Because, Frankly, I Want to See More Remakes

YES I KNOW, REMAKES ARE AWFUL AND LAZY AND BLAH. But I was thinking about a certain game and I realized that this certain game, though one I am personally quite fond of, hasn't really stood up to the test of time. At all. So, anyway, let me get to my point.

Sonic Adventure 3DS.

No, not a third Sonic Adventure game. Sonic Adventure 1, for the 3DS. I want this. Let me elaborate:

Sonic Adventure (or, as I played it, Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut) is one of my favorite Sonic games for a number of reasons. For one, it has one of my favorite stories within the series, a great blend of serious and playful. It also introduced the very interesting backstory of Knuckles and even pulled from some of the coolest things in real life, like the Mayan pyramids. Overall, the story felt really heartfelt and the characters in it were really likeable and relatable, especially Tikal and Gamma. The only other Sonic game that got to SA1's height of storytelling was its sequel, but I personally prefer the former, and the latter is still very playable today.

The other thing SA1 really did right was its gameplay. While not nearly as refined as, say, Mario 64, it managed to be a very fun game and set a great standard that a grand total of one later Sonic game stood up to. It also managed to actually keep up the fast pace that Sonic was known for throughout: even though it has multiple playstyles, all of the characters, with the exception of Big, were built for speed and were rewarded for being quick. This is one thing that even SA2 stumbled on, as any levels outside of Sonic's and Shadow's were... well, really slow!

Unfortunately, SA1's presentation, while fine for the time, doesn't really hold up now. The models are... bad... and certain character animations (like talking) are utterly atrocious. It's kind of hard to appreciate a game's story when your protagonist has a bad habit of looking like some kind of evil puppet in most cutscenes!

So SA1 is a flawed gem; a great game that, with some modern-day polish, could really shine! And what game does that sound like? Here's a hint: it starts with "The Legend of Zelda", ends in "Time", and is being remade for the 3DS. So, naturally, I would love to see SA1 get a similar treatment!

Outside of fixing some of the awful animations, I would like to see the actual gameplay polished a tad. It's great as-is, but making things a little less slippery and more predictable, like maybe adding the modern-day reticule to Sonic's homing attack, would go a long way. Obviously, Big's gameplay should be changed, as it stands out now as a slow distraction from the point of Sonic. Of course, this could be difficult, as Big is naturally a bulky, slow character... perhaps his gameplay could be akin to the classic Sonic water levels? They could be slower and more puzzle-based, and since Sonic Adventure doesn't feature any true underwater levels, Big could fill that void.

If Sega is willing to go beyond a normal port, SA3DS would be phenomenal, and possibly even a good way for them to go back to the Adventure games and learn from their level design. The only huge issue I can see is if Sega can't get back into the "groove" and ends up hurting the original design rather than enhancing it, but Sega hasn't done too badly recently. I think that, if they tried, they could really bring out a bit more shine from SA. And that would be great!

...though, since this all seems pretty unlikely at this point, I'll just have to hope Sonic Generations has a Sonic Adventure level or two!

Jameson's Five Rules of Sonic Musical Quality

DISCLAIMER: These rules are not meant to be literally factual and are merely my opinions stated in a factual manner to perhaps be moderately amusing. Thank you.

I have noticed that one of the things that Sonic games usually to pretty well with is their music quality. And thus, I have put up a list of things to test a song or Sonic game soundtrack with to see if it sucks or not. If you happen to find any exceptions to this list, please inform me and I will add it to the list or shoot it down. One last thing: the list goes in order of priority, so if your song is already awesome by rule #1, it can't be shot down by rule #3. Get it? I'll put examples at the end.

RULE #1: If a song is by Bentley Jones then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #2: If a song is by Crush 40 then it is automatically awesome.

RULE #3: If a song is a love/romantic/*ahem* "special friend" song, then it automatically sucks. The exceptions to this rule are the love songs in a few games that are more peppy and happy than really "romantic", such as the ones in Sonic R and "Follow Me" from Sonic Heroes.

RULE #4: Any Sonic game developed by Sega or Sonic Team will have at least a decent soundtrack. No guarantees for other companies.

RULE #5: It is difficult, but possible, to make an already good Sonic song worse in a remix. While I can't think of any instances of a remix being worse, I will leave this one open juuuuuust in case.

And there you have it! Okay, now examples:
"Dreams of an Absolution" (SONIC the Hedgehog (2006)) could fall under Rule #3, but is saved by Rule #1 and thus is awesome.
"Dear My Friend" (Sonic Unleashed) fails and sucks due to Rule #3.
The soundtrack for Sonic Chronicles has no guarantee for quality due to Rule #4. Sure enough, it had probably the worst soundtrack of any Sonic game ever.