Sonic Forces has create-a-character

[Shiny Gems]

29 minutes ago, simtek34 said:

Not trying to mini-mod, but doesn't this belong in the main Sonic Forces thread?

https://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/22029-sonic-forces-classic-ghz-gameplay/

https://board.sonicstadium.org/topic/22000-sonic-forces-trailer-ghz-classic-gameplay-new-character-tease/

These two topics were made separately from the main Forces topic, so I don't see why this can't be separate as well.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

It's actually encouraged to make multiple topics for new pieces of news...it just doesn't turn out that way a lot of the time, lol.

Anyway, I thought I'd just step in to say that, sadly, even though I feel like there's some part of me that would actually find this feature fun or something, and if nothing else this is certainly an interesting development that I might like to mess around with...at the end of the day, I'm really repelled by this because of the stigma of fan characters. Even if that's arguably not the best reason, it is what it is. I mean honestly, even though I love it when people actually make GOOD fan characters with creativity and effort, most fan characters deserve their bad reputation and are pretty embarrassing and a waste of time and effort in various ways. (When little kids do it it's whatever, of course, but honestly, it hurts me to see talented artists spend their time drawing Sonic "original characters" that are terrible recolors or near that. It just does.) Combine this with the stupid classic Sonic and modern Sonic being separate characters thing originally being a silly fan idea, and it feels like Forces is taking horrible fan ideas and making them official. The end result is that I actually feel embarrassed to be a Sonic fan, at least insofar as being a Sonic fan entails any association with Sonic Forces.

So yeah. For the sake of my sanity and being able to feel positive emotions to one of my favorite franchises, I want to forget about all this and ignore it. I want to not keep up with Forces and maybe not keep up with the modern series in general, and I know that's an extreme reaction, but idk, that's just what I'm feeling right now. And it's sad that I feel such a compulsion when the main problem is the CONTEXT of the feature and not the feature itself, but it doesn't even matter in the end. It makes the thought of being a Sonic fan somehow more painful and that's more than enough of a reason for me to just want to detach myself from this whole thing. 'Cause you know, I WANT to be a Sonic fan. It's one of my favorite franchises and I have many positive feelings towards it, great experiences from it, etc. So I don't want to think about something that makes the idea of being a fan somehow embarrassing.

I know this is overdramatic and silly, but then again, I also know there's no way Sega didn't know about the stigma and general terribleness of Sonic OCs. So idk. I'm not really going to let them off the hook for this. It makes me think they don't care about being taken seriously, which is OK, but it means that I'm prepared to give them what they're asking for.

[Zap Monogan]

Character customization in a Sonic game as a concept is... okay?? I guess?? I mean, if Chao gardens didn't ruin the franchise, this won't.

But then there's the whole deal that these just don't really look good and have a bit of a cringe factor. And honestly, the "example" character they specially chose to feature just looks dorky. Those glasses look so absurdly tacked-on. Like. Did any of you guys ever play those old Petz games by P. F. Magic? Dogz and Catz? Those glasses look exactly like the ridiculously chunky glasses in those games.

So I guess I'd say I'm pretty neutral about this news. I'm definitely not looking forward to DeviantArt being flooded with photos kids took of their TV screens displaying their OCs, though. Let kids be kids (I'm sure lots of kiddos will really enjoy this feature) but yeah, not looking forward to that.

[Kintor]

21 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

Anyway, I thought I'd just step in to say that, sadly, even though I feel like there's some part of me that would actually find this feature fun or something, and if nothing else this is certainly an interesting development that I might like to mess around with...at the end of the day, I'm really repelled by this because of the stigma of fan characters. Even if that's arguably not the best reason, it is what it is. I mean honestly, even though I love it when people actually make GOOD fan characters with creativity and effort, most fan characters deserve their bad reputation and are pretty embarrassing and a waste of time and effort in various ways. (When little kids do it it's whatever, of course, but honestly, it hurts me to see talented artists spend their time drawing Sonic "original characters" that are terrible recolors or near that. It just does.) Combine this with the stupid classic Sonic and modern Sonic being separate characters thing originally being a silly fan idea, and it feels like Forces is taking horrible fan ideas and making them official. The end result is that I actually feel embarrassed to be a Sonic fan, at least insofar as being a Sonic fan entails any association with Sonic Forces.

This so called 'stigma' is really just your own doing. Every fanbase has its fair share of fan content. It shouldn't come as surprise, given the sheer size of the Sonic fanbase, that there is perhaps a lot more Sonic OCs around the net compared to some other franchises. Even so, I don't think I've ever seen any community go to such links to try and ostracise its own members of what is frankly a harmless expression of creativity.

There are always a few infamous examples of OC fan art but beyond that there are also countless more sincere expressions of fan creativity that completely match the intent and tone of the Sonic franchise as a whole. Sonic Forces has become a celebration of that sincere creativity, a chance for a great many Sonic fans (and anyone else interested) to create their own OCs, within the sanitised constraints of an official character creator.