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

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Problem with the word "failure" is that it can be interprented in many ways.
Usually when talking about videogames failing, there's 3 ways you can interprent it:

Failing to make a profit.
Ruining a reputation and public trust.
Lack of artistic integrity.

And in the case of the past discussion, a 4th one: Failing on it's own merits without additional issues holding it back.


So you can call Sonic 06 a financial succes in earning it's production costs back, and a failure for ruining the public trust in the Sonic Brand. (With whether it's artistic choices were correct a third succes/ failure) So Sonic 06 can be considered both a succes and a failure at the same time, depending on the angle you go with.

(And to make it even more complicated, we don't even know if Sonic 06 actually made a profit since we don't know what it's production costs were.
So you can split "It sold more copies then most games do" and "it sold enough copies to recoup it's costs" as 2 seperate versions of succes/failure as well.)


And alternatively, you can consider Sonic Free riders a succes...well, a Not Failure because we can partly blame the unpopular system/ peripheral. So from that angle, you blame the circumstances, not the merits of the game itself.
It's not a very strong perspective on Failing or Succes, but it's a perspective regardless.


And it happens so often that I'm in a heated debate with someone declaring a game a failure ENTIRELY on the fact that that person considers a game a huge failure exclusively on the fact it didn't represent that person's personal tastes and artistic vision, regardless if there's still giant crowds of people enthusiastically throwing money at it. Good reputation, made all it's money back, but didn't pass that person's personal quality control, and thus it's doomed to the Failure dimension regardless.


So it's all a matter of how you look at things.
This makes talking about succes and failure in games really frustrating, every person seems to aproach succes from a diffrent angle and you constantly get people debating each other on incompatible levels.
So best keep that in mind before we're all talking in diffrent mental dimensions from each other.
 

[Sonikko]

On the topic of automation and level design, I decided to put my thoughts out in a video, so that it's backed up by visual clues. Check it out if you want 

I've expressed these points before in this topic, but I think it makes more sense to pair those words with a video. Sorry about the bad pronunciation!

Edit: Added some subtitles because I'm not sure my pronunciation is clear enough.

[Writer's Blah]

4 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Problem with the word "failure" is that it can be interprented in many ways.
Usually when talking about videogames failing, there's 3 ways you can interprent it:

Failing to make a profit.
Ruining a reputation and public trust.
Lack of artistic integrity.

And in the case of the past discussion, a 4th one: Failing on it's own merits without additional issues holding it back.


So you can call Sonic 06 a financial succes in earning it's production costs back, and a failure for ruining the public trust in the Sonic Brand. (With whether it's artistic choices were correct a third succes/ failure) So Sonic 06 can be considered both a succes and a failure at the same time, depending on the angle you go with.

(And to make it even more complicated, we don't even know if Sonic 06 actually made a profit since we don't know what it's production costs were.
So you can split "It sold more copies then most games do" and "it sold enough copies to recoup it's costs" as 2 seperate versions of succes/failure as well.)

So it's all a matter of how you look at things.
This makes talking about succes and failure in games really frustrating, every person seems to aproach succes from a diffrent angle and you constantly get people debating each other on incompatible levels.
So best keep that in mind before we're all talking in diffrent mental dimensions from each other.
 

From my own experience, most denizens of the Internet don't point out financial success or failure as their own definition of what's said when you hear the phrase, "[Blank game] is a failure," unless they specifically mention it beforehand, and even then, it's usually from a more mournful perspective, such as lamenting Okami as a game that was a financial failure, or the next Call of Duty game being a financial success. Most people who get in a tizzy about calling a game an "objective failure," usually comes more from a place of failing to live up to the commonly held rubrics of quality that constitute a good game, which can vary depending on time period and background. More commonly, people throw around the word "objective" very loosely in general, presuming themselves to have taste that falls in line with what's considered "objectively good." Let's not get sidetracked on this though, as this "objective vs. subjective" argument has been done to death before, and really isn't the point from all this.

