Okay do that then. Or find a video and clip it out. If not you're making stuff up because there's no way in hell you can beat Sonic 3 and Knuckles fairly in 45 minutes or even if you cut everything out. The funniest part of this comparison is the fact that people cut out Forces/Colors boss fights because they are a completely different type of gameplay. Not even connected to the levels. Sonic 3 and Knuckles doesn't radically change it's gameplay for the bosses so it's not even something you can compare.
So, I actually do have a complete, very casual but very experienced no-emerald playthrough of Sonic 2 in my archives. Just out of curiosity, I decided to see how long THAT took. I used the in-game level timers (so no time added for score tallies, level transitions, etc), but didn't bother cutting the bosses since most of them are over with so fast anyway. But I did skip Sky Chase and the giant cutscene at the end of Wing Fortress. My total came out to 31 minutes, 12 seconds. Of course, to be this good took AGES. But still, I think Sonic games were always pretty short compared to their slower-paced contemporaries. But spectacle was the hook, the distinct variety between each zone was the appeal, and the depth came from replay value. But as priorities in the late 90s shifted toward longer games that most players were only going to play through one time, Sonic's replay-focused core design has struggled to stay relevant. That's why we get people pointing to Sonic as a WHOLE nowadays and decrying it as fundamentally "bad game design."
Just want to remind you real quick that the shortest levels in S3 and K are 2-3 times longer than the longest levels in 2. So it's still not a good comparison.
Actually, it kind of is. Sega's marketing around Sonic 3 was all, "Yeah, there are only half as many zones as the last game, but they're TWICE AS BIG!" And, true to their word, my totals for Angel Island to Launch Base come out to about half an hour, same as Sonic 2. This is an all-emerald run, but it's not like hopping in giant rings takes that much more time.
The comparison was for the entirety of 3 and K vs Colors though. Thanks for your ancedote (and I mean that I didn't know this) but it doesn't make his comparison less irrelevant.
This sounds like needlessly playing semantics. You said Forces isn't as bad as '06, and then you said that Forces "doesn't do anything bad," implying that you don't think Forces has any bad qualities. Pengi then provided examples of Forces' bad qualities, taking issue with that specific statement, hence the reason he only quoted that part of your post. He never implied that he thought Forces was as bad as '06, and that doesn't make his point less valid. Forces passing the incredibly low bar of "not as bad as '06" doesn't make it not a bad game. Because it is, and making empty comparisons to '06 won't change that.
Well, the point was raised specifically in wondering what effect Forces might have on the franchise in comparison to 06. Forces, despite how some fans look at it, hasn't had anywhere near the impact that 06 did. Sonic 06 _still_ lingers in the zeitgeist to this day when somebody thinks of Sonic. Its reputation as one of the worst games ever made precedes it, and sometimes, unfortunately, precedes everything else about Sonic. Let's compare how those bastions of journalism (and very, very mainstream reviewers) at IGN summed up their thoughts in each case. Forces certainly isn't GREAT, and you could argue it's one of the most undercooked platformers of the past generation. But it still racked up a lot of 5s, 6s, and even a few 7s, and Aaron Webber called it a success in terms of sales, anyway. I don't think @Sonic5993 was using 06 as a barometer to judge Forces' quality, I think he was comparing each game's reception to determine what Sonic might do next. Forces is bad, but it doesn't necessarily seem to be the same kind of "franchise-redefining" level of bad that 06 was. Then again, Sonic Generations was well-received, and they still went in a completely different direction AND spun off an alternate continuity in the years after, so maybe the only thing that's for sure about Sonic is that nothing's for sure.
Sonic 06 is broken while Sonic Forces is boring. Both are bad (I don't hate Forces but it's very "meh" to me) but for different reasons. Like if Sonic 06 was like a full version of that P-06 fan remake, I would say it was a better game than Forces. But that's not the case.
