Sonic Forces Twitter Infos Thread

[Razule]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

But then he goes into the nonsense about humans being from different worlds...

Nope. Sorry. You won me over with the first part but you spoiled the broth and started chatting utter shit Iizuka. I'm ignoring that second part because it makes no sense. None. It's not even something you can ignore or edit a singular game like with Generations. There are characters and factions still being used within the games today that relied on humans being around for them to exist and still be used here (most notably, Shadow, Eggman's family, and G.U.N). It can't work like how he says it works here. It just can't.

You can read the interview here:  http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2017/06/10/more-burning-questions-about-the-sonic-the-hedgehog-franchise-answered.aspx

Ir's not really much harder to reconcile than Generations. It's not like we see GUN in Green Hill. As long as they're travelling between two worlds and not separate sets of characters it can work. Aaron Webber said it was like Sonic X.

[Diogenes]

The Adventure games both presumably take place in the "human" world, right?

So why were the ancient echidnas there, and why did Gerald make his "ultimate life form" a big talking hedgehog?

It just doesn't make any sense, it only makes things more complicated and leaves more holes.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Razule said:

I mean.. it's not really much harder to reconcile than Generations. It's not like we see GUN in Green Hill. As long as they're travelling between two worlds and not separate sets of characters it can work. Aaron Webber said it was like Sonic X.

No, it's definitely much harder. Generations could easily just be edited to say "Oh no, it's not time. It mixed the two dimensions or whatever."

But the idea that they're traveling between two worlds? The whole time? Trying to map out when that's happening and for which games? For what? What reason could they have for actively making things that needlessly complicated? Why in the world should people have to go into each new game wondering which world this one takes place on, especially if the narrative doesn't have any desire to tell us.

Like, apparently, in the Shadow DLC for Forces, they lost contact with Omega and Shadow and Rouge were sent on a mission to find him. So are they with G.U.N? Is this a game that takes place in the human world? Can't be. We saw the animal people there in the trailer. Are we meant to believe G.U.N just sent Shadow and Rouge on a mission from the human world to the animal world? Why?! How?! Who?! What?!

In Sonic X it worked relatively well because the show established this as being the case for it's own continuity. However, I'm sorry to Mr. Webber, it's absolutely not like Sonic X. There was no hint or talk of the humans and animals living in separate worlds before this in the games. That's not something that was alluded to or referenced. 

What kind of sloppy direction is this? Why would Iizuka seriously expect his audience to play the most frustrating game of Jeopardy with each new game that came out? "Hey kids! Guess which world THIS game takes place in for no reason!"

Just have the humans and animals co-exist. This is not something that needed to be explained. Iizuka trying to explain it is only making things worse.

I'm only on board for the separation of the Classic and Modern continuities. This nonsense about a human world and an animal world can sit and spin.

[The Deleter]

59 minutes ago, Soniman said:

 

Not a single thing about a detailed city on fire in a warzone looks like anything from SLW......

I think people are just confusing cartoony aspects of Froces with SLW because that's the most recent game with a "Cartoony" artsyle so its still fresh in peolpe's minds, I just dont see the SLW similairites to the point where poeple think this looks exactly the same....

Nnnnnnnno? And seriously? I'm the only one bringing up the similarities with SLW here. I know what I see, thanks. :\

Look at SLW's style of environment/world, both in the image above and the HD cutscene below:

How, exactly, are these trees and this terrain in all the Park Avenue screenshots, and even the "style" of the un-destroyed houses with their shingle placements and chaotic, non-homogeneous aesthetic:

Closer to anything else in the series other than SLW?

Casino Forest has vines and leaves straight out of Silent Forest, and Silent Forest trees with the added fidelity ala the HD Cutscene/windy hill's grass's style

It has thorny vines actually lifted straight out of Windy Hill 4, and buildings being pulled in a curvy style for style-points towards the same direction

And for Green Hill, most of the assets used in the level (like sunflowers, bushes, and totem poles) are almost the same as from Generations, but even then:

They went to the trouble to "SLW" them with more geometrical shapes and patterns than the originals ever had to themselves, in the case of the Palm Trees. (bonus points for the bridge patterns)

And overall, look at a comparison between the three:

It's somewhat in the middle in terms of color and simplicity, but which style is it taking more inspiration from? The one with the "natural" leaves, or the one with the geometrical and surreal leaves? The one with the simplistic geometry, or the one with "natural" rocky geometry?

