Sonic Forces SPOILER Thread

[SpongicX]

Just now, Infinite ∞ said:

At the end of Generations he was trapped in the White Space.

He'll return some way or another.

That’s the thing, Generations showed he was at least alive, yet Forces didn’t. We don’t see him flying away in a hilarious way either, it’s implied he was blown up. They did not handle his defeat as humorously as past games, and didn’t bother showing if he survived.

[Tani Coyote]

It feels like a missed opportunity that Infinite didn't recreate Black Doom in Shadow's DLC. Particularly given the DLC sure loved evoking Shadow's game with its music choices. It would have really established the extent of Infinite's powers, and wouldn't be too spoilery given it's a prequel campaign you're intended to play after the main campaign anyway.

I've thought on the subject of Zavok evoking a "lol" reaction for his inclusion, but it makes sense. There's not many main game Sonic villains that make sense besides Zavok. Solaris no longer exists, Dark Gaia's too big, and Mecha and Silver Sonic would be redundant next to Metal. Black Doom makes the most sense, but having him fight Sonic would be another hint that the villains aren't real, plus he's more Shadow's nemesis (never mind Shadow's game being in a weird space between main title and side title).

I assume the reason they chose base Metal over Neo Metal (who was more of a threat) would be to avoid giving away that they aren't real. It makes sense for Metal to be by Eggman's side, Neo Metal would raise eyebrows given his whole motif was rebelling against Eggman... plus he'd no doubt try rebelling against Eggman if he was recreated, given the "original personality" stipulation.

I dunno, I'm just kind of thinking on the subject of "could the villain lineup really be changed?"

I will say. It does feel sad they relegated Chaos to fodder status.

10 minutes ago, SpongicX said:

That’s the thing, Generations showed he was at least alive, yet Forces didn’t. We don’t see him flying away in a hilarious way either, it’s implied he was blown up. They did not handle his defeat as humorously as past games, and didn’t bother showing if he survived.

It's subtle, but there is a humorous indication Eggman survived.

After you beat the game, the world control bar drops Team Eggman down to 0%.

Then it bumps back up to 0.1%. He'll be back.

[SpongicX]

14 minutes ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

It feels like a missed opportunity that Infinite didn't recreate Black Doom in Shadow's DLC. Particularly given the DLC sure loved evoking Shadow's game with its music choices. It would have really established the extent of Infinite's powers, and wouldn't be too spoilery given it's a prequel campaign you're intended to play after the main campaign anyway.

 

I've thought on the subject of Zavok evoking a "lol" reaction for his inclusion, but it makes sense. There's not many main game Sonic villains that make sense besides Zavok. Solaris no longer exists, Dark Gaia's too big, and Mecha and Silver Sonic would be redundant next to Metal. Black Doom makes the most sense, but having him fight Sonic would be another hint that the villains aren't real, plus he's more Shadow's nemesis (never mind Shadow's game being in a weird space between main title and side title).

 

I assume the reason they chose base Metal over Neo Metal (who was more of a threat) would be to avoid giving away that they aren't real. It makes sense for Metal to be by Eggman's side, Neo Metal would raise eyebrows given his whole motif was rebelling against Eggman... plus he'd no doubt try rebelling against Eggman if he was recreated, given the "original personality" stipulation.

 

I dunno, I'm just kind of thinking on the subject of "could the villain lineup really be changed?"

 

I will say. It does feel sad they relegated Chaos to fodder status.

 

It's subtle, but there is a humorous indication Eggman survived.

After you beat the game, the world control bar drops Team Eggman down to 0%.

Then it bumps back up to 0.1%. He'll be back.

I saw that more as fixing the damage Eggman left behind. Not a state of Eggman currently rebuilding. It’s mostly used as a percentage for completionists. I’m not saying I think Eggman really is dead, but it’s so strange for a 3d Sonic game to break tradition of showing he survived.

[Tani Coyote]

2 minutes ago, SpongicX said:

I saw that more as fixing the damage Eggman left behind. Not a state of Eggman currently rebuilding. It’s mostly used as a percentage for completionists. I’m not saying I think Eggman really is dead, but it’s so strange for a 3d Sonic game to break tradition of showing he survived.

Oh totally, it is odd. Especially since I doubt this game will be getting a sequel.

