Being Optimistic About Sonic, The Franchise and The Future

[Azure Blue Tori]

I guess my reason for being optimistic is that 3D Sonic still occupies a specific niche that hasn't been truly replicated by any other games I know of: that cinematic, high-speed action-platformer experience. That and between the success of the Sonic Boom cartoon, the movie, and the IDW comics, he's still a very beloved character in the public eye, so there's still some incentive to do him right, and I can only hope the long delay is because they're going back to the drawing board.

On the more gallows optimism side, I could point out that Spider-Man managed to survive some of the most notoriously terrible comic book stories in existence. And that compared to companies as terrible as Konami, or those that rest on their laurels like Game Freak, Sonic Team at least seems to be trying.

[Simasuu]

I personally simply can't feel other than optimistic.

[expansivelovestories]

It still seems impossible, yet, the likelihood of a new 2D game coming this year or next might be fairly high!!  And, in true Sonic style, there is also a very good chance that it would be groundbreaking in multitudes of ways! 

Moreso, even with decades of fangame innovations and new storylines, whatever this game might be feels as though it could be far different from one anyone could ever have predicted or imagined!! 

[SBR2]

I like to try and keep positive to the best of my abilities anyway. I honestly can't say any Sonic game has driven me to the defeatist negativity a lot of people have gotten to. (Side note I have never played 06 but yeah I can see why it's hated from everything I've seen)

Like IDK Forces was kinda meh but I really don't think it was worth the 06 level hatred it's gotten. It doesn't help that it's literally only the sixth game Sonic Team themselves released in the span of 2011-2017 and most of those games were well received. I just don't really see where the Doom and Gloom comes from myself.

[Blue Blood]

23 hours ago, SBR2 said:

Like IDK Forces was kinda meh but I really don't think it was worth the 06 level hatred it's gotten. It doesn't help that it's literally only the sixth game Sonic Team themselves released in the span of 2011-2017 and most of those games were well received. I just don't really see where the Doom and Gloom comes from myself.

I see this point brought up a lot. You're not wrong; Forces isn't close to being Sonic '06 bad. But that's not really why Forces gets as much hate as it does. Force is "meh" to the nth degree, and almost comically misses the point on everything that it tries to do. The dark storyline that can't hold a consistent tone for even one scene, the Mania tie-in and use of Classic Sonic, the return of Boost gameplay that's gimped to the extent that it makes Generations' Green Hill look complex, the tiny levels, the most basic character creator ever, the bland visual and audio design, the fact that most of its hole-ridden plot takes place on the menu, the uselessness of most of the characters in the story, the absolute rock bottom production values... That fact that it took four years from the release of Lost World to deliver what is a functional Generations follow-up that fails to understand or recapture the magic of said game. And the fact than Forces came hot on the heels of Mania.

Seriously on that last point. Over 20 years since the last true Classic Sonic game and SEGA finally delivered with a bunch of indie developers at the helm and it was met with universal praise, the likes of which Sonic hadn't actually seen since the Dreamcast. Classic or not, it was unheard of for a Sonic game to do this well critically. The game was swimming in positive press. And Forces brought that all crashing down just months later with its aggressive mediocrity. I think it may be the case that Forces actually outsold Mania, because at the end of the day the market for cool-looking 3D games is always going to be bigger than sprite-based 2D side-scrollers these days (outside of Mario), and the people talking about Forces negatively online aren't all the same people who actually played and enjoyed it. 

You may have strong feelings about Forces one way or another, or you might even be totally ambivalent towards to it. But I don't think that you can really say with a straight face that Forces doesn't beckon all of the vitriol it gets. Forces built up a lot of steam for itself pre-reveal and pre-release. SEGA themselves were talking about focusing on quality and regaining the trust of fans. But the game was, in the eyes of many, nothing more than a damp squib. And to someone like me who's been through it all in the series' history, it was something of a kick in teeth not unlike Sonic 4. All talk and no walk. 

