, and S&K definitely got the raw deal here. What was your favourite zone from this game? The one you can't remember? That other one you can't remember? The one with the giant mushrooms? Well that's the first one...that's just cheating; bet you don't know it by name though...
Well that's my cards laid out so you know my general standing on each game individually, let's get into the nitty gritty though. Since it's less fun to talk about (and there's significantly less of it) let's get the good out of the way.
THE GOOD
Graphics/Music
Simple enough point to start off with, the audiovisual presentation of Sonic games even to this day has pretty much always been outstanding. Even Sonic 2006 has a pretty good soundtrack. As previously mentioned the art style used for Sonic 3 & Knuckles make them among the best looking games of the time and all of the games have aged extremely well compared to the majority of their Mega Drive brethren.
The general character design and "lore" if it can be called that is all appealing as well, there's something inexplicably adorable about storing rings and powerups in little TVs in a colourful cartoon world and the little "WU-WUP" noise when you catch an air bubble. Although the sprites for Sonic 1 and 2 are a little weird though, Sonic looks SO PISSED OFF all the time in those games like Tails' rotational motion is constantly blowing fart gas into his face. They designed him in the games afterwards to get him a little smirk and more "attitude", which was preferable at the time but bear in mind this was before they started letting him talk.
Oh yes, and the soundtracks, MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE THEMES INCLUDE: Labyrinth Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Casino Night Zone, Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone, the Sonic 3 Final Boss and as a special guilty pleasure I really enjoy the tune from the "Gumball Machine" bonus game. WHY NOT SHARE SOME OF YOUR FAVOURITES IN THE COMMENTS TOO?! (Disclaimer: Don't really do this, no-one cares)
When you play through the highly appealing first zone of Sonic the Hedgehog it's easy to see why Sega decided to can the archaic Alex Kidd and hop in the Sonic armour to fight Mario. However, Sonic 1 is the game that fanboys try to not talk about too much about because it's kind of rubbish, when you get past Green Hill Zone the game turns into some kind of preserve waiting room simulator. Marble Zone mostly involves standing on floating blocks, Spring Yard Zone mostly involves getting bounced back off stuff and waiting on vertical scrolling platforms waiting to jump on more stuff, and the Labyrinth Zone is quite possibly the most obnoxious water level in any game ever. Just stop and think about how strong that statement is...
Looking at it retroactively and completely unfairly, it's ridiculous that the need for a "spindash" move didn't occur to Sonic Team right away. Getting hit and losing all of your momentum in Sonic 1, especially if near a sleep slope or loop de loop is a nightmare of backtracking and building your speed back up which completely murders the already tedious pace of the game. There are also the horrible game design sins of having a low amount of lives with no continues and getting instakilled by getting hit and falling into spikes.
The game has its charms and it's not hard to see why kids took to it as strongly as they did, but honestly it's way harder to see the good in Sonic 1 than the bad playing it today. You'll notice I stop listing the zones at the Labyrinth when there's another two after that, that's pretty much because I rage quit this game during one of those four zones every single time I give it another go. It's hard to invest yourself in making progress when all you know that's waiting for you is the Starlight Zone which is somehow even more annoying. We'll get back into difficulty progression a little later on.
Sonic 2
On top of fixing a lot of the stuff I just bitched about, Sonic 2 is a much more streamlined game in general. For the most part the game is a far simpler method of just running to the right until you win aside from a few gimmicks to distract you. You could hang out in the slot machines in Casino Night Zone if you wanted, and you could go sightseeing on the little ski lift things in Hill Top Zone or you could just jump to the bottom and get where you need to go YOU PONCE. Out of all the traditional 2D Sonic games, this is the best one to do a speed run of.
There's one thing I despise about this game specifically though. Now, the inclusion of Tails wasn't a bad idea, despite his infamously and hilariously awful AI he had gameplay benefits of helping collect lost rings or getting an extra hit on a boss, but one place he should have been cut from the game was the special stages. Even though this game is my favourite Sonic game overall (how much that statement means if anything will be clarified as we go) it's the one I've never bothered to get the chaos emeralds since I did it once for the sake of bragging rights.
Tails just runs into bombs on the special stage and screws you over constantly, not having him at all and making it harder to collect rings would have been FAR preferable to giving him to ability to take rings for you then lose them....as playing this game with the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge attached proves. I'm sure someone will argue that not knowing how to steer Tails around the special stage (which shouldn't be part of the game in the first place) is just me being crap at the game but I DON'T CARE it's just not any fun to go through this crap and the true ending isn't that good anyway.
And on a more general overview sort of note, there's something a bit....sexless about Sonic 2 which is hard to put your finger on. Graphically it's stuck between the adorable simplicity of the first game and the console pushing loveliness of the third game, and there's probably the least zone diversity here. In Sonic 1 and 3 the game felt like you were taken to a different world with each zone, aside a few standout stages Sonic 2 just feels like a big obstacle course. It's probably the reason why a lot of people claim to like Sonic 3 more even though they don't and I can prove it. STAY TUNED.
