Sega Nerds

Retro Re-view: Sonic in 3D (part 2)

Posted by Hudson. Filed under News, Retro, Sonic. Tagged with Dreamcast, Re-View.

Right, so, Sonic on the Saturn? Not so great. Some cool stuff sprinkled here and there, to be sure. But any groundbreaking titles?

Can’t you feel the sunshine?

Outstanding musical scores by Richard Jacques aside, not so much. But on the Dreamcast? Well that, my friends, is a different story…

We’re not really sure what he’s doing either.

Sonic Adventure was a great way to start things off. The beginnings of where the series went wrong can be traced to Adventure, but it’s hard to blame it for where later games ended up. Sonic’s levels were generally excellent, and many of the secondary characters actually applied the Sonic 3 and Knuckles “same level, different pathways” approach.

For argument’s sake, though, let’s focus on the character whose gameplay was meant to represent the Sonic experience in 3D: Sonic.

The Sonic levels of Adventure were surprisingly faithful to their 2D origins. Today we’re going to take a good close look at a video of Emerald Coast, the first level of the game.

Let’s dive in:

00:04- Standing start! With rare exception, Genesis Sonic games started you out standing. Later 3D Sonic titles tended to give you a running start, which placed even more emphasis on pure speed.

00:13- Springs! Springs in 2D were often placed to help you reach the upper routes or secrets in each level. 3D springs usually came in sets of three or four placed consecutively for a nice boost of speed that looked cool and let the player get a breath in edgewise. (see 01:12 for an example of old-school spring use).

00:23- Loops! Loops in 2D were pretty much standard stuff by the later games. Take a look at Mushroom Hill Zone for an great example of loops in action. 3D loops were fun, but felt less natural because they took control completely away from the player. The fact that speed pads were needed to keep things going through a loop was always a bit suspect, though.

00:25- Cooldown areas. 2D Sonic games were not, contrary to popular belief, all about speed. Stages encouraged you to speed up for some segments, and slow down for others. There was delicate balance of momentum and flow that kept things more interesting than just pushing right all the time.

By sometimes launching you up instead of forward ramps could slow the action down without breaking Sonic’s momentum- a gentle arcing fall is always better than a faceplant into a wall. We’re looking at you, Secret Rings!

00:46- Scripted events. Most prominent in S3&K, scripted events fleshed out stages by making the landscape subject to change. The earthquake segment of Marble Garden Zone is a great example of this. The “look behind you!” camera of Adventure’s chase scenes could be irksome at times, but the scripted events themselves were usually fun enough.

01:19- Pits! But look- they are not bottomless! While gusts helped keep you from falling through the gaps here, if you did manage to take a dive it just landed you back at the start of the area. In contrast, falling in 2D games often meant you would drop to a lower path, but keep your momentum.

01:36- Multiple paths! Keeping your speed up here let you run along the wall to a spring shortcut through the platforming segment below. While not as extensive as in 2D games, these deviations helped keep things in 3D interesting and encouraged replaying each stage to find new routes.

01:59- Homing attack! The homing attack was vital to Sonic’s success in 3D- it helped make up for the high degree of control during jumps that was lost in the transition from 2D. Hooray, homing attack!

02:19- Weird jumping pads! That’s all I’ve got on these, really.

02:32- The wind down. Genesis titles had a gentle downward slope or open area before the end of many stages that let you know the end was coming. You could let your guard down and sort of coast through the goal- a bit like the end of a roller coaster ride.

The lesson learned from Emerald Coast is one of momentum and flow. So…

Component number 2 for a great 3D Sonic game: smooth transitions between fast and slow segments that preserve the sense of momentum that was so enjoyable in the 2D games.

That’s it for today’s entry. I hope you enjoyed taking a closer look at an exemplary 3D Sonic stage, as well as its 2D roots. I know I did!

Join us next time for a look at Sonic Adventure 2 and beyond, as well as the big reveal: at long last, the best 3D Sonic stage!

[part 1]