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!

What The Wii U Should Have Been

I'm not going to act like I'm smarter than the dozens of people that were working at Nintendo from 2011 to 2014. But now that I have history to reflect on, I think I have a few ideas that would have helped the Wii U not only sell better, but have a better library in the long run. I also got these ideas from other people that I know.

First of all, bundles.

What they should have done is have 3 bundles. The Basic, Standard, and Deluxe. The Basic Set is red and comes with just a Wii U Pro Controller, AV Cable, HDMI Cable, and Mini-USB Cable. It would cost $250 at launch.

Couldn't find a good image of a custom red Pro Controller online, so this will have to do.

Because it doesn't include the GamePad (which cost either 60 or 80 dollars to make, I don't remember), the price could be reduced significantly. But as a result, all games would need to do one of two things.
1) All games need to support the Pro Controller in one way or another.
2) All games that require the GamePad need to be clearly marked.

I think the second one is the best option, so the games requiring the GamePad won't be restricted because of the Pro Controller requirement. And if the second one were the case, I'm sure many more games would support the Pro Controller from the start.

The Second Bundle is the Standard Set. It costs 300 dollars and comes with everything that the current Basic Set comes with. It comes in 2 colors- white and red.

Nice looking console, isn't it?

The memory would be 16 gigabytes because I said so.

Then finally we have the Deluxe Edition. That's the same. It comes in either Black or White, just as the already-existing Deluxe Edition.

So those are the 3 bundles. I'm gonna go make some grilled cheese and come back to talk about the next part, reaching out to 3rd party developers.

Ah dang, I'm out of cheese slices. Oh well. So as I said, this section is about reaching out to 3rd party developers. They had a good start by getting SEGA games Bayonetta 2 and Sonic Lost World as exclusives, but they needed more. If they funded more exclusives or ports of 360 games, then the Wii U would have had the same advantage the Dreamcast would have had. If they had given companies like Rockstar and Activision money to make exclusives and port their older games, then the Wii U would have not only had the new games, but the best versions of these older games, as well as exclusives. And I think that would have pushed a good amount of people over to Nintendo's side this previous generation.

Some ports they could have had if they paid a small amount to the game developers:

Madden 25 (Electronic Arts)

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Activision)

(i honestly got lazy w/ this one) Dishonored (Bethesda Softworks)

Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)

(Didn't actually design this, blame someone else) Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar Games)

Resident Evil 6 (Capcom)

So now that I've touched on ports that they could have funded, I'll talk about exclusives that they could have funded.

Yakuza 1 & 2 Remastered technically already exists and is an exclusives, but it's only available in Japan.

Jet Set Radio 3, boiii

Another LEGO game, like LEGO City Undercover, such as a LEGO Pirates-type thing, would be greatly appreciated. I would buy that.

Why don't they pay EA to be competent for once? That would be a sight to behold.

And finally, the thing that everyone whines about - marketing.

If they had advertised it correctly, then the Wii U could have been saved, even without the previously mentioned changes. I remember for Thanksgiving 2014 or 2015 (I don't remember), I went to my cousin's house. He has cable, so I watched The Simpsons on FXX. And do you know what I saw? I saw ads for the PlayStation 4. I saw them all the time that weekend. Do you know how many ads I've seen on TV for the Wii U? None. And that's dumb. The Wii U has many features that are unique to it, too. Like full backwards compatibility. And 5-player support. The Pro Controller, the best controller of the 8th generation. All of the great 360 games that are best on the Wii U. And most of all, all of the great exclusives like Pikmin 3, Splatoon, Sonic Lost World, and Runbow Pocket. With all of these great things, you'd think they'd advertise a lot, and you'd think they'd advertise smart. But that didn't happen.

But what's done is done. And the Wii U is done. Nintendo is likely not making any more Wii U things ever again. But that's okay. Because of the Wii U, we now have the Switch. Nintendo had to fall to learn how to make the Switch such a great platform. And I'm glad that they did.

E3 Wishes and Predictions - Electronic Arts

I wish Electronic Arts would go out of business, but that's not happening, so here's what I want from them at E3.

Electronic Arts should clarify if Fifa 18 on the Switch runs in Frostbite or not. That's very important information to state. I hope it does run in Frostbite, but I don't know.

Then I want more information on Star Wars Battlefront 2, so I know if it's worth buying or not. I also want a port to the Switch, but we'll see.

Here's the cover of Battlefront 2 from the Battlefront series that people actually like.

And finally, Mass Affect Andromeda for the Wii U. Even if it's a cut down version, it's at least something. And the Wii U can definitely run graphics like that; heck, the OG Xbox probably can.

But what do I expect from Electronic Arts? Well, let's see.

The Switch version of Fifa 18 is running in the Xbox 360 engine. Battlefront 2 is only on Xbox One and PS4, not the Switch, and it's not as good as the original Battlefront 2. Mass Affect Andromeda is being forgotten; nobody will even mention it.  They'll probably talk about Madden and some other boring sports games or something. That's about it.

I don't like Electronic Arts; but I hope they can at least have an interesting show.

E3 Wishes and Expectations - Microsoft

So the one company I'm most excited to see (and will likely be the most disappointed with) is Microsoft with the Xbox division unveiling the Xbox Scorpio, a new console from Microsoft that includes 4K gaming with a wonderful framerate and the ability to do a lot more than the Xbox One ever could.

What I hope the Scorpio is, is a super powerful console that can play Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games using original hardware. (Okay, maybe emulation for the OG Xbox since I would prefer to play all of my OG Xbox games on the OG Xbox anyway; it has a better controller than the Xbox One.) Aside from that, it's supposed to have an LCD screen on the front. With that, I'm assuming that the Dreamcast emulator for Xbox One will use that for VMU displays, although I'm not sure how well that would work. Then I might finally buy an Xbox One.

That is, if it's just an Xbox One.

If it's a new console for a new generation (which I don't think it is), then I hope it can play a bunch of good games with exclusives that I'd actually care about (which the Xbox One does not have), a few Xbox One games (so I can play the one Xbox One exclusive I care about, Halo Wars 2), and all OG Xbox games. And who knows, maybe some Sega Saturn games through emulation or something.

Either way, I think the controller needs to be fixed. The menu and perspective buttons or whatever they're called need to be changed back to Start and Back. There was no reason to change that. Also, the triggers feel very loose on the Xbox One controller and it makes me uneasy, like I'm going to break them. If they make them more substantial, that would be better.

Ehh, the PS4 triggers would be preferrable. The Xbox One triggers feel very loose, like they're going to break off at any moment.

— Josh (@Icystorm9) April 15, 2017

The D-Pad on the Xbox One controller is also awful. I personally felt that the D-Pad on the original Xbox controller (the one that everyone hates) is the best. And since they can totally do this, they should make it nearly identical to that on the Wii U Pro Controller, which is, in my opinion, the best D-pad on any modern console, and the Saturn D-pad would be a bit unconventional on that type of controller.

But what I think I will get is just a more powerful version of the Xbox One S, which would be a shame. If that's what it is, I would not buy that, probably ever. Oh well.

So next time I'll be talking about Sony, I think. So show up later, or just read that one if it's already posted. Okay bye