Reasonable Assessment: Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 Deserve Remakes

51 Comments

1. 1) I think this makes me a horrible human being but I didn’t really spend much time in the Chao Garden, so it can be improved however they want to and it won’t affect me.

   2) Big detracts from the game immensely in my opinion. He has no value to the story besides being in cutscenes the player has already seen to that point, and that is completely pointless. His gameplay style does nothing but slow down the game and irritate the ever living daylights out of everyone who has ever played even the first stage.

   3) I would say that Sonic Team should handle it because I know nothing about games that aren’t first party exclusives being remastered. (Technically these used to be 1st party exclusive but whatever)

2. 1. I honestly think the Chao Garden is fine as is. Just add some online functionality and features and it will be good as new.
   2. Cut out Big’s story, but keep his gameplay as a minigame, cause I think practically NO ONE wants to go through that again.
   3. I would have said have Sonic Team develop it, but after Lost World and Forces, I don’t know.

3. 1) Honestly I don’t see how the Chao garden of SA2 could be enhanced, except by adding maybe more garden and more interaction between the Chao and the player.

   2) Cutting Big means that the story might need a minor rewriting, I’m not opposed to the idea, or make Big as a “miny-game” based character (like the Mario Party) something short but funny, Big is only 3 or 4 short level in the original SA1 anyway, not a big deal.

   3) Clearly Retro Studio, they have a golden hand for resurrecting the olds Nintendo franchise (Metroid, Donkey kong), Modern Sonic needs to be re-established on a good stable basis and I think Retro Studio is probably the most able to do it with a real chance of success.

4. I’d just hope if that WERE to happen, keep the style and presentation in-line with the original Dreamcast version. I personally found the SADX port to Gamecube and it’s PC version to be rather ugly tbh, from textures to models and the lighting, the DC version just tops the GC and later PSN/XBLA re-release.

   1) Maybe have the Chao Gardens from both SA1 and 2 be able to interact with one another. Basicly a joint remake that gives you both sets of Chao Gardens and you can import Chao between both games.

   2) Maybe fix it so that the fishing isn’t as tedious as the original. In there, it felt more like it was up to luck to get Froggy, have a much better implemented fishing mechanic and I can bet people wouldn’t be annoyed with it as much. It’d just be a fun break from the main game

   3) I wouldn’t be so sure myself, but if Sonic Team weren’t on their kick of “Sonic Only, Classic is Superior” I’d say they could but I’d fear they would try to go a route like Lost World with it.

   1. I’m confused on what you said.

   2. @ROBOTHOBO64

      I’d assume that whoever remakes them would not go the shiny plastic route. I don’t know for sure this but I feel like the weird look of SADX only happened because they were trying to get an old game to look new, instead of remaking the assets from the ground up.

5. Personally, I think they should stick with the Adventure models (preferably SA2’s if not both) in modern graphics buuuut if they used Modern Sonic’s model I wouldn’t mind.

   The Chao Gardens are fine as is. They could do what SA2B did with SA2’s Chao Garden and make alternative/additional layout. I’d try to combine the 3 myself. They could add new animals and a few new activities in the competitions.

   The camera is an obvious need for fixing… only most games still haven’t figured that out yet unless there’s a just right camera control for that just right gameplay.

   I wouldn’t mind keeping the old voices in for faithfulness and I wouldn’t mind a brand new line recording from the current cast either. But the fan base is complicated about voice acting. Not as much lately but still. So, if I were able to, I’d have the current cast record all the lines (maybe with some edited lines) and input it into the game as one of two English Audio options.

   Also, I’d still want an SA3 just cuz I always have, not that I can’t live without it, but I’d think an Adventure series remake could be a huge stepping stone to SA3 since they’d all be modern now.

   I’d been running in my head what Sonic 1 – S&K would look like remade as a single 3D Sonic game with cutscenes and such. I just imaged the Adventure series remake coming after. XD

6. Oh yeah and as for big the cat it’s odd but I think he should not be cut out because of the story despite having little impact. I mean, neither does Gamma or Amy that much. In fact, they each mostly only impact their own stories but skylight lay shift the direction of others.

   HOWEVER, I would heavily upgrade his stages to include more plat forming while searching for Froggy but make it simple and, like others have said, kinda like a mini game. Include a WAAAAY better version of the fishing, easier too. Make there be multiple fishing spots in a stage and have them be optional. Like if you chase Froggy into a pool. But also include some mechanism that gets Froggy out so you can chase him to something else. So the fishing is optional and you only ever do it if that’s how you want to catch him. lol you know? Be creative. XD

7. 1) As someone who actually finally caved in and started playing the Chao Gardens in SA2:B for 100%, I’d either like to see the really tediousness grinding you have to do to level up your Chao toned down or made entirely optional. Right now, you can only carry so few animals or Chaos Drives into a Garden for basically a few drops of points, which gets even worse if you stick to CDs because you like how you Chao has an awesome fire tail. It really drags for me. And speaking of dragging, how many seperate Chao Races do you have complete for one stinking Emblem? *30.* Which will probably eat up an hour of your life you can’t get back, and really sticks out compared to the 7 minutes of gameplay tops you have to do to get any other Emblem (baring difficultly*).

