Roger_van_der_weide

And another thought, we didn't know if the levels will ALWAYS have the cast talk during gameplay or if replaying the levels gives you an non story mode option. So, now Shadow's confirmed to play trough Modern Sonic stages, I have to assume all the chatter is taken out of the level. Because I doubt we still have Knuckles and Amy telling Shadow to go find Shadow in Park Avenue. .....Right...?

Wow, once again Sonic Forces manages to be exactly what I want and love AND exactly what I feared and hate at the same time. Playing this game will be such a weird experience.

Hey, here's a thought. A popular theory on why Shadow and the rest are evil again is because Infinite took them from their original timelines when they were still evil. Now we get 3 levels with Shadow based on his backstory.... Which would take place during Sonic adventure 2. Then remembeing that Sonic Forces seems to be repeating the same levels from Sonic Generations again like Green Hill, and (Very likely) Chemical plant and Sky Sanctuary, I suppose that means Shadow's levels take place in City escape. ...And now I'm wondering if Shadow's the only playable villain.... Are we going to get a Chaos DLC storyline? Pfft, that'd be funny. I suppose Metal Sonic and Shadow can easily copy Classic and Modern Sonic's gameplay, but Chaos and Zavok will be harder to place. Maybe they get the Tag team levels. Yay, Zavok and Chaos fistbumping each other. All this stuff is probably unlikely, but it's fun to think about it regardless.

3 new stages! Awesome! So far, all the stages we've seen take about 2 minutes to finish, so that's 6 minutes of extra gameplay! Nice. ....Also, now real Shadow has been confirmed, anyone still care to dress up their OC as lame fake Shadow?

Well, the engine does show an improvement in some details, such as the waterpools and their reflection at the start of Modern Sonic's city level. Too bad 99% of the rest of the game takes inspiration from Sonic Lost World's art direction, for some reason. Altough to be fair, since you're either running at mad speeds in 3d, or the game takes a far distance from the action in it's 2d sections, all the clever details and technical marvels will go unnoticed anyway. Cutscenes, on the other hand... They have less of an excuse.

Well, technically Sky sanctuary and the hexagon city zones are new zones that are kinda confirmed now, and we got a glimpse of new gameplay with Modern Sonic's Green hill section in the trailer. But yeah, they're really keeping a tight lid on the levels. Makes you wonder if the game's either super short, or if there's another gameplay shoe that's yet to drop. But yeah, great trailer, loved it. Great energy too it. I'm only dissapointed Classic Sonic's little 5 second cameo unceremoniously showed up sandwiched in the middle. They should have kept that clip of Classic Sonic staring at the camera as the last shot, after the music stopped with a record scratch and a "Oh yeah, he's also still in the game I guess" title appearing.

Knuckles is extremely duty driven, so that's one trait he has that makes him leader ish. Not a good leader, but at least has the energy and focus of one. (His stupidity (At least in S3&K and SA2) comes more from him being too hyper focused on his task that he failed to see the bigger picture and bluntly rushing toward what he perceives as the obvious danger.) You could say it's more important for a leader to hold speeches (that they didn't write) and make decisions (Based on advice and research done by others) and present an energetic, intense, dutiful and active face and image for the rebellion to keep morale up. That's why Knuckles is the leader. Even if he's dumb as a brick, Tails and Amy can do all the planning, strategzing and mental legwork behind the scenes while Knuckles is just being a theatrical Man Of Action to inspire the troops. But yeah, it's a mental whiplash to go back to serious duty driven Knuckles after he's been a completely useless dolt for over a decade. I'm just happy to give him something to do again, other then just standing in the background because "He's main character...Allegedly".

Wow, they keep making Tails look so...punchable. He's freaking Brainy Smurf at this point. Oh well, it was nice seeing cute Tails return in Mania, back to bitchy Tails again. Phone game looks fun. Sucks I have an android.

Looks neat. So.....Guess we'll get this instead of the usual 3ds Port then.

And if the description is accurate, I guess Rouge has been confirmed for Forces as well. Well, she or a new character called "Rogue". Sweet, so we get darker versions of all Generations levels after all. Can't wait to see how Eggman will make Crisis City look worse. Unless Park Aventue already is Crisis city. But then he made it look more fluffy and happy. Huh, and considering planet Wisp is like a construction zone...Does that mean we'll get to see the results of what Eggman was trying to do to planet Wisp? Either way, I suppose this means I'll have to include a scene of Sonic and friends having a friendly race in the middle of the raging war when I get to make a parody of Sonic forces.

