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

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Yeeaaah... I don't think Sticks is among the worse written characters category. Outside of retro Sonic fans who hate anybody new, many other fans are fine with her I think. She even has a bit of her own fanbase going. I know I like her. (Which is obvious)

[AngelSlayerN64]

24 minutes ago, Christmas Dreams said:

And characters don't need a second chance in Sonic games. It's a Sonic game, it just uses whatever character makes most sense. If they're going to add a new character, than so be it, so long as it doesn't detract anything from the game or completely takes the role of another character, I'm happy. 

I never said characters deserved a second chance in Sonic games. I only said the controversial or underappreciated ones deserve a second chance in Sonic games. If you're not going to try and do anything useful with them or make them likable, then what's the point of keeping them around in the franchise? They're pretty much irrevelant and irredeemable after that. Effort is crucial when it comes to character development. You shouldn't ignore something like that.

[Lucid Dream]

27 minutes ago, AngelSlayerN64 said:

I never said characters deserved a second chance in Sonic games. I only said the controversial or underappreciated ones deserve a second chance in Sonic games. If you're not going to try and do anything useful with them or make them likable, then what's the point of keeping them around in the franchise? They're pretty much irrevelant and irredeemable after that. Effort is crucial when it comes to character development. You shouldn't ignore something like that.

Don't plenty of people like Big and Silver though? 

And since when does every character have to be exploding with so much charisma that you cannot not like them. That's far from a goal that anyone should be going towards in any medium. Big doesn't have to be super appealing, he's just a peaceful guy that exists, looks for Froggy, and gets tangled up in some plots occasionally. Granted, his personality clashes with the usual energy in Sonic, but there's nothing so wrong and bad about him that it would demand a "second chance" to somehow make him a paragon of likeableness. If there's a need/want for him to appear due to the story or setting, than so be it, but otherwise I don't see him needing to have a "second chance" at all. Same goes for most others. 

And yes, it's perfectly fine for characters to not be either perfectly likeable or "hate sinks". Most people aren't either of them, so why should every single character from any medium be? It's increadibly unrealistic and strange. I prefer a balanced character, one that has both good and bad qualities, so that you can dislike or like them depending on yourself. 

[Red Hot Jack]

1 hour ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

Yeah, it really depends on what kind of role this new character is going to play. It's not necessarily going to be a role that an existing character can fill just as well. Even though I love most of the extended cast, I definitely don't love using them just for the sake of using them, which is one reason their reputation probably got so bad to begin with. Characters should only be used if they can be used well, in my opinion.

You would think that with such a big cast, one of them would fit the story. In this case, as the timeline seems screwed up, I would say Silver would show up, it makes sense instead of another character who comes from the future. Making his gameplay faster and more dynamic would also make it a lot of fun, potentially.

[Wraith]

1 hour ago, Frozen Sapphire Jovahexeon said:

One of these things is not like the other, and that one certainly don't apply.

I dunno, most of the people I talk to find her obnoxious. It could be more split than I thought. 

49 minutes ago, AngelSlayerN64 said:

I never said characters deserved a second chance in Sonic games. I only said the controversial or underappreciated ones deserve a second chance in Sonic games. If you're not going to try and do anything useful with them or make them likable, then what's the point of keeping them around in the franchise? They're pretty much irrevelant and irredeemable after that. Effort is crucial when it comes to character development. You shouldn't ignore something like that.

I said that I would do something with them if I thought they could add to whatever the current game is, whether it be plot or gameplay wise. I'm not interested in them beyond that, because making sure the bigger picture of the series stays good is more important than selling people on Obscure Character B. That's not to say character development isn't important, but things like the main cast and the overall story of that game have to take priority, writing wise.

[AngelSlayerN64]

48 minutes ago, Christmas Dreams said:

Don't plenty of people like Big and Silver though?

You're right about Silver (as I am a fan myself, but he still has his haters). I'm not too sure about Big, though.