 

The key factors of SLW's art style, was that:

1. Everything is made out of simple shapes and patterns
2. Everything is artificially surreal with it's simplicity yet chaotic nature (allegedly going for a Jack and the Beanstalk fantasy appeal)
3. Everything is simplistically detailed from surface appearances, but detailed subtly by more patterns, shapes, or effects on closer inspection
4. Everything is as saturated and colorful as possible

Forces skimps on 4 and avoids 3 almost entirely, but overall the rules mostly apply to everything we've seen so far, even the detailed man-made areas in a few places.

Tons of stuff is made out of simple shapes in Forces so far, with a "no rhyme or reason except for pattern's sake" mentality, barring some chaotic detail like Park Avenue's destruction, or the actual design of the homes. The environment is made out of simplistic geometry. Chips of debris in walls leave detail in the form of circles. Even the explosions in buildings and trees create near perfect circles. Heck, even Green Hill's plants dying from dehydration leaves near perfect circles:

And while it does look like Crisis City in comparison to SLW, even Park Avenue has quite a bit of color going on with it, with near every element in the city having a completely different color compared to what's next to it, following a box of crayon's mentality towards color coding than any other aesthetic in the series, outside CD.

 

And you want to talk about detail. The game has detail, yes. Much more than Lost World did. It's not as textureless as playdough, and it doesn't scream "I'M GREEN AND ORANGE!!!" at you in comparison to Lost World. Nor does it have as hyperactive a devotion towards the geometrical patterns and abstract chaos as SLW did, as it's much more reserved with it's randomness. Which, in turn, does make it feel more like a natural world than SLW accomplished, even though that isn't saying much in the first place.

 

But I am talking specifically about realism and style here. I even said that that detail was added on top of the world at hand, not a part of it. City Heights is exactly what adding detail on top of a world is. Destruction and chaos, despite the circular explosions, does leave detailed and natural rubble behind from the once cartoony nature of the world. But it's just that: Added detail.

They're not exactly the same. But Forces' world design is in the exact same vein and style of SLW's style of world design, for sure. And that's a factor when considering what kind of animals are a part of that world in the first place, what would fit naturally, and what kind of artists are working on the game in the first place.

[Waveshocker Sigma]

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something here.

Exactly why is this important? Does it really matter what game Forces does or doesn't look like?

It's Sonic. It's gonna have whatever tone it wants to go for regardless of however the art style for the game is cause it's Sonic. It does what it wants regardless of whether others thinks it meshes well or not, for better or for worse.

And in the case of Forces, it seems like it's trying to adapt almost all of them together into one style for it's game that looks very animated but is semi-serious versus looking very serious but being semi-animated. (06)

Kinda makes me think of a modern day SatAM, now that I think about it. lol

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SONIC_FORCES_JP/status/914753477653422080

The invasion of the Sunset Heights] huge Desueggurobo, modern city has also got destroyed "Sunset Heights". But, it seems the resistance war of resistance in some places has been carried out. In order to bring hope to the rule has been've town, Sonic stand up!

...Kinda talking about the fights in Sunset Heights between the Resistance and the Death Egg Bots.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Ah, finally! So the strange cryptic visuals that we've seen ever since the very first reveal trailer more then a year ago that seemed to depict a City under attack by Eggman robots while Sonic fights against them has finally be confirmed to be a city under attack by Eggman robots while Sonic fights against them. Riveting.

The gameplay footage of Sonic running trough a city being attacked by Eggman robots while Sonic's friends telling him to fight against it that's been repeatedly shown to us for the past 6 months managed to keep that information hidden from me.

[___-_]

I'm a lil late, but the way how I see it, Forces just simply tries to find compromise between the two art styles of SLW vs Modern Sonic games post 2008. Not that it's either or.

We have simpler geometry going on in areas like Desert GHZ, sure, but it doesn't veer directly hard in that one area only like SLW does, either. The environments are busy and significantly more detailed than SLW ever was, but it's no Sonic Unleashed, either.

Lets compare the enemies:

Now look at these Choppers. Never does Forces step into either extreme with them being too simplified and cartoony like SLW's or being over mechanized like Generations. 

Now look at the art in those same photos.

Looking at Lost World's art style, you can see that everything's clean, organized and near texture-less. Patterns and symmetry make up the entire environment, and the foreground and background don't come across as busy. Everything's simplified.

Looking at Generations' art style, everything's organic and textured with a "realistic and practical" sense to it. It feels "fuller", being lusciously detailed, with a very busy environment beyond the foreground. Everything's complex.