After Forces managed to be such a letdown in so many critical areas that it promised to deliver on and how it took so long to materialise... yeah, I understand the "doom and gloom". I don't necessarily agree with it mind you, because this series had me jaded a very long time ago and I routinely expect Sonic games to miss a very low bar anyway. The series has gone quiet since Forces (and TSR if you remember that game exists). It left us on a bum note and hasn't done anything to inspire confidence since.

EDIT: Just for clarification, I'm not saying "Forces is objectively bad", since on re-reading my post it does sounds like that might be what I'm implying. My point is that a collection of factors, including Forces on its own own merits, the generally disappointing nature of Sonic games over the past 2 decades and the juxtaposition for Forces and Mania next to each other, make it pretty clear why morale in the online, vocal fanbase might seem low. 

[Kuzu]

When you get down to it; after Mania, Forces had HIGH expectations, particularly after all of the grand standing on focusing on quality and promising things will be different, only to release another subpar product. 

For us old heads who have been around the block for a while, this is nothing new; after a certain point, you just kind of accept that Sonic's inherently controversial and quality is hit or miss. 

 

But to those young bloods who had legitimate hope and saw the game could be something more; the disappointment just hits harder. Disappointment is always as result of expectations after all. It doesn't justify the obnoxious ass attitudes in the fandom, but I can understand where it comes from. 

[Cadence]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:26 AM, SBR2 said:

I like to try and keep positive to the best of my abilities anyway. I honestly can't say any Sonic game has driven me to the defeatist negativity a lot of people have gotten to. (Side note I have never played 06 but yeah I can see why it's hated from everything I've seen)

Like IDK Forces was kinda meh but I really don't think it was worth the 06 level hatred it's gotten. It doesn't help that it's literally only the sixth game Sonic Team themselves released in the span of 2011-2017 and most of those games were well received. I just don't really see where the Doom and Gloom comes from myself.

I legitimate think it does deserve the hate. I don't think it gets enough hate. 

It is a game who's terribleness is layered. 

 

On 4/2/2021 at 3:20 PM, Kuzu said:

When you get down to it; after Mania, Forces had HIGH expectations, particularly after all of the grand standing on focusing on quality and promising things will be different, only to release another subpar product. 

For us old heads who have been around the block for a while, this is nothing new; after a certain point, you just kind of accept that Sonic's inherently controversial and quality is hit or miss. 

 

But to those young bloods who had legitimate hope and saw the game could be something more; the disappointment just hits harder. Disappointment is always as result of expectations after all. It doesn't justify the obnoxious ass attitudes in the fandom, but I can understand where it comes from. 

I don't think its about disappointment though that's a lot of it for some.

HOW its bad is the problem. And its very very bad. 

[BadBehavior]

Forces only has only two things going for it: the menu design and the fact that it has no gamebreaking glitches. Congrats Sonic team, you finally made a functional game. A bland, soulless, pandering, "not a single iota of trying detected" game that I will hold up as the nadir of the entire series for years to come but hey, at least I don't get stuck climbing walls. And you don't kiss a princess.

[OwlEyes]

On 2/6/2021 at 10:39 AM, Angyu said:

I can't wait to buy more Sonic clothes to wear to the movie on opening night! (COVID please be gone by then)

LOL I'm right here with you!!!

[HPX]

Frankly, it's past time we re-evaluated Sonic 06. No work is fixed in time with any sort of "final" judgement; context is vital to understanding any work and it's something that is ever-changing. For the past fifteen years, 06 has been used as an excuse to hold the series back from iterating on its core principles, among other things. We all agree that the last thing anyone wants is a game as compromised as 06 was. But until we all go back and assess what the game actually did wrong, as well as what it did right, or at least gestured towards, SEGA are going to continue pretending that it, as well as fully 3D gameplay, never existed.

Condemning the enterprise in its entirety has done more damage to this series than anything else. Sonic Team has literally tried to do everything but 3D physics-driven gameplay since because they're convinced it's something no one wants. But we now find ourselves at a place where we have no idea what Sonic even is anymore because we've strayed so far from its core design ethos in trying to outrun 06. There are valuable insights to be mined here as opposed to in Forces, which is the most vapid game this series has ever seen.

