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Sonic Forces Impressions


Badnik Mechanic

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Even as someone not exactly pumped for Forces, reading some positive impressions is still nice, actually. Gives me some much-needed hope for the game.

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I must be the only one who doesn't really give a damn about Green Hill Zone appearing again In Forces. To me it's a tradition for a Green Hill esque level to start off a Sonic game. Chemical Plant Zone is questionable...especially since we're coming off Sonic Mania.

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I'm starting to get used to CPZ and GHZ as recurring locations, and people really liked back when Angel Island was recurring. I hope they manage to execute these as well as they did with Angel Island back in the day. They have a nice idea with GHZ being a stronghold undergoing desertification, the robotic spider crab, and especially that pyramid base at the end. But Eggman's clown music is a concern. But CPZ from the shots barely looks frozen over. 

 

It's also nice to hear that they're not using the same old themes again, but I kinda want to hear one of the other GHZ songs re-used, not just the familiar melody. For example, the versions from Drift and Blast to me sound especially nice. There's also the versions from Jump, Chronicles, and Dimensions. 

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Aah, Chemical Plant, yesss! I honestly can't wait to see stages like Sky Sanctuary, Lava Reef, Oil Ocean and Metallic Madness to be revealed. And Flying Battery.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the negative previews come from the Switch version? Not surprising.

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11 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

Even as someone not exactly pumped for Forces, reading some positive impressions is still nice, actually. Gives me some much-needed hope for the game.

 Actually, I was thinking the same, since I'll be on sick leave due to my foot surgery in November - December, I'm probably going to get Forces to enjoy my convalescence.

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If Forces end up being terrible/mediocre by the critics...

Just like Sonic '06. Just like Unleashed (scrapped almost everything BUT...). Just like Lost World. They'll give up on the boost gameplay. 

It's clear that they ran out of ideas with boost, especially when you have a lot of 2D stuff in the game.

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2 minutes ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

If Forces end up being terrible/mediocre by the critics...

Just like Sonic '06. Just like Unleashed (scrapped almost everything BUT...). Just like Lost World. They'll give up on the boost gameplay. 

It's clear that they ran out of ideas with boost.

Thing is though, they don't really even need any new ideas. Like legit i'd be more than okay with a game where we just got generations but "better". Better level design, more varied stage obstacles, less reliance on 2D, etc., this game right now is pretty much the exact opposite of this and it really baffles me as to how they could have this game under wraps for so long, SO LONG, and yet STILL not have anything worth showing from it. Like I never believed in the cynicism aimed at sonic team before this game but after seeing all this gameplay footage I find myself sadly having to agree with it all and these problems have always been there but I felt like we were going to start seeing better things from them but I guess...I was wrong.

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On 03/10/2017 at 4:58 PM, Operationgamer17 said:

Another impressions article. This time from GameReactor.

https://www.gamereactor.eu/previews/595673/Sonic+Forces+-+TGS+Impressions/?page=1

It's very... Stating the obvious. They're quite positive about the game, but they don't really talk about what they like in any detail. 

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On 26/09/2017 at 1:14 AM, Mayor D said:

It's not anything that's in Forces, so it wouldn't spoil the game if I said it, the issue is more of respect nature.

Like I know a ton of stuff about ASRT that even the data miners have not found, but I've not ever told anyone the stuff I know because I said I wouldn't for a good number of years.

This one I had no such restriction on what I was told so in theory I could do but probably won't go into major detail because it would be a kinda bad thing to do.

Though when people are saying 'something must have happened, they're not far off.'

I figured there was a lil' summin summin going on with this game and its development. It just feels off. If at some stage you do decide to reveal what you know I would most certainly be interested in hearing what happened.

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1 hour ago, Scar said:

I figured there was a lil' summin summin going on with this game and its development. It just feels off. If at some stage you do decide to reveal what you know I would most certainly be interested in hearing what happened.

If you check the Chemical Plant topic, Mayor D has a post in there with more details.

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2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

It's very... Stating the obvious. They're quite positive about the game, but they don't really talk about what they like in any detail. 

That's true. They didn't talk about the sky being too grey in Chemical Plant, the lack of enemies in Casino Forest, or the boost pads in Green Hill.

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11 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

That's true. They didn't talk about the sky being too grey in Chemical Plant, the lack of enemies in Casino Forest, or the boost pads in Green Hill.

Those aren't nitpicks lmao.

Boostpads in Green Hill show a lack of knowledge on how to build Sonic level design, not to mention the complete lack of physics and momentum.

