Sonic Forces Release Date Possibly Leaked - [Nov 7 2017]

[Milo]

14 hours ago, NoKaine said:

*Sonic Forces is $60* What the hell, why is this shit so expensive when I can get Mania for peanuts?

*Sonic Forces is ~$60* What the hell, why is this shit so cheap, does Sonic Team have no confidence in this game?

We're not a hivemind.

1 hour ago, NoKaine said:

If it's going to be anything like the previous games-- like the one it's explicitly based off of-- I don't see how it being short is embarrassing, nor that the amount of time put into it means anything for the content. Hopefully that time's spent making the game better, not bloating it with "content" because it's been decided somewhere that games need to be x hours long.

You have no idea how much "effort" been put into it, and I don't see why it's suddenly bad for the anniversary title to be short, as if the last one wasn't.

Generations (assuming that's the game you're referring to) only had 18 levels --roughly split between Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic-- and a handful of boss fights; and outside the main campaign you were only left with a collection of small missions based within those existing levels. Even at the time of release, the game was considered well on the short side in content; and not because the game didn't have over 100 levels at your disposal.

Moreover, that was a game released at a time when Sonic Team were still split into groups churning out a Sonic game every year--the game was released back-to-back following 2010's Colors, 2009's Black Knight, and 2008's Unleashed. Whereas Forces will be the first major game from Sonic Team since Lost World almost four years ago.

[Cornelius Fudge]

58 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

If it's going to be anything like the previous games-- like the one it's explicitly based off of-- I don't see how it being short is embarrassing, nor that the amount of time put into it means anything for the content. Hopefully that time's spent making the game better, not bloating it with "content" because it's been decided somewhere that games need to be x hours long.

You have no idea how much "effort" been put into it, and I don't see why it's suddenly bad for the anniversary title to be short, as if the last one wasn't.

You act as if everything we saw in the game means that the time was spent making the game better. If anything, the reason why it's not being "bloated" with content is because there's so much emphasis on spectacle instead of providing actual content.

After four years of development time, I would hope that the game didn't have barren gameplay and lack of content with the only thing that ties things together are its visuals, but here we are.

 

[Celestia]

All recent main Sonic games (aside from maybe Unleashed simply cuz of how much content there was) should have been less than $60 anyway. And I say that as someone who loves those games and doesn't mind that they're shorter.

So yeah, the way I see it, if that is indeed the game's price...this is actually a decent move on SEGA's part even if it's kinda late.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So I heard someone was convinced that the game was bad because it had a low price.

https://www.sonicstadium.org/2011/06/uk-online-retailers-already-offering-big-discounts-on-sonic-generations/

Lol.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

You'd think people thought Generations was a bad game anyway, honestly

[Sephy]

So...I was about to make a topic about this..but I don't know if it was already posted.

Sonic Forces Day One Edition for PS4 and Xbox One in Amazon Spain

And the content of this Day One edition, according to xtralife.es, is:

- 6 accesories for the custom character base on classic SEGA franchises: Jet Set Radio, Nights Into Dreams, Super Monkey Ball and Puyo-Puyo Tetris.

- 4 concept art cards

And the game, of course xD.

[Dannymax440]

4 hours ago, Sephy said:

So...I was about to make a topic about this..but I don't know if it was already posted.

Sonic Forces Day One Edition for PS4 and Xbox One in Amazon Spain

And the content of this Day One edition, according to xtralife.es, is:

- 6 accesories for the custom character base on classic SEGA franchises: Jet Set Radio, Nights Into Dreams, Super Monkey Ball and Puyo-Puyo Tetris.

- 4 concept art cards

And the game, of course xD.

Curious to see how they'll be used as clothes and/or weapons. Is there any chance the Switch version will get any Nintendo-themed DLC like Lost World did?

