Nakamura and Iizuka on the Custom Hero

[Zaysho]

http://nintendoeverything.com/sonic-forces-devs-on-the-games-custom-character/

Nothing especially new we didn't already know, but I saw this and thought their comments were interesting, especially Iizuka's.

Quote

Nakamura indicated that customization won’t be “as in depth as Fallout or some of those other extremely complex creation mechanics.”

Nakamura explained:

 

“It’s not gonna be as in depth as Fallout or some of those other extremely complex creation mechanics. What we had in mind when we were making the whole create a character scenario was, out of all the people being depicted in this world, you can choose those characters that populate the world. It’s not complete free creation, but we’re going and making a lot of parts and features and animals that could exist in this world and you’re going to be able to put them together.”

Quote

As Sonic Team boss Takashi Iizuka said:

“I’ve seen so many things in my life, that I have the knowledge of what people want to create or what they have created in the past. I’ve been seeing that for decades now, and I do understand on a certain level, but when the team was creating the customizable character, when they were making content, they just went out and did what they wanted to do.”

“Most of the fan art that we see are hedgehog characters. A lot of the characters are created and designed matching the Sonic the Hedgehog body shape. That’s pretty much what I see in the fan art out there. Nothing really deviates too far from that, so when we were thinking about the customizable character feature, we didn’t really go to far in creating different body types and shapes, because most of what is saw had a similar type of body shape to Sonic.”

 

I can't say I'm surprised, but I'm also a bit disappointed at their reasoning for making all the custom heroes based around Sonic's type. Would have been more interesting if they had gone for the speed/power/flight split games like Heroes and Riders have for classifying characters and allow for a little more variety.

[Monkey Destruction Switch]

No really different body types...not surprising, but disappointing. =/

Not that I don't get the reasoning, it makes some sense, but in my opinion, the fact that most fan characters are designed with one body type is a bug, not a feature.

[Blue Wisp]

Wow he outright said that this game was inspired by fanart.

OC fanart inspired a Sonic game.

We reached the apex of Sonic the Hedgehog games folks. Nothing can surpass Sonic Forces. 

[MegasonicZX]

I like how the reasoning for this is "because no one else does it, why should we?", I find this really dumb and I would've even found the "its easier to develop around" excuse a better reason for this design. Feels like every answer we get from lizuka with this game keeps chipping away at my confidence in the man.

[Dr. Detective]

Sonic Forces us to kneel before Deviantart. 

[rosedust]

tbh im glad i can be a girl cuz i thought og they were only gonna have a male option. mr iizuka invented social justice progression....

[Polkadi~☆]

1 hour ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Sonic Forces us to kneel before Deviantart. 

"ALL CANON THINGS KNEEL BEFORE YOUR MASTER"

~ DeviantArt, Sonic OC Heroes

[Dannymax440]

26 minutes ago, Polkadi said:

"ALL CANON THINGS KNEEL BEFORE YOUR MASTER"

~ DeviantArt, Sonic OC Heroes

This game is trying to reach ShTH and 06 levels of having jokes that just write themselves. (Not saying the game will be bad though).

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Gasp, a Sonic game inplanting a feature based on what a lot of its fans love! What a crazy concept.

Now if only Iizuka stumbled upon the 50.000 internet video's and articles about level design.
Then again, considering the half-assed way they're doing the OC character feauture, I'm not sure if that'll help.

But this phrase...
" out of all the people being depicted in this world, you can choose those characters that populate the world. "
It sounds so weird, is that a translation error? Because to me that reads they want you to create NPC's and villagers in the background, not a main character.
Then again, maybe he accidently revealed a new game mode where you have to create new villagers to repopulate the city.
Like a new Chao garden. Hah.

[Dr. Detective]

"Mr. Iizuka, I've got two folders for you. One is the folder where we go with the weird "Create your own OC character and also Classic Sonic's here too I guess" plan and the other is the one where we let Tails take Classic Sonic's place as the playable character and have his part in the story be his own self-discovery, solo adventure while Knuckles, as the leader of the resistance, takes the fan-character's place, allowing the three poster boys of our franchise to have positions in the story that make sense for the Modern 3D Sonic game we're making that'll have the added benefit down the line of complementing a 2D Sonic game with a similar idea that may or may not come into development by some fans who are better at making Classic Sonic games then we are."