49 minutes ago, Christmas Dreams said:

And since when does every character have to be exploding with so much charisma that you cannot not like them. That's far from a goal that anyone should be going towards in any medium.

 

49 minutes ago, Christmas Dreams said:

And yes, it's perfectly fine for characters to not be either perfectly likeable or "hate sinks". Most people aren't either of them, so why should every single character from any medium be? It's increadibly unrealistic and strange.

Calm down. You're taking what I said way too far. I never said they had to be "perfectly likable" or "exploding with so much charisma that you cannot like them". All I want for these controversial and/or underappreciated characters is to increase their likeability/popularity, so that they won't forever remain in "Scrappy" status.

16 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I'm not interested in them beyond that, because making sure the bigger picture of the series stays good is more important than selling people on Obscure Character B. That's not to say character development isn't important, but things like the main cast and the overall story of that game have to take priority, writing wise.

Silver and Big are a part of the main cast. They're not obscure or one-shot wonder characters. You could literally do anything with those two, as long as you put your mind to it. I won't delve into the specifics, but it's definitely possible with the right amount of effort.

48 minutes ago, Chameleon94 said:

You would think that with such a big cast, one of them would fit the story. In this case, as the timeline seems screwed up, I would say Silver would show up, it makes sense instead of another character who comes from the future. Making his gameplay faster and more dynamic would also make it a lot of fun, potentially.

Exactly! I definitely approve of this idea for Silver.

[Wraith]

8 minutes ago, AngelSlayerN64 said:

Silver and Big are a part of the main cast. They're not obscure or one-shot wonder characters. You could literally do anything with those two, as long as you put your mind to it. I won't delve into the specifics, but it's definitely possible with the right amount of effort.

There's a difference in who we consider main characters then. Silver and Big each have a role in one game and aren't acknowledged much outside of that game. Meanwhile, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Eggman are featured in and have central roles in most of the games in the series. They're who I'd consider the main cast going by the standards of other series. Midna's a pretty huge Zelda character in the fandom, but nobody considers her a main one because she's only appeared in one or two games. Same with characters like Daisy in Mario.

I also never said it was impossible to do anything with them, so you need to stop suggesting that. I'm just explaining why I wouldn't worry much about it if it were me in charge.

[AngelSlayerN64]

36 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Silver and Big each have a role in one game and aren't acknowledged much outside of that game.

Actually, Silver had 3 major roles (Sonic 2006, Sonic Rivals, and Sonic Rivals 2) and 3 minor roles (Sonic Colors DS, Sonic Generations, and Sonic Runners) in 6 different Sonic games.

Also, Big had 3 major roles (Sonic Adventure, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Chronicles) and 2 minor roles (Sonic Colors DS and Sonic Runners) in 5 different Sonic games.

36 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I also never said it was impossible to do anything with them, so you need to stop suggesting that. I'm just explaining why I wouldn't worry much about it if it were me in charge.

At least we understand each other now.

[Nepenthe]

I want to go back a little bit concerning the idea that the games weren't ever connecting in a narrative sense, and I disagree. From Sonic 2 to Sonic 06- 14 years, over half of this series' lifespan- the games did connect and refer back to each other in some way to give some sense of continuity and progression while also giving the secondary cast a sense of agency from story to story, which is the groundwork for reasonable future appearances. It's really only until the modern games that we've thrown all out in favor of more episodic games where no one aside from Sonic and maybe Tails are allowed to display the desire to do anything of note. So there's definitely a large precedent for continuity, and I would say it would actually be of benefit to fans of the extended cast because it would uphold the writers to a higher standard of writing, and inevitably we would have to discern why is it that the rest of the cast doesn't see fit anymore to be of much use.

