Metal Sonic Character Discussion

clairebun

Community Noise Maker
Sonic Team Junior
  • How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
  • Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
  • 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?
 
  • How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
Feels pretty good and I enjoy playing as him.


  • Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
As he is now? Yes. The better you are at Metal sonic, the more enemies and spikes you can plow through with his over charge mode or whatever it's called.


  • How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?
contribute: Access to the hover ability without the need to go super
Detracts: reminds us that there are still 4 other characters that can't go super without 200 emblems


  • 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?
I would yes. I would recommend testing out this new play style first as a mod to get general feedback
 
Going to (very quickly) reiterate some points I made in Suggestions a month back.

How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?

Love & hate, but mostly hate. Dash Mode, the part I love, is far overshadowed by Hover.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?

Level-dependent, but usually no. Dash Mode has lots of moments where it's forcefully removed from you in the level design. It's made excruciatingly obvious when using Hover is a good idea or not, no decision making involved.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?

Not really sure what this question's asking? If this means "how well-balanced is he in each mode": balance doesn't impact other characters (not directly, anyway) in SP/Coop, in Race he can almost rival Sonic in early maps but not really, and he doesn't have much of an advantage over anyone in Ringslinger (maybe he's better in Tag??).

How I choose to interpret this though is "how meaningful of a choice is he, compared to the other 6, when you're starting a new playthrough and are staring at the character select?" In that case, he's distinctly the worst option, hands down. You cannot take him as your first playthrough, so the soonest he'll get played is as a second playthrough. Even then, he's fighting for that spot against Fang and (potentially) Amy, which both have extensive character paths. Right now he feels like he's designed as the first unlockable character, but he's (potentially) the last! Out of all 6, he is the only one that I thought was a complete waste of time doing a playthrough of -- the thing that's unique about him is unusable outside the first zone.

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?

Nope! Metal Sonic is the most disappointing character right now; I think he's the one who needs the most changes. I prototyped a set of changes for him with Chrome just a few days ago to sort of keep his Hover ability, but makes it far more fun by giving it limits, making Dash Mode easier to keep, and a new extra use that gives it more utility when in Dash Mode. I decided to release it because of this thread, so it's here if anyone's interested. Even if it's not exactly what gets done to him, I hope that opens the door on potential Metal Sonic changes -- he really just needs something that isn't an ability that's been around since Final Demo.
 
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Honestly... Metal Sonic feels like a character mod from Releases. I continuously forget that he's part of the base game and not one of the WADs loaded from my autoexec.cfg file.

This isn't very helpful criticism considering I have no idea how to make him feel more integrated, but it's how I feel.
 
I feel like Silver is a good point of comparison to Metal Sonic.

Both characters are overpowered, but Silver has a wacky bag of tricks one can master to break the game completely, whereas Metal's Boost Mode is a bit awkward to activate and doesn't offer much reward, and his Hover just seems to allow him to do some Knuckles/Super Sonic things without letting him in the dedicated Knuckles sections.

If I want to play an overpowered character, I'd rather get someone from Releases that has a bunch of silly gimmicks to play around with. Metal Sonic is in a bit of a grey zone between "balanced" and "overpowered".

As TehRealSalt said, the Boost Mode is the core element of Metal Sonic that the other characters don't have, with Hover being a bit straightforward and mindless, especially if one isn't concerned with staying in Boost Mode. I'm not sure how I feel about their version of the character; it doesn't feel quite right for hover to gradually go from a hover to a glide-ey thok, but I do agree that Boost Mode could be designed around more.

The way I see it, there's two directions to go with Metal Sonic:

1. Focus on Boost Mode and tune Metal Sonic's power down a bit. Tie some of Hover's power into being in Boost Mode (perhaps it would always float down if not boosting) and make Boost Mode a bit more attainable in level design that contains lots of sharp turns.

2. Make Metal Sonic an even more overpowered reward for finishing the game. Make Hover even wackier; let the player ascend and descend diagonally with it like Silver's Psycho Boost, and/or let Metal bounce off of walls as in his boss fight. Wild, fast, chaotic.

I don't dislike Metal Sonic in his current state. I wouldn't want a complete rework of his kit, but I do think he could be polished up.
 
How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
Metal is by far my favorite character within the cast to play. I love how Dash Mode operates and Hover is enjoyable to utilize.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
As TehRealSalt mentioned, there are several levels where Dash Mode is not really feasible to attain and thus doesn't really feel as accounted for. This is more apparent within some levels in the campaign but probably most apparent in DSZ and ERZ. I felt like, for many levels, he was fun to play but felt often limited in paths since he generally lacked exclusive ability locked paths, especially later on in the campaign.