Looking at Forces' art style, we see that there's still a sense of "fullness" to the environment with everything still being detailed and busy. The rocky mountains are textured, showing some grit with cracks and rubble. The wooden bridge has plenty of patterns and texture going on. The clouds no longer look like cotton candy. But at the same time, the game still comes across as clean and straight with how those same rock formations are standing so uniformly square like among the GHZ mountains in the background. The wooden bridge is still stylized heavily instead of using mere "wood texture" like Generations. Patterns still make up some of the zones and very evenly, too. It just isn't put in full force, either.

And to spare you guys with this long ass spiel =P, I'll cut it quick and say this balance pretty much stays true to the entire game which really sets off that whole middle ground vibe for me. Just look at the way the special effects and flairs look (The boosts / spin attack looks very comic book-y, yet no more"Looney Toons dust clouds" as he speeds off or when robots are destroyed), and the way Sonic animates (Sonic's still overly bouncy when jumping but his run animation isn't nearly as cartoony with his figure 8 being removed).

It's a goldilocks situation going on here.

[Razule]

3 hours ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something here.

Exactly why is this important? Does it really matter what game Forces does or doesn't look like?

Just because you're not interested in a particular discussion doesn't mean you can pull the "it doesn't matter" card. It is important, because.. it's the aesthetics of the game. 

[Multikaris]

27 minutes ago, StriCNYN3 said:

I'm a lil late, but the way how I see it, Forces just simply tries to find compromise between the two art styles of SLW vs Modern Sonic games post 2008. Not that it's either or.

We have simpler geometry going on in areas like Desert GHZ, sure, but it doesn't veer directly hard in that one area only like SLW does, either. The environments are busy and significantly more detailed than SLW ever was, but it's no Sonic Unleashed, either.

Lets compare the enemies:

Now look at these Choppers. Never does Forces step into either extreme with them being too simplified and cartoony like SLW's or being over mechanized like Generations. 

Now look at the art in those same photos.

Looking at Lost World's art style, you can see that everything's clean, organized and near texture-less. Patterns and symmetry make up the entire environment, and the foreground and background don't come across as busy. Everything's simplified.

Looking at Generations' art style, everything's organic and textured with a "realistic and practical" sense to it. It feels "fuller", being lusciously detailed, with a very busy environment beyond the foreground. Everything's complex.

Looking at Forces' art style, we see that there's still a sense of "fullness" to the environment with everything still being detailed and busy. The rocky mountains are textured, showing some grit with cracks and rubble. The wooden bridge has plenty of patterns and texture going on. The clouds no longer look like cotton candy. But at the same time, the game still comes across as clean and straight with how those same rock formations are standing so uniformly square like among the GHZ mountains in the background. The wooden bridge is still stylized heavily instead of using mere "wood texture" like Generations. Patterns still make up some of the zones and very evenly, too. It's just put in full force, either.

And to spare you guys with this long ass spiel =P, I'll cut it quick and say this balance pretty much stays true to the entire game which really sets off that whole middle ground vibe for me. Just look at the way the special effects and flairs look (The boosts / spin attack looks very comic book-y, yet no more"Looney Toons dust clouds" as he speeds off or when robots are destroyed), and the way Sonic animates (Sonic's still overly bouncy when jumping but his run animation isn't nearly as cartoony with his figure 8 being removed).

It's a goldilocks situation going on here.

Somehow by being an evolution of SLW, this game manages to actually resemble the classics. Was this also done to tie in to Mania? 

[Waveshocker Sigma]

27 minutes ago, Razule said:

Just because you're not interested in a particular discussion doesn't mean you can pull the "it doesn't matter" card. It is important, because.. it's the aesthetics of the game. 

I was being very literal when I was asking it was important. If I wasn't interested in the discussion, I would've just ignored it. I asked the question because, as I stated in the first sentence, I don't "get it".

Now how about instead of making dumb assumptions, somebody gives me an actual answer instead of basically saying "It's just important because it is"?

Also, nice job ignoring the entire second half of my post where I clearly expressed my own take on the visuals as well as my interest, genius.

[MegasonicZX]

11 minutes ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I was being very literal when I was asking it was important. If I wasn't interested in the discussion, I would've just ignored it. I asked the question because, as I stated in the first sentence, I don't "get it".

Now how about instead of making dumb assumptions, somebody gives me an actual answer instead of basically saying "It's just important because it is"?

Also, nice job ignoring the entire second half of my post where I clearly expressed my own take on the visuals as well as my interest, genius.

