New Sonic Forces Gameplay teased on twitch.tv (link and screenhots here)

[Indigo Rush]

So I noticed in the gameplay shown for Classic Sonic, when Eggman threw rocks at him, jumping on them sent them flying back and doing damage to the Egg Dragoon.

I really wonder if there's more to the boss than that. It's probably the first boss, so that's fine if it isn't complex, Mania's boss isn't that hard to get a handle on either, but it's the Egg Dragoon, it can shoot fire, ice, giant drills, are we really limiting things to rocks and some bullets?

[Joellui]

Did anyone notice the fact that Modern Sonic's mission in Park Avenue is to get Shadow? So is he like captured or something?

[Captain Fun]

I'm really not keen on all the talking during the stages, and the level design really doesn't do anything for me. It looks boring.

The animation for modern Sonic is a huge improvement though.

[Tani Coyote]

"Oh good. Yet another rehash of the Green Hill boss, just with a sawbla- HOLY SHIT EGG DRAGOON."

Loving that they took the Sonic 4-style bait and switch up to 11 with this.

Interested to see there seems to be actual, real dialogue during the boss fights. I wonder if it will carry into later fights as well?

It'd actually be kind of neat to have some sort of meaningful talk from Eggman (and with Modern Sonic) rather than being generic battle comments (e.g. "prepare to be skewered!"). It kind of feels like the Adventure era in regard to the meaningful mid-battle comments.

2 hours ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

Welp. We now have in-game dialog saying it. So Classic Sonic is from now from another dimension confirmed?

There's also the second option: there's a Classic Sonic from another dimension, AND a Classic Sonic from the main timeline's past. So while these characters look the same and basically are, they have different experiences and memories that set them apart.

Think the branching timelines of Dragon Ball Z/Super, I guess.

[Meta77]

So is this all the footage were getting ?? If so that was very lackluster compared to mania. Oh wow egg dragon. Again. Lol

[Celestia]

My feelings on the game haven't really changed much. Looks fine for my tastes even if I also take issue with some aspects of the game as a whole--for one thing I don't even mind the characters talking during gameplay (tho' I hope it's optional ala Omochao in Generations) but man, it sucks this is probably all they do.

However, one huge positive with absolutely no caveats, at least for me, is that the boss didn't go down in three or four hits! I was so sick of that, especially when the classics gave them more HP than that. Also enjoy that boss in general honestly, though I was expecting that since I think the modern era has been pretty solid with it's bosses aside from how quickly they've gone down since Colours.

[Pawn]

3 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

So is this all the footage were getting ?? If so that was very lackluster compared to mania. Oh wow egg dragon. Again. Lol

We've still got that Youtube stream around 4 hours from now.

[Meta77]

1 minute ago, Pawn said:

We've still got that Youtube stream around 4 hours from now.

Well that's good phew

[Zippo]

Haven't been keeping up. How did this get out exactly? The Mania build looks to be an older one too. Was this from a while ago?

[Shiny Gems]

I liked what I saw. It got me excited. Can't personally wait to see more of the game. By the way, with Tails appearing in the Green Hill Classic boss...

So much for that Buddy rumor, I say.

[Blue Blood]

Yep. Looks like shit. Nothing new here.

[doctorbenMD]

I actually felt...idk, better about the game now? Modern looks great, but like many of you I wasn't sold on the necessity of Classic--and I was especially disappointed to see GHZ. But then they dropped this game's interpretation of it, and if Classic *has* to be in the game, it looks like they're doing it the best way possible. So I'm on board. 

Avatar/Buddy needs some cleaning up though. Looked like a drop in framerate at the beginning?

Looking forward to seeing more later today. 

[Sr101]

Lots of negativity here, which I suppose is slightly warranted. Personally, I like to see Sonic Team taking plot seriously again. The other characters actually serve a purpose. I like the modern gameplay, and classic hasn't hurt in the past so at *worst* it will be passable. The UI looks pretty meh but it looks like they just threw something together for the title cards so I suppose it could be placeholder?

