I still think a somewhat more non-linear game would work out pretty well, if you get the level design down pat. I even have some ideas thought out for it...

Story starts out with the end of Sonic's adventure in 3&K. Literally. The Doomsday Zone, completely and faithfully reproduced. Sonic kicks Eggman's tail in outer space, and Eggman's ride goes down.

Eggman was never heard from since. Barring, that is, Eggrobo's little run on Angel Island right after, but that was mostly unrelated as far as this story's concerned. So Sonic and the gang let their guard down... and Sonic winds up running right into a trap (right now I'm thinking a burning village Sonic tries to deal with).

Sonic wakes up on a floating battleship, hovering over highly unfamiliar territory - a single island, completely surrounded by tall, foggy and ominous plateaus, making it nigh impossible to escape on one's own. Fortunately, Tails and Amy figure out where he is (not Knux, Knux is busy with the Master Emerald as he should be), and attempt a rescue mission, which is mostly successful in that Sonic escapes, though otherwise a disaster in that both of them get captured instead. Way to go!

So now we have Sonic stuck on the island. Something's wrong, however; he's incredibly weak now, unable to run particularly fast or do his traditional Spin Attack. And yet, it's up to him to figure out who his captor was - though it's pretty obvious Eggman has at least SOME hand in this plot. For the sake of keeping things fresh, though, we can toss in some other pawns for Eggy to mix it up with. Metal and maybe Eggrobo are givens, possibly Metal Knux and Tails Doll if I feel like it. Others can also join the fray, like the Battlecock army, Fang, and eventually both Tails and Amy, who have apparently been brain-washed and are out to get Sonic just as much as everybody. Maybe even a few new faces, though with the sheer amount of new characters getting tossed around by Sonic Team these days, it would be best to keep that to a minimum. We could even toss in Ray, Mighty, Bean and Bark in somehow or another, be they too brainwashed or well aware of what's going down and able to lend Sonic their power.

Gameplay-wise, I'm thinking to the Sonic formula what SotN did to Castlevania: a large world to use your skills to run around and explore. Obviously, given the plot, you won't be able to do it too well at first, but this quickly picks itself up as you clear bosses and grab upgrades, ranging from a new move to raising your top speed.

You get one life. No more, no less. To make this easier on you, enemies will NOT drain you of all your rings like normal; only a certain amount. This can be replenished with rings, lying around the screen as they always are, and perhaps a scant few that you can grab when injured, as per usual.

You can also buy shields, which range from merely lessening the amount of damage you take to taking the whole blow for you. Shields cannot last forever, though; whatever damge you would have taken that the shield took for you will be subtracted from its limit, and when that limit is reached, you lose the shield. There would be several varieties of shields, and not too much later on, you can use extra powers depending on what shield you have equipped. Nothing that you cannot progess without, seeing as shields aren't the most reliable means to the end, but a few fun bonuses or (*shudder*) collection quests...

Enemies, on the plus side, are not bound by HP or anything. For the most part, if you hit them, they'll die, like usual. There'd be a FEW exceptions for stronger enemies, but these enemies won't be abused, and certainly not as common as the amount of enemies in Heroes that take more than one hit. Alternatively, they DO have HP, and you have an attack stat that grows as you power-up; usually at such a level that, unless you skipped an entire region or something (after all, if Metroid's any indication, there WILL be people trying to sequence-break for speed), you'll not find many enemies that take more than one hit. I'm more partial to the former system, though the latter could work if used properly... operative word being "could".

Each area would have its own theme. You know, field stage (the main hub, I would assume), forest stage, underground stage, ice stage, lava stage, cloud stage, beach stage, Eggman stage... not necessarily in that order, or limited to those generic examples. What's more, EVERY stage will feature unique traps and tricks to avoid, to avoid the sense of deja vu that the Advance series has too much. The only exception to this is Eggman's stage, which would be near the end, where it's more acceptable to toss in a few of the older gimmicks together to create some new situations, and even then it'd be fairly limited, seeing as Eggman's stage wouldn't be Eggman's stage without some of its own gimmicks. By no means would these stages prevent you from completely backtracking; while it's fully possible that, once you've commited to crossing an area you can't go back until you've crossed it, when you do another path would be available to head BACK to where you came from or to a new area entirely that hooks up with the area you wish to head back to.