Helps to establish the tone of the game if I were to give an answer even though it seems to clash with the overall tone of the story right now (or it might just be to exemplify the light hearted elements of it) and while not entirely important, certain visual styles can make things more interesting, visually, to look at even if we are just going to be blasting through it anyway.

[Sonikko]

The artstyle is another issue with Sonic. The series doesn't have a clear identity in none of its departments, and music started to be an issue as of late too.

During the Classic era you could look at a screenshot of a Sonic game, without characters, and go "Oh it's a Sonic level"

During the Adventure era the artstyle changed radically, but it went in a clear direction. It's a little more on the generic side but it had an identity.

Now? It's a mess. Take Lost World for example. Does it sound and look like a Sonic game?

Forces trying to bridge the realism of the earlier titles with the LW look isn't cutting it for me. It comes off as messy and in the middle of an identity crisis. Just like the whole game does lol.

All of this to say that yes, artystyle matters because it's a big part of a series identity, and Sonic Team doesn't know what to do with it, just like with gameplay and the series handling in general.

[StaticMania]

30 minutes ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I was being very literal when I was asking it was important. If I wasn't interested in the discussion, I would've just ignored it. I asked the question because, as I stated in the first sentence, I don't "get it".

It matters because people want consistency. That's all there is to it, by surface level.

[Razule]

37 minutes ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

Also, nice job ignoring the entire second half of my post where I clearly expressed my own take on the visuals as well as my interest, genius.

Dang, sorry. It just seemed pretty cause and effect to me. The way the post was worded seemed stand offish. My bad

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

2 hours ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

Also, nice job ignoring the entire second half of my post where I clearly expressed my own take on the visuals as well as my interest, genius.

This is name-calling and extremely rude, don't do it. Seriously not cool. If us moderators catch you doing something like this again, we're liable to do something about it.

To answer your question, well...to put it bluntly, not everyone is okay with the fact that Sonic no longer has a consistent visual style, and there's nothing wrong with that. Your post did come across as kind of dismissive. Your post comes across as saying "It doesn't matter because the series is going to do what it's going to do and it's the way it is", as if just the fact that something is a certain way means that people can't desire for it to be another way, which doesn't make any sense. I mean, certainly you've noticed by now that some people actually don't like the fact that Sonic's tone and style is so variable, and you didn't explain why you disagree with them. You just simply stated that that's the way Sonic is, as if that's supposed to prove something, when in reality it doesn't. Am I missing something, or is there a serious failure of logic in your argument?

Don't get me wrong, I understand your argument was more nuanced than simply saying a certain discussion doesn't matter, and it was fine for you to point that out (though certainly not in the extremely rude and unacceptable way you did), but the opinion you expressed was nonetheless rather dismissive in nature, honestly.

[The Deleter]

7 hours ago, Waveshocker Sigma said:

I'm sorry, I think I'm missing something here.

Exactly why is this important? Does it really matter what game Forces does or doesn't look like?

It's Sonic. It's gonna have whatever tone it wants to go for regardless of however the art style for the game is cause it's Sonic. It does what it wants regardless of whether others thinks it meshes well or not, for better or for worse.

And in the case of Forces, it seems like it's trying to adapt almost all of them together into one style for it's game that looks very animated but is semi-serious versus looking very serious but being semi-animated. (06)

Kinda makes me think of a modern day SatAM, now that I think about it. lol

Well... I started out the conversation stating that I don't think realistic and crazy animal hazards are a given, with the art style the game has and the world is made out of. Then people started claiming that it looked nothing like SLW, and had barely anything in common. Obviously that's untrue, and I contested that. And the end point is that the world at hand is very cartoonish and unrealistic, not natural and realistic with cartoonish elements added on top of them, the latter of which most of the overly realistic animal hazards came from. (Sonic Heroes being the outlier)

I didn't say which aesthetic was better, or anything. In fact I like that Forces is following in SLW's footsteps for consistency, and capitalizing on the potential I've always said it had for being a more grounded and well-realized aesthetic that is closer to the classics in art style than anything else. (dunno if I prefer it to Generations anymore due to how it seems to have given up on pushing fidelity, but still) It's just that, people brought up that they weren't the same style, and I contested that. *shrug*.

4 hours ago, Miragnarok said:

Somehow by being an evolution of SLW, this game manages to actually resemble the classics. Was this also done to tie in to Mania? 

