Sonic Forces Development Speculation (Spoilers)

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

9 hours ago, TheOcelot said:

Sounds a bit like Unleashed:

SOJ: "We're gonna include a slower gameplay style called werehog".

SOA: "That's not a good idea".

SOJ: "We're going to include it anyway, so tough!"

Same kind of idea with Forces (OC instead of Werehog) but this time SOJ has actually listened to SOE/SOA. Huh...

 

I think classic Sonic would have been pitched from the very beginning due to his, I guess...good reception in Generations. Perhaps they decided to tone-down the amount of times you play as the OC in favor of more classic Sonic stages. Mania (despite how much later in development it was) has had some kind of influence over classic Sonic in Forces (the drop-dash at the very least). 

 

Why has SOJ since Unleashed been so afraid to make a 3d Sonic game with the boost being the only gameplay style? It's baffling.

Well...Sega Of America in their own right are quite guilty of making Sonic more stylish and speed based. SOJ had to follow that line of thought because majority of the fans loved it and the team was new too. Can't blame them honestly..

SOA: Let's scrap what potential can be had with transitioning classic gameplay to 3D and make his gameplay fast and crazy.

SOJ: No don-

SOA: Murica!

Everyone has of blood on their gloves...The werehog was a nice departure from the speed in my perspective.

22 minutes ago, Linkabel said:

It's kind of funny, because somewhere out there there's an interview with Yoshihisa Hashimoto where he mentions that someone high up in SoJ (forgot who he was) told him to reconsider putting the Werehog in Unleashed. The reason was because the other guy knew it was going to get a bad reception, but Hashimoto still decided to go with it. 

Not surprising. If you read some of the excerpts of him, he was incredibly confident this game will sell well. He was right...

Though, If people were fine with Adventure 1(lol) and Adventure 2 forcing it even further(lmao) why such an outcry for Werehog? Wasn't the main complaint that none of the gameplay styles were Sonic himself? Or was it perhaps the marketing? 

Actually, I think it was the marketing. I remember something about the announcements but not if they did a Raiden like Kojima did with MGS2. 

The team was really passionate and confident they could pull it off. Quite rare to hear that in Sonic Team compared to today but It became a bit of a double edged sword. Not sure how much development went into the werehog but I do wonder that if he wasn't in it, how would the game look? 

I think that if he wasn't in it, they could have refined some aspects in Unleashed. 

Can't say I personally hate it. All it did was follow the Adventure Formula that everyone seemed to have loved.

[Gabz Girl]

That insider info is really interesting and shows you that SoJ still has that divide with SoA and SoE. After all these years, why can’t they just get along? 

Anyway, whenever this meeting was might have also been when they decided to change Boom!Sonic to Avatar. I know it’s a stretch but the signs are there. It’s not just the grappling hook mechanic, but also the fact that Avatar is much taller than the other characters. His build is more like a Sonic Boom character as well, tall and lanky. Then there’s that “Death Egg Robot” (lame af name btw) looking like a robotisized version of Lyric...too many coincidences if you ask me. It does make you wonder what the story would have been like with three different Sonics.  

9 hours ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

If it does turn out to be true that they're already developing another game in the background, that would go a LONG way towards restoring my faith in them. Because Forces does not seem like the work of the same studio that produced Generations. I have commented many times that that gameplay is fundamentally problematic, but I'll be damned if it wasn't still a passion project and still a very good experience overall. That game showed that they can deliver something good when they really try. "Great"  maybe not. But good for sure.

 

I'm having a hard time believing Forces alone is "it" after 4 years. I really want to believe in the alternative.

We can only hope so but...this is not the Sonic Team from the 2000’s who were churning out 2-3 Sonic games on a regular basis. I have a bad feeling that this is the only game they’ve got to show in the four years since SLW’s release.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

3 hours ago, Gabz Girl said:

We can only hope so but...this is not the Sonic Team from the 2000’s who were churning out 2-3 Sonic games on a regular basis. I have a bad feeling that this is the only game they’ve got to show in the four years since SLW’s release.

I'm not at all advocating that its a good idea to split resources on the main project like that. I don't think so.

I'm just saying that I'd rather hope that Sonic Team is not actually just burned out with the franchise (strong possibility) and just mailing in their effort at this point. Because then a serious change in staff would absolutely need to take place. And we might not get the chance to see it if Forces bombs.

I've never seriously thought Sonic Team was incompetent. Just that SEGA the company is confused in its priorities and it Forces Sonic Team down strange and illogical paths creatively. They both deserve blame for squandering the Sonic IP, which still has enormous potential even today.