Heh, it was more a jokey observation I made, didn't want to turn this into a fight. I like city levels and glad we get them back after Lost world didn't have any, ignoring the 3ds version. But man, I really needed some kind of jungle stage or something in the second half of Mania after the endless dark ruins, dark caves and dark cities. Mirage saloon really felt like an oasis of bright colors and daylight and came as a relief. And to Mania's credit, they put in a lot of effort to give Oil ocean even more of a oil platform plant feel to it then the original to diffrentiate it. I suppose it's mostly my memories of Sonic 2 that I mostly think of it as a city level as the dome shapes and crane structures weren't as emphasized and usually obscured by the level structures. Eh, whatever. BACK TO TOPIC again. Uhh.. So. Reading Taxman's description of how levels work is interesting. Weird he mentions the Megadrive/ Genesis couldn't handle vertical stage movement very well, I still remember Classic Sonic games doing quite some vertical stuff, particularly icecap zone and hydrocity. Guess that was mostly trickery then.

It's more like if you follow up a forest stage with a jungle or swamp stage. Technically diffrent, but graphically very close.

I'll happely act like a crazy ex-Girlfriend and throw that quote back at you when there's a brand new Classic Style Sonic in 5 years with even better'er physics. And Mania suddenly goes the way of the Adventure 2/ Generations and The Internet suddenly decides it was terribly designed after all and it's this shiny new game that we need to blindly champion, with Mania's minor issues like the blue orbs mentally blown up to giant game breaking disasters. Seriously, I thought Generations was considered a great game and now that game is suddenly terrible.And am not talking about crazy youtube comments, actual game magazines suddenly go back on their old positive review to take shots at the game. Fangames like After the sequel suddenly had their reputation take a nosedive when Mania was coming (Altough don't know how the DX version is doing now) And I'm pretty sure even Sonic 4 enjoyed a brief reputation of SAVING THE FRANCHISE before it became Sonic 06's distant cousin? At this point, am I this crazy to anticipate a potential next Classic style game that's even more better'er'er then Mania will nuke every game's reputation around it? Bleh, whatever. I'll just practise my sarcastic eyerolling when we're all supposed to pretend no 2d Sonic games have existed since 1994 and 2022 will finally bring us the real "2d Sonic game with green hill zone that Saves the franchise Again 2: Revenge of Again." That's the scary thing about this "Didn't age well" mindset. It's hard to tell what elements only work "in this age" and which are suddenly considered bad in the future. What impresses us today can be cheesy or tacky tomorrow, or worse. Uhh.. Sorry, going off topic. But yeah, again, great interview. Interesting to read that Taxman considers building a relationship with Sega is what took him the most time. I should save up that quote. So many folks I run into that are writing this Amateur Game design document to Sega with the full confidence that the poor schmuck at customer support will read trough it and start running to Sonic Team's office in excitement. Hope Taxman's tale will inspire them to work up their brand and reputation first before sending in their manuscript of SONIC SAVED THE FRANCHISE Part 7: Again's Legacy of Againess.

Heh, and yet half the game is city levels. I suppose industrial districts don't count as cities then. Nice interview, was fun to read. Could do with less stabs at modern Sonic from the interviewer tough, geez. And yeah, agree with Detective Mike, all the "IT SAVED THE FRANCHISE!" and "Sonic back to his roots!" stuff was getting old 7 years ago, let alone now. Sonic has been "saved" at least 4 times the past decade and everyone's still screaming that it's needs saving. All the while the alleged saviour games don't sell all that many more copies then the ones that allegedly doomed the series, so I doubt Sega cares. The only thing that needs saving is my sanity.

Considering the whole game is about fighting a war, I would aproach it from that angle. What stages would make sense in a war setting? Either straight or in a twist? The GUN headquarters stage would make sense for a straight level. Eggman sabotaging their information and arms center. Important cities would be neat, wouldn't it be cool to see how Spagonia or Shamar and such are doing? And of course Eggman repurposing his older bases, like Final Egg or Scrap brain. Why build all new bases from scratch when you have several left over bases that can be touched up again? Saves resources. Or hey, here's an idea. How about a full on assault on Angel island as Eggman and his troops aproaching from all sides in airships to steal the Master Emerald, with the rebels desperatly trying to stop it. For recycling bonus points you can make that level like a montage of several zones, make it a stew between several Sonic 3 and K stages combined, or even some Adventure/ Advance love in there. Levels that make sense for Eggman (or the rebels) to take interest in, and not random "Hey, remember this level existing???" references that only have meaning to us on a meta level. Why is everyone constantly drawn to Green Hill zone, why is that such a strategic and significant location? Outside of meta "Member Sonic 1????" reasons. Only reason why I'll forgive Green Hill this time is because I'll be seeing it getting destroyed, and watching that damn place burn to the ground is cathartic at this point. Altough honestly, I think older stages should be kept as subtle toned down nods, and not fulll blown MEMBER THIS LEVEL???? nostalgia fests again. After the two Sonic 4's, two Generations, a Lego DImension, a Mania and all the phone games, (not to mention several fangames) I'm really burned out on this gimmick.