Sonic Forces SPOILER Thread

[Osmium]

5 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

How would you fix Infinite?

not have him exist 

[ShadowSJG]

Are darker sonic games dead?

[Multikaris]

3 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

Are darker sonic games dead?

Considering how bad they are at light-hearted stories as well...

[Dr. Mechano]

6 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

Are darker sonic games dead?

Is Forces even that dark? Like, beyond the surface-level stuff they're trying to do?

Infinite's just a whiner who's mad that he lost a fight. Sonic was supposedly tortured for months, but he comes out and is all like "YEAH! CATCHPHRASES! JOKES! CHILI DOOOGS!" like nothing happened (and don't get me wrong, it's Sonic, I wouldn't have it any other way). Like, Tails's reaction to Sonic's defeat could've been dark but it just ended up being comically overblown.

I feel like Forces is a game where we're told the story is really bleak and dark, but the actual events happening don't really support that. It's not really that much grimmer than any other Sonic game, honestly. The tone and the stakes feel about the same as they always did, and no matter how much the game tries to go, "No, guys, you don't understand - This is SERIOUS" it just doesn't land.

[Lord-Dreamerz]

1 hour ago, Infinite ∞ said:

Let me try to explain in another way.

Do you have an animal?

Trying to compare cartoon animal people to real life animals is a BIG stretch. Sonic looks more like a alien then a real hedgehog. He's humanoid and talks, emotionally we connect to him just like a person... I however agree with others that watching a fairly realistic style person kiss a super cartoony style character looks strange and kinda cringy.

[Count Mario]

27 minutes ago, FFWF said:

Giving him an ending would be a start.  Giving him a beginning would be even better.

In a way, you could say that is authentic to how something that is infinite has no beginning or end.

[Bridge-Moon Entertainment]

1 hour ago, Rusty Spy said:

Mephiles actually drives the plot and does things. It's not a lot, but it's more than Forces.

In a really dumb way, yeah. There's literally no reason why Mephiles couldn't just time travel back to where solaris originally separated. Instead he chooses to waste time trying to get Silver to kill Sonic. Almost everything that happened in 06 was the result of the characters being idiots.

 

[Celestia]

The game doesn't even strike me as trying to be dark outside of using the word torture very egregiously (Sonic was fine and it's never brought up again, lol) near the start. Relatively serious compared to most of the recent games, sure, but not "dark."

42 minutes ago, ShadowSJG said:

How would you fix Infinite?

Literally just give him a better ending. I don't even mind the backstory being kind of silly, if anything I...kind of love it, it's just ridiculous enough for me, lol. Tho' it does make me wish Shadow had interacted with him more since he was pretty integral to Infinite's origins.

[Dannymax440]

1 hour ago, Rusty Spy said:

Silver and Shadow are practically the main characters of the story, Blaze gets some character building pep talk with Silver and sacrifices herself at the end, Amy saves Sonic and furthers Silver's character development, Mephiles actually drives the plot and does things. It's not a lot, but it's more than Forces.

Hence why the story sucks. The TITULAR character not only acts as a minor character who doesn't even encounter the main villain and instead has to rescue the damsel in stress rinse and repeat, he is stripped of his known personality into a shell.

Also, Mephilis is one of the worst villains in the series. Aside from being a lazy Shadow recolor, why did he bother manipulating a naive Silver to kill Sonic when he could just do it himself.

Blaze was useful in two ways; her gameplay and "sacrifice".

[Rusty Spy]

1 minute ago, Dannymax440 said:

Hence why the story sucks. The TITULAR character not only acts as a minor character who doesn't even encounter the main villain and instead has to rescue the damsel in stress rinse and repeat, he is stripped of his known personality into a shell.

Also, Mephilis is one of the worst villains in the series. Aside from being a lazy Shadow recolor, why did he bother manipulating a naive Silver to kill Sonic when he could just do it himself.

Blaze was useful in two ways; her gameplay and "sacrifice".

 

12 minutes ago, Bridge-Moon Entertainment said:

In a really dumb way, yeah. There's literally no reason why Mephiles couldn't just time travel back to where solaris originally separated. Instead he chooses to waste time trying to get Silver to kill Sonic. Almost everything that happened in 06 was the result of the characters being idiots.

 

Point is, I'd take a story with bad ideas, over a story with no ideas.

[Diogenes]

We really shouldn't be taking either.

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I suppose lighter stories are accepted more favorable since they don't try and therefore can't fail.
Not to mention I get the serious impression most of us Sonic fans' worst enemy is our own brains, over thinking things and getting upset when the tiniest comment or phrase seems to unlock an enormous avalanche of thoughts. Myself included. The tiny things I've seen people get upset over...
I suppose this is another reason why "comedy Sonic" is considered superior or good by a lot, it actively discourages you to think. Celebrates not giving a damn about anything. It's just writers and actors having fun and being self aware, so don't worry.
Nothing means anything, it's all completely disconnected fun in a meaningless void.  Member "Get a load of this"? Lol!


