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A bit tangential but I've never understood old school sonic games. So much of it seems to be blindly running or being funneled through a chaotic level. There's

A bit tangential but I've never understood old school sonic games. So much of it seems to be blindly running or being funneled through a chaotic level. There's this sense that you have speed and it feels good, but because you don't know what's coming next, it's very easy to lose that speed, which feels really bad. I feel like the intention of these games was to memorize the levels so that you could actually play them quickly. Whereas in a mario game you can generally improv your way through a level on skill alone. I generally only wanted to play through a game once, and sonic always felt very jarring, like the level design forced me to stop because I didn't know there was going to be 3 random reversals and a loop. The good feeling parts were almost autoscrollers. The challenging parts tended to involve sonic moving very slowly with his awkward jump physics. Curious if someone can fill me in on what I was missing. I tried Sonic Mania recently and felt the same general frustration.

hnlmorg 5y ago
Most of the games of that era employed memorization as part of the game play because it was an easy way to prolong the life of the game given the hardware limitations of the day. Take your example: > Whereas in a mario game you can generally improv your way through a level on skill alone. The NES Mario's are notorious for being evil to those who haven't learned the levels. There's literal dead ends that will kill you if you chose the wrong path. Even the later SNES titles will have hidden stages that cannot be reached via improv alone.
hombre_fatal 5y ago
When I played Sonic 1 and 2 as an adult, I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be more fun going as fast as possible or slowing down and collecting stuff. Loved the games as a kid, but couldn’t enjoy it as an adult. Sonic 3D Blast however was more fun to me since you’re exploring a level rather than holding right arrow.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  That too. Mario levels tend to be designed such that you have segments where you run through and if you play the intended optimal route you'll collect all the coins. They mark the path. Sonic does this thing where there's just a bunch of rings and you almost certainly won't get all of them.
ericbarrett 5y ago
I was a big fan of Sonic 1 & 2 in my childhood. The levels definitely took some repetition to learn. The payoff, and why I enjoyed them, was that when you were good at the game and knew the level, you'd speed through at a tremendous rate, far faster than any game before ever let you move, and in a really satisfying way with lots of noise and fireworks. So it was really novel in that sense. (Also, fantastic music.) The games didn't reward you much for secrets, unlike the Mario family; the point was always speed.
- cturtle 5y ago
  Completely agree here > Also, fantastic music Sonic 2 (especially Chemical plant zone) is among my favorite game soundtracks.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Sonic 3 & Knuckles has an amazing soundtrack as well.
    - apple4ever 5y ago
      I love the music to Ice Cap Zone in S3. I had it as my ring tone at one point.
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        It's so hard to pick a favorite among these tracks but I really enjoy Lava Reef Act 2. Lots of wordless story telling in that act. https://youtu.be/9zfRD3JyW90 https://youtu.be/9zfRD3JyW90 Actually I think I'm just gonna leave a link to the whole OST right here. The OCRemix album for this game too. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvNp0Boas721ZhOX_U084B4Jrxdr8rJOj https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvNp0Boas721ZhOX_U084B4Jr... https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F49AAC0579E60E8 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F49AAC0579E60E8
      - ahartmetz 5y ago
        Aka The Jetzons - Hard Times https://youtu.be/H2OWC5Hosv8 https://youtu.be/H2OWC5Hosv8 The Michael Jackson collaboration was real, apparently, and The Jetzons were the old band of an MJ co-songwriter.
micromacrofoot 5y ago
The challenge is to maintain momentum through the whole level. I can get through a lot of Sonic 2 levels without stopping, and for that generation of game to achieve that feeling of speed was very unique. Also, if anyone out there hasn't played a Sonic game since the original few... check out Sonic Mania. It's largely an homage, but it's very well done.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  But is it correct to say that maintaining momentum is basically not an intended outcome when playing a new level? Like if you just want to get through the game once, no amount of skill will let you do this without fairly detailed prior knowledge of the level. That just seemed really shitty to me.
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Yeah as a new player you get some tastes of continued momentum, and in some early levels you can stumble into a path where you run through almost the whole thing, but you're going to get stopped at various points throughout the game. You couldn't save your progress in the original sonic games, so if you liked the game you ended up playing through it a lot. There are a lot of various paths through the levels. I don't find it shitty or not really, just a different game mechanic.
teddyh 5y ago
I agree. When I first played Jazz Jackrabbit, it seemed like an interesting gimmick for a platformer for the character movement to be based on speed, but since, in a side-view 2D platformer, you can’t actually see what is ahead of the character more than a screenful, this represents too short a time to react to anything. It’s like a game made only for speedrunners who want to play the same level again and again to memorize it and get the best possible route. This was not how I played games, so I never played it any more. Since SRB2 is using a 3D view, it seems that you can maintain the speed design while still have reasonable chance to react in time, since you can see what is actually ahead of the character.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  > It’s like a game made only for speedrunners JJ doesn't require you to make it in time, the only thing it adds is the bonus score. Also spamming fire button works most of the time. I was pretty fond of it back in the day exactly because it didn't require to blindly run.
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    IME you could usually go fast without knowing the level by heart, yeah.
bitwize 5y ago
Yeah, Sonic isn't ALL about speed. There are parts when you can go balls out, but on your first playthrough those will be rare. Sonic really was supposed to be a "better Mario" so his games are platformers first and speed games second. Just play it carefully, like an ordinary platformer, and learn the patterns the levels use to guide you along. Rack up a few lives and faff about with the physics to get a feel for what Sonic can do and how these abilities can negotiate the terrain. It's not all chaos. Hint: Higher paths tend to have fewer obstructions, so stay high if you can. As you play through the games again, you can learn to get through them faster. You gotta learn to play scales before you can effectively improvise. And yes, the idea is to play them again; back in the day almost no one said "I only play a game once and then I'm done with it". We couldn't afford to buy very many game cartridges for our systems, so we played the same ones over and over, and that afforded us plenty of opportunity to "git gud" enough to learn how to speedrun Sonic, Mario, and other such games. And games were designed to have a bit of longevity to them and to be challenging enough that people would need multiple playthroughs to develop skill.
tosh 5y ago
The Sonic games are a bit like rhythm games. By playing multiple times you will identify patterns and eventually flow through them which can be very satisfying. Also while playing levels the first time you will stumble into some of these patterns by design (e.g. bouncing onto an enemy even though you only intended to jump over an obstacle).
stats111 5y ago
Classic Sonic games are based on momentum and not speed. The aim isn't to run through the level as soon as physically possible; speed is only one (small) attribute to the games overall qualities.

