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

[D.K.]

Fixing Suburban Boogaloo is literally as simple as taking the leading synth and replacing it with, I don't know, the Genesis trumpets or something.

[BlueFlare]

4 hours ago, Celestia said:

I actually like the dissonance between the music and what's going on with the zone. Whether it was intentional or not, who knows, but I like the idea of the typical cheerful grass zone music playing even when said grassland is turning into a desert. Bonus points if there's more acts and they get progressively more serious or something, but I wouldn't say even that much is required to justify it.

It'd just be nice if the track itself, uhh, sounded better

I don't know what they where going for with that song, but I totally agree with your second sentence. I get too strong Sonic 4 vibes from that track. The snare drum and synth (?) sound very bad.

[TheOcelot]

You might find Cobanermani456's reaction to the Green Hill footage (up to about 4:50 in the video) interesting:

He also wasn't impressed with the music and likened it to GH version from Lego Dimensions.

I've listened to GH's music enough times and it just seems like a really strange choice. Maybe they wanted it to sound distinctly different from Sonic 1 & Gens to emphasize the damage Eggman has done to GH (the sand instead of water etc). So not only is the background different this is also reflected in the music. Of course it's still no excuse for what Ohtami's come up with.

I'd love it if Tee Lopes does a remix of Forces GH! You never know he might. He did a remix of Forces instrumental theme which sounds pretty good.

I more keen now to hear music from another modern Sonic stage. Going to be interesting to see how the whole soundtrack turns out and whether it can match the likes of Gens or the less-well received SLW soundtrack.

 

It's pretty rad having two main series games coming out in the same year. I can't remember the last time this happened without at least one of the titles being a spin-off or remaster of an old game? Because Mania is coming out this year I wouldn't mind if Forces got delay until 2018.

It's only natural to compare both games whilst in development. With Mania and Forces being very different games I'm finding it fascinating seeing everyone's reaction to both. 

I happy because Mania looks so fucking good, but I'm also looking forward to Forces and I hope despite our concerns it turns out to be a decent game (at least better than RoL, SW & Gens) and does well for SEGA.

[BlueFlare]

I had to google it up what Sonic games has Ohtani composed/arranged music for. I don't what tracks he worked for or are his writing, but I would love to hear the likes of this someday:

 

[Jango]

I'm sure the problem was never the fact that the music isn't Green Hill Zone, despite the level totally being Green Hill Zone. The problem is the instrumentation. Seriously, who put in Ohtani/Sonic Team's mind that it was a good idea to use FM synthesizer? IT DOESN'T EVEN FIT THE AESTHETICS OF THE GAME! It's a 3D, modern game, using soundfonts from the 90's! Does this sound right to you? I've never thought they could make a poor choice regarding the music of all things, but they did it! Kudos ST!

 

As usual, this is a rant, I'm for one stand at the "wait and see" side untill the game is a month from release. But you guys know me, I'm really optimistic.

[Osmium]

8 hours ago, Chris Knopps said:

Green Hill Zone in general is simply way too against what the game is trying to sell. For what reason they avoided going all out CD with the concept of a dying zone is beyond me but as I've said before, it's very telling how wary they seem to be and clueless they likely are about what seemingly is and isn't too dark for Sonic.

When you think about it, in general the Genesis trilogy including CD was as dark as, if not DARKER than games post the Genesis era. Scrap Brain, the whole Death Egg stuff, CD as a whole revolving it's story and bad futures.

When you take into account the general plots/locations it's possible you could say Classic Sonic is indeed darker than Modern Sonic as we've never had a CD type of 3D title, the closest being the whole planet destruction in Unleashed but... Hey...

(Skipping Shadow folks, and who really wants to bother with 06?)

So what's going on in Green Hill just puzzles me. They have gone dark as night with Classic Sonic back on the Genesis, and now here we are with the villains supposed industrialization of the world causing desertification yet everything's lush, the sky is blue, the music is...

Well, even the badniks look "softer" if you will compared to their Generations counterparts.

