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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ต.ค. 2023
- It's pretty impressive that so shortly after Final Horizon had some of the worst bosses in all of Sonic, Superstars comes in and immediately at least matches it.
It's bizarre to me that these kinds of things can even be in a game. Isn't this what playtesting is for? You see if the thing you've made is actually enjoyable? Surely they must have gotten a bunch of negative feedback about the fights in these games. Why were these things not addressed? I just don't get it.
Either way, I've been wanting to do this video for a while. So many ideas. Would they be any good? I don't know. But they're fun to come up with.
btw, I think this system could work for a 3D game as well, if it had the physics to support it.
/ pariah695
ko-fi.com/pariah695 - เกม
I honestly enjoy how Sonic Generations goes about with some of it’s bosses.
Bosses, like Perfect Chaos in particular is basically a regular Boost Stages with something to hit at the end. And if you know the stage and the fastest route, the quicker you get to hit the boss.
Honestly Generations bosses and Metal Sonic as whole is what I want Soonic fights to be
Generations was peak sonic boss material
Generations has my favorite bosses in the series
Yeah disagree with Pariah on this one. Generations was one of the few Sonic games where I actually did replay boss fights.
It always baffles me that they made the perfect blueprint on how to handle character vs character fights with Sonic and Shadow and then never capitalized on it again.
One idea I always had for the ring system is that when you enter a boss arena, they entire mechanic changes and rings become converted into a health value just for boss fights. The amount of health you have is equivalent to how many rings you collected in the act. This would give an incentive to collect and hold onto a lot of rings again now that they removed lives from the game.
donkey kong jungle beat did that, and OH BOY, you become impossible to kill. although that's because you don't lose ALL of your bananas/rings when you get hit, so if you change that, it'd be perfect.
My Idea of boss fights for sonic is literally just the metal boss fight but with actual level design. Idea 1: race them(use the loops in the boss to gain more speed to get ahead of your oponent) Idea 2: the map of the boss is literally the edge of a circle, every time you hit the boss, he gets faster, and you can use the level design of the boss to gain more speed to hit the boss
I'm personally a proponent of being able to cheese boos fights versus the alternative. I also think a scoring system, a GOOD scoring system with chaining and multipliers can do so much to improve the formula. The scoring system could even tie into the gameplay like for each multiplier you have you could get an incremental speed boost and the faster you go the quicker it is to build up the multiplier, so you get this almost infinite skill ceiling where you need skill to get score and you need to get score to go faster and in order to retain that speed you need skill.
My favourite addition to Sonic Frontiers was actually those little score challenges. It's still not amazing, but I appreciate it for making me actually have to think about how to plan my routes around enemies and making sure I fight them as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I like cheesing bosses too
YUMETARO IN PFP I LOVE YOU
Man the CD animations were really effective at transmitting the idea of "Sonic"" to you but we have literally never got anything like that. As much as I like Frontiers combat (though it does need refinements) I do believe a Sonic CD esque style of combat and general gameplay that would be peak.
I think it could work similar to Mario Odyssey. Using an interaction button would let you ride a badnik and control it to a certain degree, opening new situational moveset.
imagine if in the next Mario, you just beat the everloving shit out of Bowser Jr. instead of jumping on him
That would be hilarious
Super Mario Bros.
GONE ROGUE
Wow, I really love your concepts of how to change the boss fights in sonic. Keeping in mind sonic was always based on speed/momentum based platforming, you’d think the developers would base the boss fights around that mindset. Continue doing great work pal! 😊
Dude is spitting shit morden sonic has that
Look at advance 2
I really like your ideas here! Arguably, the best Sonic boss battle is one that is essentially just a level (Perfect Chaos in Gens), but I do think there is some fun in the Eggman chase bosses in Unleashed, or something with the spectacle and depth of Knight in Frontiers! A mix of more level based bosses, chases, depth and spectacle would be ideal imo
I disagree and actually enjoy Sonic having combats elements. But I agree that it could be done much better.
Yeah I am probably going to type the same thing
I dissagree sonic should only do sonic things not street fighter things
like i don't like seeing sonic just stand there and punch a bunch of enemies in the face like a generic fighting game character that isn't like how sonic is supposed to fight
@@lauraikokoyes, but if that wasn't how the combat was handled then it would likely be engaging, like if the combat was based around outmanuvering your opponent then I'd be having a good time
@@mrhalfsaid1389as long as it highly utilizes environment and traversal then it's fine. Otherwise, we'd be on board with smacking zavok in forces.
I think Frontiers for the 3D games did a goob job at trying to give Sonic a moveset that canbe used in the overworld. In terms of Classic Sonic, Superstars actually gave us some fun boss fights, but the issue with those is that they are too long and tied with the act. What they should do is go back to the Rush games where those were long, make the patterns worth a damn to pay attention too, but also make them fun and in tune with Sonic.
I think they went too far with big numbers and attacks that are too similar. You can feasibly cut the amount of attacks in half and accomplish the same thing.
If I'm being honest, I spent a lot of time in Superstar boss fights chasing the emerald powers: Avatar army and supersonic really help cut down the monotony
they should just make all the attacks come out super fast, it would be fun chaos
What if in fights like Fang or the pterodactyl, you could do more than one hit's worth of damage by hitting the boss with enough speed.
@@ElleQuach wasn't that the problem with some mini bosses of frontiers, specially silver hammer
1) Copy Akiyama's moveset
2) Add some style of Yagami's style
3) ???
4) Profit
I quite like the bosses in Gens actually. Not all of them are winners but the Modern fights especially are built more like traditional stages, just with a target to deal damage to. There's less stop-and-start and the pace of the fights is usually controlled by the player.
