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

[Indigo Rush]

okay

 

a character creator is a dumb idea

[StaticMania]

Character creators aren't really much for lasting discussion though...they're neat, but the only things you can really speculate is how fleshed out it'll be.

 

Since there's no way to know that, it isn't really worth it.

[KHCast]

11 minutes ago, Kintor said:

I beleive that Sonic Team always deserve the common courtesy of a respective tone. The factors that gave rise to Lost World and Sonic Boom no longer exist. The WiiU was a failure and Sega is moving away from ill-advised Nintendo exclusives. While most of the staff at Sega of America responsible for Sonic Boom's creation (inlcuding all of Big Red Button) are no longer employed at the company. the prospects for Sonic Forces are looking much brighter, as is apparent from the gameplay trailers and interviews that Sega has already provided.

"Be a mindless fan that appreciates everything they do and give them the benefit of the doubt." That about right? should we do this with all companies while we're at it?

[Indigo Rush]

I respect Sonic Team circa 1991-1994

almost none of the old hats are there anymore, mind.

[Kintor]

1 minute ago, Indigo Rush said:

okay

 

a character creator is a dumb idea

I know you're being sarcastic but it's still good you're willing to consider a new line of discussion. Which leads me to a questions, do you have a good reason for disliking the idea of a character creator?

[azoo]

3 minutes ago, Kintor said:

Don't be so self-conscious. Nobody is going to think less of the Sonic fanbase because of a character creator of all things. The worst results from a character creator will come from outside the Sonic fanbase, from certain people on YouTube and Twitch deliberately creating stupid looking characters for a laugh. But that's all part of the fun; letting people muck around with a character creator can only bring more attention to Sonic Forces, positive attention at that.

You're a headache.

5 minutes ago, Captain Fun said:

I think we're getting a little far ahead on this one though. We've talked so much about this character creator business it seems to have become an accepted fact. 

The timestamp was July 23, 2016. Two days before Project Sonic 2017 was announced. The actual post said "join the resistance", the slogan for the game.

You'll all see in time that it's true. Mark my words.

[Wraith]

There wasn't even that much new information yesterday, so there's not really much to discuss before the thread starts going in circles(and it has a bunch of times in the past two days alone.)

Maybe time to let it sit for  awhile.

[Kintor]

Just now, Azoo said:

You're a headache.

All I said was that a character creator wouldn't harm the repuation of the Sonic fanbase. Quite the opposite in fact, a character creator might even bring in a few new faces around here. Imagine that, some people might even use images of the the characters they created in Sonic Forces as forum avatars.

[Diogenes]

27 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

As somebody who's never played Generations(Eventually) how were classic sonic's stages? I know it's physics and what not aren't like the Genesis games-that's a given they knew they can't do it that it's why Mania exists. 

Really bland. Without proper physics, and without any kind of interesting mechanics to replace them, you just end up spindash spamming through the more direct, speed-focused parts and doing awkward platforming. There's no joy in the way he moves; if we couldn't get the fluidity of a proper classic Sonic game, they should've at least aimed for the tightness of a more traditional platformer like Mario, but in doing neither we end up with a character who just feels clumsy and with nothing interesting to offer.

[JosepHenry]

Sonic Team deserves all the criticism it gets.

They are still doing things that nobody wants them to do anymore. 

They are hearing the people who give easy money, but don't care about improvement to get even more money.

I still think the game will be good, but I won't be surprised if it is ignored and recieve a lot of mediocre reviews. While Mania will be loved and sell like hot cakes,  Sonic Team will look at Mania being praised in the distance.

[Captain Fun]

5 minutes ago, Azoo said:

The timestamp was July 23, 2016. Two days before Project Sonic 2017 was announced. The actual post said "join the resistance", the slogan for the game.

You'll all see in time that it's true. Mark my words.

....So it really was before? 

frick

[azoo]

10 minutes ago, Kintor said:

All I said was that a character creator wouldn't harm the repuation of the Sonic fanbase. Quite the opposite in fact, a character creator might even bring in a few new faces around here. Imagine that, some people might even use images of the the characters they created in Sonic Forces as forum avatars.

And I (as well as various others) given an entire book of reasons as to why it's a bad idea, although you'll respond that it's really not a big deal and brush it off, thus rendering any sort of argument against your logic as futile.

I think it's best that we drop this. Let other people talk about other things in here for now. We'll return to this when we see the world burn react to what's going to unfold this E3.

BTW everyone in here, if we don't drop it now, I will lock the topic for a temporary amount of time so that everyone (including me) can move on, because right now the posts are getting a bit too quick and spammy. Capiche? 

[Indigo Rush]

11 minutes ago, Kintor said:

I know you're being sarcastic but it's still good you're willing to consider a new line of discussion. Which leads me to a questions, do you have a good reason for disliking the idea of a character creator?

It's a flawed solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist, and it won't do any favors for two reasons.

One: The slim few who do find appeal in this will never have the agency required to make a decent facsimile of their pre-existing fan characters. I had a fancharacter once. A red porcupine with black combat boots, camo pants, a blue ripped t-shirt and a sword, with one gold earing, several scars, fingerless gloves and had the ability to bend the elements like a Mary-Su Avatar complex. This is considered to be tame compared to others. Sonic Forces will no wise have the ability to create anything that specific, and the few fans who want that feature are inevitably going to be depressed when they can't recreate Evil or Coldsteel the Hedgehog.

Two: People who don't find appeal in this are going to want to skip it, but likely won't be able to. Just like how many wanted to skip treasure hunting in Adventure 1 and 2, or being a Werehog in Unleashed, this will be the major gimmick, and it's weird and esoteric enough to turn people off. You'd better believe a major chunk of players are going to be confused at best, disinterested or even disgusted at worse.

