RubyEclipse said:
Thinking back, a lot of things stand out in my eyes. The popcorn and the gingerbread men you run through/down in Sweet Mountain, the water currents in Aquatic Park, and the different use of the wisps in each level are just a few zone-unique gameplay elements that come to mind.
Yeah but none of that really defines a level. Those are more like pieces of flourish than they are core level mechanics. That fits in to the notion of each level looking unique visually but not feeling unique in terms of mechanics.
Going back to the Sonic Unleashed comparison, Chun-nan had the rotating platforms, the firecrackers, and the pagodas with grind rail rooftops... it was more than a unique visual motif. What you remember about Sweet Mountain there would be akin to the dragon roads in... well, Dragon Road. Visually inspired, but not really necessary to gameplay.
The only gameplay element Sweet Mountain has going for it over other planets are the jellybean rockets - and they're not used enough to really solidify the level's identity. The levels I most immediately remember are the ones with stand-out gameplay elements - for example, Asteroid Coaster's... uh, asteroid coaster. Many of the other planets are just a nearly-indistinguishable mush of grind rails, springs, trick launchers, homing attack chains, and so on.
Perhaps that's something Sonic Colors on the DS did better - each planet puts strict limits on what wisps are available for use. In Sweet Mountain on the DS, the only wisps that can be used are Void and Burst. Each planet introduces a single new wisp and teaches the player to use that wisp over the course of that world. Many of the planets in the Wii version blur together a lot more because you encounter very similar wisp puzzles multiple times across a number of different planets.
In a lot of ways, it's part of a larger problem that has plagued the Sonic franchise ever since it went 3D - taking emphasis away from unique level design and putting more of it on how the player uses the character. With Mario, you have a character that never changes. The Mario you start the game with is the Mario you end the game with. Therefore, Mario's a game about learning how to use a very simple character in a variety of different gameplay situations.
Sonic games, on the other hand, have gone down the path of constantly teaching the player new abilities. The Sonic you have at the end of the game is always completely different from the Sonic you start the game with, and most of the gameplay revolves around using Sonic's new abilities to augment a very... for lack of a better term, "generic" world. Almost every Sonic/Shadow level in Sonic Adventure 2 was just Speed Highway, over and over and over again. But you learn a new ability in every level - the bounce attack, the light attack, so on and so forth.
But I think you can have elements of both in one game - it just requires a little more creativity and a little more restraint not to just use a little bit of everything in every single zone.
