I mean, you're not wrong. This game does seem like there's still not a lot of confidence behind it from the developers which is something that stems all the way back from Sonic Adventure. I'm not sure where that feeling came from though. I remember this interview with Yuji Naka where he mentions they added different gameplay styles to Adventure because they thought Sonic's style couldn't carry a whole game and modern gamers would get bored of it. Till this day I do not get this line of reasoning because other franchises like Mario and Zelda not only had full confidence in their gameplay, but managed to make them work in 3D instead of wasting time on filler and took them further. Not so much "going back to their roots" but coming up with new ways of keeping the "spirit" of past Mario and Zelda games but showing them in new ways. And at first I thought Sonic Team couldn't do that because they needed new blood within their ranks leading them, but Yoshihisa Hashimoto kind of prove me wrong on that one too. I remember reading the Unleashed developer diaries and seeing this: And then recognizing what other developers like Nintendo did with their franchises: ....But then the Werehog totally contradicted this. Now, there's a lot of interviews where he mentions that he knew the werehog was going to get some flak, but there's another (which I'm trying to find) where talks about how a senior Sega employee told him to reconsider the Werehog idea and they would give him more time to focus on Sonic's gameplay. But he decided the game needed the Werehog because people were going to get tired of regular ol' Sonic. And again, I don't get how they think that. Forces suffers from the same confidence problem. I don't mind Modern Sonic and especially the OC character because I think there might be some potential in the way he handles that can be apply to the rest of the cast if they chose to use them again. But I do mind Classic Sonic, and not because of his physics but only because he feels so shoehorned into the game and also a safety net. Like I mentioned before, the new stuff being shown is making me feel more interested in the game but I do agree with the feeling that the game is taking a lot of stuff from past games and sticking it together to see if it sticks. P.S. I know this is an unpopular opinion but I would like a main Sonic game where Eggman is not the main villain and doesn't come out at all. While I still don't know what his deals is, it would've been more interested to me if Infinite was completely running the show. As much as I like them, I'm getting tired that every main game for Sonic, Mario and Zelda is going to have Eggman, Bowser and Ganon as villains and only have them not appeared in some spinoffs.
You're not the only one. The excessively dramatic music while Sammy's fursona is being chased by a ridiculous robot crab? Actual comedy gold. I can't believe how stupid the marketing for this game has been, when they've been nailing it so consistently with Mania. It's like they're completely oblivious to the enormous tonal dissonance between "platformer starring colourful anthropomorphic animals" and GENERIC GRIMDARK ACTION FILM TRAILER!!!11!
Honestly, I kind of liked the E3 trailer. I don't usually like a whole lot of plot with my Sonic but this one peaked my interest. I don't have particularly high hopes for it, I am just curious as to what direction it takes. My money is on Eggman having used/worked with Infinite to travel to dimensions where Sonic lost, be it to Metal, Chaos, Shadow or Zavok, and then brought them back to the main dimension to wreak havoc. Unintentionally, this will have brought Classic across too (who I have a bad feeling will be coming directly from Mania now the Drop Dash is confirmed). Otherwise straight up brain-washing/mind-control... Also did anyone spot this? https://twitter.com/IanFlynnBKC/status/875203777388716032 I really do hope Flynn has some involvement in Forces. I was never an Archie Comics guy (Sonic the Comic for life!) but the stuff I did see of his was always good and you could tell he knew what he was doing with the source material. Regarding gameplay, I am still left massively underwhelmed, it feels like Sonic Team have taken the weakest parts of each iteration of Sonic rather than the strongest. Modern's level seems short and has far too much 2D, Classic's Green Hill looked uninspired (perhaps I am just spoiled with Mania's Act 2?) and the music for both stage and boss is terrible, and whilst I am open to the Character Creator I think the levels we have seen for them just look plain boring. Echoing some previous comments on here, I am fully aware that Mania was the kind of game made directly for me so I'm not getting too angry over how mediocre Forces looks. I am just a little let down after Colours/Generations.
You know what? I'm going to concede a point I made before. Despite my thinking (and still do) that the create-a-character mode is a fucking horrible idea, it's not that horrible of an idea, and here's why. It addresses a question I've had with this series since the start; "Why are the regular cast of characters, the only animal people in Sonic World?" I guess it's canon that they're not, now! Sonic Adventure was the game that really made me ask the question, since Sonic and co. felt so out of place in a world only populated by humans. It's also not bad for marketing. Yes, this is a 'gameplay gimmick', but I don't think you can fucking make a game without those anymore and have it be successful, and it really is a popular thing to do right now.
