That's the problem with the word "ambition," it's such a subjective criteria that it can be applied to anything short of, I guess, a New Super Mario Bros-style stagnation where a series just releases the same game over and over again. (And actually, maybe the Classic era wasn't even seen as ambitious by people who weren't growing up with it, given reviews like this. Older gamers in the 90s seemed to get burnt out on the series doing the same thing over and over again after Sonic 1 or 2, and early online fandom spent a lot of effort pushing back on the idea that Sonic had gotten stale. Heck, maybe one reason we came to agree that Sonic 3 was the best was because we spent so much time on the defensive about it, and found so much to appreciate ABOUT it through that process, haha.) I digress! Ambition is great, but it can be a tremendous detriment to a dev team that doesn't have the time or budget to actually follow through on their ideas, and in my book, that's been the problem with this series since, uh... longer than I even know, probably. And given that, it's easy to construct an argument that ANY Sonic game was ambitious and creative regardless of how it turned out. SA2 wanted to tell a more epic story, Sonic 06 tried to reinvent the series, Unleashed modernized the gameplay, Lost World featured a parkour system, Forces wanted to more cohesively weave storytelling into moment-to-moment gameplay. You could say that any of these ideas were creative and ambitious, but on paper, they were just POTENTIAL. That doesn't say anything about how well they were executed, and THAT they could be considered ambitious shouldn't be used to paper over or excuse problems, but to imagine what the devs were trying to accomplish and postulate how it might've been done better.
My problem with this criteria is as @Josh pointed out. This is such a broad term that it can literally be applied to anything ever; Sonic Unleashed reinvented the gameplay for the series, Lost World tried something new with Parkour, and so did Sonic Boom. Those are risky and ambitious going by your definition, but most Sonic fans would say that they are not ambitious at all. This is absolutely no offense, since you're entitled to your own opinions but I very much feel "Ambition and passion" are buzzwords used by fans as a way of voicing their discontent that the series has shifted in a way that they didn't like. It's such a broad term that doesn't actually encompass much, but fans pretty much use it as it is. Every game in this series has taken risks; they may not be games that personally appeal to you, but that doesn't mean the developers were trying to aim for something higher. Generations is absolutely as ambitious as anything made in the prior decade imo, even if it lacks a lot of things that appeal to me personally a a fan. Forces was probably the most ambitious game to date regardless of how many feel about it.
Yes, it definitely is... And that is why its middle of the road result is so disappointing. I 100% agree Sonic Team approached this game with plenty of ambition - the avatar with 1000 times more collectables than most contemporary games, the grand story (arguably a misfire but definitely ambitious), the largest voice cast yet, a whole DLC extra episode with a new character... They put so much into it but they phoned home Sonic himself. They assumed that simply returning to the concept of Colours and Generations would solve their problems, big problems, after Boom and Lost World had such a negative response, they just wanted a Sonic that worked. I will defend Forces ambition as a video game - but for me its proof they want to move away from Sonic and start a new gaming franchise with a new lead character. Overall - if this had been given the 'Billy Hatcher Forces' label where Billy and a playable avatar have to free the world from the crow kingdom I would have been ecstatic :p I don't like Lost World but I recognise their clear ambition in the core game design. I would have liked to have seen a sequel that actually used the mechanics properly but hey hoh. I'm not surprised. I do not recognise ambition in the core game design (of the Sonic stages) of Forces - I see it around the edges and periphery. And if the core experience had been solid they would have been more than welcome but that is a critical design flaw. And - importantly - its one only Sonic Fans are going to get upset about. To the wider public the game is just 'a game' - and the good points from all those 'other' things are worth celebrating.
This is why I said that nothing is really going to change about this franchise as long as Sega continue their approach; if the current guys at Sonic Team aren't cutting it, they'll just dump them for someone else, and similarly rush the game out for a holiday release, while putting unreasonable demands on the developers and compromising whatever ambition they had. They've literally been doing this since 1992, the only difference between then and now is that they could get away with it before and not suffer many losses in revenue. With games being a lot more expensive to make, there's a a lot more to lose now with a game that is ultimately mediocre, because then the company is losing money. And Sega lost so much money this past decade that it's actively affecting the franchise now with how heavily phoned in Forces and TSR were. Their questionable business practices are finally catching up to them, and we're seeing their disastrous effects. It's honestly hard to tell what the future holds for this series at this point, but if they continue as they've been doing for the past twenty years, then expect the series to get less and less budget until it's ultimately a footnote in Sega's repertoire.
