Forces' Classic Sonic overall controls better than Generations' one, but to me the levels aesthetics in Generations make the experience a whole lot better than in Forces. Besides, the 2D reference we had in 2011 was Sonic 4 Episode I, while in 2017 we had Mania. So it looked like Generations' Classic Sonic was an improvement and Forces' Classic Sonic was a downgrade, even if this is not entirely true.
I actually kind of liked the Classic levels in Forces. Sure the physics suck, but the actual level design is actually good in my opinion. Also Classic Sonic’s spin dash is no longer OP and the roll actually has use, which are small but good improvements. If only they didn’t bring back the Sonic 1 speed cap...
Hey, I'm glad I'm not the only one! Classic's stages in Forces aren't great by any means, and their faults were magnified a hundredfold by their proximity to Mania, but they do at least feel complete in a way that a lot of Forces' level design doesn't. Which makes it a shame that he's the least-represented of the three playable characters, with only six stages.
I still think a Lost World sequel that fixes the kinks with the mechanics and adds more playable characters and moves for Sonic would have been a very good game and a direction the franchise could stay in for, like, a decade without it getting old. *shrugs*
There's exactly one thing Sonic Forces does better than Generations: I'm talking about the slow walking (Sonic's and Shadow's movement feels less floaty), but that's about it. It is as if someone said 'We need tight AND floaty controls!'
One thing that bugs me about how Forces Modern Sonic feels like he's on autopilot: Sonic Team has proven in the past that it's possible to have a game that's on autopilot challenging and fun with Sonic and the Secret Rings (though, to be fair, the only way to truly experience that game in a good way is to play it in Dolphin with a Switch controller). Hell, all Forces really needs to be a good game, excluding the plot, is longer and more challenging levels that are engaging and take at least 3-4 minutes to complete. Only the Classic levels take me more than two minutes on average, and I can blaze through all of the Modern levels in less than a minute. Level design in the Modern/Avatar stages is the only thing, I think, that really held it back from being good.
To add to this, I've seen new fans in Sonic circles on twitter who just got into the games via Forces, who picked it up because of the movie, and they seemed to like it just fine also.
I'm legitimately surprised to hear people saying that they think Classic handles better in Forces than Generations. He's far from perfect in either game, but Forces is so much worse to me. He's even heavier than he was in Generations, making precise control a real chore. But strangely he'll also lose all momentum in the air or on landing of you let go of the directional input before touching the ground. Jumping is the most effective way to brake. Turning around is oddly difficult though; you pretty much need to use the broken jumping momentum to bring Sonic to a stop first, because trying to turn him around on the ground takes forever due to his increased weight. Rolling doesn't work any better than in Generations, but he's got a hard-coded and scripted speed up when rolling on some specific hills. I'm sure this can be proven with a couple of simple tests yourself. His properties when rolling are also really, really, strange. The best way to describe it is that he becomes sticky, and will cling to walls and ceilings, often leading to him dropping straight down off ledges or rolling across ceilings. It's buggy and inconsistent, almost like a broken Spikes Wisp. Plus the game doesn't stop him rolling on landing, which leads to him continuing to roll when he should be walking. That takes away a bunch of control. I can't help but wonder if the game sometimes thinks he's in a drop-dash state simply because he rolled/spindashed off a ramp or ledge. Speaking of ramps and ledges, they're all invisibly scripted in Generations. Instead of relying on the physics, ramps launch Sonic to predetermined heights and distances. It usually feels okay, but if you're at all discerning towards the physics then you can usually tell it's faked because Sonic's speed doesn't make sense with the height he gains. Forces takes it one step further though. Sometimes it has these invisibly scripted ramps, but more often than not they just got incredibly lazy and put hidden springs at the ends of ramps. Not only is this method as transparent as it is cheap, it eliminates any sense of natural speed and flow to the level design and Sonic's movements (assuming that there is any in the first place with Forces' physics). I can understand why some people might prefer the static camera of Forces, although I'll disagree with it. There's much more that can be done with the dynamic camera. Scripted events? Generations is heavy on them, and Forces is no better. The only difference on that front is that Forces is less creative with them, virtually exclusively using boosters, springs and tunnels. It's boring. Generations had a lot more flair doing essentially the same thing. The spindash in Generations was ridiculous though, yes. No defending that one as far as being true to the source material goes. Forces wins there, although you're actively encouraged not to use it because of how broken the rolling state is... The OP spindash feels somewhat like a discount boost, and the game was at least designed with it in mind. It's essential a couple of times in Rooftop Run and Planet Wisp on some paths, and works with the faux-Classic mechanics of the game. The only other thing that Forces does slightly better is having solid collision on the sides of springs so they must be jumped on instead of walked into (however this is negated by many springs being hidden underground) and being able to stand on to of item monitors (this was possible in the Generations birthday demo but changed in the final build for some reason). Both of these are incredibly nitpicky though, and don't really add to Forces pros.
