How would you improve Sonic Adventure in a remake?

They'd have to go back to the drawing board for the movement to not make it janky in a way thats still somewhat representative of SA and not just making it a "boost" sonic experience.

Boil it down to just Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Maybe Gamma too.

Sonic Adventure 2 needs the Emerald Shard radar of the first game, they made those stages far more of a hassle than need be.

Completely delete any other character in the game besides Sonic, or make the other characters "run and jump characters" like Sonic instead of making them other things like puzzle piece finders or robot drivers.

A complete re-imagining from the ground up. The movement in particular needs tons of work; I've yet to play a 3D Sonic game where he controls as well as he does in the original Genesis/Megadrive games, and SA is probably the worst offender.

I like SA and SA2 the way it is, I don't want any "improvements" or a remake.

Make all the mouth movements more exaggerated.

I'd like to see a full reimagination. The other characters need to play more like Sonic, like how they do in Mania.

They should also get Ryan back for the VO

BubbleButt64 said:

Mario Odyssey feels like pure bliss to control. Just running around in circles is a joy, so much so that they could build entire Trace-Walking missions purely because Mario's movement just felt that good. I want that feeling from a Sonic game.

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Sonic moves too fast for movement like that to really be effective. I'm sure if Mario moved as fast as Sonic does, those trace-walking missions would be a nightmare. But it wouldn't be good for anything besides large open spaces, which the adventure games don't have.

But I never really had a problem with Sonic's movement in the adventure games. It was easy to make sudden, sharp adjustments because of how snappy it was. It was the Heroes engine games that made him feel slippery.

Make Amy accelerate faster. I actually like her gameplay style (primarily because of the hammer jump) but her basic movement just feels super janky for no reason. Having more than 3 levels would be great too but baby steps...

Get rid of everyone but Sonic.

re localize everything. seriously the old translation was awful

You wouldnt.

Please don't give Sega ideas.
It'll be a boost-fest. SA and SA2 had a lot of problems (a LOT) but at least they allowed full control and an actual spindash.

If it's a mostly faithful remake, then they need to touch up the controls and camera, fix a heap of bugs with the geometry, and lower the importance and requirements for playing the other characters like Big.

Drastically improve the collision detection.
Improve the camera
Fix the gravity during the tilting sections of Sky Deck
Completely redesign the Chaos 4 fight
Have Sonic play through act 1 of Sky Chase and tails play through act 2 of Sky Chase. There's no reason fo both of them to play both acts.

All the other issues people have are things that can;t really be changed such as the core gameplay of specific characters.

For SA2 all they'd really need to improve are the camera angles during a few segments (like the gravity blocks at the end of Crazy Gadget) and give Knuckles the radar from SA1.

No offense, but those "stunts" were lame and only created for the "looks cool" department, pretty much like the entire Adventure 2.

In my view these games don't even deserves to be touched, like you said about remaking this game is a "waste of time" I also believe that touching them would be a waste of time and resources. Leave them be. People who likes those games will like them regardless.

The janky as fuck facial animation and awkward voice acting is part of the appeal of Sonic Adventure, a remake could never live up to that. Plus I don't think Sonic Team could accurately recreate the controls and physics from the adventure days, considering they needed the Mania team to do that for the 2D games. I think they'd sooner do a Mania equivalent for the Adventure games than remake them.

Dereck said:

Completely delete any other character in the game besides Sonic, or make the other characters "run and jump characters" like Sonic instead of making them other things like puzzle piece finders or robot drivers.

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I mean, Tails is already like this. He plays like Sonic except he can fly, can't spindash or homing attack, and has glorified time trials for his stages. I can't believe that like 20 years later and SA1 Tails is still the best iteration of Tails being playable in a 3D Sonic game.

Knuckles and Gamma just fine too, although their gameplay is radically different. Amy can be improved upon by giving her more speed and acceleration. Big is a complete lost cause.

Honestly there is no saving Sonic Adventure 1. But if you wanted to try to improve:

• Remove the open world, full-stop. All the levels segue into each other linearly like in Adventure 2. Power ups are found within the levels like in Adventure 2.
• Cut all the campaigns except Sonic, Tails & Amy. I personally have some nostalgia for Knuckles's Treasure Hunt but that gameplay is just fundamentally bad, lol.
• Redo all the cutscenes so that the month flaps don't look completely ridiculous.
• Put the Chao Garden in its own menu so that people don't only ever go there by accident.

