Sonic Forces - Story Trailer (English and Japanese)

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

A game about dimension hopping and they don't have the one character that debued from that premise lol. 

 

(Maybe they're saving her for last)

[Jetronic]

27 minutes ago, GuyWithThePie said:

Wow... Looks like I don't have to worry about the story being boring or uninteresting anymore. This looks like it could be the best story since Unleashed, which was nearly a decade ago.

Also, this location looks pretty neat. Seems to be a futuristic city of sorts.

I almost wanted to say it was Metallic Madness' good future, but the place also reminds me a bit of Aquatic Capital from Zero Gravity. It's probably just a new area altogether. You can almost see inside some of those buildings too.

[Balding Spider]

Would've totally been hyped... had I not seen all the gameplay vids up till now. I'm gonna need more than this to convince me.

[DiamondX]

And Forces continues to be a great game with a great story IMO.

[blueblur98]

26 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I find the idea of Eggman having conquered 99% of the world hilarious.

Eggman: YES! Finally! I've conquered the world!

Orbot: Actually boss, you've only conquered 99% of the world.

Eggman: What?! I missed it by 1%? WHA-? WHO DOES- HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN!?!?!?

okay that's actually pretty funny

[Milo]

2 hours ago, Toa Axis said:

While it's nice to see some actual effort being put into the promotion of this game, the big problems I see in regards to the presentation of the narrative are the cutscene direction and the animation. The former is pretty pedestrian, and doesn't really do a lot to really enhance or heighten the drama in any way (this was evident from the Enter Infinite video as well). It very much carries over the "Saturday morning cartoon" style of direction that we saw in Lost World's cutscenes; lots of simple pans, still shots, and a loooot of close-ups. The camera just isn't lending a sense of any sort of significant sense of dynamism to most scenes. And as for the animation, it's also reminiscent of the way that we saw Lost World's cutscenes animate, but it simply doesn't suit the more grounded approach they're going for. The more naturalistic character movements and direction that we saw in Unleashed would be more appropriate for this game. Hell, even taking inspiration from SA2's cutscenes would do wonders (as that game actually had some flair to its presentation).

Can't say much more without actually knowing what the characters are saying, but those are my main takeaways for now.

Edit: And as an aside that moment where Knuckles rallies everyone almost looks like something out of G-Mod with how lifeless everything is.

Agreed with this. Everything about the way the camera panning and framing looks so static. Not so much a problem with the earlier goofier games and minimal plot, but in a game that's trying to tell a more serious story? It clashes with the tone they're trying to go for.

Also going to add to your complaint about the characters/camera panning and note the environments look unpolished. Not sure if it's because of the textures themselves, the lighting,  or both, but stuff like this:

...doesn't look too hot. It looks like the environments have a "unrendered" rough look to them. Really baffling, given they're using an upgraded Hedgehog Engine and this is a game running on eighth-gen hardware.

(The silly text captions are YouTube autocorrect screen captures, for those wondering.)

[Shaddy Zaphod]

-More stages

-Story content

-Nothing confirmed to break the game

[Dr. Detective]

More serious story or not, it's still a cartoon action-adventure game. They really need to get these animations down so that the lively and fast Sonic series can have their models move in a way that matches that feeling. 

I'm happy with the tone they're going for here. It feels very big and it's presenting itself as something they actually want us to care about. Yet, at the same time, the game's theme and the way the characters speak to one another is pushing for a more "together we can do it" angle rather than a "Doom and gloom" one. Which is great.

Tragedy and levity working together. If they can manage to write a good story on top of that then they'd have struck gold as far as the story is concerned for me.

[Clewis]

11 minutes ago, Yeow said:

The lighting in the scene is unusually bright for such a cloudy day.

Such a dumb screw-up pretty much confirms that Forces is going to be the absolute worst game in existence.

[Shaddy Zaphod]

Really? That's the worst thing about that shot? How about all the copy-pasted customs that could have just been solved by hitting the "random" button a few times on the character generator?

 

Additionally, this makes me realize how the designs of any new Sonic characters here on out are going to be criticized depending on how much they could be replicated in Forces.

[Chaos Control Freak]

I don't get why everyone's so confounded by Classic Sonic being in this story? Clearly Sonic Mania's True Ending is directly linked to this game.

Here's what I figure:

> After the True Final Boss of Sonic Mania, Classic Sonic and the Phantom Ruby get sucked through the portal that gets created.
> This removes Classic Sonic from the timeline, and allows Eggman to take over, fracturing the timeline and creating this new world where Eggman rules.
> This explains why Knuckles is in charge. He fills the gap that Sonic left, when he disappeared.
> Sensing that something is gravely wrong with the timeline, Silver intervenes and decides to set things right by pulling Modern Sonic out of a different timeline, to enlist his aid. This explains why Silver is involved in the plot.
> Meanwhile, Classic Sonic finally arrives on-scene, having been thrust into the future by the Phantom Ruby.

[Celestia]

For the most part I like the look of the environments, but yeah the lighting is off at times (especially in that shot with the huge crowd) and the animations could definitely be better. The latter isn't a new issue and I don't even think they're particularly worse compared to most recent 3D Sonics, but it sticks out since it seems like they're trying to do more with cutscenes this time around.

