Sonic Forces | PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC "The Next Generations"

[Shadowlax]

The narrative playing 2nd fiddle doesn't stop it from being bad. 

On top of that, if its celebrating moments of sonic history, characters, bosses , poorly and that's the thesis of this game, that requires critcism. 

A lot of sonic generations, isn't the best , and the story and the characters just hanging around, including classic sonic amounting to nothing is one of the least best parts. Not to mention the boss fights, and not even in the sense of forgetting the whole point of why sonic was fighting these bosses and completely removing the whole feelings those moments evoked ina  very cynical attempt at a nostalgia grab that we would soon learn was apart of a greater issue of Sega not understanding their past products and their appeal , resulting at poor attempts to ape the past. 

The boss fights are also just... shitty gameplay wise .

[Blue Blood]

The story of Generations sucks. That's something that virtually all of us will agree on. 

But I honestly cannot being myself to care about the fact that certain elements don't make any sense. Sonic fought Perfect Chaos before, and now he's gotta do it again. They certainly could have played up the story some more and tired this together better. But it wasn't over complicated - it was a simply tribute. That's just where we differ in our opinions.

[Wraith]

12 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces has a lot more to answer for on that particular front. Why is Classic Sonic returning? Why is Green Hill now filled with sand? How did Eggman even end up taking control? I'm certainly not asking for a deep plot with numerous twists, surprises and mature themes (almost the opposite in fact), but I do want them to have made an effort. Any of these elements being handwaved will be really disappointing. 

I don't see how all of the different elements forces is presenting us can come together without some kind of handwaving for a lot of it.

I'm gonna warn you guys to not get your hopes up on the story front. 

[Adamabba]

15 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Forces has a lot more to answer for on that particular front. Why is Classic Sonic returning? Why is Green Hill now filled with sand? How did Eggman even end up taking control? I'm certainly not asking for a deep plot with numerous twists, surprises and mature themes (almost the opposite in fact), but I do want them to have made an effort. Any of these elements being handwaved will be really disappointing.

You can add "why are the Wisps returning" to that list, and Webber has already hinted at that being explained, so that makes me a bit hopeful that they will try and make sense of things more this time around. 

[Blue Blood]

15 minutes ago, Josh said:

I don't see how all of the different elements forces is presenting us can come together without some kind of handwaving for a lot of it.

I'm gonna warn you guys to not get your hopes up on the story front. 

Hi there, Josh. I'm Alexander, otherwise known as Blue Blood around here. I thought we'd met before, but I must be mistaken because you wouldn't be warning someone as pessimistic, cynical and salty as me not to get my hopes up if we had. Nice to make your acquaintance!

(I expect a lot of balls to dropped in this game, and not in feats of puberty)

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

Hey. nice to meet you guys. I often don't get overly hyped as well, trust me. lol

[Auroxen]

I'm one of those that instead gets super excited about things, hardly loses hope and so on... but with Forces it's turning out to be hard.

I swear, I was really positive before seeing the Classic Sonic footage, but now I'm starting to lose my hope and I'm getting anxious to see new informations that could reignite my hype (which is dying crushed beneath the weight of Reharshed Hill zone and countless dash panels lol).

But seriously, I was even hyped for Sonic Lost World and Sonic 4 Episode 2, I hate that I'm not super excited for this as I was when the game was first revealed and again when the Modern Sonic footage was shown.

I will reiterate that I can't wait for E3, it'll either save my hype or kill it entirely, but atleast I won't be confused anymore on whether I'm hyped or not.

[NegaMix]

Just want to say one thing about the Perfect Chaos fights: In Adventure, it would burst apart each time Super Sonic landed a hit, while in Generations it didn't. Make of that what you will, I guess.

As for Super Sonic in Forces, I wouldn't mind seeing him as an unlockable when you finish the game, but I'm not sure I'd like to use him for the final boss. There are ways to make a finale exciting and intense without relying on the last-minute invincibility form to crack the Eggman and/or whatever Monster of the Week is unleashed.

Of course, Forces having an intense finale at all isn't really something I'm expecting at this point.

[StaticMania]

Forces not having an intense finale, considering the premise, would be all kinds of lame.

 

Even Sonic Heroes the most lighthearted game in the series got an "epic"...

 

The setup is practically begging for a climactic and intense conclusion, it can't be stopped.

[MudHunter]

 

[Tracker_TD]

All the tone in the world is gonna mean jack if the game itself is as naff as it looks right about now. After Lost World, this is probably a positive step (and as long as it's not as laughably poor as SA2, I welcome it), but eeeh. Even then, not like tone was LW's problem so much as just the writing and plot. 

[Bowbowis]

31 minutes ago, MudHunter said:

 

That would be reassuring if I could have faith in Sonic Team's ability to grasp the concept of tone beyond the most superficial level. However, given that Forces is coming off the heels of Lost World, a game which literally went from Sonic making stupid ice puns to Eggman issuing gruesome death threats (which he subsequently made no attempt to follow up on) in the span of a single cutscene, I'm finding confidence a bit hard to muster.

 

24 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

All the tone in the world is gonna mean jack if the game itself is as naff as it looks right about now. After Lost World, this is probably a positive step (and as long as it's not as laughably poor as SA2, I welcome it), but eeeh. 

By what possible metric does SA2's tone rank as "laughably poor"?

[Blue Blood]

15 minutes ago, Bowbowis said:

By what possible metric does SA2's tone rank as "laughably poor"?

