Sonic Forces SPOILER Thread

[Ratcicle King]

On 16/11/2017 at 8:33 PM, FFWF said:

So far as the final boss's name is concerned, I'm hard-pressed to think of an explanation for that beyond just plain sloppiness and lack of polish.  It seems there are some sources calling it the Mega Death Egg Robot?  That would be a very slight improvement, at least...

As for the second stage, I assume it was all Illusions™.

It's the OST tracklisting.

As for WHY it's a Death Egg Robot, guys that's easy.

It's a Death Egg Robot heavily modified by the Ruby, just like how it turned normal Egg Robos into the Hard Boiled Heavies.

[Razule]

I'm just annoyed they never bothered to give it an actual name besides "Death Egg Robot".

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

4 hours ago, Dannymax440 said:

https://mobile.twitter.com/SlaveOfSuzumiya/status/931175709032304641

Unused voice clips of Shadow from Virtual Reality.

 

Why on Earth were these cut? They would've added a lot more story to the DLC considering it has Shadow actively question what's going on, ponder if it's truly a trap or not, and have a lot more hints that Infinite is impersonating Rouge and Omega as opposed to just Omega shouting "I'M NOT WEAK" on loop. 

But this drags up something else that pisses me off. It shows that even if the person trapped in the illusion questions if it's real or not, they can be lured into believing it. Which leads to the sheer fact that would've given the perfect reason to have the villains join with Eggman for real. Why? Because the Phantom Ruby has been keeping them trapped in their own retrospective illusions and has been using that to bend them to Eggman's rule. We could've had the Ruby create illusions of Gerald and Maria and have them constantly defend Eggman's actions, convincing Shadow to join him in order to better the world.

Zavok would've been trapped in an illusion where he believed he and the Deadly Six were on top while Eggman played second fiddle to them, meaning that they would've been all too happy to do what they did. Chaos, perhaps could've been freed from the destroyed Master Emerald as established in the Prequel comics (preferably, alongside Tikal), and then perhaps Chaos is neutral to begin with, but ends up getting trapped in an illusion where the heroes begin attacking Chao causing him to go into rage mode while the ruby creates an illusion of Tikal who insists the world must be destroyed to pay for their crimes so to speak, since in Adventure, she's the one who calms Chaos down. 

I mean like, it's not the perfect setups, I'm sure, but fucking hell, it's something and actually gives credible reasons for the villains to work under Eggman until Sonic manages to knock them out of their illusions.

[Ratcicle King]

11 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Why on Earth were these cut? They would've added a lot more story to the DLC considering it has Shadow actively question what's going on, ponder if it's truly a trap or not, and have a lot more hints that Infinite is impersonating Rouge and Omega as opposed to just Omega shouting "I'M NOT WEAK" on loop. 

But this drags up something else that pisses me off. It shows that even if the person trapped in the illusion questions if it's real or not, they can be lured into believing it. Which leads to the sheer fact that would've given the perfect reason to have the villains join with Eggman for real. Why? Because the Phantom Ruby has been keeping them trapped in their own retrospective illusions and has been using that to bend them to Eggman's rule. We could've had the Ruby create illusions of Gerald and Maria and have them constantly defend Eggman's actions, convincing Shadow to join him in order to better the world.

Zavok would've been trapped in an illusion where he believed he and the Deadly Six were on top while Eggman played second fiddle to them, meaning that they would've been all too happy to do what they did. Chaos, perhaps could've been freed from the destroyed Master Emerald as established in the Prequel comics (preferably, alongside Tikal), and then perhaps Chaos is neutral to begin with, but ends up getting trapped in an illusion where the heroes begin attacking Chao causing him to go into rage mode while the ruby creates an illusion of Tikal who insists the world must be destroyed to pay for their crimes so to speak, since in Adventure, she's the one who calms Chaos down. 

I mean like, it's not the perfect setups, I'm sure, but fucking hell, it's something and actually gives credible reasons for the villains to work under Eggman until Sonic manages to knock them out of their illusions.