SLW (the environment and robots) was already heavily based off the classics, just lacking in the natural and obvious detail in favor of a heavily stylized cartoonish pop. Now that they've added the detail, it just has come to it's logical endgame, sans the robot choices.

They didn't need to see Mania in action to decide on this art style. The Hedgehog Engine 2 has been in development for about as long as the game itself at this point. More detail for the art style was always on their list of priorities.

[Dr. Detective]

Well, whatever they were doing for Lost World, I'm hoping they don't do it again. After all this time, there's still a part of my brain that can't help but feel it looks really off. Even playing it off as just being apart of a "Lost World" doesn't help with how distracting it was for me. Especially after Generations.

I'm generally okay with them messing with the art-style if they feel they can make improvements or provide me with something I haven't seen before that'd be pleasing to the eye and feel like a natural evolution or spin-off of what came before but there's just some things that don't come through correctly when you try to do things a certain way.

I do recall there being some cases where dismissal of Lost World's aesthetic was seen as being against Sonic's world having a more cartoony look. My response would've probably been "What was wrong with what Unleashed and Generations were doing in that regard? Was it still somehow too serious looking for Sonic?"

It might just come down to "Agh. My eyes hate this!" and that's all though. Sometimes that might be what it is. However, noticing the tidbits in Forces that were inspired by Lost World has yet to truly clash with anything for me just yet. I honestly think Park Avenue looks great for instance. I like the way it looks more than Crisis City did in Generations. If it didn't remind me so much of City Escape, I'd have very little problems with it on its own.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Personally I like the idea of mixing Unleashed and Lost World's art styles to find a middle ground which I feel the classic games were already more or less originally trying to do... I dislike how realistic the world in Unleashed was... and I don't even like the adventure games take on it. I kinda liked Lost World's style but it was somewhat too overly cartoony/simple and needed a degree of more detail. Forces feels like it's getting the idea close to right for what i'd like to see... Sadly it's wasted on a game with the boring bland mass produced badniks and dull execution of zone themes so far.

[Dr. Detective]

At the moment I'm still more in line with how Unleashed looked overall. Not just because of the graphics and lightning making it all look beautiful, but also because despite the realistic settings somehow the art-style complimented Sonic enough to where it all really fit well together. The art-style alone would definitely work the way it was there for me. Especially when I take Eggmanland in consideration; the only area in the game that wasn't based off of a real-world location but stylized a bit to feel more Sonic-like. Had the next game done more things like that it would have been amazing.

Sadly, I never got that feeling from the games that came after. The environments were all new but the loss of what Unleashed's engine was capable of made it less breathtaking. 

Where as, before, I was lost in my nostalgia for old timey New York City back when I was a child, just letting Sonic sit in the grass of the Empire City hub... for an entire half hour. God, that's probably the kind of lightning in a bottle magic they'll only be able to stumble upon once a millennium for me. 

At the moment, when it comes to Forces, it's mostly just Park Avenue I'm really feeling the full strength of. 

However, that might also be because Green Sand Hill Zone and Casino Forest are full of assets I've seen before that remind me mostly of Lost World and... Green Hill.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

https://mobile.twitter.com/SONIC_FORCES_JP/status/915124407722377217

Today's tweet talks about the boost.

Boost] What is the most exhilarating in the action of Sonic's "boost"! Or defeat the enemy, when the accumulated boost gauge got the power from Wisp us, press the boost button, you try to sprint at once accelerated to! During boost, it can be goes forward Sprinkle kick the enemy regardless of the ground-air!

Lel at "Sprinkle kick" tho.

[Guest]

This dripfeed of inane stating-the-obvious is one of the laziest marketing decisions they've made in quite some time.

[Salamander]

If I were inclined to argue, I'd suggest that we were only promised "basic information," and that they do have a lot of days to fill.  I'm not inclined to argue, though; it is difficult to say just who this information is aimed at.

[Sean]

If I were you guys I wouldn't put any stock into this twitter info thing and not get upset when what they talk about isn't anything new. I know people are really tense about Forces in general but since they never promised anything beyond extremely basic info, this is one thing you can probably take off your "things about Forces to stress over or rant about" list

[James Cloud]

1 hour ago, FFWF said:

If I were inclined to argue, I'd suggest that we were only promised "basic information," and that they do have a lot of days to fill.  I'm not inclined to argue, though; it is difficult to say just who this information is aimed at.

Exactly when they promise "basic information" that's what's gonna be delivered. Its likely aimed for newcomers to Sonic especially for JP if this is gonna be their first game purchase and getting into the series.