SA2 definitely isn't deserving of the scorn that ShTH and '06 get. But the whole "government conspiracy" in a realistic world that it does, and the way that everything about the Sonic characters clashes with them has always bugged me. SA1 and Unleashed are the benchmarks to aim for. Fortunately, I'm okay with Forces so far on this front.

[Bowbowis]

6 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Perhaps you misread the question. By what metric is SA2's tone "laughably poor"?

[Blue Blood]

9 minutes ago, Bowbowis said:

Perhaps you misread the question. By what metric is SA2's tone "laughably poor"?

That right there is where I think SA2 really does forget that it's a Sonic game. The game can't decide quite what it wants to achieve with its tone. We've got a Sonic snowboarding through San Francisco and hitching a ride on a rocket like a total bad ass, and then a little girl getting shot by the military because someone created a hedgehog in a test tube.

 

Wat

[Kellan]

4 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

We've got a Sonic snowboarding through San Francisco and a little girl getting shot by the military.

Well, it's not like those things happen in the same scene. Sonic's level is supposed to be fun, Maria's story is supposed to be serious. They're not immediately after each other, so I don't really see the conflict here.

[Wraith]

Do we want to take another passing comment about a game's quality to heart or do we want to talk about Sonic Forces

[Diogenes]

Here's talking about Forces: I don't want Forces' tone to be like SA2's because SA2's was bad. Sonic is better when it doesn't take itself painfully seriously; have dramatic stakes and big action scenes and all, but don't try to play it like you're being serious. You're not going to wring real drama out of a hedgehog fighting an egg-man.

[Kellan]

10 minutes ago, Josh said:

Do we want to take another passing comment about a game's quality to heart or do we want to talk about Sonic Forces

I was. The conversation starter was that Sonic Forces' tone would be similar to Adventure's. A user said that this was a bad thing because Adventures tone was bad, I said it was a good thing because Adventure's tone was good. Am I not allowed to use other games as an example when the head of Sonic Team just made the same comparison?

5 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

have dramatic stakes and big action scenes and all, but don't try to play it like you're being serious.

How? What does that even mean? How can you have dramatic stakes without taking the story at least a little seriously?

[Diogenes]

It's like, you can threaten the world with destruction, but don't try to make me believe there's any chance of that actually happening. It's Sonic, we already know he's going to beat up Eggman and save the world, what I want is to see how. The characters can care, sure, but don't weigh them down with it; it's a reason for them to get moving, not something for them to dwell on.

[Tracker_TD]

16 minutes ago, Kellan said:

I was. The conversation starter was that Sonic Forces' tone would be similar to Adventure's. A user said that this was a bad thing because Adventures tone was bad,

 

1 hour ago, Tracker_TD said:

 After Lost World, this is probably a positive step

And on today's episode of Tracker_TD's Fact of the Day: Reading is hard!

The original Sonic Adventure has a pretty solid tone; out of all the 3D Sonics, I'd probably rate it the highest in that regard. It doesn't delve into the ridiculous government conspiracy shite SA2 did, and the closest it comes to "child gets shot by the military" is the Knuckles Tribe getting annihilated (which happens offscreen anyways and just doesn't feel as tryhard, ya dig?) Station Square's destruction is a thing, but it's pretty blatantly just there to have a cool final boss stage, and the official line is nobody got killed in that anyways. Not perfect, and arguably I'd put Unleashed over it for tone, but them's the breaks. 

[Bowbowis]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

That right there is where I think SA2 really does forget that it's a Sonic game. The game can't decide quite what it wants to achieve with its tone. We've got a Sonic snowboarding through San Francisco and hitching a ride on a rocket like a total bad ass, and then a little girl getting shot by the military because someone created a hedgehog in a test tube.

 

Wat

So... A work of fiction can't be over-the-top action and have some darker story elements at the same time? Because Hideo Kojima, Marvel Studios, and more shounen anime than I can count would like to contest that point.

 

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

Here's talking about Forces: I don't want Forces' tone to be like SA2's because SA2's was bad. Sonic is better when it doesn't take itself painfully seriously;

Spoiler

 

That's Sonic Adventure 2 for you, always taking itself so painfully seriously. What I wouldn't give for a bit levity.

 

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

You're not going to wring real drama out of a hedgehog fighting an egg-man.

Naturally, we all know that you can only get real drama from a racoon mourning the death of a talking tree.

 

[Kellan]

2 minutes ago, Tracker_TD said:

And on today's episode of Tracker_TD's Fact of the Day: Reading is hard!

Hey, there's no need to be like that. I'm just trying to engage in the discussion here. Ok, I should have phrased my response with "the Adventure games" instead of "Adventure". Happy?

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Bowbowis said:

So... A work of fiction can't be over-the-top action and have some darker story elements at the same time?

No, Sonic can't, because it's not built for it.

1 minute ago, Bowbowis said:

That's Sonic Adventure 2 for you, always taking itself so painfully seriously. What I wouldn't give for a bit levity.

I didn't say it was exclusively painfully serious. And tone doesn't work on a point system where you can balance out anything if you just pile on some stuff from the other end of the spectrum.

[Tracker_TD]

4 minutes ago, Kellan said:

Hey, there's no need to be like that. I'm just trying to engage in the discussion here. Ok, I should have phrased my response with "the Adventure games" instead of "Adventure". Happy?

SA1 is infact an Adventure game

So you'd still be wrong

-- Sorted, lads --

Even if you'd just said "SA2", your point would still miss because I wasn't saying it was a bad thing; I said it'd only be a bad thing if they went the SA2 route, because SA2's tone is:

1 hour ago, Tracker_TD said:

laughably poor