Sonic 1 sucked. And I don’t mean by comparison - I mean it’s just not a good game beyond the first stage, which the developers realised, so they used the lessons they learned there and applied them to the sequels making them rad. By ‘tightly designed’ I just meant ‘shorter’ - Sonic 3’s stages are just too damn long and bloated. Plus the level design is just way more of a mixed bag - there are some real stinkers like carnival night zone that wanted to be casino night but wasn’t (marble hill zone is pretty obnoxious on your first couple of playthroughs too, tho it’s fun when you understand how the gimmicks work).
Sonic 2 was non-linear enough - non-linearity isn’t necessarily better (unlike Qt3 would have you believe) so it doesn’t automagically put Sonic 3 over 2 - in a game essentially made up of branching paths as opposed to multiple ways of dealing with situations, non-linearity is just as annoying as it is fun. Not a killer argument.
- Sonic 3’s 3D bonus stages were decent, and the pinball and globe hopping stages were at least short and easy. But NO sonic game has ever had bonus stages worse than Sonic 2’s impossibly difficult, low-framerate, buggy, half-tube bullshit. Worst bonus stage EVER.
The grid stages were shit, not decent - but reconsidering, they were better than Sonic 2’s. Especially if you had that piece of shit Tails along for the ride. The other bonus stages were great, actually - they should have just dumped the 3d ones and used them instead. One thing Sonic 2’s had is that even considering your complaints, they were at least theoretically beatable without rote memorisation - if you had skill, you could do it. Not so with Sonic 3.
- In every aspect I can imagine Sonic 3 is the best of the series, certainly better than Sonic 2. I can debate this to the end of time, but that would derail the thread.
You are wrong.
Ok, apologies for contributing to thread derailment, but does anyone else realize that the Sonic games are all designed specifically to not let you do the thing the game is supposed to be about?
Sonic’s whole gimmick is that he runs fast. But unless you have all the levels memorized, you can’t actually run fast, or you will die to spikes, or to enemies, or whatever. And even then, you still have to stop every now and then for a wall to cycle out of your way, or a floating platform to get in range so you can jump on it.
This has always annoyed me. Sonic runs fast, but don’t you make him run fast, or you’ll get spanked. Bad games. But good soundtracks.
Hell yes you can run fast - especially when you get good at the games (ie. learn through trial and error). The ring system was a brilliant solution to the problem you bring up that the theme of the games creates - it ensures your punishment is never absolute (if you have no rings left and you’re sprinting around like a maniac, you deserve to die). People complain about cheap hits at high speeds, but you been given a mechanism to deal with them that allows you to survive and learn - a hit in Sonic just doesn’t mean the same thing as it does in most other games. I grant there is some serious bullshit of the kind you are describing, you are exaggerating.
My fave thing about the series (there are definitely some annoying things) was introduced in Sonic 2: You collect rings. As long as you have one ring, you can survive, but you get rewarded for collecting as many as you can. You can trade these in at checkpoints for a chance at a chaos emerald (succeed or fail, you have no rings left). Get all the emeralds and you become a fucking monster, and rings take on a diiferent, and cool, role again. It’s very elegant and creative design. I think a lot of games could learn from that.
Yoshi’s Island is way better though.
