Sonic's White Glove Diaries -

Updated and maintained by Johnny 'Sonikku' Wallbank and A.J Freda.

29 June 2000 -

SRB2 Plans: Overall.

Firstly: I’m sorry about not talking about levels – that’s for next time. Secondly: This is probably more of a list of what makes the Sonic games great, but this is what we’ll be trying to follow on the whole…

Speed – All the Sonic games must have this. Seeing Sonic tear across a level at lightning speed on the Green Hill Zone back in the days of Sonic 1 was what had some of us hooked or having Sonic spin off the screen because he moves so fast, and anyone who wants to get this thrill again will enjoy playing as Sonic in SRB2, especially with the Speed Boots.

Multiple Routes – While the latter Sonic games (it seems like Sonic and Knuckles onwards) rarely used this, the earlier games used multiple routes heavily – most levels in Sonic 1 and 2 featured multiple routes, while Sonic 3 at least offered an interesting diversion. We’ll try to reduce linearity, and you can expect Tails and Knuckles to have alternate routes available to them with their climbing and flying skills.

Danger – By this I’m talking about the moments where you couldn’t stop moving, and I think Sonic 3 probably excelled the most in this, with the bombing raid at the end of Angel Island, or the wall of death in Hydrocity. Sonic 2 had the Wing Fortress Zone, and these all offered nice differences and diversions between levels.

Replay – Sonic 3 + Knuckles was the first game to really introduce this. First of all, you could play Sonic 3 with Knuckles again, offering another play through the game, as well as using the other characters and trying to get those elusive emeralds. Sonic CD had the Time Attack mode, and Sonic Adventure took both of these further with Emblems and the online Time Attack – while the latter has degenerated into ‘Who can use a Gameshark?’ contest, it was still fun at the time.

Mix all these together, and we’re looking at a very nice game.

Next time: The levels.