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

[Mark1]

Looking back over the last few pages. The hate towards Pontac and Graff feels a bit overstated. At least in comparison to other games in the series, when was the last time we as a fanbase saw a well written story in a Sonic game? 

Because the Adventure games certainly weren't up to scratch either. Cringey and they kept contradicting themselves, especially Adventure 2.

Personally I'd like to see the Boom cartoon writers have a go at the main games, or someone from the Archie comics. Someone different.

To reiterate, have not seen a good story in a Sonic game since before the Adventure games, heck I'd go as far as to say S3K is the pinnacle of storytelling in the franchise thus far.

[StaticMania]

They just don't want a comedic focus...tis all. That's actually not negative, as one would say. So, getting something around Adventure's tone would be the most pleasing.

 

Also 3 games from around 2007, 2008, and 2009 are seen as having decent stories of Sonic the Hedgehog, the games that people actually think about, not Adventure.

[RLS Legacy]

Can someone please clarify something for me, because I'm rather confused.

Over the last few pages, regarding Forces I've seen phrases like 'Generations with character creator' and 'it's Generations 2' thrown around disparagingly, as though these are suddenly bad qualities.

Am I missing something? Last I checked, Generations was a good game. Or have we all succumbed to such a stubborn sense of purity that anything which isn't exactly what we want must be ruthlessly spat upon?

And for the record, there's a lot of whining about Forces being demonstrative of SEGA not presenting a 'consistent identity for the franchise.' Which is odd, because save for Lost World, the boost gameplay has been a mainstay since 2008. The boost gameplay is a solid identity. That is what people associate the franchise with now, that's what does well critically, that's what sells, ergo that's what they're sticking with.

You not liking a consistent style =/= it not being a consistent style.

[Blacklightning]

6 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

Am I missing something? Last I checked, Generations was a good game.

Even if everybody here could agree on that, the bigger problem is that they don't seem to actually be sparing any effort to polish what's there and fix what flaws there are in the process. Even on a glance, Forces hasn't done that. In fact, in many areas it's actually visibly worse, especially where level design is concerned. The wait between games has only made that more jarring - sometimes you could play off certain screwups as Sonic Team needing to rush out games on an annual basis, but Forces has been in production so long that there's really no excuse for this at all.

9 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

And for the record, there's a lot of whining about Forces being demonstrative of SEGA not presenting a 'consistent identity for the franchise.' Which is odd, because save for Lost World, the boost gameplay has been a mainstay since 2008. The boost gameplay is a solid identity. That is what people associate the franchise with now, that's what does well critically, that's what sells, ergo that's what they're sticking with.

And yet rather than letting that sell itself, Sega instead wants to cram in another two completely unrelated playstyles in a vain, utterly shameless attempt to pander to as many audiences as possible. You can't downplay the existence of the CaC (or Classic Sonic for that matter) in this game as though they're either intergral to the Boost identity in of itself or additions so minor that they have virtually no bearing on it, because by all accounts they take up an entire third of the game each. For that matter, how often has any Boost game been consistent all the way through? The only two games that rely on boost gameplay alone are Rush (which you might recognize as the game that invented it) and Colours (and even then, it plays second fiddle to Wisps most of the time). There are Adventure era games that are less discordant than this, and that's really saying something.

Using one gameplay style a lot does not actually mean there's any measure of consistency surrounding the way they use it. The way they have used it tends to indicate that Sega has no confidence in their ability to make a full game based around the boost anymore, which is very telling when you think about it.

[Pawn]

1 hour ago, Mark1 said:

Looking back over the last few pages. The hate towards Pontac and Graff feels a bit overstated. At least in comparison to other games in the series, when was the last time we as a fanbase saw a well written story in a Sonic game? 

Because the Adventure games certainly weren't up to scratch either. Cringey and they kept contradicting themselves, especially Adventure 2.

Personally I'd like to see the Boom cartoon writers have a go at the main games, or someone from the Archie comics. Someone different.