In these levels where his abilities are less restricted by the level design itself, I definitely feel like I am sincerely rewarded for retaining Dash Mode and using Hover in a smart manner to position myself well. However, when it comes to areas like DSZ, Metal feels like his toolkit isn't accounted for and his usage of Dash Mode becomes limited to spindash charging to get to a specific spot. Dash Mode in its current form often feels at odds with how the level design of later SRB2 levels is. On the other hand, Hover is pretty straightforward as an ability that allows you to traverse through hazards without the vertical gains that Tails can provide.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?
Compared to the other unlockables, Metal is considerably more akin to a B-side album of an existing character since Dash Mode doesn't usually contribute much to alternate paths (Dash Mode can break spikes, but Amy springs marked by spikes don't do much for Metal, for instance). Despite the fact that I enjoy playing him so much, I think that Metal is in a weird position where either levels need to be more accommodating towards his gameplay as is with new paths, or something should change about him to make him more appealing when he's likely the last char you'd technically unlock.

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?
Truthfully, I would. I enjoy how Metal feels for certain fights and while I'd understand if Hover has some sort of limitation on it, I'd hope that any limitation to Hover also buffs him and does something else to make him stand out or let Dash Mode be better utilized in some levels. I do like TehRealSalt's re balance of Metal though and I think some more serious adjustments to his kit are more than likely necessary, but I think there are ways to change his kit for the better without revamping him entirely.
 
Easily the most fun of the 6. A redesign would have to be incredibly cool for me to not be at least a little disappointed, honestly. Boost mode needs to stay in some capacity for sure. The boost mode charge value (the invisible number that increases with movement / spindash revving) shouldn't be so quick to drain to 0 once boost mode is lost. This would make it easy to take sharp turns by briefly slowing down and re-entering boost mode right after.
 
How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally? [...]
Barely at all. I'm not good enough to get to use the dash mode for more than a few seconds at a time (which is not the game's fault, except in a few slow-paced rooms (e.g. elevators)), and the hover ability is just boring to me.

You don't really do anything new with the hover, you just stop doing something (you stop falling), if that makes sense.
And rather than that being in addition to another ability (like with Super Sonic), it's in place of a different ability, meaning that the ability doesn't particularly help you get extra speed nor height (it just helps prevent you from losing height (which may also let you land on top of a platform to indirectly keep your speed instead of falling below the platform and hitting a wall), but you don't gain anything directly from the ability itself).

I, personally, would much prefer something to give you extra speed or extra height (e.g. a double jump?) on double-jumping.


The concept (and implementation) of the dash mode is fine, though, I like that a lot. But like with Amy and (to an extent) Fang, the mid-air jump ability feels pretty underwhelming.


[...] Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play? [...]
Yes. The dash mode can let skilled players surge right through stages (especially big and open ones) faster than with any other character, the hover can be used to fly over long gaps and/or avoid not reaching a platform before falling, and the dash mode's extra jump height when sustained long enough makes it possible to clear some heights in just a single jump (especially when paired with upwards slopes), rather than the 2 (or sometimes more) jumps that it'd take for Sonic or other characters.


[...] 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?
Would I miss the dash mode? Yes. Would I miss the hover? Not at all.
 
How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?

Metal is my second least favorite character. I find Tails to be more mindless and boring to play, but he has the excuse of being the easy mode character for beginners. Metal doesn't have an excuse, on top of having other issues.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?

See, Boost Mode is a good idea. A great idea, even. However it's a terrible fit for this level design. There's always elevators, chain swings and such that force you to wait and turn Boost Mode off. And even when you don't have to wait, there's always waterslides, rope hangs and such that forcefully turn Boost Mode off. And even when you can just run, there's always sharp turns and busy corridors and such that will slow you down just enough that Boost Mode turns off again!

The worst part however is that for some goddamn reason Boost Mode is much stricter here than it is in the game it was introduced in, Sonic Advance 2. In that game, you can't lose Boost Mode in midair, allowing you some time to recover if you crash into a wall, maybe keep the Boost a bit longer if you're lucky. Here? Tough luck pal, back to the boost-less gulag you go. It's also much more forgiving with letting you keep Boost Mode if you hit the ground at less than max speed, unlike SRB2. Granted, losing Boost Mode in SRB2 by just a thread means building it back up is quicker, but the time frame for this feature before you have to build up Boost Mode the long way is so tiny, it's worthless.

All in all, being skilled at SRB2 Boost Mode to me feels like being skilled at playing SRB2 with the DK Bongos.

Then there's the Hover. Ah, the Hover. It sucks. It's as mindless as Tails' flight but less useful. There's no skill at all involved in it, or at least not more than there is in flying - they have basically the same skill floor. The big kicker for me though is that Hover actually has a lower skill ceiling than flying does! With flying, you have decisions to make in regards to how accurate you want your landing to be and/or how much speed you want to sacrifice to get to that platform, and you have to actively keep track of any safe areas close by if you feel you're running out of air above dangerous terrain. It's not much I suppose, but it's more than what Hover has.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?