hnlmorg 5y ago

Most of the games of that era employed memorization as part of the game play because it was an easy way to prolong the life of the game given the hardware limitations of the day. Take your example: > Whereas in a mario game you can generally improv your way through a level on skill alone. The NES Mario's are notorious for being evil to those who haven't learned the levels. There's literal dead ends that will kill you if you chose the wrong path. Even the later SNES titles will have hidden stages that cannot be reached via improv alone.

hombre_fatal 5y ago

When I played Sonic 1 and 2 as an adult, I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be more fun going as fast as possible or slowing down and collecting stuff. Loved the games as a kid, but couldn’t enjoy it as an adult. Sonic 3D Blast however was more fun to me since you’re exploring a level rather than holding right arrow.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
That too. Mario levels tend to be designed such that you have segments where you run through and if you play the intended optimal route you'll collect all the coins. They mark the path. Sonic does this thing where there's just a bunch of rings and you almost certainly won't get all of them.

ericbarrett 5y ago

I was a big fan of Sonic 1 & 2 in my childhood. The levels definitely took some repetition to learn. The payoff, and why I enjoyed them, was that when you were good at the game and knew the level, you'd speed through at a tremendous rate, far faster than any game before ever let you move, and in a really satisfying way with lots of noise and fireworks. So it was really novel in that sense. (Also, fantastic music.) The games didn't reward you much for secrets, unlike the Mario family; the point was always speed.

