Sonic Forces Japanese official site opened!

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Jesus Christ, we've gone through every stage of Forces thread shittiness in less than a day. Like, is this a bit? I honestly can't tell.

That filter is pretty bad though. It's a shame, too, because that GHZ level (which is probably part of modern Sonic's GHZ) is pretty, or would have been otherwise. That's also definitely Classic Sonic's Park Avenue stage, but it's kinda hard to tell what these stages will actually play like with all the stuff taken out of them.

[Sega DogTagz]

If its not a hub, that Mission HQ area could just be a stylized menu screen.

y'know, the kind where as you scroll through the menu, the background darts around to a corresponding location. If you want to go to options, it would pan and zoom over to the stack of supply crates, or if you wanted to deploy on a mission it would fly over to the big monitor with some random character hacking away at the keyboard.

Then as you advance through the game, and unlock some stuff it would fill in a little bit. A jukebox for a sound test or a makeshift workshop for developing wispons and stuff.

[Blue Blood]

Forces' take on a destroyed city is much more suited to Sonic than Crisis City, Westopolis or the flooded Station Square. The city is being devastated by Eggman's hand rather than a non-descriptive monster, and the landscape includes features that do blend nicely with Sonic. I can appreciate that, and I was initally happy to see that. But as time has worn on we've seen more of Forces, my opinion has changed quite considerably. We're still looking at Sonic, a blue hedgehog most commonly associated with patterned green hills and brightly coloured robotic animals, ploughing through a city that's being torn down in an inferno. Explosions, gunfire, flames, rubble and barbed wire are all painting the world in a very gritty manner. And that what's not right here.

Trying for a mature and gritty approach with Sonic is wrong. They did it with SA2, ShTH and 06', all of which had varying levels of realism but in my opion felt distinctly "un-Sonic". Unleashed is too realistic at times, but the game is constantly bright and clean. We're never exposed to any gritty themes in the game. The game's numerous realistic cities don't show any realistic mature themes. When it gets dark, we have Eggmanland, which is best described as a menacing and dangerous amusement park. It's bright, it's neon and there's not a hint of grit to be see. CD of the other hand gives up numerous looks at locations where Eggman has take over. But there's no realism there. Instead we're looking at more fantastical environments with elaborate, fun machinery polluting the place. The same applied to Planet Wisp in Colours.

Forces Green Hill Zone kind of has the right idea. I wish we got a stronger representation of Green Hill succumbing to Eggman's take over rather than "it's Green Hill but suddenly covered in sand because we said so", but it's not gritty (unless someone wants to make a bad joke about sand and grit, I guess). I can live with this. But Park Avenue is wrong wrong wrong. If we're going to see a city being taken over by Eggman, it should be something more like Chemical Plant. Cut the grit.

[Sonikko]

Forces - 06 comparison:

Edgy/cheesy vocal themes - check

Edgy storyline - check

Too many different, unfocused playstyles - check

Monster of the week - check

Absence of physics and momentum - check

Seems pretty close to me! Forces is trying to pander to that same audience, so it makes sense that the games share some similarities.

 

 

 

 

[Multikaris]

On 9/7/2017 at 9:33 AM, Diogenes said:

You do realize that a town in the Mushroom Kingdom with a few collapsed structures and small fires is not the same as a fairly realistic modern city that's been realistically destroyed, right? This isn't about the two word on-paper description, it's about the actual presentation. If Galaxy had opened with the Mushroom Kingdom looking like the city in Forces it would've been awful and unfitting.

It's being a trashy '06 wannabe instead of actually looking like a Sonic game.

Neither Unleashed nor CD have ruined cities in the way that Forces does. Unleashed has...literally no ruined cities at all. And CD has dark, polluted, corrupted cities, not outright destroyed ones. And they're actually styled like they're in a Sonic game rather than being just generic real-world cities.

1) SMB3 did come pretty close, though. Especially with the hellscape finale. 

On 9/7/2017 at 9:18 AM, Diogenes said:

It's really not, though. A series can have a very diverse setting, but it cannot do everything. Mario absolutely would not fit into Forces' ruined city, for example.

