The sand is just a background element. It doesn't actually come into the playable are at all, nor does it seem to be impacting on the level. When you can't see the sand, it's just Green Hill as we've always known it. And damaged flowers? Really? I wonder how many people actually even noticed that the purple flowers are missing a few petals. That's all there is to it. You can barely even tell. Everything else is pristine.
I'm very sure that all that people would do if they were to go for a rainy Green Hill Zone is complain about it being Green Hill Zone but with rain. Sonic Forces has a lot of small details like the heat waves that you can see in the distance. All of the water being gone demonstrates much more of a difference than any addition of rain would. The appearance of rain would be both a mere background element and it wouldn't make much sense in regard to the plot of the game. The sand in Sonic Forces's Green Hill can be seen nearly everywhere and all that can be seen in the background are rocky cliffs and a desert. Those purple flowers appear throughout the stage so often that they can't be missed unless you didn't pay much attention.
In my mind, at the moment Forces Green Hill looks like Generations Green Hill with sand instead of water and with that it doesn't look that nice. With rain effects, you'd have cloud cover, maybe wind effects and obviously a rainbow. Obviously. It would stand out from Windy Hill, Splash Hill and Generations Green Hill. Same, but different. You would have different lighting effects on the level and Sonic, whilst in this current version of Green Hill, we got a bit of heat haze. I mean I'm saying this as if I would even have had Green Hill in this game. It can't be that hard to think of a Classic looking level that looks new. Would have had a moody version of Green Hill start off Shadow though.
I hear people say this a lot. What makes Sonic Forces's Green Hill look like the one in Generations? The checkerboard backgrounds? Sonic Generations went for a more realistic art direction while Sonic Forces's art style is closer to Sonic Lost World. The area in Sonic Forces has a comparatively blocky appearance to somewhat resemble the classic stages. The scenery in Sonic Generations is directly inspired by the original stage while the Sonic Forces stage is subjected to desertification. Sonic Forces's lighting engine is also better overall. Moreover, you're saying this only as a contrast to what Sonic Team had presented when similar complaints would definitely be brought up if they were to do that.
The fact that most of the assets are reused from Generations is probably a pretty big contributing factor.
I doubt that they simply reused assets from Generations. Not only is the structure of the levels from the two games different, but the Hedgehog Engine 2's physically based rendering system would require then to create new textures for the level. The different rendering system gives the graphics designers a comparatively easier time with creating new textures while having the result still look better compared to before.
What is wrong with complaining about the synthesizer? It doesn't sound good, it sounds flat. Excuse me, but isn't playing on nostalgia the entire point of what Sonic Team is doing? Isn't it the reason for including chip tune type music and Classic Sonic in the first place? Sonic Team want to cash in on nostalgia, again and again and again but then they just phone it in, again and again and again. A lot of people have the opinion that this music doesn't have the same vibe as the classics, and it's very similar to the critically panned music from Sonic 4. Half of this game is sold on nostalgia ffs. “Fans were complaining”, well I don't know how fair it is to lump all fans together. Some people criticize some aspects, and not others. I for one was OK with Generations, and more than anything was happy just to see Classic Sonic again and revisit some remastered zones. I think most fans want a refined version of Generations. Whether or not Forces ultimately meets their expectations is to be seen, but at the moment the response has been underwhelming. And I guess all those game reviewers and everyone who decided to stop buying Sonic games over the past 2 decades are unappeasable nitpickers? I guarantee you that almost every single negative reaction you've read on here was given by someone who was repeatedly burned by Sonic Team over literal decades and hundreds of dollars. We have all given Sonic Team the benefit of the doubt time after time and they almost always fail to meet expectations. Suddenly Sega decides they will make a return to Sonic's roots and appease his oldest fans, and guess what happened? Green Hill Zone 10,000x. “Classic music” that sounds nothing like the classics. They can't (or won't) even replicate the physics from the genesis console on the modern consoles of today, which are comparatively military grade supercomputers. And you know what then happens every time? Someone gets on their high horse about how it's too early to write off the game, and ultimately the game releases and all the criticisms were on point. So you know what, I'm reserving my judgment for now, but I can't hold my nose to anyone who feels jaded and is merely calling it as they see it. Unfortunately, the naysayers have a proven track record.
Outta curiosity regarding Force's Green Hill music, do people here straight up hate the song entirely or just the instruments used in it? As well, I've been seeing some negativity around the net regarding the decision to make the song sound 16-Bit-ish. I don't see the hate at the idea for using Genesis sound fonts (if used well of course). Is using Genesis sounding music really a bad thing?