Not to mention Modern Sonic and Boom Sonic have invited in a brand new series of Sonic fans, a more meta self aware crowd. Who want Sonic and Eggman to just be the "herpey derpey I'm videogame man. I collect things, isn't that weird? Member Sonic 06? Lol" audience surrogates.
And I suppose that's one thing Sega's good at. Mostly because it's super easy and shallow. Have observations about a clever as the typical Youtube comment and you're comedy gold, if only because now it's spoken by an official Sega staffmember.


That said, I do think there's an enormous desire in a more exciting Sonic game. All these larger then life songs from Sonic are super popular on the Internet, Infinite's theme, His world.. These songs promising adventure and danger beyond your wildest imagination, it speaks to people. That's a huge lure to the series, even if few if any Sonic games ever furfilled the promise these songs bring. These are not songs you love when you just want the cast to spout meaningless catchphrases.


I really hate we keep dividing it between serious and comedy Sonic, those don't need to be seperate entities. In fact, characters like Eggman work the best when they have a healthy balance between threatening dangerous enemy and crazy clown. That contrast energizes the character. I look at Sonic 06 and Sonic Colors and I don't see Serious Sonic versus Comedy Sonic, I see boring Sonic versus diffrently boring Sonic. Neither has much energy. Either the characters stand around explaining boring plot elements or they're standing around going on  a comedy routine about how borign having adventures is. Far as I'm concerned they both have the same problem, even if they're the opposite ends of a coin.


What I think is the most important thing of all is energy. A genuine desire of the creators and writers to have fun. And not fun in a "haha, I'm self aware that Shadow is edgey" fun, but a "Let's have a crazy adventure with these incredible characters and their world" fun. Fun that celebrates, not mocks. That embraces the world, not shuns it.
Sonic Forces made a step in the right direction of the cast at least TRYING to go that direction  but fails spectacularly. Either because it changed direction halfway trough, because the passion and sense of fun was forced to begin with, or because they're too terrified to make any big decisions in concern the other groups of fans might protest.
Or because they're incompotent. It's probably a combination of all 4.

What we need is a confident new team that get's Sonic. Like Whitehead. But alas, I'm worried if Sega's looking for new Sonic team blood, we just get another Red Button.
People using Sonic as a steppingstone to get a shortcut to the projects they Really want to make.
At this point i'm ready to consider the Sonic Main games as non canon side games and look for the fanbase to give me my real Sonic fix, because outside of music perhaps, fans have succeeded Sonic team on every level.

[Dr. Mechano]

2 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I suppose lighter stories are accepted more favorable since they don't try and therefore can't fail.

This is kind of an arrogant premise, if I do say so myself.

Lighthearted stories don't "try?" What do you mean? Do you not think it takes any effort to tell a good lighthearted story? To make the characters likable and endearing in such a story? To put in genuinely funny jokes or heartwarming moments?

Lighthearted stories are just as easy to bungle as dark ones are. You absolutely have to try to do it right, and it's absolutely easy to fail at them.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

I rather like Shadow's story and a decent amount of Silver wasn't half bad. Sonic's wasn't good at all except for the CGI or FMV sequences.

[Diogenes]

1 minute ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I suppose lighter stories are accepted more favorable since they don't try and therefore can't fail.

Oh, bullshit. A lighter story doesn't mean they're not trying. A lighter story is not fundamentally worse than a heavier one.

[Jar Jar Analysis 1138]

4 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

Like Whitehead.

Hashimoto

[Roger_van_der_weide]

I said that very clumsy, true, sorry.

Specifically referring to when they're being more meta driven. Sonic Advance or Classic games or  Rush Adventure do try.

When operating on a more free flowing comedy style can get away with plotholes more easier, is what I'm saying. Said it a bit blunt, sorry.

[Osmium]

1 minute ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I said that very clumsy, true, sorry.

Specifically referring to when they're being more meta driven. Sonic Advance or Classic games or  Rush Adventure do try.

When operating on a more free flowing comedy style can get away with plotholes more easier, is what I'm saying. Said it a bit blunt, sorry.

Alright yeah I can agree with you there. This is why I don't like the Boom cartoon that much, most of it is meta humour that gets very tiring quite quickly. 

[antyep]

4 minutes ago, Roger_van_der_weide said:

I said that very clumsy, true, sorry.

Specifically referring to when they're being more meta driven. Sonic Advance or Classic games or  Rush Adventure do try.

When operating on a more free flowing comedy style can get away with plotholes more easier, is what I'm saying. Said it a bit blunt, sorry.