We have been talking about the series' identity for years, man. This is not a new conversation, just the next step in a very long discussion.

That's not at all what my complaint is about. Some things just don't fit the series regardless of whether they're meant to be the status quo or they're just one off things.

1) Unless it were Marvel. One could just read Noir, 2099, Powerless, The End, etc. and realize this is still the same general world as "Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat!" Howard got a MAX series, while Blade's been on a kids show or two. The problems only come when you don't look at the bigger scale of the marvel universe, which results to such jarring sights as Hellcat being slowly tortured, Iron Fist as the star of a purportedly adult and grim romp, and Fant4stic. Of these, only Hellcat was not the consequence of bad writing. Ego the Living Planet as a Complete Monster rather than a comedy villain was well-executed, and had he gist of his character in mind. Sonic has never had anything on the level of those. Even the comic lines at their darkest can't even match Fant4stic, and are usually no darker than X-Men III: The Last Stand. 

2) So is Dessert Ruins equally out of place or not? That's what I want to hear.

[Blue Blood]

9 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Forces - 06 comparison:

Edgy/cheesy vocal themes - check

Edgy storyline - check

Too many different, unfocused playstyles - check

Monster of the week - check

Absence of physics and momentum - check

Seems pretty close to me! Forces is trying to pander to that same audience, so it makes sense that the games share some similarities.

SA2 - 06 Comparison

• Edgy/cheesy vocal themes - check
• Edgy storyline - check
• Too many different, unfocused playstyles - an even bigger check than Forces
• Monster of the week - check
• Absence of physics and momentum - Sonic/Shadows stages are fine, but physics don't influence the other 66% of the game's unfocused gameplay styles at all.

Sonikko, I'm on you're side man, but naaaaaaaaaaaah.

Forces is going for the same audience as '06 went for though, one that's looking for something that I personally feel has the most bizarre standards and exceptions of the Sonic series. Except Forces is also trying to shoehorn older-fan appeal in there too with Classic Sonic. lol sega no just stop please

[Sonikko]

The audience I was referring to included the people that grew up with SA2 as kids and with 06 in their early teenager years, and 06 was meant to be a followup of that formula anyway. It had many similarities with both Adventure games, it was just more disastrous and exaggerated.

Also, it wouldn't be wrong to say that Forces has many points in common with the Dreamcast games too.

 

To be fair, going after a particular audience isn't bad in itself, and might not be what I myself want out of the game, but Forces is just doing a terrible all around.

[Dr. Detective]

 

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces' take on a destroyed city is much more suited to Sonic than Crisis City, Westopolis or the flooded Station Square. The city is being devastated by Eggman's hand rather than a non-descriptive monster, and the landscape includes features that do blend nicely with Sonic. I can appreciate that, and I was initally happy to see that. But as time has worn on we've seen more of Forces, my opinion has changed quite considerably. We're still looking at Sonic, a blue hedgehog most commonly associated with patterned green hills and brightly coloured robotic animals, ploughing through a city that's being torn down in an inferno. Explosions, gunfire, flames, rubble and barbed wire are all painting the world in a very gritty manner. And that what's not right here.

Trying for a mature and gritty approach with Sonic is wrong. They did it with SA2, ShTH and 06', all of which had varying levels of realism but in my opion felt distinctly "un-Sonic". Unleashed is too realistic at times, but the game is constantly bright and clean. We're never exposed to any gritty themes in the game. The game's numerous realistic cities don't show any realistic mature themes. When it gets dark, we have Eggmanland, which is best described as a menacing and dangerous amusement park. It's bright, it's neon and there's not a hint of grit to be see. CD of the other hand gives up numerous looks at locations where Eggman has take over. But there's no realism there. Instead we're looking at more fantastical environments with elaborate, fun machinery polluting the place. The same applied to Planet Wisp in Colours.

