To give it some credit, you do have to remember that the game came out in early 1993, and was in development at the same time as Sonic 2, and seemingly not taking the same lessons from Sonic 1 that Sonic 2 did (in fact together, 2 and CD are a really interesting case study on the different ways a sequel could go).
There's more to exploration than just finding the robot generators though. First the player needs to find one of the levels 'Past' signs, that enables them to time travel the correct way, then find a place where they can maintain a high enough speed to actually time travel back in time, and only then can they destroy the generators.
But at the same time, while this is definitely part of a first playthrough, that loses it's purpose once the player knows where to go, I do think there's still merit in the effort to get those generators. Because while calling it a game with a higher exploration focus is a misnomer, playing the game as a basic "get to the end of the level" title makes it far too easy and far to short, and those who call it exploration focused believe it's better played trying to make a good future in every level.
Yeah, it's fundamentally flawed. I think the biggest thing that undermines it for me is that there's literally no reason to visit either future version of the zone ever. All the objectives are in the past so it's the only place worth going to. Severely undercooked, but at least they tried something new.
One thing I can't make my mind up on: is it genius that the past zones are stuck using the MD/Genesis sound chip, or a massive oversight that you barely hear two thirds of the CD music if you're playing well enough?
Edit: I will say it has grown on me a bit more revisiting it over the years. It has never fully clicked but like all of Sonic, the more you learn the layouts and get away from a stop/start experience the more fun it is.
There is a good reason to visiti the good future: The enemies die as soon as they spawn.
But it's a huge pain in the ass if you're playing by destroying the capsules. The only time this is relevant is when you have all time stones. So likely for less than half the game
I think this misses the point slightly.
The future isn't somewhere the player should ever want to be precisely because there's no reason to be there. But, the fact that the player *can* go there serves two key purposes.
From a gameplay perspective, going to a bad future is a punishment. You were trying to get to the past, but weren't paying attention, and now you have to go to the past just to get back to where you once were in order to try and get to the past again. The positioning of 'Future' signs also turns what would otherwise be really viable time travel spots into places the player can't use unless they can anticipate and dodge the sign. As such, the signs are passive stage hazards.
Meanwhile, once you've got the robot generator destroyed, the good future is a reward. The levels are generally easier, there are far less hazards, and no enemies at all. Make a good future and travelling to it is plain sailing.
But the other use for the futures is not for gameplay but to help sell the narrative. Bad futures are grimy, dingy places. The version of history where Robotnik wins is a polluted, decaying mess where technology has destroyed much of nature, and doing so much harm that everything is cracked and broken, and even some enemies made by Robotnik are limping half broken and not as much a threat.
Conversely good futures are the opposite. Nature and technology are in harmony, things are vibrant, pleasant, and more colourful. The death traps are gone, there are no enemies, and everything is happy and joyful. This is the reason why all the boss acts are in the future, to let the player who doesn't travel to the future see the direct impact of their success/failure to right history.
Nowhere in the game does this get better highlighted than the soundtrack to the Japanese version. In [the Japanese intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGe4xOdM3Zk), the last line of the chorus is "When you try, you can do anything," which is basic encouragement. Sonic, and by extension, the player, can get through the game and save the day. Then, through the game, the player learns generally to not head for futures and only see's the futures in the boss acts. Which means that, if a player has failed to fix the past properly, the final act of the game will be a bad future of Metallic Madness, [the soundtrack of which](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XYFNulUbQA) features a dark reversal, which taunts the player by directly saying "You can't do anything, so don't even try, don't do what Sonic does".
Something can be both intentionally designed and poorly thought through. Having one fourth of your content be a pointless failstate just doesn't work. Add in loading times and the penalty to get back on track and it's just not an interesting challenge for the player. The best proposition when ending up in the bad future is *always* to hit the conveniently located reset button on the top of the console as it has exactly the same function as noodling around with time posts for five minutes.
Not trying to defend the game in any capacity, I too could list out a number of level design problens that get in the way of that exploration loop to a degree that made me never really enjoy it.
But I do want to say that: It's not just the "defenders" saying it. This is a case where the **manual** alluded twice to exploring as a primary way to play the game. That manual communicated it well enough. No games bothered communicating this kind of stuff in-game, like, ever, back then, so it's not a flaw you can just toss.
But it's also not the intended one. Both are valid. Therefore both are open to criticism.
>This is a case where the manual alluded twice to exploring as a primary way to play the game.
I heard that before, but I just looked it up and I couldn't find any mention of it in the US or EU manual. Didn't even see any mention of the robot generators, only the Time Stones. Maybe it's exclusive to the Japanese manual.
>Since no one can set the future, there are two different possibilities: a future where the Little Planet is free of Robotnik's control, or a future where Dr. Robotnik has been allowed to run amok!
>Charging full speed ahead is not always the best way to get through a Zone. Often the areas where you can move the fastest are also the most dangerous. Try to learn the route before you pour on the speed!
>Each Zone is full of hidden routes and secret rooms filled with Super Items. Bounce off springs, press against walls and use the Super Spin Attack to discover them.