Probably why they been making a lot of light hearted and ‘safe’ games before Forces.

[Clewis]

1 hour ago, ShroomZed said:

not have him exist 

I mean honestly, Infinite himself doesn't really contribute much to the plot outside of being the new, edgy badguy in town for people to draw fanart of. He doesn't have an interesting background tied to the Phantom Ruby (like we initially thought he might), he doesn't have any meaningful ties to the game's OC (like we initially thought he might), and he isn't even a goofy, unintentionally over-the-top character that can be liked ironically (imo). He's just another boring, dark-colored meanie who floats around with an intentionally vague set of abilities that we've seen countless times already.

The game could have worked perfectly fine if Eggman just placed the Phantom Ruby in a personal weapon (like a cannon or Metal Sonic or something), instead of fusing it with a character we essentially know nothing about and spouts generic "I'm evil and more powerful than you!"-tier dialogue. At least at that point the game would have been more about Eggman and how he managed to conquer everything, instead of the game's current plot where it feels like he's just sitting in the back seat most of the time during what should have been one of his greatest accomplishments in the franchise.

Oh well.

[Dr. Mechano]

I think that, currently, Sonic Team can't write engaging stories to save their lives.

Their comedies aren't bad because they're comedies; They're bad because they're generally unfunny and lack any subtlety. Colors was just short of winking and going "GEEET IT?" after every joke. Eggman is funny, and Orbot and Cubot are great, but the heroes feel obnoxious. 

Their more serious stories fail too, because they're badly written, hackneyed attempts at drama without generating any real investment in what's going on. Forces repeatedly tells us that the scenario is serious and dire, and has characters moping around and being sad, but it does all of this so clumsily and doesn't really create a world or characters that are worth caring about.

It's not that Sonic Team is better or worse at comedies or dramas; It's that they're fundamentally awful at storytelling, no matter the genre.

[DabigRG]

1 hour ago, dbzfan7 said:

I mean we have Donnie crushing on and wanting to be with April, and I never hear a complaint about that. Same with Jessica and Roger Rabbit.....or plants and foxes........

I guess it really comes down to artstyle for some. I personally lean on you either condemn it all or just go with it I guess. I mean if Sonic kissed a human who had the Unleashed human style, would that suddenly make it ok now?

People really did get annoyed with Donnie's crush on April, particularly in Season 2.

Meanwhile, Jessica and Roger were introduced in a loving parody to cartoons in general.

1 hour ago, ShadowSJG said:

How would you fix Infinite?

I might want to put a little more thought into that.

 

 

 

 

[Balding Spider]

3 hours ago, Infinite ∞ said:

Wow, this is like FFXV all over again where you needed to watch the anime and the movie to understand the game's story.

Which is disgusting anyway you slice it. We shouldn't have to get the full story through another medium when the developers could just do it through the game.

[dbzfan7]

2 minutes ago, DabigRG said:

People really did get annoyed with Donnie's crush on April, particularly in Season 2.

Meanwhile, Jessica and Roger were introduced in a loving parody to cartoons in general.

I never saw it. Especially the former. Maybe you saw some opinions I didn't, but it didn't seem to be panned or hated from where I was looking. I usually among the majority never hear anything of the sort of complaints. The series continued on and the interest never died out, and people seem ok with it.

[Osmium]

22 minutes ago, Clewis said:

I mean honestly, Infinite himself doesn't really contribute much to the plot outside of being the new, edgy badguy in town for people to draw fanart of. He doesn't have an interesting background tied to the Phantom Ruby (like we initially thought he might), he doesn't have any meaningful ties to the game's OC (like we initially thought he might), and he isn't even a goofy, unintentionally over-the-top character that can be liked ironically (imo). He's just another boring, dark-colored meanie who floats around with an intentionally vague set of abilities that we've seen countless times already.

The game could have worked perfectly fine if Eggman just placed the Phantom Ruby in a personal weapon (like a cannon or Metal Sonic or something), instead of fusing it with a character we essentially know nothing about and spouts generic "I'm evil and more powerful than you!"-tier dialogue. At least at that point the game would have been more about Eggman and how he managed to conquer everything, instead of the game's current plot where it feels like he's just sitting in the back seat most of the time during what should one of his greatest accomplishments in the franchise.

Oh well.

Yeah you could remove Infinite and absolutely nothing would be negatively affected, in fact everything would be better. Like you said this should be Eggman's story, not Infinite's, he just fucks off and has no bearing on the ending, is literally one of the most cringy things this series has shat out since the '06 days, and in general is just a blight on the plot and doesn't really do anything worth a fuck besides getting a new generation of ten year olds to go "he's so coool". The difference is that most kids don't care about Sonic compared to 2001-2006 times.