Oh god, are we on this again? The Mega Drive games weren't that bloody dark. Intimidating machinery, forests on fire, mechanical landscapes are things you could expect in any basic action series. It's simple shit. And honestly I don't understand why people get a fetish off of talking about how these games were totally so edgy and dark. The Death Star with a fucking mustache plastered on it and fighting purple bears and cute little frog robots while a 3 foot tall super saijan erinaceid kinda makes me think this series wasn't meant to be so totally dark. The goofiness is on the nose dude, it doesn't exclude it from having situations a little higher stakes than normal. 

[blazefan519]

4 hours ago, BlueFlare said:

I had to google it up what Sonic games has Ohtani composed/arranged music for. I don't what tracks he worked for or are his writing, but I would love to hear the likes of this someday:

 

Ohtani has made some god-like music in the past. I really loved the soundtrack of Colors, all the songs he did in Unleashed, some he did for Lost World, and all the Runners soundtrack. But geez, do they need to get some more people in there. It must be exhausting for the poor guy to constantly be the only one composing songs for a game. The last time we had a varying amount of people for a mainline sonic game was Unleashed, and while Colors soundtrack was good all around, you can tell he was getting burnt out in Lost World. Not saying that Lost World's music was bad (some of the music for that game is in my top 5 favorite Sonic tracks of all time), but some of the music was kinda forgettable. 

[Chris Knopps]

3 hours ago, ShroomZed said:

Oh god, are we on this again? The Mega Drive games weren't that bloody dark. Intimidating machinery, forests on fire, mechanical landscapes are things you could expect in any basic action series. It's simple shit. And honestly I don't understand why people get a fetish off of talking about how these games were totally so edgy and dark. The Death Star with a fucking mustache plastered on it and fighting purple bears and cute little frog robots while a 3 foot tall super saijan erinaceid kinda makes me think this series wasn't meant to be so totally dark. The goofiness is on the nose dude, it doesn't exclude it from having situations a little higher stakes than normal. 

My point was you don't see Genesis era tropes used in any of the 3D games post the Genesis series.

Sure you had Chaos at the end of Adventure and the Biolizard at the end of SA2 but by and large most of the franchise post-Genesis era is pretty soft core stuff compared to the destruction and bleakness seen when the Genesis was around.

If nothing else it should be considered normal for Classic Sonic to feature bleakness and/or hopelessness, the guy did it before, he should be allowed to do it again.

The main concern revolving Green Hill is...

How much of Forces is going to be "killing the planet softly" basically? How much of it will be about lighthearted conquest with disaster covered in cotton balls to avoid being "too dark" or "too serious" in the end?

After seeing the Modern Sonic stage my primary hope is that the near entirety of the game features such a cinematic sense of the apocalypse, but if more of the game revolves what we've seen in Green Hill that basically says the game is too scared to commit to the very concept of the game, that's a buzzkill for me.

[PC the Hedgehog]

I wonder what the other Sonic composers have been up to over the past few years. Where's Kumatani? Where Tokoi? Where's Nanba? I love Ohtani, but even I have to admit his work lately has been pretty hit and miss.

[pppp]

1 hour ago, PC the Hedgehog said:

I wonder what the other Sonic composers have been up to over the past few years. Where's Kumatani? Where Tokoi? Where's Nanba?

Kumatani and Nanba seem to have left SEGA, since they have no credits on SEGA Retro since Sonic Colors, and Tokoi's last work was Mario & Sonic 2016. Tokoi is probably making some tracks for Forces, but I'm really wondering where's Naofumi Hataya, why isn't he making the Classic Sonic tracks?

[BlueFlare]

31 minutes ago, pppp said:

Kumatani and Nanba seem to have left SEGA, since they have no credits on SEGA Retro since Sonic Colors, and Tokoi's last work was Mario & Sonic 2016. Tokoi is probably making some tracks for Forces, but I'm really wondering where's Naofumi Hataya, why isn't he making the Classic Sonic tracks?

Yes, mr. Hataya and Ogata have done a unique and masterful piece of a soundtrack back in 1993. 

[D.K.]

I don't know if composers have to be, like, "commissioned" to do music for Sonic, but if they did it would explain a lot.