This is why them being illusions bothers me so much.

It's the easy way out. It's a way so the writer can have the enemies, but not the CHARACTERS. They were interested in having a group of enemies, not in having 4 individual villains joining forces.

By making them illusions, not only you don't have to write how and why they're here, but you also don't have to bother with interactions, development, dynamics, nothing.

Why is Shadow working for Eggman? He's an illusion so it doesn't matter

How is Chaos back? He's an illusion so it doesn't matter

How did Eggman convince Zavok to join him? He's an illusion so it doesn't matter

Would Zavok work as a team player, seeing as he's the only one who's been a part of a team before? Doesn't matter, illusions.

What is Shadow's reaction to Chaos? Seeing as he saw the Artificial Chaos in the ARK, and this is one of the basis for his own design, wouldn't he be at least a bit curious? Doesn't matter, illusions.

If Zavok attempted to control Metal Sonic, say, to keep him in Check for Eggman, or because tensions are growing between the team, would it work? Would Metal Sonic not attempt to resist it? Doesn't matter, both are illusions

There's no chemistry between them, there are no dynamics, no one acknowledges them outside of their names, the fun part of a team up is seeing the interactions and these different personalities mixing up.

That's not what they wanted here, they wanted a group of enemies that would fill their purpose and then vanish without any loose treads. And that's exactly what they did, heck, some of them didn't even get that.

 

[Razule]

I think Shadow being swayed by anything having to do with Maria and Gerald after all this time would be really dumb..

[RedFox99]

Karen Strassman does a good job at sounding like an 18 year old.

[Ratcicle King]

4 minutes ago, Razule said:

I think Shadow being swayed by anything having to do with Maria and Gerald after all this time would be really dumb..

Honestly I think it'd work if done right, as in, Infinite flat out mindraping him into joining them, by messing with his memories and emotions. So instead of him being mindcontrolled and saved, his plotline could end with him breaking the mind control on his own, reminding himself he left the past behind and he promised he wouldn't let it dictate him ever again.

[Dr. Detective]

I just got Sonic Forces Speed Battle and it's definitely far more addicting than any other Sonic mobile game I've played so far. Unlike Sonic Dash, which had a much less impressive roster and a much harder means of unlocking characters, this one is allowing me to unlock characters by just playing the game. Only been playing for about an hour and already I've unlocked 2 characters and leveling up my Tails quite a bit.

Even the freaking mobile game of Forces is getting better received than actual Forces.

[Wraith]

Shadow being convinced by a couple of illusions after everything seems pretty out of character. It wouldn't serve any purpose aside from SA2 fanservice.

The truth is there's no good reason for those four particular characters to join up and no real way to rationalize it. I remember saying that when it was revealed. They only really did that to get people's attention, and it worked.

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

Shadow being convinced by a couple of illusions after everything seems pretty out of character. It wouldn't serve any purpose aside from SA2 fanservice.

The truth is there's no good reason for those four particular characters to join up and no real way to rationalize it. I remember saying that when it was revealed. They only really did that to get people's attention, and it worked.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. A good writer and a longer game could have done wonders for exploring why they'd be on Eggman's side here. 

Chaos, I'd probably give some sort of mind-control thing that Knuckles has to snap him out of by reminding him that his time as the vengeful monster has passed and Eggman treating him like he still was is wrong. Probably some sentimental stuff you could get out of that.

Shadow's confrontation with Infinite after what happened to Omega and his history with Infinite could lead to a lot of things. He might be pretending to be on his side until he can find a way to take him down and repair Omega. Maybe he's struggling with what he should do because he both can't overpower Infinite and they've got his friend as a hostage, so he's trying to use a stealthy means of sending out an SOS while pretending to be on their side. Perhaps he gets a message to Sonic through a code he passes on after the boss fight with him that they totally, obviously, should have. Or you could just be super lazy and just let it be mind control after he went in to help Omega. 