Sometimes time and budget aren't the problem. In a lot of media, finding ways to circumvent their limitations is what leads to a game/TV show/film/whatever to greatness. See Jaws for a good example. In Stop Skeletons From Fighting's video on Yooka Laylee, Derek talks about the subject a bit: "[Something] to consider: the limitations publishers and studios push onto these career developers were, ironically, what made their game great in the first place. 'This is the game we always wanted to make!' is a great pitch, but we often forget that we didn't fall in love with the unmitigated image of their creativity; we fell in love with their scrutinized, compromised final project. Creativity needs to be questioned, needs to be challenged." The best example I can think of for what he's saying is (since Star Wars has been mentioned here a couple of times): When George Lucas was a young upstart director under the thumb of a studio, with execs and other filmmakers butting into "his" movie, he made Star Wars. When he got older and more famous, and had complete creative control of every aspect of "his" movie, he made The Phantom Menace.
If we think of the Original Trilogy as the Classic Sonic era, and the Prequel Trilogy as the post-Dreamcast Era; what does it honestly say that the "inferior" products still managed to carve out their own niche and build a solid fanbase despite the vocal criticisms towards them, and how going back on those products has caused yet another schism with people.
I mean... it's hard to know if it says much of ANYTHING. Kids like all kinds of trash, and like me with Power Rangers, it's not unusual that people get older and find some sort of nostalgic attachment to whatever they grew up with. I guess one useful metric might be: How would general audiences with little pre-concieved notion of what Star Wars movies or Sonic games are "supposed to be" perceive them? Do they hold up to scrutiny, or are they just something that'll appeal to kids, who'll then grow up with reverence for them? For example, I don't have to test it: I VERY MUCH doubt anybody who didn't grow up watching Power Rangers is going to watch it now and see it the way I do, or really, see much value in it at all... but like, that's okay, it doesn't invalidate how much I still enjoy it. Admittedly though, age is a factor with video games, and ESPECIALLY early 3D games, in a way that it isn't with movies from the 90s. The Phantom Menace still meets the expected modern standards of film, but Sonic Heroes is anything but modern. Is it fair to judge a game that old through a modern lens? When Attack of the Clones, Sonic Heroes, and Sonic Forces first came out, they got middling reviews from critics, but fans at the time (at least, the vocal ones on the internet) angrily rejected them, and used them as examples of everything that was going wrong with the series. How much of that came down to a failure to live up to our expectations and our nostalgia for how we saw them when we were younger? Does the presence of a younger contingent who enjoyed Heroes indicate that older fans were being too harsh? I don't think there's an easy answer, but that's why media criticism and the noticeable impact of generational groups within a fandom are so fascinating.
Thats another angle we haven't considered. We've discussed whether Sega are too controlling of Sonic Team, but could the possibility exist that they aren't controlling enough? That they just let Sonic Team do whatever they want so long as it makes a profit and isn't liable to excessive memeage like parts of 06. I remember Bioware falling victim to this, gamers often assumed that EA is too strict with their releases, when a lot of things would suggest that the opposite is true, that they just let them do whatever they want with minimal oversight. I remember one of the founders saying that they "gave them enough rope to hang ourselves with". And it shows if their products like ME:Andromeda and especially Anthem are to go by: a game that languished in pre-production for far longer than reasonable (including shenanigans involving the engine) before making a mad dash to its release date. Sounds remarkably similar to Forces when I say it like that.
I don't know. It's an interesting theory, but a lot of evidence suggests that Sonic Team (in whatever form it is) is burnt out on working on Sonic games and take a lot of shortcuts to meet some sort of deadline. If the Sega Brass wasn't baring down on them, I'm not sure we'd be seeing this.
I decided to replay this game on a whim, and I think I kind of like it now? I don't know what clicked, I'm just.. enjoying it a lot! I still recognize the valid criticisms of this game but, I dunno, it's a lot more fun than I remembered! I'm even actually enjoying the story, I thought it was 'cringe' before, but I dunno, I kinda like it! ...Man, I used to hate this game, though. Am I just going insane? Have all of the Sonic games gotten to my brain matter? Did I really fall into a blind hate train? I guess I kinda did. Oh well, at least I'm enjoying the game now.
I would put to you that's more the Yakuza team, they don't even use their own tech anymore either for the remake and I bet Yakuza 9 will take place in the same old locations and reuse all the same old mini games, we'll maybe get a few new Arcade games to play though... Sonic Frontiers is awesome for me, but sure it's full of flaws; I hope it be a lot like Shenmue, with the 1st game being a lot of hard work for the new style of game, and the sequel just builds on all the hardwork done and becomes a more epic game as a result
The main focus of Forces is pretty much the main draw of the Cyberspace stages in Frontiers. You grind to get the best times and all the collectables and perfect the routes. People were so busy focusing on it as a one and done experience that they just never bothered to go further. I think putting a clear incentive beyond cosmetics for this stuff in Frontiers helped settle that part for people.