The 0erfect Chaos fight comes to mind when I think of the boss fights from Generations, perfect mix of platforming and combat imo, I might prefer that fight over the original Perfect Chaos fight from Adventure 1
I agree. Generations is the only game where sometimes I do self-imposed boss rush. Except for Time Eater, it's trash so I treat Vector as the final boss of the game.
i can totally get by with the spinball boss ! But i also belive a little bit of cool "Anime-esque fighting" could be sprinkled in them, even if only visual
I also think unique interactions could be considered: For example; in your fire themed boss fight, sonic has to get a fire shield to hit the boss fight... but if you manage to hit a certain spot in the level at full speed, you break the whole area, causing the lava to rise and platform your way to get one final hit on the boss.
Those cool moments should be unintrusive to the actual fight, and could either be hardcoded in the fight and give you some shiny extra for figuring it out, or be absent in the fight unless you do a special thing in prior levels. which could also incentivise exploration even more
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the Unleashed running bosses because they capture the spirit of what Sonic is about to me. Yeah Colors and Forces made them stale, but the way they depict Sonic's sense of movement in the running track dodge jumping and homing attacking the booses make it feel like Sonic. The way the camera angles are done and shaking capture the intense speed Sonic is known for.
They're not bad. But gameplay-wise, still not the best. They mostly boil down to quickstep sections.
@@miadatenshi9903we have very different ideas about where the strengths and appeal of the boost games actually lie
@@miadatenshi9903 Yeah, we definitely don’t agree at all.
@@Pariah6950sonic advance 2 bosses are different
@@technicallyinept2120what's your idea of the boost games' appeal?
23:42 What if all your dropped rings converted into only 1/5th of the amount of rings you had, and when the amount of rings is lower than 5 you drop nothing. This way you can't exploit rings and you have the reason to collect more. Or maybe don't drop rings at all and when taking damage just leave 1/5th of them (or with a different number)
In unleashed you didn't drop rings when hurt and couldn't pick them back up so it's been done before
@@The_Last_Pacyeah but you would also get tons of rings. Iirc you also didn't lose them all at once either, right?
My idea for ring drop rate works on a formula depending on how many times you got hit. As you got hit more and more, you would drop more rings. A simple version of the formula could be 5+2X, with X being the amount of times you get hit. So you get hit once, you drop 7. You get hit twice, you drop nine, and so on and so forth. Perhaps even add increasing levels of damage depending on the 'strength' of the attack.
If you get hit enough, you eventually start losing more rings then you drop total. While this effect won't be noticable at first, if you get hit enough times, even if you collect every ring you drop, you'll soon find yourself running low on supplies.
This would prevent damage boosting strategies because if you simply tried to chug through with only one or two rings eventually the secondary formula will delete those rings, thus providing incentive for whenever you get hit to try and collect as many of those rings as possible.
@@m.2039 I think the best way would be a high intensity programming thing. Each ring could only be lost once or twice or so. And they fly further each time you got hit. That's not realistic but, idk.
It was interesting fighting The End Supreme where the hits would reduce your max rings? Which is odd for Super Sonic since his rings already count down. But idk, it's weird lol
I routinely describe this channels to my friends as the archetypical Sonic gaming channel except good and also not just about Sonic. That’s probably a terrible description, but but it seems to make people give it a chance, which although it is reductive is a useful gateway to a good gaming channel. Please keep giving your honest take on games, especially those those that do or could give give a pure gaming experience. Even if major developers don’t take notice of your critiques hopefully someone eventually will. Thanks again for the earnest take on something many people care about. Please never change.
You’re absolutely right, Rings are a flawed health system. Because all that matters is if you have a single ring then you basically are invincible. Even if sonic has 400 rings in his inventory all it takes to kill him is 2 hits. One hit to knock away his rings, and another hit to kill him when he has zero rings.
I would even be fine with sonic having call of duty style regeneration of health where you just wait it out and you’ll be at full health. But imagine a videogame where if you have 100 HP it won’t matter cuz taking one hit of damage puts you immediately at 1 HP and then another hit will kill you, That’s sonic rings system! I liked the Sonic Battle health bar with the heal move you could do. I wanna see a platformer sonic game with the Battle health bar and heal button.
But keep in mind this would work better in Frontiers or other 3D sonic games. My Battle HP bar idea might not work at all with 2D games.
Pariah, you absolutely read my fucking mind with this video oh my lord lol. Ive been advocating this for years and am so glad someone else is out there thinking more like this because this absolutely makes the most sense how you go about a Sonic boss and combat in general. You even got the “more momentum = harder hit” concept which spooked me a little because I thought I was the only one to think that lol.
For what I’ve always said about Frontiers and how it executed its combat, instead of just copying zelda or gow, making all the enemy encounters on boring Super Smash Bros’s Final Destination esque areas, what game they should’ve _actually_ studied from was Doom / Doom Eternal, where learning the level layout for their enemy arenas was key. Disregard the fact that its a FPS. In those games, the enemies were were dynamic and more importantly, the level design when you fought the demon hoards were specifically multi-tiered and interactive like you swing on polls and shit. The sense of flow with the enemy interaction and the level of parkouring should’ve been essential for Frontiers. You putting up this video just reinforces what should’ve always been done.
