What are the consequences of Forces failing to sell?

[superman43]

1 hour ago, BlueFlare said:

I agree a lot of Forces music actually suck. Also not a big fan of vocals but I have a weak spot for things like Sonic CD and Mania having actual lyrics in Stardust Speedway and Metallic Madness and I want that stuff for the future games also. 

 

Yes, in Sonic CD it was a clever usage of theme. It also added up on the atmosphere. In Mania´s Metallic Madness it is a nice touch on the Sonic CD´s Sound Test Sonic DJ Easter Egg, I would say. 

[molul]

17 hours ago, McGroose said:

The best thing they can do for their old 2D franchises is give them a Mania-esque revive, either with similar pixel art of their original counterparts or a different artstyle, but going 3D with those games would likely end disastrously. A new HD 2D Ristar and Streets of Rage would do wonders.

Totally agree. 

21 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

For that matter, I turn the question back onto you. How could a new Ristar game, if done well, and with Sega behind it, sell well? I'm not saying this rhetorically-- I've thought out how it would be too risky to be worthwhile, but I would like to understand your perspective better as I sense a miscommunication here.

Honestly, how couldn't it? Like I said, let the Mania team design a new Ristar game, not just cloning the original but also adding interesting new mechanics (how about a semi-open world?), beautiful graphics and music... I don't think it would be like, say, Call of duty, but a good game with a great character like Ristar, a $20 price tag, and Sega marketing resources... 

Of course it could fail, but I'd only expect that if the game was actually average.

[superman43]

A new game with Ristar or maybe even Sonic game where Ristar would be a key plot element could be well-received if done with love similarly to Sonic Mania.

[Gabz Girl]

I’m personally hoping that due to Sonic Forces’ failure it will lead to a BIG change within Sonic Team, something like what happened after Sonic 06’s release. Bring in some new blood, young, talented developers who really care about the franchise. Go back to older Sonic games like the Classics or Sonic Adventure and see what made them so special, try to improve on that. Don’t overuse the boost mechanic, instead keep it limited to a couple of stages like what Sonic 06 did with the Mach Speed sections. Of course it should be FAR more polished and fun to play than the glitchy, janky shit in Sonic 06! 

I want this to happen so badly, but it probably won’t of course. With the Sonic movie due in 2019 there’s bound to be a licensed game and both movie and game will most likely be a commercial and critical bomb unless some kind of miracle happens. The future is not looking good for 3D Sonic. 

[UpCDownCLeftCRightC]

I really want an awesome 3D Sonic game but I don't want SEGA/Sonic Team to attempt it again until they have a sound vision and plan for execution that guarantees something excellent. I'm completely divested of the cycle of mediocrity when it comes to Modern Sonic. To me it is obvious that it should be rebuilt from the ground up, taking heavy inspiration only from truly great games like Mania or S3K and thinking about how to reinvent Sonic in 3D. But until they have the right spirit to do this, it is best for them to just do a bigger Mania sequel in the meantime...since it is already established and extremely successful.

[Meta77]

If rather another studio take a whip at it. I don't want a 3d game to learn from a 2d mania. Keep both universes sepeeate it should not be that hard to take time and produce a good 3d game seriously I don't know why Sega can't say let's delay this a bit to fix stuff instead of nope we said the 12th by hell it's being pushed out the 12th. I say let platinum take a crack at it. Transformers rocked

[A sonic fan]

Forces was felt like cheapest sonic game so far so I don't see how they could go any lower. Even 06 felt bigger and more ambitious.

[StaticMania]

That's because Nex Gen "was" bigger and more ambitious...

It just failed...

[Meta77]

I just saw the first commerical for sonic forces ever on tv. I am amazed sega actually promoted one of their games. and its.........................................on a chuckie cheese commercial being offered as a prize and a console ( i think it was a xbox one x ). Sega pleassssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssse for your next3d game if you need to delay it to fix it do it.........do it!

[Blue Blood]

21 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Sega pleassssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssse for your next3d game if you need to delay it to fix it do it.........do it!

A delay would not have helped Forces. It's not a broken, glitchy or incomplete mess like RoL or '06. If anything, Forces is exactly the game that SEGA set out to make. It's a clone of Generations actively makes no effort to improve the gameplay philosophy or engine but instead relies upon shallow hooks in the form of the boost, the avatar and Classic Sonic that attempt to lure in as many players as possible. It's even got the 'dark and edgy' story angle going for it (extra hammed up in the English version when compared to Japanese) and attempts to tie into Mania, but ultimately delivers a plot that's full of holes and contradictions just like every other game since Colours.

