Sonic Forces demo- Green Hill (Modern Sonic gameplay)

[Razule]

51 minutes ago, Straw Hat said:

What the fucking hell...?

Those "wide open spaces" in Green Hill are just going to be like this, huh

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

Just now, Meta77 said:

General gaming. Hmm most have hated on sonic for years wht appease to them? Most games are meanr to appeal to fans first not the cod player down the street. 06 didn't and it sold well though it was a mess.  Saying this will end modern sonic is nearly as funny as people saying Nintendo was doomed for not launching a smash bros game with switch. Or how the nes  classic would never sale. It all depends on marketing. boom was a mess but spawned a popular tv show from it. If anything I'm certain this game will do fine. I have friends that never have touched sonic in years wanting it just to dress up a oc

You need to check your numbers again (Yeow just made a post) but Sonic '06 did not sell well. 

The general gaming community is important for Sonic because they are what makes Sonic a successful, AAA franchise, not us. General gamers far outnumber us (as we are a small subset of the total community) and when Sonic games are successful sales wise, it is because the sales reached a much broader audience than just the dedicated fanbase. This is what happened with Sonic through the 90s, but slowed down in the early 2000s when Sonic games started to consistently get bad reviews. Its why its important for reviewers to not think Sonic games suck because it affect the bottom line.

We keep Sonic on life support but the broader, general audience are what makes him a big franchise. If its only us buying the games, Sonic games will fade into niche territory (they're dangerously close to that now) with much smaller budgets until the games aren't profitable anymore and then don't get made.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Just now, Razule said:

Those "wide open spaces" in Green Hill are just going to be like this, huh

It's more the fact the enemies don't do anything.

[McGroose]

Those robots are programmed not to give a fuck.

[GuyWithThePie]

8 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

This cannot be real.

There are blocky chunks of the stage missing during the 2D slope section.

For fuck's sake, Sonic Team. HOW did no-one notice this?

EDIT: this is taken from a Twitter video. It looks worse in motion. https://twitter.com/CyclonX_/status/923219462593105921/video/1 (skip to 0:30)

 

It's "stylistic"!

[Meta77]

6 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

You're dead wrong lol.

The Sonic fanbase is not enough to support Sonic games, and if they look like shit they won't sell.

Lost World sold 800k copies or am I wrong?

How much did the Boom games sell again? 300k combined?

Eh.

They need the general public, and if they're not here for the game, then it's not good.

If senran kagura can still make it stateside sonic will be fine lol

[RLS Legacy]

Clearer image of the missing chunk. Christ.

And like I said, it's way worse in motion: https://i.imgur.com/KnQTBCg.gifv

[Milo]

28 minutes ago, Swing said:

You guys can not really compare Mario Odyssey with Forces. Those are two different games in style and gameplay. Same also with other 3D plattformers.  You an not compare Forces also with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro or Banjo-Kazooie. But you can compare it with other 3D-Sonics and so far all them actually had outstanding level design, music and presentation. Heck, even the mediocre Storybook series had way more interesting level ideas than Forces. And thoses games where rushed. 

Those franchises certainly go for different approaches and design decisions, but let's not pretend Sonic stands in entirely a vacuum all of his own. Sonic is still a platforming series at the end of the day, it's absolutely fair to make comparisons to certain elements of their game design. Lest we not forget Sonic's original claim to fame was being Sega's answer to Mario as a rival mascot platformer.

Citing just one example, Mario 3D World, Crash N-Sane Trilogy, and Forces are all linear obstacle-based 3D platformers. People can make observations to the similarities and differences each games have in this general field of their design.

[Sonikko]

1 minute ago, Meta77 said:

If senran kagura can still make it stateside sonic will be fine lol

Senran kagura is nowhere near as important or famous as Sonic is.

That's our whole point. It's niche.

Do you understand what that means?

[KHCast]

1 minute ago, RLS Legacy said:

Clearer image of the missing chunk. Christ.

And like I said, it's way worse in motion: https://imgur.com/KnQTBCg

That dying tree...there's symbolism somewhere...hmm.

[Celestia]

The chunks of missing ground are probably intentional since we've seen stuff like that in other levels set in Green Hill and (as far as I can remember?) not in the other levels.

[RLS Legacy]

Just now, Celestia said:

The chunks of missing ground are probably intentional since we've seen stuff like that in other levels set in Green Hill and (as far as I can remember?) not in the other levels.

Then they should have made more of an effort to make it look 'ruined' or destroyed or something. Like, add some scorch marks or some crumbled bits, for God's sake. As it is it just looks like some hack used the rectangular select tool, highlighted a chunk and hit 'delete.'

[Diogenes]

It might be intentional, but if so it was a bad choice, because it really does look like there's just a chunk of the level that didn't load or something.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

24 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Yes, exactly.

I was waiting for someone to say that because this, this is a pretty important point.

This is exactly what is wrong with their design.

Let's start from the very beginning.

The classic games:

Momentum based platformers, extensive multiple routes, replayability.

Adventure 1:

"Hey how do we translate that to 3D?" "Uhm let's try bringing the same design mentality to 3D and see if it works"

Windy Valley Beta happens.

"Uhm that's very cool but we can't make a whole game like that, the console isn't powerful enough and building it would require too much time with our strict budget, let's cut some corners"

Windy Valley becomes the most automated and linear stage in the game.

"Yes this is more like it, let's do it like this, and then we'll figure it out later, we'll improve on the formula.

Adventure 2:

"Uh people don't seem to care that our games are linear, since it's easier to build them that way let's make them even more linear, there's no point in expanding level design if people don't care"

Heroes:

"Hey guys uhmm why do we even have physics?" "Oh man that's actually a good point, let's automate more stuff"

06:

"But guys if people like watching Sonic being bounced around so much why don't we make more of that? No need for actual gameplay, amirite?"