The thing I don't understand about Ohtani in Lost World and Forces is that, he doesn't have the same "I'm not used to this style" excuse that Jun did in Sonic 4. While Jun has mostly done variations of buttrock, Ohtani has done rock, synth, jazz and whatever Naganuma's music is called multiple times before. He deliberately directed Lost World's soundtrack to be as un-Sonic-y as possible, and he deliberately directed Forces's classic levels to have a dying mosquito for a leading synth.

[ChikaBoing]

57 minutes ago, pppp said:

Kumatani and Nanba seem to have left SEGA, since they have no credits on SEGA Retro since Sonic Colors, and Tokoi's last work was Mario & Sonic 2016. Tokoi is probably making some tracks for Forces, but I'm really wondering where's Naofumi Hataya, why isn't he making the Classic Sonic tracks?

I know Nanba left Sega, but yeah no clue on Kumatani. Also Hataya does management of the sound group inside of Sega, instead of composing.

It's really hard to tell what the composers have been to. It could be either 1. obscure sega project only in Japan, that has no credits 2. left Sega, once again, obscure maybe even non-videogame work since then

[Blue Blood]

There's almost a kind of solidarity around here with the way that so many people disappointed in this game. So many people just seem to share the opinion that it's an underwhelming game in a number of ways, and it's nice to see that fairly universal response. It's always nicer to have a Generations or Mania situation on our hands where everyone is cheering, but unlike S4 or Boom there's not really a lot of hate going on for Forces. It's just one collective sigh. We're all disappointed together. 

[blazefan519]

Just now, Blue Blood said:

There's almost a kind of solidarity around here with the way that so many people disappointed in this game. So many people just seem to share the opinion that it's an underwhelming game in a number of ways, and it's nice to see that fairly universal response. Generations' marketing period was much nicer because it had the entire fanbase cheering and I would love to feel that again (roll on Mania), but unlike S4 or Boom there's not really a lot of hate going on for Forces. It's just one collective sigh. We're all disappointed together. 

NO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. YOU'LL BRING UPON THE DEMON AND THEN THERE WILL BE 20 MORE PAGES OF ARGUING.

Spoiler

But I guess I'm the odd one out here that doesn't think the game is too bad. At least until E3 comes and I'll be upset or something.

 

[JosepHenry]

E3 could change a lot of people's opinions, though. Not sure if for the best or worst.

[Blue Wisp]

2 hours ago, Chris Knopps said:

Sure you had Chaos at the end of Adventure and the Biolizard at the end of SA2 but by and large most of the franchise post-Genesis era is pretty soft core stuff compared to the destruction and bleakness seen when the Genesis was around.

If nothing else it should be considered normal for Classic Sonic to feature bleakness and/or hopelessness, the guy did it before, he should be allowed to do it again.

???

Uh, can I ask for some examples? I really can't think about any bleakness in the Genesis games, besides Scrap Brain (ish). And besides Sonic CD, I feel the hopelessness was intentional in that game's design, it was the point of the game, Sonic saving Little Planet from corruption. But besides that, I never felt the first trilogy to be all that serious besides an exception here and there.   

[blazefan519]

2 minutes ago, Joseph Mello said:

E3 could change a lot of people's opinions, though. Not sure if for the best or worst.

Here's hoping for the best.

[Roboat06]

4 minutes ago, Joseph Mello said:

E3 could change a lot of people's opinions, though. Not sure if for the best or worst.

Yep. I hope it does for the best.

[Chris Knopps]

1 hour ago, Ariel the Blue Wisp said:

???

Uh, can I ask for some examples? I really can't think about any bleakness in the Genesis games, besides Scrap Brain (ish). And besides Sonic CD, I feel the hopelessness was intentional in that game's design, it was the point of the game, Sonic saving Little Planet from corruption. But besides that, I never felt the first trilogy to be all that serious besides an exception here and there.   

Well, you had, at the time, Robotnik making oceans consisting of oil, you had him pretty much torch half an islands worth of life, likely both plant and flesh based since, you know, fire is just all about equality that way...

You had him annihilating the natural beauty of the Lava Reef, turning all of it into molten rubble, you had him destroying ruins dating back to possibly thousands of years, Chemical Plant tells its own story too...

All of the games in the original trilogy and CD all had pretty bleak designs and/or concepts behind them. The franchise was no stranger to pushing the boundaries of just how bad things could get, even if it only took one human to do so much damage.

