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

[SSF1991]

4 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

In other words, automated segments.

I mean, I never said it was a good move. In fact, I even said SEGA should be informed about it because of how silly it is. lol

I would just rather see if this is something that's going to plague the entire game first. For all we know, it could be a one-time only thing. Not saying it will be, but this is SEGA we're talking about. lol

Until then, I don't think it's that big of a deal. Yet, anyway.

[Adamis]

Or maybe the booster is temporarily put there and meant to be removed later ? Wouldn't be the first time with alphas/betas.

[Sonikko]

I think this is more an issue of over saturation than anything.

We're getting two Classic Sonic appearances in the same year, one of which is looking substantially better. The Mania team understands perfectly how the classic games worked and they're doing their best not only to pay homage, but to build upon the classic legacy, not just rehashing what was already made, and they've shown that new classic levels can be made, and look fantastic, like Studiopolis and Mirage Saloon.

Sonic Team on the other hand just slapped Classic Sonic in Forces because, well, Generations was the first game in a long row that was not slapped with a fish in its face at release by both the critics and the public. They're shoving it in, without understanding what could've been fixed from Generations, going the opposite route.

The whole point in 2D Sonic is navigating the level after understanding how the physics system works. If you strip the physics out, you're left with a Mario clone that doesn't let you play for most of the time, and I'd rather play Mario then.

Besides, if you're going to make sections where little to no input is required, like that bridge section with the fish robots in Forces, at least make it entertaining to watch, like the flying ship in Sonic 3, in Angel Island, or having the camera panning like in Classic GHZ in Generations, while going through that automated loop midlevel.

[Scar]

10 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

This too.

Utterly no reason for it other than hand holding and spectacle.

Not even spectacle. Spectacle is swinging on that crane at the end of Chemical Plant Modern while the facility explodes in the background. Spectacle is the fuckin' monster GUN truck that follows you up a wall in City Escape Modern. 

Loops hardly qualify as spectacle these days. They're there because they're a mainstay of the franchise, but have long since been turned from a physics based toy to effectively window dressing.

6 minutes ago, Adamis said:

Or maybe the booster is temporarily put there and meant to be removed later ? Wouldn't be the first time with alphas/betas.

Ya'll are making too many excuses here. It might be, but probably isn't. 

[BubbleButt TV]

You know what? After reviewing this footage of Generations, it really baffles me that we'd now be seeing boosters in Green Hill. I don't know about you but I didn't catch a single one in this gameplay video. 

We need more of this sort of thing. They didn't need to force a booster back then so why now?

[Kintor]

4 minutes ago, Azoo said:

Doubt it. Very much so!

I think that you greatly underestimate just how much attention a character creation system could bring to Sonic Forces. Like I said earlier in this thread, a character creation is absolutely perfect for social media. People on YouTube and Switch will mess around in the character creator and let their audiences know about Sonic Forces. No joke, if the character creator is good then Sonic Forces might just become one of the best-selling Sonic games ever made.

[Shiny Gems]

I personally don't see the problem with boosters. I don't think they are that bad. Maybe not so good, either, but they aren't the worst thing in the world there is. I mean, you just run through them to make them work, right? I mean, you'd run through that area anyway at full speed to get through that loop. What is the point of stopping when going through the loop anyway? You have to run all the way through to get through it. We don't even know if the loop itself is automated. The booster could be there just to provide a speed boost, but you can still do things like jump off the loop or slow down if you are not holding forward on the control stick.

I am not saying boosters are good, and I do think this one is unnecessary. But there could always be worse, ya know. I just think while boosters may not be the best thing, their being a problem is a bit exaggerated.

[Sonikko]

Just now, CrystalStorm51 said:

I personally don't see the problem with boosters. I don't think they are that bad. Maybe not so good, either, but they aren't the worst thing in the world there is. I mean, you just run through them to make them work, right? I mean, you'd run through that area anyway at full speed to get through that loop. What is the point of stopping when going through the loop anyway? You have to run all the way through to get through it. We don't even know if the loop itself is automated. The booster could be there just to provide a speed boost, but you can still do things like jump off the loop or slow down if you are not holding forward on the control stick.

I am not saying boosters are good, and I do think this one is unnecessary. But there could always be worse, ya know.

It takes away control, the boosters replace the speed you're going to with a fixed one, it makes having a physics system in place useless (the modern games don't really have a good working one, infact) making the whole point of playing a classic level vain imho. 

