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Sonic Forces demo- Green Hill (Modern Sonic gameplay)


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12 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

Thank God you said Mediocre, first time I've read the word in a while. I'm ok with you. :P

But... it is pretty disrespectful - especially if said game is not fully out in the wild. Would you tell the chef who's cooking your meal mid-way through that what he's done so far looks pretty bad? No. This is why I think it must be quite demoralising for them to read, let the damn game come out first. 

Sonic Team shouldn't go out of their way to make one game for a set collective to be happy (well, ok... maybe they did the right thing there with Sonic Mania - but look what also happened when they listened to us over wanting a Shadow the Hedgehog Game).

I think the general rule for most game companies is that they do what they feel is the right direction for them - even if sometimes we feel it isn't the right direction for us. 
 

I'm very much sure no one who works at Sonic Team (i.e. actually making the games) knows or cares for our opinions. 

.. when has Sonic Team ever gone in a direction a lot of people didn't agree with and it turned out okay for them? Nope, they have not earned that kind of trust.

And I think I would say it looks bad.. especially if I know what it's supposed to look like and it's looking super underdone and it's two (weeks) minutes from being served.

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So Sonic can't shorthop without boosting anymore, and there's no drift in sight. That's pretty safe to assume there's not going to be any meaningful 3D interaction in the environment in any of those stages if you can't even tightly turn a corner.

 

Somehow I've managed to be impressed with how they shock me each time I learn something else.

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5 hours ago, Dejimon11 said:

Oh dear God 

 

Sonic's first couple of levels normally don't have a lot of obstacles. You can do the same with Windmill Act 2 or Grenn/Emerald Hill. Just hold Left to win and jump a couple of times..

I won't judge Forces on that...

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I looked at the demo that the creator of the thread posted, and to me... it looked just fine. It looked fun and simple, which is what I've been expecting from the start. I *do* worry about the stage length... but it's not something that enrages me or depresses me, if it turns out that every single stage is so short.

I haven't played any of the demos or anything of the sort, so I can't speak to how it /feels/ to play... but I haven't really sat down and played a Sonic game in a very long time, so it's probably going to feel weird to me no matter what. Whatever it feels like, I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to get used to the controls - I don't think that any of it is going to be so bad that it's unplayable.

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1 minute ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

Sonic's first couple of levels normally don't have a lot of obstacles. You can do the same with Windmill Act 2 or Grenn/Emerald Hill. Just hold Left to win and jump a couple of times..

I won't judge Forces on that...

When you do it in those stages, you miss a bunch of alternative routes and goodies.  In this you miss... one alternative route, maybe two, and both last all of 10-15 seconds.

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2 minutes ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

Sonic's first couple of levels normally don't have a lot of obstacles. You can do the same with Windmill Act 2 or Grenn/Emerald Hill. Just hold Left to win and jump a couple of times..

I won't judge Forces on that...

"X game did it too, so it must not be bad"

>implying that the other games are flawless

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3 minutes ago, JezMM said:

When you do it in those stages, you miss a bunch of alternative routes and goodies.  In this you miss... one alternative route, maybe two, and both last all of 10-15 seconds.

That is true and I agree. This level is clearly more linear than those examples I put up. I'm just saying that using one method in the first stage or so can be applied to a good number of sonic games.

The stage design cannot be exempt however..

 

EDIT: Also the red rings are so outdated.

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5 minutes ago, FriesWithoutKetchup said:

It looked fun and simple

Ill give the simple part. Personally I don't see what's so fun about literally holding the boost for one minute, enemies being non reactive whatsoever, and super shit level design.

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I don't think wanting the game to fail is necessarily a bad thing. Look at Mario Party, which has grown stale as paper. I'm sure there are people who want the next game to fail, so that Nintendo will refresh their formula. 

Yes, there's a chance that if Sonic Forces fails, Sonic Team will learn the wrong lessons. A very good chance. But if it turns out to be mediocre, then I say whatever course of action leads to a paradigm shift in design philosophy... well, it should happen. I prefer 3D Sonic because I prefer navigating a 3D space. Emphasis on the word, "navigating." I don't think Forces will be outright bad, but as I've said before, Sonic Team is a seasoned group that's too experienced to output this kind of shallowness and retain any kind of dignity. 