   To sum it up, I would either like to see either more Emblems given for Chao Races to make it feel less draining, the grinding in general toned downed, or make it completely seperate from the rest of the game, like, don’t even count it for 100%, give the mode completely self contained rewards for the minigames. It’s such a freaking departure from everything else in the action game it seems dumb and off-putting to force people to do it. I mean, I kinda found myself enjoying raising Chao and doing the races and making up stories for the characters and their Chao, but with all the grinding and this not being my cup of tea, I’d rather not have to do it.

   And can I please be given something to do while my Chao is asleep besides just running and fooling around the Garden which lead me to discover this can happen? https://twitter.com/Rarefoil/status/840060001955725313

   2) When I was a kid envisioning Sonic Adventure 3 and writing a OpenOffice document describing it, I had 16 playable characters, and one of them was Big. In my SA3, Big was looking for Froggy and still has to fish, but what I envisioned was him doing lost of platforming from fishing pond to fishing pond. Platforming involving his fishing rod. Using it offensively, a grappling hook, and using it to swing around poles. In fact, I’m pretty sure I envisioned one big fishing rod platforming stage that leads to one small pond with only Froggy inside to basically just end the stage for every stage.

   Not to give my kid self too much credit, he also included Princess Sally, “Ghost Amy Rose,” (who was evil) and his Original Character in that “design document,” but maybe do that in the SA1 remake? Still sounds kinda fun to me. Heck, you could even just get rid of any fishing obligations all-together, just get to the goal, “Here’s your frog,” bam Big has the frog. And then he loses it again.

   So yeah, I think Big’s too much of a part of Sonic Adventure to just leave him out arbitrarily, so I’d say just make him do more platforming in the platformer.

   Or just copy how he played in Heroes, that’s an option too.

   3) Okay, this I basically have no clue about. I always contended that Sonic Team wants to make an Adventure 3, but here’s the thing: I don’t think they have the time, money, or set of skills to remake Adventure 1 or 2 properly. You know that FF7 remake? Extra Credits noted that a lot of time and money will be put into making the game into a Final Fantasy of today’s standard would pretty much cost as much if not more than your average AAA game. And I think the same applies to SA1/2, since like FF7, the original games are little more than blueprints. O don’t think it can be just a side project to make easy money for them, it’s gotta be a whole team effort. And they need to make that next Sonic game.

   Also, today’s Sonic Team seems to be sticking with PonTaff for their North American dialogue, and while I don’t have a definitive yay/nay on them, I definitely think they shouldn’t be penning the revision to SA1/2.

   So Sonic Team’s out, and that leaves me with even less of a clue to pick. Maybe one of the teams making 3D fan games, like how Taxman was chosen for his work on 2D fan games? But who knows which ones have enough skill, and A) I can’t come up with too many examples of Teams, and B) The teams I do know about I’m pretty sure I’d not pick. (Ashura: Dark Reign and Sonic the Hedgehog 3D’s about it, and I don’t think those two have it). Hypo’s the guy that did those great SA1/2 cutscene remakes in SFM, but that’s just cutscenes, and I don’t think the Source engine is best for the Adventure games.

   I dunno… Platinum Games? They know their action. But who knows if they care enough about Sonic to really make it shine, let alone caring about the Adventure games. Id Software? Eh, same thing as Platinum. The resently resurrected 3D Realms, who seem to be a part of Interceptor Entertainment/Slipgate Studios now? They kinda know 90s action and attitude, judging by Bombshell. But they kinda seem to be in a shaky spot right now, with their Kickstarter game not working out. Night Dive Studios? They make a LOT of remasters, such as the first two Turok games (I’ve been playing a lot of old-school FPS games, okay?), and Slave Zero, that PC robot third person shooter. They seem to handle action as well as kid point-and-click adventure games. And even though those go more towards the “shiny coat of paint” remaster than “from the ground up” remaster we want, they are making a System Shock remake that’s an “from the ground up” remake, and it is looking pretty promising and very competent… so maybe they’ve got what it takes?

   But there’s that all important “do they care about Sonic” factor, and who knows if they do. You see, the team that remakes SA1/2 will have to be in the unique position of loving Sonic, loving the Adventure games, loving them enough to see the flaws, and having the design skills and technical skills to do the job well. How many developers have those qualifications? Does Night Dive Studios have that? Nobody knows except then at the moment, and so does every other candidate or dev team. A Catch-22 at the moment, if you will.

   But anyway, I’ve always thought SA1 and 2 needed full-out remasters as well, and I am all for it. We need to show the rest of the world that the Adventure style gameplay doesn’t suck, and a remaster is just what we need to do that.

   One thing I’d also like to see is the original Dreamcast versions of the games included with the remasters completely unaltered and playable, like how some remakes can flip a switch to go back to the original graphics. It’ll preserve those versions and put in some perspective for those playing the remakes.

   That’s all. Hope to be featured in the follow-up, which probably won’t happen because my response was far too long, but hoping anyway.

   *Elaborating on that, even if it takes hours to learn how to do that one Kart missions, at least hypothetically it can be reduced if you’re good or played the game before, and all you have to do is that 4 minutes of gameplay. Chao Racing is gonna take an hour for that Emblem no matter what.

8. The only thing I want back Is the Chao garden for future sonic titles. Who agrees?

   1. @SONICGALAXY27

      You’re certainly not alone. I’m surprised that Sega continues to ignore the large number of requests for a new Chao garden

9. Ooh. This is very interesting. I always thought it would be absolutely great if they remade the Adventure games, especially with games like the FF7 remake and N-Sane Trilogy being made.

