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

[Badnik Mechanic]

2 minutes ago, Kintor said:

If anything  it's going to boost Sonic's reputation significantly as people gave fun messing around in Sonic Forces.

Only if the gameplay and level design isn't as dull and awful as they've shown it to be so far.

[Sonikko]

Just now, Alienrun said:

Obvious marketing flaws aside...this game has potential to be better than Gens...It certainly will be better than Lost World, unless they somehow find a way to f**k it up more.

Again these are possibilities that aren't too unrealistic.

Wait...am I defending this game?!

I take it back...all of it!

...Seriously though, we don't know enough information to tell. I personallly don't see how it can be worse than lost world, but that's just me. I still haven't got the OC thing in my mind completely, so maybe that's the piece of evidence we need to solidify that this game won't do very well.

I don't think this game will be better than Lost World. That one at least tried something different, this one is the Sonic 4 of the boost games imho.

[Voyant]

2 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

I don't think this game will be better than Lost World. That one at least tried something different, this one is the Sonic 4 of the boost games imho.

The game for what they have shown so far may be boring, but we don't really have enough informtation to make that call just yet.

[Wraith]

I mean, a lot of people seem pleased with the idea, whether ironically or otherwise. 

I remember talking about this before the official reveal..but yeah, this is just the type of series Sonic is now I guess which means I'm not gonna be very excited for what comes after.

I don't really care if people enjoy a character creator and would probably be warmer to it under different circumstances(a modern Sonic game with friends + a character creator that's a lot more focused on the "forces" aspect and thus has some kind of identity instead of it being this weird mishmash of ideas) buuuut it hasn't made me want to play this game much more in the state it's in aside from wanting to fool around on that screen for curiosity's sake. 

I don't have much else to add aside from..yeah, the level design still looks dull. I know, first level and all but c'mon.

[Nepenthe]

8 minutes ago, Kintor said:

What I'm saying is that people using the character creator for subversive purposes isn't going to damage the reputation of the Sonic franchise, since Sonic already has a history of this sort of 'tongue-in-cheek' idea.

Literally the only person who thinks shitty OCs are used as solely a tongue-in-cheek way to rib the franchise out of love is you.

When people post crap art, creepy fetish pictures, and weird, uncreative OCs, they're more than likely not doing it out of kindness, or at least any kind of kindness that's separate from how they view the official franchise proper sans the classic games.

They're doing it to mock the franchise because they think it and the fandom's creative output is generally shit from an aesthetic point of view, and that such a quality deserves mockery. And now Sega has validated that.

You are literally getting milk dumped on you by the school bully and treating it as a kind gesture wherein he supposedly wishes to cool you off. It baffles me that you're sincere about this.

[Sonikko]

3 minutes ago, Voyant said:

The game for what they have shown so far may be boring, but we don't really have enough informtation to make that call just yet.

As in it's not a superficial reproduction of Sonic Generations with a rehashed stage (so far) and without any comprehension of what made Generations good in the first place?

 

I repeat, this OC thing is the last drop, but the game itself is bad on its own.

[KHCast]

How, after all the gameplay we've seen are we still getting people saying "wait and see" as if it's Sonic 4's 8 seconds of gameplay all over again? I think there's enough for people to make claims about what they think of the product 

[StaticMania]

The only thing left to see is the level design for future stages...that's about it.

[Crazy_Diamond]

We've only seen the about a minute of the very first level. If you look at the first level of Sonic Generations, you'll find the same complaints about the simplistic level design apply there. I'm not sure whether this game will be good or not, but in terms of the gameplay, I haven't seen anything that looks worse than Generations. So why all the complaints?

[Chris Knopps]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

How, after all the gameplay we've seen are we still getting people saying "wait and see" as if it's Sonic 4's 8 seconds of gameplay all over again? I think there's enough for people to make claims about what they think of the product 

I've been keeping an eye on YouTube particularly and from what I see it's "lol Sonichu!" combined with "You negative fan boys!" and "Yay!! Awesome!!" out of blind faith and "Notice me sempai!" basically.

The biggest problem is a lot/most of those standing up for the game and doing these "lol" things aren't even going to really buy the game in the end.

Over on TSOS the picture is pretty negative as well and the community there is generally fairly upbeat/positive about the franchise, but even the best are falling into the pit of indifferent loathing.

[Dejimon11]

Ok so first I just want to say @Azoo you better not leave us. We still need you!