Zavok's got a huge grudge against both Eggman and Sonic, yet I could also see him willingly going along with him should it have been established that the rest of the Zeti were either captured or the Lost Hex were in danger of imploding because of his actions or something. Might also be useful to have him plotting against Eggman at the same time so that their could be another layer to the tactical warfare going on between the different minds of the villains. Being in a vulnerable spot and trying to find a way to ruin the plans of both your enemies by being a scheming third party is an excellent way to give your previously underdeveloped character so intrigue. Or just use mind control again.

Metal Sonic is Metal Sonic. No explanation required. Perhaps still an interesting story beat of course but motivation isn't an issue.

I'm mostly just spit-balling here but I feel like being presented with a seemingly hard to pull off idea and at least trying to find a way to make it work is a bit more commendable than just making the investment entirely worthless by going "They're all fake".

[Wraith]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I wouldn't necessarily say that. A good writer and a longer game could have done wonders for exploring why they'd be on Eggman's side here. 

Chaos, I'd probably give some sort of mind-control thing that Knuckles has to snap him out of by reminding him that his time as the vengeful monster has passed and Eggman treating him like he still was is wrong. Probably some sentimental stuff you could get out of that.

Shadow's confrontation with Infinite after what happened to Omega and his history with Infinite could lead to a lot of things. He might be pretending to be on his side until he can find a way to take him down and repair Omega. Maybe he's struggling with what he should do because he both can't overpower Infinite and they've got his friend as a hostage, so he's trying to use a stealthy means of sending out an SOS while pretending to be on their side. Perhaps he gets a message to Sonic through a code he passes on after the boss fight with him that they totally, obviously, should have. Or you could just be super lazy and just let it be mind control after he went in to help Omega. 

Zavok's got a huge grudge against both Eggman and Sonic, yet I could also see him willingly going along with him should it have been established that the rest of the Zeti were either captured or the Lost Hex were in danger of imploding because of his actions or something. Might also be useful to have him plotting against Eggman at the same time so that their could be another layer to the tactical warfare going on between the different minds of the villains. Being in a vulnerable spot and trying to find a way to ruin the plans of both your enemies by being a scheming third party is an excellent way to give your previously underdeveloped character so intrigue. Or just use mind control again.

Metal Sonic is Metal Sonic. No explanation required. Perhaps still an interesting story beat of course but motivation isn't an issue.

I'm mostly just spit-balling here but I feel like being presented with a seemingly hard to pull off idea and at least trying to find a way to make it work is a bit more commendable than just making the investment entirely worthless by going "They're all fake".

This is a whole lot of set up and baggage to deal with man, stuff that isn't really all that feasible to explain in the main game and honestly kind of hard to sell to people without previous investment in the games they came from anyway. that's why I don't think this idea works, especially not with this particular combo of characters.

I'm not really against the idea of a villain team up, but I think this was the wrong game for it. They didn't really pick characters with synergy or interactions in mind either. Just "what will get us the most attention?"

[Dejimon11]

4 hours ago, Ratcicle King said:

This is why them being illusions bothers me so much.

It's the easy way out. It's a way so the writer can have the enemies, but not the CHARACTERS. They were interested in having a group of enemies, not in having 4 individual villains joining forces.

By making them illusions, not only you don't have to write how and why they're here, but you also don't have to bother with interactions, development, dynamics, nothing.

Here's a thing i don't get since Eggman could essentially create illusions why didn't he just make a fake Sonic that would be leading his army and throw the resistance for a loop? There's so many missed opportunities with this plot. And the concept of illusions is just pretty stupid just make it a reality warper instead of "oh it was never really there to begin with but at the same time it is". 

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

This is a whole lot of set up and baggage to deal with man, stuff that isn't really all that feasible to explain in the main game and honestly kind of hard to sell to people without previous investment in the games they came from anyway. that's why I don't think this idea works, especially not with this particular combo of characters.

I'm not really against the idea of a villain team up, but I think this was the wrong game for it. They didn't really pick characters with synergy or interactions in mind either. Just "what will get us the most attention?"

