Whatever the WhoCares

It would be a huge relief to see good-looking gameplay. That alone would wash out the taste of Forces.

If they continue in this direction, I hope Classic Sonic gets renamed to something that doesn’t pin him to the 90s.

The solution to the length issue is the Chao system. Having these cute, addictive, endlessly experimental virtual pets is what kept everyone playing SA2 for so long. We need the Chao back, badly.

If it is just a Sonic game, yet also some kind of monumental announcement, then it would have to be Sonic Adventure 3. In other words, it definitely isn’t Sonic-related

Look, if Sega wants to keep mixing in “old” elements with the new, I’m fine with it if it’s done right. For all of Forces’ faults, one thing I appreciated was that when it brought back Green Hill and Chemical Plant, it treated them more like returning locations than levels. New music, new environmental effects, etcetera. If we go back to the same resort as Emerald Coast, but the level and music are different, then it doesn’t really feel like retreading old ground.

If I could get SA2 on the Switch, I would finally make time for those Chao emblems.

It could be one or a series of Switch ports. SA, SA2, Colors, and Generations would all be received well by players (not so much critics, but that hasn’t stopped Switch ports of controversial games in the past).

I need to own up to my harshness towards Iizuka-san leading up to Forces. He’s in a really shitty position, and judging from his Sonic Adventure interview, he does seem aware of what made that game special. I wish him the best.

Or are they talking about the game rather than the concept?

Sonic Adventure style, maybe with some limited parkour integration if conducive to good level design. Make the Light Speed Dash its own button, which they’ve already figured out anyway. Bring back the balancing mechanic for rail grinding, albeit a little more forgiving than SA2. Homing attack keeps the reticule, but with a more natural sound than the old beep we’re used to. Maybe a woosh or something. But now I’m drifting off topic. Oh yeah! Keep the drift mechanic from Generations.

Somehow I get the feeling that the next game is “do or die.” Like, if it’s not good, then Sonic will retreat to 2D-only games for the following decade or so. If rumors of Iizuka’s disappointment with Forces are to be believed, then it’s safe to say he’s at least trying for something different next time around.

This isn’t an opinion so much as a feeling I have. Something about Forces just makes me feel like Sonic is kinda dead in the water, in a way I’ve never felt before. I know that Sega has been keeping Sonic alive through Mania Plus, TSR, and a new comic line, but the actual mainline core game front seems so hollow and empty. It would be a massive relief to get some kind of peek into what they’re going for with the next game. The premise, the gameplay style, anything really. The Sonic scene just looks so bleak to me right now.

To answer the topic title, yes. The (very) early 2010s and the early 2000s. Especially the latter. You point out the Dreamcast being a financial failure, but as a person in his mid-20s, I can tell you that Sonic Adventure 2: Battle was the shit back on the GameCube. From the moment I saw it in a booth at Toys R Us, this game was synonymous with the console. To this day, when I visit someone’s house and they have a GameCube lying around, SA2:B is almost always among their game stack. Yes, it had its shitty levels, but we all knew to avoid them when we set out to get drives for our Chao. And so we played the good levels, over and over, for what was admittedly more of a grind than it should’ve been- and those levels are what stuck in our hearts and minds. I’m about to go on a tangent about how crucial the chao really are to 3D Sonic, but I’ll just leave it at this: every single time I bring up Sonic to people, they might not even remember the name of the GameCube game they played, but they ALWAYS remember the Chao.

So when’s the next event where we might be thrown a bone?

“Until things have settled”? Im sorry, that’s too vague for me. Commerce may not fully resume for months.