Sonic Forces Impressions

[Kuzu]

Not much to add, pretty much exactly what I expected out of the game. 

 

Does the game feel "finished" to you? Because this is likely what we're gonna get.

[Ayliffe]

10 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Yes; why does Sonic Team hate gameplay, fun, and also their audience?

Well I mean, their true audience is probably five-year-olds who've never played a platformer (let alone a videogame) before, so if Sonic Team's going for that they're doing a bang-up job :V

[Bobnik]

So the Cube wisp creates blocks you can climb on. That sounds pretty underwhelming.

From what I've seen in several footages, you can also slide as Avatar into enemies and kill them that way. Weird how you didn't mention that.

Anyway, thanks for the article.

[Kuzu]

7 minutes ago, Ayliffe said:

Well I mean, their true audience is probably five-year-olds who've never played a platformer (let alone a videogame) before, so if Sonic Team's going for that they're doing a bang-up job :V

The real joke is that kids don't care as much about Sonic as they think they do.

[JosepHenry]

7 minutes ago, Ayliffe said:

Well I mean, their true audience is probably five-year-olds who've never played a platformer (let alone a videogame) before, so if Sonic Team's going for that they're doing a bang-up job :V

Let's not go that way of insinuating that people who like this are all five year olds, please? 

To me the level design was made for the casuals of casuals.

[Badnik Mechanic]

8 minutes ago, Bobnik said:

From what I've seen in several footages, you can also slide as Avatar into enemies and kill them that way. Weird how you didn't mention that.

If there was any reason in the stage to do that or any indication you could do that I might have done it.

 

13 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Does the game feel "finished" to you? Because this is likely what we're gonna get.

It feels finished in a sense that 'these controls are unlikely to change, this level design won't change, the level structure is what I've come to expect now'

It seems unfinished in a sense that the levels just stop, there is no apparent ending to them. 

Take the Tag Team stage, when I first played that, my partner and I both said 'there must be more, no way that's the entire stage'

But then we found all the red star rings on that stage... that's it, that's the full stage, that is your lot.

[Shiguy]

•The Game decides when you can switch between the Avatar and Sonic in Tag Team levels.

What. The. Shit is that noise?

So You're telling me that if I wanted swap out to use Sonic in a long sterech of a hallway (a purposeful use of swaping) that I have to WAIT  until the  game says I can?

What's point of a "Tag Team"  if you can't interchange Abilites. Like what? Why? Why is it so restrictive. That completely shoots the the concept in the ASS! Why are these decisions so baffling Just...

why.

[Bobnik]

5 minutes ago, Shiguy said:

•The Game decides when you can switch between the Avatar and Sonic in Tag Team levels.

What. The. Shit is that noise?

So You're telling me that if I wanted swap out to use Sonic in a long sterech of a hallway (a purposeful use of swaping) that I have to WAIT  until the  game says I can?

What's point of a "Tag Team"  if you can't interchange Abilites. Like what? Why? Why is it so restrictive. That completely shoots the the concept in the ASS! Why are these decisions so baffling Just...

why.

I mean, there's an EDIT: column where it's explained that you can change the character by using an action button - boost for Modern and weapon/grapple for Avatar. The game "tells" when to change, but a little bit more subtly. And by "a little bit" I mean a level pretty much telling "here you can use boost. You don't have to, but there's no point in not boosting."

[Badnik Mechanic]

5 minutes ago, Shiguy said:

•The Game decides when you can switch between the Avatar and Sonic in Tag Team levels.

What. The. Shit is that noise?

So You're telling me that if I wanted swap out to use Sonic in a long sterech of a hallway (a purposeful use of swaping) that I have to WAIT  until the  game says I can?

From that same section:

Quote

Edit: Just as I was going to press, according to the Tokyo Game Show livestream, you can switch in and switch out Sonic/Avatar as the ‘leader’ but based on the stage I played there is no point in doing so, the stages seem to be clearly designed for ‘this is the Sonic part, this is the Avatar part.

Basically, up until about 20min before I published the article, I saw on one of the TGS streams that you can switch the characters. I'm convinced that after the double boost section the game auto switches to the avatar, otherwise how was I able to do that light dash?

But all it does is make one character the 'leader' there doesn't appear to be any benefits to switching at all, the Avatar can do virtually everything Sonic can do.