It's a sizeable amount baggage to deal with. I don't agree that it isn't feasible to explain in the main game at all. It might be hard to sell to people without previous investment in the games if they truly DO care a lot about the story... that said, that hasn't really stopped other games from other franchises from doing something similar. Every character has their own thing they need to deal with. That's the nature of being their own character. If you're not familiar with the games already, you're going to go in confused by who these people are and what the set-ups and relationships are regardless. That goes for the heroes as well. Something that capitalizes on them and uses those relationships to their advantage would do well to get people to know them better as well as put forth some mild interest to invest in the older, cheaper games should it be something that hooks them in.

Whether or not THIS was the right or wrong game for it depends on how the follow-through turns out. Here, the investment turned out to be worthless, as such, having these be the ones we focused on turned out to be just as worthless. 

Not to mention, I really don't believe it's really all that complicated. Especially when it comes to Shadow and Zavok. Chaos seems like it'd require a bit more of an explanation if newcomers are that huge of an issue... but not too much.

I suppose this would be the mentality SEGA or Sonic Team is using to not invest in any of the characters anymore. After 20+ years of history to follow, it's almost inevitable though. I'd really rather they work towards fleshing out what they have and making everything something interesting to follow. With that being the focus, at the very least, you can make the story they're following here interesting enough on it's own so that the only thing they have to worry about is "I wonder what happened before". 

Again, that requires a better writer. 

[StaticMania]

20 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

 And the concept of illusions is just pretty stupid just make it a reality warper instead of "oh it was never really there to begin with but at the same time it is". 

The phantom ruby makes them believe it's real, therefore it is...

There's not really a problem with that...except for the fact that they disappear and can be defeated at all.

[Zippo]

Sonic Forces is like a game version of Justice League.

Both are bad, middling, poorly told stories in bad products that masquerade themselves as being ambitious, grand epics, yet fail to deliver on any of their promises. Both come out within a week of one another, both are getting savaged by critics and fans alike, and both have incompetent directors in charge that have failed to make good products once again.

Also, Infinite and Steppenwolf are both embarrassingly bad villians.

[Dannymax440]

15 minutes ago, Zippo said:

Sonic Forces is like a game version of Justice League.

Both are bad, middling, poorly told stories in bad products that masquerade themselves as being ambitious, grand epics, yet fail to deliver on any of their promises. Both come out within a week of one another, both are getting savaged by critics and fans alike, and both have incompetent directors in charge that have failed to make good products once again.

Also, Infinite and Steppenwolf are both embarrassingly bad villians.

To give Forces some credit, it at least is better received than Justice League which is sitting at 39-40% on RottenTomatoes. And it was at least more entertaining.

[Clewis]

37 minutes ago, Dannymax440 said:

To give Forces some credit, it at least is better received than Justice League which is sitting at 39-40% on RottenTomatoes. And it was at least more entertaining.

That's not how Rotten Tomatoes works. The approval rating for Justice League is around 40%, but that only means around 40% of reviewers who watched the movie liked/recommend it. Its average rating, like Forces, sits around 5/10.

[Shadowlax]

23 hours ago, Ratcicle King said:

Honestly I think it'd work if done right, as in, Infinite flat out mindraping him into joining them, by messing with his memories and emotions. So instead of him being mindcontrolled and saved, his plotline could end with him breaking the mind control on his own, reminding himself he left the past behind and he promised he wouldn't let it dictate him ever again.

You realize that's the plot to his game

That already happened

That's literally regressing his character arc for no reason

[Ratcicle King]

3 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

You realize that's the plot to his game

That already happened

That's literally regressing his character arc for no reason

You're already regressing his character by making him evil anyways, at least do something interesting with it, not a fucking cop out after 6 months of advertising ''hey he's evil again''.

[Shadowlax]

18 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

 

Again, that requires a better writer. 