Even all this wouldn't make Adventure 1 a good game, just a less bad one. The Sonic levels themselves aren't even good, and those are the only saving grace of a Sonic Adventure game. 'Member the canyon stage with the tornado mechanic that just keeps killing you? The casino one where you have to play pinball for hours? The ice stage where they somehow messed up a snowboarding segment? The horror that is Egg Fortress? The only good/cool thing in the entire game is that part with the orca, and even then it's a scripted running segment with no stakes.

In conclusion, if you want to improve your experience with Adventure 1 I say just pop it out of the console and put in Adventure 2, lol.

Sonic Adventure 2 really is the model for 3d sonic movement. It's the only one that controls worth a damn in fact I actually think you could place that sonic in any other 3d sonic games and be fine. Wasnt perfect, but I would love if they made a game with just that gameplay however they need to add more modern conventions like parkour. I think they could make it as snappy as a skateboarding game as well.

I really think having controlled semi open linear levels is the best for platformers. It's why Mario Galaxy was so fucking good as you can better control the minute to minute gameplay. And honestly, Sonic Adventure, Adventure 2, and Sonic Heros really do have decent ideas in their levels.

ASaiyan said:

'Member the canyon stage with the tornado mechanic that just keeps killing you? The casino one where you have to play pinball for hours? The ice stage where they somehow messed up a snowboarding segment?

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Is this supposed to be hyperbole? I can get not liking Final Egg (which you mistakenly called Egg Fortress), but none of these other things make sense.

Poltergust said:

Is this supposed to be hyperbole? I can get not liking Final Egg (which you mistakenly called Egg Fortress), but none of these other things make sense.

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The pinball stage was utter monotony, lol. And the Hidden Canyon stage crapped out on its wind physics and killed me more than once. My two strongest memories of SA1 are:

1. Getting completely lost on the overworld, over and over until the end of time
2. Playing NiGHTS pinball for like 10 minutes to get enough coins to fill a hole and reach an Emerald (What kinda explanation is that anyway?!)

ASaiyan said:

The pinball stage was utter monotony, lol. And the Hidden Canyon stage crapped out on its wind physics and killed me more than once.

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I can't say I've ever experienced the wind in Windy Valley failing. I suspect that's one of the parts where the game breaks if you do anything other than hold up on the control stick.

Kinsei said:

I can't say I've ever experienced the wind in Windy Valley failing. I suspect that's one of the parts where the game breaks if you do anything other than hold up on the control stick.

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Probably. Also known as basically any part of a stage where the camera zooms out, lol.

ASaiyan said:

The casino one where you have to play pinball for hours

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Playing pinball for more than a little bit isn't necessary, you can and should use the garbage chute to collect rings. Only takes like 1-2 runs through that area to get the emerald depending on how thorough you are and if you can avoid getting hit.

ASaiyan said:

Probably. Also known as basically any part of a stage where the camera zooms out, lol.

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True.

Kinsei said:

I can't say I've ever experienced the wind in Windy Valley failing. I suspect that's one of the parts where the game breaks if you do anything other than hold up on the control stick.

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That was intentional, though. Tikal literally says to keep running forward on those wind paths to have the wind guide your way when you activate her hint thing.

Make the stage not brake if you stray off the main course. Or just make it not buggy.

Also make shit like big the cat optional.

ASaiyan said:

'Member the canyon stage with the tornado mechanic that just keeps killing you?

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Nope.

The only tornado I can remember is in Windy Valley, and it can't kill you.

ASaiyan said:

The casino one where you have to play pinball for hours?

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The goal of the pinball level is to collect and deposit 500 rings. It shouldn't take long even if you do it all through pinball, but if you fail the pinball section, you're deposited into a linear sewer that contains hundreds of rings.

One of the secondary emblems requires you beat the level in under 5 minutes, and it's easily possible using those sewers.

Either way, it's certainly not hours.

Two words: 1) collision 2) detection

If you delete all the not sonic characters the game is no longer sonic adventure, sorry brehs

Blow it up and make it a good game

MOAR CHAOS

Companion App for IOS and Android Chao Garden Mobile.

I honestly feel like Sonic Adventure is fundamentally a little broken in that Early 3D platformer kind of way. I like it for what it is,but you can't "fix" the issues in the game without changing what it is entirely.

