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

[Blue Blood]

The screenshots are pretty. Comments end there though, cause what else is there to say right now?

The slow trickle of information that SEGA is releasing for this game is really hurting it. Does anyone else think it's just poorly planned that they're showing so little after they teased it many months in advance? Now that the show is finally starting, you would expect them to pull the curtains wide open and show off the project properly, along with teasing what's to come further down the line (in this case, the story and third character could still be kept a secret for later). But it's like we're just peeping behind the curtain right now. We have a few pieces of footage that look dangerously similar to other games - I'd forgive any onlooker for thinking it was just recycled footage of Green Hill or "that burning city" from 06 and Generations.

I don't want to dislike this game. There's really not a lot telling that I shouldn't though. 

[Soniman]

Honestly the obnoxious was they're drip feeding us when this game was announced almost a year ago is really annoying and shows unconfidence. Mania had enough brevity to show plenty of gameplay in its damn reveal trailer (with full stage gameplay immediately afterward) while the geniuses at Sonic Team can't even show us more then 30 seconds of gameplay after 8 months. 

[Nepenthe]

The only way the marketing at this point makes sense is if they're going to do like a huge BotW-esque blowout at E3 where we get a bunch of information and it all comes together as a cohesive experience. I'm talking about showing off a few whole levels, extensive demonstrations of each gameplay style, the new character, some story and background lore, maybe NPC visual confirmation, a definite release date-- all of that, so we know exactly what we're getting and when we're getting it.

Maybe they really are just that confident.

[Blue Blood]

1 hour ago, Soniman said:

Honestly the obnoxious was they're drip feeding us when this game was announced almost a year ago is really annoying and shows unconfidence. Mania had enough brevity to show plenty of gameplay in its damn reveal trailer (with full stage gameplay immediately afterward) while the geniuses at Sonic Team can't even show us more then 30 seconds of gameplay after 8 months. 

I honestly did not mind the wait. They let us see that the game was coming, but both Forces and Mania are major Sonic games regardless of how different they may be. It makes sense to squarely focus on just one game at a time so that there's no confusion or oversaturation. I personally felt that teasing the game when and in the way that they did actually showed a lot of confidence. It was different for the franchise, which normally relies on a very formulaic yearly "Spring announcement > E3/Autumn showcase > holiday release" schedule. The early reveal along side a second title was  somewhat bold and actually quite clever I think because it was telling us that Sonic was going to have a powerful presence in 2017 with some lot to look forward to. 

I maintain that the actual problem was choosing to relatively unceremoniously unveil Forces in a relatively low-key way, with little more detail than we could glean from the months-old teaser. They probably are just waiting for a big E3 reveal at this stage, as Nepenthe is guessing. If that is the case though, they really shouldn't have shown off what they have. Name reveal, new character teaser, date of full unveiling. That's what SEGA should have given us.  

[Kachopper9]

6 hours ago, MudHunter said:

Not only that, but the whole "Join the Resistance" thing, Takashi Iizuka saying that the 3rd guy's reveal will be "unexpected" and that he "embodies the overall feature of the game" and also the character being kinda "bland" (subjectif, but still) kinda fits with a created character feature.

 

But yeah this is just speculation at this moment, it's better to just wait for E3.

I really hope it's not this, because saying it's an "unexpected" character and revealing it's a character creater or a new one is somewhat... cheating I guess? 

It's unexpected because it's new, literally cannot expect someone that you don't know or doesn't exists. Saying unexpected would be better for a character that already exists in the canon.

If it is new or a CC, I'm calling out that quote as horseshit. 

[Auroxen]

To be honest, I feel they revealed Sonic Forces in July only because they had to reveal Mania and if they only revealed a 2D Platformer there would've been a big backslash (heck in the hours between the Mania announcement and the Forces teaser I saw a lot of angry posts about the lack of a big 3D new game).

Had there not been Mania I feel they would've waited a bit longer before talking about it because once you announce it you gotta periodically show new stuff, otherwise fans will get angry at the lack of news.

Obviously this is all speculation, I only write this because I saw perplexity at the early announcement and the subsequent lack of big news and I wanted to try giving a possible explanation

(Sorry if the English isn't really good, not my first language)

[BubbleButt TV]

I do wonder if the delay of Mania has impacted how SEGA are approaching the marketing of this game. With Mania out of the way they could've focused more on Forces.

[Auroxen]

So, if the focus of the stages of this game turns out to really be fusing level tropes (as we have seen city+green and green+sand), which tropes would you like seeing fused?
Keep in mind that I'm not talking about straight up fusing old levels, just tropes (so for example a sand level with an ice one, not sandopolis and icecap).

I'd really love to see an ice and industrial mix, with electricity thrown into the mix.
Or jungle and ice. Or floating and ice.
I really like ice levels so I'd like to see this trope fused with virtually anything lol.

So what about you guys?

[BubbleButt TV]

1 hour ago, Auroxen said:

So, if the focus of the stages of this game turns out to really be fusing level tropes (as we have seen city+green and green+sand), which tropes would you like seeing fused?
Keep in mind that I'm not talking about straight up fusing old levels, just tropes (so for example a sand level with an ice one, not sandopolis and icecap).