The majority of Frontiers’ Cyberspace levels have much more varied level design in general and many more possible levels routes, and thus, more opportunities for time saves, than the best of Forces’ levels. The stages in Forces just seemed like unremarkable and boring hallways. The only levels in Forces I even remember well enough to play through in my head are Null Space, Mortar Canyon, the first avatar stage, and Arsenal Pyramid. I platinumed the game too, so I put in some time. Of those, I’d say only Null Space has cool ideas and is pretty interesting to play and route out the way you said. Mortar Canyon comes close but it’s just too short. Frontiers has some duds like most of the 2D stages, and it may be supported by reused designs from SA2 and Gens, but I think it’s still a much better experience overall. The homing cancel, even if it’s an exploit, also goes a long way in making the boring stages fun by giving you a nifty way to find really unusual routes.
Context is important, the game on it's own can be enjoyed just fine, just consider it another sonic game But in 2017, people waited 4 years since the last main Sonic game, it was the longest wait between sonic games yet, some people waited even longer since Generations -considering Wii U console wasn't popular and not a lot of people played Lost World- , between the frustration between the direction LW took, and clamoring another Boost game, the presence of Forces was more offensive and insulting given the weight of expectations it had. If that game released like...1 year after LW, and after it, Frontiers released in like 2 years or so, people wouldn't hate at as much, it would be a game like...i dunno, Secret Rings or Black Knight, games that may had mixed reception but people don't bother hating them really that much, cause they released really close to other big Sonic games That is to say, Forces may be flawed, and actually making the "hold right to win" meme becomes true, but it's not like it's the worst game ever or anything, it's short, inoffensive on it's own, can be enjoyed on it's own, doesn't overstay it's welcome, you can find enjoyment in replaying stages and getting more parts for customization or collecting new collectibles, also i would give it that Wispons are a good way to implement Wisp powers without breaking the pace of levels -and no annoying music with every activation- Anyway, no you are not insane and it's perfectly fine to enjoy the game
Forces has always been an unfortunate victim of circumstance, but on its own it's a pretty fun game despite what most people here would have you believe lol I'm just glad Frontiers is out so people can stop acting like Forces poisoned their water supply, burned their crops and fucked their wives when it's probably the most whatever game ever made
You're right, Forces didn’t need those medieval methods to make me wanna slam my head against the wall... Blasphemy:
Why would this happen when Frontiers exposes the problems with Forces and its boring, heavily automated set piece obsessed level design? It’s an utterly disposable game that heavily limits freedom and as a result of that the levels aren’t interesting or fun to replay and speedrun which I consider a death sentence for a 3D Sonic game, even watching speedruns by the pros are a snorefest.
Forces fits dead smack in the middle between great and terrible. It has an engine that's refined and not terribly buggy , unlike the broken 06 and say... Boom. In many respects, it works and plays exactly as intended with little issue. Hell, like Jubbalub said, it 'still' controls better than the Cyberspace stages, which are only really excusable because they are a small fraction of Frontiers. However, Forces is very, very bland in other ways that are typically memorable for Sonic games. The bosses had no real challenge. The story as a whole started with an interesting premise but the writers handle it in the least interesting way possible (SATAM concept without the atmospheric sense of desperation of the original cartoon, nor the charm of the cast's interactions). The stages are very linear with sadly little variation. Characters like Chaos are shoe-horned in but don't even get a boss fight (though the fan mod one is decent). The soundtrack has a few good songs, but some like Infinite's theme border on a parody/meme (though again, it still is a highlight of the OST). It uses the generations concept, but does literally everything worse. Bland classic Sonic music. Only 1-2 really creative 2D stages in the package. The story has no emotional weight and feels slapped together, despite its original potential. And above all else, it was a short game. People waited 6 years for it and it felt much shorter and less satisfying than Generations. However, because it's not at all a broken mess, that means your average fan can still get a few good hours of entertainment out of it. Younger players can still enjoy it. The avatar was a good idea on paper and did allow for some creativity, though really didn't contribute much to the overall lore. Forces is just... there. I enjoyed my time with it, but also will have no desire to replay it any time soon. My favorite element is the US Stardust Speedway Bad Future remix.
