Sonic's Ranking System | Replayability's Secret Ingredient 

That's a BASED thumbnail :) Off topic a bit perhaps here but what's your favorite Sonic games? Maybe three for 2D and three for 2.5/3D. Just something I'm always interested in :)

I remember trying to get S ranks in the DS version of Sonic Colors, it was super fun to try to get them, because they were pretty hard to attain!!

The things you’ll find on your homepage. I ended up watching the whole thing because it was how I’ve always felt about the replay value. I miss Sonic Adventure 2’s different mission types as well. With the high difficulty of stages like 1-2 in Frontiers, you may not get the rush of seeing “Radical!” pop up on your screen, but it essentially employs the same necessity to master the game’s mechanics in order to reach the goal in the desired time. So I’m ok with pure level design and challenge replacing that feature if the trick system and nifty words don’t return. But I wish they would also include varied missions again. That’s been a greatly welcome feature in Origins for me. However, at least in SA2, a certain upgrade was required to unlock missions beyond the 3rd in each stage, I believe. Regardless of what stage you were playing or with which character, you needed the upgrade to find the mini ruin and unlock a harder path to find the lost chao. I think that was it, at least, it’s been a while. So that’s the only thing I’ll disagree with you about because I really liked that aspect of the game. I didn’t even know about some of the potential upgrades for years after I first played SA2. They really encouraged exploration to be found, and usually offered benefits that really helped or changed how you can interact with the game. Like Sonic’s magic hands, the light speed charge attack, and Knuckles’ ability to breathe under water. (I found that one AFTER completing the final level…) Sonic games remain some of my favorite in no small part due to replay-ability. It seems that Sega and Sonic Team have figured it out and hopefully continue to improve on what they’ve given us with Frontiers. The fact that one game alone can account for all extremes of your meter is pretty cool for the players. Great video

Great video! It shows you know about this topic

Fun fact: sonic lost world does have a ranking system how do you access it? Well just go to time trials and select a level and now that level has a ranking system and lost world's ranking system is similar to frontier's cyberspace ranking system.

As much as I enjoy the ranking system in Sonic Frontiers, I do miss the emphasis on style points and being rewarded for finesse. I hope the trick system will be implemented in boost stages again. The extreme mode times in Sonic Frontiers was a great step in pushing the difficulty. This was a fascinating video! Thanks for such a good breakdown of previous Sonic ranking systems 👍

That's Eggman! I wonder where's Sonic?

1:08 Tbh, I will never really understand that idea. It just encourages bloat and filler. Or in some extreme cases, endgame grinding to oblivion because the hardest challenges care more about setup than skill.(I am currently still playing Xenoblade 2, lol.) 1:34 I legitimately got that by just 100%ing one save file and then messing around a bit for a failed attempt at the question of "can you beat most of the ultimate cup Z mostly just spamming B?"(Which btw, that experiment failed because setting it up took too long, not because I genuinely gave up on it) Also, I will never 100% this game again, lmao. 2:36 Really, there is only one factor in my opinion and that is being able to cheese it. Sure, a lot of ranks in Shadow the Hedgehog and almost all of them in Gens are too easy, but they still got the basic jist down, they just needed to be way stricter. Sonic Forces absolutely blew it tho, because it basically made it impossible for any S-rank to be fair and balanced. How? Well, you see, ranks get converted to Avatar EXP and there is a daily mission-multiplicator for EXP...that gets applied during rankings-calculations instead of after. Yes. I'm not joking.(I'm fairly sure they never patched it either) Another reason why I am saying that episode Shadow is the actual game we paid for and the rest is just a free bonus, because those three stages cannot be cheesed like that, because they take place on a seperate version of the worldmap that does not have daily avatar missions. 7:34 Tbh, I prefer that because they are supposed to be two diffrent sets of optional things to do, not the same thing. 8:04 I mean, yeah. At some points one even has to deliberately play slower and overall worse to get an S-rank, which seems antithetical to the formula. It is just overbloated. Like, if they removed the quickstep bonus and lowered each requirement by that amount in Colors Ultimate, I would have considered that an objective improvement, because having to spam quickstep and thus have less control over the immediate movement is just dumb. 13:21 I never played Unleashed, but I know that I already hate this. Having numerical increases in a speedrun-centric playstyle like this is just bad gamedesign in my eyes, full stop. I like Secret Rings, but it also has the exact same issue(Which people ironically call out there, but never in Unleashed. Sounds biased). If a stage was designed around a lower speed, the higher speed will make S-ranks too easy but getting through the stage itself too hard because Sonic is out of control. If the stage was designed around a higher speed, the lower speed will make some scriptings fail and make the S-rank impossible, there is just no winning. (Also, Colors can flush itself down the toilet with how it restricts wisps at first...even tho they are not only required for S, they are also the most fun part of the game.) I am largely fine with the werehog having a level-system, because it is meant to be a more lax and casual mode, the ranking system is not meant to be as limiting or challenging in it. Though I wish there was some sort of system to play with base stats with matching ranks. Sure, the gameplay would need reworking then to not make enemies into damage sponges, but I would dig it. 15:08 Which is why I will never bother unlocking it. I already played Team Dark once and that is enough Sonic Heroes for me.(I did not even go for rankings, because it was enough pain as-is, lol) 17:21 Honestly not mine, I genuinely thought it was more obnoxious than anything. The next paragraph in this comment gives the answer to why: The S-rank is basically the ceiling of the stage, there is no real improvement to be made after it.(Using normal gameplay. Obviously, the homing dash or the spindash might have something else to say, but eh.) On a closing note, I think Unwiished did the rankings pretty good btw. It is technically purely time based like Cyberspace(and appearently LW according to another comment), but its style is instead pushed through the stages and gameplay itself instead of what arbitrary stuff the devs considered a cool maneuver. There are a large amount of shortcuts, tricks and masterychecks in each run, which results in how one needs to either master the stage or the game at large to get an S-rank and if one got both down, one can push much further beyond and aim for a new personal best. Imo, that is the best way to handle a ranking system: Have it not be the ceiling of the game so there is reason to return afterwards, but have it removed from the floor enough to where it is challening to get for the first time. 19:04 Ok, one last thing, that does not really happen in Shadow, so I have to say "bruh" as a Shadow-fan, do not put it in the same category as Heroes and 06 here.(Minus the Dark Mission in "The Doom". Everyone can agree that one needs to burn in super hell)

