I personally consider SRB2 to be the LittleBigPlanet of Sonic fangames. Cuz even though you can mod the game to hell and back, the vanilla package can still hold to the test of time due to the sheer amount of content within. And like with LittleBigPlanet, the modability is more of a bonus.
i'm the rare elusive "vanilla SRB2 fan" you couldn't find for this video. i feel like SRB2 mods have *always* been striving to try and replicate the gameplay flow of the actual sonic games instead of what SRB2 is, it's like that now and always has been with older mods like that SA2B port trying to implement modern sonic design philosophy into SRB2. i think SRB2 though on it's own stands VERY well on its own, people just go into it expecting smth like SA1. i spend alot of my time playing vanilla or similarly vanilla mods like mystic realm or tortured planet, and i do dread 2.3 knowing it's going to change everything and potentially twist the game into something i dont want it to be.
THIS IS SO HOW I FEEL TOO, I love SRB2 for BEING SRB2, if I wanted to play SA1 or whatever I'd go play SA1. If you've seen the SRB2 Feb 2000 prototype series by SSNTails and Sonikku that's being released currently, they actually talk about how they didn't want to make SRB2 just like SA1, it's a really good watch if you get the time. Still though, I'm really not wishing to even play 2.3 because I know it's just not gonna be SRB2 at all, it's losing it's original identity entirely.
Yeah, this is kind of why I got into the game to begin with. I see a lot of mods that essentially steer away from these things and while I appreciate that they probably aren't for me, i've never really thought they were the "This makes the game better" kind of mod that you often see people praising them as. SRB2 for me is fun because of its differences to the mainline games and even other fan games and i've never once thought the game needed more from them to be better when it stands up well enough on its own.
Claiming vanilla SRB2 is obsolete because of mods is like calling Doom 1 or 2 obsolete. Yeah, if you only play mods, it's kinda useless, but if you step back from the mods, there's a pretty good game at it's core.
This are exactly my thoughts. SRB2 wouldn't have such a sprawling modding community if the game itself was bad. No bad game has a good modding community.
I love vanilla SRB2, Or, at least the level design and concepts. The modded characters carry the game in my opinion. The modded maps and all are cool but, SRB2 has a certain vibe most map packs fail to recreate, but in terms of characters in vanilla, beating the entire game with each one and afterward, makes it feel stale. So in terms of characters, I find it boring, but with levels, I believe vanilla SRB2 does the job just fine.
Same. The level content is fine (Although I really wish we had a full Red Volcano zone). But I do find myself adding certain characters to replay the game often enough that I just made an autoexec file for them. Mostly Shadow, Blaze and Marine, and Silver.
To be honest, i think it depends on what you view SRB2 *as* . If you view it as a modding platform more than a game, then yes, it *is* obsolete. But in that case, the vanilla content becomes more of a template, or a taste of what you can do, and in that sense it's not a bad thing that mods manage to push further than that. However, if you do view it as a game that just happens to have a big modding community, *it isn't obsolete, and it never will* (or at least it shouldn't), precisely BECAUSE of the different design philosophies between vanilla SRB2 and most mods. Moving away from Sonic for a little bit, there's a reason why Capcom still decided to keep Classic Megaman alive despite Megaman X, Zero and ZX having a lot more depth in their own unique systems, and that's because that simplicity made Classic stand out even though they all have the same or similar basic gameplay mechanics. That's the same way i feel for SRB2. Sure, mods like Silverhorn are great, but vanilla SRB2's simplicity is great in it's own right. Or at least, that's how i personally view it.
I think you dumb down why people mod SBR2 wayy too much. I think using a blanket statement like that and going welp everyone mods SRB2 for this exact reason to be absurd. I could list multitude of reasons as to why someone would wanna mod SRB2 such as: Customization,Content Creation,Community Building,Personal Expression etc etc. I think SRB2 perfecting it's level design won't stop people from being inspired. (hell now thinking about it. what's stopping others from being inspired by mods themselves. Clearly your argument is way too vase of subject to really little down to something like SRB2 is imperfect so it inspires others.)
I thought the same thing, and also the fact that, he implies that somehow srb2 can reach such a "perfect" state, that there would be no room for improvement for modders, even though, there's no such thing as a "perfect" game. There's always more content to add, more maps, more characters, more gamemodes, and the vanilla experience recieving more updates and changes isn't gonna change that fact. I think the issue has more to do with identity rather than the game being obsolete. Most people that find out about mods, quickly gravitate towards them, instead of the main vanilla experience, and the devs are trying to make srb2 more catered towards most people, rather than those ones who have been there since the very beginning, and there's always the question of wether or not they should go in that direction. Me? I don't mind either way, funnily enough, because I can always go back to playing an old experience, since both the archives and mods would allow me to do that.
Let me be blunt in my assessment of vanilla SRB2's position as well as the condition of the community: Vanilla SRB2 has lacked proper positive influences/community leaders for years if not a full decade, and this has led to what I like to call the era of closed circles between the 2010s & modern day. The Kart Krew & the SRB2P troupe has been taking charge as the observable faces of the community to the outsiders for much of this time. Unfortunate side-effects of this is how vanilla SRB2-related stuff like modding has been the biggest source of controversy as of late, let it be the ousting of the Mystic's close circle, the more current dispute between the eastern & the western part of the community over porting issues & distrust that had been piled up ever since the former. Now here is where I will put my personal, genuine input to this whole situation as one of the people who actually tried to make mods for vanilla: I felt betrayed & left to languish by the community at large, my projects progressed painfully slowly due to the lack of easily accessible information. (fix your wiki ffs, relying on it was a pain in the neck.) I don't think you'd be happy to sit around a discord server for hours on end just to have a small of a bit of a chance to get someone to explain something in a far more competent & less complicated manner if you had paranoia like I have. Now I personally was never one to give a flying flip about fame or anything, I figured I'd spend a year or two indulging in creative work and then moving on with no hard feeling afterwards. Maybe I should have clung onto that initial distrust I had after all, would make for less emotional baggage if I could just pass off all of what's happened with the classic shrug and "c'est la vie".
Even after being part of the SRB2 community for 18 years (I first discovered the game in 2006) I still do not get sick of the vanilla experience. It's my favorite game of all time, after all. I think the notion that the base game could be becoming obsolete because of the modding community is silly. I may be in the minority, but I actually don't really like modding my games usually! Of course, I still mod SRB2 from time to time, but every time a new mod comes around, I play with it for a while, and then go right back to vanilla. There will always be my core selection of "favorite mods" that I'll always apply every once in a while when I wanna spice things up, but it's never because I'm getting sick of vanilla. The simplicity of SRB2 is exactly why I love it, and I actually dislike that it's becoming more like the mods that it spawned. Especially now that they're removing the achievement lockout when you have mods installed. Now there's absolutely no reason to be trying to make SRB2 more complex, because if you want your game to be different, while still unlocking things, you can just do that. (Leave the base game's movesets alone! If I want a more complex character, I'll go to the message boards.) SRB2 would not exist nowadays without the modding community being there to carry it through the content droughts, but at the same time, the modding community would not be here if SRB2 wasn't such a special game to begin with! Sure, modded characters are a blast and have way cooler movesets, but there's a massive problem with them, and this issue persists with almost every single modded character ever released. You will almost never find stages built for them. Every stage, included modded ones, is intended for the base characters with their simple movesets. This ends up making custom character movesets feel like you're breaking/bending the rules, rather than actually playing a game built around the moveset. Now I'm not saying that isn't a fun thing to do, but it is a different experience, and to me feels a little shallow. All of these super cool characters with cool movesets, only to feel like they don't belong in the game that they are in. The simplicity of the main cast's moveset is exactly why vanilla SRB2 stands out to me.