[Cornelius Fudge]

I do have some good news. Apparently, it seems as though Force's price is going to $40 just for preordering the game, so it could even be cheaper on release:

https://www.base.com/buy/product/sonic-forces-nintendo-switch/dgc-sonicfns.htm

I wasn't so eager to pay for Sonic Forces with Mario Odyssey coming out a week or so prior, but the price has certainly convinced me otherwise. I was honestly expecting it to be $50 or so.

[NoKaine]

On 7/28/2017 at 10:21 PM, Yeow said:

We're not a hivemind.

I see some tight overlap, though.

Quote

Generations (assuming that's the game you're referring to) only had 18 levels --roughly split between Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic-- and a handful of boss fights; and outside the main campaign you were only left with a collection of small missions based within those existing levels. Even at the time of release, the game was considered well on the short side in content; and not because the game didn't have over 100 levels at your disposal.

Yeah. I know. That's my point. No one cared that Generations was short. Not to the point of lowering the quality of the game or that there was less effort.

On 7/28/2017 at 10:22 PM, Cornelius Fudge said:

You act as if everything we saw in the game means that the time was spent making the game better. If anything, the reason why it's not being "bloated" with content is because there's so much emphasis on spectacle instead of providing actual content.

"Oh well I've seen like four levels so it's obvious that three entire worlds of the game went into making that crab sequence for the Avatar in Gereen Hill. Obviously."

Quote

After four years of development time, I would hope that the game didn't have barren gameplay and lack of content with the only thing that ties things together are its visuals, but here we are.

After decades of Sonic games I would hope we would care more about having a good Sonic game and not a lot of Sonic game but alright.

"Barren gameplay" Again, so, did Generations and Colors suddenly turn to shit under my nose?

[Cornelius Fudge]

Just now, NoKaine said:

I see some tight overlap, though.

Yeah. I know. That's my point. No one cared that Generations was short. Not to the point of lowering the quality of the game or that there was less effort.

"Oh well I've seen like four levels so it's obvious that three entire worlds of the game went into making that crab sequence for the Avatar in Gereen Hill. Obviously."

After decades of Sonic games I would hope we would care more about having a good Sonic game and not a lot of Sonic game but alright.

"Barren gameplay" Again, so, did Generations and Colors suddenly turn to shit under my nose?

They created an entirely new Hedgehog Engine presumably to keep up with the increased level of detail in the stages. It's apparent in what they've shown. We have actual cutscenes shown in the Infinite Trailer and a more detailed and dynamic background which was corroborated by the amount of detail present in Park Avenue. The spider sequence is really just the icing on the cake.

Generations expanded upon the Boost Formula whereas Colors had unique ways to execute the wisps and plenty of area and hidden passages to explore in the game. Forces has none of this. It took qualities present in Colors without understanding what made Colors so great to begin with.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

8 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

It took qualities present in Colors without understanding what made Colors so great to begin with.

I'm not so sure this is the case. If we're talking about Sonic specifically, the only carryovers from Colors were a more limited boost via the white wisps, and the double jump. If we're talking about the other wisps, only the Avatar uses those, and the wispons don't work exactly like the wisps in Colors, either.

On the subject of content, I agree that the levels we see are smaller and shallower, but if there is actually a fuckload of them, it won't really matter. It's about replayability, and if you give the player enough time between doing each stage for replaying one of them to be a somewhat new experience, even if just to find another red ring, it won't be too much of a difference.

[Cornelius Fudge]

2 minutes ago, Shaddy the guy said:

I'm not so sure this is the case. If we're talking about Sonic specifically, the only carryovers from Colors were a more limited boost via the white wisps, and the double jump. If we're talking about the other wisps, only the Avatar uses those, and the wispons don't work exactly like the wisps in Colors, either.

That's exactly what I meant. It took the basic Boost formula present in Colors in addition to its 2D platforming and left behind what made Colors a satisfying game. The wisps opened up the areas and showed creativity in how they were executed to reach these hidden areas. This is what I believe made Colors that great and was something that the development team had forsaken.

