Board Thread:Sonic News Channel/@comment-31564869-20170330203146/@comment-1669199-20170401214718

Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: Genesjs wrote: Mystic Monkey wrote: I honestly felt a bit conflicted when I saw him in that old teaser.

Sonic Generations I understand givne while it is still canon to the lore, it was more of a tribute game. But again in Forces? I dunno. Seems milking it a bit and didn't feel as enthusiastic for his return as I did for Sonic Generations.

I'm also concerned over the fact this is Sonic's fourth adventure centered on time travel. And while 2 of those games were successful, I'm still concerned that the story of Sonic Forces will still be as convoluting when it comes to time travel as Sonic '06 was and I'd rather it won't be.

All the more reason why I am hoping Time Stones would be the collectible mcguffins of the story than just yo-yoing around past and alternate timelines with chaos control or time machines. Worst case scenario, if Sonic Forces turns out to be lackluster, Sonic Mania might end up being the one game that hits its mark. I'm more optimistic about that game than I am with Sonic Forces. From what I understand, Sega is praised for making Sonic games for Modern and Classic fans.

Feel bad for the Dreamcast fans. I never really understood why people considered the Dreamcast games to be their own separate era from classic and modern. Why do you think of the Dreamcast games as something separate from classic and modern? While I believe Modern Sonic was founded in the Dreamcast era, I believe it's purely about how different his gameplay was back then. You see while the classic games were side scrollers, with only left and right the only available directions, Sonic had 360° movement when it came to terrain, such as complex ramps and obsticals that Mario games couldn't do at the time. Good example of this is Sonic 1s rotating special stages.

The gameplay from Sonic Adventure is pretty much the same as the Classic era of gameplay except it abandons the sidescrolling for full 3D coordinations managable by analog stick, thus Sonic was able for 360° XYZ direction of movement than just horizontal and vertical. And this made the Sonic Adventure series revolutionary for Sonic.

Thing is though the Modern era of Sonic games (Unleashed, Colours, Generations and Forces) nerfs Sonic's 360° maneuverability in favour for boosting which makes the modern era of gameplay rather different from the previous eras. Unlike Dreamcast stages, modern stages are also rather linear with only some areas that require you to manuver around or forces you inside side-scrolling because it would be too challenging for players to do it without fixed paths. Modern computers can work and process fast and given Sonic is all about speed of course Sega would go for that approach in order for the player to feel just as fast as Sonic. It's a nice gimmick but it's ultimately running along paths that you don't really have time to admire, which makes me feel sorry for level designers who put details and attention into the stages.

This is why the Dreamcast era is respectfully recognised as it's own era. Because it simply introduced 3D coordination to Sonic's classic gameplay tor form something both simple yet fantastic for Sonic games. Many Sonic fans favour this era and wish for Sonic Adventure 3 because it isn't mostly "Boost to win", nostalgic and allows players to explore the details of their surroundings. It's why I hope if Takashi Iizuka will indeed make a Sonic Adventure 3 someday, like Sonic Mania the gameplay should honour its sources than SA3 being made for the modern era of Sonic games.

What I liked about Sonic Adventure was that because it was made for Sega Saturn, importing the project onto Dreamcast allowed Sonic Team to really splurge out on the available data-space and would add scenery in Action Stages just to look at, or areas in Adventure Fields just put there as eyecandy for explorers (Such as Eggmans private quarters and play room on the Egg Carrier) This is what I would like for a Sonic Adventure 3 game. A game that is ¾ actual story and relevence and ¼ just there for the sake of it. I get everything you're saying. But shouldn't Sonic 06 also belong to the Dreamcast era going by the criteria you just gave? It also has gameplay that's quite similar to the Dreamcast games, requiring more than "just boosting" to get through a stage. But Sonic 06 clearly isn't a Dreamcast game, and yet if the style of gameplay is the criteria people are using to set the Adventure games inside their own era then it makes me wonder why Sonic 06 is exempt from it. The game was decide to be modern for two reasons: So basically Sonic 06 is not considered a Dreamcast era game for basically every other reason than it's gameplay, including it using a different name than "Sonic Adventure", even though gameplay was the main criteria that you initially gave to consider the Dreamcast games as part of their own separate era from the Classic and Modern games. And as I already pointed out, Sonic 06's gameplay is very similar to that of the Sonic Adventure games, to the point to where I'd argue that from a gameplay perspective Sonic 06 essentially is a Sonic Adventure game in all but name. This isn't making sense to me.
 * It is not a Sonic Adventure game and uses the latest, most detailed graphics to get the job done. It is also for the XBox 360 and PS3 like the other modern Sonic games were.
 * The developers wanted to go with a "Rule of three" with Sonic Generations and found it more conveniant to have Sonic '06 as the first game in the Modern era. After all if you wanted to be super-technical,Sonic Heroes was never for the Dreamcast, but it was chosen to round off the number of stages for the era.

Wouldn't it just be easier to say that the Dreamcast games belong to their own era on virtue of the platform they were released on, and essentially served as the bridge between the Classic and Modern games (since Sonic Adventure was supposed to be a new beginning for the franchise)? Or to just say that the Sonic Adventure games just simply follow a unique formula of gameplay that sets themselves apart from most other games in the franchise (excluding Sonic 06) and just call their style of gameplay something along the lines of "Adventure-style gameplay" (this latter option would kill off the notion of an "Adventure/Dreamcast" era of Sonic games, but you can't deny the similarities that Sonic 06's gameplay has with the Adventure games, which is why I'm thinking gameplay shouldn't be the only factor in deciding whether or not the Dreamcast Sonic Adventure games deserve to have their own dedicated era or not, if they even need one at all.)? I'm a bit tired now, but yeah, I think you're right that it is an era that bridges the Classic and Modern, given Sonic Heroes was not a Dreamcast game but was still regarded as one in Sonic Generations. At least we can agree on this much. Sorry if you felt at any point that I was being a bit adversarial on this issue, I was just trying to make heads and tails of what you were trying to tell me.