To elaborate on the "perfection" point : It's not that making the game better is necessarily bad, but doing so does leave a lasting impression that mods released for the game need to keep up with a higher standard of quality to even be relevant. And with the judging process being as forgiving as it's ever been, it's simply going to result in a lot of releases that come out and are immediately dropped into the void, since they do not hold a candle to what the vanilla game has to offer. Mods made by cliques of professional devs also tend to raise this standard, since kids who aren't aware of the modding process simply see a high quality mod they like and decide that should be the golden standard that should be provided by every mod, but that's another story entirely.
i do disagree on the "perfection", i doubt that a perfect srb2 would be modless, on the contrary, a lot of people would feel motivated to keep modding it, as getting more srb2 is always good. if anything, i would say the mods are good, because vanilla srb2 is already good, character mods offer me a different way to tackle the levels, level mods give me more zones to blast through, the mods that change even more are fun to experiment with. like, even back in versions 2.0 and 1.09 were lua wasn't a thing so most mods were very basic characters and levels without much room to experiment compared to now since SOC was a nightmare to deal with and create anything even remotely different from vanilla mechanically wise, people still did a lot of mods regardless
I worry about 2.3 because...I don't like any 3D Sonic fan games other than SRB2, and a lot of the footage of the update looks like it plays like 3D Sonic fan games other than SRB2. Most of the time when I play SRB2 it's vanilla levels with custom chars btw. Most 3D fan games, to me, feel like they're more concerned with just placing ramps around to let you shoot a billion feet in the air and let you go as fast as possible rather than having genuinely engaging level design, they understand physics are a huge part of what makes Sonic what it is but they don't understand the rest. While I accept that the levels are designed the way they are because for most of history SRB2 didn't have slopes, I think that resulted in vanilla levels that actually feel closer to a 3D version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, managing to use speed as a tool instead of the whole point. Because the official Sonic games (both 2D and 3D, with maybe a few exceptions, also most 2D fan games) don't let you just easily maintain speed the way most 3D fangames and a lot of custom SRB2 levels do, there are slower parts, entire slower levels, parts with not a lot of hilly area. I hope my worries are unfounded, the reason it looks like other fan games is just because they have to showcase this new aspect, and we just get some more physics based sections in what is overall an improvement on the same levels, but I worry.
While there are great levels in the Design Contests/Collabs, SRB2's campaign being an actual CAPMAIGN with a great set of levels back-to-back means that it will always be my favorite way to play the game, even if I mod different characters in, nothing beat the base game campaign. It isn't the same playing bunch of disconnected levels.
Remember when Sonic Mania came out and raised the standard of what fan games should look like? (Yeah, Mania isn't really a fan game, but it essentially replaced Sonic 2 and Sonic 3&K in the minds of fans as the "ideal".) I'm fairly new to SRB2, but looking at what was coming out in the 2.1 era, it seems like something similar happened with 2.2. SRB2 is a bit different, though, in that it seems like the modded content is always noticeably a step ahead of the vanilla content. Look at something like Tortured Planet in comparison to the 2.0 campaign, or the Final Demo-era Mystic Realm in comparison to the Final Demo campaign... or even Mystic Realm CE in comparison to 2.2 right now! Each SRB2 update feels, at least in hindsight, to be an attempt to catch up with the new standard, in addition to pushing it a bit further (before the mods inevitably push it further still). In that sense, I don't think SRB2 2.3 will kill the desire for mods. If anything, I would expect it to fuel the desire for even higher-quality mods than what we have now. --- That said, there's certainly a point where each successive update brings diminishing returns on how much better something can get. For all intents and purposes, we can consider that "perfected". With that in mind, I think some levels in the campaign are already nearly there: Arid Canyon is maybe a little unforgiving at times, and perhaps it could be expanded a bit, but the core of the level is already largely "Utopia"-fied, if you think about it. Castle Eggman is similarly already very physics/momentum-based in its design. It's worth noticing that neither zone has appeared in any teasers for 2.3... perhaps because their near-total redesigns from 2.2 have already "perfected" them, more or less. Meanwhile, the stuff we *have* seen in 2.3 teasers are things like Greenflower (which was polished in 2.2 but still feels mostly the same to play as it did in Final Demo), Techno Hill (the second-oldest zone in the game), and Egg Rock (which has been almost untouched since 2.0, with the most notable changes actually being the *removal* of sections). I know you think there's not much progress being made on 2.3, but I would imagine it has something to do with what happened with the development of 2.2, where about half the stuff they did ended up being delayed. Look up how much footage there is of Deep Sea Zone stuff for 2.2 that wasn't finished in time (leading to the patchwork Act 2 we currently have), along with the Egg Rock remake that was even shown in the first trailer, only to be left out. They probably don't want to show too many level design changes, only to disappoint people if it turns out they can't finish it in time for whatever deadline they're currently aiming for. Come to think of it: aren't all the Deep Sea Act 2 teasers functionally 2.3 teasers now? Remember: the abandoned DSZ Act 1 remake from 2013 (which we didn't even know about until much later) ended up being incorporated into the 2.2 remake, so it's reasonable to assume that we've already seen part of what will become the new Deep Sea Zone Act 2. It's also worth remembering that they kept the overhauled Red Volcano secret until 2.2 came out (it wasn't even in the release trailer), so I would assume they want to keep something of that scale secret until release. What if, say, they were working on an act of Dark City or Grand Eggship? Imagine playing 2.3 on release day, beating the expected Red Volcano Act 2 you saw in the release trailer, and then seeing "Dark City Zone" appear on the screen. Moments like that are worth keeping a surprise for as long as possible. With all that in mind, if there's a problem with 2.3's development, it's not that there's no progress being made, but rather that certain decisions (e.g. the thok replacement and potential physics alterations that might require slight alterations to existing levels) have to be resolved before the update can proceed to the pre-release testing stage. I wouldn't say 2.3 has taken too long to come out *yet*, since every major SRB2 update takes about 5 years to come out anyway. But if 2.3 isn't given a release date by this time next year, then I'd say it's time to start questioning why they don't just release a smaller update with whatever is ready-to-go.
The fact that this obscure fan made game is still played blows my mind. I have fond memories of this game from around 15 years ago. I remember when Super Sonic was just a faster sonic with a cape. It's too bad it never grew into something bigger
The more I hang around the SRB2 Community the more I find questions I had 0 clue were even a thing. Vanilla SRB2 is insanely fun on its own, its one of my favorite Sonic games period, I always just viewed the mods as a cool bonus.
I enjoy the vanilla Sonic Robo Blast 2 quite a lot, but I still can't help adding a few mods here and there for a better experience... Ones such as edited sprites for vanilla Sonic that include skidding and dash-mode frames as well as a dark color tone underneath his shoes wherever it's applicable, uncapped momentum so I that I didn't have to spin down slopes all the time, some extra visual flair for when I go really fast, a more detailed looking HUD with some nice shading on the symbols which makes the messages in the chat stand out better, a soundtrack replacement that's literally just the original SRB2 OST but in it's highest sound quality, some additional maps and playable characters to make the game experience more expansive and the list goes on and on... A lot of what I listed are just simple enhancements for the most part. I'm still largely playing SRB2 almost like how it's meant to be because I've no interest in playing the version of SRB2 that turns it into an entirely different game. If I want a classic Sonic game with the most correct classic physics, I'll just play Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I want a Sonic game with linear levels and game-play that changes every six minutes, I'll just play Sonic Adventure 2. If I want a game that stinks to high heaven and no sane person actually enjoys playing (at least in it's vanilla format), I'll play Sonic Forces. Sonic Robo Blast 2 is Sonic Robo Blast 2, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
One thing that kinda baffles me about this video is how you never once mentioned one of the core aspects of Sonic design philosophy: replayability. Sonic games are intended to be played over and over to achieve a high score or a lower time record, and while SRB2 doesn't have stuff like the dynamic movement of the Adventure games, the momentum from the classic series, or all the insane shit from the boost games, a lot of the stuff from the game is very clearly designed to be used for people who like to play for score or speedrunners. Time Attack is a thing, and mechanics like the thok or Metal Sonic's boost show that STJr still has a lot of the same design philosophies of most other Sonic games, official or not. Of course, a huge part of the fun of SRB2 is trying out new stages and characters via mods, but rest assured there's a lot of people who enjoy playing vanilla just as they would any other Sonic game. I myself used to play like this back in the 2.1 days because I didn't know the SRB2 message board existed, and I was fine with it, mods of course made the whole thing better, but even then I mostly just play through vanilla with the Mario Bros. and I don't bother to check that many custom maps.
when you really like a game and you've played it over and over again, you eventually just get bored of it unless it has a sizable modding scene then you play the game with mods, and you get a tremendous amount of extra replayability eventually you just get bored of playing the game without mods because you've done it a million times vanilla SRB2 isn't obsolete, not just because it's what new players always turn to to enjoy the game, and it's what gets them into the mods, but it also is ofc used for most of the game's speedruns
I am probably like the only srb2 player who has never downloaded a mod and only plays the base game but I have easily sunk more time into the the game than any other 3d sonic game. I love vanilla sonic roboblast, the levels are fun, the characters are easy to learn and not overpowered, the aesthetics are nice, and there is a ton of content for a fan game. I’m excited to see what 2.3 is like as even if it’s not what I would hope for it to be, it’s not like it will mean I can’t just keep playing 2.2
Honestly I just want the planned missing zones to be added, for god's sake they should be focused on finishing the game instead of remaking gfz n stuff.