Sonic CD
I'm not going to talk about Sonic CD too much because it's a diversion from the main series with mechanics that were never returned to, and it was on the Sega CD meaning only about 3 people at the time actually played it...plus this game is just weird. I never got the time travel concept, the special stages are definitely among the most hideous and annoying in the series and the level design deserves some kind of award for how obnoxious it is. I swear there are entire stages where you're just constantly bouncing off every single surface until you get catapulted into the level exit.
Sonic 3
This is one of those lovely "late gen" games where you can tell the developers really have mastered the platform they're working with and max it out. It's possibly the best looking Mega Drive/Genesis (and I'm going to say Mega Drive from now on and you yanks will just have to deal with it) game out there and has my personal favourite soundtracks and levels in the entire series. Having said that, this game is a complete mess, it's almost disturbing how incoherent this game is. WE ARE SO GETTING BACK TO THIS STICK WITH ME.
Sonic & Knuckles
It's fairly well known that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally supposed to be one huge game and developmental issues caused the game to be cut into two. But before anyone tries to defend the latter title for being an "add-on", it was sold as a full price game at the time and absolutely has to hold up on its own merits to be considered "good". And yea, it doesn't.
There's barely enough good ideas between Sonic 3 and Knuckles to support ONE game let alone two, and S&K definitely got the raw deal here. What was your favourite zone from this game? The one you can't remember? That other one you can't remember? The one with the giant mushrooms? Well that's the first one...that's just cheating; bet you don't know it by name though...
Well that's my cards laid out so you know my general standing on each game individually, let's get into the nitty gritty though. Since it's less fun to talk about (and there's significantly less of it) let's get the good out of the way.
THE GOOD
Graphics/Music
Simple enough point to start off with, the audiovisual presentation of Sonic games even to this day has pretty much always been outstanding. Even Sonic 2006 has a pretty good soundtrack. As previously mentioned the art style used for Sonic 3 & Knuckles make them among the best looking games of the time and all of the games have aged extremely well compared to the majority of their Mega Drive brethren.
The general character design and "lore" if it can be called that is all appealing as well, there's something inexplicably adorable about storing rings and powerups in little TVs in a colourful cartoon world and the little "WU-WUP" noise when you catch an air bubble. Although the sprites for Sonic 1 and 2 are a little weird though, Sonic looks SO PISSED OFF all the time in those games like Tails' rotational motion is constantly blowing fart gas into his face. They designed him in the games afterwards to get him a little smirk and more "attitude", which was preferable at the time but bear in mind this was before they started letting him talk.
Oh yes, and the soundtracks, MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE THEMES INCLUDE: Labyrinth Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Casino Night Zone, Angel Island Zone, Hydrocity Zone, the Sonic 3 Final Boss and as a special guilty pleasure I really enjoy the tune from the "Gumball Machine" bonus game. WHY NOT SHARE SOME OF YOUR FAVOURITES IN THE COMMENTS TOO?! (Disclaimer: Don't really do this, no-one cares)
Bosses
Now obviously this point varies from game to game and boss fight to boss fight, but overall I think they are a strong part of the early franchise. A lot of the fights suffer from being far too easy and a lot of them have exploits to kill them almost instantly...and in the case of Sonic 2 this goes for most of them. Generally speaking, I feel like a lot of the Robotnik machines have really interesting designs and offer a lot of memorable battles that actually help define the stages in your mind better than the actual level design does. The Final Boss of Sonic 2 is arguably to this day still the most iconic moment of the entire series.
To be honest though, my main reason for bringing them up is because they're one of the very few gameplay aspects of these titles that aren't constantly annoying.
Rings
For the surprisingly low amount of criticism aimed at the early Sonic titles, I've actually heard a lot of people comment on the idea of using rings for the health system being really stupid. Honestly, I think rings are the best idea this franchise has ever had, not that they couldn't also be massively improved....I'll explain.
For starters Sonic games absolutely need some variation of a health system, the main reason that all the Sonic rip off titles like Bubsy and...*sigh* Awesome Possum completely sucked was because the game would just kill you if you ran into stuff, and running into stuff is going to happen a lot with these games so that's bloody stupid. Having multiple hits or a health bar doesn't help much more either, it doesn't solve the issue really it just makes it -slightly- more forgiving.
So what Sonic Team went for was a system where the player would pick up health items as they go as a shield, which would be taken away on hit scattering all that he/she had collected. What I like about this system, at least in theory, is the panic and the struggle that comes from desperately chasing after the rings once they're bouncing away, this can be especially tense on a boss battle where you know you're not going to be getting any more to replace them. It's a system that makes every hit matter in very visual and panic inducing manner.