EDIT

4 minutes ago, Azoo said:

BTW everyone in here, if we don't drop it now, I will lock the topic for a temporary amount of time so that everyone (including me) can move on, because right now the posts are getting a bit too quick and spammy. Capiche? 

AZOO HAS SPOKEN SORRY FRIEND

[Kintor]

Just now, Indigo Rush said:

It's a flawed solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist, and it won't do any favors for two reasons.

Not everything in a Sonic needs to be a solution in search of a problem. A character is a fun idea to include and a good way to get extra attention. The whole fan character thing as always been a part of the Sonic fanbase and I'm suprised that Sega hasn't done more embrase this fact until now. Plus, this isn't the kind of gimmikc you've seen before, since it'll probably be using the same gameplay as the rest of the game.

[azoo]

8 minutes ago, Azoo said:

I think it's best that we drop this. Let other people talk about other things in here for now. We'll return to this when we see the world burn react to what's going to unfold this E3.

BTW everyone in here, if we don't drop it now, I will lock the topic for a temporary amount of time so that everyone (including me) can move on, because right now the posts are getting a bit too quick and spammy. Capiche? 

Don't make me do it.

Carry on with a different subject (on-topic of course), someone.

[Celestia]

9 minutes ago, Kintor said:

All I wanted to say is that I don't believe it's fair to claim that Sonic Team hasn't been working on Sonic Forces because they've been working on the Hedgehog Engine 2 instead. There's no evidence to support this idea and there never will be, since Japanse intensly private about their day to day practises. Making this line of thought little better then a conspiracy theory.

Looking back, yeah, I can agree with this. I don't really get the impression this game was done in any capacity a year or two ago, so I highly doubt they've only been working on a lighting engine since then. That's what the Hedgehog Engine was, right? I can't remember, it's been a while.

3 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

One: The slim few who do find appeal in this will never have the agency required to make a decent facsimile of their pre-existing fan characters. I had a fancharacter once. A red porcupine with black combat boots, camo pants, a blue ripped t-shirt and a sword, with one gold earing, several scars, fingerless gloves and had the ability to bend the elements like a Mary-Su Avatar complex. This is considered to be tame compared to others. Sonic Forces will no wise have the ability to create anything that specific, and the few fans who want that feature are inevitably going to be depressed when they can't recreate Evil or Coldsteel the Hedgehog.

I mean, those aren't the only kind of OCs that exist.

I know we're dropping this but I just wanted to put that out there because while it's definitely true that something like this will probably reawaken that whole stigma against fan characters, the stigma is also very silly

[Blue Blood]

35 minutes ago, Kintor said:

I know you're being sarcastic but it's still good you're willing to consider a new line of discussion. Which leads me to a questions, do you have a good reason for disliking the idea of a character creator?

I do.

SEGA has very strict rules in place for character design, representation and presentation. Sonic is, above all else, a brand with an image. Any company that has a licence to produce Sonic products has to follow explicit guidelines for packaging, colour codes and must use assets provided by SEGA. Besides this been common sense in branding, I actually know this from first-hand experience in working with licensed Sonic goods. SEGA follow these rules as closely as any licence holders as the characters and their portrayal form the backbone of the brand.

To introduce a character creator would make it impossible to continue keep up the brand identity, as player created characters will be perceived as more important than the official characters, but will be impossible to portray in a specific way. They won't be able to be put on merchandise and their variable traits (from personality to physical design) will leave them imbalanced against the rest of the cast. You also have to consider the future. Should SEGA wish to create another game with the character creator, they will be cutting out all the fans who want to play as their own characters in Sonic. How do you sell a custom character in a character-driven brand? You can't. The characters in the series are too important to act as a mirror for the player. 

It will not happen because it goes against SEGA's brand.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Blue Blood
Honest to God I was typing this message for ages and didn't see Azoo's warnings. Sorry.

[Kintor]

5 minutes ago, Azoo said:

Don't make me do it.

Carry on with a different subject (on-topic of course), someone.

Alright, how about this?

We already know that Sonic Forces has giant robots that look suspicously like the final boss from Sonic 2, the 'Death Egg Robo'.

Does this mean we could also see other classic bosses ressurected as giant robots?

I mean, this guy is already a giant robot:

[Indigo Rush]

H'okay so

one interesting tidbit, and it could just be how they phrased it, but in the Nintendo Direct presentation, it mentioned that this "alternate version of Sonic" is trying to return to his "home world."

Now.... could just be phrasing. It's just about returning ol' younger Sonic back to his time period.

 

But.

 

What if they're doing a yuuuuuge retcon and making it so that Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic... are different universes altogether?

I mean. Would ya put it past 'em at this rate?

[Wraith]

3 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

 

What if they're doing a yuuuuuge retcon and making it so that Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic... are different universes altogether?

 

The visual differences could be because of this, actually. We're looking at another world entirely in the classic level

[KHCast]

What if this just supports that two worlds thing?

[Indigo Rush]

2 minutes ago, Josh said:

The visual differences could be because of this, actually. We're looking at another world entirely in the classic level

OH NO OH NO IT MAKES TOO MUCH SENSE

WE'VE GOT THIS GAME ALL WRONG

HOLD ME

[Blue Blood]

I don't think I would have any major issues with that. I mean, it would be retcon central but also meh big deal. 

But I think it's just funny wording, like you said. 

[Dejimon11]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

What if this just supports that two worlds thing?

I honestly forgot about the whole two worlds thing. God this series is a mess. 

[StaticMania]

5 minutes ago, Kintor said:

Does this mean we could also see other classic bosses ressurected as giant robots?

I mean, this guy is already a giant robot:

No it doesn't really mean anything. They're just re-using the Death Egg Robot because...reasons.

 

It's not exactly iconic...