To respond the question: No. Vanilla is still amazing, the single player campaign being hella replayable despite its quirks. The only thing that is lacking are the characters, and that's mostly because the (good) modded characters overshadow them in terms of presentation and gameplay. Despite that, I only think they need a few changes (both visual and gameplay wise) to be on par with the rest.
I really love vanilla 2.2 as it is, very replayable with all the emblems and the bonus stages, easy to learn hard to master main campaign, only improvement I'd want from it is finishing the main campaign, and mods are cool too for when I want to have some new stages to play or run around as a new somewhat overpowered character.
DON'T WORRY! Is Vanilla SRB2 becoming obsolete? IS COMING OUT JANUARY 15TH! LISTEN!!! I was never complete I'm mod heavy Makes me have more content Call me an art community; reusability Mods are cool And they're IP too, told 'em change the thok Content update rate has just dropped Like an Arid Rock
for me vanilla srb2 isnt obsolete when comparing it to mods, this for me is like saying Classis Sonic Games are obsolete because Sonica Adventure or Frontiers exist... SRB2 for me is just that fangame that give the real classic games simplicity to the 3rd dimension, and its that, its not obsolete is just simpler cause thats the game main direction. also yeah modding obviusly showed up a big potential and maybe that makes for some people to not now fun that much fun vanilla srb2.. for me in that case the main fix i would do as a developer is, finish the whole srb2 game completly, give it his final secret boss, the zones that arent still complete or arent in the game now and that, and ended the update course of SRB2 by now and now knowing the potential this can have begging to make some kind a SRB3 where they try to push the limit and do something fully modernized with lot of inspiration of modding and just become fresh again with new updates etc etc, moddingo community could be in both games if they take care of being compatible with the already stablished srb2, but idk in any case im not stjr or anything im just saying what is my point of view if i was a developer member from a team who made a game a long time ago
I think the vanilla srb2 is a great ""tutorial"" because before i beat the vanilla game, i was terrible at the games physics and i didn't had much interest in playing mods because i died a lot
The biggest issue and fear I have is compatibility with older mods. SRB2 is notorious for making mods for older versions break or incompatible. And depending on how much the next version changes up the level design, LUA handling, momentum and whatnot? There’s a good chance a lot of mods will have to be DRASTICALLY reworked just to work in it. It’s actually infuriating and demotivating. This is also why them getting rid of the Thok is such a bad decision: Guess what character like to play SRB2 with? None of the Vanilla Cast, but the ADVENTURE SONIC addon. The only suitable replacement for the Thok is the Homing Attack and STJr are so afraid of adding it for some really stupid reason.
You say that like this is a problem exclusive to SRB2 when pretty much any game that receives a major content update has most if not all of its mods break requiring fixes to be made.
I don't think Vanilla is really obsolete, just that there's some tweaks here and there to be made. The levels could be a bit bigger and more polished visually and gameplay-wise, and some of the characters could use work to match, but in general, I actually prefer the Vanilla game to most mods, there's only a few things I'd really like to see added to "boost" the game a bit further. I've got a set of tweaks to the base game that aren't really super compromising gameplay-wise, but rather just fix aesthetic nitpicks and other small stuff to make it a more pleasant experience. The mods are just kinda icing on the cake imo
The problem with this question is that there is no real answer to it. Vanilla is reliable for those who dont want to try searching the wild web for a good mappack. (trust me, the mb's map list is getting worse each year.) While modded has a good variety of... everything, but if you were to try and make one yourself with no experience, you'd most likely give up. That is at least the jist of all of this. One of the REAL problems is with STJR's current list of gamedevs. Either they are doing their own thing apart from SRB2 now, or they are working on SRB2Kart2 (don't @ me about the actual name). Meaning there are little to no actual devs working on the game, and those that ARE have been blinded by the overwhelming desire to try and appease everybody. SRB2 is losing it's identity, 2.2 was a warning of what's to come. All the music being maniafied, characters becoming more complex; ruining the simplicity they were meant to convey with their movesets, the zones themselves instead of being finished on, they're becoming more like sonic utopia levels. STJR is facing the same problem Sonic Team is, where they listen to the fans too often on the wrong aspects and too little on the right aspects. The only things that could really use some QoL work is the camera and the downward slopes so you dont have to roll to fly into the air. Vanilla itself is becoming obsolete because of these issues, the official content of a game should be the main priority and have it's own identity. If it were to follow what others have made with it, it wouldn't be itself anymore. One could argue that it's just how the game is going to be like in the future, but the point still stands. There was always a reason SRB2 stuck out compared to the rest besides it's massive modding community, it had an identity that was unique to it. TL;DR, Nu-STJR should stop focusing on what everybody wants and focus on finishing the game the way THEY want it to be finished. Otherwise, if they keep going the route they're going, they're never going to finish this game. Also hire more people.
Suppose, for the sake of discussion SRB2 in it's current state finally finishes and they officially state that the game is done. What does that change, SRB2 in my eyes has always been finished. It has 8 main stages(with usually 2 acts), 7 Bonus stages. It has a proper ending and everything. This game isn't in some unfinished state as others claim. it's a full blown game. I think caring about things like if the devs state it's finished or not. to not really matter as the game even after it's finished will get updated. These guys aren't big companies where supporting a game with updates and massive changes cost money and time. It small team that working on this as a passion project. SRB2 no matter it's state will always be constantly getting updates.
I've wanted Dark City since the 2000s, and the final boss is a placeholder. Again, it's okay how the game is right now, but it's annoying that it then gets changed over and over for little to no reason if it doesn't contribute towards finishing the game. @@risingrevolt
@@robertwyatt3912 Though it was never as major as it was up to 2.2's release. 2.1 comparing to 2.0, theres barely any noticable differences with only some major ones in a few levels. With 2.2, it was an entirely different story. Nearly everything was overhauled which makes its comparison from 2.1 to 2.2 much more drastic.
I usually play SRB2 Vanilla with some mods that get rid of the roll lock, make Sonic a bit faster, and power up the spindash. Then I just play the orignal stages.
Every modded level pack is just so inconsistent in terms of quality, I would much rather just do a full vanilla playthrough than have to carefully consider what levels are in each Level Design Contest, or play another pack that just completely ignores the base game's art direction (nearly all of them do this), or even worse, trying to recreate those scenic parts in modern Sonic games where the game plays itself, just a big stretch of nothing with maybe an enemy or two dotted around to make it look less empty. Also, don't think that there's some complex problem-solving thought process behind every mod. Some people just make something because they want to see it. Look at the SRB2kart mods, for example, its 90% just people making the character they wanted to look at while playing, not the character that would most round out the roster in terms of who fits best, or what would meet popular demand the most. Sonic Team Jr, and modders, are the same. EDIT: AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT 2D SECTIONS OF MODDED LEVELS WHY DO SO MANY OF THEM USE THAT GIMMICK, IT FEELS SO BAD
Vanilla SRB2 will always have a place in the community, becuase SRB2 inhearently is a fun game with amazing gameplay, it masterfully adapts the Classic Sonic gameplayloop into 3D, Sonic doesnt really need a diverse moveset like Mario in SM64, cause his abilities already let him explore the sprawling levels
I'm having trouble really grasping this topic to be honest. The only thing I could think that'd make the game feel "obsolete" is the passage of time, the game has been out for a long time I feel like mods don't really add that much for me anymore, it's the actual big updates to the game that do it for me.
I love srb2 vanilla, getting on the school computers to play this because at the time my 2007 laptop couldn't run anything was the absolute best. Then when I finally built my pc years later getting to play this game was incredible, it felt like a true complete sonic adventure. Every time someone joined my it was just them screaming "WHERE ARE THE MODS" like bro I just enjoy playing the game as it is.
