Roger_van_der_weide

Hmm, we sure that's a new zone? Because those 3 images on the right page seem to follow each other up. Notice how the second image is being referred to in text as the boss area from Studiopolis, and its artstyle is a mix between the two other screenshots, having the cityscape from Studiopolis (act 1?) and the brick roads and more pinkish background from (Act 2?) Kinda weird that another city level would turn into a ruin level, like it's a mirror zone for Stardust speedway, but that's how the manual reads to me. Then again, if they do the Sonic 3 and Knuckles thing where the levels directly flow into each other, I suppose it's possible Studiopolis just morphs into the next zone around the second boss fight. .....<Insert joke about level representing Sega itself turning into a ruin.>

I'm sure it'll be a great game and achieve everything it sets out to achieve spectacularly. The one thing I'm worried about is that in the end, it'll leave me with the same thoughts as Sonic Generations left me with, and that is "Hey that was awesome! Can't wait for them to make an Actual game like this!" Which sounds a bit weird and mean-spirited, but despite me loving the hell out of Generations, it never felt like a full blown adventure, it felt like a bunch of (Amazing) levels on a pile with an ending glued on. The diffrence between great gaemplay and fun levels and a full blown awesome Sonic experience is a sense of adventure, of journey. A grande finale that leaves you breathless. Of course I don't know yet. But so far, Sonic Mania is presented without such a thing, and will be like Generations, a compilation of great levels with little to no lifeline connecting them. This isn't bad perse, Sonic Genrations is still easily in my top 3 favorite Sonic games. But it's that sense of grand adventure that will be the diffrence between a great game and a GREAT game for Sonic Mania. That will be the diffrence whether I'll remember this game is a fun well made diversion ,or genuinely among the great Sonic games.

About Infinity, I don't know. Honestly I think it's a stupid idea to introduce a new character amidst all these heavy fan favorites. What possible chance does he have to make an impression while sandwiched between Shadow and Eggman and the lot? I really wish it was just Dr. Eggman in charge. I think Infinity is most likely just going to be a "functional" villain. Like, that Sonic team NEEDS a villain to be dramatically defeated and destroyed at the end. Can't do that to Zavok/ Metal/ Chaos Etc. We don't want Them to be dramatically killed off in an epic battle, of course they have to get redeemed, slip away or have a temporary truce with Sonic. (Well okay okay, I'm sure there's a few people who want love to see Shadow or Zavok bite the dust, but generally speaking...) We got to have SOME kind of Brainless giant monster person to be spectacularly punched to death in the finale, ergo Infinity. Well okay, we don't HAVE to, I think I would have preferred Eggman just be the bad guy and final boss and go away after being humiliated, but I suppose Sonic Team wants it to be more intense again. So I think he won't be memorable at all, and just be in service for gameplay/ Drama purposes without leaving an impact. Probably a good thing too, if they want Infinity to make an impression over the combined forces of Dr. Eggman, Shadow Etc., they'd have to make him so hammy and over the top it'll just feel forced. Yeah yeah, haha, "Forced".... As for SA2, I tend to think that just accepting that GUN and the goverment in Sonic adventure 2 is incompotent/ stupid/ desperate makes most of the story go down way smoother. After all, they ARE blowing up bridges and infastructures with their jets and sending giant trucks crashing trough narrow alleyways in the city. So it's not like Sonic Team is doing their best to make them come across as particularly smart or responsible. GUN was written into the series to cause chaos and havoc in the levels, not to make sense. The only human face we get for GUN is the Commander from Shadow's game, and he's a cartoonishly trigger-happy buffoon. And I don't know why so many people are upset about it, I just find it hilarious. I mean, hey, the olden "It's a talking hedgehog chasing a fat man with a mustache" argument that's always used against SA2. It's a cartoon for kids. Good, so here's an entire army filled to the brim with Yosemite sam's and Wile E. coyote's going after Sonic. Hilarity ensues. That's great. Well, so what do you prefer? Crazy hyper paranoid drill sergeants Micheal Baying entire cities, or real genuine politics? Or Eggman being a decent proper threat? Well okay, that would be better, but crazy militairy mooks is a close second for me. And in today's real world with the police riots last year and the...well, let's just say SA2's story is becoming increasingly more realistic by the day. I see Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd on TV everytime there'a political debate going on. It's what Amy's speech to Shadow at the end basically boils down to; Yeah the humans are a bunch of dumb idiots but deep inside they mean well.". And yeah, I think Shadow is mostly misguided in his actions. Combination between blinded by anger and being as naieve as a child. After all, he spend his entire life in the Ark, with Maria as only morality guide. The scientists there had to have an army send after them to put a stop to their crazy experiments, doesn't sound like Grade A Parental material to me. Not really a social upbringing that teaches him how to make his own choices or have a sense of emphathy and justice. He spend his entirely life likely blindly following orders from Gerald Robotnik, and Shadow can hardly tell if that guy's an insane psychopath or not. Outside of Maria, he hasn't interacted with anyone who wasn't a crazy insane/ evil manipulating person up until Amy starts talking to him. And I suppose even with her, "not crazy" might be debatable to some, but relatively speaking.