That sand level fused with an ice level sounds like a cool idea, but...

I think Mario may have beaten Sonic to the punch. ?

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I loved planet Wisp from Colors and Foliage Furnace from After Sequel with them putting this red rusty industry constructions in the middle of a jungle setting, or Wacky Workbench in the past where you can see desert rocks behind the factory. So I guess I like Industry in the middle of nature.

And I would like really dull and mundane locations suddenly being mutated and morphed with crazy organic stuff. Take an office highrise from Station Square and then have organic purple swamp roots burst trough the walls and consume the building.
A dark miserable spooky cave, with suddenly a majestic crystal palace shining trough the depths of darkness. Stuff like that.

[Kellan]

I'd like to see another one of those "spooky" levels. You know, the ones that look like Halloween? Maybe it could be mashed with a lava level, I think those would go well enough together. Give it a real underworld vibe.

I'm not sure if this theme would fit in with the rest of Forces, but I'm still not sure what kind of tone Forces will have at this point, so it might.

[StaticMania]

The tone of the game shouldn't limit what type of level tropes should be in the game...

 

Plus Spook and Lava would go perfect together, those spooks would need to be demon centric, not just general halloween type stuff.

[Patron]

23 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

The tone of the game shouldn't limit what type of level tropes should be in the game...

 

Plus Spook and Lava would go perfect together, those spooks would need to be demon centric, not just general halloween type stuff.

Given the lore I'd think that even outside of industrial themes other tropes would be heavily corrupted by them.

[voltaic]

Aren't these the same model?

[Tracker_TD]

File this under "obviously gonna be fixed but amusing anyway"...

...that there is some serious clipping (through one another, not the floor). Whew. 

[Diogenes]

26 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

The tone of the game shouldn't limit what type of level tropes should be in the game...

It...kind of should, actually? I mean it might not apply in all cases, but you don't want your levels and your story contradicting each other.

Like, people rage hard enough about Dessert Ruins as it is, a level like that wouldn't work at all in something like SA2.

[Gatestormer]

10 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

File this under "obviously gonna be fixed but amusing anyway"...

...that there is some serious clipping. Whew. 

Come on, seriously? That's clearly just sat amongst the grass, you can see where the actual floor is and there's blades of grass on top. 

[BubbleButt TV]

13 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

File this under "obviously gonna be fixed but amusing anyway"...

...that there is some serious clipping. Whew. 

haha, reminds me of when City Escape was revealed for Generations and Sonic's shoes were clipping through the ground (which was fixed in time for release):

Or good old roof-tree from the very same trailer.

[Rexeljet]

Just now, Gatestormer said:

Come on, seriously? That's clearly just sat amongst the grass, you can see where the actual floor is and there's blades of grass on top. 

He's on about the ring monitors being so close together that they're clipping through each other.

[Detective Kaito]

Can't help but think that the 3rd character looks a bit similar to Antoine, at least his new design.

Not to mention that the Freedom Fighters would fit the plot of this game so well.

[Gatestormer]

2 minutes ago, Rexeljet said:

He's on about the ring monitors being so close together that they're clipping through each other.

Eh, they look fine to me. 

[JezMM]

14 minutes ago, Eclipse said:

Aren't these the same model?

If anything paints Forces Green Hill as being intentionally minimalistic it'd be this.  If they were re-using the same model as an unfinished placeholder prop it wouldn't have this new bright and colourful paintjob.

It's almost as if they've actually taken inspiration from Mania and tried to make it more colourful and less trying to be a "realistic version" of Green Hill, but they kind of missed the mark due to that very strange choice of lighting direction casting most of the landscape in washed-out shadow.

[Tracker_TD]

5 minutes ago, Gatestormer said:

Come on, seriously? That's clearly just sat amongst the grass, you can see where the actual floor is and there's blades of grass on top. 

I didn't mean through the floor, I meant one another: 

You can see the ring is off-centre, because the monitors are actually clipping through one another. Like I said, it's gonna be fixed; just an amusing tidbit. 

[BubbleButt TV]

4 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

Can't help but think that the 3rd character looks a bit similar to Antoine, at least his new design.

 

 

Not to mention that the Freedom Fighters would fit the plot of this game so well.

If they were going to choose any of the freedom fighters why would they choose this dingus?

 

[StaticMania]

6 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

It...kind of should, actually? I mean it might not apply in all cases, but you don't want your levels and your story contradicting each other.

Like, people rage hard enough about Dessert Ruins as it is, a level like that wouldn't work at all in something like SA2.

Well, I would say the level tropes can still follow the atmosphere that the game is setting...but the Green Hill Zone retread doesn't appear to be doing that.

 

It's not even on fire.

 

Dessert Ruins doesn't even really do itself right, as long as there's an explanation (even within level details) it doesn't matter too much. But Dessert Ruins background looks like it takes place in a candy void, so it can't be explained.