On the ring i frame "what could be changed" part. Make attacks do a set ring damage amount like in shadows game (Either 10 or 20 be the standard and have stronger attacks do more such as a massive slam with a long wind up and weaker attacks do less like a lazer constantly tinking your rings off one by one rapidly) and have it so that in JUST the boss arenas specifically eggman installed a "ring absorber" that doesnt let you retake them. That idea of "exploration" in sonic games to find goodies would have much more weight because newer players will then have ways of building up their health due to taking slower routes that have more items where as better players wont nessisarily need to do that since they're not going to be getting hit as often. Sonic games have always had rewards and items scattered around but they've struggled to justify their existance because a lot of it actively distracts from the speed of the game and after 30 rings they dont do much other than give lives or let you go super. It encourages newer players and worse players to actually learn map layouts more by rewarding them more health that they'll need for the boss due to being kind of bad at the game. It eases them into like actually learning what the map looks like since they're encouraged to take it more at their own pace. IMO there should also be a check point right before the boss that saves your ring count too so that you're not down to like 5 rings after starting with 150 and then dying since that would be obscenely unfair to worse players especially.
3d Sonic games also have this issue of ranks being punished for getting hurt late game more so than early game too due to the "all in" nature of ring loss which is pretty lobsided and unfair. Mistakes should not be more heavily punished due to time investment, that just makes games more frustrating. It was one of the only ideas shadow imo actually was really smart with and I like that frontiers seems to have fleshed the idea out somewhat.
The main problem with this idea is the classic camera. You'd need to fully zoom out to see the whole arena for it to be a reasonable fight, because otherwise, you won't be able to *know* where the boss is until you're about to hit it, which makes the entire concept not work. Another solution would be an arrow pointing to the boss on the HUD, which I find inelegant and still slightly disorienting. At the same time, zooming it out isn't possible in a classic 2D game due to the nature of pixel art, so this would only be possible in 2.5D games. In that specific context, it can work.
However, I am of the opinion that Sonic bosses serve more as a point of spectacle, narrative tension and as a small break from the normal gameplay than actual fights. Variety is important to games to keep player attention, even if that varied content is of lower quality than the normal content, it keeps the game fresh in the player's mind, as the fights require a different, if easier, mindset to complete. By turning bosses into an extension of the normal gameplay, you remove that variety aspect, and players will get tired of the game more quickly. So this kind of boss can exist, but shouldn't be every boss.
Not to mention that nobody likes being stuck inside a closed-off maze lol
Some thoughts:
- I really like the idea of physics-based combat. As you said, it is in-line with what is cool about Sonic, and allows combat to have all the joy of movement. Damage being based on attack speed seems particularly interesting, and I would love to see future games play with that idea.
- To some extent, the Cyloop could be part of physics-based combat. Surrounding enemies with an energy field could be one interesting way of combining movement with attacking enemies, while some of Frontiers' larger enemies like Asura provide an alternate way of achieving this. Phantom Rush partially does this, but it's only a visual flair so it's less significant.
- Regarding arena design, I would argue there is a balance to be struck. The overly simplistic arenas that define much of Sonic's combat clearly do not play with his physics as much as they could, however, if a fight is *too* focused on arena gimmicks outside the boss, it ceases to feel like as much of a direct fight between Sonic and his adversary.
- Regarding rings, the ease of survival is arguably the point - this ensures the games are very accessible while also having lots of room for mastery. That said, if there is a need for greater tension in boss fights, imho a Sonic Rush-style approach would allow for greater variety in arena design than a system that requires the boss arenas to be designed around backup ring placement.
- Absolutely agreed with cutting down on the waiting. There's a reason people don't like waiting-game Sonic boss fights.
- One potential issue with your proposed Super Sonic fights is a reduction in spectacle. A key reason many players liked Frontiers' Titan fights was the sheer spectacle of anime-protagonist Sonic in action, and so while it is important to make sure Super fights use a version of Sonic's normal combat, it ought to be done in a high-spectacle way.
ok that's all
My favorite Sonic games are unironically the ones which give bossfights their own zone.
That is one of the reasons why I like Generations so much. I can ignore all the bullshit I don't want to do in that game.
Though the bossfights in Generations are actually not to bad...exception for the final one.
Yes! I definitely agree that bosses in Sonic should really emphasize the main mechanics of the game, and I think that incorporating the environment into boss fights really helps that. But you know what could theoretically be even better? Having the environment not just be _part_ of the boss fight, but _be_ the boss fight. That way, you could _technically_ get rid of bosses while still keeping the title. We've gotten bits of those before (the race with Metal Sonic and the running sections of the Dark Gaia fight come to mind), but they could really explore the level design if they went all in. Maybe there are weak spots across the level that you have to hit, a stricter time limit you have to keep track of, some verticality mixed into the design, hazards and enemies to avoid along the way, etc.. And each one could be uniquely-built based on the setting, or whichever giant Eggman mech you'd be fighting. Just like a normal Sonic level, except more difficult and more free for experimentation. Traversal *is* Sonic's bread and butter, so having the player battle what's essentially the environment would be pretty fitting.
(Now that I think about it, if they'd made scaling the Titans a large, elaborate level it would've been so fun and cool to play. It would've also had the effect of making them seem more grand. They seem so tiny when compared to the Light Gaia Colossus from Unleashed).
Ah yes! Like bringing a house down! Wrecking walls and furnitures! I love this idea!
That's the thing I didn't like about the titan fights. They're basically just regular enemies but bigger.
The irony about suggesting to remove the "pick rings back up" part of the system is that Forces literally did this, but fans hated it on principle so much even before the game came out that they just up and changed the system in a day 1 patch.
So even though it would work, the fanbase at large just viscerally rejects it at such a level that SEGA quietly undid it.