There should be a shop around somewhere, preferably in an area easy enough to access so it wouldn't be much of a hassle. For every ring you collect, superfluous or not, every enemy you broke and every stretch of area you covered, you get cash. You can trade in this extra dough for shields, speed shoes, invincibility and the like, all of which will only activate at the time of YOUR choosing. Probably mapped to the trigger buttons or somewhere equally accessible, kind of like how Quake II gave you the Quad Damage and Environmental Suits, but they wouldn't activate. Other than that there'd be a plethora of fun little bonuses to be purchased in the shop, just to add to the replayability, and to add incentive to run around a lot.

The game should be 2D, simply becuase the 3D Sonics haven't been quite as good (unless you count SRB2, which IS good, and I don't, seeing as it's a fangame). As of such, it'll use sprites, and not slack just because that's the case; if possible it'd have tons of things going on at any one time, be it many many small enemies or one large enemy made of many sprites (like, say, Seven Force from Gunstar). These sprites would be fairly well-animated, and have more "realistic" (for lack of a better word) shading like the original sprites, and less like the (admittedly still pretty nice) Advance sprites. It'd be great if the backgrounds could be hand-drawn, too, but that's not a necessity. If there needs to be a cutscene that, for whatever reason, cannot be done with only the sprites like in S3&K, then heck, try an anime company. Haivng Sonic X animation in there wouldn't hurt, depending on how well it was done, or whoever did the cutscenes in Sonic CD.

Music should be a mix of remixes of older games' tunes (the tune played when you fight the giant robot in Death Egg Zone from S3&K should be in somewhere, that was awesome) and plenty of new tunage. Maybe squeeze in some references to OTHER Sega series while we're at it. I often like thinking of a forested hill that plays the tune of the first level of Gunstar; the tune evokes a sense of you making your way onward throughout a tough onslaught of enemies, and while I won't say the onslaught will necessarily be as relentless as they are in Gunstar, the sense on struggling up a hill (and let's admit it, hills aren't the easiest thing to accelerate upward) works pretty well together. That or nostalgia's gettin' to my head. That's probably the case too. Other than that, some classical music for certain places works nice. Put Vivaldi's "Summer" (I think that was the right one, I'll double check later) to a drumbeat and you've got pumping boss music, if only for the later ones. I also took a great liking to "Revolutionary" (again, will check later, but was somebody's Etude No. 12).

Eggman's base needs to be somewhere original. Space is not original anymore. For all I care he can use a giant factory again (and I mean it'd be VERY obvious that it's a factory and not just some cybernetic weird place, much like they did in Scrap Brain as opposed to, say, Atomic Destroyer), or he can go underwater for his base (how many times has he done THAT, eh? And Ocean Base Zone doesn't count, since that wasn't Eggman's HQ.)

Bosses start pretty small (since Sonic's a pathetic weakling at this point, seeing as they've drained him of his power with, I dunno, Chaos Emeralds?), and progressively get bigger and more complex until we reach the final boss, which is designed as to be a freakin' transformer. In fact, make IT fully-polygonal (the only boss to do that) and have it morph like mad, with, like, seven or eight forms, ALL of which must be destroyed before you can call yourself done, and all of which attack differently. Likewise there should be some bosses that have obvious gimmicks, much like just about ANY boss in Sonic CD. You didn't have to hit Eggman ONCE in Quartz Quadrant... ingenious.

Other than that, I'd say this post is getting unweildy (I've been working on it for a few hours, so it makes sense that that's the case), so I'll have to look it over later and amend it as needed.

And if you skipped that entire post just to read this sentence:

*KILLS YOU DEAD*

READ the thing, I didn't slave away at the keyboard a few hours for you to skip it entirely. >:P

Yay:

- Story being just after S3K.

- MS, MK, The Doll, and Eggrobo.

- Rings system.

- 1-hit-kill'd enemies

- ANIM CUTSCENES

- 2D

Boo:

- Sonic starting off slow and with no spindash. Sounds like Labyrinth.

- Buying stuff. >_>

- Huge final boss with different forms

--

I Started out hating the idea then it kinda grew on me when re-reading the post, sorta like Swift's.

kk. Initially I was really hating all the non-sonic ideas. That is, levelling up and buying. But right now it seems like it could work. I'm going to try and mundle my thoughts together into a coherent post...