No reason to freak out, we've played these games before. At worst we have something decent here. 

[Badnik Mechanic]

* there is a huge black box covering it part of the blue sky.

* Eggmans life bar and name is so low down it obscures him as he moves from left to right.

* Every time the radio goes off it covers a huge part of the screen. But due to the design of this fight it covers both Eggman and Sonic in the same frame for several seconds. Meaning the player cannot actually see themselves hit Eggman during a fight.

The game is actually obscuring from view what is supposed to be a boss fight.

 

Tails' dialogue is practically a review for the game so far.

Anyone even like to try and defend these design choices?

[Captain Fun]

2 minutes ago, Sr101 said:

No reason to freak out, we've played these games before. 

This is the main problem for me. 

[doctorbenMD]

19 minutes ago, Sr101 said:

Lots of negativity here, which I suppose is slightly warranted. Personally, I like to see Sonic Team taking plot seriously again. The other characters actually serve a purpose. I like the modern gameplay, and classic hasn't hurt in the past so at *worst* it will be passable. The UI looks pretty meh but it looks like they just threw something together for the title cards so I suppose it could be placeholder?

No reason to freak out, we've played these games before. At worst we have something decent here. 

That's kinda how I feel, yeah. Like, a few months ago, I fired up Generations and was like "huh, I just want some new stages to boost through and platform." At the very least we'll get that, but it's not "massive catastrophe." 

[Nepenthe]

Things I liked:

- Holy fucking shit the lighting and environmental detail in Modern Sonic's stage! Hnnnnngggghhhh!
- Animations are looking great. Really appealing snaps and squashes. I see you, Sonic Team.
- Sorry to report that Boost gameplay is looking fun again. At the very least, I like the way the paths curve up and around from your field of vision or are obscured by buildings; it gives the level a more organic feel while holding the possibility of surprise.
- Oh hey, there's the extra cast. Nice to see you guys again. Lines aren't unbearable from what I'm reading. That's nice... And Sonic's actually going to find Shadow. Maybe I'll get the privilege of seeing him in a cut scene? That'd be good......
- Egg Dragoon reveal is kinda cool to add some spice to what is honestly the most boring recurring Sonic boss in existence. Like that it changes up the arena as well.
- Machination and the huge crab robots as obstacles in Avatar's Green Hill is a great idea; helps to sell the wrongness exemplified by Green Hill's desertification that much more.
- Some part of me likes the silver-ish scheme of the robots. I dunno why; maybe it's because it makes them look more menacing or "serious" or something. But they're fine, especially with the goofy red eyes. They're kinda cute for shitheads.

Things I didn't like:

- Classic Sonic's existence.
- Avatar's existence.
- Avatar's platforming capabilities are a little lacking. I know that they've got the grappling hook to make up for it, but man seeing them not being able to wall jump at a certain point was a mood-killer.
- The Wisps' existence.
- .... Fuck is the secondary cast doing not being playable--!! Wait... Silver, how are you here? Wat?!
- Egg Dragoon is now weaksauce, even more so than his Generations incarnation, which is doubly a shame because it was both a boss and thematic highlight of Unleashed.
- Backwards Hat Dude trying his hardest to sell this. It's alright, baby. I know you're just doing your job.

 

So basically I'm still in that "I haven't been tipped into buying this yet" frame of thought.

[Blue Blood]

6 minutes ago, Mayor D said:

Anyone even like to try and defend these design choices?

Sure.

Sonic Forces is just so bad that they don't even want us to see it.

[Mark1]

Someone at NeoGAF actually pointed out the UI issues are likely due to the game being played via 720p on a 1080p screen. Will try find the post but might explain some of what's happening there. 

But yeah some of it needs fixing still.

[Dr. Detective]

Yeah. I mean, despite that time where I was full-on complaining and consistently angry with every new thing I was learning about the game, the game itself never fully looked like straight shit or anything. I made sure I never outright said that it was because I wanted to be clear that my problems were all centered around the game's general design and the decision making concerning it's confused mishmash of ideas.