[JosepHenry]

18 minutes ago, Azoo said:

Doubt it. Very much so!

If your view on a long running franchise is to simply replace your old fans with new ones, then I'm probably not going to take your opinion very seriously.

Make note that no other franchise does this. Mario doesn't do this. Zelda doesn't do this. Halo doesn't, AssCreed doesn't, not a single other franchise does this. Sonic is the only franchise that makes such ridiculous decisions that absolutely break it's base at every turn. This is not how it works elsewhere. Sonic is an outlier.

And you definitely could without it being there, if only you did it yourself rather than letting the game do it for you.

There's no really good justifcation for boostpad spam in Sonic games, other than them having not designed a game well enough to feel natural within those moments where they decide you need one. Either way, not a good thing!

Trust me, you shouldn't. As much as you think. I'm NO in way as serious as you or other people.

If character creation in platformers is something that nobody done before, why not give it a try? Specially with a franchise as colorful as Sonic. I can imagine people of all ages having fun with that option.

 Well... Everyone in my storyboard class loved the idea of a platformer with a character you create  And I'm assure you, they are normal human beings.

[KHCast]

3 minutes ago, Kintor said:

I think that you greatly underestimate just how much attention a character creation system could bring to Sonic Forces. Like I said earlier in this thread, a character creation is absolutely perfect for social media. People on YouTube and Switch will mess around in the character creator and let their audiences know about Sonic Forces. No joke, if the character creator is good then Sonic Forces might just become one of the best-selling Sonic games ever made.

Do you have numbers to back up that claim? Cause you're putting a lot of faith in a feature Sonic has never used...

[Scar]

2 minutes ago, CrystalStorm51 said:

I personally don't see the problem with boosters. I don't think they are that bad. Maybe not so good, either, but they aren't the worst thing in the world there is. I mean, you just run through them to make them work, right? I mean, you'd run through that area anyway at full speed to get through that loop. What is the point of stopping when going through the loop anyway? You have to run all the way through to get through it. We don't even know if the loop itself is automated. The booster could be there just to provide a speed boost, but you can still do things like jump off the loop or slow down if you are not holding forward on the control stick.

I am not saying boosters are good, and I do think this one is unnecessary. But there could always be worse, ya know. I just think while boosters may not be the best thing, their being a problem is a bit exaggerated.

It isn't bad just because its unecessary. Its bad because it indicates a level of laziness when it comes to game design. 

"Shit, this loop doesn't quite flow with the rest of the stage, what do we do"

"Just chuck a booster in there, that'll solve the problem"

[Adamis]

6 minutes ago, Scar said:

Ya'll are making too many excuses here. It might be, but probably isn't. 

Excuse ? No. I'm talking about a possibility, don't put words in my mouth thanks.

[Gemster312]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

You notice they didn't, though? No one is forcing Sonic Team to only show small snippets of Forces. They don't deserve trust by default, they need to show that they have a game worth buying, and so far, they're failing.

You do realize that Sonic Forces is a much bigger budget title than Sonic Mania? Revealing content about Sonic Mania will make a much less impactful consequence than revealing content about Sonic Forces. Additionally, Sonic Forces is further away from completion and the polish required for the game might not be ready for people to see. Sonic Mania needs to prove that it's NEW content via old zones, so more is shown. Forces is a BRAND NEW TITLE that isn't just "revisiting 60% old stages", so it doesn't need to prove that the "old content" will be new enough for us to enjoy.

And to top all of that, the marketing team needs to ensure the audience buys all the products they sell. If you advertise 2 products the same amount, whilst one releases before the other, you will steer away customers because they will be too busy looking at the second product, completely oblivious to the first one. You advertise the next thing in line. 90% focus on Sonic Mania to build hype, while low-key build small hype for Sonic Forces allows the audience to know of Sonic Forces and be excited, but still be more inclined and interested in the product that's going to hit the shelves soon. Once Sonic Mania launches, you can bet that Sonic Forces will have a LOT more content visible (because now they want everyone looking at the next product).

It's a business and marketing tactic combo.

"No one is forcing Sonic Team to only show small snippets of Forces."

Both the business and marketing teams are forcing them to not reveal a lot because ITS NOT YET TIME TO SHOW IT.

They want people interested in curious, but if they build the hype too soon, before even Sonic Mania is out the door, the hype will die out.

