Sonic Forces SPOILER Thread

[dbzfan7]

4 minutes ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

Forces decided to be even more incomplete with it's story and in general with Eggman. Because of all of the backstory and over-arching narrative, they barely showed anything on any of his process really or how ANYTHING happened. No context.

In Unleashed, we saw how he manifested(awakened) Gaia back into existence and got scenes of him after it. Granted it wasn't a whole lot but it was simple and explained.

Eggmanland is trivial. Not really apart of the main narrative, just the stage set for the final level. Even then, we don't know how Eggman makes half his stuff.

I agree Eggman didn't get enough screen time, but even still I think his accomplishments speak for himself. They're all the more stronger as before this he was a big loser no one could take seriously. He might as well have been Sonic Boom Eggman. We did get more reasons and experiences in unleashed, but Eggman was reduced to a joke his own minion would call out with how terrible he was. Same with Colors, Lost World, etc. While I would have loved an Eggman party, or robots to wear party hats as he basically won. Or even a theater play of his triumphant victory. But I also want to believe there is a point and challenge to the adventure. As Sonic said in generations, and Adventure is no fun if it's too easy. That's basically what it's been though before Forces lately, easy. Sonic was so much better than Eggman he was never a conceivable threat once they treated him like a clown.

[Balding Spider]

5 minutes ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Who cares at this point? Not a knock on you but I'm just so fucking apathetic right now. Fuck Sonic. Fuck me. Boo. 

No, I get it. I really do. I was where you were once, all thanks to the Sonic 4 games.

4 minutes ago, Razule said:

Yeah, but this was the first time. Unless it's after a string of good, great, awesome, outstanding games

Or three mainline games from now more likely. /s

[Mr. Armstrong]

16 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I wonder if Sonic Team hated working on this game as much as we hated the buildup to it.

I do not think they hate the game but it seems that Sonic Team is developing this game in autopilot,  they just do not know how to do with the ip and I do not blame him staying  stuck for years with the same franchise must be very tiring.

[Almar]

I'm now wondering whether the suggestion on 4chan that this game have Buddy pick between siding with the resistance or serving Eggman with final boss being Infinite would better or worse than what we got.

[Kuzu]

3 minutes ago, The Deleter said:

I was miffed at the moment and misconstrued things. My bad.

Still, this is a cartoon series at the end of the day. With deliberately over-the-top characters, and a "rule of cool" style since inception. You can't blame someone for being "easily entertained" when the entire appeal of the series is specifically that, at the end of the day.

Argue for nuance, sure. But don't drag others through the mud in the same breath, when they're drawn to the series for those exact things they want.

I mean, I'm not trying to throw people under the bus...BUT...

If people actually like this stuff, then that's just gonna give Sonic team that its perfectly ok to make games like this and they'll simply continue doing so. 

At this point, nobody but the most diehard of fans actually care what happens to this series and the ones that like this stuff are the ones who relatively new and don't understand what's wrong with them. They just see cool things and think "OH THIS GAME IS AWESOME".

So yea...that's the name of the game now.

[Patron]

25 minutes ago, Sonicfan287 said:

That's the thing that annoys me so much... 

Yknow I get that it's funny to mock Sonic 06 for its loading screens or point out some other ridiculous occurrence or troll people about "Big's Big Fishing Adventure" but these are REAL THINGS that happened. They put out mediocre games (or parts of games) and they're joking about it now, yet they fail to see why these things were dumb ideas in the first place and I could definitely see some of the Sonic Forces ridiculous moments being memes in the future and it really makes me wonder if they're just trying to make some ridiculous cheesy stuff because they think that's what we want. 

In some of Aaron's livestreams, he's pretty much acknowledged that we're all sick of Green Hill Zone. Sega pays attention to feedback and yet we still see the same things happening. At what point is enough enough?

There should be a distinction between the PR and development team. Ideally both sides have an active dialog, but it can't always be guaranteed that they are on the same page.