Compare concepts back then to most 3D titles and the franchise went pretty soft core on us.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Problem is that bleak and dark and edgey and such are relative terms.

So I suppose when people use them, it's in a "The Classics were darker Compared to what Sonic is right now" way.


I call Sonic Adventure 2 a darker serious game just for the sake of easy conversation and understanding with other fans, I found it mostly a fun upbeat crazy action story. Oh, Eggman holds a gun at someone, some tragic accident happened. Whatever, sounds like typical dumb action movie tropes to me, but whatever. It's all relative. Compared to children's entertainment, that stuff is dark. Well, not compared to anything *I* watched as a kid, but whatever.

So it's not so much that the classic games were really dark and miserable in general. More that compared to the more farcical low stakes atmosphere modern Sonic provides, the Classic games had a lot more higher stakes, sense of adventure and a no nonsense attitude going on.
Yeah, the Death Egg looks a bit silly with it's mustache build into it's design. It's wacky, but other then that, the Death Egg is still played straight as a dangerous weapon to be reckoned with.

If only because Orbot and Cubot don't show up to point and laugh at their boss for having adding that weird design touch to the Death Egg,  Eggman doesn't get addicted to Facebook halfway trough the adventure or Sonic makes Dad jokes about working in the middle of a climax,  like what most of Modern Sonic games would have done.

And what Knopps said, you had levels that implied consequences and dangers. Sonic CD showed you the consequences of Eggman's actions, Sonic 3 and Knuckles's envirements were constantly building up the terror and menace of the Death Egg.
While most of Lost world and Colors levels just look pretty and don't bother with demonstrating what's going on in the adventure. (Except Planet Wisp)

And even Generations that DID have levels with consequences and danger because they were based on the past, they still felt flat because thay had no story consequences or any lead in or build up, it's just "hey, remember this happening?"
It's not like Sonic went back in time to Sky Sanctuary and had to stop the Death Egg again before it started to invade the other time zones or something. It was just "Here's Sky Sanctuary THE LEVEL." and that was it. Like an exhibit in a museum, not an action set piece.


But don't get me wrong, i don't want to imply it's necesairely a Bad thing perse,or that this makes these games bad.
I'm just saying that it's this thinking process that leads people calling the Classic games more Dark then Modern Sonic. Capiche?

[Roboat06]

It's pretty stupid that people have been waiting for Sonic Adventure 3 since the release of Sonic Adventure 2. I mean, we did get Sonic '06, but that was total crap. People love the Adventure games for a lot of reasons, but there's only one that truly made this game great. And that is...

THE CHAO GARDEN!

The Chao Garden is a great passtime, but it hasn't returned ever. Maybe Sonic Forces could be our chance? I mean, both SA2 and Sonic Forces have darkish stories, so the Chao Garden could be a good chance to escape from the post-apocalyptic atmosphere. As for the gameplay itself, everything would be the same, except for one thing...

HERO AND DARK CHAO!

This mechanic will most definitely return, as the game itself was named for the fact that The Forces of Good are fighting the Forces of Evil. However, we run into one problem, that being that all the playable characters are heroes. I don't really know how to fix this, but maybe you guys have an idea?

1 minute ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Problem is that bleak and dark and edgey and such are relative terms.

So I suppose when people use them, it's in a "The Classics were darker Compared to what Sonic is right now" way.


I call Sonic Adventure 2 a darker serious game just for the sake of easy conversation and understanding with other fans, I found it mostly a fun upbeat crazy action story. Oh, Eggman holds a gun at someone, some tragic accident happened. Whatever, sounds like typical dumb action movie tropes to me, but whatever. It's all relative. Compared to children's entertainment, that stuff is dark. Well, not compared to anything *I* watched as a kid, but whatever.

So it's not so much that the classic games were really dark and miserable in general. More that compared to the more farcical low stakes atmosphere modern Sonic provides, the Classic games had a lot more higher stakes, sense of adventure and a no nonsense attitude going on.
Yeah, the Death Egg looks a bit silly with it's mustache build into it's design. It's wacky, but other then that, the Death Egg is still played straight as a dangerous weapon to be reckoned with.