When you look at Forces, the entire game is built around a sloppy engine with poor controls and physics. It's automated to high hell because that's the only way to make levels reliable when the underlying program is so unfit for purpose. Much of the levels are even built through white-boxing (flat cube/cuboid geometry with level themed textures applied) because it's cheap, easy and doesn't require any degree of nuance. It's virtually impossible to go wrong with it when it sets the bar so low.

"More time" would not have had any impact. The game was a cynical endeavour not meant to be particularly good the outset. SEGA just foolishly believe that they can continue to ride the enduring success of series heyday, despite the diminishing returns and increasing lack of relevance in today's market. If the failure of Forces and success of Mania are going to have any consequences going forward, it should be that Sonic can't get by on mediocrity any more. SEGA have to make good games.

[superman43]

10 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

A delay would not have helped Forces. It's not a broken, glitchy or incomplete mess like RoL or '06. If anything, Forces is exactly the game that SEGA set out to make. It's a clone of Generations actively makes no effort to improve the gameplay philosophy or engine but instead relies upon shallow hooks in the form of the boost, the avatar and Classic Sonic that attempt to lure in as many players as possible.

When you look at Forces, the entire game is built around a sloppy engine with poor controls and physics. It's automated to high hell because that's the only way to make levels reliable when the underlying program is so unfit for purpose. Much of the levels are even built through white-boxing (flat cube/cuboid geometry with level themed textures applied) because it's cheap, easy and doesn't require any degree of nuance. It's virtually impossible to go wrong with it when it sets the bar so low.

"More time" would not have had any impact. The game was a cynical endeavour not meant to be particularly good the outset. SEGA just foolishly believe that they can continue to ride the enduring success of series heyday, despite the diminishing returns and increasing lack of relevance in today's market. If the failure of Forces and success of Mania are going to have any consequences going forward, it should be that Sonic can't get by on mediocrity any more. SEGA have to make good games.

Plus Sonic Team is in at least the same rate of mess as just after 06. If it´s not worse.

[Milo]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

A delay would not have helped Forces. It's not a broken, glitchy or incomplete mess like RoL or '06. If anything, Forces is exactly the game that SEGA set out to make. It's a clone of Generations actively makes no effort to improve the gameplay philosophy or engine but instead relies upon shallow hooks in the form of the boost, the avatar and Classic Sonic that attempt to lure in as many players as possible.

When you look at Forces, the entire game is built around a sloppy engine with poor controls and physics. It's automated to high hell because that's the only way to make levels reliable when the underlying program is so unfit for purpose. Much of the levels are even built through white-boxing (flat cube/cuboid geometry with level themed textures applied) because it's cheap, easy and doesn't require any degree of nuance. It's virtually impossible to go wrong with it when it sets the bar so low.

"More time" would not have had any impact. The game was a cynical endeavour not meant to be particularly good the outset. SEGA just foolishly believe that they can continue to ride the enduring success of series heyday, despite the diminishing returns and increasing lack of relevance in today's market. If the failure of Forces and success of Mania are going to have any consequences going forward, it should be that Sonic can't get by on mediocrity any more. SEGA have to make good games.

It also makes no sense to imply Forces turned out this way because of insufficient development time when Sega/Sonic Team had four years to make this game; not to mention the game even coming with design flaws that didn't exist or were previously addressed in past titles. Unless added development time is specifically done to heavily rework a game or restart it from scratch, added polish will only carry a game with a subpar design brief so far. You know, the whole "polishing a turd" quip and all that.

[Baconjack]

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/270994/sonic-forces-sells-an-estimated-234000-units-first-week-at-retail/

Found this earlier this morning. Forces has almost caught up to Boom in sales.

[Blue Blood]

11 minutes ago, Yeow said:

It also makes no sense to imply Forces turned out this way because of insufficient development time when Sega/Sonic Team had four years to make this game; not to mention the game even coming with design flaws that didn't exist or were previously addressed in past titles. Unless added development time is specifically done to heavily rework a game or restart it from scratch, added polish will only carry a game with a subpar design brief so far. You know, the whole "polishing a turd" quip and all that.

Exactly this.