To me there will never not be a place for vanilla SRB2. A lot of the baseline for tricks and techniques to do in the game carries over excellently to some of the modded content of both characters and levels. Some stuff that you can do with vanilla cast carries over well to a fair lot of modded characters as there's a lot of baselines they have that help in understanding both high and low quality characters. Same with the levels as an understanding of how SRB2's vanilla levels go with design can still carry over for custom levels, CyberDime being a personal favourite in that front of wanting an expanded vanilla experience. I think with that, it's pretty disheartening that the new dev team and some of the mods getting buzz want to step away from all the ways SRB2 is unique from any other Sonic game. SRB2's quirks in its design and how it works together with the game is what gives the game its identity. 2.2 is probably the most massively changed up from past releases in terms of older levels, yet it's a miracle that very same game can still be seen in the first two zones of the game. I remember 2.2 coming out and being absolutely floored by how much changed even though you have so many people saying "it's not changed much at all" which I still find ludicrous as someone who's played this game since 1.08. With how mod compatibility between versions of the game tends to be non-existent, having a set of simple yet deceptively technical levels is amazing to have during the first months of a new version releasing. 2.2 felt like the most girthy yet with how much they added and tweaked to accomidate for some simple yet meaningful additions. There's definitely a truckload of mods now since release but I will always remember the start of the current version being a time of whimsey and experimentation for players like myself. If anything I feel for every ridiculously expansive thing the dev team tries to pull in, trying to make it fit in more into having sensibilities of more mainstream 3D Sonic games takes away from the unique identity of SRB2. Having the homing attack is definitely a way to make things easier for playing Sonic but with the traditional method of control being so crucial to speedrunners or legacy players it'd be great to have the option to have the thok instead. HECK, the final demo had console options of enabling and disabling a more Adventure styled form of play due to the Adventure Example bonus! It did mean everyone had it for netgames but surely there's a way around it. Probably the only Sonic-ism I'd take from the games would be speed when going down slopes while running. As of now it's kind of like Sonic 1 where the physics don't fully kick in unless you roll which whilst it adds exhileration does make some execution on some places more demanding. But ultimately I just hope SRB2 can continue to be SRB2 in the face of so many mods and source ports coming out. It's truly unique in the way it's evolved its own 3D Sonic and I hope that different eye doesn't crumble under the pressure and expectations of the tropes other 3D Sonic games have.
I feel that the correct question is: "Has 2.2 been for long enough?" It has been around for 4 years, we can only live with a single huge update for so long before we get bored of it or the level design becomes outdated
At least for me I don't really use mods to replace the base game but to supplement it, I mean it took me until this year to even play a level hack just because I find the vanilla levels so good, but someone else might only play Solo Sonic and their mods might only be level mods, we both like the base game, but we want more of different aspects and that's great and leads to a good variety in the modding community.
Vanilla SRB2 is amazing and the mods are amazing too I really like play greenflower act 1 and 2 to test the mods and when i play custom levels i use vanilla characters and custom character When i play the game for first time i remenber that the camera was strange and because of that i don't continue with the game. But like 1 or 2 years laters i saw a video about the modern sonic and werehog mods and i really like it for that reason i re installed the game and i fall in love with it and the mods PD:I don't speak English
While vanilla can be somewhat boring to play after constantly doing so, the same goes with mods in my eyes. Theres so much you could do, and havibya good balance could help with that. You want something new? Do what I did and beat srb2 with fang or knuckles. Shits crazy.
Nah, I've been playing SRB2 since 2007, and I haven't downloaded a new mod in years. The main game of 2.2 especially is endlessly replayable for me. Modern mods feel too disconnected from the base experience for me, so I don't really pay them any mind. I just think if you're active in the community, you're gonna be paying attention to what the community is doing. For people who like me who really only pay attention to the community when a new version of the base game drops, I'd say SRB2 is FAR from obsolete.
I say no because the vanilla game is still good by itself, mods are the sprinkles. Like Doom, I love mods yet I also love the original IWADs. And I'd argue that less is more and that I don't like the slopes in the upcoming 2.3, it doesn't feel SRB2-ish to me.
i've been playing srb2 for over 13 years i always loved the game and still do now. but it feels weird nowadays with some of the changes. however my experience with the community's mods has improved. so much good stuff gets pumped out but vanilla just feels no longer the same vibe. it's just odd. not bad just odd. maybe i'm nostalgic for the old level designs.
Like Ven below, I'm also among the rare elusive "vanilla SRB2 fans" you couldn't find for this video. Truth be told, the only mod I regularly use is SRB2 The Past, which is literally a compilation of every vanilla SRB2 version ever made. To me, vanilla SRB2 is peak SRB2.
Look it’s me! Jokes aside, the vanilla game is very good. But with the mods, the vanilla characters especially seem to be left in the dust, but as I said, the vanilla maps cannot be beat, with rare exceptions.
SRB2 isn't perfect, nor will it ever be and that's okay. The idea of vanilla SRB2 reaching a state of perfection could be considered a moot point since perfection in this context is in the eye of the beholder. So long as the tools to do so exist the motivated and talented will always be there to rectify whatever issue they subjectively perceive exists with the vanilla game. Even then that's far from being the only reason people make mods for the games they love.
Can you give the song you used on the "overshadowed" section of the video please? I heard it once in 2022 by the name "the poopshitters something-something" (idk i forgot the 2nd part) and it was the same but low quality and with different instrumentation and i tought this was the original Also y'know that one person you mentioned is hard to find that loves vanilla SRB2 for what it is? Me. I am that person. I LOVE srb2, and even without the mods its my fave Sonic fangame
No way Granifer Giganticus v2!!11!1! (REAL!?). In all seriousness, I do agree with some of the points here, srb2 vanilla shouldn't be TOO reliant on mods.
Not even gonna watch the video(not to be rude) because i already diacussed with am friend about I don't think so, vanilla serves to teach the player the basics and other than momentum not existing, vanilla os kinda perfect If only it had momentum, tough 2.3 apparently will fix it, hopefully
Due to SRB2's age, the dev team has essentially ship of Theseus'd itself by having older devs be replaced by newer devs. Sandwich calls the current dev team "NuSonic Team Jr." as a jab for straying too far from the original design of SRB2, at least in his opinion.
@@Doxthefox ehh x sonic looks good but it also doesn’t really look like it’ll mesh well with many mods and the vast majority of the mods were shovelware slop if i’m gonna be frank, i’m personally not super excited
@@emperortoho but like what are you gonna expect from an x sonic mod? To look like apart of the vannila srb2 style? And also yes some mods aren't very high budget, but there were definitely some good stuff like always
normal SRB2 is just kinda very boring, mods are objectively better even the bad ones lmao. If this game didn't have mods it would be dead. Hopefully 2.3 improves on the game to make it actually good.
I personally consider SRB2 to be the LittleBigPlanet of Sonic fangames. Cuz even though you can mod the game to hell and back, the vanilla package can still hold to the test of time due to the sheer amount of content within. And like with LittleBigPlanet, the modability is more of a bonus.
i'm the rare elusive "vanilla SRB2 fan" you couldn't find for this video. i feel like SRB2 mods have *always* been striving to try and replicate the gameplay flow of the actual sonic games instead of what SRB2 is, it's like that now and always has been with older mods like that SA2B port trying to implement modern sonic design philosophy into SRB2. i think SRB2 though on it's own stands VERY well on its own, people just go into it expecting smth like SA1. i spend alot of my time playing vanilla or similarly vanilla mods like mystic realm or tortured planet, and i do dread 2.3 knowing it's going to change everything and potentially twist the game into something i dont want it to be.
Bro, I feel like so many modders miss the point in terms of what to strive for, not for to be like official sonic games, but to be like srb2 itself
THIS IS SO HOW I FEEL TOO, I love SRB2 for BEING SRB2, if I wanted to play SA1 or whatever I'd go play SA1. If you've seen the SRB2 Feb 2000 prototype series by SSNTails and Sonikku that's being released currently, they actually talk about how they didn't want to make SRB2 just like SA1, it's a really good watch if you get the time. Still though, I'm really not wishing to even play 2.3 because I know it's just not gonna be SRB2 at all, it's losing it's original identity entirely.
Yeah, this is kind of why I got into the game to begin with. I see a lot of mods that essentially steer away from these things and while I appreciate that they probably aren't for me, i've never really thought they were the "This makes the game better" kind of mod that you often see people praising them as. SRB2 for me is fun because of its differences to the mainline games and even other fan games and i've never once thought the game needed more from them to be better when it stands up well enough on its own.
Ur dumbo
Good to see you're around Ven, didnt know you also watched this channel!
Claiming vanilla SRB2 is obsolete because of mods is like calling Doom 1 or 2 obsolete. Yeah, if you only play mods, it's kinda useless, but if you step back from the mods, there's a pretty good game at it's core.
