Sonic Forces | PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC "The Next Generations"

[Hiki]

Just now, reflection_of said:

It will be solo sonica again.^

That's what I'm thinking.

SEGA seems too scared to go back to the point where other characters were important.

[SonicFreak94]

43 minutes ago, SonicEkkusu said:

That's what I'm thinking.

SEGA seems too scared to go back to the point where other characters were important.

It's all your guy's fault too. I remember back in the early 2010s when you guys believed that Sonic had declined because of the extended cast (referee to as "Sonic's friends. That was when  the term "sola sonica" was invented to describe "good" Sonic games. If you don't believe me look up "The Sonic Cycle." 

I remember users who were against "Solo Sonica" were called out as being "the kids that ruined the franchise" and now everyone is just casually asking  for the cast to return as if to pretend that the Sola Sonica cult never happened.

That type of thinking may be gone here but it has somehow managed to stick with all of the non Sonic fans. There are reviewers and even SoA staff throwing around terms like "the friends" and "the Sonic Cycle" Early on after SLoW was announced reviewers would make jokes about how bad the extended cast was. It's a meme. And memes are very difficult to kill. Furthermore it is a meme YOU all created and it WILL PERSIST into project 2017.

[Diogenes]

26 minutes ago, reflection_of said:

It's all your guy's fault too.

You're welcome. I still say they made the right choice in trimming the cast, even though it hasn't solved all the series' problems.

[Nepenthe]

It hasn't solved a single problem, actually.

[Hiki]

28 minutes ago, SonicFreak94 said:

It's all your guy's fault too. I remember back in the early 2010s when you guys believed that Sonic had declined because of the extended cast (referee to as "Sonic's friends. That was when  the term "sola sonica" was invented to describe "good" Sonic games. If you don't believe me look up "The Sonic Cycle." 

I remember users who were against "Solo Sonica" were called out as being "the kids that ruined the franchise" and now everyone is just casually asking  for the cast to return as if to pretend that the Sola Sonica cult never happened.

That type of thinking may be gone here but it has somehow manedged to stick with all of the non Sonic fans and you will here reviews and even SoA staff throwing around terms like "the friends" and "the Sonic Cycle" Early on after SLoW was announced reviewers would make jokes about how bad the extended cast was. It's a meme. And memes are very difficult to kill. Furthermore it is a meme YOU all created and it WILL PERSIST into project 2017.

But I always liked multiple characters. I grew up playing as Shadow all the time in his game, and helping Sonic and friends, or joining the dark side and helping the enemy.

Heck, Shadow the Hedgehog, the Sonic Adventure games, Sonic Unleashed and Sonic 06 were some of the games I played to get ready for Sonic Lost World, and I was very surprised by how much they dumbed down Sonic, and that none of his friends were playable anymore. I'm one of those people who enjoy the alternate gameplay styles. Especially that mech shooting one.

I dislike Sola-Sonica as much as you do, but we don't exactly have a say in what SEGA does and doesn't do in Project 2017.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

It's not the fans' fault. It is Sonic Team's fault for not implementing playables in a modern game correctly. Hell it is their fault for not giving Sonic a clear idniedity as to how he should play.

[Wraith]

59 minutes ago, SonicFreak94 said:

It's all your guy's fault too. I remember back in the early 2010s when you guys believed that Sonic had declined because of the extended cast (referee to as "Sonic's friends. That was when  the term "sola sonica" was invented to describe "good" Sonic games. If you don't believe me look up "The Sonic Cycle." 

I remember users who were against "Solo Sonica" were called out as being "the kids that ruined the franchise" and now everyone is just casually asking  for the cast to return as if to pretend that the Sola Sonica cult never happened.

That type of thinking may be gone here but it has somehow managed to stick with all of the non Sonic fans. There are reviewers and even SoA staff throwing around terms like "the friends" and "the Sonic Cycle" Early on after SLoW was announced reviewers would make jokes about how bad the extended cast was. It's a meme. And memes are very difficult to kill. Furthermore it is a meme YOU all created and it WILL PERSIST into project 2017.

People put so much weight on the fans for these decisions like blindly and clumsily adhering to the kneejerk complaints of people on the internet is a thing a rational game developer does. 