   1) Lightly expand each of gardens from both games and add set pieces the Chao can interact with (e.x. a playground with a slide, etc)

   2) Make Big’s story an extra or unlockable mode that isn’t required to complete the main story, that way it stays true to the original Adventure but doesn’t demand you play as him to unlock the ending.

   3) I say Sonic Team. After the not-so-positive track record of other developers getting their dirty mits onto making Sonic games (Rise of Lyric, Shattered Crystal, Chronicles, Shuffle), just have Sonic Team do it themselves.

10. 1) The Chao Garden system is pretty neat as is. Maybe go the Pokemon route and introduce more stuff to fine-tune Chao stats and the like. And maybe re-work the animal parts system so you’re more consistently able to pick what a Chao gets. Oh, and maybe either make the gardens bigger to fit more chao or make more of them. Other than that, the Chao Garden mechanics were pretty much golden by the time SA2B came along.

    2) The easy way out would be to make him optional or to cut him entirely. But the solution I would want to come up with is first of all to improve the fishing engine so that it’s not so barebones and boring to toy around with. Second, I’d give his gameplay more of a Zelda-ish twist by expanding upon his gamelplay style. Have his lures all have different effects like attracting different kinds of fish, Expand on the adventure emphasis his gameplay introduced by giving him bigger playgrounds to explore and more ways to interact with it. Big is a powerlifter who can learn to swim and in later games he even gets to use his fishing pole as a whip and a flail and a crude club. I can see a lot of potential in that. Like say, expand the Dinosaur Skeleton areas in Ice Cap into a big underground cave where Big can toss dinosaur bones into the underground lakes and then use his pole to grapple onto rocks around the lake in order to make a crude raft to get into position for fishing or expanding on the drainage systems in Hot Shelter to give Big more places to fish. The basic goal would remain piss-easy to clear(Even easier with a less annoying fishing engine), but the extra missions would benifit a lot from having that extra bit of adventure. Show us more of HOW big gets to his fishing spots and then give us more insight into HOW he fishes. Even if it’s just fishing, the journey to find the right spot can be it’s own epic and you can see a few glimmers of that in Big’s gameplay. The secret cave in Emerald Coast looks like it’d be a stunning find and it’s built up as being the best, secretest spot on the beach for fishing and I already brought up the potential in Ice Cap’s frozen dionsaur cave systems. Expanding on the adventure, making the actual fishing more robust and making the whole thing easier to engage with will undoubtedly give us a gameplay style that’s still completely different from everything else in the game, but also still a grand adventure in it’s own way while giving Big the justice he deserves after being shat on for over a decade.

    3) I think Sonic Team should do it, but maybe with some help from outside, like Dimps. The guys from the Advanced era. They were just as much a part of Adventure era Sonic as the main team, so they should easily have some good input.

11. Your tidbit about excusing older games because we know their gameplay is refined later on…I don’t necessarily agree with this. I think some games are so expertly crafted that we just go back to play them because they’re THAT GOOD!
    We see the positives outweighing the flaws and that’s why we revisit them.

    For example: Zelda…I’ve gone back and played Ocarina plenty of times. Yes it has its flaws (all games do) but I don’t think “Hey I can accept this games shortcoming because Skyward Sword refined them later” no no no, because I think Skyward Sword was not enjoyable at all. Now…I think that some aspects of Zelda games have fine tuned what Ocarina started but ultimately I don’t find myself revisiting Wind Waker or Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword more than I do Ocarina. There’s no real pleasure revisiting those other games for me. Point being…some older games tend to stick not because we take comfort in their “refined” sequels; they’re just good in their own right. I’d go so far to say (even though it’s basically the same game) Ocarina of Time 3D makes it hard to go back to the original. In that sense you’d have a point in remaking Adventure 1 and 2…but I have a different argument for that entirely.

    1. @JMACK

       That’s part of it, too, yeah. For most people, I think it’s a mix of what I said in the article and what you’ve just said.

       While you may not be that way, I think what I’ve said represents of general consensus of gaming popular opinion at a macro level. Thank you for being a little more objective. *thumbs up*

       1. Possibly. Guess I’ve never really looked at it like that. I may be the minority, but otherwise, good article. I don’t think Sonic Team currently has the talent to remake those games. I also think there are some fundamental issues with Adventure 1 and 2 that, if I had my way, would alter them unrecognizable if we’d be able tweak them. There are changes I’d justify that people would probably hate me for lol

          1. I see you also adressed my concern 😛

             I’m with you here – I don’t know how you COULD update these games without really changing the feel (the FFVII remake was mentioned, but that definitely looks like a fundamentally different game)

             I’d love to see it happen, but is it really possible to do well? Who knows?

          2. @JMACK

             Thanks. I’m curious what these unrecognizable tweaks would be. Please do tell!

             (everyone, please don’t hate jmack for having an opinion)

    2. @ChaoticFox

       My dude Fox! How’ve you been man?