But here's where the criticism comes in. If getting hit takes away ALL of your rings no matter how many you have and one ring has the same protective qualities as hundreds, what's the point of avoiding hits or collecting more rings? You could just make sure you have one ring, and if you take a hit just grab one real quick and you're just as safe, who cares right? Well, this is where the chaos emeralds come in.
Chaos emeralds are also a clever idea the series had, they're big shiny rocks that are challenging to get and they get you the true ending and later on Super Sonic, but aside from all that you just want them. I think Sonic 1 actually has the best idea for getting the emeralds and this ties into the potential strength of the rings system, in which if you manage to get to the end of a stage with 50 rings there's a big giant hula hoop waiting for you that you can hop into and make a try for the emerald.
So here you have a system where you can take hits and survive with one ring and still make it to the end with little fanfare, but a strong desire built into game to not get hit at all because you're going for the true ending and you want all the rings you can get. Let's compare this to a modern example of a game that does this really well, namely the wonderful Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii.
In that game Kirby doesn't die at all, I'm pretty sure it is literally impossible to die, but instead your medal for passing the level (of which getting good medals unlocks goodies) is evaluated by the amount of collectibles you pick up on the way. It really turns Epic Yarn into a much deeper game, for people who just want to casually mosey on through it you have a charming and entirely non-frustrating experience, and for those wanting a challenge and going for the golds you suddenly have a much more intense experience of making sure nothing hits you. Sonic games could have achieved this effect 20 years ago, and the building blocks to do so were definitely there.
"Could have" you say?! What did they do wrong then? I'm going to keep talking about this but I think we're pretty much done with talking about the "good" of Sonic now, so here's a cut off line to end this bit.
Now obviously this point varies from game to game and boss fight to boss fight, but overall I think they are a strong part of the early franchise. A lot of the fights suffer from being far too easy and a lot of them have exploits to kill them almost instantly...and in the case of Sonic 2 this goes for most of them. Generally speaking, I feel like a lot of the Robotnik machines have really interesting designs and offer a lot of memorable battles that actually help define the stages in your mind better than the actual level design does. The Final Boss of Sonic 2 is arguably to this day still the most iconic moment of the entire series.
To be honest though, my main reason for bringing them up is because they're one of the very few gameplay aspects of these titles that aren't constantly annoying.
Rings
For the surprisingly low amount of criticism aimed at the early Sonic titles, I've actually heard a lot of people comment on the idea of using rings for the health system being really stupid. Honestly, I think rings are the best idea this franchise has ever had, not that they couldn't also be massively improved....I'll explain.
For starters Sonic games absolutely need some variation of a health system, the main reason that all the Sonic rip off titles like Bubsy and...*sigh* Awesome Possum completely sucked was because the game would just kill you if you ran into stuff, and running into stuff is going to happen a lot with these games so that's bloody stupid. Having multiple hits or a health bar doesn't help much more either, it doesn't solve the issue really it just makes it -slightly- more forgiving.
So what Sonic Team went for was a system where the player would pick up health items as they go as a shield, which would be taken away on hit scattering all that he/she had collected. What I like about this system, at least in theory, is the panic and the struggle that comes from desperately chasing after the rings once they're bouncing away, this can be especially tense on a boss battle where you know you're not going to be getting any more to replace them. It's a system that makes every hit matter in very visual and panic inducing manner.
But here's where the criticism comes in. If getting hit takes away ALL of your rings no matter how many you have and one ring has the same protective qualities as hundreds, what's the point of avoiding hits or collecting more rings? You could just make sure you have one ring, and if you take a hit just grab one real quick and you're just as safe, who cares right? Well, this is where the chaos emeralds come in.
Chaos emeralds are also a clever idea the series had, they're big shiny rocks that are challenging to get and they get you the true ending and later on Super Sonic, but aside from all that you just want them. I think Sonic 1 actually has the best idea for getting the emeralds and this ties into the potential strength of the rings system, in which if you manage to get to the end of a stage with 50 rings there's a big giant hula hoop waiting for you that you can hop into and make a try for the emerald.
So here you have a system where you can take hits and survive with one ring and still make it to the end with little fanfare, but a strong desire built into game to not get hit at all because you're going for the true ending and you want all the rings you can get. Let's compare this to a modern example of a game that does this really well, namely the wonderful Kirby's Epic Yarn on the Wii.
In that game Kirby doesn't die at all, I'm pretty sure it is literally impossible to die, but instead your medal for passing the level (of which getting good medals unlocks goodies) is evaluated by the amount of collectibles you pick up on the way. It really turns Epic Yarn into a much deeper game, for people who just want to casually mosey on through it you have a charming and entirely non-frustrating experience, and for those wanting a challenge and going for the golds you suddenly have a much more intense experience of making sure nothing hits you. Sonic games could have achieved this effect 20 years ago, and the building blocks to do so were definitely there.
"Could have" you say?! What did they do wrong then? I'm going to keep talking about this but I think we're pretty much done with talking about the "good" of Sonic now, so here's a cut off line to end this bit.