"Hmm...Which one isn't the Adventure game-y sounding one."

"Option 1."

"Greenlight that shit!"

~ Sonic Team.

_{I don't like being so mean to the guy but it's really hard not to when everything we're told he's saying just comes off like utter gutter trash...}

[Mega]

I'm still salty that almost all the species are mammals. :/ And having a dog AND a wolf feels really redundant.

[Salamander]

2 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

But this phrase...
" out of all the people being depicted in this world, you can choose those characters that populate the world. "
It sounds so weird, is that a translation error? Because to me that reads they want you to create NPC's and villagers in the background, not a main character.

I'm not certain, but I think he might be indicating that all of the NPC anthros in the world - like the ones we see being attacked in the story trailer, or as part of the Resistance army - are all based on the character creator models.  So the civilians and the OC alike are basically products of the character creator, unifying the NPC and player character designs.

[Detective Kaito]

I was going to make a red hedgehog anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me. The only thing that matters to me about the Avatar is how he plays and controls, not how he looks.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

Yeah I was disappointed about this. The reasoning/excuses is bad no matter how you want to look at it. With all the more advanced avatar makers in games nowadays they really should try harder if they want to go up against the competition.

3 hours ago, Detective Kaito said:

I was going to make a red hedgehog anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me. The only thing that matters to me about the Avatar is how he plays and controls, not how he looks.

Well we know the avatar controls and plays the worse out of the 3... So there's hardly anything to look forward to or question there. And when the main feature of any custom avatar character in any game is allowing you to design their looks... it's almost pointless to include it if one does not include better freedom of design.

[JosepHenry]

Everytime I get disappointed and hopeless is thanks to what Iizuka says every interview. He is a moron and a hypocrite. I'm sorry....

And if he isn't the one with those ideas, the person giving them can be fired/retire/leave permanently right now please?

[JezMM]

Man if they think most fanart conforms to Sonic's regular body shape they really didn't delve too far into deviantART did they.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

8 hours ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

But this phrase...
" out of all the people being depicted in this world, you can choose those characters that populate the world. "
It sounds so weird, is that a translation error? Because to me that reads they want you to create NPC's and villagers in the background, not a main character.
Then again, maybe he accidently revealed a new game mode where you have to create new villagers to repopulate the city.

That gives me an idea. Imagine, if you will, that after each playthrough, your avatar gets saved in the data as a background character that shows up in repeat playthroughs as an NPC.

[Dejimon11]

Not really fond of their reasoning for why you can't change the shape and size of the OCs. For something that's meant to be the big selling point of this game they seem to be playing it safe with it. 

[MegasonicZX]

1 minute ago, Dejimon11 said:

Not really found of their reasoning for why you can't change the shape and size of the OCs. For something that's meant to be the big selling point of this game they seem to be playing it safe with it. 

Seems to be a running theme with the game itself from what we've seen, only real parts that stand out so far are the story and the avatar itself.

[Marcello]

6 hours ago, Mega said:

I'm still salty that almost all the species are mammals. :/ And having a dog AND a wolf feels really redundant.

You can make a bird.

Spoiler

=P

 

[Razule]

I don't think they should have had species at all. Just different parts. 

[James Cloud]

Nah species are perfectly fine I'd just have more as unlockable since its easy to plop different heads and specific parts to each body and better abilities similar to Bears and Birds.

[Detective Kaito]

22 minutes ago, Razule said:

I don't think they should have had species at all. Just different parts. 

Ah, just imagine the abominations. 

[RedFox99]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

Man if they think most fanart conforms to Sonic's regular body shape they really didn't delve too far into deviantART did they.

Especially since I've found some pretty creative-looking OCs.

[JezMM]

12 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Especially since I've found some pretty creative-looking OCs.

That's true, but my post was just a joke about a certian phenomenon and if you didn't understand it you're better off lol.