Sonic Forces E3 Trailer "The Next Generations" *Huge Spoilers in OP

[Chris Knopps]

6 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

In all seriousness though, Infinite has white hair.

Just like Dr. Finitevus.

They also kinda have similar names.

Infinite.

Finitevus.

 

Oh no.

You FOOL!! Don't you know what you're doing?! You'll ruin everything!!

-takes another look at Forces-

On second thought, please... Do go on.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

I know many hardcore Shadow fans hate it when Sonic series fans like me say the following... But I prefer Shadow being a shady jerk that's not hero or full villain. It was such a lovely sight for me seeing him being a big ol meany on Sonic Boom. I  just like him as a rival/antagonist better and not a friend. In fact i hope they come up with a reason to make him a anti-hero/antagonist and stick with it from now on. Not all character development needs to be about becoming a nicer person.

[Nepenthe]

7 minutes ago, Soniman said:

you know that all or nothing strawman logic doesnt really work right ?

Obviously I would want them to care about gameplay, since this is a video game I thought that was obvious

I'm merely extending the logic that people are using to justify the narrative issues we've gotten wind of thus far.

People are telling me that apparently it's alright to stop caring about lore and implying that my feelings towards Shadow's usage are unfounded because "it's a platformer (why is this relevant)/Sonic Team doesn't care (this isn't a fucking good thing), so why should anyone else care? Let them do literally anything with the cast so long as it's entertaining!"

Well, Forces' gameplay isn't bad-looking (to me), but it's clear as day that it's not got the passion and clarity of something like the two games I mentioned. So, should we just let them slide with that? So long as it's playable, I guess Forces is just peachy then.

3 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I know many hardcore Shadow fans hate it when Sonic series fans like me say the following... But I prefer Shadow being a shady jerk that's not hero or full villain. It was such a lovely sight for me seeing him being a big ol meany on Sonic Boom. I  just like him as a rival/antagonist better and not a friend. In fact i hope they come up with a reason to make him a anti-hero/antagonist and stick with it from now on. Not all character development needs to be about becoming a nicer person.

But that's what HIS character development was about, for literally five years of games, back-to-back-to-back. Seriously, we're acting like this didn't already happen. It did happen. Shadow was characterized from a brainwashed misanthrope to a practical hero who takes stock in his own agency. And it was finished. So why are we making him a villain again aside from irrelevant fan service?

No one is also saying he has to be super nice or anything. Shadow is not inherently an approachable person. However, him opposing Sonic just because is absolutely fucking stupid, and that's in part due to his previous development. It's like "Knuckles fell for Eggman's lies yet again and is fighting Sonic" levels of stupid.

[Chris Knopps]

3 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

I'm merely extending the logic that people are using to justify the narrative issues we've gotten wind of thus far.

People are telling me that apparently it's alright to stop caring about lore and implying that my feelings towards Shadow's usage are unfounded because "it's a platformer (why is this relevant)/Sonic Team doesn't care (this isn't a fucking good thing), so why should anyone else care? Let them do literally anything with the cast so long as it's entertaining!"

Well, Forces' gameplay isn't bad-looking (to me), but it's clear as day that it's not got the passion and clarity of something like the two games I mentioned. So, should we just let them slide with that? So long as it's playable, I guess Forces is just peachy then.

It's the Sonic franchise Nep, we really are at a point where you shouldn't care about anything. If you do, you're just going to get hurt and infuriated.

Care about nothing, hold no ties, THEN you will enjoy Sonic games again.

[Soniman]

2 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Well, Forces' gameplay isn't bad-looking (to me), but it's clear as day that it's not got the passion and clarity of something like the two games I mentioned. So, should we just let them slide with that? So long as it's playable, I guess Forces is just peachy then.

ive repeatedly disgreed with the "if better games exist, this game is worthless" logic and will continue to do so, ill let the game stand on its own

[Plasme]

13 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

You care about the plot insofar as you prefer Shadow being a bad guy than anything else, even if it contradicts lore.

I feel like if you really didn't care about the plot, you wouldn't actually have a preference either way for how he was characterized.

True, but it's only a minor preference, and mostly because I think Shadow could have a really interesting boss fight that hasn't been fully explored yet. So yes, I care about the plot to a very minor degree, but I wouldn't be that bothered about what alignment Shadow was. Again, I really want to see him as a villain for gameplay purposes.

11 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I like Metal Sonic and Chaos too, which is why I don't want them getting dragged through the mud and made into worse characters.

Then what does it matter who the villains are? Take Forces, replace the villains' character models with featureless collision boxes, and if you genuinely give no fucks about the plot and only care about the gameplay, you should enjoy it just as much.

Continuing to do stupid, player-alienating things is not any way to fix that problem.

Everything about Forces is exactly the opposite of that, though.

Metal Sonic and Chaos have never had compelling characters. Metal Sonic is almost always a mindless robot. He was different in Heroes, but he was simply rebelling against Eggman. For all we know , that could be happening now in Forces. Chaos has always been a mostly non-personality monster who wants destruction (outside of his very minor attachment to Tikal). They are thankfuily not too caught up in convoluted lore.