The game may not have had four years of active development - as we're all aware by now, much of that time was spent on development of the HE2 with the game itself only really spending around a year in full-swing production. But even with that in mind, it does little to explain the short-comings of Forces. It's just not a good game because it was never supposed to be.

[Jango]

Always remember the old saying about delays, fellas: "A bad game is always a bad game".

BTW @Meta77, Chuckie and Cheese? >.>

[Meta77]

1 hour ago, Jango said:

Always remember the old saying about delays, fellas: "A bad game is always a bad game".

BTW @Meta77, Chuckie and Cheese? >.>

Its a chain we have here for kids. Its bascially what five nights at freddys is based off of in the states.

 

Sonic i love you but lord you have hit hard times. :c

[Mad Convoy]

@Blue Blood

Can you explain in more detail to me why Forces was "never supposed to be good"?

From my perspective, the game is actually built on some pretty good concepts. Plus it has a ton of cut content, and waay too many weird moments even by Sonic Team standards to show that something happened during development that took the project off the rails as opposed to the game being meant to be mediocre from the start (which... doesn't really make a whole lot of sense from my perspective. Game developers generally set out to make good games unless they're scam artists, which Sonic Team and Sega aren't.).

I mean, its obvious that something happened. Interviewers like Nakamura alluding to things that never actually happen in Forces pre-release. For example, "if you care about things like why are Shadow and Chaos fighting you, buy this game." Aaaaannd, then the game leaves all kinds of important things hanging in regards to that and doesn't even explore Chaos at all. So why would he say that? For that matter, why would he tweet concept animation of Tails and Sonic standing up together confidently to advertise a game where that never actually happened? Yes, he could be lying, but it comes off more like how promotional footage of 06 came from a completely different build of the game than the one that was shipped because Sonic Team had to last minute jettison a ton of features to get the game in a non-crashy state. Given that Forces promotion happened with a year to go, it implies a lot of stuff might have been forcibly removed from Forces last minute as well. (For the record, this would actually indicate that Forces was more competently made than 06, given that if its true, the forced removal of important stuff in the game still resulted in something much more functional than 06. So 4 years did make a difference, just not in the areas people expected and wanted.)

And I guess I'm annoyed because this argument gets thrown around literally every time a Sonic game disappoints in some way, and then it always gets proven wrong or a hell of a lot more complicated than that. Rise of Lyric? People complain and send all kinds of hate mail about how Sega was the innocent victim of BRB's incompetance at first. Oh look, Sega's not an innocent victim at all and in fact was the source of several problems. Oh look, BRB was misguided about a ton of stuff but still did its best to make a good game. Sonic 06? People complain and send all kinds of hate mail about how Sonic Team doesn't care anymore. Oh look, its more complicated than that and some really were passionate about the project. Shadow the Hedgehog? Clearly a shallow cash grab, right? Oh look, it was actually Iizuka's dream project that went wrong because of understaffing and lack of resources, and indeed he was lucky to be able to make it at all because of how not sold Sega was on the concept being profitable (ironically, its one of the best selling Sonic titles from that time period).

Need I go on?

Sonic 4. Episode 1. Runners (in its later days). Those are the only games I know of from the Sonic franchise where it really is as simple as "they just didn't care/wanted money/etc." You may notice that they are both side projects and not directly related to the main series. You may also notice that they are both worse than Forces in basically every category.

I find this argument really annoying because this is a lot more complicated and often a knee-jerk reaction as opposed to one founded in the actual game and how actual game development generally goes. Which is also annoying because every single game I've mentioned is up for criticism and have plenty of things to criticize without resorting to these knee-jerk arguments.

However, you are one of the more reasonable users so I do think you have better reasons for thinking that way. Should also be noted that with video games, I don't give points for effort or take points off for effort. I give points for how good the game is at being a game (e.g. playable), how good the concepts are, how well the concepts are executed, and how fun it is for me-- a metric I know others don't share. I'd like to hear about your metrics in comparison.

2 hours ago, Yeow said:

It also makes no sense to imply Forces turned out this way because of insufficient development time when Sega/Sonic Team had four years to make this game; not to mention the game even coming with design flaws that didn't exist or were previously addressed in past titles. Unless added development time is specifically done to heavily rework a game or restart it from scratch, added polish will only carry a game with a subpar design brief so far. You know, the whole "polishing a turd" quip and all that.