A better writer with a character that had illusion powers would have just written secret wars. Why not just have him pretend to be other characters to get other characters to fight each other and to sow seads of distrust. The whole villian team up thing makes little sense because as a long term strategy it only worked because sonic was by himself and they made everyone who wasn't shadow wholly incompetent, and they just fucking dissapeared shadow for months. Its the least sensical way to do that story and litterally only done to get a reaction out of people. However, a game where amy thinks sonic is evil might have actually gotten a bigger reaction out of people. A game that's just secret wars, that's an actually interesting plot. That would get characters to interact with each other and would allow people to distrust people in a meaningful way and fight people.

People talk about how a good writer wouldn't have, a good writer wouldn't have written this fucking story. If they were working with a villain who could do this shit, the sky is quite literally the limit of making a fun mystery of having people distrust people and seeing who is fake and real, and you waste on " all of sonic rivals are bad' even MLP handled this topic multiple times better in all ways. The story is written as it is, to market a game they wanted to have out on the market, wasn't great and needed to get people to buy the game. Not because of some writing fuck up, its a cobbled together mess up parts that needed some pulls.

3 minutes ago, Ratcicle King said:

You're already regressing his character by making him evil anyways, at least do something interesting with it, not a fucking cop out after 6 months of advertising ''hey he's evil again''.

Maybe don't do either. Maybe if you can't do that, maybe don't do that. 

Or maybe write a story like i mentioned above that facilities the idea of multiple characters being evil, but they aren't real. These types of stories aren't new, secret wars type stories, or MLP changeling type stories or whatever you wanna call it. But actually go into making a mystery with everyone instead of one character people called as to being fake from trailer 0

[Gabz Girl]

Nah, I think Steppenwolf is faaaar worse than Infinite. At least Infinite has a backstory of sorts! Wtf is Steppenwolf? I can see some of the other comparisons though.

The whole illusion thing is really stupid btw. If Infinite can create illusions of anything and everything, why the hell didn’t he create illusions of Perfect Chaos, or Iblis, or Dark Gaia or hell even the rest of the Deadly Six besides Zavok?? Imagine how awesome THAT would’ve been! But no...just these four guys. And oh Chaos Zero, we hardly knew ye... D:

[Shadowlax]

3 minutes ago, Gabz Girl said:

Nah, I think Steppenwolf is faaaar worse than Infinite. At least Infinite has a backstory of sorts! Wtf is Steppenwolf? I can see some of the other comparisons though.

The whole illusion thing is really stupid btw. If Infinite can create illusions of anything and everything, why the hell didn’t he create illusions of Perfect Chaos, or Iblis, or Dark Gaia or hell even the rest of the Deadly Six besides Zavok?? Imagine how awesome THAT would’ve been! But no...just these four guys. And oh Chaos Zero, we hardly knew ye... D:

To be fair steppenwolf isn't much in the comics either, he's darksied's uncle, that's literally his whole deal. During the earth 2 situation in new 52 had this whole storyline where he murdered the JLA but that didn't really go anywhere. They should have just made this guy, this  no one a movie villian

[Dr. Detective]

1 hour ago, Shadowlax said:

A better writer with a character that had illusion powers would have just written secret wars. Why not just have him pretend to be other characters to get other characters to fight each other and to sow seads of distrust. The whole villian team up thing makes little sense because as a long term strategy it only worked because sonic was by himself and they made everyone who wasn't shadow wholly incompetent, and they just fucking dissapeared shadow for months. Its the least sensical way to do that story and litterally only done to get a reaction out of people. However, a game where amy thinks sonic is evil might have actually gotten a bigger reaction out of people. A game that's just secret wars, that's an actually interesting plot. That would get characters to interact with each other and would allow people to distrust people in a meaningful way and fight people.

People talk about how a good writer wouldn't have, a good writer wouldn't have written this fucking story. If they were working with a villain who could do this shit, the sky is quite literally the limit of making a fun mystery of having people distrust people and seeing who is fake and real, and you waste on " all of sonic rivals are bad' even MLP handled this topic multiple times better in all ways. The story is written as it is, to market a game they wanted to have out on the market, wasn't great and needed to get people to buy the game. Not because of some writing fuck up, its a cobbled together mess up parts that needed some pulls.

