Sonic Forces Bosses - Made Better?

[Chris Knopps]

Take what Sonic Team creates, mix it in with what the fan base creates, and there you have it.

Gotta give thanks to the folks who put in the work to make the covers I stitched into this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bUeV7SyKN8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Auv5D_L5o

What do you think? Does the music make a difference or is the bosses themselves still flawed no matter the music to you?

I personally like how the music I inserted ramps up a degree when the mech appears at the second phase of the Classic boss.

[Alienrun]

This feels more insulting than anything. It doesn't fit at all either. If the game is TRYING to be original I'd rather have original music. The remix is good, but that doesn't mean you can just slap it onto anything and expect a good comeback...I think its telling that this works better with ACTUAL FANGAMES than official Stuff.

If you take away the officialness of the game then what's left? It only shows off the flaws more if the change isn't organic/doesn't make the game better! :/

[Chris Knopps]

1 hour ago, Alienrun said:

This feels more insulting than anything. It doesn't fit at all either. If the game is TRYING to be original I'd rather have original music. The remix is good, but that doesn't mean you can just slap it onto anything and expect a good comeback...I think its telling that this works better with ACTUAL FANGAMES than official Stuff.

If you take away the officialness of the game then what's left? It only shows off the flaws more if the change isn't organic/doesn't make the game better! :/

It's not a matter of slapping anything into everything as you suggest.

Forces is going for a Generations 2 vibe despite developer arguments against this notion. It's trying to focus on being a new title while maintaining callbacks to past games. What with the levels and bosses from the Genesis line returning once more, that's the reasoning behind choosing the fan covers of the tracks I inserted into the video.

Forces attempts to emulate the way the music on the Genesis sounded and attempts to make new tracks out of this attempt at "sounding classic" basically. While the tracks I chose ARE classic tracks in classic locations, but they don't TRY to sound classic, they take old music and make it new in a much more modern manner via the rock and orchestral remakes.

It's a matter of bringing back the past in a modern manner instead of trying to simply emulate the past for the sake of "generic nostalgia" basically.

"Hey! Here's a tune from the Genesis games in a Genesis stage/boss! But guess what, it's remastered! Listen to this!"

That's the gist of my point in inserting the music I chose.

Taking old music and modernizing it instead of making new music "emulating" past sounds, in an undeniably poor manner at that.

Edit

As far as the music sounding unfitting, the first track was chosen because of the way the crab moves and stomps and how the tune matches the movement of the boss and the scrolling scenario as well. The second track was chosen due to how it has the feeling of two phases just as the boss itself has, with the phases changing right as the boss itself changes. It begins in an intimidating manner, then amps it up when Eggman pulls out the big guns.

As it stands, Eggman's music in Forces is no better than Sonic 4, sounding like "here comes the clown!" more than anything.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

The music doesn't matter that much to me. However the boss fights look like great fun to me on Forces... In fact the boss fights are pretty much the only part of Forces I am mainly looking forward to!

[Alienrun]

36 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

It's not a matter of slapping anything into everything as you suggest.

Forces is going for a Generations 2 vibe despite developer arguments against this notion. It's trying to focus on being a new title while maintaining callbacks to past games. What with the levels and bosses from the Genesis line returning once more, that's the reasoning behind choosing the fan covers of the tracks I inserted into the video.

Forces attempts to emulate the way the music on the Genesis sounded and attempts to make new tracks out of this attempt at "sounding classic" basically. While the tracks I chose ARE classic tracks in classic locations, but they don't TRY to sound classic, they take old music and make it new in a much more modern manner via the rock and orchestral remakes.

It's a matter of bringing back the past in a modern manner instead of trying to simply emulate the past for the sake of "generic nostalgia" basically.

"Hey! Here's a tune from the Genesis games in a Genesis stage/boss! But guess what, it's remastered! Listen to this!"

That's the gist of my point in inserting the music I chose.

Taking old music and modernizing it instead of making new music "emulating" past sounds, in an undeniably poor manner at that.

Edit

As far as the music sounding unfitting, the first track was chosen because of the way the crab moves and stomps and how the tune matches the movement of the boss and the scrolling scenario as well. The second track was chosen due to how it has the feeling of two phases just as the boss itself has, with the phases changing right as the boss itself changes. It begins in an intimidating manner, then amps it up when Eggman pulls out the big guns.