[RedFox99]

5 minutes ago, UpCDownCLeftCRightC said:

I'm not at all advocating that its a good idea to split resources on the main project like that. I don't think so.

I'm just saying that I'd rather hope that Sonic Team is not actually just burned out with the franchise (strong possibility) and just mailing in their effort at this point. Because then a serious change in staff would absolutely need to take place. And we might not get the chance to see it if Forces bombs.

I've never seriously thought Sonic Team was incompetent. Just that SEGA the company is confused in its priorities and it Forces Sonic Team down strange and illogical paths creatively. They both deserve blame for squandering the Sonic IP, which still has enormous potential even today.

Part of me thinks that Sonic Team should work on other IP and step away from Sonic for some time while other developers like taxman, Headcanon, and Dimps take care of the franchise temporally 

[Dr. Mechano]

3 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Part of me thinks that Sonic Team should work on other IP and step away from Sonic for some time while other developers like taxman, Headcanon, and Dimps take care of the franchise temporally 

Dimps has been getting worse too though.

The Advances and Rush were competent, if flawed, games.

Then they did garbage like Unleashed Wii, Sonic 4, and the portable version of Generations and Lost World. I feel like Dimps has been undergoing a similar worsening of quality to Sonic Team themselves, so they can't really be relied upon anymore.

[Kuzu]

5 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

Dimps has been getting worse too though.

The Advances and Rush were competent, if flawed, games.

Then they did garbage like Unleashed Wii, Sonic 4, and the portable version of Generations and Lost World. I feel like Dimps has been undergoing a similar worsening of quality to Sonic Team themselves, so they can't really be relied upon anymore.

Notice how their quality started to drop when they stopped working on original games and just ports of the console ones. 

Really makes you think.

[RedFox99]

3 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

Dimps has been getting worse too though.

The Advances and Rush were competent, if flawed, games.

Then they did garbage like Unleashed Wii, Sonic 4, and the portable version of Generations and Lost World. I feel like Dimps has been undergoing a similar worsening of quality to Sonic Team themselves, so they can't really be relied upon anymore.

So that just leaves Mania team then. Didn't know they made Unleashed Wii.

[Dr. Mechano]

2 minutes ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

Notice how their quality started to drop when they stopped working on original games and just ports of the console ones. 

Really makes you think.

While that's true, Sonic 4 was their baby - totally their title without being a port of anything else. And it was hyped up to be a grand return to Sonic's roots by everyone. And, well, we all know how that turned out.

I think whatever talent Dimps had for this franchise is long gone.

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

9 minutes ago, RedFox99 said:

Part of me thinks that Sonic Team should work on other IP and step away from Sonic for some time while other developers like taxman, Headcanon, and Dimps take care of the franchise temporally 

You're right that we may already be at that point. A lot of people have suspected that they've been burned out for years already. I just have trouble seeing SEGA allow Taxman and company to assume control of the IP right out the gate. Its part of the reason I'm concerned about Forces if it bombs because they may feel that 3D Sonic is simply not worth the risk anymore. And that's, of course, not true.

I am in support of any team that is motivated (and skilled and understanding enough) to get Sonic back to great heights though.

 

[Kuzu]

2 minutes ago, Super Mechanio said:

While that's true, Sonic 4 was their baby - totally their title without being a port of anything else. And it was hyped up to be a grand return to Sonic's roots by everyone. And, well, we all know how that turned out.

I think whatever talent Dimps had for this franchise is long gone.

I'm mostly saying that their quality decline probably has more to do with Sonic Team's interference than anything else. 

[A super No.1 washedupgamer]

After reading about what happened between sonic team jp, sega Eoe and US, the idea of wanting this game to fail seems a lot more justified. Wow.

[Scar]

How about don't make any 3D Sonic game for another 5, 6, 7 8, 9 or even 10 years. Seriously fuck it. Just have Mania 2 or some shit to tide over and leave the franchise to sit for a while and rest.

Clearly most people at Sonic Team are out of good ideas, and are trying to hard to please every different niche that they end up actually pleasing nobody. Mayor D's post makes it sound like they were going to make a semi-spinoff-y RPG with a character creator and the main cast taking a secondary role. This was not taken to well, so the whole thing changed into a boost game with random crap thrown in for banter.

I don't like it. SoJ and Sonic Team came up with this craziness and got rejected by SoA and SoE. Why did these ideas exist in the first place? Was it some good old fashioned SoJ focus testing, or did someone at Sonic Team just want to make an RPG-esque game set in the Sonic Universe? Fucking crazy!