I feel like arguing these semantics at all though, misses the point of the discussion. Whether you can call games like Sonic 06 or Rise of Lyrics financial successes or failures, really doesn't matter in the end, because SEGA have proven to, time and time again, switch up a formula from game to game solely on the basis that they feel it either isn't interesting enough or wasn't critically well received, regardless of how much money they made back. They've always been kind of fickle like that, even back in their early days with their aggressive marketing campaign against the SNES, and their attempts at extending the Genesis's lifespan with continual add-ons. Even if you personally like one of these games, ignoring how they have affected the public consciousness in terms of how they view the Sonic franchise does an extreme disservice to both us and SEGA. It's exasperating too, because despite being eleven years old now, the fact that Sonic 06 was such a massive critical failure has eclipsed the entirety of the franchise, to the point that it is seen as a sort of "gaming boogeyman" that threatens the integrity of other franchises and precludes Sonic as a whole, within the minds of the casual consumer and non-Sonic fan. I mean, look at how many people have constantly been panicking about Super Mario Odyssey on the sole basis that it includes a realistic-looking city level that resembles Sonic 06, and could potentially be a testament to the game's quality, despite Nintendo having stated that the game is practically finished. It precludes potential discussion and creative avenues, simply because it failed really hard that one time in the past; people's reactions are just kind of honed like that, unfortunately.

[Wraith]

3 hours ago, Kintor said:

Of those three only Lost World stands out as a true failure.

Lost World outsold most of those games but fuck profits right? 

[Red Hot Jack]

Watching the instant reactions on YouTube is hilarious. They are all "OMG!" and excited.

[Kintor]

2 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

And you don't care enough. You've basically admitted you're ready to befit this franchise with any dumb idea that appeals to you outside the scope of the franchise, with the justification being so long as people talk about it, it's fine, because any publicity is good publicity.

You know me better than that, I have tolerances for what is acceptable in a Sonic game just like everybody else here. In fact I've taken strong stances against both the whole Sonic Boom project and Lost World, as my posts here and elsewhere can attest.

With that said, I don't see anything wrong with the presence of a character creator in Sonic Forces. In hindsight I'm surprised it's taken until 2017 for a Sonic game to try and anything like this. As Phantasy Star Online (another Sonic Team game no less) on the Dreamcast shows, the technology for a character creator could have been integrated into a Sonic game as early as Sonic Adventure 2. 

In the end, Sonic fans are going to create OCs anyway, might as well give everyone the opportunity to do so in a more official capacity with Sonic Forces. Besides, as I’ve said before, the limitations of the character creator as a system will incidentally prevent anything like the more infamous examples of OCs from occurring. Then all that’s left are sincere but harmless OCs, that’s the kind of positive publicity that deserves to be shared on social media.

[Multikaris]

17 minutes ago, Josh said:

Lost World outsold most of those games but fuck profits right? 

Well, it did with the pc version 2 years later due to modding. 

[Marcello]

4 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

You're a funny guy.

First thing's first; not all publicity is good publicity. 1 million views means nothing if a sizeable chunk of that viewership watched it and thought "wow, this looks daft." 

1

The Like/Dislike ratio is 27.851/2.480, so it seems like the reaction is fairly positive. Obviously this doesn't speak for everybody, but 30.000 is good survey sample size, even accounting for trolling.

[Meta77]

2 hours ago, Tenko said:

So the fact that even Sega themselves stated that Sonic Boom was the "worst selling Sonic game ever" isn't a true failure? Sonic '06 being labeled as one of, if not the critically worst title in the series, the one the media and the majority of fans as well as the general public call the lowest point in the franchise is not a true failure? 

Both of which far undersold even lower budget handheld titles like Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush. It seems your definition of failure must be very different than the rest of the general publics. Either that or you are blindly trying to justify certain games in the franchise that you happen to like...

Most the people that say 06 is bad never even played it. Most that do that I speak yo on YouTube hate that it was a mess but enjoyed it in a broken way.  pretty sure 06 sold well. Best on 360.

[Wraith]

6 minutes ago, Miru the Living Planet said:

Well, it did with the pc version 2 years later due to modding. 

Lost World didn't actually do well on steam. The vast majority of it's sales are from the Wii U version.

[Sonikko]

It's at 130k owners now, it sold ok for a 2 years late, non promoted pc port of a game with mixed reception

[Tracker_TD]

21 minutes ago, Marcello said:

The Like/Dislike ratio is 27.851/2.480, so it seems like the reaction is fairly positive. Obviously this doesn't speak for everybody, but 30.000 is good survey sample size, even accounting for trolling.

