| Cloudman said: I think the homing attack worked better in the SA games at the time as opposed to it being in Mario Galaxy because while they're both platformers, the goals of the 2 games are different. In 3D Mario games, usually the goal is to find and collect stars of some sort, while in Sonic games, the goal is to reach the end as fast as possible. Skillfully trying to bounce off of enemies while maintaing a fast speed I don't think it would work as well as opposed to using the home attack, unless they designed it in a way where you can do that and maintain fast speeds. Though the examples you give I think are good ones that could be a way to do this. You're right also in that the homing attack does take away skill from platforming by basically making it easier and it kills whatever speed you were going at the time. It would be good if they can fix this to still have skillful jumps and platforming while stilling being able to go as fast as possible, but I guess for now, they'll have to settle with the homing attack. Also, on being stuck in a ball in the 2D Sonic games, I think you could get out of the ball and back to running position in SA1. |
See, I don't agree that it has anything to do with their goals. The difference is that every element in Mario Galaxy expertly works towards making the platforming as tight as possible. With the 3D Sonic games, all of that was done poorly, and elements like the homing attack were added as duck tape to haphazardly fix bad systems.
The reason why skillfully trying to bounce off of enemies while maintaing a fast speed wouldn't work in almost every Sonic game is because the controls, physics, level design, enemy design, and enemy placement are specifically and painstakingly made with the single perpose of making that not only possible, but fun. When Mario 64 was made, the first thing they did was put Mario in a room an made sure it felt good to jump. Nothing like that has been done in 3D Sonic, definitely not until Lost World, and like we've both said; even that can be improved.
A common argument is that these games were great "for their time" and shouldn't be judged by todays standards. That's flat out wrong. If a game doesn't hold up today, it was never good to begin with. ALttP wasn't just great "for it's time." OoT wasn't just great "for it's time." Mario 64, Super Metroid, Star Fox 64, F-Zero X, SotN, Tekken, Street Fighter 2, and Sonic 3 weren't just great "for their time." They were always, and will always be great, regardless of time and regardless of better games that may have come out after. Good games are timeless. There were enough good 3D platformers at the time to tell the difference between the good and the bad.
I wasn't saying that you're stuck in a ball in 2D Sonics. I was saying that while you're a ball, you're commited to the different physics that being a ball would naturally entail.