Basically. No matter how many wads will be made, srb2.pk3 will always be a good first stepping stone.
This are exactly my thoughts. SRB2 wouldn't have such a sprawling modding community if the game itself was bad. No bad game has a good modding community.
I love vanilla SRB2,
Or, at least the level design and concepts. The modded characters carry the game in my opinion. The modded maps and all are cool but, SRB2 has a certain vibe most map packs fail to recreate, but in terms of characters in vanilla, beating the entire game with each one and afterward, makes it feel stale.
So in terms of characters, I find it boring, but with levels, I believe vanilla SRB2 does the job just fine.
Same.
The level content is fine (Although I really wish we had a full Red Volcano zone). But I do find myself adding certain characters to replay the game often enough that I just made an autoexec file for them. Mostly Shadow, Blaze and Marine, and Silver.
To be honest, i think it depends on what you view SRB2 *as* .
If you view it as a modding platform more than a game, then yes, it *is* obsolete. But in that case, the vanilla content becomes more of a template, or a taste of what you can do, and in that sense it's not a bad thing that mods manage to push further than that.
However, if you do view it as a game that just happens to have a big modding community, *it isn't obsolete, and it never will* (or at least it shouldn't), precisely BECAUSE of the different design philosophies between vanilla SRB2 and most mods.
Moving away from Sonic for a little bit, there's a reason why Capcom still decided to keep Classic Megaman alive despite Megaman X, Zero and ZX having a lot more depth in their own unique systems, and that's because that simplicity made Classic stand out even though they all have the same or similar basic gameplay mechanics.
That's the same way i feel for SRB2. Sure, mods like Silverhorn are great, but vanilla SRB2's simplicity is great in it's own right.
Or at least, that's how i personally view it.
I think you dumb down why people mod SBR2 wayy too much. I think using a blanket statement like that and going welp everyone mods SRB2 for this exact reason to be absurd. I could list multitude of reasons as to why someone would wanna mod SRB2 such as: Customization,Content Creation,Community Building,Personal Expression etc etc. I think SRB2 perfecting it's level design won't stop people from being inspired. (hell now thinking about it. what's stopping others from being inspired by mods themselves. Clearly your argument is way too vase of subject to really little down to something like SRB2 is imperfect so it inspires others.)
I thought the same thing, and also the fact that, he implies that somehow srb2 can reach such a "perfect" state, that there would be no room for improvement for modders, even though, there's no such thing as a "perfect" game. There's always more content to add, more maps, more characters, more gamemodes, and the vanilla experience recieving more updates and changes isn't gonna change that fact.
I think the issue has more to do with identity rather than the game being obsolete. Most people that find out about mods, quickly gravitate towards them, instead of the main vanilla experience, and the devs are trying to make srb2 more catered towards most people, rather than those ones who have been there since the very beginning, and there's always the question of wether or not they should go in that direction. Me? I don't mind either way, funnily enough, because I can always go back to playing an old experience, since both the archives and mods would allow me to do that.
biggest problem dragging srb2 vanilla down has always been the relatively slow content updates
Consider yourself lucky the game gets updates at all. I thought they stopped updating it in 2010
@@FlaccidFellaseriously, they’ve been updating it for 20 years
@@zf10studios52 honestly blew my mind when I found out. I was just a kid when I played that game. I'm damn near middle aged now
Let me be blunt in my assessment of vanilla SRB2's position as well as the condition of the community:
Vanilla SRB2 has lacked proper positive influences/community leaders for years if not a full decade, and this has led to what I like to call the era of closed circles between the 2010s & modern day. The Kart Krew & the SRB2P troupe has been taking charge as the observable faces of the community to the outsiders for much of this time.
Unfortunate side-effects of this is how vanilla SRB2-related stuff like modding has been the biggest source of controversy as of late, let it be the ousting of the Mystic's close circle, the more current dispute between the eastern & the western part of the community over porting issues & distrust that had been piled up ever since the former.
Now here is where I will put my personal, genuine input to this whole situation as one of the people who actually tried to make mods for vanilla:
I felt betrayed & left to languish by the community at large, my projects progressed painfully slowly due to the lack of easily accessible information. (fix your wiki ffs, relying on it was a pain in the neck.) I don't think you'd be happy to sit around a discord server for hours on end just to have a small of a bit of a chance to get someone to explain something in a far more competent & less complicated manner if you had paranoia like I have.
Now I personally was never one to give a flying flip about fame or anything, I figured I'd spend a year or two indulging in creative work and then moving on with no hard feeling afterwards. Maybe I should have clung onto that initial distrust I had after all, would make for less emotional baggage if I could just pass off all of what's happened with the classic shrug and "c'est la vie".
Even after being part of the SRB2 community for 18 years (I first discovered the game in 2006) I still do not get sick of the vanilla experience. It's my favorite game of all time, after all.
I think the notion that the base game could be becoming obsolete because of the modding community is silly. I may be in the minority, but I actually don't really like modding my games usually! Of course, I still mod SRB2 from time to time, but every time a new mod comes around, I play with it for a while, and then go right back to vanilla. There will always be my core selection of "favorite mods" that I'll always apply every once in a while when I wanna spice things up, but it's never because I'm getting sick of vanilla. The simplicity of SRB2 is exactly why I love it, and I actually dislike that it's becoming more like the mods that it spawned. Especially now that they're removing the achievement lockout when you have mods installed. Now there's absolutely no reason to be trying to make SRB2 more complex, because if you want your game to be different, while still unlocking things, you can just do that. (Leave the base game's movesets alone! If I want a more complex character, I'll go to the message boards.)
SRB2 would not exist nowadays without the modding community being there to carry it through the content droughts, but at the same time, the modding community would not be here if SRB2 wasn't such a special game to begin with!
Sure, modded characters are a blast and have way cooler movesets, but there's a massive problem with them, and this issue persists with almost every single modded character ever released.
You will almost never find stages built for them. Every stage, included modded ones, is intended for the base characters with their simple movesets. This ends up making custom character movesets feel like you're breaking/bending the rules, rather than actually playing a game built around the moveset. Now I'm not saying that isn't a fun thing to do, but it is a different experience, and to me feels a little shallow. All of these super cool characters with cool movesets, only to feel like they don't belong in the game that they are in. The simplicity of the main cast's moveset is exactly why vanilla SRB2 stands out to me.
To elaborate on the "perfection" point : It's not that making the game better is necessarily bad, but doing so does leave a lasting impression that mods released for the game need to keep up with a higher standard of quality to even be relevant. And with the judging process being as forgiving as it's ever been, it's simply going to result in a lot of releases that come out and are immediately dropped into the void, since they do not hold a candle to what the vanilla game has to offer.
Mods made by cliques of professional devs also tend to raise this standard, since kids who aren't aware of the modding process simply see a high quality mod they like and decide that should be the golden standard that should be provided by every mod, but that's another story entirely.
i do disagree on the "perfection", i doubt that a perfect srb2 would be modless, on the contrary, a lot of people would feel motivated to keep modding it, as getting more srb2 is always good.
if anything, i would say the mods are good, because vanilla srb2 is already good, character mods offer me a different way to tackle the levels, level mods give me more zones to blast through, the mods that change even more are fun to experiment with.
like, even back in versions 2.0 and 1.09 were lua wasn't a thing so most mods were very basic characters and levels without much room to experiment compared to now since SOC was a nightmare to deal with and create anything even remotely different from vanilla mechanically wise, people still did a lot of mods regardless
I worry about 2.3 because...I don't like any 3D Sonic fan games other than SRB2, and a lot of the footage of the update looks like it plays like 3D Sonic fan games other than SRB2. Most of the time when I play SRB2 it's vanilla levels with custom chars btw.
Most 3D fan games, to me, feel like they're more concerned with just placing ramps around to let you shoot a billion feet in the air and let you go as fast as possible rather than having genuinely engaging level design, they understand physics are a huge part of what makes Sonic what it is but they don't understand the rest. While I accept that the levels are designed the way they are because for most of history SRB2 didn't have slopes, I think that resulted in vanilla levels that actually feel closer to a 3D version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, managing to use speed as a tool instead of the whole point. Because the official Sonic games (both 2D and 3D, with maybe a few exceptions, also most 2D fan games) don't let you just easily maintain speed the way most 3D fangames and a lot of custom SRB2 levels do, there are slower parts, entire slower levels, parts with not a lot of hilly area.