I heard some people that hates that the rings you collect fall when you get hit in superstars’so people are really a mystery
They did it Unleashed.
i think not recollecting rings would be good, but not every attack should take all your rings. they could take diff amounts depending on strength, but it would be a good incentive to play the levels well, so you can take more hits on the boss. i think this design sounds rly good for 2D, i am intersected what u think for 3D bosses. i think bosses that use some platforming like bio lizard or egg golem are good
Alternatively, make an actual healthbar and have rings be just the currency to buy stuff instead
@@domovoi2861that's not a sonic game then
@@sukumadehk suuuure
Still on that physics breakdown video pariah
Funnily enough, the concept of a large arena with rings around and a moving boss is the kind of stuff you often see in 3D Sonic games. It really just needs more emphasis on physics with the terrain to be pretty much what you described.
Black Knight actually does something similar to the Ring system change you mentioned; You start with a certain set of Rings and every hit shaves off a chunk of them, so you have a limited number of hit points to finish the boss off before you die.
Meanwhile Spark 3 having better combat, better gameplay and better levels
better levels my a-
I mean, Sonic's TRUE identity as an action franchise (to keep what he can do malleable) would lend itself EXCELLENTLY into a DMC3-5 styled combat system, just with punches, kicks, headbutts, and spin-bashing. "Chaos energy" in these goobers could account for how they're able to block.
I would go ALL in for a true hack n slash Sonic game, but i woud like to Sonic to fight WAY faster than Dante or Bayonetta and by that i mean removing delay-based combos with exception of the spin dash and homing attack
Also having 3 weapons based on How fast they are:
Fastest weapon =sonic's legs that kicks and let him dodge
Normal Speed weapon = someting like a sword that let him parry attacks
Slightly slow weapon= maybe a heavy glove to make him punch hard and increase his resistance
20:26 Genius, now I wish this was the case in every Sonic game ever.
Also, your drawings remind me of the game called N+. :D
Love your idea pitch videos! They always get me to look at Sonic design in a unique way :)
The combat for frontiers has a great foundation that I really want to see them expand on it. It actually has its fair share of depth, even the characters for final horizon (amy and knuckles mainly). The problem is that the game doesn't do a good job in encouraging the player to use its depth and have more variety, because sonic's attacks are too op. I actually want them to take inspiration in other games combat system, and implement it in the base that is frontiers' combat. Its quite unique and I want them to expand on it
Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure is great because its built like a level where the way to attack him is to get to him as fast as possible with enough momentum and stuff.
My first thought when seeing the title was "Why bother, when the combat is almost never the fun part of any game", but I agree with the parts about returning to using a bit more from pinball again and never having boss immunity times, as those will help push it into matching the Sonic gameplay better & being less like a normal video game combat. Some of these ideas would make the combat too complex though, which I think will just backfire.
I always imagined it should be Subspace Emissary with an arcady momentum damage multiplier
This was actually something that came to my mind when I played sonic spinball the first time. Like yeah, this pinball design works! And it's crazy that they've never fully utilized that in the main series bosses.
If every zone needs a boss, let's follow the Mario land/world idea where Bowser only appears in 3 of the 8 world's, and have a miniboss on the other worlds. Minibosses can be short and simple, while Eggman bosses can be much more complicated and tense. Maybe each miniboss has an emerald that gives you a power, instead of special stages that way they can actually develop levels around the power instead of making bonus areas that kinda sorta acknowledge that you got the emerald. You can even make bosses weak to certain emerald powers like the bosses in colors.
Pariah. Please tell me you’ve played The Pathless. And please let me know how you feel about Sonic bosses being like that.
Haven't played it yet. But I want to.
@@Pariah6950 the chases in that game are insane. Using Sonics speed to catch up and beat bosses in a large, nonautomated, open world with slopes and hills would be amazing. Hope you play it some day.
i think the ring health could take a page from 3d mario. you can still get hit and lose all your rings, but you have a 3 hit health bar to worry about. and every hundred rings you get an extra hit point back. so you still want to pick up the rings you've lost so you don't need to collect as much to get your hit point back, but you also can't face tank every encounter.
Hellfire Saga does almost exactly that, and it's great for those bosses. You CAN tank a tiny bit with your i-frames but you're also focused on not getting hit because there are no rings in the boss arenas so you can't get one of your hit points back once you lose it
Here’s the ideal sonic combat system:
- Jump on enemies
- Roll into enemies
yeah honestly i wouldn’t mind having boss fights be cutscenes instead
I'm not gonna lie, I REALLY like the idea of more pinball playfield styled arenas.
The journalists praising Superstars's bosses is yet another solid proof they don't know anything about Sonic gameplay. These bosses would be good for a Mario or DK game, but not Sonic.
I think the best way a boss could be handled in a sonic game is for making it a harder stage, like in sonic unleashed dark gaia boost sections, you go trough a lot of obstacles and attack the boss in the end if you're fast enough. Challenging and it doesn't run away from sonic's core gameplay.
It's kind of funny when you think about it that your proposed solution to the problem of Sonic bosses being bad is just for them to actually engage the core mechanics. It's bizarre that most Sonic bosses don't do that. CD probably got the closest to what you're describing in that a lot of its boss acts have pieces of level design either leading up to the boss fight or as part of the boss fight, but it's still a far cry from the ideal.
Someone please take some this ideas and try then on a fan game, this sound so good!!!
I feel for this Pinball style of boss fight, there should be like a super difficult one hit kill you could do for them by getting the _absolute_ max amount of speed plausible, and then when you hit them with this one hit kill, Sonic goes directly through them just like he does any other regular enemy. And then Eggman or whoever gets launched out and Team Rockets away. That might make them too easy, so maybe just have that special finishing animation for defeating them with a really fast hit.
I don't think the Sonic franchise would work without bosses because it's grounded on the conflict between Sonic and Eggman. Those giant robots are part of its DNA.