In adventure, there was an entire tribe of echidnas in the past. I thought it was implied that the other races were around, just not in the spotlight during the story.
Sonic Rush Adventure had a lot of "ordinary folk" talking animals, but that was set in Blaze's world. Soinc 3D's Green Grove had construction worker moles in the Saturn/PC version. Sonic Adventure had the mysterious girl on the poster in Speed Highway: http://68.media.tumblr.com/622407a94bf8c03c9e40456e2f5cb007/tumblr_oj9jb6LXAg1w1kerio2_1280.png
That reasoning is a non-sequitur. The first quotation that you use is from people complaining about some perceived fault in the story, which hasn't even been entirely revealed outside of the existance of a completely new character, which I'm sure was to be the case anyways. Otherwise, it's complaining about them not doing something that they spontaneously decide should have been done instead. That has no bearing on Sonic Team's reasoning for having the story that they want. I don't see how anybody actually wants a serious story if people are going to complain about it being "edgy" or "taking itself too seriously" (What does this even mean?). Finally, regarding the Avatar customization feature, stop complaining. Let people have their fun. It's foolish to complain about OCs, something that several younger fans of the franchise have made, and mock or otherwise make fun of them for creating them. That's the impression that I seem to get.
I'm not complaining about edgy or about the OCs, I'm cautiously optimistic about the game personally. But it seems like a clusterfuck of things jammed together.
That felt more like a machine powered by evil time controlling energy rather than it's own thing. (I mean really, Once you know what's going on, Eggman's Kidnap scenes feel scripted by Eggman Robotnik for Sonic's sake.)
It's funny. I really think Sonic Team is trying hard to appease everybody with this game, but as a result it's showing just how much of a shit show they've let this series become over the years. They're even trying to appease those who like fan characters and that's the one thing that's not their fault, that just seemed to of happened. They've made so many different types of gameplay and so many characters and styles, and each time they make one game and ignore a part of the fanbase they helped create, then that faction gets salty, and then they make something else and you get more salt, and now they're left with such a divided fan base that they're left with producing a clusterfuck with different fans disliking different portions of the same game. Classic fans dislike the boost gameplay and the inaccurate physics, boost fans are probably tired of seeing little sanic as it takes away from the gameplay they like, some people like seeing the nostalgia while some are sick of it, while some want new stuff and some want Generations 2. So now we have Sonic Colors Generations 2 Adventure 3 Heroes. A game where they'll give their all to appease everyone that will end up not appeasing anyone, at least not completely. Different fan bases will have different complaints and they'll never get a straight answer. What will happen after who knows, but Sonic Team is going to have to answer some difficult questions and they might be in a directionless limbo for a while. I'd feel bad for them but it's a problem completely of their own design.
I think it's safe to say that in an attempt not to make anyone angry and to appeal to a wider audience, they lost their sense of artistic vision. Rather than making the hard choices on what this series is in their eyes they try to appeal to everyone. I see this all the time in the indie scene where there's something good going and the developer tries to pander to some audience in attempt to make more money, often having the opposite effect, loosing money, and their original fan base. The thing is that Sonic Team has been doing this for years, and in reality they need to answer the hard questions at some point. I don't mind that there's a custom player character, or Modern Sonic, or Classic Sonic - I worry they have no clue what they want this to be, and the more we see of the game the more and more it shows. We'll have to wait and see, but this is certainly worrying at the least. As always I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, reminder this game comes out around the same time as Mario Odyssey.
Sonic illuminates the environment when he jumps (and boosts as far as I can tell) now, looks really neat.
Neo, despite forces running at 30 FPS would you say Forces on Switch is at least playable? (*watches a comparison vid of SA2 in 30vs60 FPS) I think I can live with 30fps
That is a very arguable conclusion to make. They made the choice of making a serious story, which people on this site mock anyways. They put effort into refining the Wisp gameplay, and so the Wispons are what resulted from those efforts. They have three different gameplay styles to choose from, which are unquestionably Sonic-like according to how the fanbase typically judges the games. I don't see how you say they aren't "making hard choices" as if improving what has been well-received is bad. What actually are these "hard choices" that you're expecting?