No. That's a ridiculous statement. Making the villains boxes is just taking away their character designs. Eggman was only the villain in Sonic 1 under the most minor of plots. He was effective because he was funny and had a cool design, it had absolutely nothing to do with plot.

Forces looks amazing. 3 brilliant refined gamestyles. It looks brilliant! The more of Forces I see, the more hyped I get

[Nepenthe]

2 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

It's the Sonic franchise Nep, we really are at a point where you shou;dn't care about anything. If you do, you're just going to get hurt and infuriated.

Care about nothing, hold no ties, THEN you will enjoy Sonic games again.

I'm not about to lower my standards to zero.

1 minute ago, Soniman said:

ive repeatedly disgreed with the "if better games exist, this game is worthless" logic and will continue to do so, ill let the game stand on its own

I've never said Forces is worthless. However, money is finite and precious for the majority of people. If you can't sell me on why I should get your game over the direct competition, even if it's not a BotW-level of a game changer, then I'm not buying it.

[Kuzu]

6 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I know many hardcore Shadow fans hate it when Sonic series fans like me say the following... But I prefer Shadow being a shady jerk that's not hero or full villain. It was such a lovely sight for me seeing him being a big ol meany on Sonic Boom. I  just like him as a rival/antagonist better and not a friend. In fact i hope they come up with a reason to make him a anti-hero/antagonist and stick with it from now on. Not all character development needs to be about becoming a nicer person.

But that's what his development was lol.

You're telling me that they should just ignore every bit of his character arc and make him an antagonist again "just because it's cool"?

[Lord-Dreamerz]

3 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

But that's what HIS character development was about, for literally five years of games, back-to-back-to-back. Seriously, we're acting like this didn't already happen. It did happen. And it was done. So why are we doing this again aside from irrelevant fan service?

What's wrong with the idea of new character development making him a worse person? I'm aware of his past lore of him becoming a better person. But sometimes even heroes can turn bad. I'm not saying he was a badguy all along. I'm saying I want them to turn him somewhat more into one.

[Wraith]

2 minutes ago, Soniman said:

ive repeatedly disgreed with the "if better games exist, this game is worthless" logic and will continue to do so, ill let the game stand on its own

If you consider it from the frame of "This game is blatantly worse than other games of the same price" then it makes sense. Even if something isn't bad it still needs to be good enough to buy.

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

What's wrong with the idea of new character development making him a worse person? I'm aware of his past lore of him becoming a better person. But sometimes even heroes can turn bad. I'm not saying he was a badguy all along. I'm saying I want them to turn him somewhat more into one.

Because his literal motivation for continuing to live and not murdering the whole planet, is that development. 

Something literally insane has to happen, for that to be justifiable. 

I'm talking about Joker killing Lois lane, so he turns into dick injustice super man levels. Rouge Died and its directly sonic and friends fault, unequivocally his friends died and it was sonic and co's fault. And even then I feel like he would go less badguy and more just insane with rage.  

[Diogenes]

9 minutes ago, Plasme said:

Metal Sonic and Chaos have never had compelling characters.

This is not reason to fuck them up further.

Like, fine, Metal Sonic being here isn't a problem, serving Eggman is what he (usually) does. But they need a damn good reason for Chaos being here, because the whole climax of Sonic Adventure was freeing him from his anger and allowing him to move on, so it makes zero sense for him to show up as a villain unless some major league bullshit is going on.

e: same goes for Shadow for the record, I only left him out of my last post because I don't really like him, not because him suddenly being evil doesn't reek of massive bullshit.

Quote

No. That's a ridiculous statement. Making the villains boxes is just taking away their character designs.

Then make up new characters with cool designs and powers if that's all you care about. No good comes from stomping all over existing characters because you want some cool looking fights.

[Plasme]

Well I for one think Forces looks amazing and this trailer has hyped me up to a huge degree.

It was probably the most badass thing I've ever seen. When Shadow put his foot down I almost gasped! And then I did gasp when Chaso came back!

[Nepenthe]

7 minutes ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

What's wrong with the idea of new character development making him a worse person? I'm aware of his past lore of him becoming a better person. But sometimes even heroes can turn bad. I'm not saying he was a badguy all along. I'm saying I want them to turn him somewhat more into one.

You would have to have a damn good reason to justify an absolute reversion in morals in Shadow's particular case. We've already seen that he's steadfast in his overall ethics and he is, by his own volition, not able to be influenced away from those ethics by anyone, probably because he's tired of anyone and everyone trying to use/brainwash him for his own ends. Him telling Mephiles "thanks but no thanks", even against warnings that humanity would turn against him in the future and that Mephiles could make that go away, was one of the biggest character-defining moments of his narrative arc because it settled the matter of what he was really about. Shadow, from that point on, was effectively a hero. That was it. It was fucking done.

Now you're telling me that all four of those games/five years of plotting was utterly meaningless?

Anything less than a Tolkien-level of explanation will be unacceptable to me. And I'm certain at this point Sonic Team cannot pull it off, or don't care to pull it off.