>SRB2
>balance
jej

I basically second what Salt said. Metal doesn't offer much of his own experience, like with Amy and Fang, and with Boost Mode not really coming into play often, he's just a Sonic with a mediocre version of Tails' ability. That's not what I should describe the big "unlockable by beating the game and also ONE OF THE BOSSES" character as!

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?

Not at all. While, again, I do enjoy the idea of Boost Mode, I'd happily trade it away if you guys come up with something better.

If a revamp does come, I wish it did more to differentiate Metal from the others. He'll always have special abilities, sure, and little cosmetic touches like him not drowning but short-circuiting, but it could and should go further. For example, he's not physically touching the ground when he "walks" or "runs" - what if that made him unable to use the Rollout Rocks and have to look for an alternate path? Just an idea.

At the same time, Metal should be brought closer to the others. By that I mean his racing self and boss self. Playable Metal, race Metal and boss Metal share traits but they're clearly distinct from one another, more than what would be expected in the transition from NPC to PC. Race Metal can bust spikes at any time, boss Metal can go into Boost Mode from a standstill in half a second... Hell, if it wasn't for said spike-busting, you could replace race Metal with anybody except Knuckles and it'd work. The idea of playing as a boss is always a really cool one but Metal as he is here doesn't quite make it there in the same way Fang does.
 
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How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?

I'm back and forth with it. In certain situations he's really fun, but he's also situationally boring. Levels like Greenflower Zone and Techno Hill are great as Metal as his abilities have potential with a little thought and skill to gain access to shortcuts rather than counteract main level gimmicks. Levels with more bottomless pits and floor hazards on the other hand end up feeling like a joke as him, and remain fun only as long as the novelty of abusing his powers.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?

Yes and No. As I mentioned before, certain levels have a feel to them as though mastery over his abilities can bring great rewards, while others are just way too easy due to his abilities being a direct counter to their biggest gimmicks. I would probably say that's not entirely a problem with his moveset however, and more something that would need to be addressed in level design by giving him more unique paths.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?

For the sake of simplicity, I will compare him to the main trio and not to Fang and Amy, as I feel the game is primarily balanced around those three and as such most of the level design was probably made with them in mind first, and then added on to for others later.

His hover ability can be compared to Tails' flight and Knuckles' glide. As I mentioned in the suggestions topic, it overall feels superior to both of these abilities despite them both having certain advantages. I will explain in more detail:

Tails can gain vertical height, and a rather substantial amount at that. This situationally gives Tails an advantage over Metal when there is a particular emphesis on upward verticality within a level. However, to make up for this Metal excels at horizontal movement through the air, and indeed is the most powerful character at doing so.

Tails can only fly for so long, and loses speed trying to maintain airtime vertically through multiple flight button presses. This places Tails at a disadvantage against Metal in levels that are more horizontally designed with lots of floor hazards and bottomless pits, as Metal has no limit to how long he can hover and can keep up a decent pace with ease. His horizontal movement potential in the air is infinite, and this is barely offset by any kind of punishment for messing it up by bumping into things or making sharp turns.

Knuckles has more horizontal potential compared to Tails, but still less than Metal. He loses height at a consistent rate as he glides through the air, while Metal does not while hovering. Knuckles can grab onto certain walls and climb along them to maintain height and increase distance, but Metal can breeze through areas that lack walls Knuckles can latch onto, as well as through areas with them faster than Knuckles can. The only saving grace Knuckles has here is that when there does happen to be something he can climb, he can gain height with it while Metal is capped at the height he started at each jump.

Sonic has more immediate speed potential than Metal, able to go from 0 to top speed in the blink of an eye with his thok. He's also generally easier to keep control over than Metal. Metal makes up for this with his dash ability, V. Maximum Overdrive. It removes his speed cap and allows him to blaze through the stage so long as the player can avoid bumping into things, giving him crazy skill potential. This also doubles as a buff to his fully charged spindash.

Overall, Metal might not necessarily be the speed run king in every level, but he is the character I believe to have the easiest time clearing levels in the highest number of situations, and generally feels like much more of a "Jack of all trades" well rounded character than Knuckles. His ability feels like a superior compromise between Tails' flight and Knuckles glide, and he generally has the speed to keep up with Sonic in the right hands.

I feel as though in his current state he's a positive addition to the game, but he could use some tweaks to make him slightly more different.

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?

Yes and No. Part of me would miss abusing his moveset in levels that become a joke because of it, but I feel like the benefit would outweigh this. I don't really feel like his entire moveset needs to be changed though, just tweaked. Some big changes would be nice, such as altering how he behaves underwater and in a vacuum compared to other characters. His hover ability on the other hand I feel like is fine with the exception that while in base form it should drop like a rock when you lose too much speed, rather than falling slowly. This combined with his lack of a thok to gain speed back easily would allow it to stay powerful while offsetting that with a heavy risk, making it more of a risk vs reward playstyle.

