Some scattered thoughts on things throughout the game, which may or may not have been brought up here before:
Most important:
* Control setup profiles if possible. For experimenting and using multiple controllers this would rock. Setting two keys per command is great but not quite enough.
* Netplay connection warnings about needing certain large files or having to unlock a stage first should not force the game to close. Incredibly irritating. Anything that can be done?
* Classic Race results screen is, in most cases, a freaking indecipherable mess with 4+ people. Was reversing the categories around (names on the rows, stats on the columns) ever tried? Though i'm not sure that would be much better. So, if nothing else, can you try rigging it to only display the efforts of the top 3-4 finishers?
* Save system thoughts: First, before changing anything, add a "no save" slot. Then obviously prevent it from sticking you with less than 3 lives when it autosaves. As for real changes...er, without knowing how the full game will play out (or having even been able to finish Egg Rock yet) I got nothing decent. I beat around some ideas in my head for a Sonic Advance-esque system, but I fear that'd be treading too close to "too many ways to do too little", and would just support grinding for extra lives to beat the end.
General ideas:
* Seperate sets of special stages for Tails and Knuckles (each). The existing maps, I don't know how outdated they are but they're built heavily around Sonic's limitations. Or, continue introducing more complex elements (hazards, checkpoints, so forth).
* For all the chances the game gives you to get all 7 gems, the tokens system is stacked too heavily in your favor. In general I suppose this can be fixed with hard enough special stages, but (taking into consideration the way the main game is mapped out) are there any better solutions than "grab this and you're good to go"? Might help the flow of the rest of the game too to come up with something.
* Obvious, but some (difficult) way to obtain continues would be nice. Not big on the thought of Bonus Stages though.
* If programmable, time attack replays should take into account presses of the rotate camera buttons in analog mode. They don't currently, so a replay I recorded of Techno Hill 1 sees Sonic do little except run and smack his face against the walls at the start...
* In the future, have time attack take note of which character you used to set your best time in an act, and display an icon accordingly
* Think about shaving down the flight time for Tails slightly. I imagine they did so in SA1 to keep him from being too omnipotent. Anything reasonable to balance the characters' limits a little. Any changes of this sort could pose a problem in netplay though...
* Ability to set up your multiplayer nick/character/color when not in a game, without the console (why this isn't the case now, is beyond me)
Most important:
* Control setup profiles if possible. For experimenting and using multiple controllers this would rock. Setting two keys per command is great but not quite enough.
* Netplay connection warnings about needing certain large files or having to unlock a stage first should not force the game to close. Incredibly irritating. Anything that can be done?
* Classic Race results screen is, in most cases, a freaking indecipherable mess with 4+ people. Was reversing the categories around (names on the rows, stats on the columns) ever tried? Though i'm not sure that would be much better. So, if nothing else, can you try rigging it to only display the efforts of the top 3-4 finishers?
* Save system thoughts: First, before changing anything, add a "no save" slot. Then obviously prevent it from sticking you with less than 3 lives when it autosaves. As for real changes...er, without knowing how the full game will play out (or having even been able to finish Egg Rock yet) I got nothing decent. I beat around some ideas in my head for a Sonic Advance-esque system, but I fear that'd be treading too close to "too many ways to do too little", and would just support grinding for extra lives to beat the end.
General ideas:
* Seperate sets of special stages for Tails and Knuckles (each). The existing maps, I don't know how outdated they are but they're built heavily around Sonic's limitations. Or, continue introducing more complex elements (hazards, checkpoints, so forth).
* For all the chances the game gives you to get all 7 gems, the tokens system is stacked too heavily in your favor. In general I suppose this can be fixed with hard enough special stages, but (taking into consideration the way the main game is mapped out) are there any better solutions than "grab this and you're good to go"? Might help the flow of the rest of the game too to come up with something.
* Obvious, but some (difficult) way to obtain continues would be nice. Not big on the thought of Bonus Stages though.
* If programmable, time attack replays should take into account presses of the rotate camera buttons in analog mode. They don't currently, so a replay I recorded of Techno Hill 1 sees Sonic do little except run and smack his face against the walls at the start...
* In the future, have time attack take note of which character you used to set your best time in an act, and display an icon accordingly
* Think about shaving down the flight time for Tails slightly. I imagine they did so in SA1 to keep him from being too omnipotent. Anything reasonable to balance the characters' limits a little. Any changes of this sort could pose a problem in netplay though...
* Ability to set up your multiplayer nick/character/color when not in a game, without the console (why this isn't the case now, is beyond me)
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