Unleashed:

"People liked the mach speed sections and Secret Rings more than standard gameplay, let's make that just to the extreme. We aren't going to need physics or any meaningful enemy AI 'cause Sonic is gonna move so fast that people won't even notice. YOLO"

Colours:

"Seems like people liked the day stages of Unleashed, let's make those except not really. It's gonna be slow and clunky! Also, let's strip out those awful slope physics we reintroduced for some reason, whotf thought we needed them?"

Generations:

"Hey guys, this one oughta be good, this is the 20th anniversary, you hear me? Don't fuck this up." 

"But including Classic Sonic is gonna be hard with this shit physics engine we've got now, what do we do?"
"Well make it work somehow, be sure to include slope physics, but automate the ramps 'cause nobody cares anyway"

Lost World:
"Looks like people have some issues with classic Sonic and physics, let's just get rid of those and justify it with planetoids gimmicks 8)"

Forces:

"People want the boost back 'cause LW was a miss. Let's make it even more automated, people didn't mind Lost World not having physics so that's not an issue, no need to bring them back.

Oh and get rid of the enemies AI, nobody stops in front of them to check if they have any lol."

And this long rant is to say that their design goes on by subtraction.

They keep stripping away features with each game they put out.

Each game has been progressively worse.

And we kept supporting them.

Accurate post. 

That last line was powerful. Like an introduction to a post-apocalyptic movie (oh the Irony with this game).

"SEGA promised that Sonic would be consistently better.... And we believed them...."

[Sonikko]

Just now, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

Accurate post. 

That last line was powerful. Like an introduction to a post-apocalyptic movie (oh the Irony with this game).

"SEGA promised that Sonic would be consistently better.... And we believed them...."

That's what I was going for, so I feel like I hit the mark lol.

[Badnik Mechanic]

11 minutes ago, McGroose said:

Those robots are programmed not to give a fuck.

The robots are not programmed!

[Radiant Hero Ike]

37 minutes ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I think this is why SEGA will have to make a smart choice after this game is released. The main series Sonic games cannot cater to both gameplay purists and "I like story, don't care about the game" crowds simultaneously. 

And the truth is, if SEGA keeps releasing Sonic games where story is the focus and gameplay is...well....this......they're never going to win back the general gaming audience, or basically anyone who is not part of a specific subset of diehard Sonic fans. Every time a game is released like this that misses all the marks gameplay wise in favor of emphasizing "story", the Sonic franchise is going to get ripped to shreds by the gaming media. Because at the end of the day, this is still a videogame franchise, and the stories in this franchise are not winning any Pulitzer prizes anytime soon....

You've got to come up with a better way to appease your devianart/"I-just-care-about-story" crowd than this. In general, games like this cannot be the flagship for the company because they will continually be destroyed by critics and many big fan reviewers. And Snic games will continue to sell less until they are not justifiable projects on this scale anymore.

 

This is not what universal appeal looks like. I really thought that was the goal here, SEGA. Wow.

The 7th I going to be an interesting day, without a doubt.

Oh, while I do care more about the story, I don't not care about the gameplay. Just, you know, I get more enthralled by the former.

I mean, I'd love for there to be both amazing story and gameplay. Like, if we got (less frustrating for me) Mania gameplay and Forces story (which from what I've seen, looks pretty cool), that'd be ideal.

[DiamondX]

I'd like for someone else to confirm this, but jumping right after getting through a Dash Panel makes Sonic go faster than normal.

It might just be me though.

[Sonikko]

1 minute ago, Radiant Hero Ike said:

Oh, while I do care more about the story, I don't not care about the gameplay. Just, you know, I get more enthralled by the former.

I mean, I'd love for there to be both amazing story and gameplay. Like, if we got (less frustrating for me) Mania gameplay and Forces story (which from what I've seen, looks pretty cool), that'd be ideal.

If you want story, you're looking at the wrong franchise. It's like saying I buy mainline Mario games for the story.

Sonic is about gameplay, it's not a 40+ hours JRPG with an engaging story.

And it should never have priority over gameplay in this franchise. Nothing should.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Jesus H Christ... I just realised something.

In the UK national curriculum... kids are taught to make games using Scratch... They are tested on their ability to program a robot to move around... I know this because I've had to research early programming languages for a project I'm doing.

Key stage 2 kids in England are producing better Ai code in Scratch than the C++ programmers at Sonic Team!

[DoubleXXCross]

This is why I've been negative-nancying around the whole thing…

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Just now, Sonikko said:

If you want story, you're looking at the wrong franchise. It's like saying I buy mainline Mario games for the story.

Sonic is about gameplay, it's not a 40+ hours JRPG with an engaging story.

And it should never have priority over gameplay in this franchise. Nothing should.

Uh... Okay. But, I've been playing the series for 17 years and just recently started caring more about story in games in general. And like I said, I don't not care about gameplay.

Sonic stories entertain me enough anyways, this just looks like it'll have my favorite story thus far.

[Nintendoga]

It's ok bros, the demo is probably just an old prototype version of the game. 

(4 years and this is what they give us)

 

[Meta77]

15 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Senran kagura is nowhere near as important or famous as Sonic is.

That's our whole point. It's niche.

Do you understand what that means?

Of course i do. But facr is it stilk sells. Sonic is popular and the doomsayers are always funny cause sonic persist. He lives and fans still love him. Forces at worst will caise them to try another gameplay gimmick next time. At worse

[RLS Legacy]

Just now, Nintendoga said:

It's ok bros, the demo is probably just an old prototype version of the game. 

(4 years and this is what they give us)

 

B-b-b-b-but surely they'll fix the level design! And revamp the entire game! Two weeks from release! There's still time, guys!

...right?