In 2D, I think the answer is surprisingly simple. Use Mania's Death Egg Robot in Green Hill as a template. It utilizes the physics, has proper attacks to avoid, you can speed it up with skill but not to the point of neutering it. Frankly, the "too much waiting" and scripted bosses are endemic of 2D platformers as a whole, not just Sonic.
3D is more complicated but they already have some good ingredients with Frontiers, the big problem is that they can't seem to design enemies that use them. Can't recognize what makes them work or fail. They need design guidelines such as "attacks to parry should move towards Sonic at uniform speed" like Wyvern's missiles and "attacks with long unclear wind-ups should be dodged". Simplify Sonic's moveset and telegraph incoming attacks so the player alternates between dodging and attacking. Spark 3 sorta does this but also feels undeveloped. Apart from parrying (which could be removed), that fits with Sonic's usual depiction in cutscenes.
In my opinion, this felt like a boss dynamic more than a "new combat system for sonic".
My favorite bosses in Sonic were Biolizard, Perfect Chaos, The Generations versions of Silver and Egg Dragoon, and Lancelot Returns. I felt pretty engaged with these compared to others. Egg Emperor is good by Heroes standards and caps off the campaigns nicely enough.
I honestly don't think that the pinball idea is that great of a concept, i mean i imagine itd be closer to that collision chaos boss in practice, and thats not all too fun. What i like are the bosses in generations, cuz you're essentially playing a normal level but the obstacles are mostly the bosses attacks and you use the level and said attacks to smack the boss faster, honestly these are so well designed for the most part and i would go back to play these just whenever
no no you're absolutely right. i think especially applying the boss fight mechanics to minor enemies as well. Like, how you said the faster sonic goes, the more damage he applies when he's rolling, so if he isn't going fast enough he might not destroy a badnik AND he may get pushed back a little bit, hendering his progress toward the end just a little. It would encourage maintaining high speed, AND is consistent with how players should expect to engage with enemies. new players will have an interesting time learning the mechanics, and experienced players will be engaged even in replays because they are challenged still to go fast.
I think Sonic Unleashed has pretty good boss fights. They all play out as fast paced bullet hells where you chase Eggman. Pretty fitting if you ask me.
that ring system would make it the Dark Souls of Sonic
in a good way, of course, love the idea
Chaos 4:*exists*
Sonic needs a Rocket Knight Adventures trajectory-based system for combat, or a running "bullet hell".
11:21 And this can apply to everything in life, just because something works for someone or something else, doesn't mean it works well with you or that something you are working on. If you have to take anything of this video, takes this comment from Pariah don't do or put stuff because of tradition or works for others, do or put stuff because it's the right call.
honestly for the ring system i think they could do something similar to gunstar heroes where there's no max health cap but attacks take a certain amount of rings, so it still encourages you to collect as many rings as possible while keeps some level of challenge especially for the 3d games
Ok listen man i have to say something
I love the sonic cd bosses
Haven't started watching the video yet so this might be in the video but I think Sonic should have something similar to witch time from Bayonetta.
EDIT: He didn't really talk about 3D combat.
He said that combat doesn’t work and just leave it for the bosses with a very basic yet affective system ‘the faster you hit the boss the higher damage will be and the challenge would be the arena around it
@@2ndspringtube708that can also work exactly the same in 3D so he didn't really need to make a part focusing on 3D combat
*adds rings to the corner of the marble stage
...oh look, it's pacman
*proceeds to explain the strategy of saving them
..oh, it's literally pacman
So what? Just because Pac-Man did it first doesn't mean that only Pac-Man can do it.
@@wildberrysherbert3803 did...I say sonic couldn't do pacman?
First. I definitely agree that having a combat system like DMC or something feels of for a character like Sonic. It just feels like he needs to move a lot.
Second I do def think you are going in the best idea with one thing I think is missing.
I think you should also count almost a level like bosses as on thing this series should do as well.
Basically what I think outside of Casino night type bosses where momentum creates intresting bosses. I think bosses where they are actually levels themselves are also are great fights.
Basically Generations Perfect Chaos and Metal Sonic as a whole.
To me Generations Perfect Chaos literally is just a level that acts like a boss fight. And I think there has to be more bosses like that
but also Metal Sonic. To me character at worse gets a "ok" but at his best I think it's an amazing fight and an amazing idea for rival bosses(which is one of the reasons why he is the best rival >:))
CD is again a level disgused as a boss but unlike a time attack you have to keep Metals attacks in check.
Sonic 4's run and hit bosses imo is really fun as well and Metal race again is fun.
Generation bosses outside of Death Egg are fun overall
Triple Trouble fight is his worst again that 1 room thing...
Forces is a run and hit type and it's just ok.
Heroes is a super fight
Superstars is a very... very basic version of a combination between his Sonic 4 and mania fight.
And Mania is probably one of his best fights. It still acts like a level but it has spectacle and Metal attacks much more, it has an interesting momentum use with Silver Sonic and fight ends with mechanically not as good but spectacle wise a fun final fight with Metal Sonic Kai.
Perfect Chaos in Gens is fun. But I'd argue it's not a very good boss because it's just a level. That's not a boss fight.