To be honest I was expecting to hate it and thought this was going to be the worst idea ever but seeing it, this doesn't seem like that bad. I joke about how ridiculous it is and that SEGA pretty much opened pandora's box but you gotta realize that a lot of people make Sonic OC's. And you know who are going to be the most interested in this? Kids because they like Sonic and want to insert themselves into the game. I mean hell if Dragon Ball can do this with Xenoverse and that went on to be a finical success I don't see why it can't work for Sonic now. As for the gameplay it actually looks fun it's pretty much what I wanted in this series, a character that plays similar to Sonic but has something unique to and stand out. It's not that hard. 

Now as for my negatives: It just feels so unbalanced(if that's the right word to use) that we're playing Modern Sonic, Classic Sonic and an Avatar instead of Sonic and co. something I've been bitching about for a while and I'm just so annoyed with it.  We have so many characters we could choose from but nah let's make it Sonic only sigh.  And so far the designs of the OCs just feel a bit out of place and don't look like they belong kinda like how the background characters for the Boom cartoon look or some the of the flack characters from the comics get. If that makes any sense.

I also just want to say this. OCs aren't bad at all yeah some can get a bad rep since I see folks use them for shipping or making them over powered sues and that weird stuff you see on the dark side of the internet...but there are some legit awesome Sonic OCs out there that folks put a lot of time and effort into.  I'm really interested to see more of this game just to get a much better idea of what the hell this game is. I'm not super excited but I'm a lot less pessimistic and annoyed about it than I was back in March. 

[Alienrun]

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

How, after all the gameplay we've seen are we still getting people saying "wait and see" as if it's Sonic 4's 8 seconds of gameplay all over again? I think there's enough for people to make claims about what they think of the product 

I hate to be "that" guy, but we still haven't seen a considerable ammount of gameplay...

Both Unleashed and Gens had very "meh" first levels but then got better as you kept playing, its not uncommon that will happen here.

Heck, even lost world managed to throw a curveball into our expectaions of the game (mine were pretty low) for better or worse.

Like yes, you can suggest that because what they've shown looks worse than gens that the game is in fact...worse than gens.

...

...Am I the only one still digging the Modern Sonic level or no?!

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Just in case any of you wanted commentary from people that aren't readily hoping to tear each other's fucking throats out

[Shiny Gems]

2 minutes ago, Alienrun said:

I hate to be "that" guy, but we still haven't seen a considerable ammount of gameplay...

Both Unleashed and Gens had very "meh" first levels but then got better as you kept playing, its not uncommon that will happen here.

Heck, even lost world managed to throw a curveball into our expectaions of the game (mine were pretty low) for better or worse.

Like yes, you can suggest that because what they've shown looks worse than gens that the game is in fact...worse than gens.

...

...Am I the only one still digging the Modern Sonic level or no?!

You're not the only one digging modern Sonic's level, for I happen to dig it as well.

[StaticMania]

1 minute ago, Alienrun said:

...Am I the only one still digging the Modern Sonic level or no?!

What are you digging? The homing attack chains or the short running section that leads into them?

 

Or the way the level looks...?

[Sonikko]

8 minutes ago, Alienrun said:

I hate to be "that" guy, but we still haven't seen a considerable ammount of gameplay...

Both Unleashed and Gens had very "meh" first levels but then got better as you kept playing, its not uncommon that will happen here.

Heck, even lost world managed to throw a curveball into our expectaions of the game (mine were pretty low) for better or worse.

Like yes, you can suggest that because what they've shown looks worse than gens that the game is in fact...worse than gens.

...

...Am I the only one still digging the Modern Sonic level or no?!

I don't mean to be rude so please don't take it wrong but, isn't Modern Sonic all about going fast? Because that's not what I'm seeing with Forces.

If they choose to use small corridors as level design they should let us boost all the way through (not as in just press X and blow your way through the level mindlessly, but you know, actually going fast?), not limit the boost with the Wisps. It makes no sense in the context of the Boost games, at least not in Unleashed and Generations. Now if the levels are designed with Colours philosophy of stop and go, you should boost here, you should go slow here, then it's a totally different story. And I'm not down for that, because the boost formula is not deep enough to make it an actual platformer (Lost World was so much better at it, while still being a mediocre game. If they want platforming they should look at how Adventure 1 did it, or better, Utopia imho), so just limiting it is not going to make it magically work better. 

Just do what your formula does best. Actively working against it is not good design. If you build a gameplay style around a mechanic, it makes no sense to limit it and force your character to do something else (in this case slow stop&go platforming, since the boost was made for fast kart-like sections and fast-paced platforming).

[Sonicfan287]

I'm extremely curious just how this is all going to work in terms of the story. 