Actually, it could make sense in that Sonic Team might have been expecting more time than it got-- for example, if it were pressured to suddenly hurry up development to coincide with Sonic Mania's release or something like that. This isn't the first time a company has done this-- Retro Studios had a very sensible, promising schedule for making Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Or at least, it did until it was about 30% finished with making the game and Nintendo suddenly declared that the game had to be finished for Christmas that year, which oh yeah, was only three months away at that point. Now, here's some things about Echoes that are relevant to this discussion.

- It was criticized for being the least visually interesting Metroid Prime game. Why? Because it shamelessly reused and recycled a ton of assets from the previous Metroid Prime title, was really dark in a way that would obscure most landmarks until you got up close, and reused the same colors over and over again.
- Another criticism is that it failed to expand on Prime 1's gameplay and format in a positive way. Almost everything in those categories either was exactly like Prime 1 or like Prime 1 but not executed nearly as well as Prime 1. Of note, it had a lot of padding, most infamously collecting all the pieces of the Light of Aether to beat the game, a blatant rip of the Chozo Artifact hunt from Prime 1 except that while the Chozo artifacts were far from perfect, at least Prime 1 let you search for all of them from the get-go instead of making you wait until right before the final battle for all but one or two to find them all.
- Regardless, it played pretty well. Controls were not ideal, the ammo system was received lukewarm at best, the bosses were too often difficult in an annoying sense as opposed to a positive sense (especially for a Prime sequel, as Prime 1's difficulty mostly came from the levels rather than the bosses), but the controls were at least as good as Prime 1's take and perfectly playable. Writing is commonly seen as the best in the series-- it manages to be utterly hilarious with stuff like the Space Pirate logs trying to warn Pirates not to keep pet metroids or feed them pet treats (followed by evidence that some Space Pirates do basically that anyway), and yet not only doesn't lose the bleak tone but balances it well with a strong sense of urgency even though the game throws a lot of BS at you gameplay and design-wise.
--And it attempted something Metroid games didn't really do before-- multiplayer! And it was playable but rather unpolished and the levels and format not designed well for the control scheme, not to mention that the only playable characters were Samus recolors. The poor reception to Echoes's multiplayer is basically the reason Metroid games with multiplayer are confined to handheld spinoffs that are specifically multiplayer oriented. But then Metroid Prime Trilogy/Metroid Prime 2: Echoes New Play Control improved the control scheme and let people see the potential for multiplayer in a console Metroid game in hindsight.

Does any of stuff sound familiar to you? Like that Forces has tons of reused and recycled assets from previous titles, is commonly criticized for having gameplay derivative of a previous game to the point of almost being an inferior clone of said previous title, took a chance on something the series never really explored before, has a difficulty level of boss fights not up to the usual standard for the game its trying to be a followup to, and is playable but flawed and not designed consistently? The two games have a lot in common. And what they don't have in common, they usually have the opposite but with the same principle. Forces bosses are weak pushovers, Echoes bosses are (mostly) annoying motherfuckers-- both are the way they are because of poor handling of the kind of design balance that is typically done by trial and error, slowly but steadily throughout the development of the game. Forces is too linear making it too easy to reach your goal, Echoes makes it too easy to get lost with its level design and aesthetic and puts BS hurdles to make reaching the goals difficult-- both can be the result of developers running on little time and having to make choices on whether to sacrifice longevity and difficulty to make the game less frustrating or sacrificing anti-frustration features and adding padding to make the game last longer and be more open. (A painful choice, for the record, that's basically a catch-22 for developers, as even if they choose the better option for the game it'll still entail a ton of problems and rarely results in anything ideal)

Now they're not entirely the same. Echoes executed its new exploratory concept, multiplayer, pretty poorly. Whereas Forces executed its new exploratory concept, the Avatar, well enough that its considered the highlight of the game. Meanwhile, Echoes had incredible writing and storyline. Forces... exact opposite. Not to mention that one is a first person shooter and the other is a platformer. But they have a lot of things that are similar enough for comparison.

And as I've mentioned before, every disappointing Sonic game has dealt with the exact same stuff being dealt to Forces, only to then be reexamined later on with a more open mind and thought of as having some good ideas simply in need of better execution. I have had this conversation, almost word for word, back when Rise of Lyric came out, and I never thought I'd see the day when people actually would think that the game could be fixed without gutting it almost entirely (most people thought anything but that was crazy and stupid)- and yet here we are with people arguing just that, if only to contrast it with Forces! And that turnaround happened even though RoL, unlike Forces, is legitimately an almost unplayable game that actually deserves its reputation amongst the worst Sonic has to offer. I do not see any reason why Forces won't be the same when or if the next disappointment comes around, so as to contrast it with the next disappointing title.

