New Sonic Forces Zone revealed: Casino Forest

[Whatever the WhoCares]

4 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Unfortunately us dismissing what they decide is canon doesn't stop them from making games that follow their canon.

If there isn't a line such as "Good thing he hasn't taken over the human world!" then we can all pretend for now. 

Iizuka's explanation is already contradicted by the fact that Angel Island exists a train ride away from Station Square. 

[Polkadi~☆]

Okay, I haven't actually said anything yet, so it's time that I did.

First off, wow! This game DOES have more than two zones! What a shocker. Snark aside, we finally got another level. But why, oh why, was this not announced at any of the TGS panels? What a load of hocus, we were all begging for exactly this type of announcement all through it.

Second, this zone is already far better than classic Green Hill. Less automation, and the game doesn't completely play itself for you. And casino mixed with forest? While that sounds like it could have some cool ideas, this level unfortunately doesn't use any ideas from it.  It's just a bland and not even colourful casino level with forest environments in the background. And it's use of the casino gimmicks are poor.

Third, the level design is... Iffy. Again, overabundance of dash-pads in unnecessary places. Blocky platforming. And it's... Weird, but definitely far better than everything else we've seen so far. But the slopes are a bit wonky, they break way too noticeably that it's jarring.

And forth, yes, the physics are weird. We already know.

 

So, what does this mean for me? Well, we know where Sonic and Infinite were talking now. And once again, my feelings towards Classic Sonic in this game remain. He's just weird, poorly implemented, and overall kinda unnecessary here.

No, I don't hate Forces, I'm actually rather hopeful for it. It's disappointing that I have to state this.

[Gabz Girl]

After rewatching the video of Casino Forest, I'm baffled by the lack of enemies (bar one, but why one??) and the hundreds of rings you collect with such ease. It's something that Mayor D pointed out in his impressions video of Tag Team too, that the game is handing out rings like candy. By the end of the stage you end up with 500 rings or something which means an easy S rank for you!  

You know, if they're getting rid of extra lives and rings being collectible again when you replay a stage, why don't they scrap Ranks on top of that? Maybe later stages in Sonic Forces will prove more challenging, but so far it looks like getting S ranks is stupidly easy! What's even the point of a ranking system if you can get S and A so easily? XD

[Marcello]

The part with all those rings kinda makes sense in a way since it's a casino. I guess they put it there for the satisfying feeling of flying through a bunch of rings and it fits with the level's theme.

As for the enemies, maybe they reduced the number of them for the preview build? That lone enemy in the corner just makes no sense.

[Blue Blood]

47 minutes ago, Marcello said:

The part with all those rings kinda makes sense in a way since it's a casino. I guess they put it there for the satisfying feeling of flying through a bunch of rings and it fits with the level's theme.

As for the enemies, maybe they reduced the number of them for the preview build? That lone enemy in the corner just makes no sense.

The level having virtually no enemies isn't a problem in itself. If they can fill the space with other challenges and gimmicks in fun level design, what's an enemy versus any other kind of obstacle? It doesn't matter. Or rather, it wouldn't matter if the level design wasn't so bland and empty.

As for the copious amounts of rings - now we have an issue. Forces does away with the lives system, so rings are only for score. Now more than ever, they should need to be earned instead of just handed out. But Casino Forest (and the Tag Team Green Hill) doesn't seem to require the player to do anything to get them. And to make it worse, the lack of enemies and obstacles is felt here. There's almost no way to lose your rings; there's no risk. I'm also going to say that this doesn't work very well with the system making you lose all rooms with no way to recollect any of them when taking damage.

Once again Forces shows itself to be an incoherent mess of ideas that don't make sense nor compliment each other that are all bundled up into one sloppy package.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Or maybe Sonic Forces has a shop feauture. Where you collect rings in the levels and then buy stuff from it.
Tons of Sonic games have done stuff like that in the past, from the Chao Garden Black Market to Tails's lab in SLW... Altough It used diffrent currency, but whatever.

[RedFox99]

26 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Or maybe Sonic Forces has a shop feauture. Where you collect rings in the levels and then buy stuff from it.
Tons of Sonic games have done stuff like that in the past, from the Chao Garden Black Market to Tails's lab in SLW... Altough It used diffrent currency, but whatever.

