Sega used to purely rely on Sonic during their "four pillars" dark days where they literally just had Sonic, a failing Aliens licence and not much else but nowadays as TimmiT said they're faring much better. They've turned in to a juggernaut of a PC publisher and thanks to Sammy's financial support they're financially strong and were able to make a purchase of Atlus which paid dividends given Persona 5's success. As TT also said Yakuza is blowing up in the West too whilst remaining super successful in Japan. Sega aren't on fire or anything and I don't think they'll ever become the next EA but they're doing so much better than several years ago. I think their stronger financial position was why they so readily green-lit risky and previously unthinkable projects like a fan-created Sonic Mania and post-apocalyptic Sonic game about "joining the resistance" in Forces. They want Sonic to sell well of course but they're not solely relying on him any more as their single major source of revenue so are thus taking some wonderful risks with the IP. Looking forward to Mania about a trillion times more than Forces at the moment because I feel like we've been Sonic cycled by the latter. We'll see more at E3 I hope. Also I know we're joking about it but if through some divine intervention Bubsy actually does show up I think I'm going to actually explode.
I still think seeing little more than a minute or two of gameplay collectively is far too little knowledge to declare this a case of being "Sonic cycled".
They've teased that Bubsy is in the game. Sonic Forces "you to play a game as Bubsy". All joking aside I see your point. We have seen too little of the game to pass judgement. It's just that what we have seen, some cool-looking modern Sonic footage on a post-apocalyptic backdrop, some uninspired footage of GHZ as Classic Sonic that looks weaker than Generations, and then fucking Bubsy - and hopefully you can see why I'm worried. Perhaps saying we've been "Sonic cycled" is taking it too far when we haven't seen enough, but I can't help but feel increasingly let down the more we see.
From what little we've seen, I feel like I know enough about what this game has to offer. And I don't like it.
We've seen enough of Classic Sonic to make a solid guess what he's going to play like. Modern showed exactly 20 seconds of jack shit so we can only guess that on the surface it looks like nothing new, but I wouldn't rule out any curveballs just yet. Bubsy gameplay is still MIA. We've got roughly 1/3 of the game pegged at a basic level.
There may be a curveball in the modern gameplay, but so far I've got no reason to expect anything different to Generations, except it might have Colour Powers and that's not a good thing. Looking at the way that Classic Sonic plays tells me more than enough about how the game is designed with automation to mask poorly programmed physics and janky level design. Classic and Modern share all the same problems in Generations, so it's going to be the case here as well. The third gameplay style is still going to be built on the same wonky engine and by the same team, so there's only so much variation that it can have in terms of its overall feel. Basically, the standards of what we have seen so far gives us a pretty good idea of what to expect fun everything we haven't seen. I'm seeing everything that I've had a problem with in all the main games from Unleashed onwards. This little clip from Colours is a pretty egregious example, but it shows exactly what Sonic Team's approach to Sonic game design is these days: http://youtu.be/aDFeZC4J838 Cohesion between level design, physics and general Sonic mechanics is completely non-existent. The games are very shallow experiences that start to fall apart if not played in a specific way.
I can sorta see his poin. Despite being considered the best 3D Sonic game (outside of or including the Adventure titles) by many fans, reviewers, and the general community and having the additional marketing hook as the series' 20th anniversary game, Generations is actually the lowest-selling "Boost" game of the bunch. The game's 1.85M sales are less than Colors' 2.06M from the previous year (despite that game being a Nintendo exclusive and not strictly being a "Boost" game), and both of those games are less than Unleashed's 2.45M from three years back (which had a significantly more polarized reception due to half of the game being the Werehog), which marked the introduction of the playstyle. From that context, those figures do paint a picture of diminishing returns. There was even a narrative from the press and community that the game sold under expectations when the game's numbers were posted, mainly since the numbers came at a time Sega posted losses in its videogame division. (Though considering the heavily stacked 2011 holiday season and tentpole games it was released against --mascot platformer/family games like Mario 3D Land, the first Skylanders, and even Sega's own Mario and Sonic 2012 London Olympics; as well as AAA mature games like Uncharted 3, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, and Modern Warfare 3-- Generations' sales are admittedly better than given credit for.) It doesn't help that we have yet to see a Boost game that is mostly/entirely comprised of (3D) Boost levels and focuses on the Boost gameplay, and Forces is only continuing the trend with a 2D Classic Sonic section and a third playstyle being thrown into the mix. Which feeds into the narrative that the Boost playstyle is financially unsustainable as a formula. (Though as I mentioned a while back, I think it's less to do with resources and more to do with Sonic Team's skewed priorities in game design. Especially given the differing context of Forces' development climate compared to those from the previous Boost games.) e: if we're going to be posting armchair game dev MSPaint analysis pictures of Sonic level design, I'm gonna pull up some classics: :v:
oh dang I posted for the first time something I made a couple days ago that's directly related to the discussion about the merits and faults of classic and modern gameplay
Then you time traveled and gave it to yourself in the past to post it in our discord oh dang EDIT: anyway point is you're not being rad posting images and videos you made in the past about how much modern Sonic sucks when it only barely related to the discussion. Though in this case your example of modern Sonic level design just reminds me of when people say classic Sonic is "hold right to win" after beating Green Hill Zone once.