I don't know much about Forces development, but I do know about how these things generally went in the past and I do know a game with similar flaws and ideas to Forces was also very suddenly forced on a tight deadline when the developers were expecting much more time. So I infer that a time crunch was one of a few complicated issues... albeit in more of a Prime 2 way where the developers planned for more time only to be suddenly told that they don't have all that time anymore, than the usual Sonic way of just not getting a lot of time in general.

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Sir Laptop said:

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/270994/sonic-forces-sells-an-estimated-234000-units-first-week-at-retail/

Found this earlier this morning. Forces has almost caught up to Boom in sales.

That's... only in it's first week though. Why are we only getting first week sales now?

[Blue Blood]

@Mad Convoy

Apologies for this post being relatively short and not going into an awful lot of detail. I've only got access to my mobile right now so typing out on full is cumbersome. 

I'm not saying that SEGA set out to make a bad game; that would be both a stupid thing to do and an even stupider thing to insinuate. However, they did not set out to make a game that was an improvement on past efforts or even one that was as good as them. After both Lost World and Boom flopped, SEGA needed something that would quickly get back the attention of fans of all demographics. To do that, they chose to mimic the most successful Sonic game of recent years, which is obviously Generations. So without considering why Generations was well received, they just copied it. And even in spite of Mania offering up an authentic Classic Sonic experience, in Forces he plays nothing like it. They opted for the easier, cheaper and faster route of lifting him directly from Generations because that's the minimum amount of effort required. And of course he's "got" to be there because otherwise how else would the game appeal to the older fans who (supposedly) think that Sonic is only good in 2D? The avatar is hook to draw in younger fans, which might actually have some mileage if it was done properly. The darker story and setting is another thinly-veiled attempt to bring in another popular feature that people remember from the more popular days of SA2, but it again is just surface appeal. The story isn't well told, with gaps left all over and it's mostly delivered in menus with speech bubbles.

Again, SEGA did not attempt to make a good game with Forces. The goal was to have a quick turnaround on a game that would interest as many people as possible based solely on its surface level appeal. The gameplay, engine and anything technical about the game other than the visuals is of a low standard. Some concepts may be good; this includes the avatar (although I personally loathe it) and attempting to finally inject a story back into the franchise, but virtually nothing in final product holds up to expectations or promise. The game feels as though it was phoned in by executive order to sell and to hastily make up for recent missteps. Generations and Colours launched six and seven years ago respectively, but Forces actively learns no lessons from them. At an absolute best, its the same thing as both of them without improvement and development despite so much time passing. Many would argue that it's worse. Critical reception and sales would certainly suggest that this is a common opinion, or at least that SEGA can't pull the same trick and get away with it. If SEGA were setting out to deliver a good game in Forces, they wouldn't have just rode the coat tails of previous games. It's not really very different to Sonic 4; they cheaply copied something that people liked but make some short-sighted changes to appeal to as many people as possible and fail to understand why anyone liked those things to begin with.

Even if some of the individual people working on the project were interested in doing something right, that doesn't really matter much if the company that's pulling the strings behind the scenes is as cynical and uninterested as SEGA clearly is. When SEGA say "make this game with this budget, this team and have it out by this date", there's only so much that can be done. Iizuka and Nakamura may make some questionable decisions and be deaf to a lot of feedback and reception about the games, but I don't think they're actively trying to mislead anyone or make bad games. They can't make good games if SEGA won't let them. The fact that Mania ever got the greenlight will never cease to amaze me.

Also just on the subject of Nakamura's interviews, everything he said had held up. He said that Shadow had a reason for fighting for Eggman and that Chaos had a reason for returning, and he wasn't lying. The reasons just happened to not be very good. That doesn't suggest cut content.

[Razule]

1 hour ago, Meta77 said:

Its a chain we have here for kids. Its bascially what five nights at freddys is based off of in the states.

 

Sonic i love you but lord you have hit hard times. :c

Well.. doesn't get much more American than Chuck E. Cheese.. I guess

Makes more sense than a Progressive ad.

