I didn't say it was "doomed", just that it wouldn't be well received. And it won't. Also, has there literally been a single leak/preview that has talked about the cyberspace levels? If there has, have any even addressed the fact that they are reusing old levels?
So, let’s pause for a minute and breakdown what stage locale reuse may realistically mean here. We know via IGN that there’ll be 28 action stages. Generations HD featured 9 fully remade locales. Forces then has a further 5 locales distinct from these, either new or remade, totalling 14 environments they’d be likely to draw from. I’d say the pessimistic forecast here is that we’re going to say every single one of these locales twice. It’s possible, but my gut feeling is that won’t happen. I think what we need to bear in mind right now is that we have seen heavily obscured footage of maybe 2 stages from the game. Furthermore, the credible leaks that have been validated by what we’ve seen so far called these cyberspace levels and didn’t say that they were reusing locales from Generations, only saying that they were in the same style, seemingly referred to their gameplay. Has anyone at SGF confirmed that these stages take place during regular gameplay? If not, it’s possible that they take place as 2 familiar intro stages in the Generations formula which help to get the plot moving. However, my gut feeling is that someone’s going to come in and correct me on this, revealing that these stages do occur during normal demo gameplay. At any rate, we’ve seen 2 stages of a confirmed 28 at the moment, with one of them logically having a reason to appear, given we know the prologue takes place on Angel Island. Even if some locales are being reused, that doesn’t mandate a binary all of nothing. There yet exists the possibility that the majority of action stages are entirely new. Could all the action stages be reused locales? Sure. Do the numbers work out as such that we could be looking at 14 reused locales getting two action stages each? Perhaps. These are undeniable possibilities. However, I don’t think we have a big enough sample size at this time to confirm or deny our worries. What we need is for SEGA to get themselves together and actually show us this core part of the game on their own terms soon.
When did we get a confirmed 28 total action stages? That doesn't sound correct. I don't think anyone but SEGA has any way of knowing that. Leaks have told us that there are four islands and many of us as well as other "leaks" have surmised that that's seven acts per island, but there has not to my knowledge been any confirmation of this. That said, I think if Forces, the so-called budget title produced in a year, can have new locales, there's no reason this game shouldn't have some new stages, even aside from the open zones (which are totally valid to count as new environments, for the record).
I've always assumed there were less than nine distinct stages. It wouldn't make sense to have a high number of minute-long stages seeing as the game appears to be focusing on the open-world map. Either way, cyberspace levels have only been mentioned in early play-tester leaks and off-camera Summer Game Fest footage—and sometimes alluded in interviews.
Went back to check the Hands-On from IGN and you're right. Must've got my wires crossed with speculation. At any rate, I think the bulk of what I'm saying still stands and that we've seen a very very small portion of the overall package.
I think 28 stages makes sense for the act count, as the leaks saying 4 Islands have been more consistent than the ones saying 7. But there's no chance that all 28 use unique themes (I have to imagine that result in a bloated file size if so), and if we're honest, it's probably seven sets of 4 acts per zone theme. Maybe nine sets of three (+1 outlier) if we're lucky. And no! I don't think they're all reused verbatim from Generations. But it's disappointing that this is the first one we've seen. I'd actually kind of respect a Sonic game where Green Hill was the last stage. If you handled it right, you could actually make it feel poetic.
I think the person playing the game probably just jumped by accident and FWIW my thoughts on this whole re-used levels fiasco are pretty much what Aerosol said earlier. I wish it was something new and different, but it's not a dealbreaker. Especially when the main game is already trying new concepts. I think these cyberspace levels are basically meant to be micro-games and not the main attraction. I'm not sure if anyone should have any strong feelings positive or negative when the information is coming from off-screen footage filmed on a mobile phone and the context behind it is removed lol.