As it stands, Eggman's music in Forces is no better than Sonic 4, sounding like "here comes the clown!" more than anything.

See, the thing is is that that would actually work if the levels were the same as their original counterparts...ala generations.

Putting an epic remix instead of an underwhellming song misses the point...the boss itself is underwhelming...that's the problem. This game runs that fine line of trying to copy Generations success without actually being another Generations game...thus I encourage the use of new music.

A lot of it has missed the mark, but some of the CaC vocal themes (despite not fitting really well) have sounded really good for what they are!

That's my arguement...if the song isn't going to be fitting, it might as well be original. I can look up fan remixes on my spare time, I don't need them in an official sonic game that's SUPPOSED to be new! :/

[Chris Knopps]

1 hour ago, Alienrun said:

That's my arguement...if the song isn't going to be fitting, it might as well be original. I can look up fan remixes on my spare time, I don't need them in an official sonic game that's SUPPOSED to be new! :/

And there's my argument. Forces isn't supposed to be new. It's supposed to essentially be a counterpart anniversary title to Mania that focuses on callbacks as much as "new" content with the ratio unknown at this point, though we do know Green Hill, the Green Hill wrecking ball boss, the Egg Dragoon boss, and something about Chemical Plant is returning alongside the returning badniks, albeit with a new coat of paint on them, and the returning Death Egg robots and Egg Pawns, also with new coats of paint.

There has been much less "new" shown of Forces thus far and much more "remixed" content from enemies to bosses to stages.

Even the avatar boss is just a giant Crabmeat with a coat of paint of its own.

The ratio of legitimately "new" stuff in Forces is low at this point so that's a hard argument to use.

[Blue Blood]

2 hours ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

The music doesn't matter that much to me. However the boss fights look like great fun to me on Forces... In fact the boss fights are pretty much the only part of Forces I am mainly looking forward to!

Really? The crab, if we're even calling it a boss, it's exactly the same as the Interceptor chasers in Unleashed and the GUN truck in Generations. And the Egg Dragoon could by absolutely anything for how basic it is. Waiting around for the boss to leave a massive opening at which point you merely have to jump on a rock doesn't look like a great deal of fun. Bosses are seldom a highlight in Sonic games anymore,  and Forces is unlikely to be an exception.

[Chris Knopps]

3 minutes ago, Blue Blood said:

Really? The crab, if we're even calling it a boss, it's exactly the same as the Interceptor chasers in Unleashed and the GUN truck in Generations. And the Egg Dragoon could by absolutely anything for how basic it is. Waiting around for the boss to leave a massive opening at which point you merely have to jump on a rock doesn't look like a great deal of fun. Bosses are seldom a highlight in Sonic games anymore,  and Forces is unlikely to be an exception.

Mmm...

In a way this is one reason I did this experiment, to see if, even with a "meh" boss or two, if the music was different it could still be a step above that.

Over on TSOS the reception to this has been fairly positive, and as I mentioned in another thread, is one reason I tried this to see if more/better interest can be garnered for Forces even if through the slightest tweaks.

[Dejimon11]

I got what they were going for with the green hill zone boss because it was something pretty basic with the traditional Sonic 1 boss then when you think it's over-suprise it's the egg-dragoon. That would of been a cool twist but it's because they already brought back those bosses with generations(more times with the sonic 1 boss) it loses the shock value.

Something I suggested a few days ago is that since we're going for a sandy theme with green hill zone why don't they just bring back the Egg Golem instead?

 

[Chris Knopps]

3 minutes ago, Dejimon11 said:

I got what they were going for with the green hill zone boss because it was something pretty basic with the traditional Sonic 1 boss then when you think it's over-suprise it's the egg-dragoon. That would of been a cool twist but it's because they already brought back those bosses with generations(more times with the sonic 1 boss) it loses the shock value.

Something I suggested a few days ago is that since we're going for a sandy theme with green hill zone why don't they just bring back the Egg Golem instead?

 

...Too much Sonic Adventure maybe?