Forces Green Hill Zone kind of has the right idea. I wish we got a stronger representation of Green Hill succumbing to Eggman's take over rather than "it's Green Hill but suddenly covered in sand because we said so", but it's not gritty (unless someone wants to make a bad joke about sand and grit, I guess). I can live with this. But Park Avenue is wrong wrong wrong. If we're going to see a city being taken over by Eggman, it should be something more like Chemical Plant. Cut the grit.

I can certainly see this position you have and understand where it's coming from. However, I don't really agree. Not entirely.

I feel it's more just a different take on the elements we've seen from the examples you're more acceptable with. Eggman's theme parks or his highly industrialized environments are all awesome but I can see an argument being made for witnessing stages that take to the spectacle surrounding destroying a homely environment just fine. I don't get the feeling of "SUPREME MATURE GRIT" when I look at this. It just reminds me of what a typical action cartoon does when it's taking to being awesome. I've seen worse stuff than this on the Powerpuff Girls. The tone isn't set for me on just the imagery. The style and substance of what's being portrayed here feels more like an action cartoon than a realistic gritty drama.

However, that's probably got more to do with how the different views on what's okay for Sonic to do have manifested over the years. I'm perfectly okay with this because it doesn't feel like what Sonic 06 and Shadow the Hedgehog were doing despite having similar elements. Most likely because the elements themselves aren't my issue. I don't see an issue with utilizing "mature" themes so long as you're keeping with the aesthetic you've already made for yourself. Shadow and 06 changed Sonic's aesthetic to fit with the overly serious tone they were going for and it didn't make the game "mature" at all. They tried to use "mature themes" but it ended up having the opposite effect because their follow-through and wholeful misunderstanding of how to properly blend elements from Sonic with what they wished to do made everything come off as ridiculous.

Sonic can use mature "themes" all he wants. He can utilize grit and explosions, flames, rubble, gunfire, and what have you to make shit look cool. There's ways to do that without trying to come off like a war film. Most people would even say using those elements is inherently immature to be honest. I don't agree with that either though. Because using mature "themes" isn't what makes your game mature. Using them correctly does. Sure, Sonic can use all these things but if he does it in a way that doesn't take to remembering it's trying to be an action cartoon then it's not going to come off "mature" regardless of whatever theme he's taken to. 

The issue just comes down to how well he maintains the balancing act. Forces seems to be doing that fine for what I want so far. I still have an issue with a lot of the fine details but I don't look at a destroyed modern city and go "That's too mature. It can't be in Sonic". No, it can. I've seen it in stuff targeted for the same audience (and once even younger). It really just needs to be careful with how it weaves everything else around it so that the tone it sets remains in that firm middle-ground.

It's the same reason I feel that Colors failed at being what it wanted to be. It had elements of a fun, light-hearted story but the way it used them was the most hum-drum, boring thing I had ever witnessed the series do until Generations.

[Meta77]

2 hours ago, The Deleter said:

City Heights is one of the most cartoony cities we've ever had in the Sonic series, though...

 

Compared to:

 

 

The only reason it looks "realistic" is because it's destroyed and has detailed rubble. In which case I'm pretty sure you always want rubble to look at least a bit detailed, unless you want blocky polygons and textures from the 2000's back into play... And if you want an environment that's supposed to scream "They've destroyed everything!!!" to be as artistic and stylistically pleasing as possible, well...

 

Again with the flip-flopping on this game, as well. When Green Hill came out we had all the complaints in the world about the environment being too simplistic and cartoony compared to Generations, which had more detail and was "perfect", apparently. (And I'm one of those people tbh, even though later screenshots proved me wrong) Now we have too much detail, apparently, even though it's one zone in the game that will otherwise have the same cartoony art style seen in GHZ and the Tag Team level? And in a game Iizuka himself has said will be composed of much more "lighthearted" zones than City Heights overall?

Proving most do not know what they want. It's like that courage the cowardly dog comic of flip flipping bit in the end regardless of what's done will find problems in their vision

MORE MACORONI!

[Whatever the WhoCares]

8 hours ago, MegasonicZX said:

I really like that render of classic sonic, it makes him look a whole lot more serious looking than his cute persona in generations and I hope that carries over to the game.