Hmm.

I think the framework is still decent, it just needs some major polish and updating. Obviously I imagine the stages would need to be reimagined. Paraxade's port of Wave Ocean (while not SA1 explicitly, it's still designed similarly) always impressed me for how well it was able to fit a map from a different style of gameplay within the boost engine, while not feeling too big or small (a problem I have with a lot of Generations mods that just throw in an older game's map without changing much).



I'm a bit of a purist so I'd still want all the playable characters intact along with the hub world, but there are definitely things that can be improved. Big's gameplay would need to be drastically overhauled to be worthwhile, for example. One key aspect I'd want retained is that the maps remain largely the same between characters - having Knuckles' levels designed for him in SA2 really hurt that element of the game imo, it was better when he was exploring the open Sonic levels.

But yeah, I don't think SA1 needs to be fundamentally changed to be a good game, I actually think it nailed a lot for a first outing. It's just that the subsequent games didn't really improve on its flaws so much as double down on them, and make even the good parts worse.

Make every level a Big the Cat level.

So I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I just finished my yearly playthroughs of Adventures 1 and 2. They really are amazing games hampered by lots of little things. I always forget how many times (especially in SA2) where they have enemies drop down or appear out of nowhere with no forewarning and little time to react. I've gotten used to it since I've practically memorized every inch of these games, but I can imagine a lot of new players get frustrated by it. Though it's Sonic tradition, it can be frustrating. My most major criticism of all is the camera. Definitely needs a drastic overhaul in both games. The camera is the most difficult enemy. Better collision would be fantastic in these games too. Of course, they're at their worst in the ports. The DX port for 1 in particular introduced an incredible amount of issues. A lot of it could be alleviated by telegraphing certain things better. For SA1 specifically, they need to drastically overhaul the hub worlds and cutscenes to give better ideas of where to go. I've played through that game so many times and still occasionally have trouble finding where to go next. Plus there are a lot of parts of the map that are never used or used for only one thing. Also, improving the physics of SA1 would be much appreciated. It's the major reason 2 is much better than one. Every character roughly feels like Sonic (except Big). They're all very floaty and move very fast. Creates a very weird feel. (Also, I'd be totally okay with removing Big from Adventure games in general. I hate Big). Sonic Adventure 2 would definitely need some improvements too, but I feel 2 is far easier to improve than 1.

With all that said, these games are WAY better than people give them credit for nowadays. They incorporate a lot of philosophies from older Sonic games while creating an incredible sense of speed and a style that thrashes every other era. Controls are pretty great and the games are fun. And I can't ask for much more. But the subsequent games retroactively tainted these games and it's really a shame since I think most people just hop onto the bandwagon. A remaster would probably benefit these games greatly, but I have absolutely NO faith in Sonic Team to get remasters this important right. I can only hope that the Dreamcast versions of these games come to Switch under the Sega Ages moniker, but I highly doubt they will. I love these games to death though

I've thought about this a bit actually, since I do believe we'd likely see a total Sonic Adventure 1 remake before we'd see a 3.

Concerning Overall Gameplay

• A lot comes down to technical improvements and QoL features. Better 3D camera, collision, full 360 control is a given.
• Structurally, I'd keep the game largely the same. The Adventure Field > Action Stage > Cutscene > Adventure Field gameplay loop worked well and gave the world a connected feeling of place, something sorely lacking in SA2.
• This goes in the QoL section, but making Adventure Fields multiple giant hubs instead of multiple "rooms." What was a technical limitation before can be corrected. Station Square for example can be made into a real city, one more closely resembling the opening's.

Concerning the Narrative

• Again, story wise and multi-perspective wise, leave as is. It intersected cleverly together in the original, with a lot of character driven story arcs and motivations that never felt ow-the-edge serious, nor kiddy-cringey like Colors/Lost World
• A new dub and script up to today's standards obviously.
• Rehiring the same VA's from back in the day with a better script would do wonders for improving the story presentation and narrative quality.

Concerning Playable Characters

• I'd shave out Big the Cat, since his story could be merged with Gamma's anyway.
• Speed up Amy and make her more quick-combat based utilizing her Hammer.
• Gamma, Knuckles and Tails are fine as is. Their gameplay was fast, fun and added new dimension with their distinct abilities (digging/climbing/flying/shooting).
• Some want Gamma gone, but they may be tainting their idea of him with the horrendous, unfun mech stages from Adventure 2. He was a fast and fun shooting gallery in SA1 with arguably the best, most tragic Sonic narrative in the franchise.