The percentages indicate control rather than quality of the land, however, so I interpreted it as Eggman is out there somewhere, back to being an NGO superpower with a few scraps of land that he builds bases on, but not much else. The fight is never won, because he will always be lurking in the shadows.

[Salamander]

I'm not going to step into the discussion over whether Forces Classic was an illusion or a projection, but we do appear to be shown pretty explicitly that the Phantom Ruby, beside its illusion properties, also has teleportation and spacetime-warping properties.  This seems mysterious, but given that the illusions it creates are "real" in their effects, it's fair game to speculate that any time it's used to teleport someone, it's more that it's creating an illusion of a teleportation effect which has its real impact, the same way as an illusion of being attacked causes characters to recoil and take damage.  From there I'd suggest that the Ruby, when not held by anyone in particular or kept in stasis, is constantly projecting illusions purely to itself, which can cause it to fly about, teleport, and warp through spacetime.  Thus it can appear out of pretty much nowhere in both Mania and Forces.  Which Phantom Ruby is real and where did it come from?  It doesn't matter, and it's probably not even a meaningful question.  Like the Chaos Emeralds and the Time Stones, it just is.

[RedFox99]

So did anyone else feel that Vector did more in his Sonic Boom episode than in here?

[Gabz Girl]

Isn’t this the first time Dr Eggman’s fate has been left on a cliffhanger? So weird...he doesn’t even talk throughout both boss battles. They get rid of him, he explodes and...that’s it. 

Yeah, guess he’s dead. =P

[StaticMania]

47 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

So did anyone else feel that Vector did more in his Sonic Boom episode than in here?

Since he didn't punch out anyone there I'm gonna say.......no he didn't.

[RedFox99]

11 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

Since he didn't punch out anyone there I'm gonna say.......no he didn't.

Yeah, but there he helped solve the main problem of the episode and got more focus. Sure he fought in Forces, but it was very brief and most other times he's just chatting through a radio.

[LukA8]

1 hour ago, RedFox99 said:

So did anyone else feel that Vector did more in his Sonic Boom episode than in here?

Yeah, I never would have believed anyone last year if told that Sonic Boom would have my favourite Sonic moment in 2017 (excluding Mania), but oh well. Vector had a very subtle arc of not trusting the Rookie, but all in all Forces does nothing for me in terms of other characters, because most of the radio chatter is so generic and lacks character. The only dialogue I liked was Infinite impersonating Rouge and Omega in Episode Shadow. While their story involvement in Generations was even worse, at least it reincorporated them in some way into the gameplay and I thought they would evolve that, but many reviewers disliked the challenge acts so they removed them (and look how much better their games are reviewed now)

Forces and its story would really have benefited from a small hub world in the form of the resistance base, and Iizuka did hint at "adventure elements" in early 2017 and the base had concept art, so it was probably dropped somewhere during development. It would have been great as an interactive menu where you can talk to the resistance Unleashed-style and get missions from them, like helping Rouge spy on the Death Egg's prison and maybe finding a hint to Sonic being alive. Speaking of, that plot point was so ridiculous, because all we got from it was one stupidly dramatic cutscene and then 1 minute afterwards Knuckles says "Sonic is alive!" and we get torture talk.

The story was just so all over the place. The rookie/Classic Sonic just so happens to always take the best route/search the right area/be the only one not fighting at the moment. Then the final stage declares Infinite was born in Eggman's lab and Amy even feels sorry for him when he just turns out to have served Eggman before and was there for experimenting. Wouldn't Shadow have told them about him? Seems more like they wanted the story going in a certain direction and then suddenly decided otherwise when creating Shadow's DLC. Still expect him to return if the series doesn't get another reboot, for better or worse. Actually, for worse.

So yeah, I have many other thoughts about that game but it all comes down to being disappointed despite getting some enjoyment out of it with my low expectations. I'm really intrigued how the series goes from here, though, because the reviews, likely bad sales (already out of Amazon Top 50 or even 100 in many countries, never entered Top 20) and contrast to Mania's reception should really get Sega thinking for once, though knowing them, not sure whatever they decide will necessarily improve the series.

 

[RLS Legacy]

IGN have released their first proper gameplay video.

And, continuing the trend established with Unleashed, the person playing it is complete garbage at the game. Doesn't boost, runs into obvious enemies, etc.

They have to be doing it deliberately at this point. I refuse to believe everybody working at IGN sucks at Sonic.

