What does or not fit to a classic-themed Sonic videogame?

Please avoid interpreting this as a "what is most important" question, because I am well aware that a good videogame is made up from many different parts, which need to be well coordinated with enough care and balance.
There seems to be a constant in here; not only there is the newbie people who are not YET too capable nor do know too much in overall, but we also have a lot of more than capable people, who can do just AMAZING stuff, but they apply their capability in the wrong maneer!. From badly balanced difficulty as seen at some point in the previous hacking contest, to features that absolutely does NOT belong for being totally unfitting in both gameplay and even gamestyle. I do not care if anybody gets the Mario's flowers to work and make Sonic throw fireballs with no flaws, it is just out of place, and would SUCK.

This issue does not only limit to the unofficial games. For example, here is why I do not think the score counter works too well:
Seriously, how useful is it? in the first Sonic 1 ROM, it does absolutely nothing; Uninspired, they "fixed" this by awarding an extra life after collecting X points.. only to become useless yet again in Chaotix (this game does not even feature a damn life counter!). I have easier and even better ways to get extra lifes in the classic Sonic videogames, that are either collecting 100 rings or finding the "hidden" monitors. So, just like Misinko mentioned some posts ago, you should never include a feature if you cannot justify them being there*.
What can be done about the score counter? Add a score board so there is, at least, a little feeling of competition; OR, just get rid of it for once. Now the question would be, might a high score board actually "work", if the Sonic videogame runs on the Sega Genesis, at least?...

* Depending of the videogame's direction, although too less content may make it feel "blank" and flat, too much of it does not work too well either unless we want to totally bore our hardcore player who was initially willing to experiment our game in a 100%.

EDIT: Spelling. I like to eat words! So tasty!

 

For me, these things do not fit:

• Homing Attack. There's no reason for it being there because jumping on enemies is already easy enough.
• Moves that cost rings. Rings have enough uses already and it makes no sense for a character to gain abilities while depleting their health. Whenever it is available, I never use it.
• Eggman Monitors. While these make sense in 2P mode when items are randomized, in normal play, they are an unimaginative obstacle. I can't think of any way they could be incorporated into interesting level designs.
• Situational Powerups. Power-ups are supposed to impower Sonic and make going through levels a little bit easier. When Sonic can't progress unless he has a certain power-up, it breaks the game's pace.
• Needing a number of rings to pass. This is used in Sonic 2's and both of Sonic 4's special stages. This is annoying because the stages this mechanic is in are filled with rings and on a time limit so it changes the game into a collectathon. What's wrong with just trying to avoid the obstacles while holding on to as many rings as you can. This would make them way less frustrating.
• Slowdown Shoes. This is pretty self-explainitory.

 

The score counter's inclusion in the Sonic series is, in my opinion, a by-product of the infamous 80's and early 90's arcade mentality that a video game can have re-playability if a score is given at the end of the play session. It's not just about completing the game, or completing it the fastest; it's about completing it with the highest score. This makes sense given that the game rewards you for completing an act quickly (50'000 points for under 30 seconds is a huge incentive to get a high score, regardless of whether a life is obtained for it). While this idea was essentially lost over time (Sonic 1 has the ending screen with/without the emerald cut scene and Sonic posing with the final score visible, Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 do not), the score mechanic was kept as way of providing extra lives (as you mention). While it's not the most efficient way of making score relevant, it does provide the score mechanic with a purpose, which is all it needs.

Now that I've explained that, I will happily explain my opinion on 2 things that I feel have no place in a 'classic themed' Sonic game:

• Long cut scenes that look good, but don't provide the player with anything to do. Now, this was more apparent in the Adventure games, but even Sonic 3 had some of these which I felt were a little on the long side, or took away from the experience in some way. On subsequent playthroughs, they are un-skippable, and do nothing but make the player want to speed up the game (thank god for the fast-forward function on emulators). The main examples I can think of are the Flying Battery bomber chase in Angel Island Zone Act 2, the Launch Base Zone Act 2 cutscenes for the Death Egg launch and subsequent failure, and the escape in Sky Sanctuary Zone. I'm not saying they should not be there at all, though. I just think that they take away from the experience and after you've seen them a handful of times, it really is just wasting the player's time.