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

36 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

You're welcome. I still say they made the right choice in trimming the cast, even though it hasn't solved all the series' problems.

the cast wasn't even the problem. is that they didn't know how to make them playable properly in a game

[Nepenthe]

The thing about playable characters is that it wasn't a kneejerk reaction (stupid, but not kneejerk) nor was there any way to misinterpret what people were saying similar to physics and narrative complaints. People very loud and clear told Sega for years to stop using alternate characters and they did. It's actually the most rational way they've incorporated fan feedback regardless of how much of a stupid-ass scapegoat it was.

[Clewis]

1 hour ago, reflection_of said:

It's all your guy's fault too.

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I remember back in the early 2010s when you guys believed that Sonic had declined because of the extended cast (referee to as "Sonic's friends. That was when  the term "sola sonica" was invented to describe "good" Sonic games. If you don't believe me look up "The Sonic Cycle."

That belief started way before 2010, buddy. I remember people wishing that the series would go back to featuring simpler storylines and smaller casts mainly because of the critical disasters that were Shadow and 06. And honestly, the extended cast's presence was causing a decline in overall game quality, because for some reason Sonic Team assumed that having multiple playable characters meant that they should also force players to put up with multiple gameplay styles as well. 

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I remember users who were against "Solo Sonica" were called out as being "the kids that ruined the franchise" and now everyone is just casually asking  for the cast to return as if to pretend that the Sola Sonica cult never happened.

Except (I'm assuming) most people aren't asking for the cast to return so they can be handled like they were during the Adventure era, they want multiple playable characters to return so they can be handled in a similar sense to how the classic games or Sonic Mania is handling them, essentially as player skins that harbor their own character-specific abilities that can be taken advantage of within the game's level design. This is a common request I've seen get thrown around for several years now, even before 2010.

Personally, I'm glad Sonic Team decided to take a break from the extended playable cast for a while. Because of this we got Colors and Generations, two decent games where the gameplay feels a lot more focused and polished and there isn't as much pointless filler included just to lengthen the game's overall playtime. However, I will agree that as of Lost World there really isn't much of a reason for Sonic Team to not include multiple playable characters to some extent, that is, if they're going to continue developing gameplay styles that are slower-paced compared to the boost formula. (Tails should have at least been offered as an optional character to play as, Sonic Team could have just removed his ability to fly and replaced it with a higher double jump or a gliding ability or something so that he wouldn't break the game's level design)

tl;dr: Don't bother blaming other people about this "Solo Sonica" stuff, no one's going to feel guilty about it, nor should they.

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

The thing about playable characters is that it wasn't a kneejerk reaction (stupid, but not kneejerk) nor was there any way to misinterpret what people were saying similar to physics and narrative complaints. People very loud and clear told Sega for years to stop using alternate characters and they did. It's actually the most rational thing they've done in regards to incorporating fan feedback regardless of how much of a stupid-ass scapegoat it was.

If you dig deeper, though, the core of the problem was the alternate styles. Not the characters. the characters were being reasonably associated with the alternate styles, but they've also been playable before in the classics without doing all of that shit. I feel like better devs would have caught to that, but Sega saw people complaining about the other characters, removed them, then promptly devoted over half of Unleashed and a decent chunk of Generations to alternate styles. Like, what? It feels like no thought went into it.

[Nepenthe]

11 minutes ago, Clewis said:

That belief started way before 2010, buddy. I remember people wishing that the series would go back to featuring simpler storylines and smaller casts mainly because of the critical disasters that were Shadow and 06. And honestly, the extended cast's presence was causing a decline in overall game quality, because for some reason Sonic Team assumed that having multiple playable characters meant that they should also force players to put up with multiple gameplay styles as well. 

It's weird, because people started complaining about cast bloat during Heroes, the game where people mistakenly assumed that there were 12 characters instead of three characters with four skins. Also, Shadow's flaws aren't really the result of a ton of playable characters either since, well, he's the only playable character in the game. The best case anyone has against the cast in hindsight is Sonic 06, where the amount of truly different genres introduced as a result of the characters in the game is arguably a whopping 1, maybe 2 since you drive with Shadow and Lord knows we will denote any distraction as an alternate style.

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tl;dr: Don't bother blaming other people about this "Solo Sonica" stuff, no one's going to feel guilty about it, nor should they.

I feel people should feel bad about bad arguments.