I really feel like they've been in a directionless limbo for almost 2 decades now. Since Heroes at the very latest (though an argument can be made as early as their pre-Adventure attempts at 3D games). I think their best approach going forward is to actually just make different games to appeal to their different fanbases, rather than making different games, and shoving them together into a single product. Mania is a thing now, and assuming that going forward more games like it will be created, Classic Sonic, his design, and his gameplay (or a poor imitation of it) have literally no place in games made by Sonic Team anymore. They no longer have the need to clutter their ventures with that part anymore. If it's true that Forces was already in development when Mania came along, Classic Sonic's inclusion in Forces may not deserve as harsh of criticism. If they continue to include him post-Mania, that'll be a different (and much worse) story. Exactly how fractured it is beyond that, once you remove the Classic fanbase from the equation, is anyone's guess. There's certainly more than one fandom there (people who want serious stories, people who want camp, people who want a balance; people who want more traditional 3D platforming, people who want the more recently-popular racing gameplay; people who want one playstyle, people who want multiple playstyles; people who want just Sonic, people who want more than just Sonic but still a minimal roster, people who want a large roster, people who want a large roster and character creation; and so on and so forth), and Sonic Team would be wise to stop trying to pander to all of them with a single (run of) game(s). Have a Boost series with a small roster and a light story, have an Adventure series with a large roster and an ambitious story. Have them made by different teams, so the releases can be staggered. I feel like that would solve a great deal of problems, but who knows with this fanbase. :v:
There is a difference between a game not being the type that you wanted and the game actually being bad. If some fans uses the former as a reason for calling the game bad, then that's a problem that lies solely with them and not Sonic Team. Most people who like the series are not completely intolerant to the games not being what they consider to be the ideal.
Maybe the type of game some want is just a good game? It seems over time a perception develops that flips this notion around.
See, all I want is a modern Sonic game that has a clear vision; one that knows what it wants to be and tries to do it to the best of Sonic Team's abilities and makes the most of their resources. I'm looking forward to Forces, I think it looks really fun, but it's meandering in 3 completely different playstyles. I wish they'd just get to work on a single, fun gameplay mode for Sonic with tight and well-defined mechanics and forget about forcing in different gameplay styles. If there are going to be level-specific gimmicks, they should be able to work hand-in-hand with the overall mechanics of the game. I want Sonic Team to look at how Nintendo took classic 2D Zelda gameplay and applied it in 3D with Breath of the Wild and do a similar sort of thing with a 3D modern Sonic that plays like classic Sonic. But "I want" is a very different thing from what Sonic Team are capable of doing at the moment. I feel as though comparing Sonic Forces to Mario Odyssey is just a little unfair because you have to understand, Mario Odyssey is a full big budget 3D Mario designed to sell a new console. Sonic Forces is just its own little thing. Sonic Team aren't in a position to make something of that scale, they just have to focus on what worked, because it's safe.
Gameplay wise, there's some consistency. It's more or less what we got from Colors and Generations with a custom player character. What I worry about is art style and tone. The in game art constantly conflicts with itself. Not sure if it's trying to be Lost World or Generations - it's certainly not a hybrid or its own thing. Then there's tone. The trailers give me the idea they're going for the most serious Sonic game yet, then you look at Classic Green Hill and its music, then the custom player character as well - pointing that this game is non-canon anyway. The art and animation for the trailers has to be the most lifeless I've ever seen Sonic get visually. Compare that to the Sonic Unleashed opening cinematic, or heck even the in game cutscenes. It's almost like it's trying to be serious then tells you its not straight after. It's almost as if it wants a consistent art style but tells you I don't know right after. I personally feel Unleashed was the best boost game in terms of artistic vision. It was also the best looking boost game graphically not because of its shaders or lighting effects, but because the art knew what it was. The story knew what it was and didn't try to tell you otherwise as well. We've gotten multiple trailers of Sonic Forces and I still don't know what they're going for or what they want the game to be. We get 3 gameplay styles but Modern Sonic steals the spotlight anyway. Like I said, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as I always do but what they're showing us is worrying to me and I get this nagging feeling Unleashed and Colors will be better games than this. And trust me, I really don't want to see this series do badly- Modern or Classic. EDIT: Also, I'd argue here they aren't improving on the boost formula, they're more or less keeping it stagnant. Some of the people here who played this game at E3 can attest to that. That being said, I'm willing to eat my words if they make something awesome, and I want them to.
