Rented Forces. It's worth a rent. The level design is easily the weakest in the Boost series. I beat the game in under 3 hours. My second run-through I got two-thirds of the way through the game in under an hour. At that point I was just bored. I couldn't recall any stand-out level gimmick, or set piece that was playable aside from the QTEs. It may even be blander than Sonic Rush. The story was also pretty lame. Two-thirds of the time it was trying to take itself seriously, the other third was roll-my-eyes-level jokes ("Wow, he's got like ten terabytes of selfies."). Never fighting Chaos and Shadow illusions was annoying. Omega was... there. Tails was absolute beta to Classic Sonic. Infinite was a joke. And, worst if all, they made a Nega Wisp final boss variant. Again. I was genuinely pissed when that happened. The Avatar, through sheer novelty, is the only saving grace. But, if the best feature of the game is comparable to what I was doing on Newgrounds 10 years ago, you've got problems. I couldn't believe how completely bleh this game turned out to be. It's been a steady decline in hype after the first gameplay reveal at SXSW. We got Mania, at least. Maybe Sonic Utopia will get that team the same recognition for a 3D Sonic.
I still think a slightly faster, more platforming heavy variant of the Werehog gameplay would be absolutely perfect for Knuckles. And you're right, Chip is basically Tails. If the cast was what you proposed the game could have been called Sonic & Knuckles: World Adventure and it would have been glorious :v:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but their concept for Sonic Forces was 'What if there's war Sonic-style?', wasn't it? Let's just say, there's something very subtle about the melodies for Classic Sonic and the music reminded of the Game Gear games (maybe because it doesn't match with the level themes?). That's an interesting attempt to tackle this question IMO. Whereas the death egg robots in the background of Lost City look like they're dancing in a Mosh Pit. And that just screams lazy.
http://youtu.be/u45jAjXi9zU It's extremely apparent to me now that the level designers are the sole reason this game is bad. Obviously the story wouldn't have been saved if the level designers were replaced, but that can be ignored. All the set pieces are there... they were just used in the most horrible ways.
Wow. I knew this game was full of Straight Line Zones, but man. :v: Also, am I the only person who turned off the in-level chatter? I get Let's Players leaving them on, but I would have thought modders would be all over that in demonstration videos.
The Werehog has far more qualities comparable to Adventure's Amy gameplay than anything Knuckles has done if you ask me, even more so if you want to include her (albeit shitty) ability upgrades and concepts for Hot Shelter like swinging from cords and pulling plugs around. 3D Knuckles has always has always been more the type for exploration rather than platforming. Since Knuckles can cover long distances by gliding and easily scale any wall by climbing, I can see 3D platform level design for him being pretty difficult. Knuckles: Breath of the Angel Island would be a much better idea for him :v: On another note, I like what Unleashed did with Chip's character because a lot of the weird jokes were given to him - his interactions with Sonic/Tails worked pretty well because those two were pretty sane in comparison. I think Tails can work well in that role without becoming a complete coward, but good god do they to stop doing that to Sonic himself these days. Their interactions in LW often felt like a complete circlejerk and this game only gets away in that regard because Sonic and Tails both spend the majority of their time with silent characters instead of each other.
I saw Ian Flynn, Aleah Baker and Adam Bryce Thomas at a con recently and Ian asked if I had played Sonic Forces. I was like "well... I heard it wasn't very good..." and he was like "but it's only $30!" and I was like "Really?! Hmmmm... that's not too bad..." So I got it, tempered my expectations and S Ranked and Red Starred the whole thing over the weekend. I enjoyed it for what it was. It's definitely a budget title and it shows. If I had spent $10 more dollars on it, I'd probably be pissed. It's weird how I can enjoy mediocre games if it's based on a license I like and I get it on the cheap. I dunno the psychology behind that. Sonic Forces isn't horrible, it's just kind of meh. THE GOOD: Creating funny animals is actually pretty fun. I'm super duper lame and made Fang the Sniper, Bean the Dynamite and a few characters from the Archie comics. The concept of the game is cool - Robotnik takes over the world and Sonic joins forces with a plucky gang of Freedom Fighters. That's basically the plot to the Archie comics and the most popular Sonic cartoon. But while you're expect something like that to be a big, bombastic adventure, the game just feels a little... small. Judging from youtube comments, this is really polarizing - but I really like the music. Yeah. I know. It's an unholy fusion of Sonic R and dubstep wubs. It has me tapping my foot and humming along though. I dig it. THE BAD: From the second I saw the first trailer, I thought "wow, they're just going to reuse a bunch of assets from Generations so they can make a new game on the cheap." And that's exactly what it is. Out of 30 stages, there's like 5-6 environments and a few are just cribbed from Generations with a new coat of paint. I'm an old man and for me, 2D Classic Sonic is the Sonic. But he shouldn't have been in this game. He felt really shoehorned in and out of place. Plus, he plays like complete ass in this one. He's stiff as hell and feels like he's made of solid lead. It's made even worse because this is coming right after Sonic Mania which is buttery smooth and is just a joy to play. The Modern Sonic and Avatar stages are fine. They're nothing to write home about and they go on autopilot way more often than I'd like, but they're entertaining enough. Sometimes for a few fleeting moments, I felt like I was playing SA2 but those moments were few and far between. Sonic Forces is a game that has a lot of untapped potential that it doesn't quite live up to. It's a mediocre game that could have been really great if some more time, money and ambition went into it. It looks like Sonic Team didn't put a lot of effort into this one and just kind of phoned it in. Which is a shame because there's a lot to like here, I just wish it was in a bigger, better game that isn't so half-assed.
