I was just playing Episode Shadow on Forces this morning (I wanted to hear the Rhythm & Balance and Supporting Me remixes and figured I’d play lol) and noticed it didn’t do it there as well. So it’s probably a carry over from that game engine. I don’t really like it, but at least in Frontiers you can move the camera freely. Still not great though.
Honestly I have faith in Cyberspace. These are beginning levels (though even if the 2D levels are the result of that being an early build I'm still a bit disappointed that relying boost pads even when they attempting him momentum physics in 2D again) If this clip tells me anything its that these levels won't be like Forces level design https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l4yqrazXZRE
Honestly...i am more surprised that people here consider it a problem, wasn't it widely considered that blind homing attacks were more confusing?
I’m gonna have to agree yeah. Why would one even want to homing attack off screen enemies in the first place? I’ll admit I didn’t even know this was a limitation in Forces, since I…never tried doing it
It was in the final section of Shadow’s jungle level where you have to homing attack balloons and I was trying to change my path since I was too low to reach the trick ring (what do we call the booster rings?). I’m not sure other applicable parts of boost games, but in a 3D combat focused game, I can think of plenty of scenarios in which you’d want target something off-screen. Let’s say you’re fighting a group and you isolated one to finish off and want to quickly move back to the remainders. Or you overshoot a floating bounce pad after jumping off something and want to turn and homing attack it before you fall completely.
You know, if there was a method of playing a bunch of cyberspace levels back to back without having to go back into the open world or navigate menus a la the Egg Shuttle in Colors, then that would probably alleviate my biggest gripe with them, that being the short length. If there are truly 7-15 levels per island, let me chain them together with the smallest interruption possible. It would probably even help with the overall cyberspace motif, jumping from locale to locale without warning.
Those mini games actually look pretty cute, I like that the Kocos have different shapes and flora on them. Also I guess this is what they meant when they said there are multiple different ways to get emeralds... as one of the comments on that YouTube video pointed out, you can either risk your life traveling through Cyberspace and fighting killer robots, or you can.... take the path of least resistance. Tbh it's interesting that someone found these minigames, they must be pretty out-of-the-way / far into the demo for nobody to find them or even mention seeing them.
I didn't quote you or say it was you. The game looks fun to me and honestly it's getting tiresome coming on here and everytime you reply to me it's about how the game looks so awful to you. Feel how you want I just think for some fans a lot of the issues come from still not being their Adventure 3 or fully original Boost game with Generation quality level design, and I think that's fair. I just hope they can find a way to enjoy the end product regardless.
Someone played a speedrun of the demo, getting through Amy's sidequest and managing to talk to Sage on the map! They also managed to get to the City Escape Cyber Space portal, though they never enter it. It takes 4 Vault Keys to unlock instead of Portal Gears.
Ya, we've been making excuses as to why each iteration of this play style doesn't work the entire time too.
You shouldn't speak for others lol. People loved Day-time Unleashed so much that Sonic Team made Colors and were praised for it. Then they made Generations and it is generally considered a great if not the best 3D Sonic game. Then Sonic Team made Lost World, for some reason, and Forces, which is the worst iteration of the boost games. No one was "making excuses" for Unleashed, Colors, and Generations. People liked those games. Like I said, claiming that it was the "wrong direction" because Frontiers, where it's not even the focus, may do it poorly, is like saying Adventure is "the wrong direction" because '06 is bad. There's "this thing is bad because it was done bad" and "this thing is bad because it fundamentally doesn't work."
Classic stages in Forces were bad, man, the classic 2D games must have been the wrong direction for the series
While VectorCNC's making a pretty weak point that completely ignores the issues that fans of Unleashed and Generations have with the Cyberspace levels, is this not also speaking for others? Not everyone liked Unleashed, or Colors, or Generations; and not everyone hated 06, or Forces. Small pet peeve side-tangent: "Some unspecific amount of people liked X" doesn't mean X is "good". "Some unspecific amount of people didn't like X" doesn't mean X is "bad". Either it works for you and so you like it, or it doesn't work for you and so you don't like it. It may be liked by a lot of people, or even most people (if we could somehow acquire such data), but then we're simply saying that it's "popular", to which "good" still doesn't add any semantic value. "Good" and "bad", in discussions of art (in this case, Sonic games) are practically semantically-empty adjectives that only really raise the temperature of discussions. People have spent thousands of years arguing what makes a piece of art "good", and it usually involves replacing some or another adjective (which actually does contain semantic value) with the word "good". In terms of communicating effectively, we could just cut to the chase and say what we mean to say by "good".