Another reason I prefer "alternate Sonic" to "younger Sonic." He just comes off as wiser and more capable when he's Modern Sonic's age. 

[Crazy_Diamond]

2 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces' take on a destroyed city is much more suited to Sonic than Crisis City, Westopolis or the flooded Station Square. The city is being devastated by Eggman's hand rather than a non-descriptive monster, and the landscape includes features that do blend nicely with Sonic. I can appreciate that, and I was initally happy to see that. But as time has worn on we've seen more of Forces, my opinion has changed quite considerably. We're still looking at Sonic, a blue hedgehog most commonly associated with patterned green hills and brightly coloured robotic animals, ploughing through a city that's being torn down in an inferno. Explosions, gunfire, flames, rubble and barbed wire are all painting the world in a very gritty manner. And that what's not right here.

Trying for a mature and gritty approach with Sonic is wrong. They did it with SA2, ShTH and 06', all of which had varying levels of realism but in my opion felt distinctly "un-Sonic". Unleashed is too realistic at times, but the game is constantly bright and clean. We're never exposed to any gritty themes in the game. The game's numerous realistic cities don't show any realistic mature themes. When it gets dark, we have Eggmanland, which is best described as a menacing and dangerous amusement park. It's bright, it's neon and there's not a hint of grit to be see. CD of the other hand gives up numerous looks at locations where Eggman has take over. But there's no realism there. Instead we're looking at more fantastical environments with elaborate, fun machinery polluting the place. The same applied to Planet Wisp in Colours.

Forces Green Hill Zone kind of has the right idea. I wish we got a stronger representation of Green Hill succumbing to Eggman's take over rather than "it's Green Hill but suddenly covered in sand because we said so", but it's not gritty (unless someone wants to make a bad joke about sand and grit, I guess). I can live with this. But Park Avenue is wrong wrong wrong. If we're going to see a city being taken over by Eggman, it should be something more like Chemical Plant. Cut the grit.

I disagree. When it comes to grittyness in Sonic games, the best place to look towards are the Classics. After all the Classic games are the origin point for Sonic, they are the most pure representation of Sonic's identity. Sonic CD is the first Sonic game to depict a world under Eggman (even though Little Planet is a small world). So let's see what that looks like.

This is what a world under Eggman's rule looks like. I think Forces is rather tame compared to this honestly. And if we are talking about grittyness, remember the songs in Sonic CD. The boss fight music repeats the words "Work that sucker to death" over and over again. Metallic Madness Zone has the lyrics "You can't do anything so don't even try" and "Sonic dead or alive, is mine!". The Game Over music and Final Boss music are also incredibly dramatic.

Forces looks like it's made for babies in comparison to this. I disagree with you when you say there is no realism here. Sure it is not entirely realistic, no Sonic game should be. But there is a gritty aesthetic that is meant to inspire fear. It's not all fantastical and fun, and that is a very deliberate choice on the part of the designers. 

[Shadowlax]

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

Proving most do not know what they want. It's like that courage the cowardly fog comic of fl8p flipping bit in the end regardless of what's done will find problems in their vision

 

No people know what they want. Is just that those should be different games. Instead of a single game. The people who want classic sonic, got classic sonic. That's what they wanted. I'm tired of people painting audience is flip flopping. No its different people, and some of thier desires don't mesh, but sega continues to try

[Blue Blood]

12 minutes ago, Crazy_Diamond said:

I disagree. When it comes to grittyness in Sonic games, the best place to look towards are the Classics. After all the Classic games are the origin point for Sonic, they are the most pure representation of Sonic's identity. Sonic CD is the first Sonic game to depict a world under Eggman (even though Little Planet is a small world). So let's see what that looks like.

This is what a world under Eggman's rule looks like. I think Forces is rather tame compared to this honestly. And if we are talking about grittyness, remember the songs in Sonic CD. The boss fight music repeats the words "Work that sucker to death" over and over again. Metallic Madness Zone has the lyrics "You can't do anything so don't even try" and "Sonic dead or alive, is mine!". The Game Over music and Final Boss music are also incredibly dramatic.