Until I see Sonic games revisit their mechanical and stylistic origins and expand on them, I see no reason to be optimistic about this series. This also goes for the fanbase showing some maturity in how it responds failure, whatever that may mean in any given context, and articulating its desires in a constructive way.

[Wraith]

The fanbase still isn't really ready to discuss 06 despite cooling on a lot of the games surrounding it so I don't think it'll ever happen, personally. .

And to me, that's a shame.  A lot of the right moves as far as what to do after Sonic Adventure 2 exist in Sonic 06 conceptually, but the game's mementic status as the forbidden one means a good faith discussion can't take place. 

Unleashed and Colors much more of a step backward as far as actually figuring out Sonic in 3d goes, but the optics of those games(IE the surface level elements like the visual style and the story) are better, so it doesn't matter. 

It speaks to the Sonic fans's weird relationship with the franchises's history. There's a desperate push to try and erase as much as possible instead of actually confronting any of it. It wouldn't be a question that all games need to be preserved in any other fanbase, but Sonic fans treat rereleases of games like Heroes and 06 as something actually worth debating and not a net benefit to everyone. 

[HPX]

Well, there we go. This seems as good a time as any to post this.

 

[Diogenes]

32 minutes ago, HPX said:

Sonic Team has literally tried to do everything but 3D physics-driven gameplay since because they're convinced it's something no one wants.

Sonic Team had slowly been stripping the "physics-driven" part out of the series since it entered 3D. Even the best possible '06 would've still been full of automated loops, dash pads, and other scripted sequences because that's what 3D Sonic had always been.

Quote

 But we now find ourselves at a place where we have no idea what Sonic even is anymore because we've strayed so far from its core design ethos in trying to outrun 06. 

Rejecting '06 wasn't rejecting Sonic's core design ethos because '06 (and a lot of 3D Sonic design up to that point) was a rejection of Sonic's core design ethos itself.

[HPX]

8 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Sonic Team had slowly been stripping the "physics-driven" part out of the series since it entered 3D. Even the best possible '06 would've still been full of automated loops, dash pads, and other scripted sequences because that's what 3D Sonic had always been.

You're not wrong. The uniqueness of Sonic's core design always  made for a higher barrier to entry than other traditional platformers and their solution was to minimize players' margins for error via automation with dashpads and the like. There's obviously ample room for improvement in the first Sonic Adventure's design, which ideally they'd capitalize on and fully realize; SA2 opted for more linearity for more focused experiences with less room for experimentation. But I'd argue 06 tried to find a middle ground between the two with its expanded abilities that would ideally have let you navigate the bigger levels more creatively.

9 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Rejecting '06 wasn't rejecting Sonic's core design ethos because '06 (and a lot of 3D Sonic design up to that point) was a rejection of Sonic's core design ethos itself.

While I get where you're coming from here, I think saying it's an outright rejection is extreme. Maybe it's a matter of integers, but it's certainly closer to Sonic's core than boost ever was. I do think not trusting players to master a robust moveset did more harm than good in the long term because, look where we are now. But I've always considered the first Sonic Adventure as a fairly faithful evolution of Sonic design and I'd like more than anything for SEGA to iterate on that. But 06 was the latest and most direct design descendant and it ought to be evaluated in that context instead of an absolute black spot, bereft of any value at all.

[Meta77]

Avoiding a 06 discussion the thing with that game is it HAD EVERYTHING against it. 06 hurt a lot of old fans a lot for what it was promising. but from the start, split team, yuji leaving, trying to shove out a wii game cause they did not want to leave out nintendo, rushing for a holiday season they knew they could not hit, and using the final build of the game that it ran the worse on. Forces was just bad for a variety of reasons listed in a post above, (though some say its cause they spent most their time working on an engine which imo i saw noting groundbreaking that it did if it was whee they spent their time.)

[Diogenes]

5 minutes ago, HPX said:

While I get where you're coming from here, I think saying it's an outright rejection is extreme. Maybe it's a matter of integers, but it's certainly closer to Sonic's core than boost ever was.