That's an Interesting idea. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

22 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Or maybe Sonic Forces has a shop feauture. Where you collect rings in the levels and then buy stuff from it.
Tons of Sonic games have done stuff like that in the past, from the Chao Garden Black Market to Tails's lab in SLW... Altough It used diffrent currency, but whatever.

If that is the case, then something is really off.

Typically you have to at least put in some effort to get enough for unlocks.

But in this level we see it's possible to get hundreds of rings very quickly, in the tag team level, it's possible to get near 700 rings in 1:25. I'm very certain that time can be brought down to somewhere between 60-70 seconds.

That's an insane number of rings to get per instance if there is a shop, so either the prices in the shop are scaled to a ridiculous degree...

Or there are literally hundreds of unlocks.

... .... or... the items are not scaled correctly and you can unlock everything after 1 stage.

[MudHunter]

20 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

If that is the case, then something is really off.

Typically you have to at least put in some effort to get enough for unlocks.

But in this level we see it's possible to get hundreds of rings very quickly, in the tag team level, it's possible to get near 700 rings in 1:25. I'm very certain that time can be brought down to somewhere between 60-70 seconds.

That's an insane number of rings to get per instance if there is a shop, so either the prices in the shop are scaled to a ridiculous degree...

Or there are literally hundreds of unlocks.

... .... or... the items are not scaled correctly and you can unlock everything after 1 stage.

I guess if there was a shop system, normal items would cost 200-500 rings or something and rarer clothes could go up to 10,000 rings

In game pricing can be ridiculous sometimes to compensate the fact that you can get the currency easily, like in GTA Online some haircuts cost $300 lol

[Blue Blood]

A shop seems like it could easily happen. But making any sort of guess about prices is complete straw-manning at this stage. I agree with Mayor D that even with a shop, the game shouldn't be handing out rings - the should be treated as a reward and should be even more controlled as a result. I just used to spam Casinopolis for rings in SA1, and that wasn't even as extreme as we're seeing in Forces. These levels literally throw you into hundreds of rings in the final stretch between you and the goal.

[Indigo Rush]

3 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

I just used to spam Casinopolis for rings in SA1, and that wasn't even as extreme as we're seeing in Forces. 

About that, funnily enough the best strategy is to collect the plethora of ring boxes in the sewer area. 

Is it an analogy to the dangers of gambling? ?

[Mors]

I usually really don't mind lack of enemies in certain level actually. Lunar Bass in Spark the Electric Jester had no enemies too, but it had several unique level gimmicks and hazards, and it was kinda fun. There was also a Mega Man fangame that had a level without any enemies and it was a really fun level as well. But here it doesn't seem to work well. It just feels like they forgot to add the enemies and it was too late when they realized. Rest of the level also doesn't look very interesting. The gimmicks are nothing new, there are way too many rings, and the overall level design feels kinda soulless and flat. Not to mention that the physics seem to be pretty broken.

As for the visuals I really like the overall palette, yellow bright lights mixed with pink and stuff, but the actual level feels a bit too dark, and the lighting doesn't look very good, compared to Generations at least.

I dunno, unlike most other people I don't like what I'm seeing. I defended the game when we got first Sunset Heights footage. I kinda did the same when we got the footage for Classic Green Hill too, but I just can't keep forcing myself to be optimistic about this game anymore. There are way too many problems with the game, especially with the Classic Sonic and Avatar stages. I hope I'm wrong and later levels get better, but the chances of that is really low.

At least the music is pretty good.

[RedFox99]

I kind of wonder if we'll get a cutscene with Tails and Classic Sonic in the Casino trying to warn people of what Eggman's up to.

[Blue Blood]

21 minutes ago, Indigo Rush said:

About that, funnily enough the best strategy is to collect the plethora of ring boxes in the sewer area. 

Is it an analogy to the dangers of gambling? ?

Yeah, that's what I would do. The only analogy I can think of for that though is "choose failure to win without risk" which really makes no sense whatsoever.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure"? But then why is the first man literally throwing money down the drain?