I think creating your own custom character could've been a cool extra mode where you could run through the classic/modern levels as that character but giving them a (I assume) major part of the story is a headscratcher to me for a number of reasons. From a merely pragmatic standpoint, what does that mean for the cutscenes? That CGI animation from the trailer shows classic and modern Sonic working together with that red character to defeat the Robotnik robots. Does that mean that cutscene will be altered for every single possible character you could create? Is that even possible? Most likely that cutscene was only for promotional purposes and won't appear in the full game but does this limit the cutscenes in any way? Not to mention the backstory for why Sonic knows this new character or what their role is. Plus, will your original characters have voices or just be mute for all their cutscenes? 

I guess if playing as this third character of your own design is fun it won't matter how significant their role in the story is but I'm still wondering just how that will work and if it will look clunky having all these different characters pasted onto the main story of the game. 

[KHCast]

I could have sworn I called people saying "it's the first level" regarding telling people to wait and see. Cause before it was just "we haven't seen like any gameplay, at least wait for there to be a minute or so to show off"

[Kintor]

13 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

When people post crap art, creepy fetish pictures, and weird, uncreative OCs, they're more than likely not doing it out of kindness, or at least any kind of kindness that's separate from how they view the official franchise proper sans the classic games.

They're doing it to mock the franchise because they think it and the fandom's creative output is generally shit from an aesthetic point of view, and that such a quality deserves mockery. And now Sega has validated that.

There's as always been good fan art and bad fan art. The internet is always pretty fickle when it comes to acceptable art anyway. The whole meme culture prides itself on its deliberatly low quality art work, like a kind of digital version of the 90s grunge aesthetic.

With that said I don't think you have to worry too much about the worst perversions that have associated with OCs in the past. This official character creator in Sonic Forces is incredibly versatile but its also sanatised and in a  way controlled. The inherent limitations of the system will curb the worst excesses while still giving people the chance to create some fun and goofy looking characters to share on social media, if they are so inclined.

[StaticMania]

Quote

From a merely pragmatic standpoint, what does that mean for the cutscenes? That CGI animation from the trailer shows classic and modern Sonic working together with that red character to defeat the Robotnik robots. Does that mean that cutscene will be altered for every single possible character you could create? Is that even possible? Most likely that cutscene was only for promotional purposes and won't appear in the full game but does this limit the cutscenes in any way? Not to mention the backstory for why Sonic knows this new character or what their role is. Plus, will your original characters have voices or just be mute for all their cutscenes? 

In-game cutscenes won't be a problem, depending on what the character is doing, the model differences won't bee too much of a problem when it comes to clipping.

 

They won't appear in CGI cutscenes (if there's any in the actual game), it's simply not possible.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Sonicfan287 said:

I'm extremely curious just how this is all going to work in terms of the story. 

I think creating your own custom character could've been a cool extra mode where you could run through the classic/modern levels as that character but giving them a (I assume) major part of the story is a headscratcher to me for a number of reasons. From a merely pragmatic standpoint, what does that mean for the cutscenes? That CGI animation from the trailer shows classic and modern Sonic working together with that red character to defeat the Robotnik robots. Does that mean that cutscene will be altered for every single possible character you could create? Is that even possible? Most likely that cutscene was only for promotional purposes and won't appear in the full game but does this limit the cutscenes in any way?

They just won't use prerendered cutscenes. Or at least not many, and only in cases where the created character isn't involved.

[Sonicfan287]

Yeah, I guess that won;t be a problem. I'm just curious how they'll handle the introductions of your character into the game. In other words, what will Sonic say when he first encounters him.her? "Hey look, it's our friend ... so and so..." or will there even be an introduction? It would seem a little lazy if they just popped into the story with no explanation? 

[Autosaver]

32 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

People having fun screwing around in Character Creation isn't going to make people have more fun playing Sonic games.

SEGA may be using this to produce a new line of toys. Produce 8 "model animals", and then sell accessory pieces for those characters as well.

[Chris Knopps]

I've got it!

At the end of the game, your OC dies and the two versions of Sonic go Super and take Eggman down for the finale!!!

...I would be pleased with this.

[Celestia]

1 minute ago, Sonicfan287 said:

Yeah, I guess that won;t be a problem. I'm just curious how they'll handle the introductions of your character into the game. In other words, what will Sonic say when he first encounters him.her? "Hey look, it's our friend ... so and so..." or will there even be an introduction? It would seem a little lazy if they just popped into the story with no explanation? 

If I remember correctly, the leaker who turned out to be right about everything said something about the character being referred to as 'Buddy' or something? So yeah, they'll probably be addressed with generic nicknames, which makes sense. Wonder if you'll be able to choose a nickname or if it'll just be the one.