Sure, you could say '06 is closer to Sonic's core than Unleashed. You could also say SA was closer to Sonic's core than '06. So why is boost gameplay considered to have "strayed so far" from the core, while '06 is deserving of a closer look as if it's representative of the core? The boost games aren't some completely different beast, most of their DNA (and most of their problems) can be traced back to the Adventure era. The same overuse of automation, the same homing attack chains, the same stripped-down grinding, the same narrow-path level design, and what's a mach speed section but a prototype for the boost at its boostiest? I'm not saying there's no division to make between them, but it's more of a larger-than-usual evolutionary jump than some singular radical shift away. I don't consider '06 to have any greater claim to the series' core essence just because we can draw a slightly clearer dividing line between it and Unleashed than between, say, SA2 and Heroes or Unleashed and Colors. It's been the same kind of decay and stripping away what works for over 20 years now.

[HPX]

We can and absolutely should dream bigger for this series than just what we know. Especially now, when the series is more lost than it's ever been. That's my take, anyhow. If folks are happy with the current course, more power to them. But I rather like Sonic, and I'd like to have a reason to continue to be interested. 

I just think a good starting point to consider what heights this series could achieve in 3D begins with the Adventure games, which died with 06. 06 obviously isn't as pure a distillation of Sonic's potential as say SA1--which itself has ample room for improvement, but that shouldn't bar it from being part of the conversation.

Conversely, I just don't see how boost is sustainable. There's no depth to it, nowhere else to take it. We've literally reached the logical conclusion of "gotta go fast," which is dashing to the end of the hallway. 06, simply by being the most recent 3D game, as well as for more specific elements unique to it, can offer ideas as to how this series could be evolved into something more varied, robust, and frankly economical from a development/resources standpoint. 

[Diogenes]

I mean I'm certainly not defending the boost here, I've been calling it a dead end for years. But I also don't feel like the Adventure gameplay has all that much to contribute, what it gets right is pretty basic and it mostly looks good in comparison to gameplay that's even more poorly designed. And '06 in particular, an utter disaster of a game, that's gotten more discussion than probably most games of the series, probably doesn't have much to learn from that hasn't already been discussed. Anyone's free to prove me wrong of course, if someone thinks there's something important that's been overlooked they can bring it up, and of course there's been worthwhile lessons learned throughout the years of discussion, but I think real progress in figuring out 3D Sonic is only going to come from looking beyond what 3D Sonic has already tried.

[HPX]

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I think real progress in figuring out 3D Sonic is only going to come from looking beyond what 3D Sonic has already tried.

Let's just spitball here, since the thread is about optimism anyhow. What does your ideal 3D Sonic game look like? This could be a fun thought experiment. No holds barred, sky's the limit.

What would it take to earn your trust/optimism in the series? 

[Johnster4]

11 hours ago, HPX said:

Let's just spitball here, since the thread is about optimism anyhow. What does your ideal 3D Sonic game look like? This could be a fun thought experiment. No holds barred, sky's the limit.

What would it take to earn your trust/optimism in the series? 

For myself here's what my ideal 3d Sonic game:

• Adventure style gameplay with multiple play styles this being Sonic Tails and Knuckles.
• A story that is cohesive and plot details that actually gets explained, for example Lost World didn't explain the lost hex despite Tails knowing about it, and in Forces how did Omega come back when Tails couldn't repair him?
  • An additional point that might be a weird concern is that they shouldn't rely on the IDW comics to fill in gaps in the story and that the story itself should be in the game, Balan wonderworld is a prime example of what in referring to where to story is locked behind a paywall outside of the game via a book.
• Have an actual skill ceiling that respects long term players time and abilities, this is the one thing they need to improve on the most since over the last decade Sonic Team have done nothing but cater to casuals and non-fans while in the same time giving long term fans nothing but shot and shallow experiences.

[ChikaBoing]

Haven't posted here in a while, so I just wanna give 2 cents on the next Sonic game what it could be and why it has taken so long.

Last we heard is that Sonic Team is examining the success of Sonic Mania and wanting to replicate that in their Modern games. I'm sure Sega management is in favour of that too.

However if we look at the current staff of developers at Sonic Team, it's impossible to revamp their entire pipeline for that goal and have it be good and have it out in 2 years or so. So I'm guessing they pulling from the entire company and make something new from the ground up, which takes alot of time and is just very slow in a very big company like Sega.

