Is Sonic Regressing To Crash Banicoot PS1 Level?

[cube_b3]

Here's a trailer of Sonic Unleashed, You don't really need to see it as you know already what's in it?
[youtube:jvwy3gc5]ty0uOqISJzw[/youtube:jvwy3gc5]
Whatever worked in this game (supposedly daytime stages) is making its way into the sequel Colors

[youtube:jvwy3gc5]IPqiR0VHz6g[/youtube:jvwy3gc5]
The first thing you see here in gameplay is the warp zone, previous Sonic games like Adventure 1 and Hedgehog 06, have levels more naturally integrated into the adventure fields where as unleashed introduces those temples or whatever they were called similar to the warp zone (with alittle more stuff thrown in).

A few seconds later the level actually starts and Crash's gameplay is completely different from Sonic, but the level design isn't.
- You got bottom less pits on the side.
- Enemies that require no effort to defeat.
- and invisible walls in the form of an outline formed by stones.

Sonic Unleashed/Colors have the same thing and I really hate them, back in the 90s I didn't mind them all that much, but ever since Sonic Adventure and then Sonic 06 (man those levels were MASSIVE) came out I got spoiled and just can't except such a restrictive environment. Don't you think it is a step back to erect invisible walls?

Also at around the 1.30 second mark you will notice Crash cross a question mark in the floor, the player in the video ignores but if you step on it you will be elevated to a side scrolling bonus segment, very similar to an element introduced in Unleashed.

[youtube:jvwy3gc5]RCDhvBQFETg[/youtube:jvwy3gc5]
While extremly irrelevant and underwater this is all I could find on Side Scrolling CRASH.

[youtube:jvwy3gc5]XssOYp37O1I[/youtube:jvwy3gc5]
Some more level design similarities here.

So am I the only one seeing the similarities?
and am I the only one who finds this to actually be a step back;  Crash Bandicoot is a Sonic Clone, finding Crystals instead of Emeralds and fighting Neo Cortex instead of Robotnik.

Some fun facts:
Naughty Dog was composed of largely X-Sega Devers... Members from Sonic Team/Sega Technical Institute (1/4th). Prior to Crash Bandicoot several members from the design team were working on Sonic Xtreme for the Saturn.

The other members of STI went to:
Luxoflox,  Insomniac and Blizzard

[MadeManG74]

Wasn't Sonic 06 very linear and narrow in terms of it's playing field too though?

[cube_b3]

The graphics are terrible, load times are endless, gameplay is buggy, but the levels are massive
[youtube:2lb49i38]cDSt7t7NPYY[/youtube:2lb49i38]
In this clip the player is taking the shortest roots otherwise this level is atleast double the length.

The most amazing part Tails, Blaze, Shadow visit the same stage at different locations, Shadow is on an adjacent island near the end of the 1st Act.
Tails, and Blaze visit the stage with adjustments made to the levels to compliment their skills.
Shadow uses his jetpack or something in the 2nd Act.

In other stages Sonic runs from start to end where as Silver Run from end to start (with some alternate sections thrown in between.

[crackdude]

Awesome research Cube. I can totally see the similarities and agree they do look the same.

So is Sonic Team taking the gameplay back to more archaic designs, maybe. But it is improving the masses' experience with the games. Sonic Adventure was great, but more recent works with huge levels have been lukewarm. Maybe going back a bit isn't such a bad idea.

[MadeManG74]

The graphics are terrible, load times are endless, gameplay is buggy, but the levels are massive

Yes, but they are still just long corridors that you run through in a straight line though. I thought that's what you were complaining about?

[cube_b3]

Awesome research Cube. I can totally see the similarities and agree they do look the same.

So is Sonic Team taking the gameplay back to more archaic designs, maybe. But it is improving the masses' experience with the games. Sonic Adventure was great, but more recent works with huge levels have been lukewarm. Maybe going back a bit isn't such a bad idea.

Incomplete, buggy and stupid gameplay concepts were the culprits.

The worst Sonic Team gameplay concept is the substitution of Sonic Adventure 2's fully charged Spin Dash (All Enemy eliminating move) with a Green Crystal Tornada (one click stationary attack that doesn't eliminate the strong enemies).

The graphics are terrible, load times are endless, gameplay is buggy, but the levels are massive

Yes, but they are still just long corridors that you run through in a straight line though. I thought that's what you were complaining about?

No, The player was trying to get an A and taking the fastest routes otherwise their are alot of twists and turns. Also there are platforming segments which you can fall off to the lower sections, the level design offers alot more then just pressing the boost button and the game almost play itself.

Furthermore the enemies are more of a threat here, the Volvcon's will shoot you if you run straight at them, but the cool thing is you don't lose all your rings just 1 per bullet (when your running).

Here take a clip from Sonic Adventure 2: A remake of an old 2D stage.
[youtube:2sdixdy8]8ycymywGv7c[/youtube:2sdixdy8]

Unleasheds invisible walls are annoying.

[CrazyT]

I actually never thought about it. I agree with you manm, the stages do feel very restricted and the way sonic is controlled doesn't help with it.

I'm not sure but I think the problem is that the 3d games since unleashed try to be more like the 2d games. The werehog sucked but it would be great if sonic stages existed of such open areas with lots of freedom and more emphasis on 3d platforming

[ribbitking17]

So you want them to replace invisable walls with bottomless pits?

[crackdude]

So you want them to replace invisable walls with bottomless pits?

Sonic Unleashed had both. Not quite a good thing.

"Incomplete, buggy and stupid gameplay concepts were the culprits."
Also true...

[Sharky]

Sonic Unleashed daytime stages were fun, nothing like what made the genesis series fun but fun in their own right.

Werehog was vomit though.

I'm hoping Sonic Colours can capture the best of both worlds... it seems to have a lot more exploration and platforming as well as the cinematic speed of Unleashed.

(Note I didnt read what this thread was about, im just talking now.)

[Sega Uranus]

I mentioned this just as Sonic Unleashed was out and everyone laughed at me. Nice to see people are finally coming to their senses.

Something Crash Bandicoot games on the original PlayStation are still better with is how the shadow was always directly under him so you could see where he was going to land and those games actually had secret areas. What a neat idea! They are also not purposely frustrating constantly.

The reason they are like this is because Sonic Team feels Sonic games need to be as fast as possible and always going through some kind of path. When they remove this their levels quickly become nothing more than roller coasters in the sky with holes everywhere, frustrating everyone. You could see in titles like Sonic Adventure 2 that they did not like exploring in Sonic and Shadow's levels as the camera would snap back into place of where they want you to head instead of where you want to look. Something they have done to combat this is the 2D perspective, which gives the illusion that they changed the design for the fans of the classic titles but really only moved the camera to hide the one way roads. In earlier Crash Bandicoot titles there were no camera controls, but the design was very limited because Naughty Dog wanted the most out of the graphics and animation (Sonic Team is no longer even in the spectrum of making some of the best looking games around anymore and have not been for almost ten years now). You can see they easily fixed all of this when the Jak and Daxter games were released, and then later Uncharted.

I am going to point out that this does not mean Sonic 06 is better although it too was very linear - The main reason they reused sections of levels was to speed up production, not because of 'better design'. Note that almost every game with mutliple playable characters after Sonic the Hedgehog 2 did this a lot, but it was only to extend the length of the game and show off some of the art they were proud of. Even Unleashed does this in some of the extra levels.