From what I've seen, it doesn't matter who the leader is, if you push the boost button, they'll boost, if you push the attack button for the avatar, they'll do the weapon attack.

 

Put it like this....

The start of that section is clearly Sonic related... then you get an avatar swing bit... but I NEVER once pressed the character swap button, the avatar still did the grab even though I was playing as Sonic.

Same for inside the pyramid, clearly I'm playing as the avatar, yet I'm still able to boost, even if I take the cogs I can still boost off the platform.

[SatAMhog]

If this plays the same as Generations, then I'm sold.   I'm loving the Avatar music, the concept of actually transforming old stages into corrupted versions(yeah, Sonic CD technically did it first but that was it's own game) and the story in particular.  I'm going to buy it for both the PS4 and Switch to support the series.  I know some of you guys are down on the game because it's not what you want but I'm gonna take what I can get.  We've got Mania and that was a blast.  I look forward to Forces.

[Badnik Mechanic]

8 minutes ago, SatAMhog said:

If this plays the same as Generations, then I'm sold.   I'm loving the Avatar music, the concept of actually transforming old stages into corrupted versions(yeah, Sonic CD technically did it first but that was it's own game) and the story in particular.  I'm going to buy it for both the PS4 and Switch to support the series.  I know some of you guys are down on the game because it's not what you want but I'm gonna take what I can get.  We've got Mania and that was a blast.  I look forward to Forces.

Maybe instead of complaining that my article is too long you should actually read what I wrote and then you'd understand why the game is not great instead of assuming 'it's just not what we wanted.'

[TheOcelot]

It baffles me how anyone at Sonic Team thinks Forces has good design. You'd think they'd understand good design, just look at Mania! ...and yet we're getting the same old rubbish over and over again. How can they not see how boring it looks, how uninteresting the gameplay and level design is and how bad the physics are (jumping and momentum etc)?!

It feels like Sonic Team is being forced to make these lackluster titles.

7

 

@Mayor D 

So erm, how did the drop-dash feel with classic Sonic? Not that you had much room to praactice (in a boss arena).

[Badnik Mechanic]

Just now, TheOcelot said:

 

@Mayor D 

So erm, how did the drop-dash feel with classic Sonic? Not that you had much room to praactice (in a boss arena).

Didn't ever use it, completely forgot it was even in the game and I don't remember seeing it on the move list that Sega had by the pods.

[Shiguy]

At very least I expected the game to incorperate SOME form of varience that has the game compliment the two gameplay styles, even at the most bare minimum it's something.

But if it just boils down to, "here's Sonic's section. It's there", "Here's the avatar section. It's there" then why bother with the Tag Team gimmick in the first place?

Heroes had a similar problem but at the very least the character abilites, and level design were varied enough to justify using them. If Forces makes it look that braindead simplistic and mindless then why even include it at all?

[Detective Kaito]

The article you wrote was pretty interesting. It's sad that every time something new gets revealed or noticed about this game, I get more and more disappointed with it. These 4 years of development time (or waiting, for us) was not worth it.

And btw, Aaron Webber explained in a video that in Tag Team, the Avatar and Sonic's abilities aren't separate, but combined. You don't have to switch between them like in Sonic Heroes. Tag Team is just literally the Avatar but with Sonic's boost, that's the only difference.

[Graystripe2000]

He might have the stomp too.

[Dr. Detective]

It's telling that I'm on the internet too long when I start to feel sad reading an article about a video game. Like actual sadness and not just passive "Well that sucks". 

It's worse considering all the stuff with the story and characters are things I'm loving. Either take that out so I can be fully on board the hate train or put the gameplay and level design elements back in so we can all be happy.

One of those is a strong desire. The other is more plausible. 

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Mayor D said:

Well I once asked Tim Spencer this in a bar once.

"So I imagine this happens a lot when people make a game, the developers are told 'OK, we are making a game, it is going to be like this, it will do this, and it will do this. Everybody please work on this.'

In the corner, sat perfectly still, is a clown, and the leader of the project says 'everybody, ignore the clown, do not do anything that the clown tells you'

For months, the team works on the game, they get it working really well... then all of a sudden the clown yells

"COMBAT MECHANICS! PLATFORM MECHANICS! BONUS FEATURES!"

Everybody stops what they're doing and does what the clown says.