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Anyway, there are two issues that stop the rings mechanic from functioning as well as it could. 1) You get hit way too many times 2) getting hit does take away ALL of your rings. Now, if only ONE of these two things were true it would still be manageable if a little unforgiving but the fact that they're both true in ALL FOUR games just makes this whole thing a grind. Point 1 is a general design issue that we'll get into but the second point seems like something that could have been easily solved.
Say that the game made you lose, let's just say 20 rings and they all fly out in different directions so getting them all back is borderline impossible. If the levels were designed to have fewer rings, and there were only 150-200 in the entire stage (keeping in mind a lot of those are on multiple paths or hidden) then requiring that you need to obtain and more importantly retain those rings then losing 20 for a silly mistake is a HUGE deal. So you still don't have the frustration of instakill being a constant issue, you still have the huge consequence of getting hit, you still have the panic of chasing after scattering rings but getting the emeralds suddenly doesn't feel like a borderline impossible chore any more.
Here's an entirely made up and scaleless graph to illustrate how a run through of a challenging Sonic level by a skilled player going for the true ending should look like with these changes:
What...what the....WHAT IS THIS!? What kind of shambles operation do you think we run here?! DO IT BETTER.
The point is, it's much preferable if the challenge of collecting rings is based around a consistently strong playthrough of gathering and retaining the rings with a little bit of leeway so the player can still afford a couple of hits. As supposed to the method Sonic Team went for, which was to allow the player to potentially tons of rings, but fill the levels with barely avoidable deathtraps and enemies to constantly take ALL of them away. It's a system built around frustration and punishment and not survival or a genuine challenge.
I'll say this as a footnote, maybe there was some kind of technical limitation that didn't allow them to play around this rings so much (the games do have slowdown issues when large amounts of ring are dropped) but considering Sonic Team have only recently figured out to not take away all your rings I'm assuming they just didn't think of it.
Going For Emeralds
Getting the emeralds in Sonic 1 is work, the game always gives you very few opportunities to let your hair down and have a fast paced platforming/running section, and if you're going for the emeralds it even takes that away from you as you constantly stop yourself to make sure you don't run into some barely unavoidable enemy or pit of spikes. Even if you're a boss and get all six emeralds in the first six possible levels to do so then CONGRATS you're now on the Labyrinth Zone where what little pace the game has is swiftly murdered anyway. Oh, and it's Sonic 1 so you have no continues and very few lives, so don't think about killing yourself to give your bonus attempts on getting 50 rings in a level by the way.
Now I'm not picking on Sonic 1 exclusively here, but I want to demonstrate how unnatural the developments in the rings system were in the future teams which really communicates to me that Sonic Team really didn't know what to do with this. In Sonic 2 their solution to the problems I just highlighted was to move the giant hula hoop away from the end of the stage to the checkpoints. But that's even worse, first off the game isn't even trying to make achieving the special stages challenging any more, it also adds this bizarre element to gameplay where you could end up backtracking to find a checkpoint to access what is supposed to be a bonus stage. Make obtaining 50 rings and getting through the level holding on to them the challenge or don't, don't turn it into "oh just find 50 rings laying around and return them to whatever checkpoint you find QUICK BEFORE YOU GET HIT, RUN AWAY FROM THE ENEMIES, PROGRESS AND THE END OF THE LEVEL FOR THE SAKE OF EMERALDS. There's just not enough structured challenge to it for my taste. And as I said near the top, I hate the special stages in Sonic 2 too, so my motivation to get the emeralds is particularly zero in this game anyway.
I will concede that a lot of people might disagree with me on Sonic 2s emerald system and could make a fair argument for why moving the goal away from the end of the stage to the middle was a better move. But I will not budge an inch on how Sonic 3 handled obtaining the emeralds, this feels like Sonic Team just gave up. They threw out the necessity of rings for emeralds all together and just hid the giant hula hoops in random rooms scattered across the levels.
So now, all those issues I mentioned with rings earlier and how balancing them with the need for chaos emeralds was a good concept? All that's out the window, and all the criticisms of the rings system are more valid than ever. You do only need one ring the entire game, and getting hit isn't important any more, and there's really no reason to even bother worrying about having more rings. Oh sure, with a certain amount of rings you can play like minigames on the checkpoints, what do the minigames get you? MORE RINGS. Oh great, I can waste 15 minutes dicking in a slot machines and get 100s of rings, I still lose ALL of them the second I get hit you silly game.
Okay, 100 rings gets you an extra life, I'm not going to get into details here as it's more of a general game design philosophy of mine as opposed to anything to do with Sonic but I think for the most part lives systems in console games are bloody stupid. Feel free to argue that hoarding 100s of rings to bulk up on extra lives you probably won't even need is a totally valid design choice, but I'll remind you that the other games did that too and even then the rings system still had some balance issues. How does Sonic 3 attempt to make rings a relevant part of the game? By drowning you in rings, yes it's the New Super Mario 2 method 20 years ahead of its time, just dunk the player in a big vat of collectibles and cheap achievements and maybe they won't notice how pointless it all is.