@@Pariah6950I mean technically Perfect Chaos does attack you as you try to race towards it, and you do attack him so snzisndhsldix
Yeah, I’m joking. You’re 100% correct
@@Pariah6950 Thats exactly my point
Pariah has good ideas, but at the same time I don’t just want to throw away what frontiers tried to do. So here’s my two rings:
You take sonic frontiers combat, and simplify it. Make it a little more physics based. Like you said, sonic fights by throwing himself at the enemy, so every attack sonic does, he launches forward at the enemy. You could also introduce the idea of knock back into the combat system, not just for enemies to enhance the combat experience but also to you, so dealing heavy attacks to enemies knock you back too. It would feel like your hopping form one Enemy to the next. The combat would be all about combining moves whilst fighting the knock back to throw yourself at the enemy more.
dude , i love when you make videos like that sharing your ideas in wha can be done with sonic , how ever , i really recommend you to play sonic momentum made by Bean Studio , it is one of the best sonic fan games that make a combat system for sonic designed around plat forming , here are some of the videos from Bean Studio which you could find in you tube that could help you in how to play that game :
Combat In The New Modern 2D Sonic Game
Reinventing Tails’ Moveset in 2D Sonic Games
Sonic's Momentum In The Latest 2D Entry Explained
i hope you give it a shot
What about converting your rings to some kind of health bar where every 10 rings is like a hit point you can take when you reach the boss fight of that level?
That would encourage wanting to collect rings during the actual levels if you are struggling with the boss fight at the end
28:40 lmfao I was imagining eggman but it’s fnaf and he’s opening and closing the door to sonic and friends
In terms of designing combat for a Sonic game, I thought it'd be great to expand on the idea of Shadow's Chaos boost from 06. In that the more enemies you defeat, the faster and strong you'll get as well as unlocking new abilities, therefore being able to beat the level quicker. Could work like a DMC style meter in that it decreases over time (and decreases faster if you get hit) and you need to collect rings or beat enemies to keep it high. Beating enemies could also evolve something less mindless than a homing attack, something that would require aim or counters/parries or takes advantage of your accrued speed.
Hey, if I do something like this for some sort of 3D boss fight would you be interested in trying to fight out to make sure it works?
Even if you'll do nothing with these ideas, it's not like they'll go to waste. What if a game desiner sees this video? You never know..
Boy is this a long comment! Feel free to read each paragraph or all of it if you feel like it.
To be fair, the problem of forgetful, mediocre, or even bad bosses isn't just a problem for Sonic, that is also the case for most 2D and 3D platforming games. I mean, is Mario known to have great boss battles? (Well I am not too big on Mario so really, does Mario have great bosses? Strictly platforming games speaking)
While your idea is good and all but there is also a matter of execution. If you are going to make the arena bigger, you also might want to zoom out the view or somehow indicate where the boss is or something. And while that idea works well for Eggman on Eggmobile or whatever, what happens if Sonic is up against Metal Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, or other characters that leads to a character vs character battle?
As for the ring recovery, either make it completely unrecoverable or only 1/5 of it recoverable. (no ring to recover if less than 5) As for ring loss during the boss battle, you can lose a maximum of 10-30 or more or all rings depending on the difficulty level and the severity of the boss's attack. That way if you collected a lot of rings, you could afford a lot of hits.
Or you could have a percentage of rings lost for example if you reach the boss with 330 rings collected, it would display 330/330 once you reach the boss and if you lose 10%-20% of rings, you would lose 33-66 rings with each hit.
Or you can have both where you lose 20-40 rings depending on the severity of the hit or difficulty level or 20%-40% of rings, whichever is bigger.
Or there can be a boss stage where you start with 0 rings, the boss arena has a limited amount of rings and you can't get your rings back if you take the hit. Come to think of it, there are some boss battles in some Sonic games where you can't recover the rings. Though I do know you didn't really like the way they did it. (Sonic Advanced 2 came to mind)
Fun Fact: Spark the Electric Jester 3 got the attention of Morio Kishimoto, the prominent member of the Sonic Team. Three things.
1. While the combat in Spark 3 is much better than in Spark 2, I still wouldn't call it super amazing. And I am sure neither would you Pariah695.
2. That was a Spark thing to do.
And 3. The combat system is more or less separate from the traversal (the Sonic and Spark way to do it) which can be a criticism towards Spark the Electric Jester 3.
You could argue that Freedom Planet is where the idea of combat mechanics for Sonic or Sonic-like games originated and the pros of it are you take the damage from enemy attacks rather than contact damage. As Sabrina Deduro once said, it is also a matter of using your attacks that adds to traversal which is what she and her crew did. I mean for example (and I'm using Freedom Planet 2 as an example cause it did very good) we have Lilac that has a dragon boost which is not only an attack but also propels forward or upwards which also ricoches from walls. Or Cyclone which boosts your jumps.
Or in the case of Carol, she throws her disc and then flies towards it, or air kick that propels forward which is used by speedrunners. Or in the case of Milla that has cube blast which has a knockback that can be used to propel forward.
And a nice cherry on top, we have a dodge move which helps avoid some attacks and I can imagine that is so Sonic thing to do. As a matter of fact, Spark could dash parry (or dash dodge) in Spark the Electric Jester 1.
10:56 probably the reason why they keep making bosses is because there is people who enjoy them and like them ‘you can’t really tell them to stop making something you don’t enjoy and ignore the people who actually enjoy it
I think the best bosses in Sonic are always the "chase" types where you have to keep up with the enemy. Examples being Metal Sonic in CD, a lot of the Advance bosses and the Egg Dragoon in Generations.
You should always think of what way Sonic's speed can be incorporated into them.
My idea is to mold a boss into the level itself, use the level design as an obstacle
Actually, I do go back to the bosses. HD Dark Gaia, Generations Perfect Chaos, Egg Reverie (as much as I don't like Mania), Supreme End (as conflicted as I am about Final Horizon), hell, before I actually fought Knight in Frontiers I made sure to make another save just so I can go back to the previous one and fight him any time I want.
23:42 There's only one thing that Sonic 4 did right, and that was the ring system. In that game, as you get hit, the rings become more and more scattered in directions until a point where you can no longer pick them up.