I hope my worries are unfounded, the reason it looks like other fan games is just because they have to showcase this new aspect, and we just get some more physics based sections in what is overall an improvement on the same levels, but I worry.
While there are great levels in the Design Contests/Collabs, SRB2's campaign being an actual CAPMAIGN with a great set of levels back-to-back means that it will always be my favorite way to play the game, even if I mod different characters in, nothing beat the base game campaign. It isn't the same playing bunch of disconnected levels.
Remember when Sonic Mania came out and raised the standard of what fan games should look like? (Yeah, Mania isn't really a fan game, but it essentially replaced Sonic 2 and Sonic 3&K in the minds of fans as the "ideal".) I'm fairly new to SRB2, but looking at what was coming out in the 2.1 era, it seems like something similar happened with 2.2.
SRB2 is a bit different, though, in that it seems like the modded content is always noticeably a step ahead of the vanilla content. Look at something like Tortured Planet in comparison to the 2.0 campaign, or the Final Demo-era Mystic Realm in comparison to the Final Demo campaign... or even Mystic Realm CE in comparison to 2.2 right now!
Each SRB2 update feels, at least in hindsight, to be an attempt to catch up with the new standard, in addition to pushing it a bit further (before the mods inevitably push it further still). In that sense, I don't think SRB2 2.3 will kill the desire for mods. If anything, I would expect it to fuel the desire for even higher-quality mods than what we have now.
---
That said, there's certainly a point where each successive update brings diminishing returns on how much better something can get. For all intents and purposes, we can consider that "perfected". With that in mind, I think some levels in the campaign are already nearly there: Arid Canyon is maybe a little unforgiving at times, and perhaps it could be expanded a bit, but the core of the level is already largely "Utopia"-fied, if you think about it. Castle Eggman is similarly already very physics/momentum-based in its design. It's worth noticing that neither zone has appeared in any teasers for 2.3... perhaps because their near-total redesigns from 2.2 have already "perfected" them, more or less.
Meanwhile, the stuff we *have* seen in 2.3 teasers are things like Greenflower (which was polished in 2.2 but still feels mostly the same to play as it did in Final Demo), Techno Hill (the second-oldest zone in the game), and Egg Rock (which has been almost untouched since 2.0, with the most notable changes actually being the *removal* of sections).
I know you think there's not much progress being made on 2.3, but I would imagine it has something to do with what happened with the development of 2.2, where about half the stuff they did ended up being delayed. Look up how much footage there is of Deep Sea Zone stuff for 2.2 that wasn't finished in time (leading to the patchwork Act 2 we currently have), along with the Egg Rock remake that was even shown in the first trailer, only to be left out. They probably don't want to show too many level design changes, only to disappoint people if it turns out they can't finish it in time for whatever deadline they're currently aiming for.
Come to think of it: aren't all the Deep Sea Act 2 teasers functionally 2.3 teasers now? Remember: the abandoned DSZ Act 1 remake from 2013 (which we didn't even know about until much later) ended up being incorporated into the 2.2 remake, so it's reasonable to assume that we've already seen part of what will become the new Deep Sea Zone Act 2.
It's also worth remembering that they kept the overhauled Red Volcano secret until 2.2 came out (it wasn't even in the release trailer), so I would assume they want to keep something of that scale secret until release. What if, say, they were working on an act of Dark City or Grand Eggship? Imagine playing 2.3 on release day, beating the expected Red Volcano Act 2 you saw in the release trailer, and then seeing "Dark City Zone" appear on the screen. Moments like that are worth keeping a surprise for as long as possible.
With all that in mind, if there's a problem with 2.3's development, it's not that there's no progress being made, but rather that certain decisions (e.g. the thok replacement and potential physics alterations that might require slight alterations to existing levels) have to be resolved before the update can proceed to the pre-release testing stage. I wouldn't say 2.3 has taken too long to come out *yet*, since every major SRB2 update takes about 5 years to come out anyway. But if 2.3 isn't given a release date by this time next year, then I'd say it's time to start questioning why they don't just release a smaller update with whatever is ready-to-go.
The fact that this obscure fan made game is still played blows my mind. I have fond memories of this game from around 15 years ago. I remember when Super Sonic was just a faster sonic with a cape. It's too bad it never grew into something bigger
The more I hang around the SRB2 Community the more I find questions I had 0 clue were even a thing.
Vanilla SRB2 is insanely fun on its own, its one of my favorite Sonic games period, I always just viewed the mods as a cool bonus.
I enjoy the vanilla Sonic Robo Blast 2 quite a lot, but I still can't help adding a few mods here and there for a better experience...
Ones such as edited sprites for vanilla Sonic that include skidding and dash-mode frames as well as a dark color tone underneath his shoes wherever it's applicable, uncapped momentum so I that I didn't have to spin down slopes all the time, some extra visual flair for when I go really fast, a more detailed looking HUD with some nice shading on the symbols which makes the messages in the chat stand out better, a soundtrack replacement that's literally just the original SRB2 OST but in it's highest sound quality, some additional maps and playable characters to make the game experience more expansive and the list goes on and on...
A lot of what I listed are just simple enhancements for the most part. I'm still largely playing SRB2 almost like how it's meant to be because I've no interest in playing the version of SRB2 that turns it into an entirely different game. If I want a classic Sonic game with the most correct classic physics, I'll just play Sonic 3 & Knuckles. If I want a Sonic game with linear levels and game-play that changes every six minutes, I'll just play Sonic Adventure 2. If I want a game that stinks to high heaven and no sane person actually enjoys playing (at least in it's vanilla format), I'll play Sonic Forces.
Sonic Robo Blast 2 is Sonic Robo Blast 2, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
One thing that kinda baffles me about this video is how you never once mentioned one of the core aspects of Sonic design philosophy: replayability. Sonic games are intended to be played over and over to achieve a high score or a lower time record, and while SRB2 doesn't have stuff like the dynamic movement of the Adventure games, the momentum from the classic series, or all the insane shit from the boost games, a lot of the stuff from the game is very clearly designed to be used for people who like to play for score or speedrunners. Time Attack is a thing, and mechanics like the thok or Metal Sonic's boost show that STJr still has a lot of the same design philosophies of most other Sonic games, official or not.
Of course, a huge part of the fun of SRB2 is trying out new stages and characters via mods, but rest assured there's a lot of people who enjoy playing vanilla just as they would any other Sonic game. I myself used to play like this back in the 2.1 days because I didn't know the SRB2 message board existed, and I was fine with it, mods of course made the whole thing better, but even then I mostly just play through vanilla with the Mario Bros. and I don't bother to check that many custom maps.
when you really like a game and you've played it over and over again, you eventually just get bored of it
unless it has a sizable modding scene
then you play the game with mods, and you get a tremendous amount of extra replayability
eventually you just get bored of playing the game without mods because you've done it a million times
vanilla SRB2 isn't obsolete, not just because it's what new players always turn to to enjoy the game, and it's what gets them into the mods, but it also is ofc used for most of the game's speedruns
I never knew there were net games 💀
I am probably like the only srb2 player who has never downloaded a mod and only plays the base game but I have easily sunk more time into the the game than any other 3d sonic game.
I love vanilla sonic roboblast, the levels are fun, the characters are easy to learn and not overpowered, the aesthetics are nice, and there is a ton of content for a fan game.
I’m excited to see what 2.3 is like as even if it’s not what I would hope for it to be, it’s not like it will mean I can’t just keep playing 2.2
Honestly I just want the planned missing zones to be added, for god's sake they should be focused on finishing the game instead of remaking gfz n stuff.
To respond the question: No.
Vanilla is still amazing, the single player campaign being hella replayable despite its quirks. The only thing that is lacking are the characters, and that's mostly because the (good) modded characters overshadow them in terms of presentation and gameplay. Despite that, I only think they need a few changes (both visual and gameplay wise) to be on par with the rest.
I really love vanilla 2.2 as it is, very replayable with all the emblems and the bonus stages, easy to learn hard to master main campaign, only improvement I'd want from it is finishing the main campaign, and mods are cool too for when I want to have some new stages to play or run around as a new somewhat overpowered character.
DON'T WORRY! Is Vanilla SRB2 becoming obsolete? IS COMING OUT JANUARY 15TH! LISTEN!!!
I was never complete
I'm mod heavy
Makes me have more content
Call me an art community; reusability
Mods are cool
And they're IP too, told 'em change the thok
Content update rate has just dropped
Like an Arid Rock
for me vanilla srb2 isnt obsolete when comparing it to mods, this for me is like saying Classis Sonic Games are obsolete because Sonica Adventure or Frontiers exist...