       See my whole thing is would they be just a visual/audio upgrade? Maybe some little tweaks here and there? Because I’d still be disappointed ultimately. Neat to see happen but…I just don’t think they’re THAT good. Which brings me to the changes I’d make in response to Noah…

       1. @Noah Copeland

          Oh man…I don’t want to keep you here all day listing all the little nitpicks…but the big ones, other than obviously ironing out the glitches and overall smoothening/enhancing the performance of the game:

          SA1 (Remake)
          – Make Sonic’s levels more sprawling. For the most part (currently) you play them the exact same way every time because they’re essentially scripted, extremely linear. Give me multiple ways to reach the end of the level.
          – From the very start of the game: Have a “Classic Mode” (play level to level) and an “Adventure Mode” (exploring the hub-world for secrets) because those two together DO NOT MIX. Instead of using the hub world to artificially extend the length of the game, how about hiding a bunch of things in the hub world (power-ups, emblems, animals, etc.) that when collecting them, they grant access to extra areas in the action stages! Like you could beat the game just fine and get a regular ending, but if you explore and find stuff in the hub world it’ll open up pathways in the level that weren’t accessible before. You could even find a pathway that would lead you to a Chaos Emerald!? For the most part the original game already does this…but again it’s in a VERY linear fashion.
          – Every other character is an optional playthrough with its own perspective to the story that doesn’t have to be completed to unlock the final ending. You only have to beat Sonic’s stages and get all the emeralds to get the final ending. DONE.

          1. @Noah Copeland

             SA2 remake:

             Again other than enhancing the graphics and overall quality…

             – Add more Sonic/Shadow stages! Of 30 levels (not counting Green Hill Zone or Cannon’s Core) 10 of them are spent playing as Sonic and Shadow. Terrible. Combined, they should at least have 16 levels (8 levels going to each) 14 going to the rest of the characters.
             – Take Tails out of the Mech and give him his own levels catered to his natural abilities. This is vague, but I don’t want to play as Tails in a big clunky machine. Racing against Sonic in the 1st Adventure was fine. Eggman’s levels in the mech is fine in small doses. Knuckles/Rouge stages…they’re fine just have the radar detect multiple emerald shards at a time.
             – DONE.

    3. If you think the only way to make them ‘good’ is to change them almost completely from scratch, SEGA might as well just put that effort toward a new game, rather than just opening Pandora’s box and bring in another Sonic 4-tier backlash. I think they should NOT be remade at all. There’s just no point. It’s clear that people who don’t like the Adventure games will still hate them, and if they change too much to please the modern fans, the Adventure fans will most likely be upset and immediately lose interest in it.

       It’s best that they leave these games alone and move on.

       1. @Tomoki
          When it’s all said and done I agree with you wholeheartedly. They shouldn’t touch them at all and just go forward. But for the sake of the argument that’s the point. At what point does fixing the game become making a new game entirely? Is it a reimagining at that point? A remake? A remaster? And for what? To experience a game as one “remembers” it? To outdo the original creators? Why not just make a new game? It’s too muddled for me to really care, but if it was done it’d be interesting to see the outcome nonetheless.

12. A proper remake of the Adventure games would be so good, and about SA3 maybe we have to wait for some dedicated fans to come around and do it themselves officially under Sega unbrella like with Sonic Mania 😛

    1) Mix the 6 chao gardens from SA and SA2 in the same game, make a quick way to give your chao your collected animals/chaos drives, full online functionality, the possibility of entering the chao garden with any character including the ones from multiplayer.

    2) I would rather remove them completely or at least make them optional.

    3) Sonic Team, them or other experienced team under their supervision.

13. I’m down for some remakes, but I have literally never played a retro game and “forgiven its faults” due to goodwill generated by the refinement present in its sequels. What the actual hell? Who does this?

    All old games have design decisions that seem odd in 2017, but not all of those archaic flaws are equally frustrating. It’s easier to overlook Ocarina’s faults because they are not as dramatic as Sonic Adventure’s, not because Twilight Princess is cool.

    Seriously, wtf

    1. @CHAOTICFOX

       “What the actual hell? Who does this?”
       Well, sadly, a lot of people do. I’m glad you don’t! but unfortunately public opinion isn’t always as objective.

       As Jmack and I discussed above, I was speaking more towards the general popular opinion of gaming as whole. Let’s zoom out for a second and see if I can explain this better than I did.

       Here’s one way to put it: The overall legacy and perception of a series as whole can, and often does, permeate and affect the perception of specific works.

       In other words, do you think it’s a coincidence that a lot of “Sonic was never good” videos started coming out after Rise Of Lyric’s release?

       When Sonic keeps releasing bad game after bad game, it begins to shape the public perception of the brand/series in a negative light, which also affects how the older games are viewed (whether its subconscious or not).

       Because a lot of people have had more negative experiences with Sonic than positive, they’ve been conditioned into associating Sonic with “bad.” Therefore, it becomes easier and easier for them to look at the Sonic games they once liked and say, “yup, this is bad too.”

       It’s similar with Zelda, expect the reverse. Because Nintendo has had such a tight arm of quality control on Zelda (post CD-I), the series has been able to uphold its prestige and perceived value as a “good franchise.” Even with a game like Skyward Sword, which a lot of people think was a little bit of mistep for the series, the Zelda name is still able to maintain its legacy because the good outweighs the bad. It’s easy to play Ocarina and think “this is a good, because Zelda is good” when the general zeitgeist surrounding Zelda is positive and has been that way for years.

       One reason Sonic Adventure’s flaws seem so dramatic is because those same flaws have been highlighted and accentuated time and time again because they keep showing up in subsequent Sonic games, often getting worse and worse each time. The flaws, therefore, get magnified.