[NoKaine]

19 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

They created an entirely new Hedgehog Engine presumably to keep up with the increased level of detail in the stages.

Well, no, more like they made a new Hedgehog Engine because the last one is almost 10 years old and they're working on better hardware for the first time (they're actually really late in the generation). The engine making the game look better is kind of expected. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a new engine.

Quote

Generations expanded upon the Boost Formula

It didn't expand much besides making the controls and level design better. Hell, Colors didn't approve that much either. The actual gameplay? It's been roughly the same, only that ST could actually work on it and make it better.

Quote

Colors had unique ways to execute the wisps and plenty of area and hidden passages to explore in the game.

Forces has unique ways of executing wisps. How do you know what the level design of levels you haven't seen yet are like? If anything, because it has Colors' mechanic of locking out wisps until you get them later in the game, it'll be closer to Colors than anything like Lost World.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

6 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

That's exactly what I meant. It took the basic Boost formula present in Colors in addition to its 2D platforming and left behind what made Colors a satisfying game. The wisps opened up the areas and showed creativity in how they were executed to reach these hidden areas. This is what I believe made Colors that great and was something that the development team had forsaken.

Uh, but if they put the wisps in modern Sonic's gameplay, people would bitch about it.

There's proof right on this forum. Before we knew they were exclusive to the Avatar, plenty did bitch when they saw the white wisps and assumed the other colors were there.

[Milo]

57 minutes ago, NoKaine said:

Yeah. I know. That's my point. No one cared that Generations was short. Not to the point of lowering the quality of the game or that there was less effort.

Actually, quite a few people did. Some people, while saying Generations was a good game, did also complain that the game was too short. You can actually do that, you know.

If nobody cared, people would had not brought it up in the first place.

[NoKaine]

9 minutes ago, Yeow said:

If nobody cared, people would had not brought it up in the first place.

They bring it up as a criticism but not a "oh my god SEGA's so lazy it's embarrassing" comment.

People are disappointed in short Sonic games but most accept and understand that it's 1) the nature of the games and 2) that what ST would do to make a game LONGER isn't going to make it BETTER.

The comment I first replied to makes arbitrary statements (arbitrary for the length and content of the game, to be specific) like "this game was in development for four years", as if that mattered. People legitimately think the game is going to be bad, or SEGA has no confidence in the game, because it's cheaper / shorter or just as short as other games.

[Milo]

1 minute ago, NoKaine said:

The comment I first replied to makes arbitrary statements (arbitrary for the length and content of the game, to be specific) like "this game was in development for four years", as if that mattered. People legitimately think the game is going to be bad, or SEGA has no confidence in the game, because it's cheaper / shorter.

The development time of the game in correlation to the game's content does matter, though. It's pretty much a given that the more time a studio has to work on a game, the more time they have to make it a better product--including, but not limited to, making the game have an adequate amount of material to extend the game's lasting appeal.

This the first game in decades Sonic Team has had more than two years at most to work on a Sonic game. Naturally, most would expect the game to at least be an improvement over the other games on all fronts as a result of that. And honestly--given what we've seen and know about this game so far, the concerns people have about Forces' content are likely just the least of their problems they have with Forces. How many levels or endgame material the game has is just a piece of the overall bigger picture.

[MegasonicZX]

1 hour ago, Shaddy the guy said:

On the subject of content, I agree that the levels we see are smaller and shallower, but if there is actually a fuckload of them, it won't really matter. It's about replayability, and if you give the player enough time between doing each stage for replaying one of them to be a somewhat new experience, even if just to find another red ring, it won't be too much of a difference.

Not really, I mean if the stages individually aren't that fun to play it won't really matter if there are a lot of them because more often than not I feel like most people would only come back to the few that are good and i'd rather they not do a "sonic colors" again and give us a bunch of stages but only a few really end up being all that engaging.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Well that's ok, Forces looks fun enough, Colors was too. I'm just saying brevity didn't help Colors, and it won't help Forces either.