no Lost World or Secret Rings we’ll get em next time

Gonna have to disagree on the mindset. Rankings in games are supposed to encourage skill with systems to back up the style and help guide players towards the intended paths sometimes not having only one path which are actually the best ranking systems imo as not forcing one way to be played can encourage more diversity and experimentation as well. Sonic adventure 2 forces you to deliberately slow down to kill a couple of enemies in an even slower way not touching the ground for A rank actions and you can't miss a golden beetle towards the end which can trivialize getting an A rank as well. The issue with this style of speed ranking is only metal harbor really supports this in a way that won't greatly slow the player down when going for a rank while every other stage has enemies laid out in ways or things like pyramid cave hoops where you are gonna have to stop moving to then get enough points for a rank. The movement mechanics and options already aren't super engaging and the level design isn't the best which seems to encourage going as fast as possible with a ranking system that punishes speed and skill as well as players time which by players time i mean your time playing the game not time in the stages. Mech stages want you to play super slow and try to lock on to multiple enemies but the shooting itself isn't mechanically engaging although the level design does accommodate this style really well. Only Treasure hunting got good ranking which is random with how hard or easy it can be which isn't great and wouldn't be a problem had the emerald radar been nerfed. Colors ranking is extremely cheesable and bad too. Color bonus farming is a thing and the devs made spots where certain wisps would infinitely respawn. Lost World Time trials is some of the hardest challenges in a sonic game period like the devs forced you to learn speedrun strats that most casuals would never know how to do. unleashed had a pretty good ranking system and was on the cusp of something. Advance 3 medal system was good too. Ranking systems with scores involved need to incentivize and encourage the style and not always only encouraging one style of play. I am not gonna then mention games like DMC like some might do because DMC doesn't encourage getting the highest style well actually and there are many ways to cheese SSS in the games in general one being royal guard and in 3 and 5 you are discouraged from fighting every encounter since one A rank can cancel the s rank for the stage since i t factors in the recent rank from the recent encounter to encounters after taking out certain mandatory required ones for the highest rankings. I also think bayo ranking and most platinum action game rankings suck as well as it forces one way of playing and by one way of playing in Bayo's case for best rankings is no damage and spamming only 1-3 loops over an over again without experimenting much since not all loops and combos were created equally on top of pretty strict times requirements and some other things or its not possible once postgame really looking at you astral chain and having time be a large factor in rankings where the more time in combat the more you can build up your rank but upgrading legions to max and even without modifiers they just destroy early game chapters so now you are locked out of platinums because you chose to upgrade legions which you are forced to in order to fight a super cool postgame superboss which requires max everything and all legions being built to their fullest potential. Frontiers times are pretty good on extreme mode for the cyberspace rankings. I also don't think the rewards for most games are that great or the journey to the reward makes the reward not feel as fun and sometimes once you get to the reward its been invalidated by something else or it comes far too late to appreciate and enjoy. Ran across many of these issues with rewards. No i don't think Green Hill in SA2 was ever that cool. Xenoblade is notorious for locking stuff in postgame for better and worse post Xenoblade2 that is. My favorite ranking systems in games has to probably be Megaman Zero and ZX games, Pizza Tower, Hi Fi Rush, Scarlet Nexus and yes i am counting the vision simulator stuff. Also to anyone reading this thanks and please play Scarlet Nexus. Megaman Zero ranks you based on speed, weapons used, damage taken and how much cyber elves were used and levels put enemies in positions where if you learn the levels you can kill enemies swiftly without losing your pace. ZX does most of the same excluding cyber elf penalties and there is a system involving bosses where if you take them out without ever hitting their weak spots then you get the armors without having to upgrade them which can be a large challenge in of themselves. A common theme with all my mentions of good ranking systems is the game accommodates and builds its levels and gameplay with them in mind leading to a far more fulfilling experience. Scarlet Nexus ranking in vision sim is based on brain crushes, time, damage taken and items used where using items penalizes you, damage dealt and damage taken. Hi Fi Rush similar to megaman zero games. Also in Scarlet Nexus you can get an S rank even with a bad time and this is actually great because it allows players to approach getting s ranks in a multitude of different ways leading to much more nuance and deph in the ranking system based off your builds, and how well you play in general with no favored way to get the highest ranks and the game is constantly encouraging this build diversity mindset thats used in its vision sim rankings. Also Shadow the hedgehog had a great idea with its ranking system. Not a fan of heroes ranking for similar reasons to not liking Sa2's and Heroes ranking is even more biased and bad imo since having everyone at level 3 can sometimes outright guarantee a ranks. I could talk about the rewards for the highest ranks in the games with rankings i love but it would probably take too much time as is which this comment could be called an essay or i feel the satisfaction of getting the best ranks is so good even if the rewards were bad it wouldn't matter much to me at least and didn't go deep about pizza tower ranking system as i feel most people probably know it so i don't feel i have to explain what makes it good.