[StaticMania]

Too bad every anthro has the typical Sonic body type, that would've made seeing them more interesting...along with having better designs.

 

Should've just had hyoo-mans there instead.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Chaos Control Freak said:

I don't get why everyone's so confounded by Classic Sonic being in this story? Clearly Sonic Mania's True Ending is directly linked to this game.

We're not confounded by the slapshot in-story reason he's there.

We're annoyed by how flimsy and obvious his inclusion here as a corporate "Hey, you guys like Classic Sonic right?" sticker for Forces he is. Nothing they've shown us so far has made the fact that he's here feel relevant or necessary. Not when it comes to the story and certainly not when it comes to the gameplay. 

[Shaddy Zaphod]

It's really weird how some of this stuff looks kinda bleh, but other parts of these cutscenes look gorgeous (mostly the Sonic getting sucked into a hole and Eggy whatevering Infinite to existence). Because judging by the models, none of this is pre-rendered.

 

Also a quick note regarding Classic Sonic, yes he's obviously just there because people like Mania and Generations, but also I don't care because his levels can still be fun anyway.

[Dee Dude]

So, I'm the first one to notice the White Wispons on the custom army?

 

Kinda weird how they even exist at all since Sonic already uses White Wisps only for this game.

Perhaps they're the generic wispons used solely as basic guns for the background soldiers or even a starter for your character?

[Chaos Control Freak]

11 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

We're not confounded by the slapshot in-story reason he's there.

We're annoyed by how flimsy and obvious his inclusion here as a corporate "Hey, you guys like Classic Sonic right?" sticker for Forces is. Nothing they've shown us so far has made the fact that he's here feel relevant or necessary. Not when it comes to the story and certainly not when it comes to the gameplay. 

I saw several people making cracks about how his inclusion in the game's actual story doesn't make sense. Which isn't true. It's also not "slapshot". The events of Sonic Mania clearly have a direct and substantial impact on Forces' story. That's about as far from "slapshot" as you can get, honestly.

I honestly don't get what the big deal is. Sure, Classic Sonic's gameplay isn't accurate to the original Genesis games. But, it's still fun and offers variety.

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Chaos Control Freak said:

I saw several people making cracks about how his inclusion in the game's actual story doesn't make sense. Which isn't true.

I honestly don't get what the big deal is. Sure, Classic Sonic's gameplay isn't accurate to the original Genesis games. But, it's still fun and offers variety.

I would rather have more focused gameplay that's better, than one good one and several not good types of gameplay .

I would also like to play as other characters than " smaller sonic" 

[Bowbowis]

Ahem...

This is the Sonic trailer I've been waiting to see for the last seven years. Characters other than Sonic and Tails existing and talking to each other, cutscenes where the visual component isn't totally superfluous, setting up persistent questions and conflicts that actually drive the narrative instead of just dumping everything on you at the start and saying "shit's broken go to the seven temples to fix it". It's a goddamn miracle I tell you!

I do have my gripes with it though, I'm still wary about Pontaff being in charge of  the localization. The plot being written by the Japanese side and the cutscenes actually having some action should at least keep them on a tighter leash than they had in Lost World, but after that game's mess of inconsistent plot points, bizarre characterization choices, and utter refusal to explain anything I wouldn't put it past them to cut critical exposition on why Shadow is suddenly evil in favor of having him make more Baldy McNosehair jokes.

The technical details aren't exactly wowing me either. The animations are no more than serviceable, the lighting continues to be dull, and that mountain is so obviously part of the skybox that it hurts.

 

On top of that the environments as a whole are still bland and lifeless as fuck. Seriously just compare the future city from Forces:

To Grand Metropolis from Heroes:

Mise en scène really does matter SEGA. Figure it out already.

[Chaos Control Freak]

3 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

I would rather have more focused gameplay that's better, than one good one and several not good types of gameplay .

I would also like to play as other characters than " smaller sonic" 

Modern and Classic's stages both look good, and there really hasn't been anything that implies that they aren't... It's more of the same of Generations, and I'm totally fine with that.

The only play-type that I'm still kinda weary about is the Custom Character's, if I'm being honest.

[Shadowlax]

Classic sonic's gameplay wasn't good in generations. It looks worse here with worse level design.

 

[Chaos Control Freak]

Just now, Shadowlax said:

Classic sonic's gameplay wasn't good in generations. It looks worse here with worse level design.

It was totally fine. It just wasn't accurate to the original Genesis games....

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Chaos Control Freak said:

It was totally fine. It just wasn't accurate to the original Genesis games....

It was bad and not fun, and the best version of generations is the Unleashed mod, because classic sonic isn't it. ( also because the level design is better and actually difficult ) 

[Chaos Control Freak]

Just now, Shadowlax said:

It was bad and not fun, and the best version of generations is the Unleashed mod, because classic sonic isn't it. ( also because the level design is better and actually difficult ) 

Eh. Agree to disagree then.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

2 minutes ago, Chaos Control Freak said:

Modern and Classic's stages both look good

No they don't. Modern Sonic levels so far are little more them empty hallway simulators. And Classic Sonic levels so far are far worse then they were in Generations. Much more flat land masses and extra automated to a Dimps degree.