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Sonic Forces- Classic GHZ Gameplay


Tracker_TD

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Not just being chiptune, but the sound itself is grating, using that old snaredrum sample to excess (something Sonic 4 did) and something about the melody not fitting the structure of your average Sonic level, although I admit that last one is rather nebulous, but there's something off about it that I reckon even putting that tune to fantastic high quality instruments won't fix.

There's a certain lead-in, build-up, main melody, bridge, loop back to build-up again type of structure that Sonic music has that Sonic 4 lacked, and I unfortunately don't have the music terminology or education to really express what's wrong with it. Forces Green Hill isn't quite the same as 4, but something is off. I don't know what. It's weird. Uncanny. I'm an unpleasable retro fanboy who doesn't have any friends.

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26 minutes ago, OcelotBot said:

Seems kind of pointless as Sonic is bounced up automatically at the bottom right corner (of the screenshot) when he hits the invisible spring. Sonic could probably use it to backtrack but once he bounces up he could use the spindash to get back to the previous area. The moving platform just seems like an unnecessary design.

Urm... this is from Green Hill Zone act 2 more or less.

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19 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

Tbh I'd much rather have visible dash pads inside the S-loops than invisible ones; at least then people know what to blame for the section feeling off in that case, rather than being fooled into thinking that they were doing a thing with momentum and it's all good because of it.

Hidden (and scripted) sections just mask the much larger problems with the momentum overall.

Don't get me wrong, I'm annoyed by boosters 'cause of excessive automation, but also partly because they look so out of place (and genuinely ugly) in most levels.

I almost wish they'd at least show some creativity and give each zone unique booster designs, but 1) that absolutely wouldn't fix the real problem anyway and 2) I guess that'd be a lot of work for something that I suspect they just throw into the level design at the last minute.

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The clap sample's the one exact similarity to Sonic 4's soundfont I hear, speaking of which, anyone else notice the tiny Splash Hill Zone homage?

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10 minutes ago, Cyrus said:

I see a lot of Sonic 4 comparisons but I don't hear Sonic 4 at all, it doesn't have the constant squelch (dying cats) those soundtracks had. It's got its own chiptuney thing going on. Are the comparisons just solely based on it being chiptune?

 

Literally right here at 1:06

It's the main melody from Splash Hill Act 1. 

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1 minute ago, Cyrus said:

Ye but I was [literally] talking about the soundfont, not the composition

The Sonic 4 soundfont sounds like ass, the Sonic Forces soundfont sounds like ass. That's all I got.

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Wow, even the music is terrible. 

You really did done fucked up SEGA. Why is the zone so damn blocky and straight?? Generations' Green Hill Zone destroys this crap. 

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2 hours ago, JohnVGC said:

Oh hey, Green Hill Zone... shoved into a sand-filled Grand Canyon :L

Should have known they're keeping the Lost World-esque sound effects.

As people have already brought up, the video is calling it Green Hill Zone, but then there's this tweet :/

 

" It's not green hill, it's ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ "

I see Nakamura is still as oblivious to the problems of his game as he was in 2006.

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5 minutes ago, pppp said:

" It's not green hill, it's ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ "

I see Nakamura is still as oblivious to the problems of his game as he was in 2006.

 

That's supposed to be a character's dialogue.

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Just now, Marcello said:

That's supposed to be a character's dialogue.

Oh sorry, nevermind then. My bad.

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5 minutes ago, JezMM said:

Another small thing that bothers me here, there's numerous points where a scripted event flings Sonic through a gaggle of rings, and he collects only some of them on the intended arc through them.

Super Mario Maker had this on some of the official courses too, moments where you jump a gap through a bunch of coins and only collect some...  Said official courses were designed by Mashiko.  You know... the courses intended to be looked at as bad, amateur examples.

In Yamamura's "fixed" version of Mashiko's course, and the accompanying tutorial, he replaces it with a line of coins that you collect in full when you jump the intended path, which he cites as a more satisfying experience for the player.

Yeah.

 
 

The immediate example that comes to my mind is GHZ1 in Sonic 1. After the S-tunnels, it's difficult to collect all of the rings in the air, but it's doable because of the physics and the way you can bounce off the cleverly placed enemies. In Forces, you just can't and it's bad.

