Sonic Forces SPOILER Thread

[StaticMania]

That wouldn't explain anything actually...ambition transcends time.

[McGroose]

That actually makes a lot more sense and eases the annoyance I have with this game if only slightly. Four years for this mediocrity made no sense. 1.5 sure, but not four.

2 years went into the Hedgehog Engine 2? Eh, it looks nice, so I'm not surprised.

[Razule]

45 minutes ago, StaticMania said:

That wouldn't explain anything actually...ambition transcends time.

Yeah, but uh.. time helps ambition flourish.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, McGroose said:

That actually makes a lot more sense and eases the annoyance I have with this game if only slightly. Four years for this mediocrity made no sense. 1.5 sure, but not four.

2 years went into the Hedgehog Engine 2? Eh, it looks nice, so I'm not surprised.

I’m still sure there were earlier attempts and false starts that made them go to the drawing board again. 

[McGroose]

1 hour ago, Miragnarok said:

I’m still sure there were earlier attempts and false starts that made them go to the drawing board again. 

Definitely, but this is considerably more understandable at least. Doesn't excuse how we got a final product that sucked, but the details behind this game's development are all wrapping together nicely now.

So we now know that the game was in development for slightly less than two years, had issues being ported to a new console, and was developed by a handful of newcomers, who, at most, only worked on Lost World? I can't help but wonder, was this a test to see how well the new level designers would have done on their first real big game? Did the Switch port screw them over bad? How much disagreement was there between Sonic Team as to what should have been done for the game?

X-treme may have gone through development hell, 06 went through serious clusterfucks during development and Rise of Lyric got screwed over pretty bad for various reasons, but none of those games had a development as objectively poorly thought out as Forces. It could have been as good as Generations, and it ended up being such a letdown. 

This is beyond an experiment on Sega's end. This was an experiment of an experiment. 

This is advanced stupid.

[Multikaris]

16 minutes ago, McGroose said:

Definitely, but this is considerably more understandable at least. Doesn't excuse how we got a final product that sucked, but the details behind this game's development are all wrapping together nicely now.

So we now know that the game was in development for slightly less than two years, had issues being ported to a new console, and was developed by a handful of newcomers, who, at most, only worked on Lost World? I can't help but wonder, was this a test to see how well the new level designers would have done on their first real big game? Did the Switch port screw them over bad? How much disagreement was there between Sonic Team as to what should have been done for the game?

X-treme may have gone through development hell, 06 went through serious clusterfucks during development and Rise of Lyric got screwed over pretty bad for various reasons, but none of those games had a development as objectively poorly thought out as Forces. It could have been as good as Generations, and it ended up being such a letdown. 

This is beyond an experiment on Sega's end. This was an experiment of an experiment. 

This is advanced stupid.

Chaotix also apparently had serious development troubles. 2 and 3 also has to be cut in half, with 2 eventually being completely changed from the original idea while 3 had at least one thing that Never got restored through lock-on. Really, this is Sonic Team’s first encounter with troubled development since 06, and their most interesting case in years.

[Razule]

25 minutes ago, Miragnarok said:

Chaotix also apparently had serious development troubles. 2 and 3 also has to be cut in half, with 2 eventually being completely changed from the original idea while 3 had at least one thing that Never got restored through lock-on. Really, this is Sonic Team’s first encounter with troubled development since 06, and their most interesting case in years.

Ah. So the classics were the beginning of the end!

[Milo]

7 hours ago, Razule said:

Not sure because it's google translated, but apparently there's an interview where Nakamura says that full scale development of Forces began last year.

Here. Looks like the first two years was spent making Hedgehog Engine 2. 

 I can't seem to be able to make topics so I don't know where else to put this. *shrug*

Translates to "Project Sonic 2017 start!"

Taken from the Japanese Sonic 25th Anniversary event of last year....

3 hours ago, McGroose said:

That actually makes a lot more sense and eases the annoyance I have with this game if only slightly. Four years for this mediocrity made no sense. 1.5 sure, but not four.

2 years went into the Hedgehog Engine 2? Eh, it looks nice, so I'm not surprised.

It still begs the question as to why the team spent more time mucking around with concepts and prototypes than they did actually using them to start building a game. It especially doesn't look good where in the case of Forces, the designers seemingly decided to cram every concept they had into the project and give them their individual slice of pie in some way or form, rather than craft things under one underlying foundation and focus,.