[Multikaris]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Armstrong said:

I do not think they hate the game but it seems that Sonic Team is developing this game in autopilot,  they just do not know how to do with the ip and I do not blame him staying   stuck for years with the same franchise must be very tiring.

I agree. I think they’re all tired of the series, ESPECIALLY Izuka, who pretends to be entertained by it to make his glaring errors and awful descisions all the more obvious, in an attempt to be fired from the group. It’s kind of a Springtime for Hitler situation, except it seems to have partly succeeded.

[Sonicfan287]

12 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I wonder if Sonic Team hated working on this game as much as we hated the buildup to it.

I've seen this mentioned a number of times and I have to say I do get the feeling that Sonic Team's whole attitude was "let's get this over with" when it came to this game. I believe SOME members may have been passionate about certain ideas like making up Infinite or some of the stage ideas but for the most part, it just looks like so lazy. I mean, the "City" area is just called "City" and 3 of the other stages are named after classic Sonic zones (Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Death Egg) so I mean, were they even too lazy to NAME the zones? Call it "Central City" or "Super City". Anything's better than just City. 

Also, maybe I'm wrong but I didnt see any interviews or anything with members of the team when it came to this game. I know Aaron Webber had a couple interviews about the game but I can remember quite a few panel discussions or interviews with Christian Whitehead and members of Mania team and they always seemed very excited about the game they had made and I didn't see anything from Sonic Team or any members that exuded that same excitement. I could just be biased here though because I was always on the Mania bandwagon and only about 50% enthused about Forces. 

I still wanted Sonic Adventure 3 but Iizuka said in a recent interview that they wanted to 'evolve' the Sonic gameplay rather than go back. Yeah... some great evolving you're doing there. 

 

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

Just now, dbzfan7 said:

I agree Eggman didn't get enough screen time, but even still I think his accomplishments speak for himself. They're all the more stronger as before this he was a big loser no one could take seriously. He might as well have been Sonic Boom Eggman. We did get more reasons and experiences in unleashed, but Eggman was reduced to a joke his own minion would call out with how terrible he was. Same with Colors, Lost World, etc. While I would have loved an Eggman party, or robots to wear party hats as he basically won. Or even a theater play of his triumphant victory. But I also want to believe there is a point and challenge to the adventure. As Sonic said in generations, and Adventure is no fun if it's too easy. That's basically what it's been though before Forces lately, easy. Sonic was so much better than Eggman he was never a conceivable threat once they treated him like a clown.

I mean, Unleashed was a more light hearted/toned down from the past games.Plus, Eggman's sassy robot was too good to pass up. He's always made into a joke..

 Forces didn't get enough development, therefore the "mature" nature of the game becomes null and void ESPECIALLY when the game doesn't even act that serious other than a couple or so points. 

Sonic Next Gen had a more menacing Eggman. He was less cartoony and much more of a threat(although Mephilles fit that bil a whole lot more. He's basically Infinite, no exactly like Infinite but executed better).

 

[Sonicfan287]

3 minutes ago, Patron said:

There should be a distinction between the PR and development team. While there ideally should be some dialogue, it can't always be guaranteed that both sides are on the same page.

True, and I realize that many of the members of Sonic Team may be completely different from the 2006 days (hell, many were probably let go after that disaster) but at best, they're just tone deaf and at worst, they're purposely trolling us with reusing Green Hill Zone so many times. 

[SuperAj3]

53 minutes ago, Razule said:

Yeah, but the weird thing is, Iizuka said he was once a normal animal like Sonic. So unless he lied.. what happened

Spoiler

He literally starts to fade out of existence when you beat him (like the other illusions), then a red light flies to the top of a tower in the distance. He was also saying he could fight it, so maybe he was real, got the ruby implanted and turned him into an illusion? That little red light flying off may've been done to show he never vanished completely.