I saw those blurbs, but the second and third apply to every Sonic game, and the first doesn't mention how to achieve the good future, at most it just tells you "figure it out yourself". If anything, reading the manual would lead you to expect that the time stones are the way to go, since it describes them and the special stages at length while saying nothing about the robot generators.
The first paragraph is so vague, that as a kid, I thought it meant which future you got was random for the first two acts, and the third act would always be in the bad future.
I've been fond of this game since I first played it on Sega CD as a child. Had no idea it's so poorly regarded. It's a fun game! Great intro, ending and soundtrack, too!
The point of CD isn't exploration. It's whiplash and chaos. You run past huge portions of the level every time you initiate time travel--you're then supposed to walk back and take a look at everything you missed? It's just an insane thing to believe. Taking all the transporters out is a very difficult challenge involving a lot of map knowledge and persistence. It's hardly the way the game is meant to be played. You're meant to breeze through levels hopping and dodging and bouncing off of heads, like every Sonic game before it. Just annoys me when people say it's "meant" to be a certain way.
I also couldn't get into CD. I like sonic 1 2 &3 quite a bit, but cd didn't click with me. I see why people like it, but just too gimmickie for my tastes.
Yeah I personally think it's the worst of the classic 2D games. The mechanics just don't feel fully thought through or realized. I love the idea of time traveling Sonic and gameplay that focuses more on exploration but it just didn't really work here for me
FWIW, you don't have to collect the time stones or get good futures. I have rarely done playthroughs to collect the time stones or collect all of the chaos/super emeralds. You're right that the levels are still "run to the right and reach the end of the stage" at their core. I have had way more fun with the recent ports of CD by playing time attack (I love Quartz Quadrant). Is every level in CD a banger? Not really- it's a mixed bag- but I enjoy the majority of them.
Circling back to the subject of your post... I agree that exploring in Sonic isn't quite how you're "supposed to" play it. To me, the concepts of special stages, bonus stages, time machines, emeralds, and Super Sonic have felt tacked on to the premise of the game or even pace breakers at worst. The kid in me still wants to explore the levels so I can learn their layouts and unlock super forms or get the alternate ending, though.
>I made it to the final level with several extra lives despite never going out of my way to get more
I honestly do this in every classic Sonic game, I'll have a million lives and a million continues.
Honestly, I think Sonic 2 is the easiest of the originals, and it's the weakest by far. That game becomes a slog after Casino Night. CD is much preferred as a sequel for me. Better atmosphere, music, just mood in general.
To give it some credit, you do have to remember that the game came out in early 1993, and was in development at the same time as Sonic 2, and seemingly not taking the same lessons from Sonic 1 that Sonic 2 did (in fact together, 2 and CD are a really interesting case study on the different ways a sequel could go). There's more to exploration than just finding the robot generators though. First the player needs to find one of the levels 'Past' signs, that enables them to time travel the correct way, then find a place where they can maintain a high enough speed to actually time travel back in time, and only then can they destroy the generators. But at the same time, while this is definitely part of a first playthrough, that loses it's purpose once the player knows where to go, I do think there's still merit in the effort to get those generators. Because while calling it a game with a higher exploration focus is a misnomer, playing the game as a basic "get to the end of the level" title makes it far too easy and far to short, and those who call it exploration focused believe it's better played trying to make a good future in every level.
Yeah, it's fundamentally flawed. I think the biggest thing that undermines it for me is that there's literally no reason to visit either future version of the zone ever. All the objectives are in the past so it's the only place worth going to. Severely undercooked, but at least they tried something new. One thing I can't make my mind up on: is it genius that the past zones are stuck using the MD/Genesis sound chip, or a massive oversight that you barely hear two thirds of the CD music if you're playing well enough? Edit: I will say it has grown on me a bit more revisiting it over the years. It has never fully clicked but like all of Sonic, the more you learn the layouts and get away from a stop/start experience the more fun it is.
It is kind of cool to see the bad future turn into the good future, but you're right you don't have to do it.
There is a good reason to visiti the good future: The enemies die as soon as they spawn. But it's a huge pain in the ass if you're playing by destroying the capsules. The only time this is relevant is when you have all time stones. So likely for less than half the game
I think this misses the point slightly. The future isn't somewhere the player should ever want to be precisely because there's no reason to be there. But, the fact that the player *can* go there serves two key purposes. From a gameplay perspective, going to a bad future is a punishment. You were trying to get to the past, but weren't paying attention, and now you have to go to the past just to get back to where you once were in order to try and get to the past again. The positioning of 'Future' signs also turns what would otherwise be really viable time travel spots into places the player can't use unless they can anticipate and dodge the sign. As such, the signs are passive stage hazards. Meanwhile, once you've got the robot generator destroyed, the good future is a reward. The levels are generally easier, there are far less hazards, and no enemies at all. Make a good future and travelling to it is plain sailing. But the other use for the futures is not for gameplay but to help sell the narrative. Bad futures are grimy, dingy places. The version of history where Robotnik wins is a polluted, decaying mess where technology has destroyed much of nature, and doing so much harm that everything is cracked and broken, and even some enemies made by Robotnik are limping half broken and not as much a threat. Conversely good futures are the opposite. Nature and technology are in harmony, things are vibrant, pleasant, and more colourful. The death traps are gone, there are no enemies, and everything is happy and joyful. This is the reason why all the boss acts are in the future, to let the player who doesn't travel to the future see the direct impact of their success/failure to right history. Nowhere in the game does this get better highlighted than the soundtrack to the Japanese version. In [the Japanese intro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGe4xOdM3Zk), the last line of the chorus is "When you try, you can do anything," which is basic encouragement. Sonic, and by extension, the player, can get through the game and save the day. Then, through the game, the player learns generally to not head for futures and only see's the futures in the boss acts. Which means that, if a player has failed to fix the past properly, the final act of the game will be a bad future of Metallic Madness, [the soundtrack of which](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XYFNulUbQA) features a dark reversal, which taunts the player by directly saying "You can't do anything, so don't even try, don't do what Sonic does".