Regarding the ring system, I feel that removing the recovery option is killing the essence of the ring, if it is used as in Sonic 4, the more you are hit, the further the ring jumps to the point of disappearing from the screen it would work much better, it depends from your skill how much damage the boss did to you
I really love this idea for 2D Sonic, but for 3D Boost Sonic (or even just 3D Sonic in general) I am perfectly fine with bosses like Perfect Chaos in Generations (just hopefully more involved and challenging) where it’s just a full fledged level, where the boss attacks you from a far distance away and you occasionally cross paths with the boss and can land an attack. That way it is basically just another stage, but with a twist.
You have some really cool ideas. Kind of reminds me of some bosses in like Ori and the will of the wisps.
I think the ring system is so forgiving because getting hit at high speeds when you’re unfamiliar with a level can be very frustrating to a new player. It prevents the first few playthroughs from discouraging future playthroughs. Perhaps we can make it harder to exploit by changing the rings physics. For example, instead of exploding in all directions, they all fly opposite the direction you were traveling, so going to get them is more of a time sink, as oppose to the current way where you’re likely to pick one up as soon as you get back up. Or reducing the time it takes for them to disappear. Maybe in boss fights they fly further away so you don’t have time to both use the i-frames and recollect the ring. You have to choose between long term safety or short term advantage.
I think it would still be plenty forgiving if you couldn't pick them back up. Rings are everywhere. You just need to survive until you get to the next one. Probably no more than a few seconds in most cases.
15:18 I'd love to hear about that. Maybe a vid on all the things that influenced the gameplay of a few major sonic games (or even just sonic 1)
I really like your ideas here, in fact I think you could do something else cool with the ring system. What if rings increase your acceleration like they did in Sonic Advance 2? Because with your proposed system, there’s really no difference between having 5 rings or having 20. If you lose em, you lose em. This way there’s a greater risk but also greater reward to grabbing all the rings in the arena at once.
Additionally, I realize this video was written with 2D Sonic in mind, but I had an idea about revamping “combat” for 3D Sonic (I use quotes because this is equal parts combat and movement mechanics). You talked about taking inspiration from Sonic animations. One I thought of is the Sonic OVA. Sonic has his own set of abilities in that movie, most take inspiration from Sonic CD, but there’s original ideas too-Something really interesting is that it seems that Sonic can roll into a ball in midair and shoot himself off in another direction, almost like he’s flying.
So, with that in mind, I thought about rethinking the Homing Attack and how it works. What if you press the jump button in midair, and Sonic spins in midair like this? Then you use like a laser pointer to aim at the enemy and shoot him off yourself. And this isn’t limited to enemies, you can just shoot yourself off in any direction, like an air dash but you have full control of the direction you go in.
But also, the thing about my homing attack is that you wouldn’t have infinite time to do it. Because Sonic wouldn’t *stop* in midair as your aiming, he would continue the trajectory of his jump as he spins, but time would slow down as you aim. The trick part is that you only get about a second to do so. If you don’t, Sonic veers off in the direction of your jump and kills your speed. Kinda like the QTEs in Sonic Unleashed, except much more engaging.
I could go on and on about my ideas for movement mechanics in Sonic, but these are the ideas I had that are most relevant to combat. Much like you, I’m just spitballing here.
Hey pariah! You didn't share your thoughts about the boost gameplay in boss fights and how the other characters would play in your idea of a boss stage as well as in 3d. What are your thoughts about boosting boss fights, how should everyone play and how the pinball boss stages work in 3d unless you have another idea?
It’s not that the final horizons bosses are bad. They aren’t. They are literally just the main bosses but with harsh restrictions. Except for the new end fight. Locking onto the tube does suck. And I personally liked the superstars bosses.
Bruh, we share the same brain cells, I been telling people about this idea for a long time and I even had the idea from the Casino Nights Zone boss like you mentioned.
I like these ideas like the 5 or so rings being spread out during a boss fight could also give you a bonus if you’re holding them all like you get a damage buff or movement speed bonus until you get hit and lose them but there could be something you could do to trigger respawning rings once or twice.
I think another boss fight design could be like Eggman moving on a track or just over wobbly ground and having sonic do his downward bounce to flip the floor tiles or break a part of the floor up breaking the path for Eggman to move along so he either gets slowed down, stopped or crashed into debris giving you time to hit him or something
There are certainly many ways to structure a boss fight. One idea I had while watching is that you don't fight it directly, but rather use the environment to cause damage. The thing is, when you can't immediately stop and turn from left to right, dodging attacks is more restricted, so I think this reactionary game where you see an attack and change your direction to dodge it doesn't work that well here. Instead, maybe it's better to integrate the boss into the level like having a race and if you reach a switch in time, you can close a gate that the boss will then smash into. The one at 13:05 also made me think of dragging a rope around its feet and the faster you are, the longer the boss will be unable to move.
I see what you mean. Two of my fave Sonic bosses, Egg Emperor (Gens) and Perfect Chaos (Gens) feels more like Sonic levels than Sonic bosses. Where there’s barely any waiting and you can keep up the pace and get skilled at beating them like a level.
19:14 This actually reminds me of Sonic Spinball's Showdown stage which is trying to constantly follow Eggman trying to escape flying away toward space and having to chase them through physics and platforming (tho SS has some sucky platforming controls), applying this idea to a Boss Fight of a decently big sized level to move around and play with the physics to damage the boss and not just finish it in 10 seconds on a single not-moving screen is a pretty good start and giving more damage depending on how fast you go is a great way to reward properly calculated speed
It'd be interesting to look at the Sonic-inspired indie games and fangames to compare their approach to boss fights. I know for one that the Freedom Planet games actually have some great boss fights in them.