The lack of enemies in Casino Forest underlines the fact that enemies are just a prop in this game, standing there withouth purpose, so much that you can build a level without them and still have it be the same as the rest.

The art direction is also all over the place, they stripped away all the colours from Chemical Plant, it's now "frozen" yet it looks so dull and overall bad, the frozen theme isn't played well, it resembles CP enough to feel old, but not enough to be missing what makes CP great in the first place. Nobody did notice it was frozen until they stated it. That's how bad the execution is.

If those are minor issues to you I don't know what to say. they span from gameplay to level design to artstyle and they're all pretty fair and legit. 

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3 hours ago, Ming Ming Hatsune said:

If Forces end up being terrible/mediocre by the critics...

Just like Sonic '06. Just like Unleashed (scrapped almost everything BUT...). Just like Lost World. They'll give up on the boost gameplay. 

It's clear that they ran out of ideas with boost, especially when you have a lot of 2D stuff in the game.

A new gameplay style shows up then years later, "Bring the boost back! This new style has run its course". 

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8 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

If those are minor issues to you I don't know what to say. they span from gameplay to level design to artstyle and they're all pretty fair and legit. 

I'd say these are minor issues to the general consumer. General consumer won't really care if there's an overabundance of boostpads, blocky platforming or w/e. I'm not dismissing criticism, I'm just saying to general audience (who I think ST are trying to go for) these sound like nitpicks.

 

But whatever, what do THEY know about vidyagaems, amirite? (that was a joke, I hate this sort of elitism myself)

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4 minutes ago, Bobnik said:

I'd say these are minor issues to the general consumer. General consumer won't really care if there's an overabundance of boostpads, blocky platforming or w/e. I'm not dismissing criticism, I'm just saying to general audience (who I think ST are trying to go for) these sound like nitpicks.

 

But whatever, what do THEY know about vidyagaems, amirite? (that was a joke, I hate this sort of elitism myself)

I mean, the general gaming public kind of see Sonic as a laughingstock as it is, and game design like this isn't doing the franchise's reputation any favors.

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11 minutes ago, Jack the Rookie said:

That's true. They didn't talk about the sky being too grey in Chemical Plant, the lack of enemies in Casino Forest, or the boost pads in Green Hill.

Give it a rest. Why are you trying to get a rise?

It's a positive article. I don't have any qualms with that. I just would have liked to have heard what they liked in particular, rather than a glorified blurb. I'd have had the same reaction if it was a negative article with a no real explanation. And you know as well as I do that this community gets upset when the press says something bad about Sonic.

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1 minute ago, Bobnik said:

I'd say these are minor issues to the general consumer. General consumer won't really care if there's an overabundance of boostpads, blocky platforming or w/e. I'm not dismissing criticism, I'm just saying to general audience (who I think ST are trying to go for) these sound like nitpicks.

 

But whatever, what do THEY know about vidyagaems, amirite? (that was a joke, I hate this sort of elitism myself)

I get your point, you're right.

Not everyone has to look at a product and analyze it and be critic about it, but it's still not fair to dismiss legit criticism just because they don't care about it!

It was also a sarcastic answer that wasn't really necessary since it can be counterargumented pretty easily.

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12 minutes ago, Bobnik said:

I'd say these are minor issues to the general consumer. General consumer won't really care if there's an overabundance of boostpads, blocky platforming or w/e. I'm not dismissing criticism, I'm just saying to general audience (who I think ST are trying to go for) these sound like nitpicks.

I don't know about that. They probably wouldn't be picking out those kinds of issues themselves. They might dismiss them as nitpicks, just hearing the criticism out of context.

But I think they'd feel the effects.

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23 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't know about that. They probably wouldn't be picking out those kinds of issues themselves. They might dismiss them as nitpicks, just hearing the criticism out of context.

But I think they'd feel the effects.

I dunno, the main question people who aren't critical (or as I'd consider them "general audience") ask themselves is "does the game look fun/is the game fun?" If the answer to that is yes, then they don't really care about most of the complaints/criticisms more critical people have(unless the game is technically riddled with bugs that ruin the experience). That's what I notice quite a lot - people who are playing games and aren't critical frankly don't care that much about what other people on the Internet are saying. Hell, my dad likes ME:Andromeda despite all the flak that's been going on about it and my own opinion on this, cuz he doesn't care if facial animations are shit or not, if the dialogue is poorly written or not, he just wants to shoot people. Just like general audience who aren't that critical just want to play a new Sonic game and don't really care that much about other people's criticism even with given context. Cuz it doesn't bother them as much as it does people who are more critical about different aspects.

