Early Access: It's Not Easy Being Blue

I'm increasingly starting to feel like the best mould for a 3D Sonic game might actually be Prince of Persia 2008. Semi-open world traversal that's basically just a bunch of thinly-veiled QTE sequences could let you experience high speed in a cinematic way without dealing with a constantly-moving camera. You've even got Tails to follow you around and do the Elika stuff. Replace the motes of Light with rings and you're basically done. About the only thing it wouldn't handle (in a way that's immediately obvious at least) would be combat in a way that feeds into the traversal; having to grind to a halt to fight enemies in semi-contained battle arenas works when you're a dude who's pulled out a sword, but when your main attack - spinning around really fast - is also one of your primary modes of propulsion then it gets complicated. The homing attacks in Sonic Adventure (my only first-hand experience with 3D Sonic) were an attempt to keep momentum while defeating enemies, but even those had a brief second of downtime that gave combat a stop-start problem. But it might feel like a bit of a cop-out to just have "kill enemy" as just another QTE press as you move around. PoP '08 had you entirely swap control styles between traversal and combat, in a way that wouldn't feel as organic with Sonic, where keeping up the momentum is the primary goal and the main place, in my opinion, where Sonic games have failed in the past.

Hahaha! Oh, this was joyful. I have newfound respect for all the shit that went into these games now, and the whole conversation about "Why don't they stop trying to reinvent Sonic every release" is better contextualised in this view. I do like the idea of silly videos as breaks from serious projects. Why not have fun on the channel every now and then, right?

Another video already??? Also, for the record, I've enjoyed all of your videos, especially for their variety and diversity.

You have this incredible ability to make me interested in topics I otherwise would have never examined. Your critical analysis using the Beginner's Guide (though I've never played it) didn't teach me anything new, but it put what I already knew into order. This on, on the other hand, might seem like Sonic 101 to a diehard fan, but might have the same clarifying effect on them. Your videos, even if they are split between three different topics, as you say, are versatile enough that I think they're worthwhile to both the experienced and the unaware alike.