To reiterate, have not seen a good story in a Sonic game since before the Adventure games, heck I'd go as far as to say S3K is the pinnacle of storytelling in the franchise thus far.

I don't know why some people assume that anyone desiring a return to an "Adventure-style" story is asking for the flaws to be brought back with it.

We want it done well.

[Mark1]

6 minutes ago, Pawn said:

I don't know why some people assume that anyone desiring a return to an "Adventure-style" story is asking for the flaws to be brought back with it.

We want it done well.

I'm more referring to the people who wrote the stories back then, not specifically the style to fully clarify my previous message. The Adventure games weren't as serious as later games like Sonic '06, but not as incredibly cringeworthy as Colours or Lost World.

It achieved a decent medium, although I could argue Adventure 2 was a bit too serious at times for my liking.

My opinion on their story writing quality does still stand though. This question may be subjective to some, but when was the last time a Sonic game was written well? 

 

[Dejimon11]

51 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

Can someone please clarify something for me, because I'm rather confused.

Over the last few pages, regarding Forces I've seen phrases like 'Generations with character creator' and 'it's Generations 2' thrown around disparagingly, as though these are suddenly bad qualities.

Am I missing something? Last I checked, Generations was a good game. Or have we all succumbed to such a stubborn sense of purity that anything which isn't exactly what we want must be ruthlessly spat upon?

And for the record, there's a lot of whining about Forces being demonstrative of SEGA not presenting a 'consistent identity for the franchise.' Which is odd, because save for Lost World, the boost gameplay has been a mainstay since 2008. The boost gameplay is a solid identity. That is what people associate the franchise with now, that's what does well critically, that's what sells, ergo that's what they're sticking with.

You not liking a consistent style =/= it not being a consistent style.

Here's my issue with it and I know i've pretty much annoyed everybody to death with this but when the game was first announced last year Iizuka said that it's not a sequel but a brand new experience. But with Classic and Modern teaming up again and playing similar to how they did in their last adventure and the return of Green Hill Zone all the signs pretty much contradicted what he said about it being a new experience. 

[Graystripe2000]

11 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

Here's my issue with it and I know i've pretty much annoyed everybody to death with this but when the game was first announced last year Iizuka said that it's not a sequel but a brand new experience. But with Classic and Modern teaming up again and playing similar to how they did in their last adventure and the return of Green Hill Zone all the signs pretty much contradicted what he said about it being a new experience. 

I think he was referring to the character creator.

[RLS Legacy]

16 minutes ago, Operationgamer17 said:

I think he was referring to the character creator.

I wasn't. I'm taking issue with the fact people seem to have suddenly retroactively decided Generations was a bad game, and thus Forces being like it is sufficient reason that it's going to be crap.

This exact same kind of rubbish plagues the Zelda fanbase. Every time a new one comes out, everyone magically forgets whatever undue praise they heaped on the previous instalment and brands it terrible. It's petty and tremendously irritating.

[Diogenes]

1 hour ago, RLS Legacy said:

Can someone please clarify something for me, because I'm rather confused.

Over the last few pages, regarding Forces I've seen phrases like 'Generations with character creator' and 'it's Generations 2' thrown around disparagingly, as though these are suddenly bad qualities.

Am I missing something? Last I checked, Generations was a good game. Or have we all succumbed to such a stubborn sense of purity that anything which isn't exactly what we want must be ruthlessly spat upon?

Actually it's because I never thought Generations was a good game. It showed a basic level of competence above the worst Sonic games, but it was still incredibly shallow. In a healthy series, a game like Gens would've been a low point; it was only "the best Sonic game in years!" because the competition was so poor.

Even for people who liked Gens, though, unless they thought it was utterly spectacular and nearly perfect, what we've seen is really disappointing. A series should build on itself, refining and polishing its mechanics and trying out new ideas to expand what it can do. Forces has shown no interest in that at all, we've seen no substantial changes to either Modern or Classic's gameplay, and if anything the level design has regressed to an even more shallow form. Instead it seems whatever creative effort Sonic Team had went into the (presumably) one-time gimmick of a character creator.