The game is released and the project leader says... I thought I told you people to ignore the clown?"

 

He looked at me and said.

 

"You're wrong, there are multiple clowns"

did he then say " Several of the clowns might be people in charge so they can't actively deny the clowns" because if so then that's about how i imagine that

[Badnik Mechanic]

4 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

did he then say " Several of the clowns might be people in charge so they can't actively deny the clowns" because if so then that's about how i imagine that

I cannot confirm or deny the existence or stature of the clowns!

[Jango]

This impression made me appreciate Heroes a bit more, which is fine in my book, I love me some Sonic Heroes.

[TargetWatch]

13 minutes ago, Jango said:

This impression made me appreciate Heroes a bit more, which is fine in my book, I love me some Sonic Heroes.

Me too my friend, me too. 

 

[Sonikko]

I just read the article @Mayor D, it pretty much confirmed what I was expecting. All those issues were very obvious to point out already, but I was still looking forward to your write up.

Welp I guess I'll stick with skipping this one until it's less than 10€ or in a Humble Bundle.

EDIT: By the way, can you confirm that the drift is completely automatic now? That's what it looks like to me from gameplay videos.

[Gabz Girl]

56 minutes ago, Detective Kaito said:

The article you wrote was pretty interesting. It's sad that every time something new gets revealed or noticed about this game, I get more and more disappointed with it. These 4 years of development time were not worth it.

The more I see and hear of this game, the more I believe that Sonic Forces really didn't take four years to make. It certainly doesn't LOOK like something that took four years to make.

Someone from Sonic Retro hinted a few years ago that the game Sonic Team was making would not feature parkour or Boost gameplay. It makes me wonder if they had some prototypes going before eventually abandoning them after Sonic Lost World or even Sonic Boom's failure and going the super safe route of Not!Generations 2 with gimmicks.

Anyway, great write up Mayor D! It's certainly confirmed my "wait for reviews" approach with Sonic Forces. Bloody shame that. =/

[Detective Kaito]

Just now, Gabz Girl said:

The more I see and hear of this game, the more I believe that Sonic Forces really didn't take four years to make. It certainly doesn't LOOK like something that took four years to make.

Someone from Sonic Retro hinted a few years ago that the game Sonic Team was making a couple would not feature parkour or Boost gameplay. It makes me wonder if they had some prototypes going before eventually abandoning them after Sonic Lost World or even Sonic Boom's failure and going the super safe route of Not!Generations 2 with gimmicks.

Anyway, great write up Mayor D! It's certainly confirmed my "wait for reviews" approach with Sonic Forces. 

Scratch that. Let's say 4 years of waiting for a new 3D Sonic game. If Sonic really did have a new gameplay style that didn't feature the boost or parkour, then I'd be really interested in seeing it. It was the main reason many people were excited to see how Modern Sonic will play before they revealed that it's just the boost once again.

Next Sonic game maybe?

[Sonikko]

4 minutes ago, Gabz Girl said:

The more I see and hear of this game, the more I believe that Sonic Forces really didn't take four years to make. It certainly doesn't LOOK like something that took four years to make.

Someone from Sonic Retro hinted a few years ago that the game Sonic Team was making a couple would not feature parkour or Boost gameplay. It makes me wonder if they had some prototypes going before eventually abandoning them after Sonic Lost World or even Sonic Boom's failure and going the super safe route of Not!Generations 2 with gimmicks.

Anyway, great write up Mayor D! It's certainly confirmed my "wait for reviews" approach with Sonic Forces. 

I definitely remember that and I've been pointing it out for a while now.

I think there are two possible outcomes here.

In 2013 a member on Retro, as you said, mentioned a new working prototype unlike anything done before, neither LW or Boost stuff.

In the meantime they were already working on the Hedgehog Engine 2, which would take some time from development.

If you guys remember, Hunnid P said he was working for a Sonic project during ~2014, and Crush 40 teased a vocal theme for the next big Sonic game in ~2015 iirc. 

Now, if you take in consideration that Forces is evidently a low budget effort, with its low pricepoint, reused assets and scarcity of content all around, there is probably an undisclosed project on which they're working on behind the curtains.

I believe this is a Colours/Generations situation, maybe next year we'll have a new big release that doesn't suck this bad. Or at least I hope.

OR that game has been scrapped in the end and we're stuck with Forces for the next two years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.