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2 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

The immediate example that comes to my mine is GHZ1 in Sonic 1. After the S-tunnels, it's difficult to collect all of the rings in the air, but it's doable because of the physics and the way you can bounce off the cleverly placed enemies. In Forces, you just can't and it's bad.

Even then, the natural path most players take will sort of cause them to take a rainbow-shaped chunk out of the ring pattern, leaving just a few in the lower-middle of the shape.  Even in the worst-case scenario, it's fairly well-designed to feel good to pass through.

Forces' one Sonic just kinda takes a straight path through and leaves a messy shape behind.

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30 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Literally right here at 1:06

It's the main melody from Splash Hill Act 1. 

 
 

I thought I also heard bits and pieces of "Reach for the Stars"

GameXplain did a comparsion video.

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9 minutes ago, Sonictrainer said:

I thought I also heard bits and pieces of "Reach for the Stars"

GameXplain did a comparsion video.

I don't hear Reach for the Stars, which part of the video should I check?

I guess we could say they listened to fan feedback tho.

They addressed the scripted ramps and slopes issue. By completely removing ramps and slopes :9.

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I guess I'll start posting here.

I rewatched the gameplay  several times and it looks...eh? There's nothing that I really hate, but there's also nothing I really like (although palmtree leaves and grass moving in a wind is a neat detail that I don't really remember being in Generations. The music is weird, but I don't think it's awful (and I do not want to hear another Green Hill remix, so that's somewhat of a positive). The placement of springs and boosters do annoy me tho and Classic still feels...off. Overall from what I've seen it's okay, which I still think is a big improvement over Lost World, so there's that. Now comes the wait till E3 for the 3rd gameplay.

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It looks fun, but it doesn't looks amazing. That's all I have to say for now.

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The impression I get from the "not Green Hill" dialogue is that whoever's speaking simply can't believe that what they're looking at is Green Hill Zone - whether because its appearance has changed with the sand and so on, or its location, or something else.  Speaking of the sand, I would also propose that this and especially the less cartoony badnik designs suggest that this part of the game is already taking place in the present - or that Eggman has travelled through time to the past to get there; either would lend credibility to the theories that Classic Sonic was punted forward through time or that there's some kind of world-merging plot.

Curious that this came along right after a Japanese Sega livestream which reused a lot of previous Sonic footage; in fact, the whole preview has come rather out of the blue.  My impression is that maybe the sudden release of an extended piece of footage from a more recent build of the game was specifically intended to counter the negative reception of the old-build footage used in the Nintendo Direct - and, well, people do think the visuals have improved...

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Well, I liked what I saw, except for some jumping physics and badnik bouncing, but this looks good. The level design could have been better, though, but this is just the first level after all. Maybe they will fix some physics things as time goes on as they develop the game?

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Bleh. Really glad we're getting Mania because Sonic Team still doesn't know how to do classic Sonic justice. Regardless Mania would become a thing or no, they should had just focused on making a game based solely around boost/current Sonic. Everything just looks like some sort of bad attempt to fudge 2D gameplay from Lost World, Sonic 4, and Generations together, and I'm not just referring to the artstyle.

The level design looks large and non-linear in structure like in Generations...but it also has Lost World's mostly flat terrain, invisible/automated springs, and heavy focus on precision platforming, and has dash panels and scripts out the wazoo like in Sonic 4. Physics at least in rolling and the spindash look like Generations used as a base...but the aerial movement when he jumps (especially when he rebounds after jumping on top of enemies) looks straight out of Lost World too, its really rigid and stiff, like its lacking in horizontal momentum. Though when he hits badniks from the side, he just phases through them for some reason. As for the music....the Sonic 4 comparisons are pretty spot on. Sounds like a few cat / duck synths away from feeling right in place with Sylvania Castle.

And another thing--what's up with having all that sand in the background if it doesn't have any effect on the level itself. There's no sand gimmicks, nor does the sand have an effect or influence on the level design. Maybe things might change for later levels, but as of now it's purely just for show. It's arguably the only thing keeping the level from looking like DLC content to Generations, you'd think they would have incorporated the sand in the level itself to make it stand out more.