[rosedust]

I just want it to  come out, I'm way too hyped!

[MegasonicZX]

2 hours ago, Shaddy the guy said:

Well that's ok, Forces looks fun enough, Colors was too. I'm just saying brevity didn't help Colors, and it won't help Forces either.

I mean i'm not saying it won't be fun or anything in some ways but I'd prefer a shorter level list with high quality levels rather than everything to be spread thin for the sake of making the level count bigger. Obviously, something a bit larger than generations or the classics but unless they can manage to make all the levels really good (like DKC:TF for example which had good amounts of levels and they were all really well designed) i'd rather they keep it more focused.

[Cornelius Fudge]

8 hours ago, Shaddy the guy said:

Uh, but if they put the wisps in modern Sonic's gameplay, people would bitch about it.

There's proof right on this forum. Before we knew they were exclusive to the Avatar, plenty did bitch when they saw the white wisps and assumed the other colors were there.

 That's because we want Sega to be ambitious and constantly improve instead of resorting to the same tactics. If they were opting to recreate the same enjoyment found in Colors, then they did it wrong by stripping away the only thing that made Colors great, the wisps and how they were executed for exploration. This doesn't mean many of us want to see them return for the same reason why many gamers do not want to see Nintendo constantly trying to recreate Ocarina of Time despite its former glory because we want innovation and something entirely new. Trying to recreate Colors even with the wisps would be like Twilight Princess which was received negatively despite being similar to Ocarina of Time and in some ways, even better. What I'm saying here is that we want something new, so being disillusioned with a potential return of the wisps is understandable, but recreating a more hollow form of Colors for Modern Sonic when the features Forces stole were not that good to begin with is not.

That being said, the argument that the opposition made was that Forces does not have barren gameplay (from what we've seen) since it closely resembles Generation and Colors and I contested that by arguing that it was essentially a barren form of Colors by removing the creativity and depth of exploration that Colors actually added through the wisps. Does this imply that I want to see the wisps return? Of course not. I want Forces to expand on everything Generations did right, but all I'm asserting here is that the comparison that was made between Forces and Colors was inherently flawed.

Edit: And by what standard are you comparing Forces to would actually compel you to say Forces is "good enough"? I would say that it's good enough to be a 7, but frankly, I don't want Forces to be a 7/10. I want it to be an 8-9/10 at the very least and what Forces has shown isn't "good enough". Forces will have stiff competition with Mario Odyssey among other games. If it's merely good enough to be a 7/10, then that's not going to do it compared to its competition IMO.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

9 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

 That's because we want Sega to be ambitious and constantly improve instead of resorting to the same tactics. If they were opting to recreate the same enjoyment found in Colors, then they did it wrong by stripping away the only thing that made Colors great, the wisps and how they were executed for exploration. This doesn't mean many of us want to see them return for the same reason why many gamers do not want to see Nintendo constantly trying to recreate Ocarina of Time despite its former glory because we want innovation and something entirely new. Trying to recreate Colors even with the wisps would be like Twilight Princess which was received negatively despite being similar to Ocarina of Time and in some ways, even better. What I'm saying here is that we want something new, so being disillusioned with a potential return of the wisps is understandable, but recreating a more hollow form of Colors for Modern Sonic when the features Forces stole were not that good to begin with is not.

If they were trying to recreate Colors enjoyment, I'd suppose they'd actually copy Colors? People have been asking for a more limited boost for years, and Sonic's double jump was in Lost World too (which tried to do precisely the opposite of Forces in it's copying Colors, and only didn't fail wholesale because the wisps were optional).

10 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

That being said, the argument that the opposition made was that Forces does not have barren gameplay (from what we've seen) since it closely resembles Generation and Colors and I contested that by arguing that it was essentially a barren form of Colors by removing the creativity and depth of exploration that Colors actually added through the wisps. Does this imply that I want to see the wisps return? Of course not. I want Forces to expand on everything Generations did right, but all I'm asserting here is that the comparison that was made between Forces and Colors was inherently flawed.