The "28 stages" thing was in one of the leaks iirc, just never officially confirmed and possibly just a fib. I'm gonna bet we won't even actually find out in the next round of footage either. It'll probably just cover the 2 stages that people played in the demo (unless there were others). But one of those stages looks like the alleged "Spring Valley" (NiGHTS but not NiGHTS I guess), so perhaps we'll see one old stage and one new stage. Edit: After watching the whole thing cut together and stabilized, I hope the linearity of this isn't indicative of the entire stage. I'm more focused about that than I am about the stage assets tbh, but again I hope this little clip isn't what the entire stage is like
Yes there was. The first leak to mention Chaos Emeralds, that happened to pretty much sync up with everything we've seen this month, earlier this year said there are 28 of Cyberspace levels. It was the first one to say you have to collect keys to unlock them as well. We've only seen 2 or 3 so far. We have no clue how many will be original or how many will be reusing assets right now but considering there are 28 cyberspace levels I expect at least half to be re use Generations and Forces levels but in a new light and the other half to be original. They've made it no secret in the past how hard it is to produce Modern Sonic Boost levels. Couple this with an entire open world and I can see why this corner has been cut. And again I don't care as long as they're fun. I can DM you a link to someone talking about the leak if you want. Literally everything they said has been shown by SEGA so far.
You can question that, but you didn't. You suggested that Sonic Team are reusing levels because they're scared of making new levels, due to Sonic 2006's poor reception. That's nonsense. Sonic Unleashed had all-new levels. Sonic Colors had all-new levels. Sonic Generations revisited old levels with all-new assets built from scratch. Sonic Lost World had all-new levels, with some familiar tropes, in a new minimalist art style. Sonic Forces had a mix of old and new, repurposing things from Sonic Generations. It's a game that was obviously done on the cheap. It retailed for $40. Sonic Mania was also a mix of old and new, repurposing and touching up graphics from the 16-bit games. This is what allowed it to go from the originally pitched Sonic Discovery bonus game bundled with Sonic 1/2/CD, with maybe 4 or 5 Zones, to a 12 Zone stand-alone title. It was a low-cost game from a small team, who were pressed for time. The release was delayed at least once, and it launched with some missing Zone transitions and bugs that had to be fixed later. It retailed for $20 and was initially digital only. Team Sonic Racing had fewer tracks than the previous two Sumo Sonic racing games, and a lot of them were recycled from those games. This was also clearly done on the cheap. It retailed for $40. Now we have Sonic Frontiers, which is focused around big new Open Zone areas, with somewhat generic looking graphics, and "bite-sized" linear levels that will apparently be reusing levels and assets from Sonic Generations. There are conclusions that can be drawn. "Sonic Team are scared of making new levels because people hated Sonic 2006" isn't the right one.
Tell me you don’t know how game development works without telling me you don’t know how game development works
Tell me you have extremely low standards for Sonic games without telling me you have extremely low standards for Sonic games.
People think the open zone stuff is just filler to get to the really juciy exciting Cyberspace levels... and then we see them and they're goddamn straight line zone? Yeah forgive me if I'm not exactly believing the people saying its the best part. We haven't even seen the story/writing yet.
Did I deadass just see a rail lead into a pit? Fucking christ, even Sonic 06 doesn't do that. At least have the decency to put a spring at the end. And hopping to rails doesn't seem to actually LOCK onto rails, oh my gooooooooooooddddddd Don't make me go through another round of disappointment again, I can't. Not like this...
It looked like there were a bunch of parallel rails and the guy didn’t swap fast enough. I’m pretty sure that’s been in every Sonic game that features rails.
.....That's not something new AT ALL, on top of my head ,Unleashed did have a lot of dead-end rails no problem , and i am sure it existed as far back as SA2 , Final Rush was all rails and a lot of them are dead ends with not as automatic handling of the rails switching as the boost games Like i get people are worried about the game, but chill a bit lol
Yeah, I don't see why you'd want a spring on the end of a rail to be honest. It'd be automating an already simple task and making it practically impossible to fail. I wholeheartedly welcome a paring back of automation at this point and hope these levels actually challenge.
