Sonic Forces Thread

Mario Odyssey legit looks like a pretty darn good game. You see, I'm not even a Mario kind of guy, only 3D Mario I liked was Mario 64, disliked the Galaxy games (felt the most fun I had in Galaxy didn't use the game's central mechanic). But Mario Odyssey looks like it can be one of my favorite games, like everything I wanted from a 3D Mario.

As I said with Sonic Forces, mediocre isn't enough to sell it on someone, let alone recommend it to a friend who hasn't played Sonic before. On the other hand, Mario Odyssey is looking pretty interesting to me, someone who doesn't really play too much Mario.

 

Oh and by the way.



Now I never want to hear the argument again "it's not trying to be like previous Sonic games" nor "there's no definition as to what a Sonic game is/how it plays".
It's over. This game explicitly relates its gameplay to familiarity with previous games for its measure of difficulty. It establishes that there is such a thing as a "Sonic game" and how it is expected to play. It bases its gameplay on previous Sonic games and what it believes a Sonic game is. It does not exist in isolation nor do other Sonic games. It is holding itself up to a standard.

 

^ Yeah, there's plenty of straw man arguments thrown around by people desperately defending this game. From, "it's a boost game, therefore all of them are good" to, "only classic fanboys dislike this game". I think you should just chill, you'll find endless amounts of arguing and stupidity from both sides, and I deem it a waste of time. I prefer discussing stuff with people that actually want an argument than people who already sit at a predetermined conclusion, one where we're both willing to be proven wrong or call a spade a spade.

If someone wants to defend this game, or express that they enjoyed it, cool; I encourage it. Just keep an open mind and remember to have a discussion.

 

I know it's unrelated to what you said, but why is easy mode "normal" ? I'm assuming it's the mode where you have a 100 rings cap and lose 20 at a time, right ?
Damn, people joked about it when it was announced, but maybe they really did put in easy mode in fear of professional reviewers sucking at the game and giving it a bad rating
It's kind of hilarious

 

I do hope that this is a wake-up call that Sonic Team needs a good clean out and freshening up. I think it's quite obvious that a number of people in all the departments need to call it a day and let other people come on board for once.

I would even say that Iizuka needs to go, I don't know who would be best at replacing him though.

 

I wish we still had the team from Unleashed.

 

from the bits of spoilers I've been reading, seems like the game was moreso a marketing disaster with clunky writing making the opening of the game objectively bad, shoddy to objectively bad level design, gimped controls for the sake of "simplicity," and a plot angle that reads like a GROSS misunderstanding of the Archie comics—seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if someone at SEGA asked/found out that the US market has been asking for a "game based on the comics" and got someone to translate fucking PENDERS issues... all the "this is war" bullshit seems right up with what he was writing.

Dark != good but the fact i see some defenders, or just casual fans, seeing this plot and going "oh dayum shits DARK now" is honestly obnoxious, as just the thought of "shit getting serious" is enough to entice them. Standards have dropped SO terribly, like Lange said earlier. The base idea of the story isn't anything special, but its not inherently flawed either; the Ian Flynn comics are legit great stuff at some point and make the series have a feeling of genuine fun AND "action," a warzone-type feel with all the characters actually doing something. What matters more isn't the idea, its the delivery. Forces just falls flat more often than not, trying to make an engaging plot far bigger in scope than what the writers/voice directors are capable of—granted that scope is really not that big. Its just a failure of engagement by making everything clunky, unexplained, and assumed, which is to say any and all writing feels hamfisted, adding/retconning elements arbitrarily seemingly at will with some underlying structure to the series we know nothing about (i.e. the whole "there's actually two worlds" bullshit), and just ASSUMING you'll go along with it or nod in agreement and go "ah yes i see" and let the plot do whatever the fuck it wants while also not doing anything because this series has no direction.