If major changes were necessary however, I feel like making him reflect his boss battle in gameplay a bit more could be a really fun reward for players who unlock him, even if this means the requirements to do so are made harder. In particular, I would give him something resembling true flight but for a limited time like Tails, as well as projectiles he can charge up and shoot at enemies while in the air.

I would also tweak his dash move to replace spindash entirely, time it based on how many walls he has collided with, and have him bounce off walls when he collides with them. The ability to control which direction he is moving during this state would be minimal, and as such it could be risky to try to use to skip huge gaps with. He would be able to use it in the air as well as on the ground, charging it up for longer would allow him to bounce off more walls before it ends and make it move faster. He could not enter this state while running.
 
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(epic post on month-old thread)

I have extremely mixed feelings about playable Metal Sonic in SRB2. When I try to think about what issues I have with playing as him, I can't help but compare him to other characters I like playing as better: in order, Fang, Sonic, and Knuckles.

Metal Sonic vs. Fang

Fang's boss fight, which after beating you unlock him as a playable character, does an excellent job at introducing his moveset which makes him easy to get familiar with once you've unlocked him. During the boss fight, it's easy to notice that Fang can bounce around at enormous heights and distances, but you'll also notice that if he wants to use his gun, he has to stop and aim appropriately (which I think suitably prevents him from being overpowered as a playable character).

Metal Sonic's race and boss fight, on the other hand, aren't as good at showing his moves in preparation for playing as him. The race shows him running through every set of spikes he comes across, and you might notice him hovering if you pay close attention, but I feel it's pretty misleading considering how difficult it is to maintain boost mode when playing as him (more on that a bit later). Much worse, his boss fight shows him doing all sorts of crazy attacks on you that you can't actually do when playing as him. Granted, you could argue Fang's fight is also misleading because you can't drop bombs when playing as him, but his fight is much more faithful with what his gameplay turns out to be like.

Metal Sonic vs. Sonic

Once you unlock Metal Sonic, he's purported to be a character who can go just as fast as Sonic, but in somewhat different ways. Instead of the speed thok (which is a move I absolutely love that suits regular Sonic perfectly), Metal Sonic enters boost mode when he goes fast enough for long enough. It's a great idea in theory, but its execution leaves a lot to be desired. The game's levels often have sharp turns, springing sections, launchers, other crazy stuff, that requires you to get out of boost mode. A few elements of the zones do a good job preserving boost mode (like the tornadoes in Arid Canyon), but so many others require you to stop for a moment and leave boost mode. This wouldn't be such an annoyance if boost mode was a bit more lenient in terms of when you lose it.

I don't want to post this critique without saying something positive about Metal Sonic's gameplay though: in the case where it is possible to maintain boost mode, it is very rewarding even if for a short time. Red Volcano Zone Act 1 has lots of portions that suit themselves well to boost mode (especially the ones involving crumbling platforms), and both acts of Greenflower do too (only natural as the introductory level); I wouldn't mind if levels had some more Metal Sonic-friendly paths hat require a moderate amount of skill to get to.

Metal Sonic vs. Knuckles

The hover is a neat concept that makes sense for Metal Sonic to be able to do, being a robot who moves with his jetpack instead of his legs as you'll immediately notice when playing as him. But when I play as him and use the hover, I'm immediately tripped up because I continuously expect it to work like Knuckles' glide. This is definitely partly because I'm used to playing as Knuckles both in 2D and 3D and have an intuitive grasp on where to expect to land when I glide into a wall, and when to time my falls. But I also think the hover isn't different enough from the glide to not occupy a similar spot in my mind, which makes the hover somewhat trip me up. I often crash into high-up walls I don't expect to and end up ruining Metal Sonic's speed when hovering, and to make things weirder, hovering doesn't open any opportunities for defeating enemies like the thok, glide, or Tails' flying. You can't enter boost mode while hovering either, you can only hover in boost mode if you're already in boost mode.

It also trips me up that when you stand still, you can't start a hover without starting awkwardly slow and accelerating just like moving on the ground. It's unlike Sonic who immediately gets maintainable speed when thokking after standing still, or Knuckles who starts gliding at a constant speed that gradually gets faster if you stay in the air for long enough. I do like that you can resume hovering after falling away from your current hover, which Knuckles can't do with his glide; this puts Metal Sonic at a theoretical advantage, but I don't often find myself un-hovering and then re-hovering unless I hit a wall I don't expect to, which makes the second hover again start awkwardly slow. Overall, Metal Sonic's hover just doesn't feel suitable to being an alternative to the fastest of the main trio, and I think it could afford to be a bit more speed-oriented.

This was kind of a long essay, but to answer the last point, I wouldn't be opposed one bit to having Metal Sonic's moveset revamped entirely. He has a lot of potential to be a fun character, but currently fails to live up to other playable characters.
 
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A pretty old thread, sure, but looking at some dates and seeing someone else post not that long ago seems like a decent invite. Heck, maybe we can start this convo again with some other views?

