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Sonic Forces: The War Of Wasted Opportunities.


Dee Dude

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Cream & Cheese Bios

Cream the Rabbit. Young Flyer Heroine with Cheese the Chao.

Considering literally every other major cast member--plus Silver and Omega--is present(not to mention the various rabbit soldiers visibly hopping up and down after the final boss), Cream's conspicuous absence is really odd. And as you can see, Sonic Generations already had a model for her ready in a series that has recently gotten into the habit of reusing the same models in 5 consecutive games. It's true that in a game based around a supposed planetary war with Eggman and Infinite, there's bound to be some characters that get overlooked and the Polite Cream might seem out of place to some, but the truth is she(like many characters if used cleverly) actually would've been very useful to have given that she could've made occasional use of her horizontal flying skills, Healing Powers ala Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, her morale boosting skills in the latter, and her affinity with Chao(as shown with Cheese, Chocola, her family's Chao Garden/Ranch in the Archie Comics, Milk, and her little ring catching crew from Generation) to help the Resistance. And it's not like she didn't already take part in Games with drastically dark tones/villains(Metal Overlord, Eggman Nega) and the likes of Team Chaotix and the Shapebots are actually did make the cut, so why couldn't she?

Expanding on Forte-Metallix 's point, Cream and Cheese being around would've made the scene where Classic Sonic was introduced (and at least one other) inherently more interesting/dynamic. Chaos's presence in the game is really weird in that him being there is fine enough given he's more of a force of nature than a full out character, but the lack of a bossfight or another major scenes with him feels weird, making me honestly wonder if they shouldn't have bothered at all. Taking a page from Sonic X, Chaos's past as a protector of Chao(not to mention his origins as a mutated Chao himself) could've been utilized for some brief piece of proper emotional tension when Cream attempts to reason with Chaos but he and Cheese remain/become aggressive despite this. Thus, the water being continues to attack them before Classic Sonic shows up to defeat(or better yet, fight) him, serving as a more thorough second hint that something is amiss about the Returning Villains. Not to mention it'd give Tails someone else to be talking to in that scene before goes off again and a small Chekgov's Gun with Omega's appearance in the final battle.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

It's true that in a game based around a supposed planetary war with Eggman and Infinite, there's bound to be some characters that get overlooked and the Polite Cream might seem out of place to some, but the truth is she(like many characters if used cleverly) actually would've been very useful to have given that she could've made occasional use of her horizontal flying skills, Healing Powers ala Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, her morale boosting skills in the latter, and her affinity with Chao(as shown with Cheese, Chocola, her family's Chao Garden/Ranch in the Archie Comics, Milk, and her little ring catching crew from Generation) to help the Resistance.

I don't think the healing powers actually exist outside of those RPG type games. But eh.. those are great ideas but even she actually was there she'd probably have just done as much as the other cast (on-screen). You could make a list of things they could do to be useful for everyone else, but at that point the premise of the cast being helpless against Eggman for six months without Sonic becomes even more ridiculous

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1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

Cream & Cheese Bios

Cream the Rabbit. Young Flyer Heroine with Cheese the Chao.

Considering literally every other major cast member--plus Silver and Omega--is present(not to mention the various rabbit soldiers visibly hopping up and down after the final boss), Cream's conspicuous absence is really odd. And as you can see, Sonic Generations already had a model for her ready in a series that has recently gotten into the habit of reusing the same models in 5 consecutive games. It's true that in a game based around a supposed planetary war with Eggman and Infinite, there's bound to be some characters that get overlooked and the Polite Cream might seem out of place to some, but the truth is she(like many characters if used cleverly) actually would've been very useful to have given that she could've made occasional use of her horizontal flying skills, Healing Powers ala Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, her morale boosting skills in the latter, and her affinity with Chao(as shown with Cheese, Chocola, her family's Chao Garden/Ranch in the Archie Comics, Milk, and her little ring catching crew from Generation) to help the Resistance. And it's not like she didn't already take part in Games with drastically dark tones/villains(Metal Overlord, Eggman Nega) and the likes of Team Chaotix and the Shapebots are actually did make the cut, so why couldn't she?

Expanding on Forte-Metallix 's point, Cream and Cheese being around would've made the scene where Classic Sonic was introduced (and at least one other) inherently more interesting/dynamic. Chaos's presence in the game is really weird in that him being there is fine enough given he's more of a force of nature than a full out character, but the lack of a bossfight or another major scenes with him feels weird, making me honestly wonder if they shouldn't have bothered at all. Taking a page from Sonic X, Chaos's past as a protector of Chao(not to mention his origins as a mutated Chao himself) could've been utilized for some brief piece of proper emotional tension when Cream attempts to reason with Chaos but he and Cheese remain/become aggressive despite this. Thus, the water being continues to attack them before Classic Sonic shows up to defeat(or better yet, fight) him, serving as a more thorough second hint that something is amiss about the Returning Villains. Not to mention it'd give Tails someone else to be talking to in that scene before goes off again and a small Chekgov's Gun with Omega's appearance in the final battle.

