(I, too, will bump this topic...)
I have increasingly grown warm to the idea of replacing Metal Sonic's toolkit with Sonic's, and giving Sonic a different ability set that better matches his status as the entry-level title character.
Echoing points from previous discussion, I agree that the Thok is an iconic part of SRB2. I also agree that hiding the Thok behind the end of the game is probably good design.
However, I'm a little bit attached to Metal Sonic's boost mode (see below). Thok and Boost Mode on the same character seems like one of those "mayonaise plus pickles" things, where it sounds weird, but I shouldn't knock it until I try it.
Granted, I could just make a P_SKIN real fast and see for myself...
How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?
The development team has been considering whether or not to change Metal Sonic's ability set entirely. If this were to happen, would you miss the current playstyle?
So, I've actually been thinking a lot about this.
I've been slowly trying to digest the current state of the game after v2.2's release, mostly toward the goal of designing levels. One of the main focuses of my design investigation has been "How do you design for every character?"
- Sonic - Sonic jumps far but low. Sonic likes to have room to run.
- Tails - Makes long flights. Avoids most platforming challenges. Not sure how to design for him.
- Knuckles - Can go anywhere, as long as he has a continuous climbable surface to follow. Breaks Sonic's connection between height and chronology. Can see the big picture of the landscape. Wants a bunch of stuff to find while exploring. A little bit blind to the intended level route.
- Amy - The highjump character. Jumps up 128 blocks (Sonic jumps 96). Using the hammer in melee is fun, but doesn't have level design implications.
- Fang - A troll. Jumps 256 from a bounce. Continuous bouncing is very, very powerful. Gun affects combat, not level design.
- Metal Sonic - Hover retains Sonic's height/chronology relationship, but makes him a troll for long horizontal sections. Boost Mode creates waterrun.
I have absolutely no idea how to design levels around Metal Sonic's hover mode. Oops, he's skipping the level's platforming, I guess I can't change that.
Designing around Boost Mode -- especially the waterrun ability -- seems more interesting, because water surfaces suddenly become an important pathway. However, I'm not sure how deep the design space of "designing levels around waterrun" actually is.
I think about the "exploration" gameplay loop as being:
- Notice a place to go
- Plan a route to get there, using your character's tool set
- Execute the plan
- Pick a new place to go, and repeat
I do think that waterrun could be an interesting tool when making level traversal decisions. Maybe boost mode should be a little bit easier to activate, so that waterrun can be used in more situations.
However, I think that Metal Sonic's hover ability makes the waterrun function of boost mode a little obsolete. It's much easier to hover over water than to waterrun using boost mode.
If level design implications were the only issue on the table, I would want Metal Sonic's hover removed (not sure what to replace it with), and his waterrun made easier to activate.
If Metal Sonic gets totally redesigned in a way that also creates level design opportunities, I'd be okay with that too.
(For context, I'll note that I'm primarily interested in "How do different characters inhabit the same level area differently?" (umwelt). The question "How do I design a character-specific segment that leverages their unique powers?" is less interesting to me.)