I saw a post awhile ago, forgot who posted it, analyzing how Sonic Team has been spread out over multiple tasks. I say fuck that shit. Get the Generations director back on board, bring everyone together for an actual big, substantial game, and relegate the Forces designers to background dressing. 

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Huh, I thought the cooking analogy was quite cut and dry, and even that is being dug into. XD I think as mentioned earlier it just appears to me that there is an overdrive on determining everything that is wrong that is exhausting to read. It's like, there's so much self righteous justification to be right.

I don't really expect the game to upend and change within the space of 3 weeks before release either  - I'm just saying we can't pass judgement until we played the full...

...Oh... oh god. Actually... I just realised I'm doing it too now. I got more involved here than I wanted, and there's my evening gone. Ack.

Sorry. Continue the thread with comments. ^^;

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There's nothing wrong if you want to wait for more while judging, I used to feel the same way (hi Generations), but once you know the type of mess Sonic Team likes to pull you can make plenty of safe assumptions about how the game plays out.

I would like to be proven wrong but it's not likely this game will actually take advantage of the 3D space it exists in.

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5 minutes ago, GuyWithThePie said:

Yeah, but now we have to deal with "It's a demo! You haven't played the for real deal!"

Not to mention the overhanging and ever-present "it's for kids!"

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Some footage of a player's speedrun of an Avatar Stage, think this is the furthest anyone's been able to get. It (doesn't) help that the cutscene / QTE sequences and scripted pole-swinging sequences takes up a large chunk of the actual gameplay (the cutscene/QTE sequance itself at the end of the playthrough is literally 15 seconds). 

The avatar player with the Burst Wispon gets some really unnatural-looking pickup in speed. Janky movement seems to be a common trend across the Custom Hero Wispons.

Also wanna talk about the two giant springs at the end of the rail sequence. In the above speedrun at 0:43, the player hops over to get to the next platform just in front of it.

Do you know what happens if you do hit those springs? Check out 0:45 in this GameSpot preview.

The player in the GameSpot preview here hits the spring, which triggers an scripted pole sequence...which drops the player down to the same platform below. This takes up roughly two seconds.

Avoiding the spring entirely not only allows the player to get to the platform faster, but hitting the spring and activating the pole-swinging sequence doesn't even provide any gameplay risk / safety advantage: the platform only has a Wispon and a wall, so if the player hopped over the spring, they don't have to worry about running into an enemy or off the platform into a bottomless pit. 

Hitting the spring + pole swinging sequence offers no meaningful gameplay advantage over just avoiding the spring altogether. It's virtually pointless.

And I'm just singling out one instance of this...in a playstyle that has so far shown to be filled with these pole-swinging sequences. Can you imagine how significantly more involving / interactive and how leaner the Custom Hero gameplay could be if it had none of these sequences scattered throughout its levels to pad out the gameplay?

This freaking game and its design choices, my god.

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12 minutes ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

I don't think wanting the game to fail is necessarily a bad thing. Look at Mario Party, which has grown stale as paper. I'm sure there are people who want the next game to fail, so that Nintendo will refresh their formula. 

Yes, there's a chance that if Sonic Forces fails, Sonic Team will learn the wrong lessons. A very good chance. But if it turns out to be mediocre, then I say whatever course of action leads to a paradigm shift in design philosophy... well, it should happen. I prefer 3D Sonic because I prefer navigating a 3D space. Emphasis on the word, "navigating." I don't think Forces will be outright bad, but as I've said before, Sonic Team is a seasoned group that's too experienced to output this kind of shallowness and retain any kind of dignity. 

I saw a post awhile ago, forgot who posted it, analyzing how Sonic Team has been spread out over multiple tasks. I say fuck that shit. Get the Generations director back on board, bring everyone together for an actual big, substantial game, and relegate the Forces designers to background dressing. 

I'd say get the director of World Adventure back. He was far more confident in his team and led them the correct way in making a genuinely amazing sonic game imo. You should have read his interviews. He was so confident that everything he said went well. 

