Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), SEGA

Why SCORE matters in Sonic...

    Something I have noticed in discussions/reviews about older Sonic games that are "pre-letter ranking systems" is the dismissal of score. One point I often hear is that score is just a holdover from the arcade era and is pretty archaic. On the one hand I understand where this point comes from, but... I don't think the reasoning is correct and in fact massively downplays the importance of score in these older games. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say this older scoring system is significantly better than the letter ranking systems introduced in Sonic Adventure 2.

What is the point of score in classic Sonic titles?

    The core reason score exists is to act as the objective of the game, but also to allow the player to approach the game however they want. The best way to understand the objective of a game are the HUD elements/end level elements, in the HUD of the classic Sonic titles (this being Sonic 1) you can see it points out score, time, and rings.

 

Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), SEGA

    Additionally in the end screens you are given a ring bonus and a time bonus, both of which contribute to score overall.

 

Sonic The Hedgehog (1991), SEGA

 

    When considering point distribution as well, rings and time in general are the highest point givers and the most abundant (in the case of rings).

Sonic the Hedgehog (16-bit), Sonic Retro

    (As a little side note, whilst enemies give points and can even give a lot, in general they are less abundant than rings and to get the upper end of points that end up being a fraction of having a good amount of rings/getting a good time it requires a lot more effort and is much rarer given enemy placements.)  

     

    What this establishes is that the higher end goal of Sonic is to play fast in addition to collecting many rings (with a minimum of 50 to get the Chaos Emeralds given how many points they are worth too). However, it is not a fixed rule, the game never makes the player feel like not doing one of these is wrong. Failing to get the Chaos Emeralds does not become an issue until the literal very end of the game where the game just pushes you to try again showing that there is more to learn, the end of act bonuses are just that: bonuses, not a massive deal. What this does is make the objective feel more open ended as you can pick and choose what you want the goal for Sonic to be. 

 

    The reason this makes score so good is that the game doesn't have a leaderboard with preset scores, the only person you will be competing with is yourself since you have to take note outside the game, which means that your only competition is yourself and therefore the score that you are competing against is your own as opposed to an imposed goal by the developer.

 

    For example if you are the type who just wants to speedrun who doesn't care about the Chaos Emeralds or rings, then your score will reflect a speedrunning gameplay style, so if you note that down then it gives you a goal to constantly work towards improving that will be set by yourself based on the way you like to play. 

 

    This in general is why I think score matters to the original Sonic games and why so much of the conversation around these games is spent figuring out what the goal of the game is or the "correct" way to play. But, the truth is there isn't one specific way to approach these games and score plays an important role in establishing a more free form approach to the objective of a Sonic game by essentially setting a goal to constantly improve upon, set by your own way of playing. 

 

What makes this better than letter ranks to me? 

    In my opinion, letter based ranking systems make the objectives of the game far more rigid as giving out a letter rank relies on fulfilling some specific metric imposed by the developers meaning the amount of freedom in approaching the game is much narrower as well as the variety of skill levels becoming narrower.

 

    Looking at speedruns of Sonic games for example, you can see that in games with letter rankings playing for speed almost never gives the player an S-Rank, and in some games can even give incredibly low ranks

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  SA2B: Hero Story Speedrun, Katie4

  

  Sonic Heroes - Team Dark Speedrun, Razor

Sonic '06 - Sonic's Story (Any%), Nick867

Sonic Unleashed Any% Speedrun, sharu6262

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    A lot of requirements for the highest ranks or even just decent ranks in some cases are often rigid and encourage you to essentially play the game in a very specific way or else the game either tells you it's bad through a low rank, or keeps you from reaching an S-Rank even when playing at world record pace.

     

    What I feel this does is makes the player play the game in one specific way, the letter ranks are far more in your face and are a direct statement of whether your gameplay is good or bad, even the reaction from Sonic/other characters on the screen directly correlates to this and can end up making the player feel bad, just for playing in a way that is contrary to what the game wants. Granted I don't think this is a fundamental issue and in a sense the try again screens from the classic games are kind of similar, but I think there is a difference. When you get a rank on every level that judges how close you played the game to what the game wants it pushes you to then in turn play exactly how the game wants, there isn't much room for freedom. 

