So, with the creation of Adventure 2, and the upgrade of Adventure 2 Battle for the GameCube, we had semi-decent running and a jerky but somewhat fixed camera, both still in need of tweaking. But instead of doing any of that, Sonic Team decided to keep churning out games that were rather hit and miss—mostly miss, but not always for the same people or same reasons.
First came Sonic Heroes, a game where you take control of a team of three characters to defeat Robotnik/Eggman, although it actually turns out to be (SPOILERS) Metal Sonic in disguise (END SPOILERS). The jerky camera returns and, while it probably is the same as Adventure 2, feels worse than before. And while playing with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles at the same time is fun, it still falls into that problem of wanting more Sonic and less of the rest.
Also something of note, before I started this retrospective, this was my least favorite Sonic game. It’s a bit better than I remembered but not by much.
Then there was Sonic 06, which had even more problems than the camera or playing so little as Sonic. I’m sure Jared Cyhowski would love to tell you how his playthrough went.
And then there were Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic and the Black Knight; two games that have been retconned to be part of the same series of Storybook games. For Secret Rings, Sonic Team decided to scrap the normal controls and try something different with the Wii-mote. You would basically tilt the Wii-mote to do things like go forward, move left or right, or slow down as well as move it to jump and attack. On top of this, Sonic was basically put on rails with limited direct involvement from the player. While the game’s steep learning curve turned off many players, there are a few—like our own Randy Thompson—that do enjoy the game.
As for the Black Knight, you can see some improvement in the running, as well as a newer version of the old control schemes for Sonic. But it felt like, at that point, Sonic Team was just throwing their hands in the air and saying “We give up. We don’t know how to make a Sonic game anymore.” This is rather ironic since it came one year after Unleashed and one year before Colors—both of which I’ll get to in a little bit.
Honestly, from these types of Sonic games, my favorite of this bunch was Shadow the Hedgehog. Why? Because it had something that the other games didn’t: a full game where you had complete control over a fast hedgehog. Combine that with my favorite of the Crush 40 themes and you have my favorite Sonic game of that era.
Did it have similar problems with camera and running? Yes, but it wasn’t enough to get me to stop. Did it have guns, which caused everyone to get in an uproar over? Yes, but there are two important things to remember. One: Shadow is supposed to be a darker character than Sonic. Two: it was not required to go all “Call of Sonic” on every enemy in the game. You could easily go through the entire game without using a gun, instead going the old fashion way of jump-attacking.
Ultimately, these first true 3D games were terrible to above average/pretty good at best, with some fans even saying that Adventure 2 went beyond that into Great territory (I’m obviously not one of those). The camera was too jerky, the running was lacking, and the games had too little Sonic and too much of everything else.
But then things started to change with Sonic Unleashed. We saw something different in how we ran with Sonic—and it was good. And then we saw how the level would shift from 3D to 2D—and it was great. And then we saw the Werehog—and it was… meh.
Changing Sonic into the slower yet more powerful Werehog was a risk that has received rather split reactions. There are some that like it, some that hate it, and some of us in the middle that just look at it and shrug. I’m in the middle. The thing is, the Werehog was tedious—particularly on the Wii and PS2 due to cutting most of the Daytime stages for more Nighttime levels (I hate you too, Sega)—but there have been far worse ideas that have made it into Sonic games, like fishing… or Sonic making out with a human… or Amy Rose. On top of that, there were moments that I did have fun in this mode.
But there was something else that happened. For the first time in 3D, we could go fast as Sonic and not have it be a buggy mess. People were actually having fun playing as Sonic again. Sega now had something they could build upon.
And from that came Sonic Colors, my favorite of the 3D games and possibly my favorite of all time. Why? Because Sega went back to basics and kept things simple. Gimmicks helped but never dictated gameplay. Running was smooth and controlled. Switching from 3D to 2D and back—a great carry-over from Unleashed—was near seamless. And the most important thing, we played as Sonic the Hedgehog. Not the Werehog. Not Big the Cat. True, blue Sonic.
And they continued to build upon that with Sonic Generations, the 20th Anniversary game that not only brought us more of the new Sonic gameplay but featured old 2D Sonic as well. I have not played this game but I know from reputation that this game is on par with Colors in terms of gameplay.
Which brings me to Sonic Lost World, already released in the PAL regions and set to release later this week in Japan and next week in North America. After looking at the first trailer for the game, I got scared. Sonic was moving different than in the previous 3D games. Sonic Team finally got Sonic’s movement down and looked as if they were tossing that out the window for something different.
It wasn’t until our guys got their hands on the game at E3 that I started to relax. Yeah, Sonic moved a bit differently—especially since walking is now his default when moving the control stick; you have to hit the L button to run—but he could still go fast and you still had control over him.
Recently, I found some of the first Let’s Play footage of Sonic Lost World. This was the first time I could see the new gameplay in action. And frankly, it works. This is a much more narrow level design than before. If Sonic played like before where he would just use his momentum to speed off, you’d be falling off the stage way too often. This new button function was a perfect way to not only control Sonic’s movement, but his speed.
…And that’s when it hit me. This is what Sega has been building up to over all these years. Something that gave us awkward isometric games in the early 90s, cost them their spot as a console maker in the early 2000s, and took nearly 15 years to get right once.
Chaotic control.
Look back at the Genesis games. These games were chaotic, with enemies all around attacking you while you’re trying to move at high speeds. But you were always in control. Until Unleashed, there wasn’t that measure of control you needed to have a solid 3D game. You had chaos, that much is for sure. But there wasn’t that thought that you could control the chaos.
This is a problem that is unique to this series due to the speed we expect Sonic to move at. 3D Mario never had this problem because his moves never required extreme actions. You were always in control of him. 3D Sonic, however, never felt like you could control him through the chaos until recently.
Could it have been done before? Possibly, but I don’t think all the ideas were there yet. You could’ve probably done things like sliding, side-stepping, and drifting back in the Dreamcast/GameCube era. But I think the idea of 3D/2D play in a single level was probably a result of the “retro revival” that happened at the beginning of the 7th console generation; so it probably wouldn’t have happened until Unleashed anyway.
But the good news now is that 3D Sonic is on the right track. And, with the hopeful release of good, consecutive Sonic games, we can finally retire terms like “Sonic Cycle”.