In any event, remember that graph I used to demonstrate how a strong rings system would function in a better designed game? Well, here's pretty much how it looks for the average level in Sonic 3 & Knuckles:
Mmmhmm, clearly this is the product of an important mechanic in a brilliantly designed game. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm bored of going on about rings now, let's move into something more juicy.
"Sonic 3 is a complete mess"
I'm sure there is at least one reader who has been shaking their beady little fists since they read this statement a few thousand words ago. Well, I'M GETTING BACK TO IT, Sonic 3 & Knuckles IS a complete mess.
Let me put it this way, if I said to you "You know what would be awesome, A METROIDVANIA STYLE SONIC GAME" you would probably slap me around the face in fear that I was speaking in tongues, or alternatively that actually sounds like a good idea to you in which case slap yourself around the face you silly silly little person. Sonic 3 is ALMOST that, and it's such a bizarre design choice I can't believe it doesn't get called out on it more often.
Let's look at this, there's multiple characters with multiple abilities to allow them to access different areas, there's in the inclusion of new power ups, there's multiple paths in the vast majority of the stages, and the hidden special stage rings encourage exploration and checking areas for passages/collectibles/etc. More importantly though, none of this is done even remotely well. Let's run through them quick.
Multiple Characters
First off, the fact Sonic has no unique abilities whatsoever sucks, the other characters aren't any slower and although I think they have slightly smaller jumps they can fly and climb walls so who cares. The Sonic/Knuckles thing is a massive gimmick anyway, running through these two games as either character is pretty much the same apart from the occasional wall of rocks that Knuckles can punch for. And Tails can pretty fly over half the levels and make them pointless, so it's a bleh effort all round.
Power Ups
There's three new power ups in this which are a change from Sonic 1 and 2 which gave you a shield that would take one hit for you. It was a good idea in those games because protecting your rings was really important because you needed rings for emeralds. As we've already discussed, this isn't important in Sonic 3 because having rings is basically pointless. So instead there's gimmick shields with the lightning shield that sucks up rings and provides a double jump, the fire shield that gives you a forward dash attack in the air, and a bubble shield that allows you to breathe underwater and gives you a bounce jump. Notice the choice of words earlier, "change" and not "evolution" or "development". It's just different, in reality these shields add nothing to the game.
You know that cutscene at the start of the New Super Mario Bros games where the new power ups get catapulted into the world, apparently because Mario fanboys are so unfamiliar with the concept of new ideas Nintendo feels like they need a cutscene explaining it so their heads don't explode, well that's what I imagine the Sonic Team designers actually did when putting the levels together in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The power ups are just THERE it's ridiculous, I swear there's a section in the Marble Garden Zone where the game gives you the lightning shield despite it having no purpose, then gives you the fire shield 15 seconds later, then immediately gives you the lightning shield again.
Literally the only time I remember these things having a purpose is in the Hydrocity Zone the designer had the genius idea of giving you the bubble shield underwater, that means sense. Why didn't they incorporate these new powers into the level design IN ANY WAY, oh I'll tell you why, it's because this is a Sonic game and you lose this stuff in one hit, and that one hit is probably coming sooner than later so let's not give these things too much weight. You know in Mario 3 when you lose the raccoon tail on any level for any reason your reaction is always NNNOOOOOO URRGHHHHH, well you never feel that in Sonic 3....ever....
And also on a more petty note, the fire shield can piss right off, getting it accidentally in later levels through a bonus stage or any other method is sometimes a kiss of death on levels where there's huge pits. I'm constantly terrified of accidentally tapping jump twice and launches myself into the nearest hole/spikes when I have it on. I seriously have deliberately got hit in these games for the sole purpose of getting rid of the fire shield because it is not worth the risk, so in conclusion Sonic 3 & Knuckles don't get any bonus points for coming up with new items.
This is a map for ONE Act from Sonic 3, look at this madness!
Multiple Paths/Exploration
Only, realest possible talk, all the stuff I've talked about so far I do genuinely think is bad and evidence of poor and somewhat inconsistent design, but I do concede that it is somewhat nitpicky and not a huge deal to a lot of people. However, THIS is where the game just dies for me and this is why I refer to these games as a complete mess.
Only, realest possible talk, all the stuff I've talked about so far I do genuinely think is bad and evidence of poor and somewhat inconsistent design, but I do concede that it is somewhat nitpicky and not a huge deal to a lot of people. However, THIS is where the game just dies for me and this is why I refer to these games as a complete mess.