How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
Alone? Yeah, he's fun-ish. Boost is a great idea that I love (but could use some supportive design or some tweaks), and abusing the ever-loving heck out of Hover is just cathartic. In multiplayer, though, the boost doesn't seem as useful as other abilities after a while and Hover makes me feel more cheat-y than Tails flight in some areas. I definitely play him more often than the other two unlockable characters, since his speed is more fun to me than their stop-and-go (at times) styles, but still less than the starter three as stages seem to just flow better around the classic trio better than with Metal.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
Yes, but also no - in favor of no's side.

His boost mode definitely does, at least on paper. Level design doesn't always make it viable to keep, but when it's able to be used effectively you can really feel just how powerful it can be - breaking even Sonic's top speed, making jumps that would be too tall and/or wide for others, you just feel strong in a way that feels almost balanced if the terrain would consider it more overall.

Then you get Hover, which is a shared trait from Super Sonic of all characters but in an actually more powerful form! Unlike the emerald-enhanced version, Metal's hovering can be maintained at a much slower speed, costs absolutely nothing to spam, can be used while in boost form - keeping the benefits of both at the same time - and is generally very easy to use as a crutch for an otherwise miscalculated jump. It's not better than full flight, but it's almost never not useful to do whenever, and skills that omni-capable are just.... yeah.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?
Well, it's either a make or break for him. Metal's overdrive boost and hover make him king of the long, open straightways or horizontal platforming challenges that can't be matched by even Sonic, but give him turns or extensive climbing and he sputters and stalls to the point even Amy can overtake him for extended times. It'd be great if we could make these two extremes not be so extreme; being consistently alright is better than having no middle ground in my eyes, at least.

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?
I'm not going to lie, despite my gripes I'd surely miss the extreme heights that Metal can reach. If it means also losing the extreme lows in the process, though, I think I'd be able to cope.

For a side note that kind of relates, I've been playing Metal with Katmint's rebalance Lua and rather enjoying Metal's rework in it. Their changes put a bit more emphasis on Boost, buffing it a bit by making it more attainable, while nerfing Hover's occasional broken-ness in a way that makes it still feel strong, if in a somewhat different way. It may be worth giving it a look, but things like this are always going to be to taste and might not be the outright best solution.
 
Guess I'll add my own thoughts into the mix real quick:

How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
He's alright, but of the six characters, I found him to be the least interesting. Gravity defying characters in vanilla SRB2 are nothing new, and his dash mode doesn't actually change the core gameplay except for in niche situations where you already know all of the routes and are attempting to speedrun through open fields. It doesn't help that, unlike Fang and Amy, Metal is an orthodox spin character and has no distinct paths which take advantage of his gameplay style. Overall he just kind of feels like an addon character.

Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
In some ways yes, but in ways that are actually meaningful to most players, I think no.

His design is extremely conflicted. He is advertised as an "expert character" who "has difficulties getting through hazards just like Sonic". But his hover ability completely betrays this philosophy, allowing Metal to skip large swathes of platforming in ways similar to Tails and Knuckles. His dash mode doesn't even feel that skill-based as much as it feels situational. Anyone who has played Metal in one of the more wide-open CTF or Match maps knows that running around in wide circles at high speed is not difficult; it just isn't something that most segments of Egg Rock Zone will allow you to do.

This is not to downplay the twitch skill that necessarily comes from blasting through cramped corridors. But the one disadvantage I see to this type of ability design is that it is the type of "skillful" gameplay that is only meaningful to speedrunners. As far as typical gameplay is concerned, Metal's skill floor about as low as Tails' or Knuckles'.

How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?

In many cases his inclusion is largely inconsequential. As stated earlier, having a character who can skip large segments of level design is nothing new. As mentioned earlier, he is arguably not even that powerful at speedrunning, as both Tails and Sonic tend to take first and second places in the majority of speedrunning categories. However, there is a much bigger question as to how multiplayer is impacted.

  • Unlike probably most of the staff, I still take a somewhat balance-oriented mindset when considering the topic of Supers. Ultimately I think Metal being the one character alongside Sonic to allow super is a mistake given Metal's current design, as it disincentivizes any usage of Sonic in coop, who has the worst quality of life of any character in said environment. That being said, if Metal lacked the hover, then I think a stronger argument could be made in favor of Metal turning super. (This is all assuming we don't go a more progressive route involving "All Super" or some variation of the theme.)
  • In discussing what kind of gameplay formats would be ideal for PvP, the potentiality of Metal being able to indefinitely hover over a deathpit raises certain questions about how Metal's ability set constricts how certain custom game modes can be designed; in this respect, I think Tails and Knuckles are already hard enough to design around that we wouldn't benefit from yet another complication in the form of indefinite deathpit camping/stalling.