I think the rings should be like how they are in the 8 bit games
After you get hit you lose all of your rings and cant recollect them, this could make the bosses hard because you cant exploit them with invincibilty frames
To be honest i prefer simple combat with different abilities, and not trying to make an inferior dmv clone. if anything i want Spiderman 2 like combat were you can mixed it with traversal movement.
Please do more vids like this I love thinking of ideas like this
Honestly seeing the method of approach, it is interesting keeping the Boss Battles in-line with the pinball approach.
It does make the boss fights feel more Sonic-based, doubly so with the focus on momentum-based power.
I wonder how the fix for it in 3D outside of cutting them out entirely (If anything, I wouldn't be against cinematic stages used for the Boss fights, like proper races against a AI Racer Metal Sonic that knows the best route of the stage, and getting S Rank requires beating Metal and getting good times, or Bosses being Homing Attack-able hazards in the stage, ironically not unlike the Death Egg Robot in Forces but not done in QTE's)
I LOVE the pinball concept for boss fights!
Kinda suprised you didn't mention any of the "race/rival" bosses cause those are some of my favs and work well in Sonic's design
Personally tho, I think the current ring system is ok, if I were to change anything, I would make it so that the more you exploit the system the harder it gets, as in, when you get hit, you recollect rings, but if you get hit again, your old rings basically vanish or have like half of a second to recollect
Racing levels in practice turn out to be time limit, so I don't think they work particularly well.
Sonic advanced 2 bosses are perfect for momentum. Theyre my favorite bosses in the series since its pretty challenging at times since you can get launched waaay back. I wish they brought them back
31:20 i mean, they did this in frontiers
Unleashed has a solid foundation for combat moves, mechanics and enemies, and Frontiers is an alright implementation of combat for Sonic combat.
It just needs to be implemented well into Sonic. Give him and his enemies different attack attribute (like Knockback, guard breaks, and maybe Bleed). Give it counters and dodge abilities, and the good ol' DMC concentration meter.
I know you'll disagree with what I have to say, Pariah, but Unleashed is a good foundation for combat and Frontiers makes Sonic feel awesome in combat. Polish both and improve on what they missed, and we'll have some good combat.
Imo, Sonic SHOULD be able to fight even in limited arenas in someway since Frontiers allowed him to do that and that not all bosses are pinball or running based. But the limited gameplay options and attacks straight up being samey does make it feel like it could be better. It shouldn't take from Devil May Cry games especially Final Fantasy 16 because there is a needed sense of easy spectacle that Sonic brings. Also having just good combat is not really something Sonic should do, there should be some fun strategies with the combat that allow people to use their ngonnin to try exploiting the game in someway. Since the feeling of Sonic sometimes is to make your enemies feel weak from you just doing anything to them as that fun and quirky Sonic characters.
IMO, they should take the emerald power aspect from Sonic Superstars and put it into Sonic combat that is more like Kingdom Hearts. What Kingdom Hearts has over other action games is the strategic aspect, the emerald powers could be like the Magic system from KH2 where you use gauge to use magic that does different effects and damage proximity. But then having to wait when using all of the gauge to then switch to normal combat for sometime.
It also has a great sense of simple theoretically one button combat that is satisfying to use because you are using the environment around you to use your attacks and having a physics system that allows some sort of enemy organization and of course juggling.
it's videos like these where i wish they actually amounted to something, but i doubt SEGA will even see this video, which is sad
at least you proved how easy it is to fix bosses and how hard it is for a AAA company
Honestly, I can take or leave the combat, but what I would do is this:
Homing Attack (jump button and then jump again near an enemy)
Homing Launch (press the action button on impact to launch the enemy into another one or a wall)
Sweep kick (tap action button)
Windmill kick (tap action button again after performing the sweep kick)
Breakdance finish (tap the button a third time and Sonic will perform a breakdance hitting enemies at a rapid pace)
Roll (Hold down the action button while moving, this can combo with the sweep kick combo)
Homing Beat down (Tap the action button in rapid succession in the air and Sonic will wail on his opponent with bounce attacks before ending with his Sonic eagle from Sonic Battle)
Sonic Wind slash (Holding down the action button in the air with have Sonic charge up a wind based attack, the longer you hold it the bigger the range and damage, a normal Sonic wind on a low charge stuns enemies)
Spin Dash (functions how it does in other games, momentum based physics make a return only it can actually bounce around enemies)
Finally, we have the special gauge, fills up the same way it does in Sonic Heroes. Sonic basically does the light speed attack.
I would also bring the elemental shields back and add some new ones but give them different functions, they would also have different effects on enemies with attacks.
Fire (Similar to the burst ability a big firey jump with flames that surround him, longer you charge it the higher he goes. Also while boosting he regains the boost offensive capabilities)
Electric shield (laser wisp basically, only you don't need those dumb crystals to launch yourself in different directions, just walls or enemies, can also turn himself into a literal lighting bolt and just go through enemies, light posts, ect.)
Bubble shield (Allows Sonic to breathe underwater, the ability itself when jumping it gives him extra height as the bubble expands giving Sonic a slow descent. In the water he can do this infinitly, basically how Sonic was able to "swim" in Sonic Colors)
Earth shield (This was tough because I wasn't sure what to do with this one. I thought about just giving it the quake wisp power where he slams into the ground and creates an earthquake or just creates a crator around him. Then when he spin dashes he basically turns into Rock Mario. Another idea was for him to do a drill attack in the ground)
Ice shield (Being able to walk on water, jump attack creates an ice wall in all directions)
Wind shield (Sucks up rings and enemies, allows Sonic to hover and glide for a short period of time)