Sonic Forces Thread

I like the Boost well enough. Not as much as the classic slopes-n-momentum stuff, but enough that it'd be a shame for it to be completely scrapped, no matter how good its replacement could be. I understand that Sonic Team is apparently skeptical that they could produce enough quality content in time for a full-length full-price release (or that's the common adage at least), but I don't think they need to continue stapling other games onto the hip to compensate for the inherent limitations. I still think that they should stop beating around the bush and finally just make a fully fledged racing spin-off out of them. They've already got the important shit down for the most part. All they really need to add is:

- Some tasteful/modest/safe variety: multiple playable characters who simply bring a slight tinge of variance to the Boost gameplay, the way Tails and Knuckles do for Classic gameplay
- Multiplayer (both local and online)
- Smart padding, the way all other racing games do it: the option to choose the number of "laps" when you play a stage

That would literally multiply the replay value of whatever they produce, no side bullshit involved, and basic speedrunning would still be alive and well via time trials. The actual gameplay component needn't change at all.

 

What I liked about sonic generations is that you could play it without boosting, with a few exceptions. Unleashed wasn't like that at all so I wonder what game will sonic forces try to follow in term of level design philosophy
(it seems to be colors so far, but we've seen only one boost stage so it's too early too tell.)

 

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

p.s. I still like the boost gameplay--it's enjoyable--but I'm otherwise with Blue Blood on this one. :v:

 

I think the boost is fun, and it totally does echo the idea of earning speed, it just suffers from one major issue. It's too easy. If the boost were just harder to get and easier to lose things'd be a lot better.

That, or make it more clear that the real challenge in boost games isn't to complete the stage -- it's the score and speed in doing so.

 

Okay the "Crush 40 buttrock" comments have been flying around a lot lately, and they're starting to drive me insane.

While the Crush 40 theme songs definitely fit the "buttrock" label so well it hurts, the actual soundtracks by Jun Senoue and the Crush 40 musicians (along with Fumie and others) aren't buttrock by any means. The first Sonic Adventure was synth-heavy, with only a few levels getting the Jun Senoue guitar treatment (most memorably the first part of Speed Highway). Sonic Adventure 2 placed much more emphasis on Jun Senoue's guitar, but it's not exactly buttrock either. Escape From the City is a pop-punk song that happens to have an aging hair metal veteran singing like he's still in his twenties. That's The Way I Like It is basically a hair-metal/ska fusion with those horns. Won't Stop, Just Go! is an Offspring-style speed punk extravaganza. Vengeance Is Mine is industral metal in the style of Stabbing Westward. And so on. And those are just examples of Sonic's music. Jun Senoue was smart enough to adjust his style to fit the characters he was scoring for, or the levels in question. Azure Blue World had those electric sitars for a reason and it wasn't because Jun wanted to do buttrock.

Plus he often had his bassist play slap bass to add that Flea-style funk to the proceedings. The Red Hot Chili Peppers influence added even more variety and layers to the songs he did.

The closest Jun Senoue came to composing pure buttrock was for Shadow The Hedgehog, and that was more of a nu-metal-influenced effort than outright Nickelback-esque buttrock. And even then there were tracks like GUN Fortress which had a Spanish influence to it.

People love those songs that Jun did because they fit Sonic while still being diverse in their own subtle ways, and very little of it is actual buttrock, but the exploration of rock in all of its forms (anyone remember Frog Forest being outright soft rock?). Turns out it's a pretty versatile genre well-suited for Sonic.

And, for the record, Infinite's theme song is not buttrock either, it's modern metalcore with a hint of From Ashes To New-style electronic rap-metal.

 

I liked that a lot about Colors. You didn't always want to waste your boost. But in games where boost = rings, you can just hold boost most of the time. From the footage of Modern Sonic we've seen in Forces, it looks like we're going back to boost energy actually being valuable.

 

I know the video is the joke but there's so much more going on in Green Hill act 2 than in both Park Avenue's acts in Forces. Christ and I thought Generations wasn't pushing it enough for a first stage back then too.

 

I'll be honest, I never got the whole "earn your speed" thing. That implies speed is something that warrants trial. Building speed in both modern and classic games is pretty easy as long as you know what you're doing. Application of speed was always the aspect that made having it worthwhile to begin with. More speed lent itself to higher rewards via terrain. You were rewarded for proper usage of speed, not the other way around. This is why I just can't see the nuance in the boost games everyone else does. What about going fast warrants proper application? In Unleashed and Generations you could pretty much boost everywhere because there was very little penalty for doing so. In Colors, the game intentionally slowed itself down so you could use the wisp, allowing speed to be more valuable. If anything you have to earn the right to even keep moving, not the right to go fast. If you hit an obstacle nothing stops you from just tapping the X button and continuing to blast forward.

But the sad part about it is that moving quickly is the most satisfying aspect of gameplay. Once you've gotten all the moves and obstacles down, and know what to do when, it's pretty fun watching Sonic take a mad dash through it all. And often, using the boost consistently was the best method of play, as it got you better times which meant better ranks. You slow the game down and it becomes a gross mess in anything other than 2D. Given how forces brings back the white wisp - which places less of an emphasis on the boost - and has a hefty sum of 3D corridors and same-y 2D block platforming, I'd say it's going back to Colors level design, which was held together by the wisp. And for all we know, the colored wisp are only present in the custom characters stages. I'm hoping that's not the case, but we haven't gotten enough to imply the opposite, so the only part of Forces I'm really interested in doesn't excite me much.

 

While we're on the subject, as someone who's not musically inclined, can someone please explain what people mean by "buttrock"?