The game taking place just after S3K is a good thing. The recent storyline just seems messed up right now. Also, I've always thought the ring system in Arcade would be good for bosses at least.

I heart 2D. Simple as. I've always thought a new 2D Sonic should have everything, if not most things, hand-drawn, with as many lighting effects and whatnot shoved in as possible, so the sprites look different now and then like models do with lighting effects applied.

I, like most, disliked the enemies in Heroes that took multiple hits, or at least how often they were used. You obviously cottoned on.

ANIM CUTSCENES!!! They're just awesome. CD's were perfect, even the low res ones, and...and well...Ah hell I have no reasoning. I'd luuurve it tho.

Final note, I HATE huge bosses, I HATE huge bosses with multiple forms, and I LOATHE huge final bosses with different forms. I see too much of them. Hate hate hate. Gimme a boss the same size as my char anyday, I'll swallow. And lick my lips too.

Eh, I'm tired. This post would've been bigger but meh. I like the idea overall. *pop*

Ed ed eeediiit: y444y for people posting while I took far too long typing mine up. *sleep*

No kidding. I happen to LOVE the bosses with the excessive amounts of forms... as long as that fact doesn't mean the boss is excessively hard or anything.

And, well, we could always toss in an extra boss that's normal size, but incredibly hard simply because it's really dang difficult to hit. Maybe make it only accessible once you beat the game, or if you beat the final boss with a specific set of requirements.

ShadowHog's got me sold.

Apart from that, the only thing I'd venture into suggesting is a 2.5D RPG - something along the lines of, say, Landstalker or Alundra.

Here are some of my ideas:

First off, I think the game should be in 3D. However, the models should look a lot better than the ones in Heroes, without any of those weird shiny effects. A decent camera system would also be nice, with an option for both first-person and third-person view. There should also be plenty of cutscenes similar to the cinematics in Sonic Heroes (the ones that don't use the game engine).

The levels should be vast and leave lots of room to explore, with multiple branching paths and a few secret areas inbetween. As SH said, each level could have its own theme (forest, ice, lava, etc) and should have its own unique traps, gimmicks, and badniks. There would also be one or two main "adventure fields" ala Sonic Adventure.

Most, if not all badniks would be destroyed with a single hit, with the exception of a few that would take several hits. Each badnik you destroy would give you a few rings or some sort of powerup. The bosses would appear after every few levels and would get harder and more creative as the game progresses.

A store would be nice, but it should only be used to purchase things like upgrades, minigames, and cheat codes (not shields or other powerups). The currency for all store items would be rings. At the end of every level, all the rings you collect would be added to a total that you could use to purchase items.

The soundtrack could consist of remixes of old tunes as well as some original tracks. Most of the songs shouldn't have any lyrics, and they should NOT INVOLVE RAP. Sonic + rap = no.

The game should have an infinite amount of lives. Most old games worked well with limited lives, but these days all games should have an unlimited amount of tries.

Powerups would be found in boxes across the level, and a few could be gained from destroyed enemies as well (as was said earlier). Examples of powerups would be shields, invincibility, speed shoes, and extra rings. There would be several different shields that have their own special powers and gimmicks.

Well, I know i might not be popular with this but maybe a Sonic Heroes 2. Now wait...
Right, the levels aren't Sonic Adventure levels on steroids but more Spiderman 2/ GTA Series style of a huge city area, maybe a mountain, desert ect.
Now like in Spiderman 2 you can help people being attacked by Robots or you can just go for the story missions and defeat Eggman and others.

The Control System, now heres the killer. This is going to be based on the Xbox pad.
Primary Anolog Stick - Move Character
Secondary Anolog Stick - Camera Edit
A - Jump , Secondary Motion (Flying, Homing Attack ect.)
X - Action 1
B - Action 2
Y - Action 3
Black - Interact with NPC
White - Team Blast
L Trigger - Change Character Anti Clockwise
R Trigger - Change Character Clockwise

There will be just one character on the screen at one time. which means you can have an evovled version of the Sonic Adventure moves.
like so:
Sonic:
Ground
A Jump. Jump again for Homing Attack
B Light Dash.
X Spin Dash. Charge to Light Speed Attack.
Y Somersault.