1 hour ago, RLS Legacy said:

And for the record, there's a lot of whining about Forces being demonstrative of SEGA not presenting a 'consistent identity for the franchise.' Which is odd, because save for Lost World, the boost gameplay has been a mainstay since 2008. The boost gameplay is a solid identity. That is what people associate the franchise with now, that's what does well critically, that's what sells, ergo that's what they're sticking with.

You not liking a consistent style =/= it not being a consistent style.

Consistent bad style doesn't do us any good. It should be obvious that no one is arguing for a consistent style that they think wouldn't be good for the series.

Plus only about a third of this game is boost gameplay anyway. How much of a consistent style can it be if it's constantly padded with gimmicks like Classic Sonic and the custom character?

[JezMM]

14 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

I wasn't. I'm taking issue with the fact people seem to have suddenly retroactively decided Generations was a bad game, and thus Forces being like it is sufficient reason that it's going to be crap.

This exact same kind of rubbish plagues the Zelda fanbase. Every time a new one comes out, everyone magically forgets whatever undue praise they heaped on the previous instalment and brands it terrible. It's petty and tremendously irritating.

The people disliking Sonic Generations here either disliked it from the beginning or only liked it as a one-off concept.  The fanbase is not a hive mind, the people who said it was a good game at the time and the people who are saying it was always bad now are different people.

 

I'm fine with the boost gameplay returning, I really enjoy it and I'd like to see it become the main identity for the 3D games by continuing to expand upon it and make it deeper, perhaps bring some more physics-play into it.

But every time the boost gameplay has to come with an asterisk.  Two asterisks this time round.  And it hasn't really had any major innovations that polish the gameplay itself rather than tack on something extra - either mid-level or otherwise, since it debuted.  While I like it, I agree with criticisms that they are yet to prove it can carry the 3D games by itself.  The only game that came close was Colours, and that came with a whole slew of issues that ultimately made it my least favourite of the three boost games (namely that the "non-standard" gameplay happened frequently mid-level as Wisps rather than seperately as Werehog/Classic, and the boringly simple 3D gameplay, with the majority of the game and ALL vaguely interesting platforming segments being 2D).

It's really sad to me that the only fully 3D Sonic game with a consistent identity and gameplay style throughout the entire game, with a good 20+ full length stages... is Shadow the fucking Hedgehog.  The fact is one of the virtues that made me quite like it in the end actually.

[Wraith]

10 minutes ago, RLS Legacy said:

I wasn't. I'm taking issue with the fact people seem to have suddenly retroactively decided Generations was a bad game, and thus Forces being like it is sufficient reason that it's going to be crap.

This exact same kind of rubbish plagues the Zelda fanbase. Every time a new one comes out, everyone magically forgets whatever undue praise they heaped on the previous instalment and brands it terrible. It's petty and tremendously irritating.

Read the thread and you'd realise that there's a lot more nuance to it than that. It's been 6 years since Generations. Sometimes games, especially shallow ones, don't exactly hold up. Sometimes we like it but realize we don't really want more of it. There are plenty who never really liked Gens to begin with and was hoping for something else. That's putting aside all the indications that Forces looks like a worse version of Gens, even.

[Dannymax440]

1 hour ago, Pawn said:

I don't know why some people assume that anyone desiring a return to an "Adventure-style" story is asking for the flaws to be brought back with it.

We want it done well.

I think its probably due to the limited presentation and repetitive cutscenes as well that strays people away from the stories.(They did also turn Super Sonic into a last story gimmick only that would go on till Colors).

If those issues were resolved as well as the story being more cohesive at balancing light and dark elements, fewer people would complain.

 

[Kintor]

34 minutes ago, Josh said:

Read the thread and you'd realise that there's a lot more nuance to it than that. It's been 6 years since Generations. Sometimes games, especially shallow ones, don't exactly hold up. Sometimes we like it but realize we don't really want more of it. There are plenty who never really liked Gens to begin with and was hoping for something else. That's putting aside all the indications that Forces looks like a worse version of Gens, even.