Saying that people liked Unlesshed, Colors, and Generations isnt speaking for others, im repeating what players, reviewers, and fans have said. Those were well-recieved games. They were popular. That is why SEGA made many games of that nature, and we know what they do when people DON'T like a style of game. "Not everyone" liked those games, but we can form a general consensus based on stated opinions, including critical and user reviews and impressions. Nevermind that "people liked them" doesn't mean they were good, but Vector's argument is that because people dislike a poor implementation of an idea, then it was retroactively never good, which itself can be countered by pointing out that people do and did like them otherwise. Saying "we've been making excuses as to why each iteration of this play style doesn't work the entire time too" not only presumes what people think but WHY they think it. It presumes that people not only dislike those games but "made excuses", which I don't even know what they mean about that, though I guess that's their way of saying "people who liked them didn't *really* like them."
I mean, when was the last time you actually looked at the critical and user reviews/impressions for Unleashed??? Hell, even Colors had lukewarm critical reviews on it's release, but Unleashed was downright trashed by a lot of people. The boost formula has had it's fair share of detractors over the years. I personally liked how Unleashed approached it and honestly am not a fan of how it's been watered down since, but there have been plenty of people who have criticized it's gameplay style since it came out, often citing legitimate issues that continue to be an issue, and I think it's fair to keep bringing them up if they continue to exist. It's fine that you like them, but don't let that blind you from seeing the big picture.
Unleashed got trashed for the slow, repetitive, and boring Werehog stages, and explicitly NOT the boost stages. That specific feedback is exactly why Sonic Team made Colors, a game made entirely of Unleashed's daytime stages. Colors got several 8s and 9s and was the first 3D game to make it green on Metacritic sknce Adventure 2. Colors Ultimate had similar scores for the PS4 version, likely because it is the least glitchy version, which also shows that Colors stood the test of time critically. The Switch port got a worse average, but many reviews specifically state that it is because it is a worst port of a game they otherwise enjoy. We had four boost games in a row (barring Lost World) because people generally liked the formula.
I just don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be. Mookey already mentioned how badly Unleashed was trashed when it came out, but Sega also famously doesn't follow up on extremely well-received games. See: Generations and Mania. It's good to try and get a sense of a general consensus, but results will always be limited. Within a fandom you're going to get wildly different opinions on games, because there are several different communities. And even within each of those communities, opinions will still vary tremendously (look at the ongoing tier lists thread here, for instance). You can try and base on review scores, but not every game is on as many platforms, and in cases like Steam games, negative reviews often have nothing to do with the merits of the core gameplay. Sometimes there's a mountain of "I'll change my score to positive if they remove Denuvo" type reviews. On top of that, the "Boost" gameplay is usually not the only gameplay component, so a score for the overall game doesn't necessarily reflect how they rate the "behind the back going fast" moments in particular. And while the very broad, overall framework of Colors is held in common with the likes of Unleashed and Generations, it's executed very differently. So I hesitate to say that Sega made Colors because Unleashed was positively received, when, A: it wasn't by the press, and B: Colors didn't do what people tend to praise Unleashed for (lotta racing-platforming). I do sorta agree with your point though. The Werehog seemed especially unpopular, and that's never come back. On the other hand, combat has returned for some reason regardless. When Classic Sonic came back in Sonic Forces, I mostly remember people moaning about it; did they bring it back because Classic Sonic in Generations was popular, or was it unpopular and that's why all the moaning happened with Forces? Did Sega think the Wisps were super popular in Colors, and that's why they came back in Lost World and Forces? Were they not popular, and Sega brought them back despite this? Did they wane in popularity and that's why they're not back in Frontiers? While, again, I agree that their point isn't being made very well, the bolded makes me think of the notion of a "guilty pleasure".
It's not just that it's no blind Homing Attacks. It's that there's a weird quirk where Sonic/Shadow/Buddy can only homing attack whatever was in their initial jumping direction, like it was a leftover from Lost World's controls. So in situations where there's not a bunch of enemies in a line, you have to "reset" yourself to try to even try to turn around to attack something. I'm hoping this isn't the case in Frontiers as well, because that was one of the most annoying little quirks in Forces.
Yes, Unleashed was trashed, but I distinctly remember that the daytime stages were what everyone liked about the game, calling for a whole game of just that. My point is that people liked those parts so much SEGA made more games like that, which were well-received until Sonic Team put out the least-interesting or well-implemented variation in Forces. A counterpoint to the idea that they were the "wrong track." Not that the boost gameplay is so good that people ignored the Werehog. Ironically, though, that is more likely to happen to Frontiers (i.e., the Open Zone being good enough that people tolerate or ignore Cyber Space). Lost World's existence is so atypical that it is kind of an outlier. Nothing about the game seemed to be a result or response to any reception, I guess besides people liking Classic over Modern, which is why it has a cartoony artstyle, I suppose. Even Unleashed itself has some foundation in trying to get away from '06. I need an interview or two to understand why Sonic Team made Lost World. Though I will say that Frontiers' Open Zone has more in common with Lost World than the boost games. But it certainly wasn't because Generations or Colors was poorly-received. Rather, again ironically, it was probably because of Sonic Team wanting to move on from the formula themselves.