For example, this Kotaku interview with Super Mario Odyssey director Kenta Mokotura had Mokotura explain how the development team came up with tons of diverse prototypes for the game, and they were ultimately implemented as Odyssey's array of sandbox-styled Kingdom levels, complete with their own respective toolbox of game mechanics. He then goes on to elaborate how these levels are beholden to the overarching story --which sees Mario travel to new worlds far removed from the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser-- and how these prototypes gave way to the game's signature hat capture ability.

Forces in contrast has no real attempt to try and meld the various elements into a concentrated direction, elements just...exist. Some elements hold a bigger piece of the pie (Boost Sonic, Custom Hero, Infinite) than others (Classic Sonic, the returning villains/friends/rivals, Eggman) but Forces never comes together as a wholesome project, it's just a bunch of parts that just barely manage to be summed up altogether. The game has no meaningful rules or guidelines that headline its design; whatever rules/guidelines the game might have had are frequently contradicted and undermined by the games various components, to the point that they don't really matter in any significant way.

And while the HE2 doesn't look bad, it doesn't really look like a vast improvement over the original HE IMO. Generations and Unleashed still look like more visually impressive games, despite running on weaker hardware and coming out years ago.

[DabigRG]

8 hours ago, McGroose said:

So we now know that the game was in development for slightly less than two years, had issues being ported to a new console, and was developed by a handful of newcomers, who, at most, only worked on Lost World? I can't help but wonder, was this a test to see how well the new level designers would have done on their first real big game? Did the Switch port screw them over bad? How much disagreement was there between Sonic Team as to what should have been done for the game?

 

This is beyond an experiment on Sega's end. This was an experiment of an experiment. 

This is advanced stupid.

That's really dumb timing on their part considering they were supposed to be working on the Anniversary game. At least Christian Whitehead had already done upgraded ports of existing games for them before being given Mania, which people didn't really see coming anyway.

 

My thing is why didn't they just have them work on something as a test after the Anniversary came out under Sonic Team's development?

[superman43]

2 hours ago, DabigRG said:

That's really dumb timing on their part considering they were supposed to be working on the Anniversary game. At least Christian Whitehead had already done upgraded ports of existing games for them before being given Mania, which people didn't really see coming anyway.

 

My thing is why didn't they just have them work on something as a test after the Anniversary came out under Sonic Team's development?

If we assume that Sonic Forces was developed as an anniversary title, then we can be certain that it was a mess last year. And therefore I presume they were not working on the game itself for 4 years. Correct me, if I am wrong. Plus if they did "Hedgehog Engine 2" for 2 years after LW, there is absolutely no way they could make it with the team presented in credits for the anniversary.

[ShadowSJG]

I was wondering, was Rouge on the Death Egg or something?

[Celestia]

The dev time only being as long as it usually is (weren't Colours / Gens / Lost World made in roughly two years?) wouldn't be a big deal, but combined with literally everything else we know about the game's development (for just one reminder: three fucking level designers being stretched thin across four gameplay styles)...it's definitely a piece of the puzzle.

[Patron]

Windii from Sonic Retro translated the Japanese cutscenes.

Some notes:

• Infinite actually sounds more concerned about his squad members
• Tails hasn't lost it, he's merely missing since Infinite's ambush
• Infinite definitely killed some people
• the puns seem to be 50/50 original / artistic license of the translation
• the Phantom Ruby Prototypes can only be activated once (yet the Avatar uses theirs twice)
• Infinite likes to trash talk the resistance, literary

[Razule]

59 minutes ago, Patron said:

Windii from Sonic Retro translated the Japanese cutscenes.

Some notes:

• Infinite actually sounds more concerned about his squad members
• Tails hasn't lost it, he's merely missing since Infinite's ambush
• the puns seem to be 50/50 original / artistic license of the translation
• the Phantom Ruby Prototypes can only be activated once (yet the Avatar uses theirs twice)
• Infinite likes to trash talk the resistance, literary

Ah, so Infinite doesn't actually say Sonic and Eggman have been fighting for decades, just "continuously". Seems like Shadow didn't destroy the Jackal Squad,  just defeated them? Ugh, can't the games just be straight translations..? Within reason of course. Do we really need their.. artistry?