       Human beings often see what they want to see, and what they want to see is what they already know or are already familiar with. It all comes down to our dumb human minds being lazy. We like to stereotype and compartmentalize things, because it’s easier than looking at things on case-by-case basis. It’s not logical, at all, but it’s how human psychology works a lot of times.

       That’s what I was referring to. And yes, some flaws are just frustrating regardless, and those definitely factor in as well.

       1. This clarification does help a great deal, and I can definitely see where you’re coming from now.

          I definitely agree that the overall quality of a series impacts people’s perception of/reaction to it, especially from an outsider’s perspective. Trying to get a newbie into Sonic Adventure in 2017 is probably quite the challenge because of this bias, whereas trying to convince someone to try OoT would probably be much easier.

          But as a deeply invested fan of both franchises who grew up loving both titles? Adventure just feels like the sloppier game, regardless of legacy.

          1. @CHAOTICFOX

             I’m glad that explanation was more clear.

             Yeah, I agree that SA1 is sloppier than Oot. It seems that you are wanting to make sure that gets stated. Yes, while SA1 is sloppier, my point was that the difference in quality between the two titles gets grossly exaggerated. Zelda gets a very forgiving amount of leeway while SA1 gets held up to strict scrutiny in a way that is disproportionate to the actual quality, even if OoT still proves to be the better game in the end.

       2. @Noah

          Okay thanks for the clarification! This makes much more sense and in this context I can agree with you.

14. The only thing I want SEGA to do is to get rid of the Boos and King Boom Boo in the SA2 Remake if that were to happen. They’re annoying and have no part in the story except for doing a lot of Jump Scares to the players. I was like 4 when it came out and they scared the living hell outta me. I had to get my cousin or brother to beat those levels for me.

    Besides they’re just rip offs of the Boos and King Boo from Mario only scarier.

    So yeah, get rid of them and I’ll be playing the game all night and day

15. Remake a 9 month rushed game and a sequel technically better but worse on everything else ?!

    It has to be remade from scratch to ever have a chance of succeeding.

16. Two words: Platinum Games

17. Careful, SEGA might ruin it with P&G and custom characters.

18. (I think my comment got eaten???)

    I’m not sure to what to say for the last two, but I do have some ideas for chao gardens:

    – Be able to deposit chao in a pc, so that you can get more of them. And put ones that you don’t want out away for some time (like in Pokemon).

    – Be able to take one chao on a walk in a forest or somewhere. And find things like fruit/ rare eggs or power-ups that the player could use when starting a new stage.

    – Improve the AI of chao. (I don’t know why but some chao were really dumb. They can’t swim and they go in the pool, you take them out, but they just go back in instantly anyway.)

    – When playing normal stages, be able to select a chao to come along with you to help. And have abilities based on their types:
    Normal type: just follows the player around, may collect rings from behind the player, can’t fight. Also the higher the player’s friendship with the chao is, the better the chao is (this is the base for all chao)
    Running type/ Sonic chao/ Shadow chao: collects rings in close/medium distance
    Flying type/ Tails chao: collects rings from high above the player
    Power type/ Knuckles chao/ Amy chao (with piko hammer): attacks enemies, is the strongest of them all (except for Chaos Chao)
    Swimming type: when the player is underwater, the chao could collect rings close by/ or attack underwater enemies
    Chaos Chao: be the strongest of all of the chao, and have all of the abilities of the other chao

    – Following the previous idea, if the player starts a level and they don’t have any eligible chao to assist them, they could be given a default chao of Cheese somehow. But Cheese won’t appear in chao gardens since they ‘belong to someone else’, (so Cheese is effectively immortal and cannot die). When Cheese taken to normal stages, Cheese’s ability is super luck. Cheese could boost the player’s luck to get better power-ups at the checkpoints. And ultimately be a beginner’s type.

    – For building the chao’s grades in their stats, I always found it kinda ridiculous trying to get a chao with highest grades without incest breeding. So there could be clubs you could drop the chao off at to get them a maxed out grade in a particular stat gradually:
    – swimming club – swimming
    – athletes club – running
    – rock climbing/ karate club – power
    – ??? club – flying

    – Be able to get all character chao in the game, without events/ dlc. Getting specials one like Amy and Knuckles were impossible in the original games. It was possible to get Tails but another game was needed. You would have to cheat to get them. If they did return, I would like that to be fixed. I dunno they would be given out. Maybe for example, the player could get rewarded with unlocking a Tails chao, if they completed all of Tails’ stages with any rank. And then to get the Tails chao, they could go on a walk in a forest with another chao, and find them there. Whenever the player gets given a character chao, they can’t die and they can’t be released. They could have maxed out grades too.

19. Unless they’d give it the Crash Bandicoot N-Sane Trilogy / Yakuza Kiwami treatment, where they keep it very faithful to the original games, and only add improvements to the gameplay (lmaybe adding cut content like Super Forms as playable in normal stages in both games and multiplayer mode in SA2 as a reward for beating the game), rather than changing it almost entirely; I don’t trust Sonic Team to do the Adventure games justice.