6 minutes ago, Wraith said:

If you dig deeper, though, the core of the problem was the alternate styles. Not the characters. the characters were being reasonably associated with the alternate styles, but they've also been playable before in the classics without doing all of that shit. I feel like better devs would have caught to that, but Sega saw people complaining about the other characters, removed them, then promptly devoted over half of Unleashed and a decent chunk of Generations to alternate styles. Like, what? It feels like no thought went into it.

No thought went into it because the fans and public didn't think about it at all, but proceeded to scream at Sega about it anyway because that's what we do. A smarter dev wouldn't have let the situation get to the point that it did in the first place. However, I feel any dev regardless of prestige will inevitably cave to pressure and take hasty action just to quell dissent and anger should either of these be loud enough to cause a perceivable problem, because a satiated public is probably the most valuable thing you have when you're doing business. 

[shdowhunt60]

I still don't understand the rhetoric behind the "alternate playstyles" complaint. Does Halo all of a sudden become a bad game when you hop in a warthog, because you're doing something completely different than playing a first person shooter? How about driving in Grand Theft Auto or horse-back riding in Red Dead Redemption? Or, hell, did the Classics suddenly become bad when it came to the special stages (even though they were shit)?

[Wraith]

1 minute ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I still don't understand the rhetoric behind the "alternate playstyles" complaint. Does Halo all of a sudden become a bad game when you hop in a warthog, because you're doing something completely different than playing a first person shooter? How about driving in Grand Theft Auto or horse-back riding in Red Dead Redemption? Or, hell, did the Classics suddenly become bad when it came to the special stages (even though they were shit)?

You're ignoring the implementation and the polish of the styles. Sonic catches hell because he did those things badly for the most part while those other games didn't. Whether it be a lack of polish, too much time spent on it, or it just not being that fun.

And the special stages are a minigame while the above mentioned Werehog campaign or Knuckles's stages in Adventure take up a good chunk of the experience. 

[Diogenes]

Did SA suddenly become bad just because you were thrown from a high speed platformer into a fishing sim?

Yes.

Yes it did.

[Nepenthe]

6 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I still don't understand the rhetoric behind the "alternate playstyles" complaint. Does Halo all of a sudden become a bad game when you hop in a warthog, because you're doing something completely different than playing a first person shooter? How about driving in Grand Theft Auto or horse-back riding in Red Dead Redemption? 

I'm pretty sure people mean alternate playstyle as a prolonged switch from platforming to some other gameplay entirely. But even with that definition you can call into question the specifics many characters' campaigns. Like, is Tails in SA1 an alternate style because he's racing Sonic? I wouldn't think so. To me, Sonic just acts as an arbitrary time limit, and we've had arbitrary time limits since Sonic 1. What in Sonic 06 is an alternate playstyle? I don't really see enough gameplay differentiation in any character to think that 06 is anything other than a generic action-adventure platformer.

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Or, hell, did the Classics suddenly become bad when it came to the special stages (even though they were shit)?

Leave Blue Spheres out of this.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

Did SA suddenly become bad just because you were thrown from a high speed platformer into a fishing sim?

Yes.

Yes it did.

I wouldn't call beating a campaign/stopping a campaign, exiting back to the main menu, choosing the story mode, and deliberately selecting another character to be "thrown" into anything. 

[shdowhunt60]

1 minute ago, Wraith said:

You're ignoring the implementation and the polish of the styles. Sonic catches hell because he did those things badly for the most part while those other games didn't. Whether it be a lack of polish, too much time spent on it, or it just not being that fun.

And the special stages are a minigame while the above mentioned Werehog campaign or Knuckles's stages in Adventure take up a good chunk of the experience. 

I'm actually not. What I'm criticizing is the idea that these alternate playstyles exist is what made them bad, not that they lack in polish. I'll agree with that, they do indeed lack in polish even in the best of circumstances. But I don't agree that Sonic having alternate playstyles in and of itself is what makes a game bad, because it never holds true.

[Wraith]

2 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I'm actually not. What I'm criticizing is the idea that these alternate playstyles exist is what made them bad, not that they lack in polish. I'll agree with that, they do indeed lack in polish even in the best of circumstances. But I don't agree that Sonic having alternate playstyles in and of itself is what makes a game bad, because it never holds true.