They obviously aren't expecting everyone to buy the game based off of the very little we have been shown. They just want to give us an appetizer. Think about it, why would they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions even, on a project they "aren't confident about"? It's marketing. Not failure.

Maybe to you, and everyone else here who is a die-hard sonic fan, but to the 99% of the population who is going to buy the game, this is genius because they won't even know what hit them when it does.

So chill  They are being forced. Sonic Marketing Force(d)  

[SSF1991]

1 minute ago, Sonikko said:

I think this is more an issue of over saturation than anything.

Now see, this makes more sense to me. I can see how over-saturation would be a legitimate reason to be turned off from this game. To be fair, we have gotten quite a lot of Classic Sonic and a lot of Green Hill thiese past 6 years and I can see how people would sort of say "sigh, something different please". What was once good, or at least successful and well recieved in general, gradually turned sour because there was too much of it (i.e. New Super Mario Bros). That, I can understand.

[Scar]

Just now, Adamis said:

Excuse ? No. I'm talking about a possibility, don't put words in my mouth thanks.

Well, I apologise for presuming, but it certainly comes across that way.

[Kintor]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Do you have numbers to back up that claim? Cause you're putting a lot of faith in a feature Sonic has never used...

I'm completely serious about how big the social media crowd is and how Sonic Forces can benefit from that. I mean, there are people who make careers just out of playing Minecraft on YouTube and Twitch, some of them are even millionaires because of that. If the character creation system catches the attention of that crowd then we will see a significant amount of extra sales for Sonic Forces. If the internet goes crazy for the character creator then it will be quite easy for Sonic Forces to become one of the bestselling Sonic games ever.

[Sonikko]

Boosters before loops in Lost World were used to fake a physics system that was not in place, look at how Sonic goes through the loop. He starts at max speed, loses some momentum on the top, and regains it while going down (and notice how the speed gets reset after you get through the loop and the effect of the automation ends). If you skip the booster in the game, you get through the loop at a fixed speed. 

It looks like the booster has the same behaviour in Forces, look at how classic gets through the loop.

[Nepenthe]

Again, Nintendo shows gameplay of much more bigger and ambitious titles all the time. On top of that, Forces has been in development for about four years. What the hell have they been doing in that time that they wouldn't have HAD anything to show?

Working. They've been working. So they have stuff to show. They're probably revealing the game in this way because it might actually be huge or franchise-changing AF. We don't really know. However, there's nothing indicating that literally they've done nothing but concept and previsualization or testing shit for four years. If that's actually the case this game might be in some trouble.

[Shiny Gems]

8 minutes ago, Scar said:

It isn't bad just because its unecessary. Its bad because it indicates a level of laziness when it comes to game design. 

"Shit, this loop doesn't quite flow with the rest of the stage, what do we do"

"Just chuck a booster in there, that'll solve the problem"

I don't think boosters are that lazy, in my honest opinion, Not saying they are good, especially if overused, but I think boosters are otherwise not so harmful for building up speed. I think they could make changes some in how the boosters are handled, but overall, I think calling them lazy is being a bit going too far, the way I see it. I mean, it is just something that builds up speed for an area, for crying out loud.

9 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

It takes away control, the boosters replace the speed you're going to with a fixed one, it makes having a physics system in place useless (the modern games don't really have a good working one, infact) making the whole point of playing a classic level vain imho. 

I understand the control part, but as much as you probably won't like this, keep in mind that this is the first level, and it is not like they'll do it in every level, right? Still, I am not bothered by everything else you said. I can still see some people not be bothered by it, and those booster effects are quite short lived in duration. We don't even know how many boosters will be in the game, ya know.

EDIT: BUT, I will admit, if there are too many boosters, that is another story, and a bad thing.

[KHCast]

Given this industries cloak and dagger/Trump attitude of "it's gonna be great trust me" I don't see why they should get out automatic trust when what they've shown isn't indicative of anything special or grand. They'll get people's money and interest when they show something of interest 

[StaticMania]

3 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Boosters before loops in Lost World were used to fake a physics system that was not in place, look at how Sonic goes through the loop. He starts at max speed, loses some momentum on the top, and regains it while going down (and notice how the speed gets reset after you get through the loop and the effect of the automation ends). If you skip the booster in the game, you get through the loop at a fixed speed. 

It looks like the booster has the same behaviour in Forces, look at how classic gets through the loop.