The only problem with Mr Lange's post is that it doesn't point out how badly Sonic actually controls. The level design is spot on. Generations and Colours get their praise from not being broken, confused games like previous 3D titles. They were markedly better than what we had before, but are still way off the mark.
Alternatively other people just have different tastes than you and actually really enjoy the games for reasons that aren't just "this one's not broken".
damn I was trying to be rad that was totally my intention, if that's your point you sure nailed it gotta say I like how your responses to everything I post are these kinds of petty derailing nitpicks just so you can say how what I have to say is soooo not important The classics were a continuum of control and movement mechanics that flow together with gradients of possibilities. Terrain is actually meaningful as Sonic's momentum is affected by gravity going up and down surfaces. Sonic has natural responses to slopes and loops and the distance he can travel on ground and in the air is proportional to the amount of speed you're able to gather by skillful application of the game's mechanics. Boost gameplay is a collection of arbitrary controls. Terrain and physics are meaningless as boost neutralizes the effect of all surfaces and always sustains Sonic at top speed, reducing his movement to states of "fast" and "stop". Thus the game is mostly just a set of binary inputs; boost or don't, jump here, slide there, quickstep, QTE, and so on, and because that's not enough, a lot of the core gameplay is scripted, arresting control from the player and setting Sonic's speed for you. There's no substantial options or significant ability to variate and it entirely misses the point of Sonic gameplay because muh fast. Oh wait, there's no such thing as real Sonic gameplay, I keep forgetting. All forms of Sonic gameplay are equally valid so we can't hold Sonic to any standards and no criticisms are ever fair. They could make Sonic Tetris as the next main series game and as long as it's good then it counts as a good Sonic game, because who can even say what Sonic's gameplay is supposed to be right.
And yet, Rooftop Ruin and one act of Asteroid Coaster (I forget which one) can be broken by boost jumping at the start of the level, using the upwards slope to gain extra height from your jump. Other levels have intended shortcuts also using the angle of the slope to affect jump height and/or distance. How on earth does that work when terrain is meaningless? Yes, it's very scripted. No, it's not like the classic Sonic games. No, it's not meant to be like the classic Sonic games. I couldn't give a shit whether something counts as "Sonic gameplay" to you. I'm interested in a game that looks like I'll have fun playing, and you're saying it's objectively bad because it's a game you won't have fun playing. Tough shit. If you're not a fan of the boost-style gameplay, chances are this game isn't for you. Gran Turismo isn't made for audiences of Call of Duty, so I wouldn't expect someone who likes Call of Duty and doesn't like Gran Turismo to complain that the new Gran Turismo doesn't have enough shooting in it. Boost-style Sonic games aren't made for audiences of Classic-style Sonic games. Unfortunately they make ham-fisted attempts to unify the two audiences, but the only thing they have in common is the starring character. It's a bit pointless complaining that "Modern Sonic" doesn't play like the classic Sonic games when it isn't supposed to play like the classic Sonic games. (You could validly make that complaint about Classic Sonic in the game, of course.) The fact is, this is an established gameplay style for Sonic. This style of gameplay was featured in Unleashed, Colours, and Generations, and will be featured in Forces. Therefore, it is a Sonic gameplay style. It might not be your preferred Sonic gameplay style, and that's fine. But it's the one that's in Forces, and your whining about it isn't going to change it because this game is primarily for fans of this gameplay style.