 

 

 

Since you mentioned Cream, I’d also like to add Blaze the Cat as a character who was sorely missed in Sonic Forces. Even though I’m not a big fan of her, I still think she’s a cool character and it was strange to not see her in this game. Not even a cameo!

True, how she’d get to Sonic’s World in the first place would be confusing af BUT considering that Silver is there and he’s from the future, I’m sure having Blaze be a part of the Resistance would have been fine! We could have seen her team up with Silver to defeat Infinite or be a part of the EPIC (lol) battle at the end of the game.

Blaze MIA in Forces was very odd. I hope this doesn’t mean she becomes another Big the Cat.

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32 minutes ago, Razule said:

I don't think the healing powers actually exist outside of those RPG type games. 

Then do like the Archie Comics did and simply represent/mundanize it by having her act as a first aid technician(don't let the big word fool you, it's just a fancy way of saying official).

32 minutes ago, Razule said:

 But eh.. those are great ideas but even she actually was there she'd probably have just done as much as the other cast (on-screen). You could make a list of things they could do to be useful for everyone else, but at that point the premise of the cast being helpless against Eggman for six months without Sonic becomes even more ridiculous

Yeah, Sonic characters are actually pretty broken when you really think about it. Particularly if you adapt what abilities they may have had in a one-off game.

Sonic: Super Speed, Spindash, Super Peel Out, Super Form, Insta-Shield, Elemental Shields, Chaos Control, Sonic Wind, Bound, Light Speed Attack, Triangle Jump, Gems, Time Break, Sonic Boost, Color Powers, and Focused Homing Attack.

Tails: Tail Copter, Bomb, Tail Swipe, Dummy Ring Bombs, Energy Cannon, Chu2 Bombs, and Tornado Attack.

Knuckles: Super Strength, Gliding, Climb, Maximum Heat Knuckles Attack, Drill Claw, Thunder Arrow, Fireballs, Magma, Spiral Upper, Hammer Punch, Screwdriver.

Amy: Piko Piko Hammer, Tarot Draw, Hammer Jump, Spin Hammer, Propellor Hammer, KickBoxing, and Rose Typhoon.

Shadow: Super Speed, Spin Dash, Super Form, Chaos Control, Chaos Spear, Chaos Blast, Chaos Snap, Chaos Lance, and Sonic Boost.

Rouge: Rouge Flight, Digging, Black Wave, Screw Kick, Drill Drive, Dummy Ring Bomb, Bat Bomber, Bomb, and Shriek.

Cream: Cream Ballet, Chao Attack, Soft Bomber, Chao Tornado, and Cream Heal.

Vector: Super Strength, Vector Breath, Fireball, Climb, Hammer Down, and Bubblegum Descent.

Charmy: Flight, Dash, Sting Attack, Tracking, Flower Warp, Thunder Shoot, and Whirlwind.

Espio: Super Speed, Whirl Attack, Shuriken, Ninja Arts: Camouflage, Leaf Swirl, and Chroma Camo.

Blaze: Super Speed, Pyrokinesis, Burst Dash, Burning Form, Burst Hover, Axel Tornado, and Fire Claw.

Silver: Psychokinesis, Levitate, Chronos Control, Psychoshock, ESP, Teleport Dash, Psychic Knife, and Meteor Smash. 

 

And that's just the usual groups we get.

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I know that the torture line for Forces' English dub was kinda cringy, but much like everything else, I think there could have been some merit to it in the sense that it could have been expanded on in a cutscene, that shows what exactly Sonic suffered, but also could help flesh out Infinite and Eggman's roles and their relationship to each other.

Read further in the post for my thoughts. It's also something of an expansion of some previous thoughts I had regarding Infinite, so I have links for those as well:

https://board.sonicstadium.org/profile/2255-seneddtor-missile/?status=897030&type=status

So the basic gist of it is that Sonic ends up getting captured and imprisoned, and Infinite comes along to taunt Sonic for his failures. Sonic throws back snarky quips like usual, but then Infinite gets angry (or Sonic hits a nerve with him), so Infinite decides to use his powers to torture him. Sonic then suffers a mixture of potential torture scenarios, ranging from his friends and allies turning on him and blaming him for Eggman conquering the world, to the prison cell he's in getting smaller and smaller until it nearly crushes in a tiny cage (thus resulting in claustrophobia and fear of being crushed), and so on for months on end. This eventually culminates in Eggman confronting Infinite about him torturing Sonic, not because he's concerned about Sonic's wellbeing, but rather that he finds it to be personally distasteful and far too personal, as well as a waste of time considering Infinite could be going about helping conquer the world instead of just satisfying his sadistic urges.