I'll have to agree with Blue Blood. I thought it was common knowledge that Classic Sonic in Forces controlled far worse than in Generations, I genuinely did not know it wasn't an objective fact. As soon as I saw people expose that first ramp in Chemical Plant, I considered Classic Sonic a lost cause. Besides that, he felt clunkier from the get go. I could tell from the trailers, but upon actually playing the game, I noticed how he feels like a bag full of bricks whenever he jumps from a stand still or slow speeds. Bouncing on Badniks feels even worse, not to mention being able to stop in mid air. It's always hard to pinpoint what makes controls "bad", but I feel like anyone can tell Classic Sonic's jump and rolling is fucked up in Forces. If you can enjoy it, though, more power to you! All I can say about the level design is that it's adequate. However, I'll agree with Blue Blood again and say that they end up being extremely forgettable due to the lack of proper setpieces. There's substance there, but the game lacks memorable levels.
I'd say Forces' Green Hill alone would be a severe indictment against Forces' Classic Sonic having better level design than Generations' Classic Sonic; I vividly remember several of us --with good reason-- pillorying the bad design choices when the first video was uploaded back in April 2017. But even if it wasn't, the Classic Sonic levels in Forces are a crappy punchline of what Genesis Sonic gameplay meant before Mania came on the scene, about the same level as they were with Sonic 4. Hell I'd even say they're probably what Sonic 4: Episode 3 would had been if Sonic Team greenlit it, but designed it in-house instead of giving it to Dimps; and it also has a similarly bad attempt at Genesis-era instrumentation with its music to further sell that notion. Putting aside the excessive automation and bad Mario Maker-styled precise platforming construction, there is just very little creativity or innovation overall in the few levels you're given to work with. Almost all of them are either bland remakes of, or mindless rehashes of, past stages as it is. And with hardly any of the genius expansion or reinvention that Generations and Mania offered in their approach of remade stages. The closest thing to an original stage is Iron Fortress, which is largely a miscalculated attempt at being a final zone stage with all of the difficulty that comes with that title. It has the properties to qualify as a hard level near the end of the game, but none of the fineese to make it genuinely fair; which is why you have results like that autoscrolling section that causes a lot of deaths. Generations' levels definitely lacked the physics and controls, but the stages had some levels of substance and really good style to (somewhat) make up for it. Generations benefited for taking a few notes from Unleashed in that each stage has a few areas that require fast reflexes to access a route through a temporary platform or stage mechanic. So while not momentum-based physics, you did need to achieve some decent flow and be alert to access those areas like in some of Unleashed's 2D sections. Forces is way too busy making sure you have to take your time with nearly every jump when its not just coasting you through the levels. More to the point, I know the dynamic camera was recently criticized but besides giving a more flashy presentation, it also allowed for the levels to be designed with a 3D environment/multiple planes in mind; which I would say was the biggest strength of those levels. It was an approach to design that we haven't seen in any of the previous Genesis (or dare I say, even previous 2D) Sonic games and it allowed them to be really creative with the exploration elements and setpieces. You couldn't do something like the branching paths in Sky Sanctuary that really felt like exploring different sections in a sanctuary in the earlier games. Or make the GUN Truck stalk you throughout Escape City and having it actually obliterate/replace elements of the level design if you weren't quick enough to get through them. Virtually none of that imagination in Generations' levels were there in Forces' levels.