Forces looks like it's made for babies in comparison to this.

CD is not in any way gritty or depicting environments with realism. You could argue that's just because it's on 16-bit, but that didn't mean that they had to use such a stylised and wacky world. The music too, however much you may want to say it's dramatic or full of dark lyrics, is relatively moot when the style of it is just to be as funky as the hardware really would allow.

Forces is doing it differently with its realistic depiction of destruction. It's a lot less powerful and lacking in the character that CD has.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Blue Blood
Autocorrect sucks balls

[Whatever the WhoCares]

11 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

CD is not in any way gritty or depicting environments with realism. You could argue that's just because it's on 16-bit, but that didn't mean that they had to use such a stylised and wacky world. The music too, however much you may want to say it's dramatic or full of dark lyrics, is relatively moot when the style of it is just to be as funky as the hardware really would allow.

Forces is doing it differently with its realistic depiction of destruction. It's a lot less powerful and lacking in the character that CD has.

I would disagree that Park Avenue lacks character. Actually, I'm thrilled to see the loopy, blocky soil married with an urban environment. And I really hope there'll be a lot more. 

[Milo]

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

Proving most do not know what they want. It's like that courage the cowardly dog comic of flip flipping bit in the end regardless of what's done will find problems in their vision

MORE MACORONI!

Mario fans have gotten into disagreements about whether linear 3D Mario games (Galaxy 1/2, 3D Land, 3D World) count as "real" 3D Mario games ("real" referring to the sandbox games like 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey). Are they people who don't know what they want too?

[Crazy_Diamond]

7 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

CD is not in any way gritty or depicting environments with realism. You could argue that's just because it's on 16-bit, but that didn't mean that they had to use such a stylized and wacky world.

It's a combination. It has both a stylized world and a gritty one. I really don't get how you can see this as not gritty. It's practically the definition of gritty.

11 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

 The music too, however much you may want to say it's dramatic or full of dark lyrics, is relatively moot when the style of it is just to be as funky as the hardware really would allow.

You are right in saying that the style of music in the boss theme and in Metallic Madness are funky, even when the lyrics are dark. But that doesn't change the fact that the lyrics exist. Also, acting like the whole game is just trying to be as funky as possible is just wrong. I already posted the Game Over theme and Final Boss themes which do not conform to that style at all, and are all dramatic.

16 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces is doing it differently with its realistic depiction of destruction. It's a lot less powerful and lacking in the character that CD has.

That makes no sense. How can you have a nonrealistic depiction of destruction? Why does CD not fit this mold? It shows realistically dilapidated factories. Or does that not count because it doesn't take place in a city environment? I really don't get what you mean by that.

[superman43]

Well, for all.

CD has gritty environment, but Eggman was building that non-violently by just implementing robot generator and let it be.

Forces is different. It´s not an careless Eggman about the doomed future of something. He´s actively doing something to achieve the goal whatever it takes, in more let´s say violent way than we are used to. That´s what I think may be for worse and not better for the franchise.

 

In every game Eggman went on with his plans and Sonic stopped him right in the most critical point. Now it´s after the critical point and it might be seen as pointless, a bit.

[GuyWithThePie]

14 minutes ago, Yeow said:

Mario fans have gotten into disagreements about whether linear 3D Mario games (Galaxy 1/2, 3D Land, 3D World) count as "real" 3D Mario games ("real" referring to the sandbox games like 64, Sunshine, and Odyssey). Are they people who don't know what they want too?

Nintendo themselves came up with an explanation for this.

[The Deleter]

3 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces' take on a destroyed city is much more suited to Sonic than Crisis City, Westopolis or the flooded Station Square. The city is being devastated by Eggman's hand rather than a non-descriptive monster, and the landscape includes features that do blend nicely with Sonic. I can appreciate that, and I was initally happy to see that. But as time has worn on we've seen more of Forces, my opinion has changed quite considerably. We're still looking at Sonic, a blue hedgehog most commonly associated with patterned green hills and brightly coloured robotic animals, ploughing through a city that's being torn down in an inferno. Explosions, gunfire, flames, rubble and barbed wire are all painting the world in a very gritty manner. And that what's not right here.