On the other hand, it's been six years since many Sonic fans have been calling for a sequel to Sonic Generations. Nothing in 2012 was fair enough; we got the awesome arcade racer in S&SRT. However, a direct sequel to Sonic Generations was widely assumed to be the logical next step for the Sonic franchise, after the success of the original game. Just because there have been some notable missteps along the way doesn't diminish the importance of making that long awaited sequel to Sonic Generations. Now finally we have that sequel in Sonic Forces, which still maintains the core classic and modern gameplay that was so well-received but also has the attention grabbing character creator to keep things fresh.

[JezMM]

11 minutes ago, Kintor said:

On the other hand, it's been six years since many Sonic fans have been calling for a sequel to Sonic Generations. Nothing in 2012 was fair enough; we got the awesome arcade racer in S&SRT. However, a direct sequel to Sonic Generations was widely assumed to be the logical next step for the Sonic franchise, after the success of the original game. Just because there have been some notable missteps along the way doesn't diminish the importance of making that long awaited sequel to Sonic Generations. Now finally we have that sequel in Sonic Forces, which still maintains the core classic and modern gameplay that was so well-received but also has the attention grabbing character creator to keep things fresh.

I find it interesting that you take the time to tell every single person who didn't want a sequel to Generations in this thread that everyone wanted a sequel to Generations and haven't once thought "hmm... maybe not everyone wanted a sequel to Generations actually".

[Chris Knopps]

I think Generations was a pretty game with great music but was ultimately the cheapest experience I've ever had in this franchise...

[Roger_van_der_weide]

Thing with sequels, you want the soul, the energy, the general philosophy of the game to be sequel'ed, you don't want the sequel to litteraly do the exact same beats verbatim. Like a movie, you want the characters and general mood of the movie continued in a fresh new adventure with new circumstances, not the exact same story beats copied.

I was one of the ones who really wanted a Generations sequel.
In spirit.
As in, Sonic Team building and improving on the level design, and the general game philosophy. I was impressed how clean the game was, how focused. How the level design managed to grab elements from the classics, the Adventure games and modern Sonic and work them relatively seamless together.

I didn't want them to brainlessly shove in Classic Sonic and Green Hill zone everywhere. That was never the real point of wanting a generations sequel.
So not only are they making it a sequel from the worst angle, copying elements that only felt natural in GENERATION'S SPECIFIC CONCEPT, but I am seeing more and more clues that they get the Real reason I wanted a Generations in Spirit 2 absolutely wrong.

Now granted, I don't have much of a beef with Forces yet. Sure, I am raising an amused eyebrow at Green Hill zone fitting in awkwardly with the rest of the presentation but I haven't seen any DIRECT reason for concern yet. Still think Forces can be a fun game.

But the awkward level design that feels the need to put speedboosters at places where Sonic runs DOWN a slope (I just noticed this happened in the new footage with Park Avenue as well) does seem to imply that Sonic Team still doesn't know how to make the speed sections and platforming co-exist naturally in their level design, and honestly that Is causing some potential concern.

So, technically a Generations 2 is fine, but I'm on my guard if this isn't turning into a "The Hangover 2". Repeating the plotbeats but failing to capture the soul of the original.

[Solly]

I liked Generations. I still do.

I didn't want a sequel to it. The core game has flaws that this forum discussed at length 6 years ago. Which is fine-- no game is perfect, but you'd think my standards for a new game would be a little higher, and that I'd be less forgiving of seeing the same mistakes made over and over again. Contrary to what some people seem to think, this is not a case of everyone retroactively turning on Generations. It's a case of wanting something better. 