With both Shadow and Chaos in the game they likely said "that's enough for you" basically with a big fat "you're welcome" silently muttered.

[Alienrun]

4 hours ago, Chris Knopps said:

And there's my argument. Forces isn't supposed to be new. It's supposed to essentially be a counterpart anniversary title to Mania that focuses on callbacks as much as "new" content with the ratio unknown at this point, though we do know Green Hill, the Green Hill wrecking ball boss, the Egg Dragoon boss, and something about Chemical Plant is returning alongside the returning badniks, albeit with a new coat of paint on them, and the returning Death Egg robots and Egg Pawns, also with new coats of paint.

There has been much less "new" shown of Forces thus far and much more "remixed" content from enemies to bosses to stages.

Even the avatar boss is just a giant Crabmeat with a coat of paint of its own.

The ratio of legitimately "new" stuff in Forces is low at this point so that's a hard argument to use.

Yeah about that...Remember how Lost World was advertised? Despite showing off SO many zones, we got a lot of new stuff, the game didn't turn out how anyone expected it. NOONE could predict how it would turn out cause we didn't have enough info!

That's what I think is going on here, we got 1 new zone and 1 old zone...we got a CaC and returning characters...we got old villians returning and a new one leading them...we got a new plot that hasn't been explored yet it still feels like a mix between Future 06 and Gens...

There's going to be new stuff...they WANT you to think that this game is new and that the fanservice is just naturally integrated in the game.

Take all that into account alongside a 4 year development cycle and I can garentee you they'll have new stuff...Will it be good? Who knows...

I mean really it seems they really want to reuse those Generations assets but they can only do that so much!

Honestly we should be focusing less on how original the songs are and more on how good they are, I don't think the game's identity is THAT fractured, even if more than half the game is old zones, Sonic Team is at least trying to portray them in a new light...on top of multiple characters having their own versions of the songs, I think that's enough reason to justify new songs. (Unless they go Sonic CD on us and use 3 versions of the same song, which they don't seem to be doing.)

[Lord-Dreamerz]

5 hours ago, Blue Blood said:

Really? The crab, if we're even calling it a boss, it's exactly the same as the Interceptor chasers in Unleashed and the GUN truck in Generations. And the Egg Dragoon could by absolutely anything for how basic it is. Waiting around for the boss to leave a massive opening at which point you merely have to jump on a rock doesn't look like a great deal of fun. Bosses are seldom a highlight in Sonic games anymore,  and Forces is unlikely to be an exception.

I wouldn't call the huge crab machine a boss, but I do enjoy the giant monster style chase stages such as the GUN truck, so no problems there for me. I think the double green hill zone boss looks cool enough, even if i have no idea why they didn't just make a new huge robot for stage 2 of the fight instead of the Egg Dragoon again.

I don't see anything wrong or anti-fun about a boss that requires specific times you are allowed to hit it besides being a bit basic? To me It's a better boss method then nearly half the bosses in the classic games which can be killed in under 30 secs with little skill... I enjoyed most of the boss battles in Sonic 4 EP2 even if I didn't care for much of the rest of the game. In Generations I liked all the boss and rival fights except the Prefect Chaos and Time Eater fights which I couldn't stand.

Anyways In Forces I'm fine with the boss stuff shown so far... But I'm more looking forward to possibly fighting Metal-Sonic who I am always happy to see. The possible fights with Infinite, Shadow and Chaos 0 have me interested for the idea of it too.

[Blue Blood]

8 hours ago, Lord-Dreamerz said:

I wouldn't call the huge crab machine a boss, but I do enjoy the giant monster style chase stages such as the GUN truck, so no problems there for me. I think the double green hill zone boss looks cool enough, even if i have no idea why they didn't just make a new huge robot for stage 2 of the fight instead of the Egg Dragoon again.

I don't see anything wrong or anti-fun about a boss that requires specific times you are allowed to hit it besides being a bit basic? To me It's a better boss method then nearly half the bosses in the classic games which can be killed in under 30 secs with little skill... I enjoyed most of the boss battles in Sonic 4 EP2 even if I didn't care for much of the rest of the game. In Generations I liked all the boss and rival fights except the Prefect Chaos and Time Eater fights which I couldn't stand.

