I wonder if Silver is the playable character. Is that how they reset the fuckery of Eggman ruling 99% of the planet?
I think that Forces will be at more or less on par with Generations as a standalone Sonic game. But I can't get over my disappointment that it's reusing the Generations gameplay styles. Boosting had been has always lacked depth outside of the Rush series, and has now been exhausted and lost its novelty. Classic Sonic's gameplay in Generations was legitimately fun but I could write an essay about everything wrong with it, and I wouldn't even need to touch upon how it does or doesn't play like the actual Classic games. The fact that Classic Sonic is returning as a separate character completely and utterly misses the point about his triumphant return in Generations. I just do not like that this game looks like Generations 2 in all but name, despite Generations being good. What I do like though, and I really am glad to see this, is that there is a seemingly eventful plot with actual conflict. The first trailer appears a bit too "grim dark" perhaps, but I do think that the tone is about spot-on with the war-torn city set amongst GHZ surroundings. If nothing else, I certainly feel like I'm looking at a Sonic game here in a totally fresh environment. Only a handful of 3D Sonic games have actually done that well.
I guess this is what boggles me. From a business perspective they'd be stupid to do anything else and this team has proven that they're better at building from an existing base rather than starting over. So they're taking what they know works and they're building on that with an original plot and original environments, and somehow it's bad. Hell, people are already nervous about this new 3rd gameplay that we know nothing about. So on one end the critique is "oh it's this again" and on the other it's "oh shit it's something different I don't trust them." Like what the hell do you want (And if your answer is Sonic 1 - 3 well that's what Mania is for)?
We've bitched about Lost World and Boom for being total garbage yet universally agreed Generations is good. Now they're making another Generations and...we don't like it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sonic Team never seemed to understand that until now.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people just want something that feels like an evolution. So far the only addition to the boost gameplay that hasn't been a flop are the wisp. But instead of looking at them as a way to create new inventive gameplay and general design, they see them as a recyclable concept that they can throw into new games. From what we have seen, and what they have shown us, this looks like it's just the same stuff we got 6 or so years ago with a slight layer of polish added on. Meanwhile each classic title would go the next step and add more and more meaningful stuff to gameplay. Bigger levels, the spin dash, new aerial maneuvers, multiple playstyles, the elemental shields, time traveling. They even had shit no one liked, like the tether mechanics from Chaotix. But hey, at least they were trying to come up with fun inventive ideas that built upon their solid foundation, and helped expand the game's potential. It might also have something to do with me not liking "quasi-real" visuals the games have had, but this isn't exactly something to get excited over to me. I liked Generations, but I kind of want more out of it.
I'd say each boost iteration has had some level of evolution. Unleashed was mostly one big QTE, but Colors added Wisp powerups and Generations had more expansive level layouts and some use of gimmicks. Also the controls were refined each time and the abilities were more streamlined. Granted a lot of the boost evolution is ironically reintroducing previously used ideas (underwater game play, various gimmicks, snowboarding), but at least by having that base they were willing to take steps to improve it. One critique of the boost gameplay I have though is its lack of unique in stage gimmicks. They were used a lot in the classic Sonic games but for some reason they just use the same gimmicks and objects in different levels for the boost games. I feel like reintroducing those could help.
@ Dark Sonic and Ell678: I do get what you guys are saying. From my point of view though, the boost games have never hit the spot. They have their strengths absolutely, but they don't do it for me on the whole. And I feel that with Generations they really hit the peak of what's possible with the gameplay, unless they completely change their entire approach to game design (the engine, level layouts etc), but I didn't trust that Sonic Team has the ambition or skill to do that. As for Classic Sonic, his presence in Generations was a fantastic and meta celebration of the series history. I'm so glad that Mania is continuing to fully revive the Classic Sonic brand in all its glory, too. However, there are not two Sonic's and I have no doubt that the Classic gameplay of Forces will be comparable to Generations and pale in comparison to the old games. This game is wrong for him. I was really excited for Generations and I'd be lying if I said it disappointed me, because it was a real pleasure to experience. And I was happy for that game to be what it was. Even back then though I was saying that I wanted something different in the future because I felt that I'd more or less seen the extent of what that engine and sort of gameplay could offer. Lost World had some of the right ideas but ultimately was a real flop, and regardless of whether or not you want to count Boom... Well, it was shit. They're going back to something relatively safe that's always going to be pretty mediocre to me. Forces will be decent, and I want Sonic to be more than decent.
