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Sonic Forces Thread

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Blue Blood, Jul 23, 2016.

  1. I actually kind of like Boost gameplay, so I can agree the level design looks infinitely better in those mods.
     
  2. BadBehavior

    BadBehavior

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    I guess, in the same way playing the PC remake of 06 makes me appreciate that game more, as someone who likes that gameplay style.
     
  3. Laura

    Laura

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    I played Sonic Forces for the first time today! My brother had downloaded it from Playstation Plus and since it was downloaded I thought I might as well play it.

    I think Modern Sonic and the Avatar are inoffensive enough, it's just the level design is really a step down compared to Generations. But it's kind of fun if you turn your brain off.

    But Classic Sonic

    :psyduck:

    I dunno if I just have higher standards after playing Mania so many times, but was he that horrible to control in Generations? It's not just that the level design isn't great, he really does feel horrible and clunky to control.
     
  4. Antheraea

    Antheraea

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    I didn't find him all that great in Generations either tbh...immediately went to find a mod for it, and even then the level design still leaves things to be desired...
     
  5. Josh

    Josh

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    Maybe it's a controversial opinion, but I never found Classic Sonic in Forces to be all *that* different from Generations. He's clunkier, sure, but not to the point that I really had trouble handling him. And I found his stages to be some of the more substantial parts of Forces, though that's not saying much given its extremely thin level design. But especially compared to the boost stages, there's just more meat on the bone.

    Classic in Generations was much better, but what always struck me there was that as different as his gameplay seemed, his level design really was made with a similar approach to modern's stages: Blast through the level as fast as possible. Especially because of the single-button spindash that didn't require you to come to a full stop, it was very easy to keep up your speed without ever worrying about physics. It does a great job using 3D space on a 2D plane, but it doesn't replicate or really iterate on the feel of the classics, as much as it restructures modern Sonic's gameplay design around them. I don't think it's BAD at all, and in fact I still really enjoy his stages, but they don't match the spectacle or depth of the Act 2s. It wasn't a bad first attempt at a "2.5D Classic Sonic" at all, but there was definitely room for improvement.

    What we had to compare to was also a factor. In 2011, we'd just "experienced" Sonic 4 and all the calamity it caused, and Classic Sonic in Generations was warmly received as a return of the original design AND a triumph compared to what we'd just been through. But in 2017, we'd just played Sonic Mania, which completely outclassed Classic Sonic in Forces (and Forces in general, really).
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2020
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  6. James Smith

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    I personally consider Classic Sonic to be the worst part of Forces. While it was designed differently compared to Gens as you said, what gets me is that the new engine is identical to the previous Hedgehog Engine. Which should have been able to replicate his Gens physics. So to me Classic Sonic really did feel like a last minute rushed inclusion even going so far with his lack of involvement in the plot.
     
  7. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    Ditto. Gens!Classic Sonic had poor physics too, but I found the level design the weakest part of his gameplay. The levels didn't flow nearly as well as in the MD games (though admittedly the physics might have had something to do with that), and didn't allow you to maintain your speed for long. It felt like you had to rely too much on his awkward Spindash if you wanted some speed, which destroyed the pacing.
     
  8. Dek Rollins

    Dek Rollins

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    This is part of why I don't understand how Generations is still praised by much of the fanbase as one of the best games in the series. IMO classic Sonic is pretty awful in Generations. It's like there was a fundamental misunderstanding as to what makes the classic games what they are on the part of the devs. Was it as bad as Sonic 4? No. Even now, is it as bad as Forces? No. But that doesn't make it not bad in its own right.

    Sure, Forces is a worse game, but it isn't as massively overrated by the majority of the fanbase.
     
  9. Myles_Zadok

    Myles_Zadok

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    Well, people like me find Classic Sonic in Generations to be pretty fun. I actually really like the spindash Classic Sonic has there, and the level designs don't bother me that much. While it's no Mania, it's a reasonable facsimile of the classics to me. I don't think the goal on the devs part was to make a pitch-perfect rendition of the Genesis gameplay but to do a modern take on it. I can see why it wouldn't appeal to everyone, but I can enjoy it for what it is.
     