Anyways In Forces I'm fine with the boss stuff shown so far... But I'm more looking forward to possibly fighting Metal-Sonic who I am always happy to see. The possible fights with Infinite, Shadow and Chaos 0 have me interested for the idea of it too.

As far as the chase sequence goes though, what makes it any different to anything else we've seen before? It's the exact same thing - rear view, autorunning and quick stepping away from obstacles in three lanes. It's such a stale idea that hasn't evolved since it first appeared in Generations. I don't understand why you've got no problems at all with it in principle at this point. The gimmick itself isn't necessarily bad, but it's just a reskin that, like the rest of Forces, shows nothing new at all. It's spectacle over substance.  

As for the GHZ Egg Dragoon - no, frankly I think it looks rubbish. You slowly dodge a barrage of very repetitive and easy attacks, wait for his obvious opening and then hit him. You can only hit him at one time when the game tells you to. This isn't exclusive to Forces or even just Sonic games, so it's an issue I have with a lot of boss designs. Even if the Classic games did often let you beat down the bosses with incredible ease by just bopping their heads eight times in a row (looking at you, Sonic 2), you could hit them at almost anytime from any direction. Your success was dictated by how abd when you struck. Even Colours got this right actually. Another thing that I really dislike is that the boss is totally hands off. You only get to attack him from afar using boulders, and never land a hit directly. That's just lame.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 hour ago, Blue Blood said:

As far as the chase sequence goes though, what makes it any different to anything else we've seen before? It's the exact same thing - rear view, autorunning and quick stepping away from obstacles in three lanes. It's such a stale idea that hasn't evolved since it first appeared in Generations. I don't understand why you've got no problems at all with it in principle at this point. The gimmick itself isn't necessarily bad, but it's just a reskin that, like the rest of Forces, shows nothing new at all. It's spectacle over substance.  

As for the GHZ Egg Dragoon - no, frankly I think it looks rubbish. You slowly dodge a barrage of very repetitive and easy attacks, wait for his obvious opening and then hit him. You can only hit him at one time when the game tells you to. This isn't exclusive to Forces or even just Sonic games, so it's an issue I have with a lot of boss designs. Even if the Classic games did often let you beat down the bosses with incredible ease by just bopping their heads eight times in a row (looking at you, Sonic 2), you could hit them at almost anytime from any direction. Your success was dictated by how abd when you struck. Even Colours got this right actually. Another thing that I really dislike is that the boss is totally hands off. You only get to attack him from afar using boulders, and never land a hit directly. That's just lame.

The giant chase sequence doesn't need to be THAT different outside of a re-skin for me. Adding something different to it would be nice of course, but it isn't necessary to me as I still enjoy them with the minor differences.

I don't feel being able to hit a boss at any moment is more fun then waiting to hit them when the game allows you too. And I don't think we always need to be hands-on physical with bosses in order to like it either. Sorry about I don't think there is only 1 exact boss method that is correct and that others are lame.

And like I said. I'm more looking forward to what is to come. Metal-Sonic's fight might be some kind of race battle again... and lets be fair here he is a speed robot and is not built for combat as his focus... But as long it's not a direct lift from Sonic CD/Generations/Sonic 4 EP2. Then I'm going to REALLY enjoy it.

It's fine that you don't like these things they are doing. But I on the other hand have no big problems yet with the bosses shown. Now far as the normal levels goes... I have more then enough beef with them! xD

[KHCast]

9 hours ago, Alienrun said:

Honestly we should be focusing less on how original the songs are and more on how good they are, I don't think the game's identity is THAT fractured,

"So edge" story, modern and classic gameplay divorced again, classic sonic returns again but it's not classic from Gens, Character creator which is more or less a watered down modern, reusing GHZ again, like 5 different villains from Sonic's past, and I'm sure there's more I've left out. Idk, to me it's identify in what its goal is and who it's most trying to appeal regarding the fanbase is all over the place 

[Bobnik]

To be fair, boss fight concept IMO as a whole is not good if you think about it.

You either make it a slog by giving the boss a huge amount of HP and/or by not being able to hit the boss at any time, make it really easy by giving low amount of HP and by being able to hit the boss at any time, or make it a glorified level/race, and not a boss fight.