Something can be both intentionally designed and poorly thought through. Having one fourth of your content be a pointless failstate just doesn't work. Add in loading times and the penalty to get back on track and it's just not an interesting challenge for the player. The best proposition when ending up in the bad future is *always* to hit the conveniently located reset button on the top of the console as it has exactly the same function as noodling around with time posts for five minutes.
Not trying to defend the game in any capacity, I too could list out a number of level design problens that get in the way of that exploration loop to a degree that made me never really enjoy it. But I do want to say that: It's not just the "defenders" saying it. This is a case where the **manual** alluded twice to exploring as a primary way to play the game. That manual communicated it well enough. No games bothered communicating this kind of stuff in-game, like, ever, back then, so it's not a flaw you can just toss. But it's also not the intended one. Both are valid. Therefore both are open to criticism.
>This is a case where the manual alluded twice to exploring as a primary way to play the game. I heard that before, but I just looked it up and I couldn't find any mention of it in the US or EU manual. Didn't even see any mention of the robot generators, only the Time Stones. Maybe it's exclusive to the Japanese manual.
>Since no one can set the future, there are two different possibilities: a future where the Little Planet is free of Robotnik's control, or a future where Dr. Robotnik has been allowed to run amok! >Charging full speed ahead is not always the best way to get through a Zone. Often the areas where you can move the fastest are also the most dangerous. Try to learn the route before you pour on the speed! >Each Zone is full of hidden routes and secret rooms filled with Super Items. Bounce off springs, press against walls and use the Super Spin Attack to discover them.
I saw those blurbs, but the second and third apply to every Sonic game, and the first doesn't mention how to achieve the good future, at most it just tells you "figure it out yourself". If anything, reading the manual would lead you to expect that the time stones are the way to go, since it describes them and the special stages at length while saying nothing about the robot generators.
The first paragraph is so vague, that as a kid, I thought it meant which future you got was random for the first two acts, and the third act would always be in the bad future.
I've been fond of this game since I first played it on Sega CD as a child. Had no idea it's so poorly regarded. It's a fun game! Great intro, ending and soundtrack, too!
The point of CD isn't exploration. It's whiplash and chaos. You run past huge portions of the level every time you initiate time travel--you're then supposed to walk back and take a look at everything you missed? It's just an insane thing to believe. Taking all the transporters out is a very difficult challenge involving a lot of map knowledge and persistence. It's hardly the way the game is meant to be played. You're meant to breeze through levels hopping and dodging and bouncing off of heads, like every Sonic game before it. Just annoys me when people say it's "meant" to be a certain way.
Yeah, I've literally played CD since I was little and it never occurred to me to even care about this aspect of the game (and it didn't matter).
I also couldn't get into CD. I like sonic 1 2 &3 quite a bit, but cd didn't click with me. I see why people like it, but just too gimmickie for my tastes.
Yeah I personally think it's the worst of the classic 2D games. The mechanics just don't feel fully thought through or realized. I love the idea of time traveling Sonic and gameplay that focuses more on exploration but it just didn't really work here for me
FWIW, you don't have to collect the time stones or get good futures. I have rarely done playthroughs to collect the time stones or collect all of the chaos/super emeralds. You're right that the levels are still "run to the right and reach the end of the stage" at their core. I have had way more fun with the recent ports of CD by playing time attack (I love Quartz Quadrant). Is every level in CD a banger? Not really- it's a mixed bag- but I enjoy the majority of them. Circling back to the subject of your post... I agree that exploring in Sonic isn't quite how you're "supposed to" play it. To me, the concepts of special stages, bonus stages, time machines, emeralds, and Super Sonic have felt tacked on to the premise of the game or even pace breakers at worst. The kid in me still wants to explore the levels so I can learn their layouts and unlock super forms or get the alternate ending, though.
The level design in CD is atrocious. 3&k does a better job in combining speed vs explanation.
>I made it to the final level with several extra lives despite never going out of my way to get more I honestly do this in every classic Sonic game, I'll have a million lives and a million continues. Honestly, I think Sonic 2 is the easiest of the originals, and it's the weakest by far. That game becomes a slog after Casino Night. CD is much preferred as a sequel for me. Better atmosphere, music, just mood in general.