[StaticMania]

8 minutes ago, LukA8 said:

...and Iizuka did hint at "adventure elements" in early 2017...

Well, the world map type level select is pretty similar to Sonic Adventure 2's...and characters go through the same stages in different areas like in Sonic Adventure.

So there's that, I guess.

[MysteriousGirl 92]

What was the point of giving the players an ordinary shield (in Classic Sonic's Chemical Plant level) when the developers could have given them an UNDERWATER shield? You know, THE VERY THING THAT HELPS THE PLAYER SURVIVE BEING UNDERWATER?

[StaticMania]

The bubble shield only made sense in Sonic 3 when 5 out of 6 stages had water in them.

[JaidynReiman]

I played up to Stage 16 so far. I don't think the game is all that bad at all. Also think its pretty fun at times. But although I don't think the game is all that bad, its not great. Which is something I've said a lot about this game, but explains my feelings as well.

 

The story is largely forgettable, but its not like... bad or anything. Its just there. Some throwaway things do bother me a lot. Like "Sonic was tortured for 6 months" and "he's been defeating you for decades" (I know its a nod to how long the series has existed, but damn, does that line sound so off when the characters haven't changed a day).

I haven't played Episode Shadow, but I did play as Shadow. That's pretty cool. I also like how each stage is part of a larger "world" / "area", and some stages are completely different from locations in said same area. People before called them levels, but they're really more like worlds from other games, Mario for example. They follow a similar theme, with different individual parts of the same theme, sometimes completely different (the pyramid in Green Hill).

 

I was a little annoyed about the throwaway "your neighborhood turns into a desert" at the beginning of the game, then later Tails shows up and is like "Wait, what's that desert doing here? This is Green Hill, right?"

Ok? Why did Green Hill suddenly turn into a desert? I like the idea, I just wish it was explained.

 

I also like the different characters acting as mission control and doing other things on there own. While you don't SEE them doing it, I don't mind that fact. I just like how they're doing something to justify them not being around. Its a small touch but I really like it.

 

Also, the music is great of course.

[DabigRG]

11 hours ago, KHCast said:

So who created the illusion classic sonic then?

Tails, of course.

 

11 hours ago, Tyranno said:

In the end, I've figured out why Infinite works for me.

He's basically a very similar character to Scourge.

Look at how he acts. The guy's only calm and collected when he thinks he has control over things, and 90 % of his dialogue is talking about how much everyone else is inferior to him and afraid of him - effectively he's projecting his own issues with himself onto other people. His past incarnations in Episode Shadow and the comic are louder and more insecure because he's not in control of anything. He's obsessed with proving himself better than everything else around him and reinventing himself after every weakness and then when he gets what he thinks he wants he leans into it hardcore and starts playing like he's hot shit until the cracks start showing again.

His overdramatic need to reinvent himself in response to coming up short reminds me a lot of Scourge and why I thought he worked as a villain, as he's defined by his "inferiority superiority complex" - in the end, he's an all powerful loser shooting above his pay grade.

That's actually a very neat parallel I wouldn't have thought of. 

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, RLS Legacy said:

IGN have released their first proper gameplay video.

And, continuing the trend established with Unleashed, the person playing it is complete garbage at the game. Doesn't boost, runs into obvious enemies, etc.

They have to be doing it deliberately at this point. I refuse to believe everybody working at IGN sucks at Sonic.

I think you're exaggerating. It doesn't look like anything worse than someone still getting used to the controls and mechanics and who hasn't memorized the levels yet.

e: they even got 2 A's and an S. That's not playing terribly by the game's own metrics.

[Framerate]

This game should’ve had hub worlds like xenoverse were you see avatars and explore buy stuff and Roleplay that’s what this game needed also better level design 

[Dr. Mechano]

11 hours ago, Tyranno said:

In the end, I've figured out why Infinite works for me.

He's basically a very similar character to Scourge.

Look at how he acts. The guy's only calm and collected when he thinks he has control over things, and 90 % of his dialogue is talking about how much everyone else is inferior to him and afraid of him - effectively he's projecting his own issues with himself onto other people. His past incarnations in Episode Shadow and the comic are louder and more insecure because he's not in control of anything. He's obsessed with proving himself better than everything else around him and reinventing himself after every weakness and then when he gets what he thinks he wants he leans into it hardcore and starts playing like he's hot shit until the cracks start showing again.