[Wraith]

9 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

I want to go back a little bit concerning the idea that the games weren't ever connecting in a narrative sense, and I disagree. From Sonic 2 to Sonic 06- 14 years, over half of this series' lifespan- the games did connect and refer back to each other in some way to give some sense of continuity and progression while also giving the secondary cast a sense of agency from story to story, which is the groundwork for reasonable future appearances. It's really only until the modern games that we've thrown all out in favor of more episodic games where no one aside from Sonic and maybe Tails are allowed to display the desire to do anything of note. So there's definitely a large precedent for continuity, and I would say it would actually be of benefit to fans of the extended cast because it would uphold the writers to a higher standard of writing, and inevitably we would have to discern why is it that the rest of the cast doesn't see fit anymore to be of much use.

I didn't mean to suggest that there isn't any continuity, but game to game they're generally written so that you wouldn't have to be here last time to understand what's going on. Character motivations change, sure, but the games don't really hold players accountable on not knowing that information. You won't be confused if you went from Sonic Heroes to  Sonic 06. It's a fresh story with the characters developing in new ways and taking on different roles each time. It's pretty rarely an ongoing plot, aside from the occasional direct sequel, and even then sometimes that's not even the case. I played Sonic Adventure 2 before I played the first one and didn't even bat an eye, nor did I find that I missed much when I went back to play the original. Characters coming and going and even sometimes just staying gone was a normal thing even back then. 

[Diogenes]

Significant continuity in the series got pretty tenuous even before the modern era. I think the only time there was any meaningful large-scale continuity was from 2 to 3&K to SA, the first two connected by the Death Egg, the latter two by the history of Angel Island/the echidnas. Beyond that, though? The only connections between the Adventures are a mention of Tails saving Station Square, the shrine in the ARK's core, and Knuckles reusing Tikal's chant. The only meaningful continuity in Heroes is acknowledging that Shadow should be dead. ShtH is just sorting out Shadow's shit. And '06...doesn't really have much of anything. And by that point they cared so little that they fucked up Blaze's backstory.

I'd be all for coherent, meaningful continuity in the series, but it's been all kinds of screwed up for a long time now and I'm not sure they can build out of the clusterfuck they've made for themselves.

[Nepenthe]

I didn't mean to suggest that there's some ironclad MCU continuity (and even then, most people can still watch each movie independently), but rather that it existed at one point and it made a difference in how characters were featured and treated. Sure, characters came and went like Gamma and Big, which is fine. But we had more mainstays too whose appearances were justified by actually honoring previous appearances and thus giving them an implied investment in future conflicts. You wouldn't have gotten away with Eggman parking a bunch of planets in the atmosphere before 2006 and not having anyone basically not give a shit, not even the characters who were there.

[Wraith]

28 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

I didn't mean to suggest that there's some ironclad MCU continuity (and even then, most people can still watch each movie independently), but rather that it existed at one point and it made a difference in how characters were featured and treated. Sure, characters came and went like Gamma and Big, which is fine. But we had more mainstays too whose appearances were justified by actually honoring previous appearances and thus giving them an implied investment in future conflicts. You wouldn't have gotten away with Eggman parking a bunch of planets in the atmosphere before 2006 and not having anyone basically not give a shit, not even the characters who were there.

Well yeah, I agree but at that point we're kind of going into "fuck the modern games" territory again. I was trying to take the entire series into account, and the series is largely episodic with a rotating cast and some references here and there. This is even the case now even if the cast took a drastic hit. I'm willing to bet we won't be seeing the Deadly Six be a big deal again.

[Nepenthe]

A rotating cast to me implies that you can expect to see the characters again later on, otherwise it's not a rotating cast- it's just one shots. And one shots like limited protagonists and antagonists like the Deadly Six are fine and expected for a long-running series. Dropping the very idea of a rotating cast in favor of a highly limited one is not fine. I don't think what we have now is fully indicative of what we had before.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I'd rather we not have major characters as one-shots at all considering it's a waste when making a long-running franchise. 

Regarding this new character, again, I really think they have enough material as it is to forgo creating a new one for a few games considering we've had a new character practically every entry. And it's not like and older one couldn't be made to suit it given that they've already made this franchise so dynamic that most of the time you can adapt the existing cast to it - they've done that much for Sonic, Tails, Eggman, and Shadow, they failed to realize that this doesn't work easily for characters like Knuckles and Blaze, but given the few dozen of characters we already have it's not hard to make use of anyone of them before even considering a new cast member.