 

I don't know, do I make sense?

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Someone like me can agree to a bit of that sentiment. I don't catch any of the stuff you guys do when you slow down footage and draw red circles around the little things you pick out of the gameplay. Often, one Classic Sonic stage really doesn't look much different from the last Classic Sonic stage I've seen. I can't be fucked to tell you the difference between a Green Hill from Sonic 1 to a Green Hill from Mania. Shit looks the same to me.

However, even though I've generally been "alright" with the boost pads, stuff like the blockiness of Sonic Colors was a major deterrent for how my experience unfolded. I wasn't quite sure at the time why I wasn't having as much fun  as I did with Unleashed but the game constantly impeding me from having fun with the way it was designed on top of the fact that the 2D perspective isn't something I'm typically enamoured with in general (for any game, not just Sonic) made the overabundance of it reduce the amount of fun I had, and put an extreme damper on the experience going forward. 

Believe it or not, and I've said this before too, gameplay actually does play an extremely important part in determining how well the ebb and flow of the narrative comes across to the player. 

If I don't feel like I'm in control of the character I'm playing or if the environment is filled with more blocks and cubes then a goddamn igloo then there's a good chance the overall experience and the way I view how the game is played will suffer. 

There's times when people like to scoff at others for saying they play games because they want to have an "experience" but they often forget that we're still counting the gameplay as a large part of a cohesive whole. It's why we don't just stick to movies and anime to get our fix. The interactivity of that experience needs to be right in order to get that whole thing across correctly. That's why even if Sonic 06's story wasn't absolute pants the game would still be a complete and utterly exhausting piece of shit in my eyes. 

Now, truthfully, the criticism that Forces is receiving isn't landing it in a position to where I think I won't enjoy myself. I've seen enough and know enough about myself and the way I play Sonic to know I'll have fun and enjoy myself fine. That doesn't mean I'm not aware of the problems. It doesn't mean I'm letting the issues slide. And it certainly doesn't mean don't want them do better.

I've seen them do better. So despite being open enough to admit that I'm still very much looking forward to the game you're damn sure not going to see me defend it.

 

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Attack of the Fanboy - Sonic Forces on the Nintendo Switch is a bit of the mess

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Sonic Forces has a lot of interesting ideas, and while I definitely appreciate Sega’s will for variety in this 25th-anniversary installment, Forces seems to have less competence than some of its predecessors. None of these modes, no matter how much they attempt to spice up the classic Sonic formula, feel great to play. Forces is nowhere near as memorable as some of the earlier games, it feels like a Poundland Christmas Selection Box whereas all the other kids are getting the tastier, not-much-more-expensive Cadbury’s ones.

On Nintendo Switch, Sonic Forces is even worse. It’s a mediocre demo wrapped in a currently terrible port. During my time with the game, Forces was one of the worst performing games I’ve played on the system so far. Input lag felt large with jumps taking almost half a second to register which is obviously not the best for a fast-paced platformer such as this. Framerate was also wildly inconsistent, shifting between thirty and sixty, sometimes barely reaching the former. Compared the what I got to see of the PS4 and Xbox One versions, Forces’ Switch port definitely suffers from the lower spec hardware.
That said, the game does still look fantastic on the Switch which managed to impress me heavily. It may not be as impressively gorgeous as the upcoming Mario Odyssey—oh look, Sonic vs Mario arguments in 2017—but environments and main character models do look fantastic in their 720p presentation.

GameGrin - EGX 2017: Sonic Forces Preview

 

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Custom characters are making their first appearance in Sonic Forces. Labelled ‘Avatars’ in game, the character builder used to create them offered little customisation, although this was only the EGX build so it may be more expansive in the full release. The ability to change your Avatar’s chosen ability was a nice touch, even if it doesn’t affect overall game play that much. Unfortunately, the poor character control overshadowed the feature. Much like Sonic, the Avatar characters aren’t fun to play due to their sluggish controls.

Based on what I played at EGX, Sonic Forces will likely be received as just another mediocre to poor Sonic game that had potential. I think the criticism levelled at the title might be harsher than normal, considering Forces release proximity to Mania. I could be wrong and Forces may release to critical reception and fanfare, at this point though, that’s unlikely.

 

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20 hours ago, Monkey Destruction Switch said:

Even as someone not exactly pumped for Forces, reading some positive impressions is still nice, actually. Gives me some much-needed hope for the game.

Same

I don't want any game, to fail really. Failure never really breeds the magical results people want, especially with sega. So It makes me kinda hopefuly when i see good previews. Because it makes me think this game might be kinda ok. 

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