Trying for a mature and gritty approach with Sonic is wrong. They did it with SA2, ShTH and 06', all of which had varying levels of realism but in my opion felt distinctly "un-Sonic". Unleashed is too realistic at times, but the game is constantly bright and clean. We're never exposed to any gritty themes in the game. The game's numerous realistic cities don't show any realistic mature themes. When it gets dark, we have Eggmanland, which is best described as a menacing and dangerous amusement park. It's bright, it's neon and there's not a hint of grit to be see. CD of the other hand gives up numerous looks at locations where Eggman has take over. But there's no realism there. Instead we're looking at more fantastical environments with elaborate, fun machinery polluting the place. The same applied to Planet Wisp in Colours.

Forces Green Hill Zone kind of has the right idea. I wish we got a stronger representation of Green Hill succumbing to Eggman's take over rather than "it's Green Hill but suddenly covered in sand because we said so", but it's not gritty (unless someone wants to make a bad joke about sand and grit, I guess). I can live with this. But Park Avenue is wrong wrong wrong. If we're going to see a city being taken over by Eggman, it should be something more like Chemical Plant. Cut the grit.

I disagree entirely. Seeing barbed wire and patches of boarded-up areas is a liiitle too, "Oh we're a lowly but noble bunch of fighters just scraping to get by", SatAM-esque context for my tastes, I admit, but what you're saying Sonic is best suited for isn't what Sonic should be. It's what Classic Sonic should be. You're basically limiting everything about the narrative and context of the game to a captain planet-esque environmental conflict, where the battle has already been decided and everything takes place after the fact.

Seeing the air being polluted and foliage dying out doesn't equate to an outright attack, even. It could be just chalked up to the ambivalent businessman impacting the environment in a very negative way, no skin off his back, which is detached and lower-stakes in terms of the antagonist's intentions.

And the kicker? If you framed the game's premise as "Eggman has taken over 99% of the world!", given us the game in a classic-esque, no-exposition manner... If you compared that same game to the typical classic Sonic game and asked, I couldn't tell you the difference for the life of me. He's travelling through Eggman's plants and factories, yeah? There's no difference in context unless you made me read the manual or something. This little detail has no impact on me and my involvement in the stakes at hand in this context.

Classic Sonic may mean "Innocent and cocky cartoon hero" in every sense of his being, and I get the appeal behind it and think it should be preserved in it's own way, but Modern Sonic, first and foremost, should be about an action hero, imo. His design is deliberately designed to give off this sort of vibe, even, with longer legs and more intense eyes giving him more of a physically capable and emotionally (I guess) driven sense to his character, even if he doesn't utter a word.

It doesn't divorce him from the same cartoonish sensibilities Classic Sonic has, as the asthetic choice of his world should complement his design and it's cast, as always. But to take any "realism" in terms of action, because "Classic doesn't do that", feels misguided.
 

Classic Sonic has realism, in that actions against the environment are depicted in full-force in the same natural way pollution and waste effect our own world. It's an element that has stuck with the series since the beginning, and it's used that realism to increase the stakes of the game. Remember what one of the all-time favorite moments of 3&K was, in terms of conflict?

Yup. A brutal desecration of nature happening in real-time, making many realize just how careless and antagonistic towards the environment Eggman is, and why he should be stopped. All with the sense of realism, that is destruction.

Now I don't think everything should use destruction to get the point across, or that destruction itself should go too far in the first place. Angel Island still retained it's general color and vividness, despite the destruction, and this is about Sonic the Hedgehog. The levels and environments should be aesthetically pleasing or striking for the most part.