Then again, I haven't seen the preceding stages so I don't know if the dialogue there reveals more or not

 

[Whatever the WhoCares]

3 minutes ago, SuperAj3 said:

  Hide contents

He literally starts to fade out of existence when you beat him (like the other illusions), then a red light flies to the top of a tower in the distance. He was also saying he could fight it, so maybe he was real, got the ruby implanted and turned him into an illusion? That little red light flying off may've been done to show he never vanished completely.

Then again, I haven't seen the preceding stages so I don't know if the dialogue there reveals more or not

 

Yeah, there are so many loose ends. What's Eggman doing now? Why's the world only 99.9% free? Is there maybe some secret special postgame ending where- no, there isn't. This is Sonic Dogshit Forces. 

[dbzfan7]

1 minute ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

I mean, Unleashed was a more light hearted/toned down from the past games.Plus, Eggman's sassy robot was too good to pass up. He's always made into a joke..

 Forces didn't get enough development, therefore the "mature" nature of the game becomes null and void ESPECIALLY when the game doesn't even act that serious other than a couple or so points. 

Sonic Next Gen had a more menacing Eggman. He was less cartoony and much more of a threat(although Mephilles fit that bil a whole lot more. He's basically Infinite, no exactly like Infinite but executed better).

 

I disliked Sass because how he completely undermines Eggman. Why should I care about anything he does if everyone keeps telling me in the game that Eggman sucks, he's a loser, Sonic is so much better, he's incompetent and stupid. Eggman can't stand up to Sonic so why bother. Does that sound like a fun adventure? It's as Roger put it. JESUS CHUCK NORRIS GOD SONIC THE HEDGEHOG vs Elmer Fudd.....not very interesting or compelling. The hero's journey story doesn't work well when the opposition is laughable and not a challenge. Bowser can be hilarious and a threat all at once when written well. Cartoony is not my problem. I like clownish Eggman bravado. What I don't like is when it goes so far to the point it undermines his villain status, which he's had undermined for years now. Joker is at his best when he mixes his clownish and murderous natures. He's at his worst when he's too much of a clown and fodder material to Batman.

I'd say it was pretty serious and light hearted. The world is lost, Eggman won. He crushed Sonic. Despair is in the air. But it's not so dark it becomes a chore to sit through. Also Eggman was undermined far less, and his accomplishments showed in this game why he IS Sonic's main enemy. Instead of the years before where he was basically Invader Zim.

That one didn't really accomplish all that much and he was more boring than the Forces one personally. I think it was more Mephiles doing the accomplishments...and even then he's incompetent when you look into the heavily flawed story.

[Balding Spider]

Just a reminder that Mania's final boss

Spoiler

Had three jerks in the sky fighting over an enchanted rock in limited space

And it was still worlds better then Eggman's apocalyptic world conquering super weapon. Also Eggman's still dead.

[Joellui]

Just finished watching the cutscenes and watched whatever gameplay was on Youtube and wow, what a mess. 

Sonic Forces look so incomplete. Its like Final Fantasy XV all over again. At least the the team over there are doing some story patches, but I just don't think the Sonic Team are competent enough to even try and patch whatever mess they made. 

And another thing, it sucks that it just had to be this game that Infinite had to be introduced, because he looked like an interesting character from all the promotion, but he just fell so flat.

Honestly Sega gotta fire the whole Sonic Team, is to the point where they need new people to work on the Sonic Franchise, like go give the Sonic Franchise a long deserved rest and  the team can work on something else. They gotta get their shit together and level of consistency if they ever wanna make a GOOD Sonic game, this isn't gonna cut it anymore.

It's embarrassing.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

1 minute ago, Joellui said:

Just finished watching the cutscenes and watched whatever gameplay was on Youtube and wow, what a mess. 

Sonic Forces look so incomplete. Its like Final Fantasy XV all over again. At least the the team over there are doing some story patches, but I just don't think the Sonic Team are competent enough to even try and patch whatever mess they made. 

And another thing, it sucks that it just had to be this game that Infinite had to be introduced, because he looked like an interesting character from all the promotion, but he just fell so flat.