Infinite is a bad joke. The shit he says is so over the top cartoon villain while expecting you to think he's actually a threat + - i.e. "I can smell your fear, it's delicious." What the fuck   . He's got a case of "bad anime villain voice" which I see with every god damn shitty villain ever written. You know the one. "I speak with a slightly British accent, or at least a very 'propper' tone, and use unnecessarily elongated words while never using contractions, because I am a very serious villain who will destroy you any time I wish" (oh and uses "destroy" to substitute "kill" because oh no thats a bad word). It's the same shit they did with Zavok except with a filter. Seriously, its like the people translating these guys only ever saw Frieza and Cell and went "mhm yep thats how you do villains thats the only way." Its so predictable and generic and FUCKING BORING. At least he + - actually kills/vaporizes people apparently.   But that's still bad writing / "plot armor" for anyone relevant because he doesn't just do that shit to every other character, going + - "ooh your not worth destroying" to sonic even though hes just a dumbass   . What a bad fucking character lmao.


Oh and the level design is still inexcusable.


I get they wanted to go for "quantity over quality" this time because unlike Gens which had 18 stages for 2 characters, this one tried developing ~ + - 30   for three, but the degree to how short and fucking barren these stages are is astounding, especially considering this game was reportedly under the same if not MORE development time than Gens despite reusing a fuckload more assets. There's obviously been some development issues to this game in some way, that much is clear, and the fact SEGA would let that happen to their next AAA game that NEEDED to succeed is just... actually its expected at this point, but I'd like to be proven wrong just once. But really, the asset flipping wouldn't bother me so much if they at least made the game engaging. Instead everything in the game looks like it has 1 or 2 brief elements of interest—and I mean VAGUE interest—before just having you naruto run in a straight line with little room for variance.

I'm upset because I KNOW this studio can do better, and it HAS done better. While the plot and writing was probably always doomed to fail, it would have probably been just funny if the level design didn't look to be an absolute failure. Its as if the setpieces/ideas behind the game *alone* are what the game's trying to sell you on, rather than the, you know, game itself. Its more conerned about going "wow sonic got kidnapped and trapped on the death egg isnt that so cool???" than actually letting you feel like you're conquering the death egg, or have, i don't know, fun in the level. Everything what I've seen so far looks like the worst of sonic colors and thats just incredibly depressing, especially cuz this COULD have been a fun game, but seems like a wholly missed opportunity.


Also jesus shit Classic's music is worse than the worst of Gens 3DS.


This game might not look like a complete trainwreck to some people but what I've seen doesn't impress and wreaks of a game at's at best mediocre, and at worst bogged down by lazy or just rushed desicions despite having ample development time, ALLEGEDLY, and reusing so many art assets the game may as well be called Generations 2. The barren level design seriously has me wondering where the FUCK those development costs have been going, and I really do have to wonder if SEGA's just that bad at managing/hiring their voice actors (side note Rouge is fucking terrible in this game jfc if I hear that "ive been a bad gurl" inflection one more time im going to scream). If they were all THAT expensive, I do have to wonder if the constant voice clips in-game, or at least during the heads-only cutscenes, was even worth it. I'd imagine compared to the rest of the game development they weren't THAT expensive, but if they were... fuck man. Get your SHIT together SEGA.


I'll probably steamshare this with someone out of morbid curiosity and, if I end up liking it, somehow, buy it after a price drop. No way in hell am I dropping anywhere close to $40 on this though lmao i can spend my money on much better things than that horseshit.

 

Pretty straightforward: The story is fun, the rest of the game isn't. I can appreciate qualities in isolation without calling this a good direction for the franchise.

I forwarded this theory a while back, but it got glossed over: Sega's animation studio Marza has been making much ado about their recent short film The Gift, which was their attempt at a realtime animation pipeline using Unity. In their postmortem conference, I'm pretty sure they said something to the effect of "We didn't have much experience with game engines, so we tapped our partners at Sega for assistance." The lack of original art assets and the team's reluctance to modify level geometry for bespoke sequences like the 2.5D path diversions that were all over the place in Generations really suggests that whatever 3D talent Marza stole never got replaced. Someone should compare credits between The Gift and Generations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XYNRH1nns

 

Even though Odyssey looks like it was made with love and care and I'd probably be able to enjoy it more if I stopped thinking of it as a Mario game, I... just don't see myself doing that anytime soon. At least not until I stop being so butthurt over it being another sandbox collectathon that has an emphasis on story. I'll admit that I haven't been very fair to the game. As in, I'm extremely biased and haven't taken the time to look at much of its gameplay.