But Eggman's attack on the village Sonic, his friends, and the resistance are holed up in, because they're actually fighting against each other, should not be a bad thing at all. It's merely directing that realism in destruction towards the characters themselves, further enhancing the conflict. Eggman is actually fighting against Sonic and his friends for once. That's the kind of antagonist that good action games thrive on, as they create actually meaningful stakes. Just because he's blowing up buildings instead of burning down forests or destroying the environment, shouldn't matter that much in the long run. As long as the games themselves establish a world that befits Sonic in the first place as a character, the only difference is... the game's antagonist is acting like a proper antagonist >:V

Once we start getting into the realm of realistic guns, bodily harm, profanity, realistic politics, and death, then maybe we can complain about it, but as-is, it's the same context as always, just applied in a different manner. If that manner is "not Sonic", well... I guess we'll just have to neuter Sonic to practically be a TV-Y kids show, then. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

[Endy]

4 hours ago, Sonikko said:

Edgy storyline - check

 

I do not understand the claims that Sonic Forces is edgy. This game's plot seems very suited to an action adventure story.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

It's got the attitude of something that thinks it's edgy, but the plot is standard Sonic fare.

I think nobody would have said the word "edgy" if the game's branding, logos and marketing had resembled Colors or Lost World.

Well, maybe when Infinite showed up.

[Dr. Detective]

It's eternally frustrating being a fan of 3D Sonic. No matter which kind of 3D fan you are.

Even someone like me who could give a fuck less about arguments about physics and momentum, can't even sit comfortably in what I like about the Boost gameplay because I'm on the opposite end still complaining about gameplay, because they  dusted off that shoehorn and wedged Classic Sonic into the folds of this game without really even considering if it were necessary or not.

The sheer amount of anger and vitriol I had towards Forces when it was first announced mirrors a lot of what some of the extreme hatred for it is now from the few of you that do truly hate literally everything about it. I've managed to find and latch onto enough things that I do like about it to have me sat in the middle, but at the start, nothing felt worse than sitting through the Mania trailer, going "This looks cool. I'm happy for the 2D Sonic fans. What's next for me though?", seeing the Forces trailer start up, getting more excited than I ever had for a Sonic game since 2008 to the point where I broke a sweat for about 40 seconds before Classic Sonic burst through the screen and slapped me across my fucking face.

Disagreeing with people on what they like and hate about Sonic is fine. However, it'd feel a lot less personal and a lot less necessary to feel the need to defend it if the way Sonic Team or SEGA or whoever didn't treat the way they reacted to criticism as though every random argument against what I liked validated my concern that it was going away one day. I don't get into fights or defend things I know will be terrible (out of principle), but good God if it isn't a terrible feeling seeing someone say something bad about a thing you like now regardless. Because we're not in a position where it feels like "Hey, that's just their opinion. It's alright."

No, it actually probably isn't alright now, because the decision making over at bumblefuck Sonic Team of SEGA relies on reactionary nonsense like that.

I know hearing someone say that they don't like Charmy or the Adventure games or whatever doesn't REALLY mean anything. But the fact that they make such stupid, slapshot, and WEIRD decisions based on what criticism they do or don't get makes my heart do gymnastics. 

What normal person reacts to the praise Sonic Colors got by finding ways to throw wisps into EVERYTHING without consideration for why they worked in the game they were introduced in? Find other ways to be innovative with the gimmicks you use so that they don't take away from the gameplay but compliment it. (Even though I found Colors' gameplay rather bland but that's besides the point.)

Who takes the criticism levied at the other characters so distinctly and uniquely literal to the point where Tails's only 3D playable appearance in a proper Sonic game (and not some Olympics cash in) in over a decade had to have been provided by Sonic Boom: Rise of Robo-Snail? Just find tune the colorful fucks until they're fun to play as again. Maybe don't give Shadow a gun, slap him on the ass and say, "There you are you edgy scamp! Get off with ya! HAR HAR HAR!"

Who's the guy over there that's keeping the paranoia alive over here on the internet? For every good idea they have (the existence of Mania, despite having not played it, I can tell was a miracle), they follow it up with something that's just baffling.