  10. Josh

    Josh

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    Classic Sonic in Generations doesn't play exactly like he did in Sonic 3, but if that's the lens you use to judge the quality of these games, then most of them suck. Hello, fandom circa 2009!

    I do think there's an argument to be made that the big return of the original Sonic should have had gameplay to match. But it doesn't have to duplicate what worked before to be fun on its own merits. And if you don't find it fun, that's okay, fun is subjective. But just because a well-regarded game isn't to your tastes doesn't mean it's "overrated."
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2020
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  11. Blue Spikeball

    Blue Spikeball

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    I do find Gens!Classic Sonic's gameplay lackluster even on its own merits. However...
    They brought back MD era Sonic and advertised him as a return to the classic formula. If they didn't want him to be compared to the classic games, maybe they shouldn't have handled him like that. The way I see it, this is no different from people criticizing Sonic 4 for using the modern designs and the Homing Attack, or having physics inferior to the MD games'.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2020
  12. Dek Rollins

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    It does mean it's overrated, in my opinion. That's what that is, an opinion. I think Generations gets a lot more praise than it deserves.

    Also, they were bringing back "classic" Sonic in an official capacity in an alternative "classic" gameplay style. It's pretty safe to say they wanted to bank on the novelty of bringing back the "classic" gameplay everyone remembered. Of course, they maybe didn't want to make it exactly the same, and it doesn't necessarily need to be. It just needs to be close enough that I shouldn't be able to notice anything that's actively worse about it, and it doesn't get over that hurdle. It's a lot worse. Not just different, worse. Controlling classic Sonic in Generations is clunky. It's just poorly done. (I also find the changing camera position really annoying)

    It's worth noting that I don't remember thinking anything was wrong with it when I played the game for the first time. The first time I revisited the game after beating it originally (I think a couple years later), my thought was, "how did I not hate playing this before?" I'm gonna say the answer is a mixture of being 12 and being excited to see classic Sonic in the game.

    I'm not saying that people can't enjoy it, I'm just saying that I don't see what those people see in this game. All I see is boring or annoying level design and bad physics/controls.
     
  13. Josh

    Josh

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    I agree, it's no different. I thought the fandom's tendency to demonize concepts instead of execution was just as ridiculous then as I do now. Sonic 06's downfall wasn't the mere fact that it was a 3D game with a serious story and multiple playable characters, it was how poorly those concepts were executed. But lots of people at the time blamed the concepts, leading to sentiments like, "Sonic's shitty friends shouldn't be playable," "Sonic shouldn't have a story," "Sonic needs to just be about Sonic," "Sonic only works in 2D." But it was never that these ideas were necessarily bad, it was that Sonic Team kept executing them so poorly that they turned into "the cancer that is killing Sonic."

    (Of course, even a well-executed concept can simply not be to your tastes. I never cared about the Chao Garden, but seeing how fond people are of it, it must have done something right! For a more universal example, Sonic Forces pulls off Sega's goal of "let's make a super-accessible game that won't frustrate kids" with aplomb. But that's not what fans take as Forces' downfall, is it?)

    By the same token, Sonic 4 wasn't bad because it had the modern design and the homing attack, and it wasn't bad because its gameplay wasn't a match for the titles that preceded it. Sonic 4 was bad on its own merits.

    I find Generations' Classic Sonic to be the flip-side of that. It's not the same, but I learned in the mid-2000s from how cynical and depressed the older fans were that if I only judge Sonic games based on my nostalgic ideal, I'll miss out on a lot of games that I could have enjoyed. So I always try to judge it for what it is, and on its own merits, I think Classic Sonic is a lot of fun in Generations.

