I’m sure you guys already feel the same way, Gameplay / animations or whatnot look too mechanical and stiff… They didn’t fix Sonic 06 before release, Sonic forces felt like it had the same mechanical physics in its trailer that ended up in the final game. Not holding my breath that they’ll fix this one either… I really think 3D sonic needs to get back his momentum based roots….
I looked back into this to check my facts, and while I did find a thread here about a year ago talking about misconceptions about the Forces dev team, it was actually this image that caused me to make my earlier post: I didn't make this clear before, but I was mostly addressing level design, in the same way the post I was referring to was about Ian Flynn's involvement, not the development of the entire game. When I saw that message in the Forces teaser, I was excited thinking the level design would be as good as Colors and Generations. The aforementioned misconceptions thread does highlight that the Forces level design team did do other work in the franchise, but they weren't level designers for Colors or Gens. I should have specified that was what I was implying, and I'm sorry for any misinformation. I am aware Forces was not made by a brand-new or totally different team, but the level design team was noticeably different from Colors/Gens.
This is the main positive I am taking away from this at the moment. It might not be what I wanted or look particularly exciting at the moment, but it's already less automated than what Forces' Modern Sonic felt and at least it's new environments and not Green/Sand Hill, even if it is a little bland from what we've seen. Otherwise just echoing a lot of other feelings here. The floating rails are gross, and some of Sonic's animations (particularly the "tricks") are awful, which is even weirder when you consider Generations did them so much better 11 years ago... Also, slight tangent and I'm aware I'm a decade late to moan about this, but is there any logical reason they turn Sonic into a literal solid, glowing ball when jumping, rather than using the actual animation of him spinning that he does after the wall-running sections? It's been a bit of a bug bear for years, but it seems to stick out even more in these clips.
This is something that I've been wondering for many years. Earlier games in the Adventure era had great jumping animations. Sonic Adventure 2 improved over the first game by having the character curl their body and perform an aerial animation as opposed to turning into a textured ball when jumping. Using the homing attack on enemies in this game and seeing the character doing aerial somersaults surrounded by their colored aura was also delightful. The animation quality got worse in subsequent games such as Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and '06 but it was always remained present until Unleashed reintroduced the 3D ball mechanic and all subsequent boost games kept this model, with Sonic only uncurling at times when doing other moves. Why have the animations been getting worse for the past 20 years and three console generations?
Why do the rings circle around Sonic like that? Not only does it make them unsatisfying to collect, it's also nauseating to look at.
Overall I agree that the animations have gotten worse, but I like the stylized jump ball. I always found the non aura jump ball to look extremely boring. This isn't my favorite iteration of the jump ball though, that'd probably be Unleashed or Generations
I assume it’s a left over from when the likelyhood of you grabbing rings was running really fast so it needed to be more in your face. It does look insane just walking in them… a little detail of it only flying in based on your speed would have been nice. But attention to details either are yet to come… or not at all.
I thought the "A Team/B Team" idea stretched back to 06 and Secret Rings. Regardless, Colors and Generations do have some staff overlap, but also plenty of staff differences. Some of the people involved in both did some work on Lost World (and some who only did work on one or the other), but the amount of people who did work on Forces who had also done work on Colors and/or Generations is even less. While it's not inaccurate to say "Lost World and Forces had some of the talent from Colors and Generations working on it", just stating broadly "from the team that made those" paints a misleadingly generous impression. I do think you should make a thread for this, because it's an interesting topic!
I've thought for a while now that giving Sonic to Nintendo would be one of the best things to ever happen to Sonic franchise.
I see two things that bother me. The animations and momentum physics look off. I don’t expect it to be like the Genesis classics but Sonic Adventure’s are way better. I saw Sonic running full speed between two hills and as he came up the 2nd one he stayed stuck to the ground. In any other game, he shoots up in the air and lands back on the ground. Even a Roblox mini game like Sonic Speed Simulator seems to follow these physics. The boost also needs to be put to rest. I get it. Sonic needs to go fast, but why not make him go that same speed by momentum. Some people like the boost and I did until I saw in 3d fan games you can make him go just as fast by using momentum. That running and walking animation is the worst I’ve ever seen. It is still early but why are they presenting their game looking like that on a platform like IGN.
I'm hyped AF from that trailer. It very much looks like a Sega game and what I would think a new gen Adventure would look like to the point I am trying to keep myself from expecting them to put in Chao. (plz put in Chao)
Don't think I've seen anyone say it in this thread but saw some people either on reddit or Twitter saying that the purple coins had a Chao Head on it. On closer inspection...it's a hook, like a fishing hook. Spoiler https://i.imgur.com/JwwiaYt.png So anyway, Big the Cat confirmed lol Edit: That shrine in the flower field has a Yellow Chaos Emerald on it. Had a Hard time trying to screenshot it https://i.imgur.com/zEAGvRe.png Edit2: Lack of Wildlife outside of Seagulls makes me wonder if they'll do something to Sonic CD where completing something will bring back the wildlife.
Funniest thing is how these showcase vistas from atop the towers just draw attention to the Bangladesh-style pea soup fog air Guys, I've been working on myself. Trying to be less negative, keeping an open mind, y'know? So I'll say this: Near the end of the tower climb where the player hesitates before making the jump to the Big the Cat tokens, I felt a slight vertigo tension in my gut, and that's the gold standard indicator of a fun platformer. They're trying to pull off this delicate balance of producing a larger world than ever before with some of the most deliberate platforming we've seen to date. I don't know, it looks fun. It already looks 200% more fun to me than every other boost game. Still interested.
It was nice seeing weather effects. Outside of occasional snow have we ever seen any weather effects? I can't think of any official level where it's ever rained for example except maybe Rusty Ruins Saturn. Are there day night cycles too? Hard to tell if time was passing when the longest clip was 2 minutes long
So I left for 5 months only to find out a gameplay trailer dropped recently. Based on the youtube vids I'm seeing, general reaction is that it looks mediocre. Anyone still wanna claim I was being arbitrarily pessimistic in my waiting to see gameplay before making a decision? I didn't think so. OK, on a less bitter note...I don't think it looks awful. My biggest concern is that there seems to be large stretches of nothing in between the bits where there's stuff to do. The actual parts where there's stuff to do look decent, and I am wondering what all these various items do, but overall...no, Frontiers is still firmly in the "maybe, depending on reviews" pile.