There's still a lot I have to complain about it here but I'm also finding myself actually getting excited to see some of the other elements they've added. Little touches like Sonic's friends over the radio, the premise still remaining my favorite proposed Sonic plot ever, and how purposefully rearranged a lot of the returning elements seem to be. 

The game still needs to do quite a bit before I warm up to it entirely (and with Classic Sonic and the character creator thing it may still be held back a bit indefinitely but who knows?) however, I'm not going to deny that some of the complaints I've had regarding Colors and Generations are at the very least being addressed to some degree. Whether or not it's a significant enough one to fully engage me is yet to be seen. 

[Celestia]

Move the boss meter and also the radio dialogue (why isn't it just normal subtitles but maybe with the character icons nearby?) and that'd be great. I actually kinda like the HUD's whole aesthetic...

...though I was hoping for LW style where it stays invisible unless relevant (i.e. the Ring count only pops up when collecting Rings, and also stays permanently on screen if you have 0). Maybe they'll add that later?

[JezMM]

Overall I'm okay with a lot of stuff here.  Dialogue from other characters as a storytelling mechanic like this is something I've imagined in my dream "dramatic" Sonic game for a while but... I confess, in my non-specific daydreams, the characters had much more substantial information to convey than this.

I also agree that the UI needs work.  I like the INTENT, but the big black bar over the ring count is hella ugly, and the caption box for the radio messages is way too big.  I definitely hope the latter is possible to disable (and that, for replaying purposes, dialogue can be silenced entirely - NOT in the Lost World way where you turn down the speech volume and the overall game volume still dips when they are supposed to be talking).

Like, all the blocky animation during a transition to a loading screen?  LOVE that, the bland level title cards need some more of that going on.

I definitely agree that it should be dynamic, appearing on screen when relevant only.

1 hour ago, BubbleButt TV said:

I think this game looks pretty fun! 

Also that wrecking blade has some nice physics going on. I wonder if it's just a preset that comes with the Havok engine or something.

Just seems to be well done animation work, not anything physics related.  Eggman starting and stopping doesn't affect it's movement in any way (which is good of course for a boss battle that's meant to have a predictable pattern).

16 minutes ago, Mark1 said:

Someone at NeoGAF actually pointed out the UI issues are likely due to the game being played via 720p on a 1080p screen. Will try find the post but might explain some of what's happening there. 

But yeah some of it needs fixing still.

In this day and age, UIs that don't scale properly on different resolutions are kind of unforgivable.  The only Sonic game with this issue previously is Sonic Adventure DX on PC due to it being a barebones port that didn't consider high PC resolutions in it's backend design.

[Faseeh]

Nepenthe's post covers of most of what I want to say, but I'm feeling really positive about this. THE VERY END of the Modern Park Avenue level footage we saw gives me hope for level design that's at least as fun as say, Modern Crisis City. I'd still love Modern Seaside Hill levels of vast exploration, but this is ain't bad. I love that the cast is back (mah boi Silver and Shadow seem in on the action). Custom Character's Green Hill looks cool, the Egg Dragoon is nice. 

I really hope each level has a story based incentive. Generations, Unleashed, Colors lacked that but the fact that Sonic is being encouraged to find Shadow in Park Avenue gives me hope. Hope the story is interesting this time.

Yup, I'm positive and I really hope I'll enjoy the game. Of course, I'm not blind and I do see the MANY flaws in the game, but I don't plan to concentrate on it too much for now. Looking forward to more info!

[Nepenthe]

Some story incentives where each level has its own purpose in service to the overall narrative would be nice. We haven't had that kind of plotting in over a decade. Hoping that they don't take the easy way out and just go "You have to destroy the seven Egg Robos!"

[Blueknight V2.0]

At least Shadow and Silver are in the game, now we just need Blaze, Metal Sonic, Rouge, Orbot and Cubot.