While Jumping
A Homing Attack.
B Light Dash.
X Tornado Attack?
Y Bounce Attack?

While Moving
A Jump. Jump again for Homing Attack
B Light Dash.
X Spin Attack.
Y Somersault causing you to slow down.

Badniks should be killed with a single hit but, they should be more varied and smarter so they arent a nuisence

Inventory. the D-Pad could be used as an inventory where you store invincibilty, speed shoes and shields.

cant really think of anything else at the moment.

I would worship anyone who could make a Sonic game that plays as well as Spiderman 2.

I like SH's idea. Especially the final boss, because transformers are awesome. :3

But, instead of getting cash from rings, enemies destroyed etc I think that the currency for buying things should be within the rings itself. That would help the player stop and actually think should they actually just randomly spend it and instead spend it wisely since its also your life energy.

About John's post...I don't care as long as everything isn't mapped to one button.

Unfortunately, John, you fail to address one of Heroes' biggest problems: character switching. I don't want to have to STOP, switch characters (which in itself can be really confusing) and THEN continue anywhere near as frequently as Heroes had me doing; that just wrecks any flow the game has. I've mentioned an idea on here before I still stand by: if Heroes comes back, it has to be modified in such a way that swapping is gone for good. In other words, you control all three characters, and all their moves, with only one setup, and don't have to swap jack. No, I dunno how that'd work out on the controller, but it'd be more convenient to just hit a button and start flying that to stop, switch to Fly formation, move again and THEN hit the button to start flying - or, jump, try hard to switch to Fly and hope you didn't choose Power by accident or something similar.

A control pd buttons:

A
B C
D

A could be a basic jump, press than and all 3 characters jump
B is Tails action, press it when not jumping to throw another characetr or when jumping to fly, repeat press to fly hgiher
C is Knuckles move, punch on ground, press in the air to throw characters in the air
D is roll, making all three characters roll.

You always control the midle Character, Sonic, if the other two dissapear they will come back instantly and quickly, but he is the one you cannt allow to fall of or get hit.

That still leaves the L and R buttons free, and the Z button, for anything else.

It could work

Alright, erm New Idea Time!
Sonic Tour De 4orce
Basic Idea
Sonic Adventure style of game with a basic hub level and 5 - 7 levels. You revisit old levels. I stress they arent 3D remakes of the old 2D levels. we have had long angry decussions on that one.

Items
Rings, Elemnetal Shields (Water - breath underwater, Fire - Protect from Fire, Electric - Protect from lasers, spark ect., magnet - Ring Magnet and Default - standard) Speed Shoes, Invincibility, 1-Up, Eggman.

Robots
Remade, For Example - when you are on South Island oyu will fight the Sonic 1 Robots.

Music
Remixed from the original games. But not all with wailing guitars. maybe some wailing violins as well. (been listening to the Soul Blade Intro.)

Basic Story
Dr. Eggman has taken over all the Islands associated with Sonic. You (Sonic) must run Eggman off the island. Plus Something in there with Chaos Emeralds and teenage angst.

Structure - Islands are in Order, Levels arent in order.
1. South Island HUB - Spring Yard
Green Hill, Labyrinth, Marble, Star Light, Scrap Brain.
Special Stage: Rotating Maze.
Unlocked Character: Tails.

2. Westside Island HUB - Emerald Hill
Chemical Plant, Mystic Cave, Oil Ocean, Casino Night, Metropolis.
Special Stage: Whole Pipe, collect the rings-athon.
Unlocked Character: Knuckles

3. Angel Island HUB - Angel Island Jungle
HydroCity, Marble Garden, Launch Base, Mushroom Hill, Lava Reef, Sandopolis Pyramid
Special Stage: 3D Maze: Get Blue Spheres!
Unlocked Characters: Shadow and Rouge

4. Flickies Island HUB - Panic Puppet
Green Grove, Rusty Ruin, Spring Stadium, Diamond Dust, Gene Gadget
Special Stage: Tightrope over death. (Actually make the 3D special stages challenging)
Unlocked Characters: Amy and Cream

5. Twinkle Park HUB - Twinkle Park
Toy Kingdom, Mirror Hill, Casino Paradise, Music Plant, Roller Coaster Terminus.
Special Stage: Destroy the UFOs
Unlocked Characters: Vector and Charmy Team.