Concerning the Chao Garden

• THIS is where the most potential lies. Invest in a robust app to act as a companion/stand-alone Chao Garden that works in tandem with the remake.
• View stats/chao/gardens from the app.
• Take care of Chao from the app
• Connect and race with friends from the app
• Work in Pokemon Go-like features, like walking with your Chao, training, finding Chaos Drives out in the wild that enhance your creatures.
• Really this shit writes itself, and it's utterly baffling how Sega/Sonic Team can let so much potential money sit on the table.

Not make it?

In all seriousness the game has a unique charm, but it needs a complete overhaul mechanically. It felt stiff and janky then, but now it's borderline unplayable.

Aftervirtue said:

Not make it?

In all seriousness the game has a unique charm, but it needs a complete overhaul mechanically. It felt stiff and janky then, but now it's borderline unplayable.

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I think thats what OP is referring to. It would be something like RE2 Remake , where its just Sonic Adventure in name,visual design and story. Kinda like how Generations did the SA levels.

PeakPointMatrix said:

Concerning the Narrative

• Again, story wise and multi-perspective wise, leave as is. It intersected cleverly together in the original, with a lot of character driven story arcs and motivations that never felt ow-the-edge serious, nor kiddy-cringey like Colors/Lost World

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I want to talk about this specifically. I think that, despite the jankiness of everything else, this was actually handled pretty well in SA1. The idea of multiple perspectives for the same scenes is something that can be very interesting from a narrative standpoint. An example that SA1 manages to pull off is how menacing Eggman sounds in Tails's story compared to Sonic's (from his word choices to tone of voice), representing how scared Tails still is of Eggman during his story and how he needs to overcome his fear and reliance on Sonic in order to accomplish things not even Sonic can do at the end of his story: disabling a bomb and stopping Eggman from destroying Station Square on his own.

A remake can take the good aspects of a narrative structure like this and expand and refine it. I'm not sure if Sonic Team's writing staff is capable of doing that nowadays, though.

Change the camera perspective. The intricate multi layered levels of the genesis titles are stripped away when sonic isn't left with any direction but "forward". Where's my replayable stages of hidden pathways and skill based route divergence? Instead we just get racetrack floating in the sky crap loaded with setpieces. What's fun about the end part of windy valley where you just run along the track with no obstacles?

In truth, 3D sonic is fucked from the jump as long as they are focused on adapting a style of game that isnt benefited in any way from the shift. The boost titles succeed due to their willingness to abandon tradition.

I want them to turn Amy's story into a beat-em-up. I want to clobber the fuck out of Zero.

Camera and no fishing.

Change everything, gameplay, graphics, just keep the music and the memes

Get rid of the big the cat segments.

You could keep the basic settings and general story but I would remake literally everything else, and cut a ton of stuff (bye bye Big). It's a tire fire of a game.

Aaron said:

Hmm.

I think the framework is still decent, it just needs some major polish and updating. Obviously I imagine the stages would need to be reimagined. Paraxade's port of Wave Ocean (while not SA1 explicitly, it's still designed similarly) always impressed me for how well it was able to fit a map from a different style of gameplay within the boost engine, while not feeling too big or small (a problem I have with a lot of Generations mods that just throw in an older game's map without changing much).



I'm a bit of a purist so I'd still want all the playable characters intact along with the hub world, but there are definitely things that can be improved. Big's gameplay would need to be drastically overhauled to be worthwhile, for example. One key aspect I'd want retained is that the maps remain largely the same between characters - having Knuckles' levels designed for him in SA2 really hurt that element of the game imo, it was better when he was exploring the open Sonic levels.

But yeah, I don't think SA1 needs to be fundamentally changed to be a good game, I actually think it nailed a lot for a first outing. It's just that the subsequent games didn't really improve on its flaws so much as double down on them, and make even the good parts worse.

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WAYYYYYYYY too much automation. The thing about the Sonic Adventure games is that they had their sections of automation but it was never as long boost sonic. They never relinquish control of Sonic from the user.

Boost sonic aint nothing but guitar hero on a controller.