E-van

No not really. You really need to expand your horizons more.

It builds personality.

The way it can combine with the experience of the game itself will always be the pinnacle of the art form to me... but video game music started with what came before most of the time, and the more I listen to, the more I realize I was kinda limiting myself with this line of thought tbh. The vertical slice it offers of music genres is by all means fantastic, but you can do a lot better if you listen around long enough, not gonna lie

You know, I feel a big reason why I could remember more music from games than music from movies, especally newer games and films is that games usually have you hear a song play over and over in a level or two until you finish it, so it's easier for them to get stuck in my head.

that's cool and all, but sonic has had it rough over the years

But did ya know Forces was mediocre gameplay and awful story?...Oh wait we can't say we fucked up again on the official twitter can we...

I hope so, at the very least.

Revisiting it today would be an interesting experience. At the very least it would help remind Iizuka and team how to integrate a story into their games again.

i expect sa3 before an sa remake, and i don't expect sa3

really though i just don't know how they could even approach an sa remake. you can't do a straight faithful remake...it would be terrible. but then how do you fix it while still being true to how weird, experimental, and scattershot it was?

Not especially. I wouldn't be awestruck, but I'm not betting on it. I think it's a bit more likely we'll see Adventure-esque games with Nishiyama-san back, in a position of influence to boot.

I sure hope not

As far as I know, he's still the series' main character designer, and he's always doing new artwork for Sonic channel.

forces as a whole looks worse than previous games

so much for eighth-gen hardware and the game running on the "all-new" "hedgehog engine ii"

I still feel like art direction is at fault too. Green Hill looking more blocky and "video-gamey" instead of the natural visual progression of the more realistic look from the actual Green Hill of Sonic 1 - Generations, was a deliberate thing, engine or not:

Maybe it would be worthy of the title "Hedgehog Engine 2" if it weren't used by "the people who brought you Colors and Generations"

Yeah, I see what you mean @Ferno. I feel like the blocky look for things started with Lost World and I was never much of a fan of that style.

Part of it was by necessity - pre-rendered cutscenes were almost completely out of the question because you can't exactly bake a custom character into them.

That being said you can definitely tell it's made by the same guys who did Lost World - it makes a lot of the same mistakes, like really boring, static camera work just off the top of my head.

the Hedgehog Engine 2 is an improvement but it just was not utilized well in Forces. Hopefully the next 3D Sonic finally does away with the blocky stuff so we can potentially see a game that finally looks better than Unleashed

@Ferno

I actually prefer the Lost-World/Forces style more if only comparing it to Generations. Especially out of those 2 screenshot comparisons Sonic Generations Green Hill looks washed out/dull. And personally in general I prefer more Video Gamey/surreal styles as some may put it. I never was a fan of the idea of basically just putting Sonic in fantasy versions of realistic environments. However I do think the Lost-World/Forces style is way to blocky and they need to add a lot more curves and other shapes... but it still should be keeping a bright colorful somewhat video gamey/toy look at the same time.

@Ferno The funny thing is that in the Forces screenshot you posted, you actually can see elements of Generations' Green Hill in there, such as the trees and the grass. The problem is that it's clearly been mixed into stuff that's clearly going for a different artstyle approach--you have the more detailed and more natural-looking trees and grass existing with landscapes and formations that are designed to be very simple and artificial in comparison. 

Which is a big problem Forces has in its presentation overall--it's a inconsistent assemble of recycled assets from different games, each game of which is also going for a different aesthetic approach. The game doesn't have a dedicated artstyle to make everything look coherent, even when you factor in the more original zones that don't recycle as much material like the Metropolis level.

@Blacklightning I think the cutscenes would look bad regardless if they were pre-rendered or done in realtime. Namely due to stuff like low-quality textures/models and improper lighting; everything just looks unpolished. You're also right about the camerawork and framing also being dull, it especially looks poor since they're trying to do a more serious and narrative-driven story as opposed to the Colors/Generations-like laidback comedy stuff.

I mean, compared to realtime cutscenes for other platformers/videogames, Forces doesn't compare to something like the 2016 Ratchet and Clank remake, or Crash N-Sane.

Hedgehog Engine II's new tech only made lighting easier to implement, not inherently better. So not only did we get a bare-minimum effort at realistic lighting with real time Global Illumination + small bits of Physically Based Rendering on numerous metal surfaces - without any of the many other lighting effects and workarounds present in Unleashed and even Generations - we straight up got lighting that was barely tweaked past an experimental Alpha phase imo. Lost World has cutscenes in the same vein for all intents and purposes, but at the very least it's lighting didn't look like it came from an unfinished Unity project at times, on top of all that.

You know, speaking of which, I’m surprised (and slightly disappointed) that SDG didn’t mistake Mike and Sully for Nightmare Dream Eaters when they first saw them.

Wasn't Shadow the Hedgehog originally announced around April Fools time?

Lol I think I did see people saying they thought it was an April Fools joke

3K

I wouldn't know since I never beat 3&K and I never bought Mania. 

Mania looks cooler though.

I found Mania to be the better overall package, but 3K wins because nostalgia

Video games are inanimate objects, incapable of engaging each other in any sort of competition.

Mania wins anyway.

3 > Mania > K

Mania

Mania's first 3 or 4 zones are certainly the most fun I've gotten out of the classic style of gameplay. Though, as an overall package, 3&K is far and away the better game imo. Especially when you consider the time period it was made in.

Back then, it's graphical presentation, expansive levels, actual story elements, ect. lead the entire industry as one of the most developed and full platformers ever made. Mania, nowadays, is none of that. It only aims to mimic that 1993-4 standard. Even taking away that time gap, you're still left with what's basically just a port of some old levels with updates that really only make up half of the experience. Add in its hit or miss bosses, complete lack of any form of narrative, and an absolute mess of a final act and honestly, I have trouble putting it above Sonic 2 at times. Let alone 3&K.

...

Though real talk, I still enjoyed the hell out of Mania. Soundtrack is to die for and it also has some of the best special stages in the damn franchise (next to Rush's).

i'd say 3&K but it's damn close

You sure about that?

I hear injecting it can lead to a heavy case of framerate drops.

inject all of sonic unleashed's ost into my veins

You can have that

But making endless love to jungle joyride night is where it's at