• Obstacles that require an explanation. It seems wholly appropriate that I should bring up the infamous Carnival Night Zone barrel. I never had any problems with it myself, but I know a lot of people did. Most of the obstacles in the game should respond to the player's actions in a way that encourages the correct use of the player's skills in order to progress. The Carnival Night Zone barrel does not do this and, instead, responds to jumping which makes the player think that jumping at the right time will allow the barrel to continue it's movement until one can progress. This, however, is not the case, and it causes problems. There are many ways around a situation like this that are effective, though. The most obvious would be to minimise or remove the response to jumping on the barrel, so as not to confuse the player of it's potential use in this scenario. This solution works the best, in my opinion, and allows the player to progress with some thinking, without giving up. The second most used method I can think of, that is widely use, is signs, like Sonic 4 Episode I and II, and Sonic Colours and Sonic Generations. Death pits are marked with an icon, instead of motioning the player to look ahead, and areas where a specific attack of action are required are marked with a button press (Think like a QTE) or a sign showing the player what to do. I do not like this method, however, as it seems to cater to a hand-holding mentality that I loathe. The player should be able to think for themselves and be allowed to try these things on their own. If a section requires a sign like this, then I would actually say that maybe the area is not designed intuitively enough for the player, or needs to be changed to allow the player to progress through the use of various actions at their disposal. Trial and error in this instance is not a bad thing, contrary to what some people may have you believe.

There are a few other things I would bring up, but these 2 are enough to get the ball rolling for now.

 

I might be echoing CrazyMonkey16 and D.A. Garden here, but I find the end-of-act score tally to be pretty terrible. It's a combination of two elements that were already brought up in this thread: useless score, and boring cutscene. You just sit there watching a number go up, and get the occasional extra life or continue (I can go on about how these are pointless, but that's for another time). In S1/S2, I love doing that glitch where Sonic doesn't run off-screen, letting you control him during the tally. Even better, S1 features hidden bonus points, which give you something to do while you're waiting, even if the pay-off is little more than personal satisfaction and some points. This was something Colours did right, by letting you destroy the tally while you're waiting for it to end.

 

In a way it's both depressing and charming to see over half of the listed elements in this thread being part of my own hacks. Thankfully I can say that I'd do a lot of things different with my modern knowledge about game design.

One thing I do want to comment on though:

Now, of course your statement is just as much of an opinion as mine is, so I'm not saying either of us is inherently mistaken.

Personally speaking, I love cut scenes. It's for that very reason why I included them in more or less all my hacks, and also why Sonic 3K has so much punch from a story aspect. How did you feel when you escaped the crumbling pillar in Sky Sanctuary the first time? How victorious did you feel when you saw Knuckles looking at you in the distance back in Angel Island after you got the best ending?

And now tell me what kick you got from that spiraling tree stump before Fire Breath sets Angel Island aflame. Not that memorable, is it?

I can see cut scenes being annoying if they're seen for the tenth time, but I value the first-time-playing impression over any replay aspect. A skipping feature obviously never harms, but that's honestly just a design aspect, because from what I can gather from your quote is that you think long cut scenes are bad design by default, and I just don't see it that way.

Finally, a particular point I'd like to talk about is you criticizing the Flying Batter bomber chase. See it as that or don't, but in my eyes it's clearly not a cut scene that, as you said, "don't provide the player with anything to do". We grab right back into the treasure chest of first-time impressions, because the first time most people saw that, unless they got it right by intuition, they didn't know that holding right is the way to go, and got freaked out by those bombs. I know I did. To me those sections aren't cut scenes, but auto scrollers, which is a vastly different subject to talk about.

All in all, it boils down to you criticizing cut scenes for their negative impact on replay value, which I think is an unfair comparison. But hey, opinions schmopinions.