So it pretty much goes down to preference - if you like hitting the boss at any time, either deal with a piss-easy bosses or unnecessarily tanky bosses. If you like avoiding obstacles from a boss and then hit him in a weak spot - deal with  waiting an unnecessarily long time to actually hit the boss. If you like boss-fights as levels - deal with them being, well, glorified levels and not actual fights. If you don't like any of these or even combinations - well, you're outta luck then.

 

[Alienrun]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

"So edge" story, modern and classic gameplay divorced again, classic sonic returns again but it's not classic from Gens, Character creator which is more or less a watered down modern, reusing GHZ again, like 5 different villains from Sonic's past, and I'm sure there's more I've left out. Idk, to me it's identify in what its goal is and who it's most trying to appeal regarding the fanbase is all over the place 

I'm being realistic for the sake of the argument I was attempting to push forward, but yes the game is a freaking mess. The CaC alone made me lose trust in Sega...

What confuses me is that Chris Knopps doesn't seem to understand how composing for a video game works, maybe because I study music a lot I'm taking this seriously, but the reality is that Sega is putting a basic effort to be original which Chris is flat out ignoring which seems exagerated at best and ignorant at worst.

As for the quality? Believe me its all over the place...I even made an entire topic ripping the main theme apart when it was still fairly new!

But none of that matters, some of it is okayish/kinda good for a level I guess? Music is one of the key things I look for in a game, mind you this is very subconcious but it stands to be true so far no matter how much I tell myself otherwise.

TL;DR Chris's "solution" will only make things worse, there are like...5 differnent things this game needs to fix up before we double up the fanservice and thus insult me even further. NOONE in thier right mind wants Classic Sonic in Gens...its a double standard that just doesn't make sense! Chris is suggesting to make fanservice AND make it good!

...Like buddy which one do you want? Putting in Classic music won't automatically make the game better right?

[Chris Knopps]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

"So edge" story, modern and classic gameplay divorced again, classic sonic returns again but it's not classic from Gens, Character creator which is more or less a watered down modern, reusing GHZ again, like 5 different villains from Sonic's past, and I'm sure there's more I've left out. Idk, to me it's identify in what its goal is and who it's most trying to appeal regarding the fanbase is all over the place 

Therein lies another reason behind my experiment in the video, to find something that sounds more in-line with what they game is trying to sell. Instead of randomly crushing together any and everything they can, I put action music via metal/rock with the giant crab, then I put an energetic orchestral tune for the fight against the dictator of the world.

It's matching musical tone with the tone of the game itself. The rhythm matching what's happening during the instance, and I feel the tracks I picked do that much better than the "official" tracks used in the game during these bosses.

Quote

Chris's "solution" will only make things worse, there are like...5 differnent things this game needs to fix up before we double up the fanservice and thus insult me even further.

No, it makes things more cohesive by having music that is more suitable to what's happening, refer to what I put above.

Quote

NOONE in thier right mind wants Classic Sonic in Gens...its a double standard that just doesn't make sense! Chris is suggesting to make fanservice AND make it good!

This, yes. If you're going to do it, then do so properly. If you suck at creating original music now, just take the old music and modernize it instead of doing things blindly with new compositions that just don't compare.

How this has happened in Forces is something I will never understand for the life of me...

[Wraith]

52 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

 

This, yes. If you're going to do it, then do so properly. If you suck at creating original music now, just take the old music and modernize it instead of doing things blindly with new compositions that just don't compare.

This doesn't make any sense. They can fuck up an old composition as easily as they can fuck up an original one.

Just ask for better music. 

[Chris Knopps]

Just now, Josh said:

This doesn't make any sense. They can fuck up an old composition as easily as they can fuck up an original one.

Just ask for better music. 

Naturally better music is ideal, but comparing Forces to Generations and even Lost World, if this is how quickly they've fallen with "original" compositions then I'd rather hear them following the blueprints of tracks from older titles.

TeeLopes even tried his own spin on the music from Forces if I'm not mistaken and even his version sucks, not because of his own skill, but the composition is just badly written altogether. That proves it's not just the particular composer but his actual composition itself that is flawed.