I could understand if they put themselves into such a corner that they couldn't figure out who to utilize, that's one reason why newer characters are made, but they've hardly actually tried nowadays and given everything that has happened since then, from hopping around continents, hopping dimensions, hopping around timelines, and damn near hopping around planets, we've already broken the boundary of the setting to where a new character being better suited sounds less of an justification and more of an weak excuse to continue avoiding most of the existing cast after almost a decade, barring Boom (and sometimes even then). Now that's not saying that there's nothing this new character can contribute, we've had minor characters like Pickle be there to fill in details that characters like Tails couldn't even then tho the latter could very well have been made to do so, and that's fine, even more when it adds to world-building like it did in Unleashed. But with a cast as diverse as what we already have, and one that has scarcely been used since 2006 (for good or ill), I think the existing cast can be given something fresh to work with at this point prior to the thought of a newer one.

[Multikaris]

And to add insult to injury, they still don't care about origin stories and what not even when it's not continuous or story-driven in any way. The Wisps in Lost world seemed like the final nail for story. Why were they there? Why didn't they do anything? Why were they still in our faces? Runners did give a very weak explanation that raises more questions than it answers.

[TB100]

On 12/13/2016 at 7:05 PM, Diogenes said:

It's not going to be Sonic from the future, it'll be his child.

His son, Ic the hedgehog.

No i'll be Sonic Jr from the cancelled sonic jr game.

[Blazey Firekitty]

You know, since we're talking about the continuity being looser in recent years, I was thinking, maybe this game might address that, at least partially? Probably won't answer that much, but now that they don't have the "bring back old levels" restriction from Generations, maybe the new game's time travel plot could smooth out the narrative a bit. Or just end up raising further questions, of course.

[Pixel]

I'd honestly just like to see the series leave the baggage behind to be honest. Once Sonic Team can recapture the glorious spirit of the Classic Sonic games, maybe we can start getting excited.

That's more important to me than a bizarre and fucked up continuity.

[Lucid Dream]

I don't care much for story continuinty. Sonic almost never does that anyway. However, character continuity is something I would definitely appreciate. 

I don't even know Amy and Sonics relationship anymore. Or even Amy's feelings towards Sonic. In Sonic Generations she was all over Sonic, and he was playing the whole "Oh god no it's Amy, ignore her" act, but in Sonic Lost World, Amy and Sonic are just chill friends and Amy isn't overly and openly obsessed with Sonic and Sonic isn't ignoring her anymore? I'd be much more ok with this if it didn't feel like this was happening every other time Amy appeared in a game. 

I like consistancy in my characters. I'd really appreciate it if there was some continuity with their relationships and personalities between each game, instead of throwing it out the window and completely changing them every game. 

[Dr. Detective]

Honestly, the only hard part towards fixing the continuity for me is the stuff that deals with time travel and Blaze's dimension.They really should have thought it over a little better on how they were going to include Silver in the mix. Their strategy for making him popular had quite a number of holes in it. 

This sounds harsh because I don't actually hate Silver but imagining him never existing is a comforting thought. The idea that Blaze's backstory wouldn't have been messed with for the sake of making him popular because he had relations with another popular character (as well as being a hedgehog) is nice. Eggman Nega not having his thing fucked over would have made me happy because the broken suspension of disbelief that comes with his motivation now being that "Eggman never wins" infuriates me. I can only hope that he's confirmed to be from a different timeline down the line.

Hell, the only real issue with time travel continuity in Generations is all the stuff that deals with Silver. The 06 level makes no sense. Him fighting Sonic in Crisis City makes no sense. Blaze saying that it's been a while since she's been to Crisis City really makes no sense when you talk to her. 

If all that stuff were gone I don't feel like we'd be in this big a rut. Can anyone even remember what it was like before 2006 when we talked about continuity? Were the complaints about it only relegated to the moon? I remember a lot from back then but that stuff alludes me. 