I get what you're saying. I think with Sonic in particular though people are after more fast paced, focused experiences and not ones that vary wildly.  That and most devs have trouble with games where the gameplay varies a bit like that, let alone Sonic team. Other developers are just bigger and more talented, so it's not as much of an issue.

[Nepenthe]

We can talk about implementation and polish all day, but the situation we're at now is that people don't want other playable characters in any fucking capacity in the 3D games. Remember, the cast showed up as largely unobtrusive in Gens and they still got shat on for it in some circles and op-eds. So at what point is this behavior worthy of being called out as fan and public dumbness, or is Sega at fault for this too?

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

I'm pretty sure people mean alternate playstyle as a prolonged switch from platforming to something other gameplay entirely. But even with that definition you can call into question the specifics many characters' campaigns. Like, is Tails in SA1 an alternate style because he's racing Sonic? I wouldn't think so. To me, Sonic just acts as an arbitrary time limit, and we've had arbitrary time limits since Sonic 1.

It's a question of degrees. If we take Sonic as the standard, Tails is 15 degrees off, Gamma is 90 off, Big is 180. It's up to the individual to decide how much is too much for them, but that doesn't invalidate the whole idea.

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I wouldn't call beating a campaign/stopping a campaign, exiting back to the main menu, choosing the story mode, and deliberately selecting another character to be "thrown" into anything. 

Treasure hunting, mechs, or driving in SA2, then.

6 minutes ago, shdowhunt60 said:

I'm actually not. What I'm criticizing is the idea that these alternate playstyles exist is what made them bad, not that they lack in polish. I'll agree with that, they do indeed lack in polish even in the best of circumstances. But I don't agree that Sonic having alternate playstyles in and of itself is what makes a game bad, because it never holds true.

Even the theoretical best possible fishing sim is still going to drag down a Sonic game because it's a complete mismatch for what the game is otherwise promising.

[Clewis]

32 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

It's weird, because people started complaining about cast bloat during Heroes, the game where people mistakenly assumed that there were 12 characters instead of three characters with four skins.

Did they? I remember people calling out Heroes on having such a large cast, but I didn't think many were presenting it as this huge issue like people outside the fanbase are fond of doing so now since the series wasn't unanimously considered "bad" at that point.

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Also, Shadow's flaws aren't really they result of a ton of playable characters either since, well, he's the only playable character in the game.

I was speaking more so from a narrative standpoint with Shadow, should have made that clearer.

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The best case anyone has against the cast in hindsight is Sonic 06, where the amount of truly different genres introduced as a result of the characters in the game is arguably a whopping 1, maybe 2.

I find it hard to defend 06's use of the extended cast since the game just isn't very fun to play no matter what character you're playing as (with most of the "amigo" characters either feeling straight up broken at times or having incredibly dumb design decisions applied to them), but I can see your point. I just recall people wanting Sonic Team to create a more "focused" experience after they tried shoving nearly every modern Sonic character into Shadow and 06 in one way or another.

[Wraith]

2 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

We can talk about implementation and polish all day, but the situation we're at now is that people don't want other playable characters in any fucking capacity in the 3D games. Remember, the cast showed up as largely unobtrusive in Gens and they still got shat on for it in some circles and op-eds. So at what point is this behavior worthy of being called out as fan and public dumbness, or is Sega at fault for this too?

The complaints are petty, but at the same time I feel like sega had more than a few chances to step up to the plate and prove people wrong, but the roles they have them playing now, like say Shadow in Rise of Lyric, or the Zeti in Lost World they kind of just keep joke going, y'know? They've kind of gone into a territory where they're proving the detractors right and have been there for some time. 

[Diogenes]

3 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

We can talk about implementation and polish all day, but the situation we're at now is that people don't want other playable characters in any fucking capacity in the 3D games. Remember, the cast showed up as largely unobtrusive in Gens and they still got shat on for it in some circles and op-eds. So at what point is this behavior worthy of being called out as fan and public dumbness, or is Sega at fault for this too?

People can also not like the characters as fictional entities in addition to as player avatars. If someone outright does not like most of the series' cast, it shouldn't be a surprise that a game largely about rescuing them is going to be offputting to them.

[shdowhunt60]

Just now, Wraith said:

I get what you're saying. I think with Sonic in particular though people are after more fast paced, focused experiences and not ones that vary wildly.

