I was referring to the gameplay. But even if it's only the lighting engine or whatever, I don't think it's much better like Yeow said. I think the previous games just had a more inspired art direction to be honest. Forces just feels like a discount game.
Okay so first off, fuck Amazon. They decided that my copy of the game will arrive on the 13th instead of the 7th with no other explanation than "lol sorry". It was infuriating having to wait for the game for so long when everybody was already playing it. But anyway... My thoughts on the game Spoiler I haven't beaten the game yet, I have like 10 levels left, but I don't think the game get worse near the end, at least I haven't heard anyone say that. So... The story seems to be a mess. I had no real expectations for it since Pontac was involved with it, but this one is interesting. While the others plots of the Colors era where simply awful, this one actually had potential. Unfortunately, it's very weirdly paced. There's no real sense of progression here, all the important events seems to happen independently of each other, it's weird. The jokes here are actually kinda decent, but they still have this problem of telling a joke over and over again until it's not funny anymore. Yeah Tails, we get it, Classic Sonic is called Sonic just like modern Sonic, give it a fucking rest please. Talking about Classic Sonic, he really have nothing to do with this plot, but I won't talk about it much since everything have already been said already. Tails is also really poorly written here, I don't understand the writers obsession with making Tails a little bitch since Unleashed. Why ? All in all, I think this plot's biggest problem is not showing enough. We know the resistance is fighting in the Death Egg, why can't we see it ? Same with operation big wave and sunset height, ect. Oh well. I still think it's a step in the right direction, so I won't complain too much. But there is room for improvement, a lot of improvement. The gameplay is pretty fun. I always had this feeling that I will enjoy this game more than Generations, and it definitely happened. The thing is, running in a straight line and destroying everything in my path is what make the boost games so fun to me. I enjoyed Gens a lot, but it wasn't for its open levels or anything. Maybe Seaside hill and Sky sanctuary where open, but the rest of the levels where your standard boost levels with corridors and 2d. If I want to play a Sonic game with open levels, I'll play the adventure games. So the Sonic levels where fun. Not as good as Generations, but still fun. Classic Sonic is also fun. I think his levels are more fun than the one in Gens. It actually feel like Classic level design this time around, instead of the levels in Generations, full of dynamic camera movement, gimmicky level design and enemies chains. I don't think he should've been in this game at all, but at least he was fun to play as this time around. It doesn't come close to the quality of Mania though. And finally, the Avatar. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but... his gameplay is fun. I like the fact that they managed to introduce combat into the gameplay without making it a complete pacebreaker. The enemies don't have lifebars, so it's probably because of this. It's just a shame that they give you the best wispon at the beginning of the game though. The soundtrack is great, there's just a few tracks that are kinda bland in the game (Chemical Plant classic in particular). I guess it's to be expected with so many levels, but there's also a lot of great tracks here. While I enjoyed it, I think it's the last time they can pull the nostalgia card. There's no reason for having returning levels here, it just takes away from the game's identity. I also think they should get rid of the boost formula, I think we've seen everything we could with it. In any case, I'm curious at the way Sega is going to react to the game's reception. I honestly can't wait to see what they have next in store for the serie. Anybody here know when Sega usually announce new Sonic games ?
Hey guys. I have finished my translation of the Japanese cutscene dialogue in Forces. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXHo9__fo0s[/youtube] Long story short, it pretty much continues the almost decade-and-a-half tradition of Sonic game localisations: in-game dialogue is more or less accurate, but cutscenes just do whatever the hell they want. It's frustrating. Most of Sonic's lines are rewritten, as well as a bunch of Infinite's, to start off.
That's a bummer. I thought they had reeled it in since Lost World, which felt like the subtitles were something else entirely compared to the japan voices. Although speaking of which, I'm glad my boi Jouji Nakata returned to play Zavok.
are you telling me the power of friendship doesn't make me ram my body into people harder in canon? I feel betrayed
I don't think people ever expected Forces to look great on the Switch. Or any game, really. I still think it's amazing that the Switch gets the level of graphics and performance that it does, simply because it's basically a tablet. That shit's insane.