Honestly Sega gotta fire the whole Sonic Team, is to the point where they need new people to work on the Sonic Franchise, like go give the Sonic Franchise a long deserved rest and  the team can work on something else. They gotta get their shit together and level of consistency if they ever wanna make a GOOD Sonic game, this isn't gonna cut it anymore.

It's embarrassing.

You're right, but that still sucks. I mean, another rest?! Again, you're right, that's what Sonic probably needs, but... fuck. 

[A_W]

14 minutes ago, Whatever the WhoCares said:

Yeah, there are so many loose ends. What's Eggman doing now? Why's the world only 99.9% free? Is there maybe some secret special postgame ending where- no, there isn't. This is Sonic Dogshit Forces. 

Don't forget you can drive it to over 100% with the Secret stages! It went as high as 110.76% when I was watching the Twitch stream... and somehow, Eggman still had 0.01%. Should have grabbed screenshots when I could have; I'm not sure if anyone recorded that part of the stream.

[Whatever the WhoCares]

1 minute ago, A_W said:

Don't forget you can drive it to over 100% with the Secret stages! It went as high as 110.76% when I was watching the Twitch stream... and somehow, Eggman still had 0.01%. Should have grabbed screenshots when I could have; I'm not sure if anyone recorded that part of the stream.

I'm gonna punch a hole in the goddamn wall. 

[StaticMania]

4 minutes ago, A_W said:

Don't forget you can drive it to over 100% with the Secret stages! It went as high as 110.76% when I was watching the Twitch stream... and somehow, Eggman still had 0.01%. Should have grabbed screenshots when I could have; I'm not sure if anyone recorded that part of the stream.

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'd certainly like to know how a world can be 110.76% free of tyranny, while at the same time being 0.01% in a person's control.

It's interesting.

[Razule]

1 minute ago, StaticMania said:

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'd certainly like to know how a world can be 110.76% free of tyranny, while at the same time being 0.01% in a person's control.

It's interesting.

It's interesting.. how mathematically impossible it is

Either there's more, or it's a mistake.

I just.. I don't know anymore..

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

1 minute ago, dbzfan7 said:

I disliked Sass because how he completely undermines Eggman. Why should I care about anything he does if everyone keeps telling me in the game that Eggman sucks, he's a loser, Sonic is so much better, he's incompetent and stupid. Eggman can't stand up to Sonic so why bother. Does that sound like a fun adventure? It's as Roger put it. JESUS CHUCK NORRIS GOD SONIC THE HEDGEHOG vs Elmer Fudd.....not very interesting or compelling. The hero's journey story doesn't work well when the opposition is laughable and not a challenge. Bowser can be hilarious and a threat all at once when written well. Cartoony is not my problem. I like clownish Eggman bravado. What I don't like is when it goes so far to the point it undermines his villain status, which he's had undermined for years now. Joker is at his best when he mixes his clownish and murderous natures. He's at his worst when he's too much of a clown and fodder material to Batman.

I'd say it was pretty serious and light hearted. The world is lost, Eggman won. He crushed Sonic. Despair is in the air. But it's not so dark it becomes a chore to sit through. Also Eggman was undermined far less, and his accomplishments showed in this game why he IS Sonic's main enemy. Instead of the years before where he was basically Invader Zim.

That one didn't really accomplish all that much and he was more boring than the Forces one personally. I think it was more Mephiles doing the accomplishments...and even then he's incompetent when you look into the heavily flawed story.

That's the point? And what is so interesting about being serious all the time? More melodrama? More talks about how Sonic was "in despair" even though he barely showed much of that? I'm fine with serious Sonic stories once in awhile and some melodrama as that is what makes him different from other platformers/comics. My argument is how incomplete Sonic Forces is with the story, so much that it cannot find the right balance between a itself. The game is more of a  "dire in situation" than most of the titles(except for Next Gen). That much is true. How seriously did Sonic team take it? Not very much as they wanted to.