It graphically does looks more lively than what we saw in the Nintendo Direct footage, and it looks like they finally got a spindash that isn't underpowered like Sonic 4 or overpowered like Generations...that's all of the positives I got.

1 hour ago, Indigo Rush said:

One of my favorite things about the boosters in Sonic 3 and Knuckles is, half the time, you never really realize that they're boosters because they're different from one another. Hydrocity has that giant hand on a spinning wheel that charges you like a spinning top and launches you, Carnival Night has those funnels that act as one-way gateways (so you can only take advantage of the speed once), Mushroom Hill has those poles that require a minimum input of speed before they launch you (and some of them are along walls!) and has that low-rise handle on a rope that you grab onto and swing around and it launches you in whatever direction (aerial or otherwise) depending on when you jump, but also must be entered with a minimum amount of speed and not in ball form because you'll not be able to grab it, Flying Battery's speed boosters have a cool-down period after they launch you, etc. And even the bog-standard walk-in speed boosters look different in each Zone anyway, Launch Base's speed boosters are (mostly) functionally identical to Sonic 2's Chemical Plant, but they look different enough to remove that association and visually fit the theme of that level; also, Stardust Speedway's boosters can be approached in any direction. Heck, even Sonic R's speed booster required rings to power it.

It just goes to show how some creativity and slight tweaks can make the experience that much more enjoyable. Of course Classic Sonic games had boosters, they were just far more inventive with them, and it made every encounter memorable. Chemical Plant had tons, but it's the only level in Sonic 2 that had them, for instance, and they visually fit the theme of that Zone. A booster meant for Chemical Plant clashes with the Green Hill aesthetic. If Green Hill needs a booster, make it wooden and covered in vines, or maybe a hollow totem pole that's collapsed that has a magical air current running through and Sonic can enter in one end and he comes out of the other side in his ball form at high speed, something.

But anyway, nowadays speed boosters are just there to push you in a direction they want you to go. There's no variety, no real obstacle, just a way to add some flash to the gameplay. It's been done so much that even small inoffensive instances of automation are unbearable. They've spoiled it.

This. Different gimmicks, even if they do the same thing as a previous one, pique the player's interest and keep the game fresh. If I see a recurring gimmick, I'll already know what it does and I'll already know how to react. And to be blunt, that, too, is itself a form of automation.

Moreover, as you also noted, all of those speed boosters not only are designed and function differently, they are also properly integrated with the overall theme in the level. Carnival Night's funnels fit with the zone's loud, flashy, constantly vibrant theme of the level. Chemical Plant fits with the zone being a speed-oriented joyride. Launch Base and Flying Battery both have a bit of "windup" to their release, which makes them a bit foreboding--given how both locations are Eggman's own turf (a Death Egg construction site and a giant flying airship), it makes sense for them to feel that way.

Rarely, if ever, do any of the use of speed boosters since then ever feel like they're designed to part of the zones, let alone designed to visually match or operate differently in function; and it's especially true here with Green Hill. They're adding in speed gimmicks to the levels "just because", which automates even the sensation they're supposed to give to the player. Their implementation just feels shoehorned in and not coherent to the overall level theme.

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Wow, even the music is terrible. 

You really did done fucked up SEGA. Why is the zone so damn blocky and straight?? Generations' Green Hill Zone destroys this crap. 

 

Holy shit, c'mon, no. The blocky aesthetics are a design choice, and it does looks much better than the footage from Nintendo at least... Well, if you like it or not is subjective. I do, because you can focus on Sonic better than in Generations, which was so full of layers and stuff that was easy to loose track of the little blue bastard on screen some times. But not-Green Hill is still colorful and bright. The lightning effects are also prettier, watch it in HD.

 

The only real complaint I can agree with EVERYBODY is the excess of unnecessary automation (springs, boosters) and the music, that right now has a case of bad soundfont.

 

So the level design doesn't offer moments to exploit rolling and momentum? I'm not amuzed, it's Sonic Team :V We have Mania at least.

 

More and more is clear that Classic Sonic is in Forces just because of ST's insecurity, it's OBVIOUS that they don't get it.

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