I would have to play again to confirm it then. I felt that the levels in Generations are so more enjoyable that they mask the poor controls. But maybe that was a false impression due to the spin-dash being nerfed in Forces.
If memory serves, I honestly found myself struggling with Classic Sonic's controls and physics far more in Generations than Forces. The levels weren't bad, but the OP spindash, the awkward jump, and Sonic's tendency to uncurl in various sections without warning sucked all the fun out of them for me.
Classic Sonic’s level design is significantly better if you compare it to the rest of the game. Each level takes around 2-3 minutes and has quite a few alternate paths to encourage multiple playthroughs. Of course, Generations is still better, but I’d prefer Forces Classic Sonic levels over Sonic 4. I still hate the physics though. I don’t see why Sonic Team didn’t just take Generations 3DS’s Classic physics and polish them up a bit.
For me, the thing with Generations classic levels is that they took a different and unique approach to 2D level designing , something that wasn't present before or even after in Forces. They are 2D levels that actually uses 3D to it's advantage, whether in simply flashy camera dynamics and great presentation or designing overlapping paths like Sky Sanctuary, it presents some cool gimmicks like the troll ending in City Crisis , in short it feels like....i dunno...... big budget 2D levels.... if that makes sense. And it's designed around the controls, so things like "NOT ACCURATE PHYSICS TO GENESIS GAMES!" didn't bother me in the slightest cause the levels weren't designed around physics and rolling, it takes different "modern classic" approach, yeah i would simply call them that, even the overpowered spindash made sense to me and it was fitting for the game and it's pacing. While Forces simply have "classic classic" approach to it's level design , flat 2D, except it doesn't do it well, it pales in comparison to what it tries to imitate, and mania is already there in the market so what's the point of playing lesser 2D levels? Generations classic levels differentiate itself from any other 2d sonic games that you can return to them no problem even after Mania, while Forces levels simply not, they don't add anything to the game itself and you can take them out and nothing would be lost, the addition of classic sonic in this particular game is the most redundant thing.
Am I the only one remembering a lot of us have played 8-bit games to death, and that those probably were a lot worse than Classic in Generations? What I liked from 8-bit games was that, despite the technical differences, the games felt true to the main titles, and, while we can blame Generations for being too gimmicky and scripted for a way more advanced technology than the games of the 90's had, they did a good work under those rules, and the new ones it introduced, such as the 3D on 2D examples Beltway cited above, added a lot to the experience. Can Forces say the same?
I'm glad that you people enjoyed Generations' Classic levels, but for some of us, they just weren't that fun. And no, my problem isn't that they're "NOT ACCURATE PHYSICS TO GENESIS GAMES!" as MH MD put it. My problem is simply that I didn't them find that satisfying to play. They felt more like a flashy proof of concept demo than a finished game. I also found that the levels didn't flow that well. IMO, a well-designed Sonic level should allow you to maintain your speed by taking advantage of the terrain. Here, if you wanted to speed through a level, you were pretty much forced to spindash every 5-10 seconds, which broke the flow and threw away your current momentum. If you tried playing it like other Sonic games (ie: by running, reserving the spindash only for when you screw up and lose your momentum), the level design and physics would quickly slow you down. And the platforming wasn't any better, as I found Classic Sonic's jump needlessly unwieldy.
Classic Sonic and the Avatar stages just serve as reminders to me that there's no one I'd rather play in a Modern Sonic game than Modern Sonic. I don't see why they can't just make one 4-5 hour long Modern Sonic game where you play as him exclusively for the entire duration and doesn't cut corners with a bunch of 2D stages like Colors. I understand they want the games to be longer but the best Sonic games can be beaten in a long afternoon and replayed over and over. I've beaten Mania 50+ times as all the characters. Would love a Modern Sonic game where I can do the same...
Yeah I do, I believe with the proper staff and director it's possible. I'd even take barely 3 hours if it's worth replaying over and over.