His overdramatic need to reinvent himself in response to coming up short reminds me a lot of Scourge and why I thought he worked as a villain, as he's defined by his "inferiority superiority complex" - in the end, he's an all powerful loser shooting above his pay grade.

See, I feel like if the story was just a bit more self-aware that'd work better.

But Infinite is played completely straight. He's marketed as some "edgy badass" character, from his trailers to his theme song to the way all the other characters in the game go on about how great and powerful he is. He's a total loser who's framed by the narrative as being someone to be genuinely feared or admired rather than someone who's actually pretty pathetic.

Like, I feel like the game is trying to sell Infinite as totally and unironically cool, despite making him a melodramatic whiner who angstily screams about how (not) weak he is.

Since you mentioned him, a character like Scourge - by contrast - has a lot of humanizing foibles and jokes made at his expense by the narrative; He's called out for his petty jealousy and immature, arrogant outlook, and I think all of that is to the character's benefit. He comes off as way more "human" than Infinite because he's written more like a person and less like a vague archetype.

[DabigRG]

11 hours ago, Tyranno said:

It's standard cartoon logic. "Destroy the thing making the thing happen and its effects will reverse itself".

It's the same reason why draining the life force out of the planet gets reversed in Lost World after you destroy the machine doing it, even though there's no reason why it should be transferred back to the things it was taken from. The specific trope is No Ontological Inertia.

It's just a storytelling convenience.

Actually, Eggman and Tails specifically dissuaded Sonic doing that because it had to be done manually, which Tails implies wasn't possible initially

 

11 hours ago, Razule said:

It is soon after though, like in Forces.

The difference is that a portal eventually appeared that Classic Sonic and Classic Tails jumped into to get back to their timeline/dimension in Generations, while Classic Sonic here simply started to fade away before dispersing into light particles.

10 hours ago, Diogenes said:

Alright, here's a question then: portals. Gens ended with the Classics returning to their time through a portal, that supposedly being spacetime's way of fixing itself. Razule argued that Classic Sonic appearing from a portal in Forces indicated that he was the same physical Sonic as the one in Mania, that the means of physically travelling between dimensions used a portal. So why no portal at the end of Forces? Why just fading away, rather than a portal like Gens' spacetime fix or Forces' own supposed dimension jump?

Probably just an inconsistency born from needing Tails to believe Classic Sonic came [running] from another dimension to help him, even though he technically never sees the portal.

 

 

5 hours ago, SpongicX said:

Did Eggman freaking die in Sonic Forces?! Every Sonic game usually ends with Eggman being defeated yet shows he survived, or managed to escape, yet Sonic Forces did not end that way. We see Eggman’s death egg robot blow up in a less cartoony way than usual. The explosion was bigger and more firey than most Eggman explosions. We don’t even see him flee, fly off, or make a sound. That’s the last we see of him in the game, not even a mention on whether he’ll be back.

It’s so strange for a Sonic game to not acknowledge what happened to Eggman, the plot in this game is so rushed, so it’s hard to tell if Eggman was killed off, or if the programmers were too lazy to bother showing what happened to him.

3 hours ago, Gabz Girl said:

Isn’t this the first time Dr Eggman’s fate has been left on a cliffhanger? So weird...he doesn’t even talk throughout both boss battles. They get rid of him, he explodes and...that’s it. 

Yeah, guess he’s dead. =P

To be fair, both Sonic Rush and Rush Adventure did something similar.

4 hours ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

It feels like a missed opportunity that Infinite didn't recreate Black Doom in Shadow's DLC. Particularly given the DLC sure loved evoking Shadow's game with its music choices. It would have really established the extent of Infinite's powers, and wouldn't be too spoilery given it's a prequel campaign you're intended to play after the main campaign anyway.

 

Oh my goodness, you're right! After all, doesn't Sean Schemmel work with these guys anyway?

Plus, Shadow's DLC really should've had a boss fight given that FakeShadow and especially Chaos Zero didn't get one.

4 hours ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

I've thought on the subject of Zavok evoking a "lol" reaction for his inclusion, but it makes sense. There's not many main game Sonic villains that make sense besides Zavok. Solaris no longer exists, Dark Gaia's too big, and Mecha and Silver Sonic would be redundant next to Metal. 

 

He's also the most unique of the Eggy Six both design and power set wise. And to be honest, I was actually more interested in his presence in the game than the other four.

In fact, the whole just illusions thing was almost as egregious with him as it was with Metal.