Fair point, but this is kinda expected. Even Rise of Lyric's trailers have, though not as large a survey size, a Like/Dislike ratio that swings moreso to the positive side (6668/1000). Not as clean cut, but still. 

[Muscles Maximum]

Honestly I feel that a lot of the positivity centered around the character creator has a lot to do with Sonic's recent meme status. I'm betting a lot of the people who are okay with it aren't really fans per se, just people who vaguely follow Sonic, they see the Official Sonic twitter and places like DeviantArt poking fun and embracing this sort of thing and think "lol let's see what this new sanic game has in store oh a goofy looking character creator lel oc the original character"

To be honest pretty much every real fan making a video on the subject I've seen either outright dismisses it, or isn't excited about it but remains hopeful. Like SomeCallMeJohnny, Jimquisition, StephenKnux or even like ArtFenix. And obviously the overwhelmingly negative response around here. I have not seen a single hardcore fan that is drooling over this new concept. I can't scour the entire internet to claim no Sonic fan likes this, I'm just a guy. But man, from what I've seen/read, the reactions and attention this game is grabbing is not good and it certainly doesn't leave me hopeful for the future.

[Nepenthe]

1 hour ago, Kintor said:

In the end, Sonic fans are going to create OCs anyway, might as well give everyone the opportunity to do so in a more official capacity with Sonic Forces. 

Again, I don't think OC creators are suddenly entitled to Sonic Team's blessing and acknowledgement just because they make OCs. 

[Chris Knopps]

5 hours ago, Tracker_TD said:

You're a funny guy.

First thing's first; not all publicity is good publicity. 1 million views means nothing if a sizeable chunk of that viewership watched it and thought "wow, this looks daft." 

It's also demonstrably not just Classic fans "whining," given our own @Nepenthe (who we've established doesn't give a rat's arse about Classic Sonic or Mania etc) has been the most outspoken against it here. Same with those bloody TrueSonicSpirit wankstains; they're essentially the antithesis of Classic fans given all they care about is the Adventure games, and they sure as hell ain't looking pleased. 

Actually they seem rather positive about the Character Creator but mentioned it's an idea 15 years too late or something.

Though granted they seem to be panning most other ideas in the game and/or those chosen to produce it/write it.

In these cases, considering vast groups aside them are complaining about the same things, they can't be faulted this time around.

[Sonicfan287]

So many people seem quick to judge this game (and admittedly what we've seen hasn't exactly inspired confidence) but I feel like we haven't even seen 10% of what this game has to offer overall. 

I really wish they had made a trailer with short snippets of other levels to give us an idea of what's in store. 

The burning cityscape with Sonic fighting the giant robot was good for the initial reveal trailer but since then we've gotten a few more trailers that show either that burning city again or green hill. 

Im not saying they should reveal a ton more levels but even just show clips of other worlds and things like how the Mario Odyssey trailer did. It showed a wide variety of locales without really revealing anything so it's possible to do that with Sonic Forces. 

Im just finding it very hard to judge the game based on basically 2 levels (and fairly bland ones at that) 

[Chris Knopps]

1 minute ago, Sonicfan287 said:

So many people seem quick to judge this game (and admittedly what we've seen hasn't exactly inspired confidence) but I feel like we haven't even seen 10% of what this game has to offer overall. 

I really wish they had made a trailer with short snippets of other levels to give us an idea of what's in store. 

The burning cityscape with Sonic fighting the giant robot was good for the initial reveal trailer but since then we've gotten a few more trailers that show either that burning city again or green hill. 

Im not saying they should reveal a ton more levels but even just show clips of other worlds and things like how the Mario Odyssey trailer did. It showed a wide variety of locales without really revealing anything so it's possible to do that with Sonic Forces. 

Im just finding it very hard to judge the game based on basically 2 levels (and fairly bland ones at that) 

Well...

As long as Sonic isn't laughing and joking in every other scene...

I guess I'll be MILDLY happy plot wise.