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?
Maybe a little bit, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it. I should be clear upfront that my main concern is not even with Metal Sonic, but with SRB2 as a whole and its accessibility to new players. I believe it may have been Mystic who initially brought this idea up, but 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.

The reasons are as follows:
  • I've seen too many playthroughs of people either failing as Sonic or painstakingly Call-Flighting through every remotely intimidating obstacle this game has to offer. For a character that is all about speed, new players must take many of the levels at a snail's pace just in order to feel safe. This is not an issue that the other fellow entry-level characters Tails and Knuckles suffer from, because both provide players with some leverage in their platforming that Sonic simply does not. There are other options in how we can design Sonic in the future that maintain his relative sense of speed while giving new players a reasonable amount of faith in Sonic's platforming ability.
  • Metal Sonic is the kind of unlockable character that the thok should have always been on in the first place. It is unwieldy, intense, and does absolutely nothing to help new players proceed through the campaign; but it is also extremely gratifying to use when mastered and is arguably a key part of what defines SRB2's gameplay. Granting players this ability is the perfect reward upon them completing the game, and would do a much better job of turning Metal Sonic into the "expert" character he was always meant to be.
While that does present the very real possibility that our current dashmode and hover mechanics will go unused -- and I sympathize with anyone who appreciates the novelty and aesthetic that those abilities provide -- I would caution that our sentimentality for the "cool factor" shouldn't get in the way of thinking in terms of what sorts of design would be practical. Ultimately, I don't think refining Metal's current ability set is the key to producing a better game.

What's more, just because one ability that fit the character thematically may have been removed in favor of another, does not necessarily mean that the new ability couldn't be modified to match Metal's core aesthetic. A thok on Metal Sonic is an opportunity to visually intrepret older abilities in an entirely new way, and I think that would also be potentially exciting.

Lastly, I would remind everyone that the dash mode never has to truly go away -- in many ways our game has always been about community-based content, and ultimately there is nothing stopping anyone from bringing back the dash mode or some variant in the form of a custom character.
 
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I've still had this topic on my mind quite a bit since my previous post, and I feel like I have a bit to add.

I feel like what generally makes Metal so quick to become boring after the initial novelty wears off is how easy he feels to control and how easily he avoids ground based stage hazards. As Cobalt mentioned in the post before me, he doesn't feel like the difficult character he's presented as in the character select, but rather more comparable to Tails or Knuckles. The end result of this is that he is hyped up quite a bit, but you are only given something of a temporary buzz before the novelty wears off and you likely end up settling for one of the other characters to be your main.

What doesn't help the problem is that while you may or may not unlock Amy before you unlock Metal, you are by design going to have Fang first. This is problematic to Metal's enjoyment factor because Fang is much more unique in both gameplay and level navigation. As Cobalt noted, Metal ends up feeling like an addon character rather than one of the official lineup.

So how could this be fixed? Well, here's my thoughts. I feel like there's two primary things that are holding Metal back: His ease of movement, and his lack of unique pathways. I will discuss each of these in the order I mentioned them.

First of all: Ease of movement. Metal is, without modifications added to the game, the single fastest character on the ground due to his boost mode. What I am talking about here has nothing to do with this ability. Instead, I am referring more to his other big feature: The hover. I have already discussed in length in my previous post generally how I feel about this ability, so I will summarize it here as follows. What makes the hover feel so powerful and safe is the fact that there is no time limit to using it unlike Tails and Knuckles' abilities, and that it does not lose height over time unless you go too slow. It ends up feeling like a broken skipping tool that renders many of the stage hazards ineffective against him.

This doesn't necessarily make him faster, you are probably going to clear levels with Tails or Knuckles scoring lower times than when you are Metal, at least if you know what you are doing. It does however make him feel more powerful and safe. There is much less of a sense of risk when playing as him, you feel much more confident in your ability to not take a hit with him than when playing as a character forced to touch ground more often.

What I would do is try to preserve the sensation of him being powerful, but reduce the sensation of him being safe by making his ability more committal. Instead of him immediately having control over his movement when activating the ability in the air, have him enter a "charging" state in which he slowly falls to the ground similar to when you go too slow in the current version. You can then let go whenever you want to send him rocketing forward with however much speed he was charged up to have.

While in this state, he does not lose height. However, should he collide with something that forces his speed to cancel, he gets violently forced to bounce at an angle depending on how he collided with it. He can bounce a few times, then has his speed canceled by being knocked back as though he just took a hit, though without losing rings and perhaps with a little explosion effect similar to when he stops bouncing around the arena in the final phase of his boss battle. Should he collide with sloped land instead, he retains his speed but enters his grounded boost mode. After a few seconds of charging, it gains the invincibility properties of boost mode and can break spikes.

This would preserve his ability to traverse over large distances without losing height, but you wouldn't be able to just cancel it and you would be forced to cover some distance with it.