Aww yeah, God bless Tee Lopes. That's some serious 90's Sega funk alright.

With the crazy amount of universe devouring monsters that take residence in the Sonic universe, Dr. Eggman presumingly tripped over several homeless Gods of destructions on the way to the supermarket. With all the Zeti, Ifrits and abondonned militairy projects the guy has run into, I wonder why he even bothers building robots and doesn't start a Monster daycare center instead. Don't bother with putting flickies into these badniks, just shove in a Dark Gaia monster or two. That'll do wonders. Or turning into Super Sonic, staring confused at the screen and hoping Sonic Team bothered to genuinely design an actual boss battle instead of whatever the heck the random gibberish we got in Generations as final boss.

Aww. That sucks. RIP.

Same here, against delaying. Unlike 06 and Rise of Lyric, Sonic Forces is exactly what the development team wants it to be. I'm getting a hard read on whether Forces will be well received or not, there seems to be a strong disconnect between professional reviewers and Joe Sixpack. And Sonic Forces is clearly aiming for what fans want, and not what the Critics want. Too bad it's aiming at too many things at the same time, but whatever. And man, so rolling my eyes at all the "get rid of 3d" comments. Modern Sonic is already 90% in 2d. If you hate Modern Sonic, then you hate Sonic Team's rendition of 2d gameplay to begin with.

It's so frustrating that they have such a black and white attitude about feedback. Or rather a purple and Green attitude since they rarely aproach things straight forwardly. After complaints about Sonic friends, it's not "Let's take a brief break from them and then come back later" or analyse the reasons WHY the friends might be hated (Story focus balance issues, alien gameplay) and solve that. Instead they go straight for the gasoline and match and burn it into the ground, so opposing fans panic and start causing havok. Maybe fans wouldn't have such extreme reactions all the time if Sonic Team wasn't so Extreme and weird in their decisions. It rarely comes across decisions are made rationaly, it's like Sonic Team is in a constant state of panic and anxiety, wildly steering in whatever direction. And as such, we as passengers share in the panic and start screaming instructions from the backseat. TO THE LEFT! TO THE RIGHT! ARGHHH! Granted, it is their extreme attitude that's partly responsible for the best parts of the series. The series wouldn't be half as charming and fascinating if they only made rational and logical choices. But it's a double edged sword, that's for sure.

But really, what's with all the "I hope Sonic Mania will succeed so Modern Sonic/ 3d Sonic will die" stuff? The ultimate baffling point to me is that Modern Sonic has been PRIMARLY focused on bending over backwards to merge with Classic Sonic for a decade now. 3d gameplay barely had a guestrole in their own games, the side cast has been irrelevant for over a decade, we got Green Hill zone shoved in our faces at every turn... We HAD prodiminently 2d Classic style gameplay for the majority of the games since Sonic 06. The fact Mania is treated as THE GLORIOUS RETURN of 2d Sonic instead of "Well, here's another one of these awesome games" just shows you that Sonic Team emulating that style is meaningless if they don't focus, don't truly buckle down and NAIL these games, instead of treating it like a magic cheatcode that will make their games sell better. If Sonic Team's recent games have been dissapointing to you, what do you expect to change? Less Shadow ruining the series? Because those 2 bossfights and one Lego sidequest really dragged the series down. So I really have to wonder what folks rooting for Mania's succes are hoping for? Well, yeah, for Sonic Mania 2 of course, good reason. Or like me and hope Sonic Team learns to focus, TAKE a stand, embrace a vision and Go for it instead of having another Mad scientist pinball rollercoaster labyrinth of several gamestyles and attitudes. Then yeah, whoo, go Mania! But if you're rooting for Mania Just because you want to see the death of 3d Sonic and Shadow the hedgehog? Yeah, hooray, moral victory. Take THAT, other Sonic fans and your stupid tastes, haha! But other then that, nothing substantial will change. Get ready for Sonic Forces 2, except with flying donuts instead of destroyed cities. But hey, at least all the 3d sections will be gone! All... 2% of the game they'll occupy. Look at Classic Sonic's gameplay in Forces. That IS Sonic Team embracing and celebrating Classic Sonic. That's what you're fighting for here. If you like it, great! But, well, you already got it, so what are you fighting for? If you hate it, then clearly just getting Sonic team to make Classic Sonic stuff by itself isn't the answer. What I want Sonic Team to learn from Mania is about It's attitude. This focused passion and relentless optimism in creating the game that represents their values. Take a fun concept and then build on that, expand it, explore it. Sonic Mania happens to take the classic games as it's vision. And who knows what magic can happen if the same focus and energy is extended to other visions. Go make a 3d Sonic game with the attitude Taxman's team has with Sonic Mania. Who knows what wonders we'll receive? 2d gameplay has nothing to do with it. Classic Sonic has nothing to do with it. Sonic's friends have nothing to do with it. Physics has nothi...Well okay, physics has something to do with it, if only because it might lead to them realising that having a stronger and deeper core main gameplay can create endless variaton on it's own without relying on weird side activities. Point is, Sonic Team themselves is the problem, no matter what particular direction they're pursuing.