Also, need to know what's up with that torture line pls

[Celestia]

I kinda figured Shadow just beat up the rest of the jackal squad, since that's all he did to Infinite. Plus "destroy" doesn't always have to be taken literally. I dunno, I'm fine with localization taking some liberties within reason and that particular case isn't so bad. Some of the other stuff is definitely weird though.

Something else of note: Shadow straight up insults Infinite's face and tells him to "never show [it] again," which...actually explains the mask. Dude decided to take it literally.

[KHCast]

So why did he expect shadow to recognize him upon initial meeting after that first confrontation? And why does his theme say "just take a look at my face?" :/

[Razule]

Just now, KHCast said:

So why did he expect shadow to recognize him upon initial meeting after that first confrontation? And why does his theme say "just take a look at my face?" :/

Well.. he still has other body parts besides his face

[KHCast]

12 minutes ago, Razule said:

Well.. he still has other body parts besides his face

He's wearing armor though, not just the mask. And I doubt shadow was giving a detailed analysis at the rest of his body. He just met him for like 10 seconds.

[Diogenes]

57 minutes ago, Razule said:

Ah, so Infinite doesn't actually say Sonic and Eggman have been fighting for decades, just "continuously". Seems like Shadow didn't destroy the Jackal Squad,  just defeated them? Ugh, can't the games just be straight translations..? Within reason of course. Do we really need their.. artistry?

There's obviously a line to be drawn somewhere, but adapting the text is part of doing a decent translation, I think. And I wouldn't consider either of those two examples to be crossing the line, wherever it ends up being.

[JezMM]

Localisation seems pretty solid to me, and the jokes are much funnier in the English dub (though Cubot and Orbot's weird unfunny "DUDE" exchange isn't missed).  One thing I like in the Japanese version is Eggman's brief reference to Eggmanland in the opening cut-scene.  It's a nice throwback to a past game while also illustrating how much grander his goals are this time - he's skipping the Eggmanland thing and just gonna tear shit up everywhere before he starts building.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

9 minutes ago, JezMM said:

Localisation seems pretty solid to me, and the jokes are much funnier in the English dub (though Cubot and Orbot's weird unfunny "DUDE" exchange isn't missed).  One thing I like in the Japanese version is Eggman's brief reference to Eggmanland in the opening cut-scene.  It's a nice throwback to a past game while also illustrating how much grander his goals are this time - he's skipping the Eggmanland thing and just gonna tear shit up everywhere before he starts building.

Would have been a nice reference to Unleashed yet I have seen nothing indicating Unleashed's continuity in either games after it(it's been de-listed from what I understand).

[Sean]

Delisted delisted delisted. People like throwing this word around a lot, like Sega's statement back then actually meant anything (seeing as how every game eventually goes out of print)

Oh wait what's this!! you can still buy the game on the PS3/360 digital stores.

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0177-NPUB31204_00-SONICUNLEASHED01

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/SONIC-UNLEASHED/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80253450812

[RLS Legacy]

3 minutes ago, Sean said:

Delisted delisted delisted. People like throwing this word around a lot, like Sega's statement back then actually meant anything (seeing as how every game eventually goes out of print)

Oh wait what's this!! you can still buy the game on the PS3/360 digital stores.

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0177-NPUB31204_00-SONICUNLEASHED01

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/SONIC-UNLEASHED/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80253450812

I believe it was in fact delisted, but the community's gradual warming up to the game and the consequent increase in demand for it resulted in it being put back up for purchase.

Which is good, because the game is nowhere near the catastrophic dumpster fire critics and other members of the gaming world like to make it out to be. In my view it's the best 3D Sonic.

Still waiting on that PC port though.

[Eternal EX]

3 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

I believe it was in fact delisted, but the community's gradual warming up to the game and the consequent increase in demand for it resulted in it being put back up for purchase.

Which is good, because the game is nowhere near the catastrophic dumpster fire critics and other members of the gaming world like to make it out to be. In my view it's the best 3D Sonic.

Still waiting on that PC port though.

Agreed. Even the werehog levels were not that bad. Actually there were times I played werehog over Day Hog just to sit back and chill. Plus who can pass up sonic doing cartwheels?

[Sean]

I don't know if I'd say they ever "put it back up" so much as "re-released it digitally," actually. Unless my memory is mistaken, neither Sonic 2006 or Unleashed were available digitally during their initial releases.