This would be an important cutscene because it fleshes out Eggman and Infinite's worldviews. Eggman, as much of a narcissistic egomaniac hellbent on taking over the world as he is, is ultimately not interested in such a personal and distasteful action because he wants people to worship him, not hate him (unless he doesn't like them, then he just doesn't care), and torture is just too messy and personal (now granted Eggman could certainly resort to it if he was pushed off the deep end, but I think he'd be more likely to just try to get rid of the problem rather than drag it out. More world conquering time after all!). He might be willing to taunt Sonic before getting rid of him, but torture is questionable for him.

Infinite on the other hand takes things extremely personally, and is under the mindset that tormenting people is a good way to establish yourself as the top of the food chain. Plus he also argues that the Resistance knowing about Sonic being tortured could be used to demoralize them (missing the possibility that they might end up being galvanized to rescue him instead due to being a sadist). He's too fixated on his own personal grudges and satisfying his own sadism that he tends to miss the bigger picture.

Sonic doesn't break however, even though he's being worn down, something that angers and frustrates Infinite to no end, resulting in him taking out his frustrations on civilians when he's called out to engage in Eggman's war against the world (and thus resulting in what happens to the Avatar later on).

That being said, Eggman is somewhat conflicted on Infinite's point, since on the one hand, he doesn't care for torture. On the other hand, he doesn't like Sonic very much and he does like the idea of the Resistance being weakened by such a big hero being broken down to the point of making it easier for him to take over. It's ultimately rendered a moot point since the Resistance catches wind of the situation and frees Sonic.

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7 hours ago, Gabz Girl said:

Since you mentioned Cream, I’d also like to add Blaze the Cat as a character who was sorely missed in Sonic Forces. Even though I’m not a big fan of her, I still think she’s a cool character and it was strange to not see her in this game. Not even a cameo!

True, how she’d get to Sonic’s World in the first place would be confusing af BUT considering that Silver is there and he’s from the future, I’m sure having Blaze be a part of the Resistance would have been fine! We could have seen her team up with Silver to defeat Infinite or be a part of the EPIC (lol) battle at the end of the game.

Blaze MIA in Forces was very odd. I hope this doesn’t mean she becomes another Big the Cat.

No offense to the Blaze fans (really, I truly, truly mean no offense) but I feel the opposite.

If Silver being there is an issue than having Blaze also be there wouldn't be fine to me. It'd just be another glaring issue.

Honestly, I wasn't cool with Silver being there when I first heard he was. I warmed up to the idea because of the Prequel Comic (and because I do kind of like his personality. He's such a loveable dork) but even then there's still some open ended nonsense that keeps nagging at my head. It's possible to resolve it but no one at Sonic Team is interested in doing so which means it won't happen. Plus, I always did feel it more plausible that someone who comes from the future timeline of Sonic's world probably already has a more direct connection to it than someone from another dimension entirely. That doesn't excuse it though, but Blaze's situation is so incredibly distracting to me. The instant I see her, my mind is immediately looking for an explanation because looking the Sol Dimension and it's rules up and down isn't granting me any plausible deniability for me to work off of. Time travel, while bullshit, is still a concept I can grasp but I still don't even fully understand how the dimensional thing works.

Now, I understand that this matters little to someone who probably doesn't care as strictly about the narrative as I do but I guess I can't help that.

It's only odd that she wasn't there to me because she's super popular and they had no problems putting her in 06 and Generations without an explanation because of it. That's usually how they handle popular characters. They damn the consequences of ignoring why people like them just to put them in the game regardless so people can be happy to see them even if they don't do anything. 

Also, I honestly didn't find it strange that Cream wasn't there. For some reason. If anything I think she's probably in way more danger of ending up in a Big the Cat situation than Blaze. Blaze appears in a lot of stuff. Her not appearing in Forces means nothing. Omega had more to worry about in that department than Blaze before he showed up in Forces.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

No offense to the Blaze fans (really, I truly, truly mean no offense) but I feel the opposite.

If Silver being there is an issue than having Blaze also be there wouldn't be fine to me. It'd just be another glaring issue.