[RedFox99]

While the execution could use some polishing, I like the idea of this zone and it looks like fun. Plus it does seem to try and change the whole "linear" gameplay. 

[Whatever the WhoCares]

It's also possible that the point requirement for an S rank in this level is really high. Maybe you need like 2,000 rings for an s rank. Hopefully you need more than usual, anyway. 

[Multikaris]

5 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Or maybe Sonic Forces has a shop feauture. Where you collect rings in the levels and then buy stuff from it.
Tons of Sonic games have done stuff like that in the past, from the Chao Garden Black Market to Tails's lab in SLW... Altough It used diffrent currency, but whatever.

Or maybe it's used as the cost for special attacks, with Shadow as your choice of character. Would be another thing to do with them, akin to the Pearls from Secret Rings.

[Blue Blood]

Rings rings rings

I disagree with he assumption about Super Sonic, because he's a bonus extra. But yeah, he's bang on the money about the short levels and excessive rings. This game is naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaf

[Badnik Mechanic]

2 hours ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

It's also possible that the point requirement for an S rank in this level is really high. Maybe you need like 2,000 rings for an s rank. Hopefully you need more than usual, anyway. 

Unlikely.

The game seems to put a greater focus on time it took to beat the stage and if you didn't die for the point multipliers.

You can get a much higher score at the end of you get all red star rings and don't die relatively quickly.

But the S rank requirements are nowhere near that restrictive.

[Sega DogTagz]

15 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

 and if you didn't die for the point multipliers.

This is just me talking, but that Perfect Bonus has been one of the worst things to happen to the series. (lol over-dramatic)

It neuters the entire concept of the S rank. In theory, it sounds great. Lets reward the player for not dying! - that makes all the sense in the world. However, that's not something that needed to be implemented because cleaver usage of the score thresholds already did that for you. Games like Sonic Rush were mapped out to such a degree that it was impossible to get an S rank if you died anywhere in the level. Simply because you needed every inch of real estate in a level to rack up enough points to make that S milestone. That is a built in perfect bonus. That is the way it needs to be done. As it has been in the last few games, an S rank has been diminished to an A rank where you also didn't die. Its too easy.

[Pawn]

16 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

Unlikely.

The game seems to put a greater focus on time it took to beat the stage and if you didn't die for the point multipliers.

It's appropriate that the game rewards you for spending as little time with it as possible.

[Diogenes]

8 minutes ago, Sega DogTagz said:

This is just me talking, but that Perfect Bonus has been one of the worst things to happen to the series. (lol over-dramatic)

It neuters the entire concept of the S rank. In theory, it sounds great. Lets reward the player for not dying! - that makes all the sense in the world. However, that's not something that needed to be implemented because cleaver usage of the score thresholds already did that for you. Games like Sonic Rush were mapped out to such a degree that it was impossible to get an S rank if you died anywhere in the level. Simply because you needed every inch of real estate in a level to rack up enough points to make that S milestone. That is a built in perfect bonus. That is the way it needs to be done. As it has been in the last few games, an S rank has been diminished to an A rank where you also didn't die. Its too easy.

That wouldn't actually be a problem if they just increased the requirements for an A rank, though.

[Straw Hat]

23 hours ago, Yeow said:

That ramp where Sonic flies off into the large swath of rings is a scripted ramp, you can see Sonic's movement when he exits being clearly predetermined, rather than being influenced by the ramps design or the player's input. Generations actually had scripted ramps too, but they were less obvious in their use and implementation.

Also, I don't know if this has been brought up, but holy shit (credit to TwilightyZone for discovering this):

Look at all of these smoke and mirrors on display here!

Wow.... That is.... Disgusting. Lmao.

[Sega DogTagz]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

That wouldn't actually be a problem if they just increased the requirements for an A rank, though.

It would be noticeably better if they did, but I'd still like to see even more of a distinction between great (A) and fantastic (S) than just not eating it during a run.

 

[Ultimate Victory 64]

My opinions on this new level

-Love the visuals

-Love the music (Fight Me its enjoyable)

-Glad there is alt paths in this level

-I can see that Classic Sonic has momentum but its always interfered by the boost pads