Instead of allowing him to spindash, perhaps he could be given a peelout that when fully charged puts him into boost mode? This would be a downgrade from his current spin ability, but I would make up for it by giving it a secondary ability. If you already have momentum and enter a spin while on the ground, he cloaks himself in electricity and maintains the same speed, allowing him to attack badniks and break spikes, maintaining the same turning mobility of any character that spins along the ground. Bumping into a wall or pressing spin again ends this state.

Second of all: Unique pathways. As I have mentioned before, giving him a longer amount of time to breath underwater than other characters could be a great way to place difficult routes in water themed levels that only he is capable of clearing on account of his longer breath. Perhaps while underwater he is given the same hover ability he has now due to his inability to operate correctly underwater?

Outside of water, pathways that combine bottomless pits and spike walls could be utilized the make the most out of his moves that the other characters don't have. Amy could break the spike walls, but would then fall into the bottomless pit if the player attempted to take that path. These pathways could be placed in locations that give him options that are different from Amy and Fang when the main path is gated behind spinning under a small gap. They wouldn't have to utilize these gimmicks all the way through, just long enough to make it clear that this is a Metal Sonic pathway and that this path is intended for him until it merges back onto the main route, if it even does merge back in. This could also be a great way to utilize my idea of some levels having end signs that are placed differently for different characters, and that lead to a different beginning spot for the next act.

By making Metal's moveset more committal, locking him off from spinning under gaps, and giving him more unique pathways, I feel that Metal would retain his sense of being powerful and unique without feeling like such a safe character compared to Sonic. The general feeling I think Metal should give the player is one of raw power and easy access to speed, but difficulty keeping control of it. He should feel like a force of nature blasting through badniks and breakable walls and over bottomless pits with great speed, but one that can also easily be stopped and even killed if the player isn't careful and deliberate. Risk vs Reward type gameplay.
 
While that does present the very real possibility that our current dashmode and hover mechanics will go unused

This post reminded me of something I saw suggested once: Give *everyone* dashmode (since it was a universal mechanic in Sonic Advance 2, where it came from) with Metal Sonic getting to keep his robot-exclusive dashmode attacks. Solves the issue of Sonic's ability to cover wide open spaces being defeated by a potential removal or nerf of thok's horizontal power making maps with large flat areas becoming seen as barren, add interesting depth to speedrunners' experience, and adapt the "you get to go fast if you do well" component of Genesis titles.

There's a potential downside in lowering the efficacy of speed shoes, but their primary power right now is increased acceleration, not increased max speed - so maybe those could also be adapted to instantly activate dashmode.
 
I should be clear upfront that my main concern is not even with Metal Sonic, but with SRB2 as a whole and its accessibility to new players. I believe it may have been Mystic who initially brought this idea up, but 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.

The reasons are as follows:
  • I've seen too many playthroughs of people either failing as Sonic or painstakingly Call-Flighting through every remotely intimidating obstacle this game has to offer. For a character that is all about speed, new players must take many of the levels at a snail's pace just in order to feel safe.


  • Yes!! See the Woolie play-through for tons of proof of this!

    This is not an issue that the other fellow entry-level characters Tails and Knuckles suffer from, because both provide players with some leverage in their platforming that Sonic simply does not. There are other options in how we can design Sonic in the future that maintain his relative sense of speed while giving new players a reasonable amount of faith in Sonic's platforming ability.
    [*]Metal Sonic is the kind of unlockable character that the thok should have always been on in the first place. It is unwieldy, intense, and does absolutely nothing to help new players proceed through the campaign; but it is also extremely gratifying to use when mastered and is arguably a key part of what defines SRB2's gameplay. Granting players this ability is the perfect reward upon them completing the game, and would do a much better job of turning Metal Sonic into the "expert" character he was always meant to be.
While that does present the very real possibility that our current dashmode and hover mechanics will go unused -- and I sympathize with anyone who appreciates the novelty and aesthetic that those abilities provide -- I would caution that our sentimentality for the "cool factor" shouldn't get in the way of thinking in terms of what sorts of design would be practical. Ultimately, I don't think refining Metal's current ability set is the key to producing a better game.

What's more, just because one ability that fit the character thematically may have been removed in favor of another, does not necessarily mean that the new ability couldn't be modified to match Metal's core aesthetic. A thok on Metal Sonic is an opportunity to visually intrepret older abilities in an entirely new way, and I think that would also be potentially exciting.

Lastly, I would remind everyone that the dash mode never has to truly go away -- in many ways our game has always been about community-based content, and ultimately there is nothing stopping anyone from bringing back the dash mode or some variant in the form of a custom character.

I strongly agree with all of this, the bolded in particular.

The key to making Sonic more accessible -- the most accessible, even -- is to bridge the gap between what we consider "classic" and "modern."