Can't say I agree with the notion that it was literally impossible to make this work. I keep saying a better writer could make this work because they could. There's way to make the villains competent, give them a strategy that takes out Sonic regardless of who's around, and provide an explanation for why Shadow was gone. That's not an impossible feat. They just didn't give a fuck.

At this point, I should bring up that I'm not saying they should have done this story this way. If I were in charge I wouldn't have bothered doing it like this at all. If I absolutely had to have Infinite and his virtual reality powers I'd probably play more with them a bit more and make it kind of like how whenever the Arkham Games did their Scarecrow and Mad Hatter hallucinations. Screw with Sonic's mind and make him see the outcome of what would have happened had Zavok turned Tails into a robot and he had to fight him or something like that. 

I'm not disagreeing with the notion that it shouldn't have been done this way. I wouldn't have bothered forcing the villains to come back this way. Certainly not. I'm just disagreeing with the idea that there was no way to make it work period. However, I'm someone who's very much a believer in exploring all the possibilities with a scenario I'm given and making the puzzle pieces fit based on what I have. That might also require the help of a good editor too.

 

[Shadowlax]

1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

Can't say I agree with the notion that it was literally impossible to make this work. I keep saying a better writer could make this work because they could. There's way to make the villains competent, give them a strategy that takes out Sonic regardless of who's around, and provide an explanation for why Shadow was gone. That's not an impossible feat. They just didn't give a fuck.

Technically speaking you can write wherever story you want. But similar to cap being a nazi in the recent secret empire arc, just because you can write a story, doesn't mean you should. And guess how that story ended " Oh it wasn't the real captain america, it was a fake" because they wrote themselves in a corner, because you can't write a character going against their entire character arc literally for the sake of shock and awe ( and butchering some admittedly good ideas as a narrative criticizing the united states right now ) . Technically you can write whatever story you want, doesn't mean its not gonna be shitty. Maybe you shouldn't write stories that go back on character motivations for the sake of shock.  Because those ends shitty, it either ends with pissed off fans, or pissed of people who expected something and got the obvious " it wasn't the real character, he was mind controlled " nothing that people expect. At least usually you get a fight out of that, they didn't even fight. 

1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

At this point, I should bring up that I'm not saying they should have done this story this way. If I were in charge I wouldn't have bothered doing it like this at all. If I absolutely had to have Infinite and his virtual reality powers I'd probably play more with them a bit more and make it kind of like how whenever the Arkham Games did their Scarecrow and Mad Hatter hallucinations. Screw with Sonic's mind and make him see the outcome of what would have happened had Zavok turned Tails into a robot and he had to fight him or something like that. 

That sounds pretty cool, I thought about something like that. The game instead of having the custom hero, it was just sonic and shadow and infinite regularly having levels that would glitch into old levels. Like imagine you were playing casino forest, and then that shit literally turned into white jungle. 

1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

I'm not disagreeing with the notion that it shouldn't have been done this way. I wouldn't have bothered forcing the villains to come back this way. Certainly not. I'm just disagreeing with the idea that there was no way to make it work period.

The only way to make this work is a cop out. Its like a fighting game crossoever story, no one really looses because you can't have either company look bad, only the bad guys loose. Because this cop out concession you have to make

1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

However, I'm someone who's very much a believer in exploring all the possibilities with a scenario I'm given and making the puzzle pieces fit based on what I have. That might also require the help of a good editor too.

 

Sonic team having an editor

PFFFT

[Zippo]

15 minutes ago, Gabz Girl said:

Nah, I think Steppenwolf is faaaar worse than Infinite. At least Infinite has a backstory of sorts! Wtf is Steppenwolf? I can see some of the other comparisons though.

 

I think they're just as badly written as one another. Steppenwolf has a full backstory in the comics, but he's still just that, a bad character that's nothing but a mindless bitch to Darkseid, just like Infinite is a mindless bitch to Eggman.