    I fear they’d just turn them into shallow Boost games with 2D/3D switching, with Sonic as possibly either the only playable character, or they’d turn the other characters’ playstyles into generic blocky 2D stuff, the Chao Gardens would probably get removed, and have the story rewritten to accommodate that (worst case-scenario, the English version would be handled by Pontaff and Graff, which I have no doubt would INFURIATE Adventure fans- even more so than them coming back for Forces). Oh, and then Wisps/Color Powers might get shoved in, with no explanation, and who knows what other unnecessary trash they’d throw into it.

    I just don’t have confidence in Sonic Team to handle such a task. They’re better off just making new games to appeal to the kiddies. Being alienated from the series is bad enough, but having them mess with 2 very beloved games in the series is just a recipe for Sonic 4-tier levels of backlash from fans.

    It’s just not worth it.

    1. In addition to that, I also realize there would be fans that want different things out of remakes of the Adventure games. Some fans would welcome the games being entirely different and being more like the modern games, while the Adventure fans would probably want a more conservative approach that stays faithful to the original games. So either way, fans would be polarized over it.

       If it stays faithful to the original, Classic/Modern fans and critics would probably still shit on them, and if they try to appeal to those fans by making it more like the modern Sonic games, then the Adventure fans would be pissed off for them being too different from the originals. Either way, these games were so unique, that I just think that no one’s really up to the task to remake them. Heck I don’t even think anyone’s up to the task to make a proper sequel. Not even Sonic Team themselves.

       Just leave them alone, and move on.

20. I’d be fully behind this concept, on the condition that it would be handled pretty closely to how Sonic Generations was handled in terms of presentation, engine, and gameplay style and creativity. Obviously the stages should be a bit longer and depending on how you want to go about it, maybe replace the Boost with a functioning 3D spindash (that ISN’T like Lost World’s spindash XP), but I could also understand making other various little tweaks to make it feel a bit more closer to the Adventure gameplay. But honestly, I don’t think you’d have to adjust that much, the Unleashed Boost formula is already a pretty good evolution of the Adventure formula, all you would have to do is essentially replace the Boost with the Spin Dash, the stomp with the bounce attack, and maybe adjust the stage layouts to meet the needs of speed and exploration a tiny bit more (again, just make them longer and larger…lol, and I’m basically good).

    Heck, most of these stages could even be reimagined altogether, though I’d still like for them to mostly resemble their original path layout (for instance Speed Highway keeping the corkscrew in the middle of the stage instead of the end, having more of a proper “At Dawn” segment, having the Skyscraper Downhill section last a bit longer, etc.). A lot of the things done in the Emerald Coast mod could be used as a great example as well.

    If this went well enough, it might even open the door to remakes of other favorites. I’d definitely love to see a Generations-style remake of the Classic games S1-S3K and CD (maybe even Knuckles’ Chaotix if they did well enough), and there’s also plenty of other games that you could “fix” with an opportunity like this, such as Sonic Heroes with less slippery gameplay, Sonic 2006 with proper gameplay, story, and graphics, and even Sonic Unleashed and Colors with all of the refinement that Generations’ gameplay accomplished…don’t know about Lost World tho, I still feel pretty burned by that one. 😛

    Point is the possibilities really are ~never ending~! It would definitely all hinge on whether or not a SA1 and SA2 remake would be successful tho. But like you said, it would definitely be a safe start, especially if they were ever going to even entertain the idea of an SA3. Just use the remakes as a way to get reacquainted with how to make a formula like that work in the modern day with all it’s refinements as well as test the waters for modern-day Adventure hype in the actual numbers that matter: SALES FIGURES!! Then, use data accumulated from all that success to develop what would definitively be a Sonic Adventure 3, not just in name but in spirit as well. Because if Sega has shown anything it’s that they can’t rely on just memory of how great something was alone, they have to actually get their feet wet with an idea first before they can figure out how to make something truly new with the same type of creativity and style mixed in it. Of course, results may vary with that in mind as well, but better than just thinking you remember what it was like and missing the mark entirely.

    1. Forgot to mention, though I feel it goes without saying, the story would definitely need to be refined a bit to meet today’s standards. The overall plot doesn’t really have to be changed as much, it’s just that the dialogue in some cases may need to be heavily overhauled to meet our modern standards for video game voice acting. But this would mean that WARREN GRAFF AND KEN PONTAC MUST NOT TOUCH THESE. They seriously can’t be trusted with anything Sonic these days, let alone something that is considered sacred to the hearts of many Sonic fans. You would need someone who ACTUALLY understands the characters, how they actually act and how they actually talk, and how they would have been like at this time in the series (like Knuckles isn’t quite buddy-buddy with Sonic yet but he’s not adversarial anymore, Eggman is still looking to make Eggmanland…Robotnickland…whateverland, EMPIRE ALL THE WAY!!). Not to mention these two stories have a tone that really the fans at this point would have a better idea of what they were going for as opposed to two writers who only watch 20 minutes of cutscenes each time they need to write for dialogue in a Sonic game, let alone handling the whole story.

       My point is, if Sega and Sonic Team are willing to go out of their way and reach out to a Fan-developer to fully develop one of their new big titles, and a Fan-composer to fully develop the soundtrack for said title, then at this point they should also be more willing to reach out to a fan who is just as competent at writing the story for a big title. It doesn’t even have to be some random FanFiction.net “nobody” or anything, you have freaking Ian Flynn, a guy who has written stories for Sonic for more than 10 years at this point, and has expressed interest in actually writing for the games. Yeah writing for games is different, but a good writer should have enough flexibility to write a good story regardless of the medium, and he certainly has a better grasp of the characters’ identities, personalities, quirks, inflections, and history better than some other would-be writers currently in there.