I say this completely aware that I'll enjoy Forces just fine. But I don't want to enjoy it "just fine". I'd like to be able to like a game and not feel the need to dance around what parts about it I do like and what parts I don't, and not have to worry about being considered a fanboy or a hater for talking too positive or too negative about one thing or another. Every game has those things. But when you talk about the good things and the bad things you like about Sonic, clarification of where you stand always feel necessary now. And that's not normal. I want to talk normal again.

 

 

[Nuggets]

47 minutes ago, Hottub said:

I do not understand the claims that Sonic Forces is edgy. This game's plot seems very suited to an action adventure story.

this, but replace edgy with just dark

like I don't know if it's because we've had the fluffiest lightest plots of all time for almost a decade now, but I'm failing to see how Forces is dark in the sense that some people are portraying it to be, and using City Heights/Park Avenue as some sort of example doesn't make sense to me - especially in comparison to shit like Crisis City and Westopolis - it absolutely blows me. Westopolis is the scene after a random race of aliens have commandeered a realistic ass city and the fuckin military is there at the beginning of all-out war, and your mission is to either take out the fucking military soldiers (!) or kill some aliens. Crisis City is the result of some time-travel bullshit I don't even want to get into that basically boils down to everyone is dead, the world has gone to shit and fire demons are gonna kill you. I can see someone saying that's dark. (...and poorly done but that's a matter for another time)

In comparison, Park Avenue in summation is Eggman took over a nice looking city, has his big goofy looking robots set stuff on fire, and some buildings are destroyed. For good measure there are also random parts of brightly colored Green Hill architecture thrown in for whatever reason. I dunno. 

I get how the game is dark in comparison to "Sonic teams up with Eggman to fight a group of talking fruits evil aliens" or "Sonic goes back in time because the thinnest plot ever" or "Sonic saves aliens while making shitty jokes", because that's all TV-Y7 shit, as someone mentioned earlier in this thread. "Eggman has control of 99% of the world and Sonic forms a resistance to stop it" lends itself to darkER territory, but . This is the step up from SpongeBob-level writing to like, Season 2 Adventure Time level, Y7 to PG, and that's not a very big leap. Just a bigger focus on action and more attention to story rather than jokes. I don't see what the issue with that is. I know this franchise hasn't done the best with "dark" plots before, but I don't get why people are making those comparisons when those plots involved government conspiracies, child murder, convoluted time-travel, princesses seriously why the fuck and the constant threat of human genocide among other shit that doesn't belong in a game series like this. But this game is showing no signs of having anything like that. It's playing by the Sonic rules that have been established, the dialogue is still moderately light and cheesy ("COME ON BUDDY, WE CAN DO ANYTHING TOGETHER!!!!" *fist bump plays*) but it seems like for once this plot wants to take itself semi-seriously, but not in a way that is so serious that it borders on ironic (*obligatory 06 reference*), but in a way that seems  to just be merely competent for once, respecting itself while keeping in-line with it's own established tone, along the likes of a movie series like Shrek (the good ones) or a show like Adventure Time.

now if Infinite turns out to be like a psycho killer that Sonic locked up off-screen during the classic games that transported his soul into the gem in Mania and then teleported to modern times as part of his elaborate plan to murder every animal in the space-time continuum, then by all means, quote my post when Forces comes out and I won't deny that I was ass-backwards wrong. 

but like, as for everything we know so far:

eggman won, he set some shit on fire and it's not quite as goofy as his usual shit, and sonic's formed a team to kick his ass again

i just don't see what's so dark about that

[DonWaffleleven]

On 9/7/2017 at 11:52 PM, Hottub said:

I do not understand the claims that Sonic Forces is edgy. This game's plot seems very suited to an action adventure story.

It's just a tantrum from people afraid of going back to the "bad old days" of Sonic 06, the terrible end times when Colours didn't exist to fill our lives with sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, when Green Hill zone aesthetics clearly wasn't being rehashed in enough games, when 2D was but a rotting husk ignored by Sega entirely (unless you count the Advance series and Rush).