"A fixed speed"

 

They made the loops for Classic Sonic automated? Like Lost World? That wouldn't make any sense.

[Diogenes]

7 minutes ago, BubbleButt TV said:

You know what? After reviewing this footage of Generations, it really baffles me that we'd now be seeing boosters in Green Hill. I don't know about you but I didn't catch a single one in this gameplay video. 

Not boosters specifically, but there's plenty of automation going on in there. The S-tubes, some of the springs, the wood path that loops down into a spiral a bit past the halfway point, and if I remember right some of the quarterpipe ramps would give you a little extra kick to make sure you launched up high enough.

4 minutes ago, CrystalStorm51 said:

I personally don't see the problem with boosters. I don't think they are that bad. Maybe not so good, either, but they aren't the worst thing in the world there is. I mean, you just run through them to make them work, right? I mean, you'd run through that area anyway at full speed to get through that loop. What is the point of stopping when going through the loop anyway? You have to run all the way through to get through it. We don't even know if the loop itself is automated. The booster could be there just to provide a speed boost, but you can still do things like jump off the loop or slow down if you are not holding forward on the control stick.

I am not saying boosters are good, and I do think this one is unnecessary. But there could always be worse, ya know. I just think while boosters may not be the best thing, their being a problem is a bit exaggerated.

The point isn't that you're going to want to stop and boosters prevent it, it's that the booster essentially completes the loop for you. In the Genesis games, loops are a bit of a speed check; you need to get yourself moving fast enough to get around them. It's a minor challenge, sure, but it's something to ensure that you remain engaged with the game. Putting a booster just before a loop means no effort is required on the player's part beyond holding right; zero chance of failure unless the player actively works against the game. The more the games rely on boosters, dash pads, dash hoops, launch ramps, scripted loops, spring sequences, and the like, the less the player is actually doing.

[KHCast]

4 minutes ago, CrystalStorm51 said:

I don't think boosters are that lazy, in my honest opinion, Not saying they are good, especially if overused, but I think boosters are otherwise not so harmful for building up speed. I think they could make changes some in how the boosters are handled, but overall, I think calling them lazy is being a bit going too far, the way I see it. I mean, it is just something that builds up speed for an area, for crying out loud.

I understand the control part, but as much as you probably won't like this, keep in mind that this is the first level, and it is not like they'll do it in every level, right? Still, I am not bothered by everything else you said. I can still see some people not be bothered by it, and those booster effects are quite short lived in duration. We don't even know how many boosters will be in the game, ya know.

You can build speed yourself idk this is a game about the worlds fastest hedgehog. He shouldn't need outside assistance gaining speed 

 

it being the the first level doesn't really mean anything though, sonic 4 had them throughout the game, as did Generations. This "first stage" defense is ridiculous 

[Voyant]

7 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

However, there's nothing indicating that literally they've done nothing but concept and previsualization or testing shit for four years.

This is actually the reason why I'm really "meh" about everything that going on.

When Sonic had a long break after Sonic 2006, when they finally revealed the first daytime stage for Sonic Unleashed....it was BIG and you could tell the team was proud of what they put together. They had videos detailing extactly what they were doing and were pimping out the hedgehog engine as a technical marvel.

This feels like they have done fuck all in the past 4 years and JUST started making the game mid summer of 2016.

[blazefan519]

Oh wow, the flames seem to have risen yet again. Fun... Anyways, my take on the whole thing is this. ...Actually, I really can't form anything all that substantial right now. We've seen gameplay of Classic Sonic, and from what I've seen it's kinda just Generations, but since they're apparently something new with it, I'm thinking boost. I think that'd be cool if they work it similar to Rush and Colors DS. We've seen Modern Sonic gameplay, looks the same as Generations, Colors, and Unleashed. And since I liked all of those games, using my super amazing logic skills of awesomeness, I'll like it here as well. We were teased a new character, I don't really see anything that notable about so I'll wait till we see it in full to form an opinion. And that's kinda it, I don't feel like there was anything that made me super angry or upset to be honest. Yeah, Green Hill's back, but I knew it would've the first moment I saw Classic Sonic confirmed for this game, it was almost a given. Yeah, I'd like to play as other characters as well, but after what Sega went through with Lost World and Boom, I expected them to play the safe guard again. I'm a disappointed, yeah a little, but nothing that makes me think this game will be outright terrible like people are saying.  But that's just me, I suppose.