EDIT: Yoshihisa Hashimoto was the director of World Adventure.

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2 minutes ago, Yeow said:

Some footage of a player's speedrun of an Avatar Stage, think this is the furthest anyone's been able to get. It (doesn't) help that the cutscene / QTE sequences and scripted pole-swinging sequences takes up a large chunk of the actual gameplay (the cutscene/QTE sequance itself at the end of the playthrough is literally 15 seconds). 

The avatar player with the Burst Wispon gets some really unnatural-looking pickup in speed. Janky movement seems to be a common trend across the Custom Hero Wispons.

Also wanna talk about the two giant springs at the end of the rail sequence. In the above speedrun at 0:45, which the player hops over to get to the next platform just in front of it.

Do you know what happens if you do hit those springs? Check out 0:45 in this GameSpot preview.

The player in the GameSpot preview here hits the spring, which triggers an scripted pole sequence...which drops the player down to the same platform below. This takes up roughly two seconds.

Avoiding the spring entirely not only allows the player to get to the platform faster, but hitting the spring and activating the pole-swinging sequence doesn't even provide any gameplay risk / safety advantage: the platform only has a Wispon and a wall, so if the player hopped over the spring, they don't have to worry about running into an enemy or off the platform into a bottomless pit. 

Hitting the spring + pole swinging sequence offers no meaningful gameplay advantage over just avoiding the spring altogether. It's virtually pointless.

And I'm just singling out one instance of this...in a playstyle that has so far shown to be filled with these pole-swinging sequences. Can you imagine how significantly more involving / interactive the Custom Hero gameplay could be if it had none of these sequences scattered throughout its levels?

This freaking game and its design choices, my god.

What the

It's faster to avoid the grappling hook things

Why do they exist.

Why does this game exist?

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I already feel like the bulk of my enjoyment in the full version of this game is going to be centered around messing around with the Avatar characters and their different abilities. The game definitely doesn't feel good, but it might be fun to mess around in. That's the most positive spin that I can put on it.

The best way for me to describe the level design is "The weakest parts of Colors with Heroes' waves of enemies." There is no real free form areas to be found in what is available here in the demo. Sonic Hallways. It definitely makes sense to me that this the same person behind Colors and Lost World. Man has an obsession with straight narrow pathways and blocky platforming.

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2 minutes ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

I'd say get the director of World Adventure back. He was far more confident in his team and led them the correct way in making a genuinely amazing sonic game imo. You should have read his interviews. He was so confident that everything he said went well. 

EDIT: Yoshihisa Hashimoto was the director of World Adventure.

Not only does he not work for SEGA anymore, I recall a status here mentioning he doesn't even work in the gaming industry anymore.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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15 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Ill give the simple part. Personally I don't see what's so fun about literally holding the boost for one minute, enemies being non reactive whatsoever, and super shit level design.

-shrugs- That's fine. It just looks like a fun, simple time to me. And personally, none of the level design has looked shit at all to me. But again, that's just me. I don't mind if it's straight and narrow, so long as the *entire* game isn't like that. And so far, I don't think the entire game will be like that. I could be wrong, of course... but if I am, I dunno, it's just not going to bother me that much. That's what I'm predicting, anyway.

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Just now, FriesWithoutKetchup said:

-shrugs- That's fine. It just looks like a fun, simple time to me. And personally, none of the level design has looked shit at all to me. But again, that's just me. I don't mind if it's straight and narrow, so long as the *entire* game isn't like that. And so far, I don't think the entire game will be like that. I could be wrong, of course... but if I am, I dunno, it's just not going to bother me that much. That's what I'm predicting, anyway.

The problem is that the entire game we've seen so far has been exactly what you just described. Straight and narrow with hardly any complexity in its structure. And just an FYI, level design philosophy doesn't change after 6 levels of doing the same thing on a whim, I would be pretty confident in saying the level design we've seen so far is representative of Forces' levels as a whole.

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giphy.gif

Only 60 seconds to play each level...what drunken Sega employee gave the green light to this demo? You can't even finish or (try to) have fun with the damn stages normally! I expected this kind of stuff from the usual suspects like Activision or EA, but not from Sega.

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