Josh already covered it, but the entire context of the conversation was in relation to each game's reception, not their technical aspects. I don't care what Forces did wrong, or what personal grievances the fandom might have with it, as far as general reception is concerned it's pretty much been forgotten. By comparison 06 is still used as a punchline to this series by journalists to this very day. That's what I was saying, not that Forces is somehow a good game because its technically better than 06, but that's it's reception has had nowhere near the same ripple effect. If I wasn't clear on that, sorry but I figure when you quote somebody to address a particular point, you might need the original context.
OH MY GOSH THESE MAKE THE GAME SO MUCH BETTER! Thank you so much! They're not as good as Generations' levels, but they're far, FAR better.
I don't think Forces is a bad game, it's just that it's not a good game either. It's aggressively inoffensive. It doesn't do anything outrageously wrong, but doesn't do anything incredibly right.
You're right, my "about 30 minutes" was ambitious. I used Amy Rose Longplay's video and got 42 minutes: I kept the snowboarding section and the platforming part of Lava Reef's boss, in spite their autoscroller status, because they are still pretty close to standard Sonic gameplay. In exchange, I cut waiting for rising ground both times it happens because it's more than fifteen seconds of only waiting each time, which I don't consider gameplay (and fits with similar sections being cut from the Colours video). There's an additional minute of waiting periods longer than five seconds I didn't cut because you're still in control and they're not cutscenes, again to fit the other video. I didn't cut around gameplay or cutscenes that were less than five seconds in length, because I'm not going to spend my entire life on this and the two would just about cancel each other out anyway. I wasted too much of my life because somebody on the internet was wrong. I need to stop doing that. You're right, Sonic 3 and Knuckles' bosses completely capture the momentum-conserving, roll-down-hills-to-build-speed nature of the rest of the game, whereas Colours' and Forces' bosses tend to involve timing boosts, jumps, and quicksteps to avoid attacks, which is entirely different to its usual gameplay. I genuinely don't have a clue what you're talking about here. Not that any of this matters anyway because my point was, and still is, that the gameplay value of Sonic games do not come just from going through an area once. You replay the game to explore, to beat previous scores and times, and just have fun generally. Sonic games are not designed to be a long journey, they're designed to be a journey you take again and again and again.
You know, I can't help but wonder what the atmosphere in the fandom would have been like had this game actually succeeded. Had it succeeded, both camps would have been (mostly) satisfied; Older 2D fans would have got their Classic Sonic successor in Mania, and younger 3D fans would have got the more profound storylines they've been asking for...albeit they would want to get rid of Classic Sonic.
I don't even remember what the original argument was at this point but okay it's 42 minutes. Great. Colors 3D levels are mostly corridors without the multiple paths to discover like in Unleashed and Generations. It's still a bland game.
We're getting off-topic, but part of the reason I found Blue Sphere bonus stages in Mania annoying is because of how much they change the gameplay from 2D to 3D (or experimental 3D). Way more annoying and intrusive than in Colors or Gens because of how long the Blue Sphere sections are and how frequently they can appear. They are optional to be fair, but still annoying. Especially when you consider how easy it is to accidentally jump into them.
Oh of course. There are many things which Sonic 06 is, and boring generally isn’t one of them. There’s a new glitch in the matrix every 30 seconds, a teenage girl makes out with her pet hedgehog, pretty sure there’s a sun demon or something... Anyway, IDK what argument this point was made for, but I agree with DigitalDuck’s point about modern Sonic Bosses completely changing the gameplay. It isn’t always extreme, and definitely isn’t as extreme as Blue Sphere (though that’s historically what classic Sonic bonus stages do, they change the gameplay to some new pseudo-3D thing). But it has always felt intrusive to me the way that bosses are more like setpieces and sequences that you play out. I feel like this is almost inevitable though, because the Sonic we control in these games is definitely NOT designed to maneuver around a boss arena. They just have you run forward ad infinitum and do some simple reaction tests because that’s what this version of Sonic is good at. I feel like this is one of the reasons why Colors’ 2D modern bosses felt refreshing to me.
Sonic Forces has this merit of endlessly extending its retro topic even after 3 years since the game came out. Not sure how long have been other specific game topics or how much time passed from their creation to the moment their last post was added, but this one's quite a feat. We definitely need another game announced.