 

I did clarify my point about cut scenes as clearly as possible, but you seemed to have picked up points which I thought I'd covered in detail, so as to mitigate any ambiguity. However, as I seemed to have failed in that regard, let me respond to a few things:

I never said I didn't like cut scenes. I said I didn't like cut scenes that look good but don't provide the player with anything to do. It was important that I said that. There a re a handful of cutscenes that I rather like. Knuckles' encounters, Flying Battery Zone Act 2's miniboss/boss section and even the incredibly small introduction to the Death Egg Robot. Simple, but effective. It's the ones that drag on that irk me a little, and it's also something that I feel SEGA took inspiration from in Sonic Adventure. Let me put it this way: The Flying Battery bombing scene in Angel Island Zone Act 2 reminds me of the whale chase in Emerald Coast. They look good, but after the first few times of seeing them, the magic is lost as all you are doing is pressing one direction and waiting for it to end. In my opinion, anyway.

Something else you say is that the Flying Battery bombing scene in Angel Island Zone Act 2 is not a cut scene. I think it is; a glorified one, where you have control over the character, but you can just hold right to skip it all. If right on the d-pad was held down for you, and you had no other control, then yes, it would be a full-on cut scene.

You keep on going back to first impressions as a way around these scenes, but there's only so many times one can watch a small animated set piece before wanting to skip it. This is why they are games after all. Each experience is different. I don't see how labelling them as something that doesn't fit in with classic-themed Sonic games is an unfair comparison. What am I supposed to be comparing it too?

And this is all part of my point. All of the points here are subjective. People's opinions. Hell, I think you can place Eggman monitors in clever places, whereas ProjectFM disagrees. That's just my mentality, though.

 

I have a list of things that I find unfitting for a Classic Sonic game, I am also including unfitting stuff I see in hacks:

Autoscrollers: I am not a fan of these kinds of levels in any game as I find these levels break the pace of the game, there are some exceptions like Rayman Origins' mosquito levels since they are handled like arcade styled space shooters. However when it comes to Sonic it's more jarring due to the fast paced nature of the games, two examples come to mind, Bridge Zone Act 2 from Sonic 1 8-Bit and Sky Chase from Sonic 2. I wonder if any hackers have attempted to remove the autoscrolling from those levels, I might consider doing this for Sky Chase in my Sonic 2 hack.

Bottomless Pits in a boss fight: This is easily one of the most annoying things ever in a Sonic hack, there were no bottomless pits in any official Sonic game boss, the only exceptions are Labyrinth (S1 8-Bit) Spring Yard and Death Egg Act 2's second boss fight, however in SYZ and DEZ's case Eggman destroyed the platforms as the fight went on so it makes a lot more sense. Many newcomers always do this to make their boss fights "harder" without making their own custom bosses.

Unbalanced Difficulty: This is something that bothers me in any platformer, I like the difficulty to be balanced. The first world/zone should be the easiest and the rest of the zones should get harder as you progress. The worst offender of this issue is Sonic 2 8-Bit, the difficulty of the levels in this game go all over the place, some levels are a piece of cake (i.e. Green Hills which is actually Zone 4) and some are just infuriating (i.e. Aqua Lake Act 2). There are other Sonic games with unbalanced difficulty such as Sonic 1 but I feel as though S2 8-Bit does this the worst as the difficult levels require you to use mechanics that are clunky and unintuitive which really destroys the pace of the game (one of the many reasons why I don't like that game).

Bosses where there are no rings: I am not a fan of this idea in general because I feel as though this is just a cheap method of adding difficulty to the boss (similar to how new hackers add bottomless pits to the unaltered bosses), Sonic 1 and 2 (both 16-bit and 8-bit versions) feature bosses with no rings, when it comes to hacks SonicMT and Back in Time come to mind, in those cases they were the final bosses of their respective hacks and they were custom bosses too, the problem is the boss patterns for each boss are very tricky and trying to beat them without getting hit is really stretching it in my opinion, for those who might say "just use save states" I will answer back by saying save states shouldn't be a justification for fighting these bosses without rings (or any custom boss that's over the top), again I could potentially be playing these hacks on hardware and there are no save state options on a Mega Drive.

There are other things I find unfitting in a classic Sonic styled game/hack but these 4 issues stick out the most for me.