So the NHK World network's imagine-nation show had a special program about Sonic Forces that recently aired (here's a post about it from the program's English facebook handle, and a small preview of it is available on the English imagine-nation website as of this writing). According to the TSSZ Twitter (bear with me), Nakamura stated in the program that he and his team deliberately designed Forces so players could just "dash through the stages like a maniac." If the account is true, he's essentially saying they intentionally designed the stages to be as rudimentary and basic as possible for the sake of players being able to just through them. Sonic Team keeps delivering the good times! Is this where Forces' tie-in with Mania comes from?
Yeah, I gotta admit. I kept the chatter on for my first (story) playthrough, but going back for Red Rings, Missions, etc I've had everything off, and bloody heck it makes a nice difference. On that note, what was even Sonic Team's decision to bring back endless mid-gameplay talking? I don't think I ever read a Heroes/06/Shadow/Boom review that praised that sort of thing and I figured the lesson was learnt considering we hadn't had it in any Boost games.
What's next? Sonichu Medallions? What exactly is the point of that vid? That the intro levels for Sonic and the avatar aren't exactly complex? Isn't that kind of obvious? The in-game physics needs help. The levels themselves are decent enough.
Nah, only a few really stand out as totally stupid. Just happened to be half the stuff they showed off pre-release. Sunset Heights, Space Port, and Arsenal Pyramid are all pretty notably worse than all the other levels in their respective playstyles.
Sonichu Medallions would be amazing and hilarious. I can't believe they actually put in the sanic shirt. I'm loving how self-aware Sonic stuff has gotten, especially the Boom cartoon. Sonic the Hedgehog is like Dragon Ball Z in that it's extremely stupid and ridiculous and it's at its best when it isn't ashamed to admit it. Not that Dragon Ball was ever afraid to admit it. From the get go it was mostly Akira Toriyama drawing big muscle men punching each other, boobs, dinosaurs, fart jokes and whatever the hell he wanted. There's so much pretentious shit out there but DBZ doesn't have a hint of that and it's so refreshing. I think that's a big reason why it's so popular. One thing is for sure, between the DeviantArt character creator, the edgy SatAM storyline and Internet memes, Sonic Team really figured out how to appeal to their target audience. I feel like this game is pretty meh, but if I was 13 years old, I would probably being going nuts over it. Unfortunately I'm a cynical adult and I can see all the corners they cut making it. So much of the game just feels like there was no money or effort put into it. Sonic Forces is a cynical cash grab and not an labor of love like Mania and it really shows. And it's really such a shame too, because some of the ideas had a lot of potential.
I remember being a kid and unironically loving that obnoxious talking constantly and this game is really heavily aimed towards kids so...
It makes sense for this game given the focus on the story. The dialogue at least has some more depth to it than "That Turtle has a block on it's back!" "SHAAAA" "WOAHHHH MY HEAD'S SPINNING." They have at least realized that people might not want to hear the inane chatter after a while though, so they've been getting better with putting in game options to shut everyone up. And not exactly true on the silent Boost series. Unleashed and Generations did not have chatter, but Colors, Lost World, and Forces did. Granted Colors and Lost World's chatter came more in the form of announcements from space, but this kind of falls in line with that.