If only because Orbot and Cubot don't show up to point and laugh at their boss for having adding that weird design touch to the Death Egg,  Eggman doesn't get addicted to Facebook halfway trough the adventure or Sonic makes Dad jokes about working in the middle of a climax,  like what most of Modern Sonic games would have done.

And what Knopps said, you had levels that implied consequences and dangers. Sonic CD showed you the consequences of Eggman's actions, Sonic 3 and Knuckles's envirements were constantly building up the terror and menace of the Death Egg.
While most of Lost world and Colors levels just look pretty and don't bother with demonstrating what's going on in the adventure. (Except Planet Wisp)

And even Generations that DID have levels with consequences and danger because they were based on the past, they still felt flat because thay had no story consequences or any lead in or build up, it's just "hey, remember this happening?"
It's not like Sonic went back in time to Sky Sanctuary and had to stop the Death Egg again before it started to invade the other time zones or something. It was just "Here's Sky Sanctuary THE LEVEL." and that was it. Like an exhibit in a museum, not an action set piece.


But don't get me wrong, i don't want to imply it's necesairely a Bad thing perse,or this makes these games bad. I'm just saying that it's this thinking process that leads people calling the Classic games more Dark then Modern Sonic. Capiche?

Yeah, the latest games have been a little corny...

[Blue Wisp]

15 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

Well, you had, at the time, Robotnik making oceans consisting of oil, you had him pretty much torch half an islands worth of life, likely both plant and flesh based since, you know, fire is just all about equality that way...

You had him annihilating the natural beauty of the Lava Reef, turning all of it into molten rubble, you had him destroying ruins dating back to possibly thousands of years, Chemical Plant tells its own story too...

All of the games in the original trilogy and CD all had pretty bleak designs and/or concepts behind them. The franchise was no stranger to pushing the boundaries of just how bad things could get, even if it only took one human to do so much damage.

Compare concepts back then to most 3D titles and the franchise went pretty soft core on us.

I have to give you props Chris, I never thought of the stages like that. It does give them a new spin on how to look at them. 

I don't agree that they are bleak necessarily necesarrily necessarrily necessirily but it's something new to me. I find something like, Unleashed's world shattering into pieces as bleak, even if the citizens don't act like it's a big thing for some reason. If the world were to split into various landmasses I'm sure people would be freaking out like hell. But I have a... Suspension of disbelief when it comes to videogames so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me that much. As long as it's fun. 

EDIT: is that the same roger that makes the sonic games in X minutes videos? I love your videos rog

[Roboat06]

1 minute ago, Ariel the Blue Wisp said:

I have to give you props Chris, I never thought of the stages like that. It does give them a new spin on how to look at them. 

I don't agree that they are bleak necessarily necesarrily necessarrily necessirily but it's something new to me. I find something like, Unleashed's world shattering into pieces as bleak, even if the citizens don't act like it's a big thing for some reason. If the world were to split into various landmasses I'm sure people would be freaking out like hell. But I have a... Suspension of disbelief when it comes to videogames so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me that much. As long as it's fun. 

LOL

Yeah, video games can contradict real life like it's nothing.

[Chris Knopps]

1 hour ago, Ariel the Blue Wisp said:

I have to give you props Chris, I never thought of the stages like that. It does give them a new spin on how to look at them. 

I don't agree that they are bleak necessarily necesarrily necessarrily necessirily but it's something new to me. I find something like, Unleashed's world shattering into pieces as bleak, even if the citizens don't act like it's a big thing for some reason. If the world were to split into various landmasses I'm sure people would be freaking out like hell. But I have a... Suspension of disbelief when it comes to videogames so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me that much. As long as it's fun. 

EDIT: is that the same roger that makes the sonic games in X minutes videos? I love your videos rog

Here's my problem...

The planet SHATTERED...

But there are NO signs of seismic activity...

Not a single example of any earthquakes or anything...

Again the planet was SHATTERED but somehow every continent looks picture perfect and ready for tourism...

And, you know, the oceans are still there...

So yeah, even when the 3D games post the Genesis series have TRIED to implement Genesis scenarios/stakes/consequences and what have you, ultimately they come off as nonsensical and fall flat.