4 hours ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

 

I assume the reason they chose base Metal over Neo Metal (who was more of a threat) would be to avoid giving away that they aren't real. It makes sense for Metal to be by Eggman's side, Neo Metal would raise eyebrows given his whole motif was rebelling against Eggman... plus he'd no doubt try rebelling against Eggman if he was recreated, given the "original personality" stipulation.

 

Technically, they could've easily just gone with a variation of the Sonic Universe 50 explanation or make it so that he respects Infinite's power both for restoring his expanded free will and as an extra insurance to defeating Sonic.

Cause honestly, he was the least interesting of the Eggy Six and probably didn't even need to be in the game even if he wasn't just gonna be an illusion.

4 hours ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

I dunno, I'm just kind of thinking on the subject of "could the villain lineup really be changed?"

 

I will say. It does feel sad they relegated Chaos to fodder status.

 

Unfortunately, that is kinda the problem when just about every other villain in your series is OP AF and transcends the more manageable Power Creep and tone--including Dr. Nega to a lesser extent. You kinda have to get rid of them afterwards.

 

That's a factor in why I really had a anticipatory respect for the Deadly Six when SLoW was coming out and why it's been getting renewed recently.

5 hours ago, Lord Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

It's subtle, but there is a humorous indication Eggman survived.

After you beat the game, the world control bar drops Team Eggman down to 0%.

Then it bumps back up to 0.1%. He'll be back.

Okay, that is hilarious. I hope it's also an indication they'll be doing more DLC for the game, hopefully some that takes some of the shortcomings and criticisms into account.

3 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

So did anyone else feel that Vector did more in his Sonic Boom episode than in here?

That's because he was primarily in the focus as a guest star there, whereas here he's just another seemingly high-ranking member of the Resistance.

2 hours ago, RedFox99 said:

Yeah, but there he helped solve the main problem of the episode and got more focus. Sure he fought in Forces, but it was very brief and most other times he's just chatting through a radio.

He still felt like he added more than Amy and Espio, though, from what I've seen.

 

 

 

[Razule]

3 hours ago, Gabz Girl said:

Isn’t this the first time Dr Eggman’s fate has been left on a cliffhanger? So weird...he doesn’t even talk throughout both boss battles. They get rid of him, he explodes and...that’s it. 

Yeah, guess he’s dead. =P

"Eggman is dead" is going to be the new "Eggman is stuck in White Space"

We'll never know how he got back , but he'll return and the events of this won't even be referenced

[MysteriousGirl 92]

Which Sonic Forces cutscenes would you fix and how would you fix them?

[Legendary Emerald]

I never looked at the leaks and only beat the game yesterday, so I may be out of the loop when I ask this question, but... what exactly WAS the final boss? I'm specifically speaking of its final phase, the octopus creature with the Phantom Ruby in its mouth. It bursts out of the chest of the Death Egg Robot, transports you the void realm, and then you don't hear a word out of it for the rest of the game. Is it piloted by Eggman? Is it the Phantom Ruby itself? Is it Infinite?

Eggman seems like the obvious answer, except I don't really see a place for the cockpit in the machine, and he is being overly silent for how talkative he was in the rest of the game. I can probably cross off the Phantom Ruby itself, since it hadn't been showed to have it own cognition during any point in the game. As for Infinite, that seems like the most likely scenario considering the last we see of him, he is being teleported away by Eggman, and then Eggman has the Phantom Ruby for himself. This could hypothetically mean that Infinite is being incorporated into the death egg robot AS its core, just like how Eggman used to power his robots with flickies and other small animals.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? The game is pretty damn poor at conveying its plot.

[dbzfan7]

Jirard is so good at this game

 

[Eternal EX]

Why the hell is Mania/Classic Sonic in this game? His inclusion is absolutely unneeded. We have the Avatar, Shadow and Modern Sonic that's already playable. We don't need 2 Sonics. A huge waste of space. Sorry this is a big issue I'm having with this game. Shadow and Sonic are literally the same character minus a few tiny differences. Shadow's already kicked Infinite's ass before. He's the reason Infinite wants revenge. But he's Day 1 DLC and only in 3 stages (besides a skin for sonic stages). This was a perfect time for a Shadow and Sonic game with the Avatar. But no. Mania sonic cock blocked. And sadly it was not needed. Just someone for Tails to hold hands with during the story.