It's funny that Zelda was brought up in this thread, because I was going to use that as an example of how the same thing applies to other games. Breath of the Wild has been out for a little while now, and I think it's one of the best games in the series, and by extension one of the best games I've ever played. For as much as I love it, though, I would not be very keen on a sequel aping it without fixing the armor system, or the dungeons, or the other aspects of the game I consider weak. For me, this is true of every game series. 

And it probably doesn't help that in Sonic's case, a lot of people's gripes with Forces go back as far as Unleashed. 

[Nepenthe]

Even if the game had been perfect, I've disagreed with a Generations sequel on contextual grounds for years. It's a game that was obviously made as a celebration of the franchise first and a standalone game second. Just about every decision it makes is inseparable from Sonic's birthday. Which is fine. However, I did not want to see Classic Sonic again. He is only here as an easy crowd pleaser regardless of how much he keeps fucking with the lore and the ability for these games to condense themselves back into a less compartmentalized style. I also didn't want to see the cast relegated to cheerleading fodder for obvious reasons. I'm also tired of seeing Green Hill over and over, particularly since I feel Angel Island's a more interesting place to have recurring anyway. Generations would've been infinitely better in hindsight as a one-off. Now it's about to face that much more scrutiny and retroactive backlash as of Forces' existence.

[Salamander]

Part of the reason old games get reinterpreted and change in popularity is I think for a couple of reasons, one being that at the time the game comes out we receive it in the context of the games which came immediately before, and the second being that, with the benefit of hindsight, we can also see the consequences of that game's particular approach.  Well, those are really the same reason, of course.  Then is not now.  So for example we may then have played a certain game in the past and regarded it as a breath of fresh air from its immediate predecessors and looked on it as a foundation for further improvements, but now we find that those improvements never happened and that breath of fresh air all too quickly became stale.  Conversely, we may then have played a game and viewed it as completely absurd and out of character for the franchise, whereas now we may look back and say that it was a lot better than what came afterwards.

In other words, part of our perspective on a game is informed by a game's potential and whether that potential is realised or not, and also by the relative quality of the chronological company it keeps.  So on the one hand, people liked Colours and Generations at the time, but later we can look back and despise what happened because of them.  Conversely, Unleashed was regarded as pretty laughable at the time of its release, but there now seems to be a lot of affection for the quality of its writing after seven years of Pontac and Graff.

Taken in this light, it is completely natural that opinions may change on a game released several years ago.  ...Especially if it's the Sonic franchise we're talking about.

[Nepenthe]

Since it was reported and I honestly didn't catch it the first time:

14 hours ago, Kintor said:

Anyway, if it’s such an issue, I apologise for the remarks I made when you started using the term 'fetish material' in relation to any aspect of Sonic fan OCs.

Take this non-apology and shove it. You've been intent on disingenuously misinterpreting and stereotyping everyone in this thread who doesn't like the ideas of Forces, and you need to understand how absolutely no one appreciates it. It is only the rest of the staff holding me back from striking you on the spot for everything you've done in this thread, so count your lucky stars, consider this your last warning, and learn how to actually hold a sincere conversation if you care for your account's standing. If you've got a problem with this, bring it up to me in PMs.

[TheOcelot]

@GeneHF you're such a tease.

 

[D.K.]

29 minutes ago, OcelotBot said:

@GeneHF you're such a tease.

 

Watch as it's just background noise from footage they took on a trip to Park Avenue in New York.

[Apollo Chungus]

I was thinking a bit about the character creator, and I figured I'd make a video elaborating on my thoughts behind Forces featuring a character creation tool, player creation tools in video games, and the system's potential within Sonic Forces. Check it out, and let me know what you think:

 

[JezMM]

On the subject of Park Avenue, I kinda wish the stage name was the other way round: Avenue Park.  Sounds more like the name of a fictional city, as if this was once a place so beautiful they decided to name it as a park made of avenues.  "Park Avenue" just sounds like the name of a single street, which the stage clearly isn't.

 

(Granted I feel like Station Square in SA1 was only ever meant to refer to the particular area of the city where the adventure field is set, but it kinda retroactively became the name of the entire city in external media lol).