And that's fair enough. Not getting what you want is a legitimate reason to dislike something. Federation Force is the most immediate example, it may be a decent enough game, but it managed to alienate any and all possible audiences right from the word "go".

Just now, Wraith said:

 That and most devs have trouble with games where the gameplay varies a bit like that, let alone Sonic team. Other developers are just bigger and more talented, so it's not as much of an issue.

I thought Sonic Team's efforts were fine. Admirable even. And up until Shadow/06 you can clearly tell how they were learning lessons on how to handle variety. From SA1 to SA2, they axed the less successful of playstyles and focused on the three that did work. And SA2 is a pretty remarkable step forward, and really most of the issues can be boiled down to polish issues (e.g. better balancing for A ranks, refined mech controls, fixing the god damned radar). Then Heroes tried to focus on a more singular playstyle and do variations based upon it.

Honestly, if it wasn't for Shadow and 06, and all the internal strife that plagued Sonic Team, I bet you they would've figured it out eventually. But, you know how it all turned out.

 

 

[Nepenthe]

21 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

It's a question of degrees. If we take Sonic as the standard, Tails is 15 degrees off, Gamma is 90 off, Big is 180. It's up to the individual to decide how much is too much for them, but that doesn't invalidate the whole idea.

It doesn't invalidate the idea, but at the same time if it's that much a question of subjectivity and individual experience versus any reasonably thought-out argument, then it casts a huge shadow over the intellectual soundness of a decade-long campaign against the extended cast's existence. Fans of characters outside of the main four should be actually be livid that such a shitshow was ever actually taken seriously just because they got out-screamed. I know I am.

19 minutes ago, Clewis said:

Did they? I remember people calling out Heroes on having such a large cast, but I didn't think many were presenting it as this huge issue like people outside the fanbase are fond of doing so since the series wasn't unanimously considered "bad" at that point.

The longer time has gone on, the more people consider Heroes as some egregious offense because there's 12 playable characters regardless of the fact that they all play the same as Sonic, Tails, or Knuckles.

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I was speaking more so from a narrative standpoint with Shadow, should have made that clearer.

Ah; fair enough!

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I find it hard to defend 06's use of the extended cast since the game just isn't very fun to play no matter what character you're playing as (with most of the "amigo" characters either feeling straight up broken at times or having incredibly dumb design decisions applied to them), but I can see your point. I just recall people wanting Sonic Team to create a more "focused" experience after they tried shoving nearly every modern Sonic character into Shadow and 06 in one way or another.

The game wouldn't have been fun to play as with just Sonic provided you kept everything else, which means the issue isn't really the characters so much as it is the base design and programming. Regardless, I fully understand people's desire for games that were more slimmed down as a personal preference or as a way to redirect the franchise onto some path where Sega's bearings could be regained and we could continue forward. But now we're actually getting into an argument that's worth some conversation and hashing out, where we can go into detail, find common ground, and get some good ideas going like actual adults. But blaming the characters for any and everything wrong with the franchise is not that argument. It's just crying.

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

The complaints are petty, but at the same time I feel like sega had more than a few chances to step up to the plate and prove people wrong, but the roles they have them playing now, like say Shadow in Rise of Lyric, or the Zeti in Lost World they kind of just keep joke going, y'know? They've kind of gone into a territory where they're proving the detractors right and have been there for some time. 

That's true. They're not really doing anyone any favors (although I wouldn't use Boom Shadow or the Zeti as an example because they're unplayable villains, which people seem to give a pass to because they don't have any effect on gameplay), but at the same time it's very easy to contextualize Sega's weird-ass writing in a time after the furor over playable characters has come to exist for awhile. Really, they're not doing anything in a vacuum. These recent games are an obvious response to something. 

15 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

People can also not like the characters as fictional entities in addition to as player avatars. If someone outright does not like most of the series' cast, it shouldn't be a surprise that a game largely about rescuing them is going to be offputting to them.

The characters have only slightly more impact on the game as the animal capsules. If anyone is seriously off-put by Gens because they hate everyone outside of Sonic, Tails, and Eggman that much then that's an extreme personal problem I'd argue doesn't warrant serious deliberation as being worth solving. At that point, I'd tell you just don't buy/play the fucking game. It's like me whining about rocket launchers in a Halo game.