Forces, on the other hand... I haven't seen the entire game, but I've seen probably just over half (including everything up to the first Infinite fight and everything from the last Infinite fight onward) and I just don't see myself purchasing this, ever. I was already bummed that mechanics from the Lost World games were outright abandoned (save for the auto-run tube sections, of all things), but there's nothing to be hopeful for anymore.

At least the story feels like a hilarious mix between Heroes and Shadow, with a hint of Colors. I've also enjoyed the majority of what I was able to hear of Modern Sonic's stage themes, though some of the Avatar's cheesy themes are starting to grow on me in a similar way Sonic R's did.

Edit: I just want to clarify that while actually playing the game doesn't really interest me, I don't think it looks horrible. Just not as fun as I found Colors, which is already a game I don't really go back to despite how much I enjoyed it the first time through. Maybe I'll change my mind and get it on a Steam sale one day, but I'm not normally one to buy games that I feel like I'll complete once and be done with.

 

Hey, I think I was one of the guys who brought that up Yeah, I think the real-time workflow is really limiting them. Also, aren't they involved in R&D for the Sonic movie? Any progress on that movie is surely eating away from their staff.

EDIT: Saved a post made by mistake by turning it into an actual post. Yay.

 

Woah. I vaguely recall this

 

If you buy me a Switch, sure!

 

A graphics comparison.

It seems they only spent time making GHz less shitty on Switch because the rest looks quite bad.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJ_ci6AiS8[/media]


EDIT:

CASSINO FOREST Classic (OST) is up.

 

You guys seen this yet?

 

Veeeeery interesting read, Vela. I was planning on doing this myself, mainly to just do a staff comparison with all the sonic games, and it definitely looked like Forces was given to either the B-Team or "the janitor," and... wow, turns out pretty much all the talent in the original games just jumped ship.

So that's the guy who I can thank for Generations' level design plans. Yoshinobu Uba, who also designed for the Daytime levels--wouldn't doubt the better parts of them too. Wonder what he's up to now... His exclusion from Lost World/Forces is grossly obvious and its sad. Both games would definitely have done better with him at the lead, or at least contributing.

Wonder if it'd be possible to interview this unsung hero at some point. I'd LOVE to know his design philosophy behind Generations' layouts, either mode really.



...Also who the fuck is dealing with promoting people at that company?! Unless Uba quit because Sonic Team/SEGA is an incompetent company (wouldnt be surprised), how the FUCK did one of the level designers for LOST WORLD become lead designer? Did he just work fast or something?

Christ.

 

Didn't SEGA have a big restructure not too long ago? It could very well have affected things within Sonic Team.

But to be honest, the fact that they're new gives me hope. In my opinion I think they did well for their first time. Give them time to grow, I say. I don't mind waiting if it means we'll eventually have something great.

 

Sonic Forces in a nutshell.

Also hahahahaha @ the level designers being new. That sounds like a great move for any 25th anniversary game.

 

I'm trying to avoid spoilers so I've stayed out of this thread, but does it strike anyone as a bit... odd that this game barely has 30 minutes worth of cutscenes despite being billed as a return to the story-heavy nature of games preceding Colors? That's actually (by a thin margin) shorter than both Colors itself and Lost World, with only Generations clocking in lower (and that's not surprising, considering 90% of its cutscenes are "congrations, you done it")

For comparison, Sonic Adventure has just over two hours, Sonic 06 comes in just under that, and Unleashed has about an hour and a half. What gives?

 

Most of the exposition is told through text boxes between levels, so there's more to the plot than just the cutscenes. That being said it is definitely barebones and it hurts the story itself overall.