Also, story continuity isn't hard. It really isn't. Literally all you have to do is not contradict what was already established in the past games and you're golden. You don't even need to make mention of stuff that happened in the past (although that'd be very much appreciated). Just keep things consistent with the state of the world and you're good. They're not going to remember every little thing but some of the things they forget and pretty big deals that they should know people are going to notice.

 

[TB100]

54 minutes ago, Dr. Chaotix said:

Honestly, the only hard part towards fixing the continuity for me is the stuff that deals with time travel and Blaze's dimension.They really should have thought it over a little better on how they were going to include Silver in the mix. Their strategy for making him popular had quite a number of holes in it. 

This sounds harsh because I don't actually hate Silver but imagining him never existing is a comforting thought. The idea that Blaze's backstory wouldn't have been messed with for the sake of making him popular because he had relations with another popular character (as well as being a hedgehog) is nice. Eggman Nega not having his thing fucked over would have made me happy because the broken suspension of disbelief that comes with his motivation now being that "Eggman never wins" infuriates me. I can only hope that he's confirmed to be from a different timeline down the line.

Hell, the only real issue with time travel continuity in Generations is all the stuff that deals with Silver. The 06 level makes no sense. Him fighting Sonic in Crisis City makes no sense. Blaze saying that it's been a while since she's been to Crisis City really makes no sense when you talk to her. 

If all that stuff were gone I don't feel like we'd be in this big a rut. Can anyone even remember what it was like before 2006 when we talked about continuity? Were the complaints about it only relegated to the moon? I remember a lot from back then but that stuff alludes me. 

Also, story continuity isn't hard. It really isn't. Literally all you have to do is not contradict what was already established in the past games and you're golden. You don't even need to make mention of stuff that happened in the past (although that'd be very much appreciated). Just keep things consistent with the state of the world and you're good. They're not going to remember every little thing but some of the things they forget and pretty big deals that they should know people are going to notice.

 

All they had to do is remove the remaining chemistry between him and Blaze. and completely remove 06 from the series canon and never reference it or mention it's name again. (with the exception of historical stuff like books ala Hyper Sonic and the Game Gear Games.) I'm shocked that they're still referencing it today honestly, considering it was the game that completely tarnished Sonic's face in the gaming world. you would think Sega would look back at it with disapointment and try to forget it's mere existance. kinda like how Nintendo does with the CDI games & the Mario edutainment games. but no they're still referencing it plenty and making silly little jokes about it. (Seriously nothing about that game was funny or worth joking about in my opinion.)

[Cheawn]

I don't quite believe that 06 is in the same camp as Hotel Mario. Yes, both were mistakes. At the same time, Hotel Mario was just a small out of the way thing, while 06 was a major game with large amounts of promotion and a big part of Sonic's image these days. Not including it in Sonic Generations would have been a massive failure in chronicling Sonic's history. Unfortunately, that includes the crazy inconsistencies it made.

[Baconjack]

21 hours ago, Cheawn said:

I don't quite believe that 06 is in the same camp as Hotel Mario. Yes, both were mistakes. At the same time, Hotel Mario was just a small out of the way thing, while 06 was a major game with large amounts of promotion and a big part of Sonic's image these days. Not including it in Sonic Generations would have been a massive failure in chronicling Sonic's history. Unfortunately, that includes the crazy inconsistencies it made.

Well, the game never happened, so what good reason did it need to be there? 

[SpongicX]

On 12/15/2016 at 3:32 PM, Dr. Chaotix said:

 

Also, story continuity isn't hard. It really isn't. Literally all you have to do is not contradict what was already established in the past games and you're golden. You don't even need to make mention of stuff that happened in the past (although that'd be very much appreciated). Just keep things consistent with the state of the world and you're good. They're not going to remember every little thing but some of the things they forget and pretty big deals that they should know people are going to notice.

 

Exactly, even Lego Dimensions did a better job at handling continuity, and that was just a lego spin off.