[Milo]

1 hour ago, Mad Convoy said:

Actually, it could make sense in that Sonic Team might have been expecting more time than it got-- for example, if it were pressured to suddenly hurry up development to coincide with Sonic Mania's release or something like that. This isn't the first time a company has done this-- Retro Studios had a very sensible, promising schedule for making Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Or at least, it did until it was about 30% finished with making the game and Nintendo suddenly declared that the game had to be finished for Christmas that year, which oh yeah, was only three months away at that point.

*rest of post*

The thing with Forces though is that as @Blue Blood said, nothing about the game or released interviews really points to any evidence about the game being rushed to release, or having significant amounts of cut content. There are speculations about the Custom Hero originally being Boom Sonic and/or Hoggy forwarding rumors that Forces was far more focused on the Custom Hero rather than Sonic until SoA/SoE's negative reactions, but that's just it--rumors and speculations. Unlike with Sonic 2006, Rise of Lyric, or even Mania, we don't really have anything shown of content that exists within the game, but is merely dummied out and/or references to material within the game code that don't exist.

There are also some important context you're leaving out with your comparison with Echoes and Forces, namely the background of the developers' past projects and critical reception. Nintendo's specified late 2004 date for Echoes was two years after the release of Retro's original Prime, while Forces was released four years after Sonic Team's Lost World; effectively, Retro had less time to put together Echoes than Sonic Team did with Forces. Retro Studios was also coming off the universally-acclaimed first Metroid Prime, and while Echoes did get some complaints for its visible cut corners and other design decisions, it was still a widely critically-praised game. Sonic Team's last project was Lost World, which received a largely tepid critical response, and critical reactions to Forces isn't/wasn't much different. The reason I'm bringing this up is in light of your argument of suggesting Sonic Team tried to make a compelling project but ran out resources to do so in the same vein that Retro Studios did with Echoes; which in light of the aforementioned background I can't say I can agree with. The established expectations and standards regarding Sonic Team doesn't really prompt me to give them the benefit of the doubt in the same way the established expectations and standards regarding Retro Studios. This for me also applies in regards to the notion of good ideas undermined by poor execution. It would be one thing if the games didn't (always) deliver on these ideas but were still consistently quality games; but that isn't something I can really apply towards the majority of Sonic Team's titles over the years. At some point people aren't willing to give them (as much of) a pass anymore.

I also think highlighting the four years of development is especially important in regards to the context of previous Sonic Team titles and their production cycle. The last game, Lost World, was said to had been in development for two-and-a-half years, which is just a little over half of Forces' production cycle. Lost World was also coming off the tailend of a period when Sonic Team had their hand in multiple ongoing Sonic projects. From 2006-2011, they were working on multiple Sonic games simultaneously, to the point of putting out literally one console game a year (either multiplatform titles like 2006, Unleashed, and Generations or Wii-exclusive games like the Storybook series and Colors); and each of those titles roughly had two, maybe three years of production. Sonic Team was also (co-)producing the Dimps' handheld Rush games, sister variants of the main games (Unleashed PS2/Wii, Colors DS, Generations 3DS), and their downloadable Sonic 4 games; as well as spinoff games like the aforementioned Storybook series and the Riders racing spinoff games. 

Forces' release in contrast comes at a time where it looks like this was very likely the only headlining Sonic project they had in the works. Aside from the longer period of development compared to past titles, they also haven't released any other Sonic projects aside from Sonic Runners (a mobile which was online for only a year,and had what was said to had been a relatively small group of staff behind it). There's also no announcement about them also working on another Sonic game prior to Forces' release, and there's no Dimps companion title either. Most of the spinoffs / other games released during this period (the Boom spinoff games, the other Sonic smartphone games, Mania) had minimal --if any-- direct involvement from the Sonic Team studio in their productions either. There's not much evidence to indicate there are other/multiple Sonic projects by the studio in production, Forces looks like this is the only major Sonic game they have to show after all of this time. 

[Mad Convoy]

@Blue Blood @Yeow

(Wow, those were detailed explanations. Can't quote everything but I did read them.)

I'm glad you guys explained your perception in more detail. Believe me, I'm happy the conversation isn't going the way these sorts of things have in the past-- I've had people honestly go on to insinuate or outright say that Sega just made a game they didn't like to personally spite them or is deliberately trying to kill Sonic. Thank goodness there's none of that ridiculousness.