    2. I’m honestly not at all for an SA1/2 remake to just adopt the Modern Sonic Boost gameplay. There are very different things at this point, and one just does not feel like the other. I think the point of a remake of these titles is to not only convince the world that these games are good, but that the Adventure formula in itself is also good. Adventure is trying to be Classic Sonic but in 3D, while Modern is pretty much its own thing. Modern Sonic is all about uncontrollable speed, popcorn spectacle, and levels designed to fit in a tube to facilitate Sonic blasting through forwards at all time, while Adventure is more contemplative, wants speed to be earned instead of given, and involves a lot more platforming and exploration.

       I’m siding with Tomoki, if the remake turned out to use the Modern Sonic gameplay, I wouldn’t be pissed, I would just lose all interest and not even pick it up, honestly.

       But you do you.

    3. There’s no point in remaking the Adventure games if the only way to make them ‘good’ is to basically turn them into an entirely different game with almost completely different gameplay. Giving the Adventure games the Modern Sonic Boost formula just kills the point in it, and it feeds into the hive mind mentality that “the Adventure games were never good”. It’s honestly disrespectful to the folks that made the original games, and by extension, the fans who enjoyed them. You might as well just play a new modern game like Forces, and leave these games alone.

21. I don’t need to read the article to have an answer to this one! (But I of course did otherwise it’d be pretty douchey of me).

    Yes. Most definitely yes. And before stumbling upon this article, I was watching the fan-made recreations of scenes from Adventure 1 and 2.

    And it’s more than just to shut the people who say that “it has aged” (and let’s be honest… it has, but that doesn’t make it less entertaining? Although it kind of makes you wish the gameplay was a little less clunky after playing for extended periods of time), it deserves to be remade because it was a pivot in the franchise that deserves to be preserved as well as it can.

    Now, Sonic 4 was handled by Dimps, which IMO at least did a decent job at “trying” to recreate classic style physics (came pretty close with Generations 3DS), but still wasn’t a sequel by a long shot. But if you’ve played more 2D Sonic than the just the Genesis classics, you’ll find there are many layers of Classic Sonic you can play. (Game Gear, Advance, Rush, etc).

    Don’t be surprised if Sonic Team doesn’t have what it takes to recreate Adventure 1 / 2, and they remake Sonic stages into Boost stages. rehash Werehog mechanics into treasure hunting with more brawling, and introduce yet another NEW gameplay to replace someone else.. because they don’t have the same passion fans do.

    But, I hope they do remake them, and that they treat the project with care. And THEN, depending on their success, make Sonic Adventure 3.

    As for other games that deserve remakes..? Well… I have a ton.

    To begin with, GAME GEAR Sonic games!
    I even have a pretty extended concept here: http://diegichigo.deviantart.com/art/GG-Sonic-FULL-STUFF-366249618

    The Sonic Advance games, under the Sonic Generations 3DS engine, with Sonic 4: Episode II graphics.

    And this is a personal one that I know a lot of people won’t agree… but I REALLY want to see Sonic 3D Blast in REAL 3D. I have a feeling it would be a real blast to play (no pun intended), because MAYBE, a fixed camera angle is the best way to go about 3D Sonic… and people will never know, unless they try this! But with real 3D, it’ll be easier to tell the perspective of things on the maps. I really do believe it can work, it’s just a hunch which is not a lot to go by, but it’s a real strong one!

    1. “It hasn’t aged well, so let’s change it into almost something entirely different to show them that they’re wrong!”

       You would literally be proving them right that the Adventure games aged badly and needed to be turned into something else entirely. If you want more boost, just play the boost games. The title “Adventure 3” has no merit if it plays nothing like Adventure 1 and 2. You’ll just end up repeating the same mistakes as Sonic 4 (which got a lot backlash for reason; it completely missed the point of what people liked about the Classics and just rehashed stuff in a very lazy way). If Adventure 3 is just another Modern Sonic game with boost and wisps, Sonic only, etc., there’d just be no point in calling it “Adventure 3”, because it already failed to be an “Adventure” game.

       1. I’m aware of all you’re saying, I just don’t know where I made it sound like I wanted any of that,

          I’m saying, that if it were up to Sonic Team, they’d do JUST that, because I don’t see a lot of passion in their projects lately.

          But HOPEFULLY, they do care. But I do want them to refine what they have. Fix what’s broken, and just give us the better version of what we experienced from the Adventure games.
          –
          I don’t know what should be done about Big the Cat, though… I wouldn’t mind if he gets beat-em-up stages with a much easier version of fishing Froggy out of a pond at the end. (Something more similar to how he plays in Sonic Heroes, than Werehog, to be honest).

          1. Sorry, I should’ve worded my post better. I meant to say that I don’t want remakes of the Adventure games if it means basically turning them into a new game entirely just to please the crowds that think these games haven’t aged well. It’s counterproductive. If you make a faithful remake of the Adventure games, then the folks who hate the Adventure games would still hate them. If you change the game into something else to please the fans that hate the Adventure games, then you’re still only proving them ‘right’- it’ll just further convince them that the originals were ‘bad’, since you’d have to change so much of the original game, thus further alienating the fans that actually LIKED the Adventure games. Then the modern/classic/casual fans will bring up that shallow “YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED STOP COMPLAINING” argument, and mock the Adventure fans even more.