Here's the thing about exploration, it's supposed to be FUN and more importantly it's supposed to be a CHOICE. Nothing about Sonic 3 & Knuckles is a choice, you make some kind of error and the game kicks you down an alternative path. You know how in Earthworm Jim there were multiple paths with a little signpost pointing out the hard way and the easy way, now of course the majority of gamers are going to go the hard way because WE ARE MEN (sorry ladies, but you probably weren't playing Earthworm Jim in the mid 90s). Sonic 3s version of that is to kick you down the easy path and then laugh at you for it.
There's no direction, there's nothing to distinguish the routes from one another, there's no decisions to be made, the levels in Sonic 3 & Knuckles are huge and sprinkled with special stages like they're designed to be explored, but there is no exploration here. Sonic 3 & Knuckles aren't about achieving a certain goal or connecting to the player through any meaningful context. It just kicks you down holes, pushes you off moving platforms, leaves around troll springs to knock you backwards just to hold the player in something resembling gameplay for a couple of minutes until the level mercifully throws you into the end of the stage.
Another issue with all this, the levels are far too vertical for their own good, I remember this being really confusing to me as a kid. The goal in all other platform games, and also apparently this one is to run to the right and beat the level, so why are the majority of levels filled with alternative paths that lead to the top of the screen? It's a lot of work for an unclear reward, and sometimes there is no reward, it's just another way you can go. Before anyone tries to play this card against this criticism, it WOULD add to replay value if the game had direction and choice and distinguished alternative paths, perhaps certain characters or power ups would lead you down certain paths for different experiences. But no, the characters are just there, the power ups are just there and the multiple paths feel more like punishments for errors than exciting new journeys for the player to advance to.
Really this is the damnation of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, as stated it's bad enough that Sonic Team squeezed out two games when there were barely enough good ideas for one game, but ultimately the games are just a bunch of stuff in a box. Rings, emeralds, power ups, multiple characters, minigames, multiple paths, level gimmicks and the excessive length of the games combined utterly fail to mesh together in any way that resembles an experience. As implied earlier, Sonic 3 almost tricks people into thinking it's a better game than Sonic 2, it starts off with two kickass zones with new cutscenes and a storyline and art style, but as a total package it falls flat.
And if you don't agree, go play and finish Sonic 3 and Knuckles back to back, and try to tell yourself that there's enough content to fill that amount of gameplay time, and also that the issues and frustrations don't start to claw away at your brain by the time you're done with them.
Difficulty Progression
Let me ask you something, what is your favourite zone in the classic Sonic games? Now I don't mean your favourite theme, or look of a level or music, I mean your favourite zone to actually play. It's Hydrocity Zone for me, Sonic Team had a great idea that the best way to make a water level tolerable was to turn it into a big water park. But the point is, I'm certain that whatever you just said was within the first handful of zones in one of the games.
The problem here is how do you actually make a game like Sonic more challenging? As people rightfully point out (and misuse as a defence of Sonic 1) you can't just have a game where you hold right and Sonic literally just runs through the level that would get old very quickly. But getting stopped sucks, so where is the middle ground? Don't ask Sonic Team, because they never figured it out. All four of these games get more annoying as they go along when the game actually needs to start throwing hazards in, and not more "challenging",
The first few levels of any given Sonic game (and this is still true to this day) are the early ones where you can just speed through them, but when enemies and level designs actually require some input on your part the game quickly turns into stop and start. It's a game where you constantly want to move but as it goes on the restrictions on this only get worse and worse. One of the big issues is that Sonic gets knocked back and stunned when he gets hit like Castlevania or Mega Man. When it's worth noting that in Mario, which Sonic has far more in common with, when the player gets hit and they aren't already small Mario actually keeps going after the game pauses for a brief second as the shrinking animation and noise plays to clearly indicate you've made an error.
Although it certainly wouldn't fix everything, Sonic would be better off with something like that. Maybe he gets hit and a little trippy animation plays where he rolls over with his momentum still going as the rings fly out and then rolls back onto his feet at a reduced speed. Then the player has the decision to keep going or come to a stop and scramble for the rings they've lost, which would be important if they were still necessary for emerald acquisition.
But that still wouldn't stop the player falling into pits, and it wouldn't make things any more challenging for players who just want to run through the game quickly. Sonic Teams other method of "challenge" without just squashing the player is to waste their time. Sounds fun right, but what is the deal with the gimmicks in the Mushroom something something zone at the start of Sonic & Knuckles? There's stuff that sticks to you, dudes that throw mushrooms that send you flying back, lifts that take an age to use and are completely boring and birds that don't hurt you but blow you backwards. ALL of these games are filled with stuff like this, random troll springs and other bounce pads or balls that just bounce you backwards for no reason, it's like the game tries to draw you in with aspirations of speed and then takes perverse pleasure in deliberately wasting your time.