 Plus, I always did feel it more plausible that someone who comes from the future timeline of Sonic's world probably already has a more direct connection to it than someone from another dimension entirely. That doesn't excuse it though, but Blaze's situation is so incredibly distracting to me. The instant I see her, my mind is immediately looking for an explanation because looking the Sol Dimension and it's rules up and down isn't granting me any plausible deniability for me to work off of. Time travel, while bullshit, is still a concept I can grasp but I still don't even fully understand how the dimensional thing works.

 

That was my thought as well.

 

 

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G-Merl

Gemerl. Advanced Android.

Sonic Advance 3 featured "The Ultimate Fighting Robot" assisting Eggman's latest creation in his Genesis Wave plan by acting as a recurring boss throughout the game. After assisting Eggman and growing both more powerful and more frustrated throughout the Adventure, Gemerl suddenly attacked Sonic to steal the Chaos Emeralds and transformed into Ultimate Gemerl, betraying the Doctor before taking off into space. After Super Sonic teamed up with the betrayed Doctor to defeat the haywire robot, Gemerl fell from space and eventually ended up on a beach shore. Found by Cream and her mother Vanilla during a walk, the robot was taken to Tails. Repaired and rebooted into a Nonaggressive state, the rebuilt Gizoid resolved to live peacefully with the Rabbit Family at their Cottage.

Thus, Gemerl was left somewhere where it would be easy for him to come back any time. As a[nother] powerful robot that is a friend of one of Sonic's allies,  it would've made sense for him to become involved in combat once more when Sonic's friends were all involved in a supposedly planetwide war with Dr. Eggman and his newest minion Infinite. 

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1 hour ago, DabigRG said:

G-Merl

Gemerl. Advanced Android.

Sonic Advance 3 featured "The Ultimate Fighting Robot" assisting Eggman's latest creation in his Genesis Wave plan by acting as a recurring boss throughout the game. After assisting Eggman and growing both more powerful and more frustrated throughout the Adventure, Gemerl suddenly attacked Sonic to steal the Chaos Emeralds and transformed into Ultimate Gemerl, betraying the Doctor before taking off into space. After Super Sonic teamed up with the betrayed Doctor to defeat the haywire robot, Gemerl fell from space and eventually ended up on a beach shore. Found by Cream and her mother Vanilla during a walk, the robot was taken to Tails. Repaired and rebooted into a Nonaggressive state, the rebuilt Gizoid resolved to live peacefully with the Rabbit Family at their Cottage.

Thus, Gemerl was left somewhere where it would be easy for him to come back any time. As a[nother] powerful robot that is a friend of one of Sonic's allies,  it would've made sense for him to become involved in combat once more when Sonic's friends were all involved in a supposedly planetwide war with Dr. Eggman and his newest minion Infinite. 

When you think about, he and Omega could play off each other rather well since they're both defected robots made by Eggman, but with rather different viewpoints with Gemerl being more pacifistic and Omega being trigger-happy. Gemerl could've even been the next Gamma, which could tie into how Omega feels about his "older brother".

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You know another problem with Forces story they don’t explain?

maxresdefault.jpg

The Longfinites from Captial City, I know it can be said that it’s just another ability Infinite can do but we never see them again or what the hell they are other than attacking the cities.

They look cool but that’s about it from me.

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2 minutes ago, Dee Dude said:

You know another problem with Forces story they don’t explain?

maxresdefault.jpg

The Longfinites from Captial City, I know it can be said that it’s just another ability Infinite can do but we never see them again or what the hell they are other than attacking the cities.

They look cool but that’s about it from me.

They're just illusions.

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28 minutes ago, Dee Dude said:

You know another problem with Forces story they don’t explain?

maxresdefault.jpg

The Longfinites from Captial City, I know it can be said that it’s just another ability Infinite can do but we never see them again or what the hell they are other than attacking the cities.

They look cool but that’s about it from me.

The worst part about it is that they could have easily been replaced with Chaos 7. Even if we didn't get a boss, at least he'd actually do something in the level.

But no, we get infinite snake.

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2 minutes ago, McGroose said:

The worst part about it is that they could have easily been replaced with Chaos 7. Even if we didn't get a boss, at least he'd actually do something in the level.

But no, we get infinite snake.

Nah, I like the Infinite snakes. Last thing we need is more people spouting out "REUSED ASSETS ITS GENERATIONS TWO HD SEE?!" if Perfect Chaos appeared again.

There's better ideas for Chaos.

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4 minutes ago, Dee Dude said:

Nah, I like the Infinite snakes. Last thing we need is more people spouting out "REUSED ASSETS ITS GENERATIONS TWO HD SEE?!" if Perfect Chaos appeared again.

