I've said this many times before but I've never seen a game where it is so painfully obvious from every orifice that everyone working on it clearly and desperately wishes that they were working on something, ANYTHING else.
As an aside, the QTE cutscenes in Space Port / OC's Green Hill are so much more dynamic than anything we've seen in the narrative scenes for years. I'm all for Sonic characters standing around and talking like they have been for a bit here and there, but I think back to the attempts at action seen in SLW,'s story and even this game's own Infinite scene we saw a while back, and it's night and day. I'm getting a bit bummed realizing that any scene of narrative importance will likely boil down to characters standing around giving exposition. Meanwhile we've got these much more interesting things happening in QTE (that we have a negligible impact on gameplay-wise). This is basically just me rambling with little structure or coherence, but dang. Clearly they've got the chops to pull some stuff off, I'm hoping some cutscenes break the trend and give some cool action shit in the style of the QTE we're seeing.
That actually makes a good bit of sense. At least it's a different way of doing difficulty than just changing numbers like boss/enemy HP. Of course, that kind of sounds like the sort of feature you'd want to actually tell people about. Then again, after the whole journalist-playing-Cuphead thing, maybe they didn't want to immediately tell news outlets that they were playing "Baby's First Sonic" mode.
I mean, I think it falls under the fact that SEGA in general is really trying to control information this time around, as we've talked about before. 3 weeks away from the game's release and we only just now learn about difficulty levels appropriated by the fact that the Sega of America PR guy had to go into an internet forum and personally mention it to explain a discrepancy. We still know relatively little besides several stages and a bare bones idea of the plot.
There's no way in hell this game is going to average anymore than 7/10 on metacritic. I'm pretty disappointed in that. The Sonic IP got such a big turn around in the public's eye for the first time in years, then Sonic Team with their inability to create consistently good 3D Sonic games just comes in and vomits all over the new clean floors. For once, we could've had an incredible year with Sonic. Sonic Mania made it fantastic, but man it wouldve been nice for Forces to be a home run too. I just want Sonic to be great again.
I'm starting to consider ignoring/cancelling my preorder. I've purchased Mania twice already, so I've given them my vote. I 'really' enjoyed Generations and felt expanding on its style of level design was the perfect way to take 3D Sonic going forward, so seeing this devolve into such a linear looking dull setup really hurts me. I like a lot of the OST and I even am interested in the plot/cutscenes (I actually enjoy story driven Sonic sometimes), but this stuff is just too much. I just want a Sonic Team game with 'good' stage design. The engine is fine. The soundtrack is fine. The recycled visuals and patchwork stages are not.
I'm trying to keep positive. Trying so hard to keep positive but the severe lack of originality in this game is killing it for me. Generations and Mania both reused level designs but the difference is those games had actual level design! The whole game just feels lazy with a good premise but currently bad execution. Also, it just feels like Mania was chopped and changed to try and accommodate for Forces. I don't know if it's just me?
I really hope this isn't the case. I suppose the bright side is we know with the Shadow DLC that Shadow is playable in 10 Modern Sonic levels, so we have 10 at a minimum. Providing they get longer and more complex over the course of the game (I won't be holding my breath) then this should be ok. Regarding the recent videos, Space Port is just another boring hallway with a QTE sequence to simulate action and the boss fight looks equally as bland. I'll admit that for a split second I thought the stage was going to be more interesting/dynamic when the train appeared but then it just turned into a cheap QTE. I'll try not to keep going on about it and sounding like a broken record, but after Generations I still can't believe this game looks so soulless...
The old ring system worked so well. It didn't matter if novice players lacked the skills needed to overcome obstacles - so long as they could re-collect one of their lost rings then they could continue to progress (especially as Sonic is temporarily invincible when it). Then as the noice player improved, their goal could shift to retaining as many rings as possible (as rings could be used to gain lives, bonus states or items in the Chao garden). This new system doesn't really fix or improve anything.