A game that handles this a lot better is LocoRoco on the PSP, now it's not exactly a game about speed you actually don't even have direct control of the little blobs you're controlling. What the game does very well that Sonic doesn't is the juxtaposition between challenging and tight platforming sections and bits where the LocoRocos just slide around and dance and so on. The appropriately short levels would often start with a bit of slow but simple platforming, then give a section where the LocoRocos break up and you get put in a good mood as they slide around some and fall in kind of water wheel or fly around on dandelions singing the entire time, and follow that with a far tougher section which would be awarded by another fun slide to the level exit. Sonic only does this decently in the early levels when there isn't the need to challenge, from the midpoint of the game onwards it just start and stop, start and stop, start and stop until you either die, beat the level or pass out due to boredom.
Now I'm going to pose a question that I have struggled to answer, and I'm sure many of you reading this won't have a good answer for it either. Here we go:
I've been playing Sonic games since I was a little kid, why oh why, do I never seem to get better at them?
I don't consider myself to be amazing at games but I'm pretty competent and I'm a quick learner, I can breeze through pretty much any of the Mega Mans, Castlevanias not too bad for me for the majority of the game, I can blow through any Mario game and so on and so forth. With my Mega Drive heavy childhood, I've played Sonic games way more than any of the above games combined I particularly know Sonic 2 off by heart....why do I never seem to improve?
Running through Sonic 2 for the purposes of writing this, I don't know if there is a way to "improve". The only way to get through a Sonic game with no errors is take it slow screen by screen, but everything about the design such as the momentum and the regular appearance of slopes, springs, running shoes and loop de loops contradict this mentality so I end up running into stuff anyway. I swear to God, there are enemies later on in Sonic 2 that are literally IMPOSSIBLE to avoid especially on a first try. Metropolis Zone (all three acts) is a constantly frustrating mess of enemies teleporting on to the screen and getting an instant hit on you with their attacks. There's a section where a set of springs sends you flying into a grasshopper guy and he attacks before you can possibly hit the ground, I tried it four times he got a hit on me in the same place every time.
Let me ask you something, what is your favourite zone in the classic Sonic games? Now I don't mean your favourite theme, or look of a level or music, I mean your favourite zone to actually play. It's Hydrocity Zone for me, Sonic Team had a great idea that the best way to make a water level tolerable was to turn it into a big water park. But the point is, I'm certain that whatever you just said was within the first handful of zones in one of the games.
The problem here is how do you actually make a game like Sonic more challenging? As people rightfully point out (and misuse as a defence of Sonic 1) you can't just have a game where you hold right and Sonic literally just runs through the level that would get old very quickly. But getting stopped sucks, so where is the middle ground? Don't ask Sonic Team, because they never figured it out. All four of these games get more annoying as they go along when the game actually needs to start throwing hazards in, and not more "challenging",
The first few levels of any given Sonic game (and this is still true to this day) are the early ones where you can just speed through them, but when enemies and level designs actually require some input on your part the game quickly turns into stop and start. It's a game where you constantly want to move but as it goes on the restrictions on this only get worse and worse. One of the big issues is that Sonic gets knocked back and stunned when he gets hit like Castlevania or Mega Man. When it's worth noting that in Mario, which Sonic has far more in common with, when the player gets hit and they aren't already small Mario actually keeps going after the game pauses for a brief second as the shrinking animation and noise plays to clearly indicate you've made an error.
Although it certainly wouldn't fix everything, Sonic would be better off with something like that. Maybe he gets hit and a little trippy animation plays where he rolls over with his momentum still going as the rings fly out and then rolls back onto his feet at a reduced speed. Then the player has the decision to keep going or come to a stop and scramble for the rings they've lost, which would be important if they were still necessary for emerald acquisition.
But that still wouldn't stop the player falling into pits, and it wouldn't make things any more challenging for players who just want to run through the game quickly. Sonic Teams other method of "challenge" without just squashing the player is to waste their time. Sounds fun right, but what is the deal with the gimmicks in the Mushroom something something zone at the start of Sonic & Knuckles? There's stuff that sticks to you, dudes that throw mushrooms that send you flying back, lifts that take an age to use and are completely boring and birds that don't hurt you but blow you backwards. ALL of these games are filled with stuff like this, random troll springs and other bounce pads or balls that just bounce you backwards for no reason, it's like the game tries to draw you in with aspirations of speed and then takes perverse pleasure in deliberately wasting your time.
A game that handles this a lot better is LocoRoco on the PSP, now it's not exactly a game about speed you actually don't even have direct control of the little blobs you're controlling. What the game does very well that Sonic doesn't is the juxtaposition between challenging and tight platforming sections and bits where the LocoRocos just slide around and dance and so on. The appropriately short levels would often start with a bit of slow but simple platforming, then give a section where the LocoRocos break up and you get put in a good mood as they slide around some and fall in kind of water wheel or fly around on dandelions singing the entire time, and follow that with a far tougher section which would be awarded by another fun slide to the level exit. Sonic only does this decently in the early levels when there isn't the need to challenge, from the midpoint of the game onwards it just start and stop, start and stop, start and stop until you either die, beat the level or pass out due to boredom.