SEGA of Japan and Sonic Team need to stop and reconsider what in the fuck they want out of a Sonic game. I remember that one interview where they said they're looking to learn from Mania. Fucking do that. And don't just go skin deep with that examination. Really try and understand at a fundamental, mechanical and design level. Also go back to and look at each classic game and learn what was good and bad from those. Play Super Mario Odyssey and learn from that too. 

They need a break. Play all the previous Sonic games and figure out what's good and what's bad. Play other franchises and see what you can learn from how they approach their game design. Try and see how Nintendo adapted Mario from 2D to 3D and see if you can get inside their heads and understand what design decisions they made and why.

Then once you have a full grasp of how you want Sonic to operate in 3D, come up with a game engine and play around with it. Play around with the extended cast and what abilities they should have to differentiate. When you know what kind of game you want to make, get some actual writers, be they anime writers or English writers - whoever. Just get some actual writers to write a story. Give them a good understanding of what you want the characters to be like and tell them to go ham. Then make the game. Make it like Nintendo made Odyssey. Make it with the care and attention that went into constructing the non-gameplay elements of Unleashed HD.

I don't care if this learning process takes 10 years. I would rather wait 10 years for a really great Sonic game, than 2 to 3 years for a half-baked, focus tested, chopped and changed piece of shit like Forces. I don't care if some fans are disappointed that they aren't getting a 3D game every other year, and are salty about all the Whitehead/Stealth Mania 2D games are being churned out. When the wait is finally over, I guarantee if the game has been made with love and creativity, they won't be disappointed. 

[Dr. Egguman]

Well... it's crazy how Sonic Team once thought to put Avatar on a position above Sonic on his own game, it's a bad idea and it's crazy how they don't have this sense of how bad this idea was, SoE and SoA needed to talk about it to stop they. I know, if Sonic Forces is bad as we thought, just imagine if we don't even play with Sonic on this. 4 Years to just... 30 stages with 1 minute? I really don't believe this game was 4 years of development.

(also i'm new Hi)

[Mark1]

I’d like Sonic Team to take a “proper” break to examine the next step for the modern side of the franchise. 

I was a fan of Generations but after witnessing the recent coverage a “proper” evaluation of what makes Sonic appealing is needed instead of trying to cash grab with padding through classic Sonic and OC. The level design us simply too drab and generic to be a good platformer. I don’t like saying Sega should take note of other games (cos they’ve done it so wrong in the past) but Mania really needs to be the foundation of future games 

[Dr. Egguman]

It's time to move on... No more Classic Sonic + Modern Sonic, or boost formula or OC's, they can even stick with the Adventure formula, I always thought that Sonic Adventure was the Super Mario 64 of the franchise. Look at the Mario games, the same gameplay with little changes, look at Sonic, I really like the way that Sonic Team changes the gameplay, even if sometimes it's not a good idea they have courage to do something new just to not stay the same. I really think it would be a great idea do a new Sonic game with modern elements with Adventure formula BUT without a "Sonic Adventure 3" on title or this edge story.

[Multikaris]

1 hour ago, Kuzu the Boloedge said:

I'm mostly saying that their quality decline probably has more to do with Sonic Team's interference than anything else. 

I think Sonic Team were much more restrictive about 4, including turning what was once Sonic DL into Sonic 4 to begin with. And they’ve apparently dumped DIMPS (and Backbone) after Lost World, replacing them with Sanzaru and later PagodaWest.

[RedFox99]

25 minutes ago, Booblur99 said:

After reading about what happened between sonic team jp, sega Eoe and US, the idea of wanting this game to fail seems a lot more justified. Wow.

What happened?

[Dr. Egguman]

I think the last game to have a bunch of $$$$ on development was Sonic Unleashed, after that, none of other Sonic games had the same investiment.

[Autosaver]

On 10/30/2017 at 6:28 PM, Dr. Egguman said:

I think the last game to have a bunch of $$$$ on development was Sonic Unleashed, after that, none of other Sonic games had the same investiment.

Kind of sad too. The game had a ton of high quality CGI. The graphics are still better than anything put out and that game came out nearly 10 years ago.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

13 minutes ago, Autosaver said:

Kind of sad too. The game had a ton of high quality CGI. The graphics are still better than anything put out and that game came out nearly 10 years ago.

The amount of money put into marketing, resources into the Hedgehog Engine+the application of Global Illumination(which was very new and it was one of the first games to use it so successfully) and man hours creating an entire world....Sonic World Adventure definitely deserves to hold the title of a high quality title in my opinion. Regarding my criticisms, there weren't many games like it when it came to breaking the technological boundaries in 2008.

In just that moment; Sega was back to doing what they used to when Sonic first came along. Revealing the potential of the consoles capabilities.