In order: The complaints come across more like nitpicking because it is used as a reason for the music not being "Sonic-like", as if there was some qualifications that it needed to meet. Is the music for the stage not unique or not have a catchy melody? That why I asked what people were initially expecting because those expectations seem to be arbitrary. Sonic Team wanted to include Classic Sonic as an important member of Sonic's side fighting against Eggman's side. It also gives them a reason to bring back the classic style of gameplay, which is solely 2D and doesn't rely on the boost. Is it necessarily bad for them to do that? If the sole reason for the music being panned is because of the synthesizer being different, then it's more like people are averse to any difference. Next, you say that half of this game is sold on nostalgia, but the only recognizable returning stage that we've seen so far is Green Hill, yet even that has a very noticeable difference. Who are you to claim that it's going to be sold on nostalgia when the rest of Classic Sonic's levels may be completely different ones? They're even including another gameplay style. If you want to see a game sold mainly by nostalgia, then look at Sonic Mania, which uses past stages from other Sonic games. Regarding the last two parts of your response, the portion of the fanbase that has loudly complain has consistently been the same people that complained now. I don't see "it isn't everyone" as an excuse because the ones who have complained still do asnd to they are consequently paid attention to. The Sonic fanbase is notorious for this type of behavior and it being continuously encouraged is why that is the case. No other fanbase complains as much or in the same way that this one does. I don't particularly care about the reviewers and as I said before, I couldn't care less about those who blame Sonic Team for their own actions. It's basic common sense to not immediately come to conclusions or make wayward judgments. If you or any others wish to justify writing off the game as bad because of a small of footage or do so because it wasn't exactly what you wanted or expected, then there is no reason to take many of those complaints seriously. All that outsiders really see is people whining and complaining about anything minor and inconsistent, incredibly high expectations that aren't applied to any other popular franchise. Don't complain about being told to do something as simple as waiting.
Lord that footage looks terrible. And sounds terrible. Looks like they gave an intern the Sonic Generations level editor to play with for a week. Don't buy this game.
Another point that people claim is of the level layouts somehow being bad. It's apparently outrageous that the layout of what is likely Classic Sonic's first stage is simple.
I think there's a fine middle ground here. Blind hate isn't fair but blind love and defence isn't either. It's a work in progress and there's a lot we don't know, but some things seem rough around the edges and they've repeated some of their previous mistakes. Sonic Team doesn't have a flawless history, people are right to be hesitant and nitpicky. That being said if this looks like your cup of tea than good for you, enjoy. But the complaints for the most part are valid from what we've seen, there's no need to defend this so intensely. But is it completely doomed? I don't think so yet. They gotta win me back a bit though.
First Sentence; the fact that you implied there was no such thing as music being "Sonic-like", or that such qualifications could exist, implies you shot this off during a coffee break without much thought. I'm not giving this much more thought. Time will tell. Like I said, I have reserved my decision.
You would have a point if most of the complaints were constructive criticism. However, that is evidently not the case. Several of these complaints are whining and complaining about the game because of minor things and immediately judging it to be bad. Those are not valid by any means. It's foolish to think that a game can be perfectly made; none of them are. However, this line of thought is frequently demonstrated here. I don't see the middle ground as being the preferable position to take if you're going to emphasize one side over another anyways and misconstrue it. Many of those who are supposedly pessimistic have already written off the game while the rest are still fairly optimistic. The latter is not "blind love" by any means. Knowing to wait or to not have preconceptions is not "blind love" either.
From my end I haven't seen many criticisms that have just been complaining. I've seen some people being harder on the game than others but from what I've seen everything that's been said has been valid at least to a degree. Granted, music is subjective, some might think the track is great some might think it's awful. That's just how that's going to go (personally I think it's a bit grating, but it's apparently not done yet so who knows). But what's a criticism for some might not be for others. If boost pads and hidden springs and some questionable looking physics are ok with you then that's fine, others might not like that though and it's still valid. And no one is saying every game is supposed to be perfection. People just want to see improvement. And with Mania in the picture Classic Sonic has a bit of a higher bar this time around to reach than he did in Generations, where the biggest physics competition at the time was Sonic 4. And while the let's wait a bit approach is fine, and that's what I'm going with, Sonic Team doesn't have a good track record. People will dismiss the game very early on if they see the same mistakes. This game doesn't warrant the wait and see approach like, say, maybe a questionable Mario game would.
There were a lot of instances of people doing that here and there were a lot of instances outside of here. For example, people making claims of the level design being linear and bland from the few seconds of the Nintendo Direct footage, which also turned out to be from an older build. With the new footage, the layout is more complex than was initially claimed, there were multiple paths that the person playing through the stage didn't take, and Classic Sonic appeared to use the drop dash.
1. You do not need to create new assets to change the layout or structure of a level. 2. You don't need to make new textures if you use a different graphics engine. Also, nowadays textures are created in image editors (or modelling programs) and imported as a PNG. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I think that the main point of everyone's frustrations is that it's Green Hill, again. But with sand in the backdrop, wow. If there was a bit more creativity in creating a brand new level trope for us (I mean, how hard can it be) then I doubt people would be reacting so negativity. Music can be fixed to a certain degree, so can dodgy physics (as we saw in S4 ep 2, even though it was still complete wank) But they simply can't expect people to get excited about a new Sonic game when they give us the same looking levels over and over. Green Hill has been done to death, and even in Mania I thought it was pushing it a bit.
There'd be nobody complaining about Green Hill Zone again, but the gameplay still looks crap regardless.
