I'm genuinely surprised to see the custom hero getting so much positive feedback from critics. I think it'll be interesting to see what kinds of characters people create.
Ready for the most adorable thing you'll ever see (maybe?)? Apparently - if the translation of the japanese tweet is correct - this was the T-shirt the guys at the Sonic Forces E3 booth were wearing. Let's hope the artwork will be available soon!
If the Park Avenue footage was anything to go by, this isn't exactly the best thing for me to read when it looks so subpar. Maybe it's just because it's the beginning of the game stuff. I feel like my optimism is gradually dwindling the more I actually see with hands-on gameplay because of how everything just looks more and more serviceable at best.
Park Avenue is likely both regular Sonic's first stage and the Avatar character's first stage. I'm supposing that these stages are like this so that new players of the game are less likely to be overwhelmed. In comparison, Green Hill seems to be more complex compared to the other one and is probably the Avatar character's second stage. There is a lot of alternate paths and it's as if the stage was made for the Lightning Wispon. Kotaku's footage of the game shows it being used fairly well there. https://youtu.be/Y9NqZfQZ0AM?t=3m59s
Why is the music for this game so damn tasteless? Furthermore, why isn't there a vocal portion of people criticizing it? Has the age demographic of the fanbase changed that much since Sonic 4 (of which, a common criticism targeted the low-budget synth music)? Because sonic 4 had objectively superior music, when compared to what we've heard from Park avenue, for instance. Park avenue sounds like something almost ironic and self-aware; something like this.
Yeah, well that's just a fact we all intuitively know about. But there is still a fair degree objectivity regarding what both superior and inferior music is. Examples: Miles Davis as opposed to Katy Perry Mario Odyssey as opposed to Sonic Chronicles Also, as a more general side note, to engage in absolute relativism when discussing things in well...discussion boards defeats the very purpose of discussion itself. What happened online between Sonic 06 and Unleashed ("SONIC FRIENDS SUCK!!"; "SONIC CYCLE!!") proves that forcing certain memes gets the message across to developers and publishers pretty effectively - even if Sonic Team seemingly has a problem in understanding more nuanced and complex ideas. As such, it is preferable to put a bit pressure onto SEGA and Sonic Team, to steer them into a better overall direction, thus resulting in better final products.
Yeah, there is a varying amount of objectivity when judging the quality of music. However, compared to your second example, that degree of objectivity is not nearly as large or definite in regard to this game's music.
There may be an increasingly larger group of people who don't care enough about this game to even bother critizicing it...
It's remarkable what a bum-note Forces is hitting within these reaches of the fan community. Some people like what they see and some people absolutely hate it (myself included). Most people though aren't leaning very strongly one way or another. For everyone one thing that Forces does right, I find it another ten things horribly. Classic Sonic returning as a separate character and the very idea of a custom character alongside will never sit right with me, nor will Sonic Teams terrible approach to game design. They need to start from absolute scratch.
It's more remarkable how people act as if people should hate the music in this game, that complaining about it is what other people should do, and that this is the right opinion. It could be that most people actually like the music and so they do not complain. Blue Blood, you know very well that "starting from scratch" isn't likely to do anything beneficial because for all that you would know, other people along with you would complain about the resulting differences.
*Yawn* There we go again with the relativism as a means of defending a point. By this very logic, there's also no reason for people who do not like the game to remain quiet and not post about it. In fact, to say something along the lines of "Wow this game certainly looks different! Hahah, can't wait to finally play the game and see what sonic team has in store for us! " requires just about the same amount of effort as making an assessment criticizing the game. In addition to that, I kind of disagree with Blueblood. The people who seem to like the game, tend do so in a lukewarm fashion, without presenting actual reasons for why they do, except that it is Sonic, it is new and different, and it looks like "dumb fun XD". The people who do dislike it however, do tend to present more actual arguments into the table.
No, I maintain that they need to develop a completely new approach to Sonic games, which includes a new engine at the very least. Sonic Team have developed a way of creating somewhat functional games with a very rigid design that greatly limits what the player is actual able to - it was cool when I first saw these things in Unleashed, but that game plays virtually the same anytime that I or anyone else plays it. Colours, Generations and now Forces repeat all the same tricks. The applies to physics, level design, movesets and every other gameplay element you can think of. That games they're producing these days take a lot of work to make for very little pay off. The end result is something playable and relatively inoffensive, but without scope for longevity or much depth. Even another 2D/3D hybrid boost game could be fantastic if the levels were more than corridors and homing attack chains, the levels sprawled out in multiple directions in 3D, automated triggers weren't dotted everywhere and the physics worked naturally without automation ever taking over. Forces' levels might as well be part of a Generations mod for how little they attempt to improve. It's the exact same approach that Sonic Team is coasting on since Unleashed at least, though many of the specific problems originated in earlier 3D games. It's hard to fuck up something up when you're just reading off a script, which is basically what Forces gameplay is doing.
What makes me laugh is that they couldn't decide which game to clone, Generations or Colours, so they went with both. Eh. Anyway as long as the boost is a thing we're not going to see organic physics and physics based level design, since the boost basically nullifies that. I agree, Sonic Team has been very schematic on their design approaches, and I'm really tired of it. Sonic Unleashed was new and shiny, it had its appeal, but it's time to move on. The formula they adapted is not deep enough to have 4 games based on it, so they either fix that (which I doubt can be done without rewriting it from scratch, anyway) or they have to start from the very beginning. And it's not written in stone that they won't screw it up even if they started from scratch, since they don't seem to understand the appeal of their own franchise.
"I don't like this music so it's objectively bad" Claiming Sonic Chronicles' music is objectively bad is valid. But that's an extreme example. Claiming objectivity in this case is fucking moronic. [citation needed] You're painting with a hilariously broad brush, honey Get over yourself plz
From your comment, you acted as if the possibility of the majority of people or fans liking the song is unheard of or wrong to do. You're that sure of your opinion of the soundtrack that you think that it should apply to everyone else and you don't know what the relativist fallacy actually is. For matters in which the judgment of an aspect of something is mostly or entirely subjective, it does not apply. You're suggesting exactly what people have criticized Sonic Team for doing, especially after Sonic Lost World's release. They should not try to drop the progress that they have made, take an incredibly large risk, and hope that the fans won't incessantly complain just to cater to you. That is pretentious.
More like what they've done poorly. Just let Sonic Team keep making boost titles, and give the more interesting newer idea to a new team.
You say that as if developing a game is so easy and implementing different ideas can be done at a whim.
I'm sorry, but what's pretentious about wanting better games? Lost World is built with all the same ethos as the boost games, and shows the same poor understanding of what makes rich and genuine experience in a game. It also has all of the same issues with automation, physics and level design. I doubt that Sonic Team even have it in them to make better games actually.. I guess I am suggesting that they go back to the drawing board. That's only because they're not striving for anything good. They made the boost gameplay in Unleashed and because that wasn't universally like previous games, they just decided to stick with it. That have settled for mediocrity. If that go back to the drawing board, they would do so now knowing what they want their final product to be. I'm going to be really boring and use a food analogy - a chef spent years making cakes that very few people liked. Every time he would make something different, like a fruit cake or a sponge cake or a cheesecake. None of them were very good really. Eventually he made a chocolate cake that was halfway decent, and people were so surprised and please to see his food was finally edible. So now all the cakes that he makes are that exact same chocolate cake that exact same recipe and ingredients to a tee. It's been almost 10 years, but he refuses to look at the recipe. He knows the cake that he wants to make, and would have something way better if he used higher quality ingredients.