[Soniman]

7 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

I've never said Forces is worthless. However, money is finite and precious for the majority of people. If you can't sell me on why I should get your game over the direct competition, even if it's not a BotW-level of a game changer, then I'm not buying it.

 

7 minutes ago, Josh said:

If you consider it from the frame of "This game is blatantly worse than other games of the same price" then it makes sense. Even if something isn't bad it still needs to be good enough to buy.

Under that context it makes a lot more sense then, so thats fair, its your money

[Plasme]

Just now, Diogenes said:

Like, fine, Metal Sonic being here isn't a problem, serving Eggman is what he (usually) does. But they need a damn good reason for Chaos being here, because the whole climax of Sonic Adventure was freeing him from his anger and allowing him to move on, so it makes zero sense for him to show up as a villain unless some major league bullshit is going on.

Then make up new characters with cool designs and powers if that's all you care about. No good comes from stomping all over existing characters because you want some cool looking fights.

They don't need an amazing excuse. Just a passable enough excuse for bringing him back,

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the constraints of lore. I, and many people like me, didn't care at all about Adventure's plot. It was absolutely embarrasingly awful. Great game though! But not because of the plot. Chaos was the shining character of the game, he's far cooler than all the other awful monster of the weeks the series has introduced. I'm delighted to see him back, and I seriously don't care how this may or may not effect lore.

Chaos is cool, he could make a really cool and imaginative boss fight, he's one of the best villains this series has produced and I want him back. How this may effect Adventure's terrible story is meaningless to me.

[StaticMania]

Just now, Plasme said:

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the constraints of lore. I, and many people like me, didn't care at all about Adventure's plot. It was absolutely embarrasingly awful.

The plot was serviceable, the writing was awful...

[Chris Knopps]

How it should have happened in the trailer.

Shadow shows up, that part was fine.

Chaos drops down out of a vortex, looking around confused before noticing Sonic and jolting from the familiarity, tilting his head in a curious manner.

New enemy's hand reaches out from behind Chaos and takes control of his mind before the new enemy walks out from behind Chaos.

Zavok walks up out of another vortex.

Metal crashes down from the sky.

There you go.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

As time and dimensional travel might be on the table again... There is also the possibility that Shadow is the past version of him before he turned better. and Chaos before Sonic defeated him. And so on. Ties into my idea the new villain is Time Eater incarnate pretty good.

[Diogenes]

Just now, Plasme said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the constraints of lore. I, and many people like me, didn't care at all about Adventure's plot.

You're free to not care, but that doesn't excuse ruining it for everyone who does.

Again, I am not some lore meganerd, but there should be a bare minimum level of sense to a story, or there's no point in bothering.

[Badnik Mechanic]

2 minutes ago, Plasme said:

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the constraints of lore. I, and many people like me, didn't care at all about Adventure's plot. It was absolutely embarrasingly awful. Great game though! But not because of the plot. Chaos was the shining character of the game, he's far cooler than all the other awful monster of the weeks the series has introduced. I'm delighted to see him back, and I seriously don't care how this may or may not effect lore.

So you just like him because he looks cool then?

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Plasme said:

They don't need an amazing excuse. Just a passable enough excuse for bringing him back,

This is exactly what I'm talking about with the constraints of lore. I, and many people like me, didn't care at all about Adventure's plot. It was absolutely embarrasingly awful. Great game though! But not because of the plot. Chaos was the shining character of the game, he's far cooler than all the other awful monster of the weeks the series has introduced. I'm delighted to see him back, and I seriously don't care how this may or may not effect lore.

Chaos is cool, he could make a really cool and imaginative boss fight, he's one of the best villains this series has produced and I want him back. How this may effect Adventure's terrible story is meaningless to me.

You don't like Chaos as a villain then, you like him just because he's a cool boss fight.

And in that case, what about Chaos is any better then any other monster of the week?

[Chris Knopps]

1 minute ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

As time and dimensional travel might be on the table again... There is also the possibility that Shadow is the past version of him before he turned better.

Don't make it even more of a headache... Oy...

Two Shadow's then? No thanks.

[Nepenthe]

Not caring about the story doesn't really matter much to whether or not the series' identity was based partly in that, just like people not caring about the rolling doesn't really matter much to whether or not the series identity was defined by that. It's one thing to say one didn't like/care about, but now we're talking about throwing away yet another aspect of the franchise that once gave it a reason for being just because, regardless of its effect on the context of the series as a whole, and that's utterly offensive.

Some people don't care about the story. Okay. But why do they get precedence over determining how the franchise should be dictated for everyone else, especially when for much of its lifespan it was dictated by narrative arcs by Sonic Team's own decisions regardless?

[Multikaris]

Would anyone prefer having explanations that are completely silly or open more questions than they answer, over none at all? 

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

You're free to not care, but that doesn't excuse ruining it for everyone who does.

Again, I am not some lore meganerd, but there should be a bare minimum level of sense to a story, or there's no point in bothering.

But then again, we started off jumping on ladybugs and never truly progressed from there, only jumping on pigs, starfish, roly-polys, and frogs instead.