Posted on March 24th, 2008 by JMT.
Categories: Articles.
It seems that all post-generation expansion of the Sonic the Hedgehog enterprise only focus on his speed. But the original sonic wasn’t all about speed. For every part where you’d whip around loops at top speed, there were other areas where you could take time and find some secret areas. The video looks to me like it’s entirely a fast paced on-rails 2.5D platformer. It might still be hella-fun, but I just can’t tell if it has other elements to balance it out yet.
I think it’s important for a platformer to have a good balance between the two. Sonic Adventure kind of accomplished it by splitting the two into different gameplay areas.
Even Mario had the balance. There was good old jumping and fireballing action, plus there were little secrets, like the hidden blocks, subterranean bonus levels, and warp zones.
And even Doom, with it’s good balance of chainsaw massacre and finding secret areas.