[Wittymations]

Shit man, this is hard for me... Uh... Because I'm definitely not optmistic about nearly anything in this franchise anymore. Except maybe the comics, though I haven't read anything by IDW.

I guess I'm optimistic they'll *eventually* settle on a gameplay style. But whether or not I like the style, I have no idea.

[ArtDX]

I'm optimist.

After the movie and the announcement of Sonic Prime maybe SEGA will get back to the style they used until 2009. Also, Team Sonic Racing had awesome tracks, maybe the new game music will be composed again by Jun Senoue.

[Scar]

On 4/2/2021 at 8:02 PM, Blue Blood said:

I see this point brought up a lot. You're not wrong; Forces isn't close to being Sonic '06 bad. But that's not really why Forces gets as much hate as it does. Force is "meh" to the nth degree, and almost comically misses the point on everything that it tries to do. The dark storyline that can't hold a consistent tone for even one scene, the Mania tie-in and use of Classic Sonic, the return of Boost gameplay that's gimped to the extent that it makes Generations' Green Hill look complex, the tiny levels, the most basic character creator ever, the bland visual and audio design, the fact that most of its hole-ridden plot takes place on the menu, the uselessness of most of the characters in the story, the absolute rock bottom production values... That fact that it took four years from the release of Lost World to deliver what is a functional Generations follow-up that fails to understand or recapture the magic of said game. And the fact than Forces came hot on the heels of Mania.

Seriously on that last point. Over 20 years since the last true Classic Sonic game and SEGA finally delivered with a bunch of indie developers at the helm and it was met with universal praise, the likes of which Sonic hadn't actually seen since the Dreamcast. Classic or not, it was unheard of for a Sonic game to do this well critically. The game was swimming in positive press. And Forces brought that all crashing down just months later with its aggressive mediocrity. I think it may be the case that Forces actually outsold Mania, because at the end of the day the market for cool-looking 3D games is always going to be bigger than sprite-based 2D side-scrollers these days (outside of Mario), and the people talking about Forces negatively online aren't all the same people who actually played and enjoyed it. 

You may have strong feelings about Forces one way or another, or you might even be totally ambivalent towards to it. But I don't think that you can really say with a straight face that Forces doesn't beckon all of the vitriol it gets. Forces built up a lot of steam for itself pre-reveal and pre-release. SEGA themselves were talking about focusing on quality and regaining the trust of fans. But the game was, in the eyes of many, nothing more than a damp squib. And to someone like me who's been through it all in the series' history, it was something of a kick in teeth not unlike Sonic 4. All talk and no walk. 

After Forces managed to be such a letdown in so many critical areas that it promised to deliver on and how it took so long to materialise... yeah, I understand the "doom and gloom". I don't necessarily agree with it mind you, because this series had me jaded a very long time ago and I routinely expect Sonic games to miss a very low bar anyway. The series has gone quiet since Forces (and TSR if you remember that game exists). It left us on a bum note and hasn't done anything to inspire confidence since.

EDIT: Just for clarification, I'm not saying "Forces is objectively bad", since on re-reading my post it does sounds like that might be what I'm implying. My point is that a collection of factors, including Forces on its own own merits, the generally disappointing nature of Sonic games over the past 2 decades and the juxtaposition for Forces and Mania next to each other, make it pretty clear why morale in the online, vocal fanbase might seem low. 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Forces is a listless game. There's nothing in it. There's no entertainment to be had. Notice how since that game has been released, talk about Sonic games in general has basically disappeared. Heck this Forum is a shadow of its former self from back when Mania launched. The damage isn't as explosive as 06 or Boom. Its just a sort of sad slide into irrelevance.

[Rabbitearsblog]

With the announcement of a new Sonic game (possibly) coming out next year, maybe this will mean that SEGA will finally start taking their time with making Sonic games and not rush them out, like they been doing for the past few years.  Doing so actually did a lot of damage to the franchise and I'm glad that SEGA seems to want to make a better Sonic game than they did in the past.