Sonic's moveset should be as follows:
Jump — Jump attack
Dash — Spin-Dash/Roll attack
Jump+Jump — Doublejump/Homing Attack
Jump+Dash — Air-Dash aka Thok
Or perhaps the Drop Dash, I go back and forth on which move I'd prefer for Jump+Dash, and ultimately would prefer the option, a la Mania, of choosing between Drop Dash, Air Dash/Thok, or Insta-Shield

Two button gameplay. Extremely logical. Test it!! Give a brand new player a controller, or keyboard/mouse, and I guarantee you will see them have more success and more fun... probably even if they haven't played the tutorial, I'd bet.

You could keep "Thok" as Jump+Jump as it is currently, and "Homing Attack" as Jump+Dash. That moveset essentially just gives Sonic the electric shield's homing as a default power (again look at Woolie's videos for how desperate he is for the electric shield and how much more confidently he jumps when he has even that small amount of homing). But I think it makes more logical sense that "Thok" would be "Jump+Dash" as it resembles a mid-air spin-dash, and a "Doublejump/Homing Attack" makes sense as a second jump.

It becomes so easy to pick up and learn the ropes as you go. Run, jump jump jump jump jump dash, run, jump dash, run, jump jump jump dash, run, repeat. It feels like Sonic.

(I apologize that it feels like I've been campaigning for this, but I only keep posting about it because ... nobody is engaging with me, lol, the Homing suggestion keeps being ignored or distorted and not discussed head on. The lack of Homing in the base game feels like kind of a stupid hill to die on; it's maybe the one thing Sonic Team Senior got right with Sonic in 3D)

Metal Sonic, then, can be "Thok" only. He is the old school Sonic move-set that caters to the experienced SRB2 player — the last unlockable character is also the most difficult.
 
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(I apologize that it feels like I've been campaigning for this, but I only keep posting about it because ... nobody is engaging with me, lol, the Homing suggestion keeps being ignored or distorted and not discussed head on. The lack of Homing in the base game feels like kind of a stupid hill to die on; it's maybe the one thing Sonic Team Senior got right with Sonic in 3D)
In another thread, a development team member discussed this common criticism and explained why SRB2 doesn't have a full-out homing attack.
 
In another thread, a development team member discussed this common criticism and explained why SRB2 doesn't have a full-out homing attack.

I've read that post before, and I encourage the devs to reconsider it. I'm filing an appeal!

I don't think Homing Assist breaks the "game feel" any more than Autobrake or any other mechanic that helps the player move in the 3D space layout of these levels.

Not including the homing attack to prove that Sonic can flourish in 3D open space freedom is like... what's that expression... "cutting off your nose to spite your face." Its omission is, like, trying to prove a point that doesn't need to be made; the point is already proven in SRB2's overall level design. The spirit and feel of the original games feels better in 3D in SRB2 than any of the official 3D Sonic titles, but it's not because I can't use the homing attack. It's because the levels are open.

The idea that there's "classic" and "modern" is nonsense from Sega/Sonic Team that doesn't need to be followed by Sonic Team Junior. "Classic Sonic" can have a homing attack because there's only one Sonic, and the homing attack simply helps the players navigate space.
 
The idea that there's "classic" and "modern" is nonsense from Sega/Sonic Team that doesn't need to be followed by Sonic Team Junior. "Classic Sonic" can have a homing attack because there's only one Sonic, and the homing attack simply helps the players navigate space.

The point that Mystic is probably trying to make with that quote isn't so much that there's a distinction to be made between modern and classic Sonic as characters so much as there's a distinction to be made between the gameplay styles. Modern Sonic as a gameplay style is a whole different beast from Classic Sonic as a gameplay style.

It's not entirely accurate to word it as the homing attack helps the player "navigate space". The homing attack, at least how it works in Adventure - Forces, is strictly a tool to be used to quickly smash into things without having to aim at them, usually enemies and sometimes things like springs.

The main thing I think they are trying to avoid with this is the functionality of the Modern homing attack in which it doesn't preserve momentum and encourages linear homing attack chain level design. It is a betrayal of the entire design mentality that goes into the levels. They aren't made for homing chains, and in fact this is directly, intentionally discouraged. This makes SRB2 intentionally more reminiscent of the classic era gameplay style before the series became more linear.

You could say "Well what if the homing attack just doesn't cancel momentum and doesn't encourage homing chains?" But at that point you are arguing for something that is already in the game in the form of the attraction shield, and it's not even limited to Sonic.
 
  • How much do you enjoy Metal Sonic's gameplay personally?
I think he's fairly fun to play as in singleplayer, but it can get a bit boring until you find a brand new way to break a level.

  • Would you say that Metal Sonic rewards skillful play?
I guess so, if learning how to not slam into walls with dashmode at top speed counts as rewarding skillful play.

  • How do you think Metal Sonic contributes to or detracts from overall game balance?
I think he's really fucking unbalanced, mostly because I spend my evenings crying myself to sleep over how dashmode lets him absolutely destroy the competition with little effort in circuit. I feel like dashmode should either be nerfed or removed.

  • 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?
Not at all.
 

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