6. Eggman Island HUB - Mecha-Atlantis (For Shadow Hog)
Cyber Track, Starboard Surface, Port Bowl, Anchor Powerhouse, Robot Plant
Special Stage: Hex Pipe
Unlocked Characters: Espio and Omega

7. Little Planet HUB - Quartz Quadrant
Palmtree Panic, Collision Chaos, Tidal Tempest, Stardust Speedway, Wacky Workbench, Metallic Madness (All Bad Future)
Special Stage: Metal Sonic Race
Unlocked Character: Metal Sonic

8. Final Boss

Not sure how the bosses will turn out though.
I've actually got a list of the characters moves but maybe for a later post.

I agree almost completely with what Shadow Hog said, except the buying shields things and Sonic being weakened at the beginning.
Shields should be acquired thoughout the stage, hidden in adventure fields or from breaking robots (perhaps the stronger ones?). Perhaps being able to acquire shields both ways would be good too.. both by buying them and by finding them in the levels/adventure fields. I'd love it if the shop was like the Black Chao Market, it was really funny-looking and Sonic-y!And I wonder what other things you could buy? Maybe power-ups like the ones you could find in Adventure?
Anyway, I think that Sonic shouldn't be weakened at the start of the game, but just his normal self, like Hyper Sonic Warrior said, this would be a lot like labyrinth (which was fun, mind you, but was annoying at first because of the low speed). Instead I think that Sonic should become more powerful over the course of the game, without having ever lost his old abilities. Perhaps through power-ups like the Light Shoes in Adventure. I myself would like these upgrades to be "visible" on the characters, as long as they don't cover up their faces entirely or make them look too different than what they are. But that's not a big deal.
What I'd like is lots of unlockables at the end of the game. Be it extra levels, extra bosses, extra characters (but please not exact copies of normally playable chars.. and perhaps they'd be able to access different routes, too), extra power-ups and god knows what else.
A thing I'd like to ask: what about Chao Gardens? Should they be there? If yes I think the best would be if they were optional, as in: you don't need to go through them to get all the emblems/whatever-you-need-to-unlock-stuff.
Furthermore, the main focus of the game should be Sonic. Although I do like playing as other characters as much (sometimes even more) as with Sonic, he's the star and should thus have the spotlight throughout (an alternative would be like in Sonic Battle where every character had his/her moment, but I'd prefer Sonic to play the biggest role); also, Sonic's levels should be designed really well and his abilities used as good as possible. Something I didn't like about Sonic Adventure was that some power-ups (not just Sonic's) were hardly ever used somewhere after you acquired them. I think power-ups should be like a natural addition, which flows well with the game's style but are also useful in various situations, not a one-use item you need to pass a certain level or something.

Alright, I think there were a few details I left out of the original post. I'll edit these in later, but here's the summary of what I left out:

That help any?

As for Chao, I think not. I do like them, but I never really cared for raising them; felt too much like glorified Tamogotchis.

All I want in a 3D Sonic game is decent camera angles. And perhaps an option screen that lets you adjust the key figuration to whatever is most comfortable for you (there could also be an "Equipment" option- lets you enter stage with a pre-selected shield provided you had the rings to pay for it). Also, it might be nice to interact with some NPCs now and then.

A new sonic game.... i think it should be like SA2 but at the end of every level you had the chance to change your character that would be cool.Also if all the characters from the Archie Comic series came back eg. Sally, Bunny Rabbot.

Quote:

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Also if all the characters from the Archie Comic series came back

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They were there to have left? Spinball is hardly canon.

Sonic Rush. I got to play it at PAX and it was pretty cool. It's hauntingly similar to what Gabe suggested they do at last year's PAX -- the fun and elegance of 2D gameplay with the good looks and fluid animation of 3D graphics. But instead of on DS, they should have put it on PSP, so as to not utterly waste the platform's capabilities.

i want them to bring chaotix back including mighty
in a game with just chaotix as playable characters
and shadow should stay dead, he is rising from the grave more times then count dracula for heavens sake