cturtle 5y ago
Completely agree here > Also, fantastic music Sonic 2 (especially Chemical plant zone) is among my favorite game soundtracks.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Sonic 3 & Knuckles has an amazing soundtrack as well.
  - apple4ever 5y ago
    I love the music to Ice Cap Zone in S3. I had it as my ring tone at one point.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      It's so hard to pick a favorite among these tracks but I really enjoy Lava Reef Act 2. Lots of wordless story telling in that act. https://youtu.be/9zfRD3JyW90 https://youtu.be/9zfRD3JyW90 Actually I think I'm just gonna leave a link to the whole OST right here. The OCRemix album for this game too. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvNp0Boas721ZhOX_U084B4Jrxdr8rJOj https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvNp0Boas721ZhOX_U084B4Jr... https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F49AAC0579E60E8 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8F49AAC0579E60E8
    - ahartmetz 5y ago
      Aka The Jetzons - Hard Times https://youtu.be/H2OWC5Hosv8 https://youtu.be/H2OWC5Hosv8 The Michael Jackson collaboration was real, apparently, and The Jetzons were the old band of an MJ co-songwriter.

micromacrofoot 5y ago

The challenge is to maintain momentum through the whole level. I can get through a lot of Sonic 2 levels without stopping, and for that generation of game to achieve that feeling of speed was very unique. Also, if anyone out there hasn't played a Sonic game since the original few... check out Sonic Mania. It's largely an homage, but it's very well done.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
But is it correct to say that maintaining momentum is basically not an intended outcome when playing a new level? Like if you just want to get through the game once, no amount of skill will let you do this without fairly detailed prior knowledge of the level. That just seemed really shitty to me.
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Yeah as a new player you get some tastes of continued momentum, and in some early levels you can stumble into a path where you run through almost the whole thing, but you're going to get stopped at various points throughout the game. You couldn't save your progress in the original sonic games, so if you liked the game you ended up playing through it a lot. There are a lot of various paths through the levels. I don't find it shitty or not really, just a different game mechanic.

teddyh 5y ago

I agree. When I first played Jazz Jackrabbit, it seemed like an interesting gimmick for a platformer for the character movement to be based on speed, but since, in a side-view 2D platformer, you can’t actually see what is ahead of the character more than a screenful, this represents too short a time to react to anything. It’s like a game made only for speedrunners who want to play the same level again and again to memorize it and get the best possible route. This was not how I played games, so I never played it any more. Since SRB2 is using a 3D view, it seems that you can maintain the speed design while still have reasonable chance to react in time, since you can see what is actually ahead of the character.

justsomehnguy 5y ago
> It’s like a game made only for speedrunners JJ doesn't require you to make it in time, the only thing it adds is the bonus score. Also spamming fire button works most of the time. I was pretty fond of it back in the day exactly because it didn't require to blindly run.
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  IME you could usually go fast without knowing the level by heart, yeah.

bitwize 5y ago

Yeah, Sonic isn't ALL about speed. There are parts when you can go balls out, but on your first playthrough those will be rare. Sonic really was supposed to be a "better Mario" so his games are platformers first and speed games second. Just play it carefully, like an ordinary platformer, and learn the patterns the levels use to guide you along. Rack up a few lives and faff about with the physics to get a feel for what Sonic can do and how these abilities can negotiate the terrain. It's not all chaos. Hint: Higher paths tend to have fewer obstructions, so stay high if you can. As you play through the games again, you can learn to get through them faster. You gotta learn to play scales before you can effectively improvise. And yes, the idea is to play them again; back in the day almost no one said "I only play a game once and then I'm done with it". We couldn't afford to buy very many game cartridges for our systems, so we played the same ones over and over, and that afforded us plenty of opportunity to "git gud" enough to learn how to speedrun Sonic, Mario, and other such games. And games were designed to have a bit of longevity to them and to be challenging enough that people would need multiple playthroughs to develop skill.

tosh 5y ago

The Sonic games are a bit like rhythm games. By playing multiple times you will identify patterns and eventually flow through them which can be very satisfying. Also while playing levels the first time you will stumble into some of these patterns by design (e.g. bouncing onto an enemy even though you only intended to jump over an obstacle).

stats111 5y ago

Classic Sonic games are based on momentum and not speed. The aim isn't to run through the level as soon as physically possible; speed is only one (small) attribute to the games overall qualities.