[Sky]

https://www.famitsu.com/news/201711/11145786.html

According to this (and Google Translate, which actually is translating this pretty well!), Sonic Team started basic engine and technological development of Forces about 4 years ago (mainly Hedgehog Engine 2 I'm assuming), with Forces' going through what I'm assuming was a concept phase a year after that, but the actual full-scale production of Sonic Forces began around last year.

So instead of going the Unleashed route of 1.5 years of Hedgehog Engine development and 1.5 years of game development, they went through 3 years of Hedgehog Engine 2 development and decided to spend only 1 year of actual game development.

Quote

Nakamura: It is not that I did not put out on purpose. I started development four years ago, but I needed research by switching to a new "Hedgehog Engine 2" engine. Also, it was a time to raise the world of " Sonic toon " including animation from now on overseas, so I was considering various timing such as whether it should be released within 25th anniversary.

Quote

Nakamura: Yes. The project started four years ago, and we first advanced basic research on new technologies and new engines. A year later, I formed a small team, and finally full-scale production began last year around last year. This time it was longer than usual.

So tl;dr timeline from this:

2013 - Sonic Team begins Hedgehog Engine 2 development
2014-2016 - Sonic Forces concept development with Nakamura's small team
2016-2017 - Actual Sonic Forces game development

[speedfreak]

Don't see the point of the HE2 since out looks almost identical to HE1. If anything Unleashed and Generations look better imo.

[Sky]

18 minutes ago, speedfreak said:

Don't see the point of the HE2 since out looks almost identical to HE1. If anything Unleashed and Generations look better imo.

The Hedgehog Engine doesn't really have anything to do with the graphical design of the game if that's what you're getting at (e.g. Forces' Green Hill having boring flat terrain with minimal backdrops vs Generations's Green Hill having pretty curvy terrain with massive amounts of detailed backdrops). Unleashed and Generations definitely have far better designed backdrops and terrain, but on a technical level the HE2 is superior to the HE1.

Just check out especially the beginning of Sunset Heights for example: the reflection of the water, the global illumination from the sunset's light, and the shadows are definitely a step up from what the HE1 is capable of. And in the HE2, the lighting on terrain is actually rendered all in real-time unlike the HE1 where the majority of the lighting and shadows on the terrain were just simply pre-rendered into textures of the level, so it's much more robust.

I just wish that their actual game design team had put that much thought, time, and detail that their graphical dev team put into the Hedgehog Engine into the actual gameplay as well

[Tarnish]

19 minutes ago, Sky The Destroyer said:

The Hedgehog Engine doesn't really have anything to do with the graphical design of the game if that's what you're getting at (e.g. Forces' Green Hill having boring flat terrain with minimal backdrops vs Generations's Green Hill having pretty curvy terrain with massive amounts of detailed backdrops). Unleashed and Generations definitely have far better designed backdrops and terrain, but on a technical level the HE2 is superior to the HE1.

Just check out especially the beginning of Sunset Heights for example: the reflection of the water, the global illumination from the sunset's light, and the shadows are definitely a step up from what the HE1 is capable of. And in the HE2, the lighting on terrain is actually rendered all in real-time unlike the HE1 where the majority of the lighting and shadows on the terrain were just simply pre-rendered into textures of the level, so it's much more robust.

I just wish that their actual game design team had put that much thought, time, and detail that their graphical dev team put into the Hedgehog Engine into the actual gameplay as well

I still think pouring 2 years into this engine was a waste of time, simply from a game design standpoint. What I mean by this, is the game not only encourages you to go fast, but pretty much forces you, so the likeliness that you'll get a chance to gawk at the technical marvels of the engine are pretty slim as everything goes by at blistering speeds. You pretty much have to go out of your way to slow down. Such engine would be much better suited IMO for slower paced games.

But hey, gotta keep at least the image that they are in the forefront with SOMETHING..too bad that it's only graphics that will be outdone within a year and not game design that usually has a much longer lasting impact.

[Sky]

10 minutes ago, Tarnish said:

I still think pouring 2 years into this engine was a waste of time, simply from a game design standpoint. What I mean by this, is the game not only encourages you to go fast, but pretty much forces you, so the likeliness that you'll get a chance to gawk at the technical marvels of the engine are pretty slim as everything goes by at blistering speeds. You pretty much have to go out of your way to slow down. Such engine would be much better suited IMO for slower paced games.

But hey, gotta keep at least the image that they are in the forefront with SOMETHING..too bad that it's only graphics and not game design.

Well, I doubt that the graphical team has the same people as the game team, so the question becomes of what were the game team people doing during the Hedgehog Engine development time...which was apparently just a couple of years of...concepts.