Quote

I disliked Sass because how he completely undermines Eggman.

He was undermined in Forces as he was barely shown to be there.  He's undermined by by the main villain who gets all the screen time by not-Mephilles. 

He's reduced to a joke by Classic Sonic's boss with him.

Quote

 

I'd say it was pretty serious and light hearted. The world is lost, Eggman won. He crushed Sonic. Despair is in the air. But it's not so dark it becomes a chore to sit through. Also Eggman was undermined far less, and his accomplishments showed in this game why he IS Sonic's main enemy. Instead of the years before where he was basically Invader Zim.

 

It doesn't even stay consistently dark as the game is so short it rushes through everything. It can't stay that dark when the music and most of the levels don't compliment it either.

Eggman has always been a joke but a challenging threat in the series. Eggmanland, Death Egg...You name it. 

In Unleashed, Sonic treated him as a fool and got juked. In the Classic games, you think nothing of him until Angel Island is burned up. Yet in all of that....He still is a joke in those games as you destroy all of his pesky little machines and devices he makes for himself.

Quote

Joker is at his best when he mixes his clownish and murderous natures. 

Batman is a very serious character and comic. He's supposed to be threatening and taken with full caution due to him causing the deaths of many.

Sonic is the complete opposite. Irrelevant comparison.

Quote

I disliked Sass because how he completely undermines Eggman. Why should I care about anything he does if everyone keeps telling me in the game that Eggman sucks, he's a loser, Sonic is so much better, he's incompetent and stupid. 

His plans have holes in them, his machines are normally easily beaten every time and doesn't think through everything. His robot just pointed out everything that has been an issue since Sonic 1.

It honestly doesn't matter at this point...Forces has a little over 30 minutes of cutscenes and it couldn't even explain what was going on in the first place. Sonic 06 is an example of an incomplete story but has a good chunk of it's setting and world explained despite the game being scrapped and remade within a short span of time! Sonic Forces had 4 years. 4 years just for some 30 minute in-cohesive set of story segments spliced together to create a plot.

[Cyalume]

There's 83 pages of this at this point, so I hope you all won't mind if I ask this as opposed to reading them all:

So, is the game a complete bomb, then? Is it worth the money, in your opinion? What's the verdict?

[dbzfan7]

12 minutes ago, Jar Jar Analysis 1138 said:

That's the point? And what is so interesting about being serious all the time? More melodrama? More talks about how Sonic was "in despair" even though he barely showed much of that? I'm fine with serious Sonic stories once in awhile and some melodrama as that is what makes him different from other platformers/comics. My argument is how incomplete Sonic Forces is with the story, so much that it cannot find the right balance between a itself. The game is more of a  "dire in situation" than most of the titles(except for Next Gen). That much is true. How seriously did Sonic team take it? Not very much as they wanted to.

He was undermined in Forces as he was barely shown to be there.  He's undermined by by the main villain who gets all the screen time by not-Mephilles. 

He's reduced to a joke by Classic Sonic's boss with him.

It doesn't even stay consistently dark as the game is so short it rushes through everything. It can't stay that dark when the music and most of the levels don't compliment it either.

Eggman has always been a joke but a challenging threat in the series. Eggmanland, Death Egg...You name it. 

In Unleashed, Sonic treated him as a fool and got juked. In the Classic games, you think nothing of him until Angel Island is burned up. Yet in all of that....He still is a joke in those games as you destroy all of his pesky little machines and devices he makes for himself.

Batman is a very serious character and comic. He's supposed to be threatening and taken with full caution due to him causing the deaths of many.

Sonic is the complete opposite. Irrelevant comparison.

His plans have holes in them, his machines are normally easily beaten every time and doesn't think through everything. His robot just pointed out everything that has been an issue since Sonic 1.

