So, there was a long argument about this in earlier in this thread before release, but you'll notice we went through with the obfuscation anyways, even though we knew it would annoy a lot of people. The reason is that in research figuring out why 2.1's attempts to make the game easier to play failed, we found a lot of systemic problems. Analog mode is one of those things, and it was found to be incredibly problematic to the point that we required this kind of action.
The problem with analog mode is that it initially appears better, as it superficially appears to act like the more traditional SA1/2 style of control scheme, but it doesn't. This means that players who encounter it often switch to it because it's a familiar control scheme, without knowing that it actively handicaps anyone using it. Thus they'd turn it on, get frustrated playing the game because of it, and then rage on the internet about how bad SRB2's controls are while wondering why in hell the game is popular to begin with.
Analog mode is still in the game under a new console variable if you want to dig for it, but I really and truly want to stress that you should only use it as a last resort. I highly recommend giving the revamped default controls a fair shake and give it a few hours for them to grow on you. Depending on how you prefer your controls, the two suggested setups for controller are having the shoulder buttons move the camera while using the stick/d-pad to move, or setting it up like a dual analog FPS with the shoulder buttons doing jump and spin. The first scheme can work well on basically any controller at all; in testing I played through the game, challenge stages included, on an SNES pad and it felt great.
We know that it can be frustrating to be told to do something different that you're not accustomed to, but stick with it for a bit and I absolutely promise you that when the default control scheme clicks, you will wonder why in hell you ever liked analog to begin with.
I get where you're coming from, but I
did already put in a whole day's worth of playing it (or more like 5-7 hours) and found it more frustrating than intuitive.
The camera not turning any with left or right movement feels alright on mouse + keyboard since the mouse allows subtle movements and has it's own dedicated buttons for jumping/spinning. But it's extremely wonky on a controller; leaving Sonic and co slanting into a corner of the screen without anything done to help you see what's coming from that way. It now
looks like Sonic's facing that direction, sure, but imo it still
feels like you're crabwalking your way three steps short of a pit / trap without knowing much the wiser.
Well, unless you ask gamepad users to rapidly multitask the right stick and/or bumpers with the face buttons with relatively less accuracy than on a mouse+keyboard, but that's a little more toiling than it probably should be.. and if we're asking players not to use the face buttons for jumping and spinning, then that's just silly to me. S'a platformer, and a third person one at that. Mirror's Edge this ain't, as cool as that game is.
And having the camera overrule where the spindash / thok / glide I feel should at
least be a toggle to allow directional input, no? I mean if we have the options to revert things to the original standard SRB2 format (and thus even closer to shooter controls), I feel like options for the other way around doesn't seem out of line.
For what it's worth, the only trouble I've ever had with analog mode (which continues in the one left over in 2.2) has been how it strips away the ability to rotate or center the camera with the right stick.. which isn't really a problem with how it controls as much as a camera thing! It plays absolutely fine for me otherwise; if not just straight up superior for gamepad control. What's keeping the new camera controls in the new control scheme from being put into that, besides a lack of want to pursue further with it I guess?
I dunno, I don't quite get it. No offense to the work put into how SRB2 feels to play now, of course; for the main intended way of playing it it's the best it's ever been. But it's a hard sell to get others to play this game without them using a gamepad.. and then they still find themselves miffed because the game's design kinda punishes you for using it.
And that kinda blows, you know? But if the insistence is that "if they can't accept the conventions then they shouldn't come at it" then I don't know what else to say, I guess. It may be a Doom mod but it's also a 3D Sonic game, hell, a 3D platformer. There's been like 20 years worth of games, Sonic and otherwise in that genre that's shaped people's taste and understandng to that, and I think that's a fair assessment. Especially when I think this is a very good game with great level design and dope visuals, and I'd really like others to experience it to it's best (including myself).
Idk. (shrug) Guess there's mods to look forward to.