 

"It Doesn't Matter," "Live and Learn," "Sonic Heroes," "What I'm Made of."

Cheesy rock with uplifting lyrics designed for kids.

 

Think stuff like Nickelback. Really simple cheesy rock music with lazy riffs and droning vocals, usually safe to play on Radio Disney. I actually kind of like the earlier Sonic brand of buttrock. Heroes is were it started to wear out it's welcome.

 

Thanks. Yeah, I still love Open Your Heart, and while the lyrics to Live and Learn are dumb (each individual line works, but as a whole it seems like gibberish), I still love the tune.

 

Please, I did that with Classic Sonic before the game was even released. :v:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF0R36X4dTw

 

It is not quite likely that it will be a decent game. It could be a decent game, and it is not hard to imagine a good team turning it into a good game. I think that is actually what you meant.

But likelihood, which is what you expressed, is not high at all. We have seen very, very little that looks good, and a lot that looks bad, from a team known for the exact mistakes visible here. Likelihood very clearly points one way. Why defend it? Just have a laugh; there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that something looks terrible and still wanting to buy it.

 

Well, I think we'll be sure to do that next time there's actually a terrible Sonic game coming out. I'll keep my eyes peeled for whenever, if ever, that happens.

 

I don't think anyone can reasonably say Forces looks completely terrible overall. You may not like that CaC (it's certainly not why I play sonic games) but modern sonic looks exactly as he did in both generations and colors, but with noted tweaks to make his gameplay a little less tank-like. Classic's gameplay was also modified slightly (as per reports) and he feels somewhat better than gens. So if the remaining levels have better level design than what we've seen, I think an appropriate estimation is that the game will most likely be decent. You certainly can't claim that you enjoyed generations gameplay and then approach forces with a blowtorch. That doesn't seem reasonable given that they are mostly the same.

Granted, I have my issues with modern Sonic in general and think 3D sonic needs to be rebooted...Sonic's standards should be much higher than what has been par for SEGA and Sonic Team in recent history. Sonic should too have a game on the level of 'Odyssey' or 'breath of the wild'....and Forces is far from that.

 

Fair. Just for your info, I did not intend a slight towards the adventure series here, since that is a different conversation , and I do happen to personally adore SA1's soundtrack and think it is absolutely in the top 3 sonic game soundtracks ever, with its diverse array of atmospheric selections and spot on job of recapturing the Sonic-y vibe far more more than anything that would come later in 3D....even SA2, SA1 outdoes by a wide margin in that regard.

My point is that it's oddly hypocritical for adventure fans to bash Forces' classic elements as nostalgia pandering, while getting the heavy dose of adventure vibe all over this game, with the inclusion of those characters like shadow and chaos, that style of writing, edgy tone, and music composition. In general adventure fans whine about nostalgia pandering while forgetting that they're clamoring for a a return to a style that is almost as old as classic sonic now and equally as dated. "Nostalgia pandering" has got to be the most annoying phrase I consistently hear from this fan base because it is not even close to the biggest issue that continues to plague 3D sonic games.

Forces was said to be a game that appeals to 'everyone, not juat sonic fans' ....but it very obviously looks to cater to every sector of the sonic fan base all at once...which is always a bad idea...and it suspect it won't end as well as SEGA hoped it will in their corporate meetings.

 

Here's some feedback from an "adventure fan".
People tend to lump SA1, SA2 and even Sonic 06 together and refer to them as "Adventure games". I guess it's because of the obvious SA1/SA2 title and because all of these have hub worlds (uhh wait, I guess SA2 doesn't) and a slower gameplay style with more exploration as opposed to the boost games, but in reality those games don't have a whole lot in common. If you compare SA1 and SA2, for example, the former had a distinct anime feel to it that reflected in everything from the soundtrack to character design and overall art style. SA2 threw it all away and went for a more "realistic" approach (if you can even say that about a Sonic game), with much duller graphics, a much stronger emphasis on "buttrock" in the soundtrack (which degraded its quality a great deal if you ask me), an extremely edgy villain character and a story that is trying to be a lot more "serious". These games are just very different stylistically, even gameplay is different - I'd argue that with the exception of emerald hunting, SA2 stages are more linear than SA1's. In terms of visuals and overall presentation, I'd say Sonic Unleashed has more in common with SA1 than SA1 has with SA2. Sonic 06 takes everything about the SA2 style to an extreme, to the point it becomes cringeworthy (for me at least). Needless to say I love SA1 but strongly dislike SA2 and 06.

So with the above taken into account, if you said the game is trying to appeal to Sonic 06 fans, I would agree maybe. But as a fan of SA1 I don't get any "adventure" vibes from it whatsoever when it comes to the presentation, the story, the general tone and especially the soundtrack. If they were trying to appeal to "adventure" fans, they really took all the wrong things. To me the closest previous Sonic game Forces can be compared to is Sonic 06, and god I hate that game. So nope, no nostalgia pandering for SA1 fans at least.

 

That's strange, because I can't think of a level in SA1 that isn't linear, but most levels in SA2 have a couple of paths running through.

Both are linear with respect to the Unleashed trilogy, but I find it odd to say that SA2 is the more linear one (at least level-wise).

By that logic, the game doesn't cater to classic fans either. I don't get any "classic" vibes from it, not even with Classic Sonic's sections. It doesn't look like a classic game, it doesn't sound like a classic game, it doesn't play with a classic game. The closest previous Sonic game Classic Sonic's levels can be compared to is Sonic 4, so nope, no nostalgia pandering for classic fans either, right?

Failed pandering is still pandering.