SRB2 for me is just that fangame that give the real classic games simplicity to the 3rd dimension, and its that, its not obsolete is just simpler cause thats the game main direction.
also yeah modding obviusly showed up a big potential and maybe that makes for some people to not now fun that much fun vanilla srb2..
for me in that case the main fix i would do as a developer is, finish the whole srb2 game completly, give it his final secret boss, the zones that arent still complete or arent in the game now and that, and ended the update course of SRB2 by now
and now knowing the potential this can have begging to make some kind a SRB3 where they try to push the limit and do something fully modernized with lot of inspiration of modding and just become fresh again with new updates etc etc, moddingo community could be in both games if they take care of being compatible with the already stablished srb2, but idk
in any case im not stjr or anything im just saying what is my point of view if i was a developer member from a team who made a game a long time ago
I think the vanilla srb2 is a great ""tutorial"" because before i beat the vanilla game, i was terrible at the games physics and i didn't had much interest in playing mods because i died a lot
The biggest issue and fear I have is compatibility with older mods. SRB2 is notorious for making mods for older versions break or incompatible. And depending on how much the next version changes up the level design, LUA handling, momentum and whatnot? There’s a good chance a lot of mods will have to be DRASTICALLY reworked just to work in it. It’s actually infuriating and demotivating.
This is also why them getting rid of the Thok is such a bad decision: Guess what character like to play SRB2 with? None of the Vanilla Cast, but the ADVENTURE SONIC addon. The only suitable replacement for the Thok is the Homing Attack and STJr are so afraid of adding it for some really stupid reason.
You say that like this is a problem exclusive to SRB2 when pretty much any game that receives a major content update has most if not all of its mods break requiring fixes to be made.
I don't think Vanilla is really obsolete, just that there's some tweaks here and there to be made. The levels could be a bit bigger and more polished visually and gameplay-wise, and some of the characters could use work to match, but in general, I actually prefer the Vanilla game to most mods, there's only a few things I'd really like to see added to "boost" the game a bit further. I've got a set of tweaks to the base game that aren't really super compromising gameplay-wise, but rather just fix aesthetic nitpicks and other small stuff to make it a more pleasant experience. The mods are just kinda icing on the cake imo
The problem with this question is that there is no real answer to it. Vanilla is reliable for those who dont want to try searching the wild web for a good mappack. (trust me, the mb's map list is getting worse each year.) While modded has a good variety of... everything, but if you were to try and make one yourself with no experience, you'd most likely give up. That is at least the jist of all of this. One of the REAL problems is with STJR's current list of gamedevs.
Either they are doing their own thing apart from SRB2 now, or they are working on SRB2Kart2 (don't @ me about the actual name). Meaning there are little to no actual devs working on the game, and those that ARE have been blinded by the overwhelming desire to try and appease everybody.
SRB2 is losing it's identity, 2.2 was a warning of what's to come. All the music being maniafied, characters becoming more complex; ruining the simplicity they were meant to convey with their movesets, the zones themselves instead of being finished on, they're becoming more like sonic utopia levels. STJR is facing the same problem Sonic Team is, where they listen to the fans too often on the wrong aspects and too little on the right aspects. The only things that could really use some QoL work is the camera and the downward slopes so you dont have to roll to fly into the air.
Vanilla itself is becoming obsolete because of these issues, the official content of a game should be the main priority and have it's own identity. If it were to follow what others have made with it, it wouldn't be itself anymore. One could argue that it's just how the game is going to be like in the future, but the point still stands. There was always a reason SRB2 stuck out compared to the rest besides it's massive modding community, it had an identity that was unique to it.
TL;DR, Nu-STJR should stop focusing on what everybody wants and focus on finishing the game the way THEY want it to be finished. Otherwise, if they keep going the route they're going, they're never going to finish this game. Also hire more people.
Suppose, for the sake of discussion SRB2 in it's current state finally finishes and they officially state that the game is done. What does that change, SRB2 in my eyes has always been finished. It has 8 main stages(with usually 2 acts), 7 Bonus stages. It has a proper ending and everything. This game isn't in some unfinished state as others claim. it's a full blown game. I think caring about things like if the devs state it's finished or not. to not really matter as the game even after it's finished will get updated. These guys aren't big companies where supporting a game with updates and massive changes cost money and time. It small team that working on this as a passion project. SRB2 no matter it's state will always be constantly getting updates.
I've wanted Dark City since the 2000s, and the final boss is a placeholder. Again, it's okay how the game is right now, but it's annoying that it then gets changed over and over for little to no reason if it doesn't contribute towards finishing the game. @@risingrevolt
It’s always been like this lmao. You should’ve seen the lead up to 2.1
@@robertwyatt3912 Though it was never as major as it was up to 2.2's release. 2.1 comparing to 2.0, theres barely any noticable differences with only some major ones in a few levels. With 2.2, it was an entirely different story. Nearly everything was overhauled which makes its comparison from 2.1 to 2.2 much more drastic.
@@Blecker3646 nope
I usually play SRB2 Vanilla with some mods that get rid of the roll lock, make Sonic a bit faster, and power up the spindash. Then I just play the orignal stages.
I wouldn't really know, considering I play with mods exclusively.
Every modded level pack is just so inconsistent in terms of quality, I would much rather just do a full vanilla playthrough than have to carefully consider what levels are in each Level Design Contest, or play another pack that just completely ignores the base game's art direction (nearly all of them do this), or even worse, trying to recreate those scenic parts in modern Sonic games where the game plays itself, just a big stretch of nothing with maybe an enemy or two dotted around to make it look less empty.
Also, don't think that there's some complex problem-solving thought process behind every mod. Some people just make something because they want to see it. Look at the SRB2kart mods, for example, its 90% just people making the character they wanted to look at while playing, not the character that would most round out the roster in terms of who fits best, or what would meet popular demand the most. Sonic Team Jr, and modders, are the same.
EDIT: AND I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT 2D SECTIONS OF MODDED LEVELS
WHY DO SO MANY OF THEM USE THAT GIMMICK, IT FEELS SO BAD
Vanilla SRB2 will always have a place in the community, becuase SRB2 inhearently is a fun game with amazing gameplay, it masterfully adapts the Classic Sonic gameplayloop into 3D, Sonic doesnt really need a diverse moveset like Mario in SM64, cause his abilities already let him explore the sprawling levels
I'm having trouble really grasping this topic to be honest. The only thing I could think that'd make the game feel "obsolete" is the passage of time, the game has been out for a long time I feel like mods don't really add that much for me anymore, it's the actual big updates to the game that do it for me.
I dunno, i tend to balance mods with vanilla so i never really thought about it
Me personally, i really like playing srb2 for its multiplayer content, hide n seek being my favourite game mode
ill be honest, even if i get hate, i dont think were getting a finished SRB2, no dark city or eggship.
I love srb2 vanilla, getting on the school computers to play this because at the time my 2007 laptop couldn't run anything was the absolute best. Then when I finally built my pc years later getting to play this game was incredible, it felt like a true complete sonic adventure. Every time someone joined my it was just them screaming "WHERE ARE THE MODS" like bro I just enjoy playing the game as it is.
To me there will never not be a place for vanilla SRB2. A lot of the baseline for tricks and techniques to do in the game carries over excellently to some of the modded content of both characters and levels. Some stuff that you can do with vanilla cast carries over well to a fair lot of modded characters as there's a lot of baselines they have that help in understanding both high and low quality characters. Same with the levels as an understanding of how SRB2's vanilla levels go with design can still carry over for custom levels, CyberDime being a personal favourite in that front of wanting an expanded vanilla experience.
I think with that, it's pretty disheartening that the new dev team and some of the mods getting buzz want to step away from all the ways SRB2 is unique from any other Sonic game. SRB2's quirks in its design and how it works together with the game is what gives the game its identity. 2.2 is probably the most massively changed up from past releases in terms of older levels, yet it's a miracle that very same game can still be seen in the first two zones of the game. I remember 2.2 coming out and being absolutely floored by how much changed even though you have so many people saying "it's not changed much at all" which I still find ludicrous as someone who's played this game since 1.08.