             Remaking the Adventure games is like playing with fire. It’s a hopeless situation, either way. I’d much rather these games are left alone for what they are, regardless of how much they ‘deserve’ it.

22. Ah, gotcha, no worries.
    And I agree, that’s pretty thin ice to walk in.

    In theory, just making the same games in modern day graphics should be the way to go, leaving the game unaltered. I can’t really see a scenario where that could go wrong. But then again… we’ve been burned before.

    (Although I want to emphasize how the radar from Treasure Hunting stages in SA2 NEED to be fixed to show all 3 treasures at once, instead of 1 at the time, like in SA1).

    1. See, a faithful remake with some minor changes, additions, or fixes I’d be fine with. Changing SA2’s Emerald Radar for the Treasure Hunting stages to be more like SA1 would be great. Fixing the camera issues, collision detection, and bugs? Also great. Simplifying Big’s fishing mechanics to be less tedious or annoying? I’d be okay with that. Adding in content that was scrapped such as Super Sonic / Super Shadow in normal stages and in SA2’s 2 Player mode? Fantastic! Remaking the cutscenes on the new engine to look less derpy? Great!

       Making SA1 and 2 into Boost games with wisps? No thanks. Another issue that comes up with a potential remake would be the voice acting. Well, the English voice acting, anyway. I can already see the fans screaming at each other over which cast they prefer. It will be like DBZ Kai all over again. Hoo boy… Luckily for me, I prefer the Japanese Sonic voices, so I think only Tails and Eggman would have different VAs in that audio track. The dub cast being completely different will definitely cause backlash regardless of how they handle it. “Nostalgia goggles” and all that jazz.

       1. “Making SA1 and 2 into Boost games with wisps?”
          That would make my head physically explode.

          Your first paragraph is closer to what I pictured in my mind. You don’t need to change the game 180 degrees to make this work.

          1. @Noah:

             I agree with you, but the problem, I think, is making this appealing to people outside of the Adventure fandom, without alienating the Adventure fans at the same time. Sure, kids will eat it up because it’s Sonic, but the Boost fans, Classic fans, Boom fans, and gaming ‘journalists’ that always cry “SHITTY FRIENDS” will likely tear it to shreds in reviews, which would easily make SEGA and Sonic Team run away from the Adventure formula yet again. Not to mention that people would complain about it being ‘too slow’ after being spoiled by the boost games.

             I’m just so cynical and jaded now, that it’s hard to have hope for stuff like this.

          2. Not if it makes it look good. The whole point of remaking the Adventure games would be to emphasize what was great about THEM without the outdated limitations. Noah’s point is that they may cry shitty friends or have a problem with a lack of boost because they’re used to newer games they prefer due to being modern, and this would iron out the bugs in SA1/2 and make them look good, which would likely win over those people. If you changed it, you might as well just make a new Boost game with no Sonic friends–oh wait! They are! :p

23. I have to agree on remaking these two games. Sonic Team have made a big deal out of the fact that even they understand that Sonic’s future is no longer about innovation; by now the series has tried to innovate more than any other series that I can think of to stay relevant. Unfortunately, they seemed to always fail miserably because rather than applying gradual change Sega grabbed the reigns and changed direction completely.

    Beloved Adventure gameplay? Heroes. Cool formation system in Heroes? Shadow the Hedgehog. Epic branching story in Shadow the Hedgehog? Poorly told interspecies love story in Sonic 06. Then for a while they started to get better, make gradual changes. But oh, wait a second…

    Boost formula refined and near-perfect? Lost World.

    Sonic’s future lies in the past. In what everyone loves. They admitted that with the Mania trailer, which was a step in the right direction. I don’t advocate returning to full 2D for all games, but I feel that Sonic’s charm comes chiefly from the characters, music and speed-based gameplay that the original games got so, so right.

    And as such, in order to recapture that charm the best thing Sega can do is to build on the past. Mania is a great step, and I feel something similar could certainly be done with the Adventure games- not so much a remix, but a remake of Adventure 1 and 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog (bear with me here) in one set, running on one engine.

    Why Shadow the Hedgehog? Well, it’s simple- firstly, two games in a set just feels wrong. They need a third to make it feel complete. Secondly, Shadow the Hedgehog heavily builds on the plot of Sonic Adventure 2, moreso than Heroes does. Thirdly, Heroes has a very different gameplay style to the Adventure games, and while a lot of people will point out that Shadow the Hedgehog’s was different as well, Shadow’s is more similar to the Adventure games than Heroes. Fourth, because of a number of serious mistakes in the development and marketing of Shadow the Hedgehog, it is remembered as being bad when in fact it is one of the better games in the series from an objective standpoint; these problems could be fixed with a remake.

    TLDR; the Adventure Games and Shadow the Hedgehog, if remade in one engine could benefit the games like Mania will benefit the classic titles by helping Sega recapture Sonic’s charm and redeem the poor choices that screwed up his early 3D installments.

    Thanks for reading, I hope I’ve given you all something to think about.

24. I agree but I would prioritize SA1 if I were Sega wanting to do that. It is ridiculous how much that game suffers from its presentation. The only things that have aged well in that game is the control and the level design.

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