    All right, thanks for clarifying. Game discourse very often uses "overrated" as some impossible measure of objectivity. "I don't see the merit in this, but rather than presenting that as my opinion, I'm going to argue that everyone who likes it is ignorant or lying or they just don't understand REAL games like I do." It's kind of a loaded term for me, given how flippantly it gets thrown around.

    But as long as you're making a good-faith effort to understand where we're coming from and can accept that many of us REALLY DO like it, I don't think you're being a donk about it.

    Sonic Generations is one of my favorite video games, period. I know not everyone will see it like I do, but I hope in time you'll at least kinda see why someone might see it like I do.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2020
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  14. Antheraea

    Antheraea

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    he doesn't feel good to play. next.
     
  15. Pengi

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    I think it can be a bit of both.

    The execution is always the most important part. Sonic Generations vs Sonic Forces is probably the best example of that. They're both the same thing, but regardless of anyone's thoughts on Generations, I think it's near unanimous that Forces turned out significantly worse, all because of the execution.

    I also tend to think it's best to judge a game on its own merits, rather than fan expectations. Whether a game is the best version of what a series represents or the direction a series should go in is a separate consideration. It would be insane if Nintendo abandoned the traditional style of Zelda game exclusively for Four Swords Adventures style games, but Four Swords Adventures is still an excellent game in its own right, and shouldn't be compared against Ocarina of Time, since they both have very different goals.

    When it comes to Classic Sonic in Sonic Generations, the differences in controls/physics don't come across as an intentional change. In something like Super Mario Bros. 35 (him again!), the controls are intentionally different from the original NES game for ease of play, since the original is a bit stiff by today's standards. In Generations, Classic Sonic's controls don't feel like an improvement or a conscious decision to suit a different style of game, instead it comes across like they tried to replicate the old games but just didn't do a brilliant job of it. On its own merits, the controls aren't game ruiningly awful, but they're not great either. I would class this as the team fumbling the execution (how Sonic controls) rather than the concept (bringing back the Mega Drive style Sonic in HD).

    Sonic 4 had some of the more excitable fans, on the fringes of the fringes of the player base, zeroing in on Sonic's green eyes as the sole thing that ruined the game. Which obviously has no material effect on how fun the game is to play. But the homing attack in a 2D Sonic game is one of the things I would say is just an inherently bad idea, period. Not enough to make a game absolutely worthless, but still something that brings the whole experience down, like an 8th Tetris piece. In Sonic 4's case it was a bad idea in a game that already had a ton of other problems and very few redeeming features.
     
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  16. So where's the line between the devs making a conscious decision to alter controls versus them just failing to replicate something?

    It's almost unanimous that Forces is worse than Generations in just about everything, but the devs have gone on record that most of its changes were in fact intentional for casual players.
     
  17. Sid Starkiller

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    It's unfortunately one of those things we'll never know unless they specifically told us, or found documentation stating something one way or the other. And a company like Sega is unlikely to admit that they screwed up.
     
  18. Dek Rollins

    Dek Rollins

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    The thing is, if it was a conscious choice when they've messed up the controls and physics (and level design etc. etc.), that just makes it worse. It would mean that kind of garbage is what they're striving for, and they aren't just incompetent, someone up there is actually stupid enough to think that what they've done is an improvement to what came before.
     
  19. Pengi

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    It's not quite the same, because Dimps was also involved, but this is what was going on with Sonic 4, around the same time as Sonic Generations:

    https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...sode-2s-new-phyiscs-based-on-mega-drive-games

    It seems like the approach at the time was more "You know what Sonic is. Make a Sonic.", rather than closely studying the Mega Drive games or consciously trying to improve upon them (which itself, would require closely studying them).
     
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  20. BadBehavior

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    Just had a guy on the Sonic Reddit claim that the reason I think Sonic Forces is the worst sonic game is because I just haven't played Shadow, 06 or Sonic 4. Because me having actually played those games (which I have) and come to the conclusion that Forces is still worse is apparently a "flying pigs" tier impossibility event.