[Nepenthe]

Mario Odyssey could've shown two levels and no story as well and I still would've been as hyped for it as I am now, because impressions for the artistic and technical competency and potential fun of a game are primarily the result of the mechanics on display and not the levels anyway, of which Mario (and for better comparison Mania, which debuted with only a couple of levels as well) is acing in spades over Forces. This doesn't preclude feelings from changing, even when we eventually play these games. It's theoretically possible Odyssey will be awful and Forces will be a Game of the Year contender, at least personally. But as it stands, one game appears to have its shit in order. 

[Chris Knopps]

10 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Mario Odyssey could've shown two levels and no story as well and I still would've been as hyped for it as I am now, because impressions for the artistic and technical competency and potential fun of a game are primarily the result of the mechanics on display and not the levels anyway, of which Mario (and for better comparison Mania, which debuted with only a couple of levels as well) is acing in spades over Forces. This doesn't preclude feelings from changing, even when we eventually play these games. It's theoretically possible Odyssey will be awful and Forces will be a Game of the Year contender, at least personally. But as it stands, one game appears to have its shit in order. 

Odyssey is a much more straightforward title with a clear point in where it's going and what it's doing. It's a very singular focus kind of game where you know what you're playing from start to finish and what the point of it is really. You can tell who it's aiming for and who it wants to welcome without being divisive over what it's attempting.

[Kfarc]

6 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

Odyssey is a much more straightforward title with a clear point in where it's going and what it's doing. It's a very singular focus kind of game where you know what you're playing from start to finish and what the point of it is really. You can tell who it's aiming for and who it wants to welcome without being divisive over what it's attempting.

I'm intersted: How we would talk about Odyssey if we only saw city level and this cap thingy?

[Chris Knopps]

Just now, Kfarc said:

I'm intersted how we would talk about Odyssey if we only saw city level and this cap thingy.

"Mario Adventure 3 confirmed" is the primary thing that comes to mind, but that has already been done to death.

Nonetheless it would still be relatively hyped up, as you'd have folks concerned over the NPC's perhaps as they already were initially, but as a whole people would be foaming at the mouth I'd wager.

[Blue Blood]

3 hours ago, Sonikko said:

On the topic of automation and level design, I decided to put my thoughts out in a video, so that it's backed up by visual clues. Check it out if you want 

I've expressed these points before in this topic, but I think it makes more sense to pair those words with a video. Sorry about the bad pronunciation!

Edit: Added some subtitles because I'm not sure my pronunciation is clear enough.

Can we take a moment to appreciate what a brilliant video this is?

This is what's wrong with Sonic games, and Sonikko has only just scratched the surface here in this short analysis. Sonic games barely play like Sonic games these days - they just look like they do. I don't know how Sonic Team can look at Forces and Mania side by side and say "yeah, Forces is good". It's not. 

Also, Sonikko, your pronunciation is fine. Dont worry.

[Wraith]

Odyssey has shown 4 levels to Sonic Forces's 2. It's not that big of a difference. It would be just as clear how much better Odyssey looks if Mario had shown 2 and Sonic had shown 4.

[Detective Kaito]

9 minutes ago, Josh said:

Odyssey has shown 4 levels to Sonic Forces's 2. It's not that big of a difference. It would be just as clear how much better Odyssey looks if Mario had shown 2 and Sonic had shown 4.

Also, one of the stages from Sonic Forces is one we've already seen 1000 times.

[Sonikko]

5 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Can we take a moment to appreciate what a brilliant video this is?

This is what's wrong with Sonic games, and Sonikko has only just scratched the surface here in this short analysis. Sonic games barely play like Sonic games these days - they just look like they do. I don't know how Sonic Team can look at Forces and Mania side by side and say "yeah, Forces is good". It's not. 

Also, Sonikko, your pronunciation is fine. Dont worry.

Thanks, I'll be honest, this comment put a smile on my face. I've been wanting to do some analysis videos for a long time, since I myself enjoy watching them a lot. I think I'll make more in the near future.

About Mario Odissey, I think I said this some pages back. When your catalogue is composed of mostly great to awesome games you don't need to show too much to build confidence and hype on your next product. 
People just know that the next Mario game is going to be great, Nintendo doesn't need to prove anything.

Sega on the other hand...