     

    Ranking systems make more sense for games geared towards hardcore gamers like Pizza Tower, Ultrakill, or Cuphead where playing a more rigid way doesn't matter as much when it's geared towards more skilled players, but for a series like Sonic the approach is supposed to have wider appeal. Which brings me onto the issue of difficulty in post-Sonic Colours ranking systems which are far more basic, forgiving and willing to give an S-Rank to anyone who even has a rudimentary understanding of video games, when you have a ranking system like this in a series built for wide appeal, the natural conclusion is to gear it towards lower skill levels which can alienate higher skilled players. Relating this to the cognitive flow graph:

Cognitive Flow: The Psychology of Great Game Design

    The ranking system can be related to this, a game like SA2's system creates anxiety for lower skill players as their poor gameplay or even just not playing the specific way the game wants leads to chastising through a snide comment from the character and an E/D rank, on the flipside with newer games, ranking systems create boredom for higher skill players as even basic knowledge gives them an S-Rank, when you gear a game towards one of these specific demographics it's fine, but Sonic games are specifically trying to reach mass appeal, but regardless this brings me back to score.

 

    The reason score worked is because this created a wide skill ceiling/floor, pretty much anybody can play Sonic and achieve fulfilment whether it is a casual player who likes just looking around and gathering rings, or a speedrunner who just skips over everything, the game doesn't make a major push in one specific direction as you aren't aiming for a specific letter rank geared around one playstyle... you are competing against your own score based on your playstyle. To visualise this I have created a graph that is quite similar to the flow graph:

    This graph is essentially the same as the cognitive flow graph but with just one axis, this represents essentially the highest skill ceiling and lowest skill floor. With a score system I imagine the distribution of who the specific system accomodates looks something like this:

    Given how flexible the system is, it accomodates low skill players by not creating too much pressure for poor play/playing differently than intended, but also provides incentives to improve as well as for higher players to constantly be improving on, but none of these are imposed heavily allowing a lot of freedom in terms of the player's goal in the game. I envision this like a window, in regards to score based objectives, because of how it isn't in the player's face, the window is wide open there is a massive range of skill levels who can approach these level. Compare this to how I imagine the letter rank systems:

 

The windows are far narrower and concentrated in a small spot, either alienating casual players, or alienating high level players, this isn't even mentioning people who want to stray from the objective like wanting to speedrun which is still high skill but with no reward. 

 

Conclusion

    The score systems are important in the earlier Sonic games as they provide much more freedom in terms of approaching the game whilst also showing what the devs want the player to do, however it's up to them if they want to follow that path or do their own thing. This system accomodates both higher and lower skilled players as well as those who aren't interested in the objective ordained by the developers, a few 3D games even abide by this like Sonic Adventure and Sonic Frontiers which despite me not liking very much, could explain why they are so beloved because similar to the 2D games, they don't really force you to play in one specific way. This in turn is why I also find it superior to letter rankings, whilst that system can do a good job making the intended objective more clear and thus encourage higher skilled play, in a series like Sonic that often falls flat as unlike other game series it still needs to be approachable by casual players and thus it either needs to be geared towards them leading to the lack of challenge in more recent titles since Colours, or they feel alienated like the pre-Colours games where it alienates both casuals and players who want to play their own way alike, regardless of skill level something I feel the score system remedies.

     

    That being said the system isn't perfect, the lack of a scoreboard, even an empty one to put your own scores on means that a lot of people ignore this even back in the day you really don't hear stories of people taking notes of their Sonic scores, but I think an expansion of this system to make it more apparent in the game will help remedy the perception away from it being an "arcade era" relic and more towards being an integral part of informing the objective of the game itself, hence why score matters in Sonic.