Problem is, they've been riding the nostalgia train for the past couple of main games, and it's starting to get old and grating. Sonic Generations was a nice little throwback to Sonic's past, and it was a 20th anniversary title. That's cool and all, but then they shoved it back in our face with Lost World as Windy Valley was the key thing they marketed off across most trailers, and that's just a Green Hill Zone ripoff. Throw in the phone remakes alongside Mania being half and half new and old, and at this point nostalgia is being over-saturated in the modern market. It doesn't even make sense business-wise. Unleashed still outranks Generations in terms of raw sales (according to Wikipedia's sales data) and the Mario and Sonic series has slowly been on the decline since the first game. I mean Winter Games sold a little over half what the original M&S sold, and God knows how much it sold on the WiiU titles. Compare that to a series like Halo, where the original trilogy each outsold the last entry, and sales have been relatively solid for the main series since. With that and the outcries that have been thrown up just because Classic Sonic is in the game should show you how tired fans are of seeing the nostalgia card played. Classic Sonic is cool and all, but he's getting his own game this year as well. Stuffing him into Forces not only seems overbearing, it shows that SEGA has no confidence this thing'll succeed without having some kind've nostalgic feature tacked onto it. And a lack of confidence doesn't look good on anyone. The problem too with the new style is SEGA has shown utter incompetency when it comes to executing new gimmicks and ideas. Shadow was a flop. The storybook games were a flop. Sonic Unleashed was a flop. Sonic Lost World was a flop. The number of "bad" Sonic games noticeably outweigh the number of "good" Sonic games. And it's not even an issue of SEGA trying new things, they just don't pull them off well. A lot of what they've done could've worked. An on-rails Sonic could've been really fun. But they screwed it up by tacking on a terrible, non-responsive control scheme. Shadow having his own game could've worked. But they ruined it with an unneeded sooper dark tone and a nonsensical story with a "choose your path gimmick" that ultimately amounted to nothing. A pure boost game could work, but SEGA keeps adding in 2D segments and powerups (read: Wisps) and all all sorts of unneeded clutter that hamper the overall experience. Which leads me to what exactly I want. Honestly, just 3 things. A fully 3D Sonic game. No stupid overarching gimmicks. No 2D segments. No 2nd gameplay style (that interrupts a playthrough of the first, I'm not against multiple characters). No controller gimmicks. No gameplay twitches that corrupt what would otherwise be a solid experience. No filler. Doesn't have to be in Sonic Adventure's style. Doesn't have to be a boost game. Doesn't have to be anything we've seen before. I just want another proper 3D Sonic. On top of that, I want originality. No rehashed zones from the classics. No rehashed zones from the modern games. I want to see that the developers put a lot of thought into planning out the game. As for story, I just want Pontaff gone at this point. I'd prefer a stoty that takes itself a smidgen seriously, but I'll settle for some other writers coming in to try to make Sonic a "comedy" again. I'm just so sick of seeing Pontaff's names rolling through the credits.
No! You see, take the Mario series as an example, the only times the did this was when New Super Mario bros was released and they milked that franchise as New Super Mario Bros 2 and New Super Mario Bros U. But those were more like 'filler games' than anything else, like Sonic 4 would have been. At this point I'm very sad that Nintendo is not the owner of Sonic
Classic gameplay revealed in the latest Nintendo Direct Sexy Also silhouette of the new character + - Oh good fucking Green Hill again EDIT: Dammit, timestamps don't work with streams, it's 51 minutes in
So it seems today's Nintendo Direct actually showed a little more footage of Sonic Forces, albeit as brief snippets of Classic Sonic gameplay in a Green Hill Zone filled to the brim with sand instead of water, and a very brief sneakpeek of a silhouette of the third playstyle which seemed to be a new character with a sort of Espio-esque head from behind but with two pointy ears or horns at the top.
A few seconds of Classic Sonic gameplay was seen in today's Nintendo Direct! It's, uh... It's Green Hill Zone.
....the level was literally Green Hill with a sand backdrop. Only quick short footage, and I'd have to see it again, but I'm pretty sure there was a dash panel before the loop...best to expect Generations physics and little improvements. Yeah, I'll stick with Mania for my classic Sonic fix, thanks. Especially since the 2D levels in Kishimoto's Colors and Lost World are for some reason are mostly linear affairs that prioritize precision platforming over exploration, level gimmicks, and slopes. Generations' Classic Sonic Act 1 levels, while not perfect, at least still had some of those elements, and were far more enjoyable in comparison.
Guess I was wrong with the description, looks more like a fox or cat or something with solid whiskers/fur sticking out to the side.
I still say the "new" character is just an OC creator like in Xenoverse. Just from the outline it looks like it's devoid of any stand out qualities so you can add to him later.