There's better ideas for Chaos.

There are definitely better ideas, but this was the one idea that would've taken a couple model changes/edits and nothing else.

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16 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Can we generally agree that Forces' premise was simply way too massive for it's own good?

1

I guess in a way, yeah. Most other times something like this had been, it was in comic book or tv form; which can develop the plot more.

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24 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Can we generally agree that Forces' premise was simply way too massive for it's own good?
 

 

The issue is that Sonic Team saw it purely as a marketing gimmick rather than an opportunity to expand on the world of Sonic.

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9 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

The issue is that Sonic Team saw it purely as a marketing gimmick rather than an opportunity to expand on the world of Sonic.

So essentially bait in order to bring in interest from fans.

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37 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

Can we generally agree that Forces' premise was simply way too massive for it's own good?

Yeah, I think the main problem with it that it’s SEGA/Sonic Team’s first attempt at a serious/plot driven story in a long long time which is why it didn’t end up SA2 tier storytelling as we expected.

It definitely had improvements though as as the cast being directly involved, charcaters fighting, atleast a reason to give a shit about it’s plot.

But it ended up poorly executed for its own good and sadly wasted the one time opportunity premise of Eggman winning.

All I can say is improve, expand, and do better next time.

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Well it also goes without saying that if they had any true intention of capitalizing on the characters they put into the game, they would have taken the opportunity to play around with some of the other missed opportunities we've gotten in the past surrounding them.

For example, this probably could have been an interesting chance to see what Chaos 1, 3, and 5 looked like.

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@Dr. Detective Mike We did see Chaos 1.

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Not much but yeah, this was a perfect opportunity to have forms 3 & 5 appear for the first time using the Phantom Ruby.

But of course he isn’t even a boss at all, so there went another opportunity.

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When a game that was actually focused on Chaos didn't even have the time or reason to show all 7 potential forms, I don't think a game where he was only a bit player is that good of a place to elaborate on them. Like, even in the best case he was only ever going to get one fight, so wouldn't it have made more sense to focus on one or more of his memorable forms rather than invent entirely new ones?

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1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

When a game that was actually focused on Chaos didn't even have the time or reason to show all 7 potential forms, I don't think a game where he was only a bit player is that good of a place to elaborate on them. Like, even in the best case he was only ever going to get one fight, so wouldn't it have made more sense to focus on one or more of his memorable forms rather than invent entirely new ones?

No, I don't think so. We've seen Chaos plenty of times before by this point with Chaos 0 and Perfect Chaos getting plenty of focus.

If they're going to bring him back yet again, why not try and do something new with him that takes advantage of something we didn't see before? It's not even like I hold it against Sonic Adventure for not showing all of his forms. It had the time and reason to show 5 of them. A game that only has him as a bit player showing off the last two we didn't get to see doesn't sound like that huge of an ask. There's not really a whole lot to elaborate on there. It's just the form he takes when he eats 3 or 5 emeralds and that's it. The only real issue I see is figuring out how they get that to happen but that's assuming the story is written in an entirely different way that would allow for it to happen, which I'm a-okay with.

Playing with the boss fight concept sounds like fun. I'm imagining him being all jittery and glitchy and randomly taking different forms throughout whatever boss fight he gets, with the final phase being Perfect Chaos again somewhere other than the city. Or something like that.

 

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5 hours ago, Dr. Detective Mike said:

No, I don't think so. We've seen Chaos plenty of times before by this point with Chaos 0 and Perfect Chaos getting plenty of focus.

If they're going to bring him back yet again, why not try and do something new with him that takes advantage of something we didn't see before? It's not even like I hold it against Sonic Adventure for not showing all of his forms. It had the time and reason to show 5 of them. A game that only has him as a bit player showing off the last two we didn't get to see doesn't sound like that huge of an ask. There's not really a whole lot to elaborate on there. It's just the form he takes when he eats 3 or 5 emeralds and that's it. The only real issue I see is figuring out how they get that to happen but that's assuming the story is written in an entirely different way that would allow for it to happen, which I'm a-okay with.

Playing with the boss fight concept sounds like fun. I'm imagining him being all jittery and glitchy and randomly taking different forms throughout whatever boss fight he gets, with the final phase being Perfect Chaos again somewhere other than the city. Or something like that.

 

Or hell since they had to fight armies of Shadows, Chaos, Metals, and that other guy (XP), they could’ve had to fight Chaos’ other forms, but not him transforming into them, but separate from him. They could’ve fought an army of Chaos 0s, 2s and so forth.

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