Curious as to how a difficulty system for Modern/Classic/Avatar could work. The only Sonic games I remember with a difficulty change were Jam and Heroes. In the case for the game that seems to have a lot of QTEs, straight passageways, and a lot of stop and go movements, how do you make that more challenging to warrant a difficulty setting other than inability to get rings and maybe increasing boss damage? You could make a case for Classic being more difficult with them probably more plain pawns in the stage, alongside being unable to pick up rings, but for something as "controlled" as Modern/Avatar, without changing level design, how would they actually make it challenging?
That has gotten me thinking... It's probably a long shot, but what if Sonic Team are getting tired of doing Sonic games, and just doesn't really care about the Hedgehog any more? In a sense that much seems to be obvious to anyone, but I was thinking more along the lines of them actually wanting this game to fail - or maybe wanting this to be Sonic's last game? I mean, we have all[?] of Sonic's main old bosses in one place, the rehashed (lazy) level design, the OC which lets you choose what character you want to play... Maybe they're giving us all that was in the past in one game, and then.... giving up? Although, however, that doesn't explain the amount of stuff they're selling off of this (and the Hooters).
I don't think they are giving up on Sonic. But I do get the impression that too many designers use Sonic as a vehicle for realising their pet game projects. Silver in 2006, Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) and Warehog all feel like they were originally dreamt up as new ideas, which never got approval and so the designer did the next best thing and rebranded them with Sonic. A lot of Forces feels like that too. Forces also feels like it has been heavily designed by Focus Group research as well.
I also don't feel that Sonic Team are giving up - just overworked, exhausted and creatively bankrupt. There was that rumour years ago (was it ever confirmed?) that Sonic Team were burned out on Sonic and this was affecting the quality of their games though it was dismissed because Sonic Generations turned out so fucking fantastic. Yet given Lost World's mediocrity and the lack of colour and energy in Forces I'd say the rumour could be accurate. Sonic Team strike me as desperately wanting to work on something - anything else - so Forces is coming across as half-hearted. Still waiting on reviews though honestly expecting a dire Metacritic score. I'd be shocked if Forces scores north of 70.
Hey, I just thought of something. Does the OC gameplay remind anyone of megaman X ? I've been rewatching some OC gameplay vids recently (because we still don't have any Modern Sonic gameplay beside the 7 months old city height /> ) and I realized their were pretty similar. I mean obviously sonic forces is more fast paced but the OC gameplay have tons of enemies and multiples weapons, it really remind me of the X serie. Kinda ironic to consider that this could be a better 3D X game than the godawful X7
Not that you're wrong or that its unlikely, but I'm just a bit curious what is making you think this besides the Sonic community's general chatter about the game? I sincerely want to know your opinion because I've heard so many from the community say that, and I'm thinking there may be a bit of an echo-chamber happening. Mine?: Seems like a middling entry. It won't please traditional Sonic fans much but isn't totally aimed at them either. Younger newer fans seem to really like the OC features, the villain, and the story-driven experience. The gameplay is light and easy, though perhaps unsatisfying, but the game is heavy on cinematics and many modern gamers like that. For me, I've seen many skeptical pre-release impressions and some positive ones. General game reviewers also don't seem to differentiate between Modern and Classic Sonic gameplay very much, excepting the usual commentary about how Sonic was great in the 90s but isn't now. It really does seem as straight down the middle as possible, which probably isn't the best place to be but also not a disaster. My prediction has been a score from 60-70%. Haven't really changed on that since the first gameplay reveal.
I always did think that the Avatar's melee-focused weapons so far are like a Mega Man ripoff placed into Sonic. Problem is how combat is just mashing a button to obliterate everything in your path effortlessly. The brief snippet of the Infinite boss fight especially brings this to mind. Incidentally I think a Shadow the Hedgehog combat system with both autoaim and a Ratchet & Clank-style manual aiming system being usable on a dime would honestly be the best sort of implementation of shooter combat for a Sonic game. Combat was honestly one of that game's high points.