Do we have to preface everything with a disclaimer about opinions? Really? Regardless of that, hear me out before you throw out the opinion card. 3D Sonic games before Colours drew ire for glaring problems in design and/or execution. For example, you might think that SA2 is technically sound game, but you can't argue that it isn't constantly switching between three gameplay styles regardless of what the player wants to do. Or you might enjoy the alternative gameplay styles in '06 but again it's hard to argue that the game doesn't have a lot of bugs or otherwise unorthodox behaviour, like this https://youtu.be/ze582VGaAkY. Unleashed rolled around in 2008 and finally offered a relatively stable experience. And with the boost it also brought something new to the table. But it was marred by another one of those pesky alternative play styles. Colours kept the good side of Unleashed and binned the stuff that had gotten negative attention over the years, which included deeper stories and other bits of fat in addition to the unwelcome gameplay changes. Sonic Team had finally done the simple task that had been asked if them for years and stripped a 3D Sonic game down to just the good portions. It doesn't matter how that good parts compared, the fact that the bad parts were finally gone was reason enough to celebrate. That's all not dissimilar to the S4E1 fiasco. It was a 2D Sonic game with none of Sonic's friends and a non-existent story just like the old days, so in the eyes of many people it was an instant winner. People can absolutely enjoy the boost games if they find them appealing. Generations in particular isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a decidedly mediocre one and, to my trained eye as a fan, a pretty lazy/incompetent one. I've yet to see anyone explain to me why I should ignore that a game constantly takes control away from the player with unavoidable objects and scripts, or how you lose all control when jumping in a platformer. And they are issues that permeate the game engine and design. There's no reason that boost games have to work like that - Rush certainly works a lot more organically. So a more robust game with an engine that affords the player better control and physics with level designs that work with them would be infinitely better. Forces is still off the mark because it's still only doing what got previously praise for not being shit. I do personally think that the boost gameplay is limited in its appeal and will be incredibly difficult to make into a better experience than it is currently, but it's certainly doable. Neither it, nor any other type of Sonic game, can improve with Sonic Team's current approach though. Neither the boost, Classic gameplay nor anything else is going to improve until things change.
Blue Blood: I agree on basically all of your gameplay criticisms there. To me, the ideal boost Sonic game is barely scripted and gives the player as much control as possible. But what's mediocre to you is still pretty good to others. And yeah, improving boost Sonic is gonna be difficult, it would probably need to be redesigned from the ground up. But also making games is difficult in general. Though also can we stop pretending that we're sales experts who know what appeals to people? If we're gonna judge Sonic game by appeal then Sonic Dash would probably come out on top anyway.
Right so they could make Sonic Tetris and as long as it's fun for some it counts as a real Sonic game right. Where did I say this. I didn't. My point is that establishing standards and gameplay for a game series then changing it to something vastly different that's far more lacking mechanically is not a good thing to do. There are other big game series are heavily criticized for doing this to an even lesser extent. That comparison doesn't make any sense. You are using two entirely different franchises as an example of how it's okay for games of the same franchise to be entirely different. A more apt comparison would be if Gran Turismo after the fourth game suddenly became a shooting series that happens to have cars in it, and saying "it doesn't have to cater to what you think Gran Turismo should be, if you're not a fan of shooting games this isn't for you, this is a valid play style for Gran Turismo". It's bad for a series and arguably false advertising. You set very solid consistent expectations for a series with multiple successful games that play a specific way from the start, and then completely mangle it into something else entirely in another set of main series games but print the same title on the box. Then have the nerve to tell the fans "look this wasn't made for you okay just because it's x game". Exactly the problem, yet it goes much deeper than that. So again they could make Sonic Tetris four main games in a row, and this should not be criticized because then it would be a perfectly valid gameplay style. Even though you may have been drawn to the Sonic series for multiple games with gameplay that you liked established by the original creators, it doesn't matter if they print Sonic on the box of another main series game that plays nothing like that, it's just that now it's for a different audience altogether, and you'd be damned to say there's anything wrong with them doing that. Your post pretty much boils down to "EVERY OPINION IS VALID OKAY except yours shut up."
I'm going to maintain that the all of the main games from Unleashed/Colours onwards are relatively mediocre because they are games that don't function correctly under a set of gameplay and design rules. Every time there's a scripted/automated sequence in the middle of the gameplay that interrupts the players control, it's like the rules are being broken. The rule: Sonic builds momentum as he continues to run in one direction, and his speed will be influenced by the elevation of the terrain. Momentum will be naturally maintained even whilst airborne. The exception: Every time that there is a spring, booster or invisible scripted trigger to ensure that Sonic always goes exactly where he needs to. Sonic's momentum is cancelled and changed to a predetermined value. Without the exception: Sonic will under- or overshoot any goal in the air, or won't have the speed to get past certain terrain. The player may be required to make Sonic jump manually without springs. Until someone can justify that kind of design to me, I can't call it anything other than lazy, incompetent and mediocre.
