Whatever the WhoCares

They didn’t get picked at nearly as harshly, though. Because they clearly weren’t story driven.

Ever notice how critics don’t rip apart stories like Generations or the 2D games? That’s because, as others have said, the stories that get bashed are the ones that take themselves seriously AND have gigantic narrative/pacing/tonal/presentation/dialogue flaws. That’s because - Sonic 2, 3&K, and Mania aside - every Sonic story to take itself seriously has had such flaws. And we’ve seen with games like Unleashed, critics finding the good parts of the narrative and setting, and praising it accordingly. We’d have seen similar praise for Sonic Forces, but there weren’t any praiseworthy aspects.

I’ve always envisioned Eggman as someone who wants to control everything because he’s pathologically insecure about himself and the chaos of the world. This makes him the polar opposite of Sonic, who has a carefree attitude and seeks to preserve the natural world. An ending to the franchise would involve Eggman overcoming this psychological flaw.

Looking back, it’s actually funny. From Colors to Forces, the Modern Sonic stories got progressively less interesting. Ironically and hilariously, Team Sonic Racing has the most engaging story of the last decade. And that story wasn’t good. I’d imagine many scholars would claim that Sonic Mania doesn’t even have a “story” per se; that’s how straightforward it is. But it’s charmingly conveyed, so it kicks the shit out of anything Sonic Team has done in ages.

If it’s an anniversary game, I really hope they mean so in spirit rather than the literalism of something like Generations. I want a big, grand adventure that uses its story AND gameplay to celebrate the FEELING you get from a good Sonic game.

This game definitely has a budget feeling to it, from its menus to its options to its graphics in general, which is kind of the opposite of Transformed. It feels like they went back to square one a bit, it’s better than ASR but definitely inferior to Transformed. Hopefully we can get Team Sonic Racing Transfomed lol. Edit: I really wish they would just port the old All-Stars games to newer consoles. Transformed in particular runs so poorly that it’s hard going back to outside of PC.

So, is there a reason this game still isn’t on the PS Store in North America or...?

Sonic Forces is both too dark and too lighthearted at the same time. Comic relief is relentless and out of place, juxtaposed carelessly against apocalyptic imagery that makes the whole thing feel hollow and fake.

Is that really all it was? No, and you know that. Cmon.

Sonic’s world and storytelling should reflect the passions and sensibilities of its developers. That’s how you get the best interpretations. Time and again we’ve seen the results of Japanese developers trying to be “western,” those results being the blandest stories in the franchise. But then we can point to Sonic Adventure 1&2, which felt like someone in that writing room was creating the narrative and world how they truly wanted it to be. Those games’ stories didn’t come off like action anime because they were trying to; they were just naturally like that. Meanwhile Sonic Boom or the comics don’t feel like they’re trying to be like western action-comedy; they just are. Compare this to Sonic Lost World, a Japanese narrative written to emulate a western cartoon. How about Sonic Forces, where our side of the pond got so much writing power that it actually ended up feeling like a western cartoon trying to be an anime. It’s no coincidence that both of these stories feel entirely soulless. I’m not saying things should be only Western or only Japanese, we’ve seen plenty of franchises that incorporate storytelling tropes from all kinds of mediums. But the people making Sonic need to take a step back and realize that what will ultimately turn out better is probably whatever story they can truly care about.

Even the best superhero-type ensemble stories have trouble keeping character strengths/weaknesses consistent. Sonic the Hedgehog is among the worst. There’s your answer, OP.

This is the kind of rhetoric that drives people to be dicks to SEGA staff on social media. Who knows what kind of restrictions Aaron is under?

Sonic’s world, not necessarily the events, needs a retcon/reboot. You can’t have a universe as inconsistent as Mario’s (which is also annoying) when your characters speak in complete sentences.

I definitely would’ve preferred Orbot and Cubot over Zavok. But yes, at least they didn’t go with Infinite.

No. The mentality is a symptom of the problem. Let’s do this timeline style: 1990s: Sonic’s friends are well-accepted as slight but inspired variations on his gameplay. 1998-2006: Sonic’s friends play vastly differently and are often obtuse and not fun to use. This is where the “shitty friends” think stems from. 2008-2013: Taking the completely wrong message from this, Sega only has Sonic as the playable character, while often retaining the obtuse gameplay styles. 2017: Sonic Mania makes it so Sonic’s friends are well-accepted as slight but inspired variations on his gameplay. 2017: Sonic Forces makes it so Sonic’s friends are slight AND uninspired variations on his gameplay.