Buying Things Can Be Experiences

A friend of mine, an individual much more wise than myself, once stated that "It's much better to spend your money experiencing things than buying things." Or something along those lines. I remember the sentiment, not the quote.

But that has a few issues. I'm 15, I don't have a job, and I can't drive by myself. So how am I going to go do anything if I can't go do anything? I mean, I could save up, but do you know how hard it is to save up 500 dollars to go somewhere?

But what can I do? Well, you can also have good memories buying gifts for people. I love buying gifts for people. I am generally happy, and buying stuff for myself will make me happier, but if I buy things for other people, not only am I making them happier, but I'm also showing them that I care, which in turn makes me happier.

The biggest gift I ever bought anyone was in 2017 when my friend wanted a game console but wasn't allowed to get a 360, so I got him a Wii. I got 4 Wii games, 4 GameCube games, 3 Virtual Console games, and anything else you'd need. It costs me probably around 300 dollars that I saved up for 4 months to get. I spent hours a day thinking about how happy he would be to get it. In the end I threw in a DS because I had a spare, and I think that may have helped. I put everything together one night. It took me hours to put the box together. Luckily I consider myself to be pretty good at putting boxes together. I gave it to him on Friday so he had the weekend to play around with it. But we had play practice that night, so I got there and he was super stoked to ask me about it and he was like "Are you sure you want me to have it?" and I was like "Well what am I gonna do with it?" I had so much fun doing that.

But would it have been as special if I had told him about it beforehand? No, it wouldn't. It would just be like "Oh cool now I have a Wii." But the experience of opening a big gift from someone you're close to really brings out a feeling of gratitude that you never really feel. Imagine if someone said they were gonna buy me a bunch of records and then they did. Would I feel special? Nah. Now imagine I get a box on my front door and it's from a friend. I open it and it has all my favorite albums.

What a great gift!

I would really feel loved. I would feel like my friends appreciate me a lot. And that's a feeling I really want to spread to others. So giving people the happiness that comes from getting a good gift is an experience for me in making them feel good. See how it works?

I'm working on buying another big gift right now. I can't tell you what it is, but I can confirm it's bigger and better than a Wii.

What Sonic Generations Should Have Been

This is less about the game itself and more about the surrounding details, okay?

Spoilers.

Sonic Generations was released in 2011 to pretty much unanimous praise. But do you know what platforms it was on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo 3DS. Do you know what platforms it should have been on? Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and PS Vita (as a launch title). The 360/PS3 version is great, but the 3DS version? Not so much. And with the Wii and Vita also available, the game itself could have been so much more.

First of all, we'll start with the PS3 version.

It features levels from all main series Sonic the Hedgehog titles- Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Heroes, Next-Gen, Unleashed HD, and Colors. Is this a bad lineup? Let's take a look at the levels chosen.

Green Hill
Chemical Plant
Sky Sanctuary
Speed Highway
City Escape
Seaside Hill
Crisis City
Rooftop Run Day
Planet Wisp

Yeah, I'd say this is a good lineup. It's missing a few key games, though; Sonic CD, Sonic Advance, Secret Rings, stuff like that. Now let's look at the 3DS version.

The 3DS features only 7 stages instead of 9. They are from Sonic 1, 2, 3K, Adventure 1 & 2, Rush, and Colors DS. We could've gotten more, but let's see what levels were chosen.

Green Hill
Casino Night
Mushroom Hill
Emerald Coast
Radical Highway
Water Palace
Tropical Resort

Oh, of the 7 levels, 3 are first levels. 4 if you divide up 3 and Knuckles. That's not the greatest.

So those are the 2 versions. What do I propose we do with the game?

For the PS3, not much. The game is very creative and has good control. What I would add is Stardust Speedway from Sonic CD, Hydrocity from Sonic 3, Westopolis from Shadow the Hedgehog, and Radiant Emerald from Sonic R as a race level.

For the 3DS, change the levels and the art design. The Modern Sonic levels looked good, but the Classic ones look too similar; they should have had more of a Sonic Advance style to differentiate it.

What levels would I pick? Here's a list.

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Game Gear
Aqua Lake - Sonic 2 on Game Gear
Sunset Park - Sonic Triple Trouble on Game Gear
Cosmic Casino - Sonic Pocket Adventure on Neo Geo Pocket Color
Ice Paradise - Sonic Advance 2 on Game Boy Advance
Toy Kingdom - Sonic Advance 3 on Game Boy Advance
Water Palace - Sonic Rush on Nintendo DS
Haunted Ship - Sonic Rush Adventure on Nintendo DS
Tropical Resort - Sonic Colors on Nintendo DS

And then the Wii. Why wasn't there a Wii version released? Sonic Colors was probably finished in early 2010 or even late 2009; they could have had time to finish a Wii version of Sonic Generations. They even had an engine built for Sonic Colors that they could have used. All they had to do was design the levels and add Classic Sonic. And since it's on the Wii, it can have different levels and give people a reason to buy both, just like Sonic Unleashed. How would that be built?

Well it would work very similarly to Sonic Colors. Running in the same engine and having a few shared cutscenes with the PS3 version. The levels would be as follows:

Green Hill - Sonic 1 on Genesis
Mystic Cave - Sonic 2 on Genesis
Stardust Speedway - Sonic CD on Sega CD
Hidden Palace - Sonic 3&K on Genesis
Windy Valley - Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast
Pyramid Cave - Sonic Adventure 2 on Dreamcast
Egg Fleet - Sonic Heroes on Nintendo GameCube
Deep Woods - Sonic and the Black Knight for Wii
Sweet Mountain - Sonic Colors for Wii

The Wii version would support the GameCube controller and the Classic Controller, but they are not required. You know what would be required? The Nunchuk. Sonic Colors didn't require the Nunchuk and the controls suffered for it. D-pads are not good for controlling characters in 3D Space (except for games like Bug!). The controls for the GameCube controller is the same as Sonic Colors or Sonic Unleashed Wii. The 2 schemes can be swapped in the menu. The Wii Remote & Nunchuk controls are as follows.
The stick moves Sonic.
The D-pad moves Sonic in Classic Stages if you so desire, or rotates the camera in Boost Stages.
A and 2 are jump/homing attack.
1 and Z are boost/spindash.
C is to ground pound.
+ and - are to pause.

The Wii version also supports multiplayer modes like race and battle from Sonic Heroes. A nunchuk is required for both players.

And finally, the Vita version.

For the Vita version, I would make it the same as the proposed 3DS version from above, but with updated graphics and textures. It would also look nicer due to the 544p OLED screen on the Vita. Hopefully that's enough to get people to buy it. That's why I would buy LEGO Batman 2 on the Vita- It's the 3DS version that I like, but with a better resolution.

So what would you have liked to see for Sonic Generations? Tweet me @Icystorm9 telling me (if you care). Goodbye!