It honestly doesn't matter at this point...Forces has a little over 30 minutes of cutscenes and it couldn't even explain what was going on in the first place. Sonic 06 is an example of an incomplete story but has a good chunk of it's setting and world explained despite the game being scrapped and remade within a short span of time! Sonic Forces had 4 years. 4 years just for some 30 minute in-cohesive set of story segments spliced together to create a plot.

I never said anything about being serious all the time. I said he shouldn't be treated like a loser no one can take seriously. When I say take seriously, I mean people believe he actually is a threat which nobody believed for the last while. He's a tired old fool who can't do anything right and a complete buffoon. There's nothing at all interesting to me about Sonic foiling the plans of a moron who rarely is a threat to him. Eggman is kidnapping aliens....so what? He's a loser...he always loses...whatever. He's so lame even his minions think he's lame and can't win. So at worst we actually root for Eggman because of how horribly one sided his rivalry with Sonic is. Which I don't think is a good thing.

No he's been a silly goofy villain who still is a threat to Sonic and his world, and not someone that is just a clown you roll your eyes at like Invader Zim, where the point is he is a loser and incompetent.

Eggman looked awesome at the beginning of Unleashed...then it all went down hill from there as he's a bumbling loser. So lame not even villagers think he's anything special. Just a loser.

Not really. Batman is whatever you want him to be. He can be serious, he can be cartoony, he can be corny, etc. Batman is many things ala golden age, Brave and the Bold, Adam West Batman, etc. He's literally anything the writers want. He's been on both spectrums. Take the Adam West series where he does tend to be outwitted or captured or bested by his villains. If Adam West Batman just went I win every time KAPOW and that was basically the adventure....it'd be real dull. 

A character flaw is fine, but being treated like a bumbling buffoon is not. Why should I give a crap about any Sonic adventure when the opposition is so laughably outclassed it's not even funny. Why should I get invested in any adventure, drama, or scenario if there is no good rising action. No real escalation. If we had Colors/Unleashed/LW Eggman in SA2 for instance we'd basically have the president laugh off Eggman as a loser, say Sonic will beat you like he always does, "lol", and then hang up on him.

Agreed. While the likes of Unleashed is a great tone balancer but not so much in story,  and Colors/Gens/Lost World is a good way to not give a crap about a single thing that's going on.

[Multikaris]

3 minutes ago, Cyalume said:

There's 83 pages of this at this point, so I hope you all won't mind if I ask this as opposed to reading them all:

So, is the game a complete bomb, then? Is it worth the money, in your opinion? What's the verdict?

It’s likely this is the straw that severs the camel’s already irreparably broken in multiple places, recently infected back in two. But i’m Still interested in what else is left of the game.

[The Deleter]

53 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I mean, I'm not trying to throw people under the bus...BUT...

If people actually like this stuff, then that's just gonna give Sonic team that its perfectly ok to make games like this and they'll simply continue doing so. 

At this point, nobody but the most diehard of fans actually care what happens to this series and the ones that like this stuff are the ones who relatively new and don't understand what's wrong with them. They just see cool things and think "OH THIS GAME IS AWESOME".

So yea...that's the name of the game now.

.... Well I mean I'm normally against that, as the more people overall can enjoy something, the better. If a game can nail as much appeal and engagement down as possible, that makes it all the stronger as a game.

... But when we're talking Sonic Team, plot/seriousness, and preferences... the amount of diminishing returns is waaaaay to high for anyone to justify it objectively in the slightest. I don't ever want to resort to mudslinging, and people should be able to like what they like and want what they want, but when stuff like this is attached to

so

much

baggage, it's hard to justify wanting to include it, or even tolerating it's inclusion, as it indirectly hurts the game as a whole when it is used, as history has proven.
 

It's ridiculous that we, as a franchise and fanbase, have to treat any serious situation as "edgy" in advance because Sonic Team specifically makes multiple failures in this regard, though. Whereas something like Mario Galaxy gets praised from earth to the moon and back for treating something seriously and grand, because they don't have those failings.

It's just

ugh