#i just can't fucking see where sonic is half the time in the 2d sections

[humming-fly]

Inktober Day 25 - Alpha Gaming

Today I thought I'd go ahead and hunt down that new hedgehog game everyone’s so excited about, since I had a target giftcard and it's been a hot sec since I played one of these - was fully planning to hop on that cool winged shadow trend for the inktober to commemorate my success, but that changed 15 seconds into the first stage when I remembered I actually suck shit at sonic games 👍

[latin-dr-robotnik]

For the ask meme, the Advance trilogy :p

You really do want me to lay down some controversial opinions in front of the Tumblr Sonic fandom, huh? :P

Warning: spicy Sonic takes ahead and tons of cursing directed at a certain game in the trilogy. Not pulling any punches today (?)

Sonic Advance 1

I think it's a neat little game! For its time and for what it managed to achieve, I think it's still a solid experience and one of if not the best game in that series. People don't know this, but we spent a ton of time talking about Advance 1, about levels like Ice Mountain or the duo Egg Rocket - Cosmic Angel, and of course talking about the music :P

It's still far from my ideal 2D Sonic game, and I agree with you when you brought up the level design quality drops off a cliff in the second half. Albeit mostly positive overall, most of my memories with the game are those from when you get "Dimps'd" (term I coined during my Ad2 playthrough for reasons we'll get to), when level designers thought it would be funny to place a spring sending you straight into spikes (Egg Rocket) or when they get a bit too excited to present you do or die challenges over bottomless pits (Cosmic Angel, and I think Angel Island too)

Overall, neat game, fun to replay with all the characters, and by that I mean play it with Amy you cowards.

Sonic Advance 2

Okay, this game...

Fuck Sonic Advance 2 and fuck Dimps for creating this piece of crap. It's a bad game.

First of all, it has the Sonic 2 problem of streamlining levels so much it's not interesting anymore. Beevean did a whole post on this and you should read it. There's really not much to take in when the game wants you to go fast (or so you think for now), there are no interesting sections, barely any gimmicks worth talking. People may love Music Plant, but I found it super bland and boring to play; it's pretty, yeah, but nothing else.

Second, this game has a severe identity crisis. It wants you to go fast, but it also wants you to grab all those token things scattered all around the level to even get the privilege of getting to the special stages. So it wants you to go fast and explore stages to get all the tokens for the special stage. This usually wouldn't be a problem (I love Sonic Unleashed, after all), but the level design really isn't built for anything but speed, and you don't get a chance to swap characters per stage or have some sort of partner... yet.

Third, and to use our little italo-hispanic idiom, this game was designed using feet instead of hands. Every, and I mean EVERY problem with Advance 1's design comes back here in full force, and it gets EVEN WORSE REAL QUICK. FUCK. ICE. PARADISE. Seriously, fuck that level and its blind falls that in a good Sonic game would be drops to lower paths or minor time losses, but here are FUCKING BOTTOMLESS PITS. You just can't escape it, as soon as the second zone you'll start getting launched into enemies/spikes (and the game points at you and says "react faster, you fucking idiot!") and then you'll start getting blasted with tons of do or die jumps and sections.

Here's where I coined the term Dimps'd, referring to when you get punished by death just because you didn't see a crusher block, a jump or a bottomless pit coming, because you're going too fast and the game gives you no heads up at all, pure trial and error. You can also get Dimps'd because you dared trusting the level designers of the game. Didn't see the orange trick ring coming? Down the pit you go. Didn't hit the trick button or didn't jump fast enough off the instant falling platform? Down the pit you go. Got too creative exploring the level? Down the fucking pit you go.

This game is bad. It's poorly designed even for pure mindless speed, it has some terrible bosses (the one with the instakill attack was actually one of the least offenders), and some of the jankiest attacks and hitboxes I've ever seen. I did not have any fun at all playing through this absolute chore of a game. And you expect me to complete it with all the chaos Emeralds and characters? Fuck this shit I don't want to play this game again. I had way more fun playing through every single Sonic '06 campaign.

Sonic Advance 3

Coming after the absolute trainwreck that was its predecessor, Advance 3 feels like an immediate upgrade in every single aspect.

Honestly, at first it seems a bit overwhelming, having to learn partner interactions, hub navigation, the fact you have two hubs, learning about Chao and keys and special minigames and the sort, but it's not that bad once you get familiarized a bit.

The game really wants you to explore (there are perks to going fast, and the level design most of the times doesn't put that many roadblocks in your way), and the level design really opens up to let you do that. I think being able to switch characters and partners in the hub is a great idea and it goes a long way to show how fun a game can be when you leave all the tools at the player's disposal and you let them experiment and come up with their own solution to challenges.

It's not perfect, though. As a Dimps tradition, level design issues come back, and I notoriously got betrayed by the level designers in Route 99 when I was exploring a top path and some fucking genius thought it would be fun to put a crusher block and a ceiling (on a top path, I must stress) you can't see until you climbed on top of said block and by then it's too late. "Why would you ever ride that block?" I hear you saying, and to that I say I was exploring the level for Chao and secret routes (couldn't see the too, assumed there could be a platform or something), and previously the game rewarded my curiosity with a Chao, but now it punished me.

And I have a very big complaint: level designers, for fuck's sake, STOP PLACING BOTTOMLESS PITS WHEN YOU'RE EXPECTING THE PLAYER TO EXPLORE LEVELS TOP TO BOTTOM. It goes directly against the whole purpose of the player exploring if they can't tell whether you can drop to a lower path with maybe a secret platform with a Chao, or if it's just a bottomless pit. It also doesn't help that some Advance 2-tier traps return (looking at you, waterfall jump in Sunset Hill Act 1), it kills the mood in an otherwise very solid game.

Other games, like The Messenger (Metroidvania, 2018, I don't know if any other game did what I'm about to mention, I'm still not too familiar with the genre), tried to tackle the bottomless pit issue by placing a subtle dithering pattern right over pits (and only bottomless pits), indicating they are not secret rooms you can access, while anything else is fair game. And while it's not perfect (it's a level design cue you have to pick on your own, it's not explained and it's not very easy to notice on your first playthrough), it's certainly better than having no indicators at all, or risking killing the mood of the game by placing giant red Sonic death sprites over pits, like Generations and S4E2 (which LOVED spamming those, it's absurd).

Anyway, I'm still making my way through Ad3, and all I can say is that at its best it's easily one of if not the best game of the trilogy, and at worst it's a bit inconsistent between great moments and big roadblocks killing the mood. They really nailed the partner system, tho, I'm having fun experimenting per character and per act.

As always, if you wonder why I get so picky about Sonic level design, it's because I'm a S3K fanboy I always found the topic of Sonic level design fascinating, watching videos, learning from actual level designers and doing my fair share of level design analysis on my Spanish blog. I wrote an article about why Sonic level design should balance the holy trinity of Speed-Platforming-Exploration, and you can read it here since beev translated it and also helped making it <3

This is what you wanted, Sarah. This is my promise to you (?)