Although I still don't quite agree for a variety of reasons. The point of doing this isn't so much to force people to sympathize with Sonic Team or give it sympathy points in any way. Its just kinda... well, I find that argument distracts from the game proper or developer history (which are really the important parts here) by making irrelevant assumptions. You don't have to give benefit of the doubt or anything, you can very well suspect the worst and express your reasons for doing so. But I think that these kinds of things, if focused on too much, diminish the importance of the game proper and how it relates to other things. People seriously get so hung up on effort and franchise investment, but really? Most developers in general are just invested in their job and what they've been asked to do, and that coupled with good work ethic, luck, and the necessary skills is the pre-requisite for doing a good job passionately. I doubt every person or even most people at Nintendo really felt as invested as a passionate fan in the Mario franchise as a whole when making Galaxy 1, but that still went pretty well, eh? Benefit of the doubt or not, its also just really freaking hard to tell. You guys both have been on this forum long enough to know just how cynical about Sega I am (particularly SoJ), but I'd never purposefully say anything that points to the problem mainly being lack of effort or a cash-in on anybody's part unless overwhelming evidence indicates such, because even the Mighty Number 9s and Shadow the Hedgehogs of the world have more to the story than just that (and its often a heck of a lot more interesting of a story than "it was just a cash-in" or "they didn't try", I'll add). And I expressed all of that really poorly which I apologize for, but that's what I was trying to get across.

As for the Echoes comparison, I can see where the frustration with Forces comes from but the point wasn't so much which development team had it better or equally as bad. It was more like "I think Forces faced a sudden time crunch that necessitated a lot of big changes in a rapid time. Here's a game that is confirmed to have faced a sudden time crunch during development that necessitated a lot of big changes in a short period and how it relates and is relevant to Forces." In that sense, well, it doesn't matter how many projects either group was juggling. They got hit with a gut punch and had to do a 180 (a 90? a 45? god what are the appropriate degrees for this?) on the game, and that will impact how the final product turns out in a negative manner, whether they spent two or four years on the final product and no matter what they had been focusing on beforehand. Its not an excuse so much as it is an explanation. And I understand feeling upset at poor time management and disagreeing with me on this matter, but I think saying that there's no reason for anybody to even think such is taking it too far. I think such. I have reasons for it. You may not agree with those reasons, but they exist, they're internally consistent, and I've pointed to areas that make me think such about Forces. I'm not the only person who thinks that way either, and I'd thought that even if you didn't agree with me on anything, we could at least come to a mutual understanding and you'd walk away knowing about the reasons people have instead of just dismissing them and so have better discussions in the future. But when people say stuff like "there's no reason", it comes off like they're not even bothering to consider what I just told them, and that's not a good foundation for a discussion. And well, I know that isn't what either of you meant to imply at any point in time, if I go by the rest of what you're saying!

Regardless, I do hope we can move past these miscommunications now, though do ask if there's any more confusions that I need to sort out and I'll get to them sometime tomorrow!

[Salamander]

13 hours ago, Mad Convoy said:

 Plus it has a ton of cut content,

I just wanted to add one last thing: Nearly all games will have a ton of cut content, or rather, content that simply never even made it to the point of creation.  That's just the way a product like this comes together, with a vast body of work in the concept stage and more ideas embarked on than are actually possible to produce which will get gradually slimmed down and down into what the players receive as the finished product.

[Blue Blood]

5 minutes ago, FFWF said:

I just wanted to add one last thing: Nearly all games will have a ton of cut content, or rather, content that simply never even made it to the point of creation.  That's just the way a product like this comes together, with a vast body of work in the concept stage and more ideas embarked on than are actually possible to produce which will get gradually slimmed down and down into what the players receive as the finished product.

And for what it's worth, there's nothing to suggest much cut content for Forces. We know of some unused dialogue and that the opening section of Null Space was shortened, but neither are necessarily examples of content that was cut due to time constraints. It's likely they're just leftovers from earlier designs; i.e. Null Space could have been shortened to focus on the more dramatic and exciting Metropolis section rather than the Double Boost and quick step section that it starts with. A similar thing probably happened with some unused dialogue from Colours boss battles - a rethink about the design resulted in them going unused rather than being cut out because it was necessary to finish the game. '06 and RoL contain the latter in abundance, but not Forces.

[Meta77]

Unused dialogue. Unused species. Unreleased stage ideas like infinite in nul space. There was a lot cut. Using the excuse that's how products come together is a poor excuse   now it's called delay and add them or dlc both which Sega knows noting of unless it's pso2. Sega today us a far cry f the innovative one of the 90s