Maybe it means that if Sonic Mania is succesful, the new direction Sonic Team takes based on Mania's positive reception isn't so much the meaningless superficial elements from Mania. Like it's Classic Sonic and has Green Hill Zone in it, but he means the direction, the soul, the spirit, the focus of Mania. That future games will be more tightly planned, clean games with a clear direction and focus, instead of a Tower of Pisa pile of contradicting half completed concepts. Maybe. Hah. Ahahahaha. Hahahahahahaha.

To me, most important thing about plot is that it energizes the levels. Main reason why I love Sonic adventure 2's plot so much is not so much the lore or "complexity" or "how good it is". It's not really, but who cares, I love how it keeps injecting energy into the levels. Oh no the army is after us! Bam, level. Oh no a bomb is about to go off! Bam, Level. Oh no, Amy's in trouble! Bam, level. Keeps the beat. Much prefer that then either over-exposition where the plot is mostly tripping over itself to explain everything. That or just punching itself in the face with self sabotaging jokes. As for where Forces will fall into this, beats me. At least the characters seem to be motivated in what's happening, so there's a good start.

That'll make for a very newcomer/ casual fan unfriendly story. Then again, it already kinda is. Still, I get the strong feeling Sonic Generations is no longer canon.

According to the official game credits, Kiyoko Yoshimura and Shiro Maekawa wrote it, with IMDB adding director Shun Nakamura. I can vaguely remember being told each of those 3 writers were responsible for one of the story lines, Maekawa for Shadow, Yoshimura for Sonic and Nakamura for Silver, but beats me where I got that info. IMDB seems to imply Nakamura is the main general writer, with the other 2 doing the specific dialogue/ specifics. But whatever. Nakumura also wrote Billy Hatcher's story, Samba Da Amigo's story (?) and possibly Rythm thief. So can't really say he has a clear cut style to him. And with Forces, we got Warren Graff and possibly Ian Flynn and Ken Pontac taking care of locailzation, so his writing style will be deluded anyway.

About the Sonic Boom episode, Eggman invited him to the villain party without having to pursuade Shadow or give him a reason to hate Sonic, Shadow was more then happy to randomly show up to a "Let's murder Sonic!" party. He just got irritated by the other villains because they were TOO INCOMPOTENT/ NICE/ INEFFECIANT to kill Sonic. Besides that, the episode didn't bother giving Shadow much of a nackstory or motivation other then "he's popular character". So that still very much falls in line with his Rise of Lyric "He just hates Sonic because videogame/ Meta/ friends/ who cares" personality. As for Shattered Crystals, he's a bit nicer there, sure, but it's still hard to tel if that's his natural behaviour. In that game, he's just too pissed off at Lyric for Mind controlling him that that consumes his actions. We don't know how he would have behaved toward Sonic if it wasn't for that. So neither are much of an argument for Shadow's better treatment, other then that Sonic Boom is a spinoff and can do whatever the heck it wants. It just adds to the already general paranoia and lack of trust in Sega. Lego DImensions is the one game this past decade that got Shadow right. Sure, it turned him into a ridiculous parody, but at least a recognisible parody based on proper Shadow.