With how mod compatibility between versions of the game tends to be non-existent, having a set of simple yet deceptively technical levels is amazing to have during the first months of a new version releasing. 2.2 felt like the most girthy yet with how much they added and tweaked to accomidate for some simple yet meaningful additions. There's definitely a truckload of mods now since release but I will always remember the start of the current version being a time of whimsey and experimentation for players like myself.
If anything I feel for every ridiculously expansive thing the dev team tries to pull in, trying to make it fit in more into having sensibilities of more mainstream 3D Sonic games takes away from the unique identity of SRB2. Having the homing attack is definitely a way to make things easier for playing Sonic but with the traditional method of control being so crucial to speedrunners or legacy players it'd be great to have the option to have the thok instead. HECK, the final demo had console options of enabling and disabling a more Adventure styled form of play due to the Adventure Example bonus! It did mean everyone had it for netgames but surely there's a way around it.
Probably the only Sonic-ism I'd take from the games would be speed when going down slopes while running. As of now it's kind of like Sonic 1 where the physics don't fully kick in unless you roll which whilst it adds exhileration does make some execution on some places more demanding.
But ultimately I just hope SRB2 can continue to be SRB2 in the face of so many mods and source ports coming out. It's truly unique in the way it's evolved its own 3D Sonic and I hope that different eye doesn't crumble under the pressure and expectations of the tropes other 3D Sonic games have.
Also as a newcomer, vanilla IS the hook. If it's not there, there's no mods to stick around for afterwards.
I feel that the correct question is: "Has 2.2 been for long enough?" It has been around for 4 years, we can only live with a single huge update for so long before we get bored of it or the level design becomes outdated
**Laughs in 2.1**
@@ItsCenrryTH2.1 lasted 5 years, if 2.2 was the same we'd be getting 2.3 this year
I mean, this is SRB2. I went through the last three years of elementary, all of middle school and halfway through high school before 2.2 got released.
3:47 this is the first time I saw this picture, and it looks sick! Makes me more excited for 2.3!
It’s still a contender for the best 3D Sonic game.
Eggman Castle act 2 is still peaks
its interesting watching this as someone who isnt apart of the SRB2 community and has only played vanilla
I personally like the changes because vanilla srb2 hasn't really been fun anymore imo
At least for me I don't really use mods to replace the base game but to supplement it, I mean it took me until this year to even play a level hack just because I find the vanilla levels so good, but someone else might only play Solo Sonic and their mods might only be level mods, we both like the base game, but we want more of different aspects and that's great and leads to a good variety in the modding community.
Vanilla SRB2 is amazing and the mods are amazing too
I really like play greenflower act 1 and 2 to test the mods and when i play custom levels i use vanilla characters and custom character
When i play the game for first time i remenber that the camera was strange and because of that i don't continue with the game.
But like 1 or 2 years laters i saw a video about the modern sonic and werehog mods and i really like it for that reason i re installed the game and i fall in love with it and the mods
PD:I don't speak English
I can’t wait for the new green flower zone. Looks super fun
SRB2 lost some of it's identity when it transitioned to version 2.2. Final Demo v1.09.4 and v2.0 will always be the real SRB2 to me.
While vanilla can be somewhat boring to play after constantly doing so, the same goes with mods in my eyes.
Theres so much you could do, and havibya good balance could help with that.
You want something new? Do what I did and beat srb2 with fang or knuckles. Shits crazy.
Nah, I've been playing SRB2 since 2007, and I haven't downloaded a new mod in years. The main game of 2.2 especially is endlessly replayable for me. Modern mods feel too disconnected from the base experience for me, so I don't really pay them any mind. I just think if you're active in the community, you're gonna be paying attention to what the community is doing. For people who like me who really only pay attention to the community when a new version of the base game drops, I'd say SRB2 is FAR from obsolete.
its one of my favorite games ive never even used any mods. i think as a game it is very valuable not obsolete to me.
Vanilla SRB2 is no more Obsolete than Vanilla Doom. And yes, Even Doom's mods will overshadow Doom just like SRB2's mods overshadow SRB2.
vanilla srb2 is an excellent sonic game, modded srb2 is an excellent game in general
I don't play the OLDC's I mostly look forward to standalone map packs even though they are practically non existant
I say no because the vanilla game is still good by itself, mods are the sprinkles.
Like Doom, I love mods yet I also love the original IWADs.
And I'd argue that less is more and that I don't like the slopes in the upcoming 2.3, it doesn't feel SRB2-ish to me.
2:22 can you tell me the music that plays here please?
it's pretty catchy
"mmm yes, put the tree on my pizza" from Pizza Tower. I'm not joking, that's the name of the song.
i've been playing srb2 for over 13 years
i always loved the game and still do now.
but it feels weird nowadays with some of the changes. however my experience with the community's mods has improved. so much good stuff gets pumped out but vanilla just feels no longer the same vibe. it's just odd. not bad just odd. maybe i'm nostalgic for the old level designs.
Like Ven below, I'm also among the rare elusive "vanilla SRB2 fans" you couldn't find for this video. Truth be told, the only mod I regularly use is SRB2 The Past, which is literally a compilation of every vanilla SRB2 version ever made. To me, vanilla SRB2 is peak SRB2.
Look it’s me!
Jokes aside, the vanilla game is very good. But with the mods, the vanilla characters especially seem to be left in the dust, but as I said, the vanilla maps cannot be beat, with rare exceptions.
goated youtuber
SRB2 isn't perfect, nor will it ever be and that's okay. The idea of vanilla SRB2 reaching a state of perfection could be considered a moot point since perfection in this context is in the eye of the beholder. So long as the tools to do so exist the motivated and talented will always be there to rectify whatever issue they subjectively perceive exists with the vanilla game. Even then that's far from being the only reason people make mods for the games they love.
Look ma I'm on TV
I would actually love to see your opinion on Pizza Tower mods and the modding community in the first place, i feel like it has a similar problem.
3:12 id say its peak
Can you give the song you used on the "overshadowed" section of the video please? I heard it once in 2022 by the name "the poopshitters something-something" (idk i forgot the 2nd part) and it was the same but low quality and with different instrumentation and i tought this was the original
Also y'know that one person you mentioned is hard to find that loves vanilla SRB2 for what it is? Me. I am that person. I LOVE srb2, and even without the mods its my fave Sonic fangame
No way Granifer Giganticus v2!!11!1! (REAL!?). In all seriousness, I do agree with some of the points here, srb2 vanilla shouldn't be TOO reliant on mods.
k but why the beta 2.2 logo for the thumbnail
Can they atleast make the multiplayer easier or something because portforwarding and vpns just never work and I want a simple co op with friends
minecraft java development speedrun
Not even gonna watch the video(not to be rude) because i already diacussed with am friend about
I don't think so, vanilla serves to teach the player the basics and other than momentum not existing, vanilla os kinda perfect
If only it had momentum, tough 2.3 apparently will fix it, hopefully
I'm bit confused i haven't been in the community for long but why are you calling sonic team jr "new" did they change or something?
Due to SRB2's age, the dev team has essentially ship of Theseus'd itself by having older devs be replaced by newer devs. Sandwich calls the current dev team "NuSonic Team Jr." as a jab for straying too far from the original design of SRB2, at least in his opinion.
@@theraymunator oh i see
srb2 2
srb3
why are these videos stretched? there is native 1080p on the game.
And to add to the discussion,the emblems add a lot of replayablity
5:01 what are the cam settings?
Are "random opinions" becoming obsolete? No, and neither is any of the shit you decide is worth complaining about, Sandwich
Yeah they are
So peppino, the unleashed project, and x sonic weren't peak?
Also for context in the beginning of the vid he says "nothing catched my eye" which is opserd from what I listed off
@@Doxthefoxpeople are allowed to not be excited by things others are excited about.
@@Doxthefox ehh
x sonic looks good but it also doesn’t really look like it’ll mesh well with many mods
and the vast majority of the mods were shovelware slop if i’m gonna be frank, i’m personally not super excited
@@emperortoho but like what are you gonna expect from an x sonic mod? To look like apart of the vannila srb2 style? And also yes some mods aren't very high budget, but there were definitely some good stuff like always
@@Doxthefox i was talking about x sonic’s moveset, not his artstyle(which is fantastic)
of course we’ll have to wait and see for when it comes out
just play 2.1 better vanilla experience
normal SRB2 is just kinda very boring, mods are objectively better even the bad ones lmao. If this game didn't have mods it would be dead. Hopefully 2.3 improves on the game to make it actually good.
Hey what are your thoughts on the xsonic mod? I think it looks super cool and fun so what about you?