It's interesting that the interview above seems to indicate that Sonic Team were impacted by Sonic Boom. I wonder if the it was simply a case of not wanting to release the games at the same time or if Sonic Team were waiting for Sonic Boom's release to decide the direction to take their next game. I've really been thinking a lot about the pacing of the game. One of the things the game does well is there's a constant momentum with the plot and levels that makes everything seem like it's rushing forward. The problem is that because everything seems to be rushing forward, and the fact that the levels are so short, it never seems like you get time to really appreciate any one area or level. I think it may have been a mistake to have the player experience each area in an almost random order rather than the more tradition style of play all the levels in Green Hill, then Chemical Plant, etc. especially since the player is also constantly switching what character they are using. Chemical Plant contains one of earliest (maybe the very first?) Avatar levels but also one of the latest Modern Sonic levels. It almost takes the sense of progression away as even though you're towards the end of the game, you're still experiencing an area you played much earlier. I think I might play all the Avatar levels, Classic levels, and Modern levels in a row (and /or all the levels in each area) and see if playing as each character independently changes the feel of progression. Also, a personal gripe if I can. I know that the modern games typical do not include "Zone" in a levels name, so that Green Hill Zone is simply Green Hill, etc. This is fine but what is the deal with the City level in Sonic Forces?? Are we seriously supposed to just call it City? Even City Zone has a better ring than that I would think. I preferred pre release when everyone called it Sunset Heights or Park Avenue although now we know those were Act names and not the names of the area as a whole.
But it runs games better than the PS3 or 360 did, so expecting games to look worse isn't logical. In fact the Xbox one is just 25~35% faster than the Switch.
Why did they hire Pontac again? I know they like to tone down Sonic for the west, but there's entire lines of context completely altered for no good reason and this game wasn't even Pontac/Graff-written. Like how in english, Tails "lost it" after Sonic 'died', but in japanese they weren't certain to Sonic's fate and could only assume the worst and Tails instead ran off after Sonic's defeat and no one could find him.
They wanted to hire American writers for Generations and Pontac and Graff were the ones that ended up being chosen, then also used for Colors. (At least I think that's hey we're hired for Gens first -- I don't remember exactly) Ian Flynn was in the running too, I think. One of Nakamura's tweets talked about how it worked. It seems that the cutscene process was making the early cutscene, sending it to America for Pontac/Graff to write, then adjusting it to their dialogue and/or changes. So the Japanese dialogue as you hear it in game is actually the last draft, not necessarily what they originally came up with.
Not sure if anyone's said this yet, but for folks who are annoyed about the world map, D-Pad up/down scrolls through levels in order, and the top face button (Y on XBOX, X on Switch, etc.) brings up a list.
I didn't mean the general context, I meant for Forces specifically. As in why did they hire him again, and only him if I remember right, after years of fans bitching about them? Doesn't help that someone's been trying to spread the rumor that Ian Flynn was suggested again for Forces by Sega of America but Iizuka threw a hiss fit, yet it's probably one of those baseless "Iizuka is satan for the Sonic franchise" kinds of rumors.
It's both of them. Sega either don't realize or don't care that many fans hate their scripts, so they're just the go-to "Sonic guys" now. They'll probably be back for the next game too. I haven't heard the rumor you're talking about but I can't imagine why Iizuka would throw a fit over Ian Flynn.
I think the Infinite "I am not weak" scene is actually much better in Japanese, sounds like he's genuinely upset.
Generations was the more important of the two projects at the time, iirc when they rehired Ryan Drummond (so they could fire him again for not wanting to leave his union) they told him they were hiring for Generations, Colors was just seen as a side project.
Yeah, that scene wouldn't really work if he didn't sound like he cared. His swift defeat by Shadow gave him a damn breakdown. Haven't seen that part in English yet, though. I am disappointed the distortion effect isn't as prominent in the English version. His English VA seems to just bring an air of what I guess I'd call conceitedness with just a hint of that effect. For me the Japanese VA almost sounds inhuman and cold, like a Darth Vader sort of character. I thought it was really damn cool from the get go.
You're so right! Took some searching but I found it at the end of this (in case anyone else was looking for it): https://youtu.be/SzADg4MOiLA