Now I'm going to pose a question that I have struggled to answer, and I'm sure many of you reading this won't have a good answer for it either. Here we go:
I've been playing Sonic games since I was a little kid, why oh why, do I never seem to get better at them?
I don't consider myself to be amazing at games but I'm pretty competent and I'm a quick learner, I can breeze through pretty much any of the Mega Mans, Castlevanias not too bad for me for the majority of the game, I can blow through any Mario game and so on and so forth. With my Mega Drive heavy childhood, I've played Sonic games way more than any of the above games combined I particularly know Sonic 2 off by heart....why do I never seem to improve?
Running through Sonic 2 for the purposes of writing this, I don't know if there is a way to "improve". The only way to get through a Sonic game with no errors is take it slow screen by screen, but everything about the design such as the momentum and the regular appearance of slopes, springs, running shoes and loop de loops contradict this mentality so I end up running into stuff anyway. I swear to God, there are enemies later on in Sonic 2 that are literally IMPOSSIBLE to avoid especially on a first try. Metropolis Zone (all three acts) is a constantly frustrating mess of enemies teleporting on to the screen and getting an instant hit on you with their attacks. There's a section where a set of springs sends you flying into a grasshopper guy and he attacks before you can possibly hit the ground, I tried it four times he got a hit on me in the same place every time.
There's no way to really improve in Sonic because everything about the game is designed to make you run into stuff. That's just how the levels are built and I don't even see how anyone could argue against that, there are enemies that you can't kill like the fireflies or the ball dudes surrounded by fire that slopes and loop de loops and springs just shoot you into. The only way to do a perfect run of a Sonic game is to A) learn the levels frame for frame and B) don't play it like it's a Sonic game. I'm sorry Sonic fans, but this is NOT good game design, the nostalgic kid inside me is scratching at my brain trying to come up with some sort of defence to make it not so bad but it just doesn't exist.
THE CONCLUSION
I grew up with these games, so going into writing this I wasn't expecting it to be as brutally negative as it is. I knew that Sonic is not that strong of a franchise and that the original Mega Drive titles weren't going to come out of a game design breakdown smelling of roses, but I am surprised at how few nice things I find myself capable of saying about this franchise. The gameplay is essentially running down slopes and smashing your face into brick walls.
To sum up the games, Sonic 1 is slow and archaic with some really bad design choices, Sonic 3 & Knuckles are just a sandbox of different gameplay options with no context, and as for Sonic 2, to be honest it's still my favourite of the franchise but that's purely because it's the least annoying...and it's still pretty annoying. But my main thought on doing a run of Sonic 2 again for the purposes of this was of how underwhelming it is, after 45 minutes I was already on the Sky Chase Zone and I just wanted to turn it off because it was getting to the point where the game just stops engaging me.
So, if my argument is that these games aren't very good then how do I explain the following Sonic has and still has to this day. Well, I can't explain the modern trend of new kids getting into the borderline depressingly awful 3D Sonic games (there are kids who grew up with Sonic 06 and think it's awesome) all I can really comment on is Sega populated the franchise with loads of weird new characters and some people get really creepy about that sort of thing. What I'm saying is everyone who thinks 3D Sonic games are great is TOTALLY into yiffing.
As for the 90s games...it would be a cop out to say it's just nostalgia, but I think there's a stronger force at work here. At the time the idiotic "Bit Wars" were happening between Sega and Nintendo, and with Sega pushing out Alex Kidd in favour of the more appealing to kids Sonic they didn't have that many recognisable characters at the time. So if you were a Sega Genesis kid in America, or a Sega Mega Drive kid in Europe (and statistically you probably were) you loved Sonic and you bitterly defended him against the Mario flag carrying Nintendo SWINE.
So looking back at it historically, Sonic gets stuck in that crowd of "classic" franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Castlevania and so on, as he was Sega's champion fighting against all of them. But unfortunately, based on the quality of his games, he's just not in that league....he's just not. Sonic games are not TERRIBLE, compared to some of the utter shite being pushed out at the time by companies like LJN and Ocean and all the other weird little third party companies they are absolute gold. But when you start trying to argue that Sonic is better or even remotely on par with something as genius and particularly perfect like Mario 3 or Super Metroid you just look plain silly. Hell, even the Disney games Sega were making at the time like Quackshot or Castle of Illusion hold up better than Sonic does!
Nothing is going to stop this stupid franchise or the power it holds over certain people though, there are people in this world who think Sonic Heroes was really good it's just something that's never going to go away. I'll probably end up with Lost Worlds on 3DS sooner or later myself...ugh........
If you take nothing else away from this piece, just remember this:
NOSTALGIA IS BLIND AND UNTRUSTWORTHY
...oh, and if this didn't make you hate me you can totally Like my page on Facebook brah
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