HELLO, FELLOW RPGMFANS :)

It was awful though. They did an admirable job of trying to break the mold, but they didn't break it in the right way, so it still didn't feel like Sonic at all. And then about a third of the way through the game they ran out of gameplay in a really bad way, so that by the end you wanted to kill yourself. And then the game's ending is the world suddenly being taken over by robots, with the text "To be continued in part 2!" Which will never come because part 1 sucked so bad. So in short, it's just like a typical RPG Maker game, except it has original graphics.

And speaking of Sonic Chronicles, I don't know who was in charge of the sound in that, but some executions are in order.

I did like the hand drawn maps, though, and I'll probably end up doing something similar one of these days.

Sonic and RPGs just aren't easy to mix, I'm afraid. And believe me, I've spent a lot of time thinking about this already. Sonic's not like Mario, where you can stick him in whatever genre you want and make it work out. That is because Sonic has a certain part of his identity that can't be translated into some genres. Motion. Sonic is all about motion. And RPGs are about fighting in static areas, sometimes not moving at all. And even if you implement platforming elements, as you were saying, there's still two very large problems with that.

One, RPG battles will break the flow. Even if you make accurate Sonic platforming (which you won't, more on that later), the battles force you to stop. That is frustrating. Sonic Heroes played like an Adventure game with a team mechanic that left much to be desired, and it suffered a lot because of precisely that. There you were, running around at the speed of sound, and suddenly the game would lock you in a square room with three enemies with fucktons of HP, and not open the door until you dealt with them. That was frustrating as hell, and RPG battles would be even more frustrating.

You can't make accurate Sonic platforming. Not even Sega can. Ask the fans about Sonic 4 or Generations' classic levels and they'll tell you that they got the physics wrong. (Although Generations did a better job, its worst sin is the spin dash being overpowered.) Sonic style platforming is all about the physics, mostly momentum. Downward slopes give you momentum, upward slopes take your momentum. Jumping from a slope changes your jump's trajectory. Being able to cross a loop of vertical wall depends on how much momentum you has when you got to it. Take the lazy way and make something with only horizontal slopes or slopes that don't influence your momentum, and all you have is Mario with a Sonic skin. Nobody would like that.

I have given up on the idea of a Sonic RPG long ago, for the reasons above. And if even freaking Bioware couldn't do it, what makes you think you can?

You know in what genre Sonic would look good, though? Fighting games! The cast is crazy enough to make an interesting game. You have the expert martial artist that only shows his martial arts expertise by punching things really hard, and somehow managed to learn martial arts despite living the first 16 years of his life as the only person in a floating island, with nobody to teach him martial arts. You have the girl with a humongous hammer. You have the ninja. The expert martial artist who actually had training by the military, and for some reason only uses kicks. The science experiment that throws energy blasts and manipulates the flow of time. The pyrokinetic. The killer robot with more weapons in its arms than could logically fit inside. The kid gadgeteer with a freak mutation that lets him fly. The huge crocodile detective. The fat cat with a fishing rod voiced by Duke Nukem.

Yep, crazy enough to work. I, for one, would love to see the Sonic cast in a Arc Syste Works style hectic and over the top fighting game.

(And yes, I know Sonic already had one and a half fighing games.)