I would say the comparison is flawed. The gameplay's much more fluid in 2D and 3D than Colors' more stilted design. And either way, it looks more like it's trying to be Generations with controls that combine Gens with Lost World.

11 minutes ago, Cornelius Fudge said:

Edit: And by what standard are you comparing Forces to would actually compel you to say Forces is "good enough"? I would say that it's good enough to be a 7, but frankly, I don't want Forces to be a 7/10. I want it to be an 8-9/10 at the very least and what Forces has shown isn't "good enough". Forces will have stiff competition with Mario Odyssey among other games. If it's merely good enough to be a 7/10, then that's not going to do it compared to its competition IMO.

I said Colors and Forces (probably) are both fun enough, meaning that they're something that does enough things right to be fun.

Also, attaching numerical values to game enjoyment is the death of critique and journalism, but that's neither here or there.

[Soniman]

I appreciate, if this lowered price is to be believed, that sonic team are admitting their short ass games arent worth the full 60 dollar price tag in this day and age but aat the same time im kinda pissed they flat out admit that this is going to be yet another 3-4 hour romp which means this is all they have to show after 4 years of development, way to go guys

[Cornelius Fudge]

29 minutes ago, Shaddy the guy said:

If they were trying to recreate Colors enjoyment, I'd suppose they'd actually copy Colors? People have been asking for a more limited boost for years, and Sonic's double jump was in Lost World too (which tried to do precisely the opposite of Forces in it's copying Colors, and only didn't fail wholesale because the wisps were optional).

A more limited boost in favor of greater control over Sonic which in turn, would lead to greater emphasis on 3D platforming which certainly hasn't happened with Forces yet. Now don't get me wrong, even though Forces does not have the wisps for Modern Sonic, that does not mean that it didn't attempt to copy Colors because at its core, it's literally exactly the same. Less effort and creativity in 3D platforming and limited boost that forces you to engage in generic and sluggish 2D platforming as a result. Even the platform's designs denote a very conspicuous similarity between both Colors and Forces. The main reason why they excluded the wisps? Because they integrated it for the OC instead presumably, but that does not discredit that Forces' design is very similar. You can't tell me that the 2D platforming that constitutes jumping from one block to another  and the generic design of the platforms doesn't resemble Colors in the slightest.

 

39 minutes ago, Shaddy the guy said:

I would say the comparison is flawed. The gameplay's much more fluid in 2D and 3D than Colors' more stilted design. And either way, it looks more like it's trying to be Generations with controls that combine Gens with Lost World.

I don't disagree, but in terms of level design which influences how Modern Sonic plays, it is vastly similar and very difficult to overlook. They may be trying to emulate Generations with its controls which is to be expected since they're attempted to enhance Modern Sonic's controls, but the level design is nothing like Generations. Generations was reliant on understanding the level design and clever timing of boost/jumps and had more diverse elements in its platforming. No way in hell does it resemble Generations more outside of controls, that's just baffling.

 

41 minutes ago, Shaddy the guy said:

I said Colors and Forces (probably) are both fun enough, meaning that they're something that does enough things right to be fun.

Also, attaching numerical values to game enjoyment is the death of critique and journalism, but that's neither here or there.

Those scores can be used and have been used to connote certain words such as "good" and "great" that we would attach to the quality of a game. Me claiming that Forces is "good enough" to be a 7 would literally be no different than claiming that Forces is "good enough" to be decent and there's nothing inherently wrong when stating this. When I said that I wanted it to be "good enough" to be an 8-9/10, I implicitly asserted that I wanted it to be "good enough" to be great or even superb which it should be given the circumstances of its release and the amount of resources that they put into it. They literally developed an entirely new Hedgehog Engine and spent 4 years on this game. Being "good enough" is not enough here. If all they did was add more detailed and dynamic visuals and enhance Modern Sonic's controls without even improving level design and creativity, then it is not "good enough".