Tuesday 13 October 2009

A new start

We've seen many videogame franchises dominate the charts and our consoles for years, rising up through sequels, spin-offs, TV shows and comics. However what goes up must come down and inevitably most huge franchises take a dive and end up in a slew of downright insulting games with cheap gimmicks and poor gameplay mechanics (insert Sonic game here).

So I was thinking if I had the chance to revive a couple of these failing franchises where would I take them? What would I have them do? Here's a couple of my ideas...

(WARNING: TOPIC MAY AGGRAVATE LOYAL FANBOYS)

Sonic the hedghog:
Let's start with the obvious. Since the jump to 3-D Sonic has failed miserably to capture our hearts and run away with them, completely lacking the sense of speed that he mastered so greatly in the genesis days he just hasn't been up to scratch lately. Too many characters have been introduced taking away Sonic's uniqueness and just generally being poorly designed; Big the Cat -_- Although Sega has announced that they are making a new full 2-D Sonic game we all know they will some how screw this up so here's how I would do it.
Firstly bring him back to 2-D and stay 2-D. Not some crummy 2.5-D it would be in full cartoon graphics complete with a colour palette that looked like a rainbow had vomited all over it. Sonic was always bright, colourful and striking and that would be the same in the re-boot of my Sonic series. The game would play exactly like the classic genesis games with 3 acts and the last ending in a boss battle.
As for characters there would only be Sonic and Robotnik, yes you heard correctly. The name is Doctor Robotnik not Eggman! The Sonic cartoons for me were interesting as they portrayed Sonic as a freedom fighter against the dictatorship society run by Robotnik. This would play a big part in the storyline for my reboot.
As for the story Sonic games have never had decent stories I mean one of the later ones implied a romantic relationship between a young girl (human) and Sonic (hedgehog) which is clearly against all reason and sanity in our society. In my reboot Sonic the hedgehog is a young adult (you get what I mean) who's family was enslaved and eventually tortured to death by Robotnik. The players would learn this via a series of playable flashbacks where Sonic as a young child flees from the capturing of his family and experiences his first sense of speed. The players would need to be careful as he would be slightly unstable, stumbling, slipping and getting tired which would add a new gameplay element different to the other levels in the present day. (these flashbacks would only be a couple of levels). We learn that Sonic never focused on the loss of his family as he never stopped running. He dealt with his problems by running away from them. Literally. This would be a lot deeper Sonic with reasons for what he is doing. Sonic runs away from Morbius (Morbius now being a country instead of a planet) and grows into a young adult, living life running and trying to have fun. Sonic's a loner who believes that anyone he loves would get hurt as Robotnik vowed that Sonic would be hunted down and killed, therefore he never has any friends or relationships but always seems like a fun loving character. The story goes on to how he returns to Morbius and races across the lands to free the country from Robotniks clutches. Maybe at the end it would be possible to introduce a younger Tails who's parents were also killed looking to Sonic as a role model, however Sonic not ready to accept him.
The gameplay would be the same: run from left to right. With hand drawn cartoon graphics and fully animated cutscenes the game could look beautiful.
The reboot is basically taking Sonic back to his roots, mimicking almost entirely the genesis gameplay style however adding more depth to the characters, a more reasonable story and an origin for the main man himself!

So what do you think? Am I completely off the mark and the idea of making a troubled character with true motivations just too much for a game about running? Maybe you even like the 3-D games? Maybe you like the Eggman title? (yeah like that would ever happen) Or maybe you just have a better idea...
Sound your opinions in the comments section!


Tomorrow I'll be continuing the topic with my new direction for the Legend Of Zelda series (yeah... I went there!)

7 comments:

  1. thx for the wall of text :P
    i agree with you tho

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah sorry bout the length, but if ya got bored you didn't need to read it all!

    ReplyDelete
  3. im an ex-sonic fan. too much rant to fit in a comment! sending u an email!

    ReplyDelete
  4. i only read, Sonic the hedghog:
    Let's start with the obvious. Since the jump to 3-D Sonic has failed

    then i stopped but yeah i agree =D

    ReplyDelete
  5. btw I'll be doing the legend of zelda later in the week for those who care :P I havent got time today :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. Not really interested in the direction you'd sonic,as sonic isn't something i follow much anymore since the his 3D transformation!

    ...but Zelda i'm intrigued?

    It better be good!
    I'll be watching this space.

    ReplyDelete