Why I hardly have faith in the Sonic franchise now

[iambitter21]

1 hour ago, prowerboy26 said:

This isn't in relation to what anyone else posted, but has anyone else noticed that recently there has been a noticeable increase of fans just blindly defending Sega/ST and won't let people voice their dissatisfaction with something? (Like on other spaces like Reddit, Twitter etc).

Like if you like a game, then all power to you. You have the right to enjoy it. But there almost seems to be this movement to shut down any constructive criticism. There is this whole thing where people say  "Haha Forces bad" in response to a legitimate critic.

It starts to make me frustrated sometimes because I feel like some Sonic fans can get really complacent at times and are willing to lower their standards because they see any criticism of a game as an attack. It feels like it is hard to have a mature conversation.

phew, I thought this was against my status update. you don't think I'm like them, do you?

[Empire88]

9 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

phew, I thought this was against my status update. you don't think I'm like them, do you?

Oh no you are fine! Anyone can like what they like and should not feel ashamed about it.

I am more referring to people who, in response to the Forces backlash, just dismiss constructive criticism as "Sonic fans don't know what they want" or post sarcastic reaction memes like "Haha Forces bad" which seek to undermine the fact that a lot of fans were unhappy with the game. Those type of comments make it seem like demanding higher standards is a bad thing.

[iambitter21]

oh okay than.

[calamityCons]

There continues to be a lot of immaturity surrounding Sonic's hatedom. There are a whole lot of people who just don't really like Sonic but say they do in spite all the other statements from them being negative. I'm thinking specifically of one popular YouTube Channel, but I also think about how there's just general discontent in the Sonic fandom right now, keeping my ear to the ground. I can understand people wanting to combat the negative or pensive feelings of the fandom by forcing positivity or dismissing all negativity, because it's a natural human desire to not want the thing you like to be "bad" because that could lead to a lot of social exclusion and people naturally want to belong.

TL;DR people want to like Sonic, and sadly the fandom is very tense and it's unpopular to say that Sonic is Good. The people who want to change that have the wrong idea of how to remedy it, imo.

[BadBehavior]

I dont get how people can think Forces is anything better than awful. People say it's still better than 06 but

• Has multiple gameplay styles, none of which are remotely fun
• A story that takes itself too seriously
• Has Sonic's "shitty friends"

06 has all of those things too so what's different? The fact that Forces is so boring that at least it puts you to sleep before it starts getting bad? That Forces is so short that at least it can't get any worse before it ends?

I think the doubters might be onto something when they say that we're in a new Dark Age.

[Empire88]

@calamityCons

Yeah I can see that. I also agree that critics can be a little harsh (some are just straight-up bullies who pick on fans and disparage people for liking Sonic) even if the review itself may otherwise bring up valid points.

I think the problem is that it has made some fans defensive against all journalists in general and turn on each other in the fanbase. When a lot fans are not happy with Forces, then they get called Adventure fanboys get pushed into the same box as critics. Our legitimate criticisms and love for the franchise becomes noise. Thing is, I want Sonic to be loved and well-liked too. But as a fanbase, I respectfully think we need to be more demanding and not so casual towards mediocre products.

[Wraith]

The vast majority of the time, the problem Sonic games usually run into has been Sega trying to meet certain deadlines and release conditions to capitalize the most on casual consumers like kids and families. The type of person that would play the game once and forget about it and probably isn't talking about it online after the first week or two.

Because of this, I've always had a hard time believing the idea that Sonic fans are just not hard enough on the franchise and that's why the games are so bad. Hardcore discourse is already niche in the grand scheme of factors influencing development and it's a little unfair to tell someone that how they genuinely felt about the game just wasn't "harsh" enough. It feels like tone policing and the fandom trying to blame each other for things that are out of their control. 

And to be honest, I'm kind of tired of the fans that are clearly enjoying themselves feeling pressured to try and be more critical anyway. If someone thought a controversial or maligned release was fine, or even great, I'd love to hear why is resonated. That's more interesting to me than everyone trying to play armchair producer. 

[Empire88]

@Won't Stop, Just Go

I want to be clear as I think I may have miscommunicated. I don't feel that if you enjoyed something you need to be harsh on it or that you have bad standards. You do you. I am just saying let others air their problems with the games and don't condemn them for wanting the series to do more. Or don't falsely feel like you have to defend ST to prove you love the franchise. If a lot of people have a problem with a game, maybe there is something that needs to be discussed for the better. 

Though respectfully I have to disagree about consumers. Mainly franchises are aimed for kids. 

@calamityCons

For sure. I am not referring to my experience, as much as stuff I have been reading. I have been browsing for a relatively long time. 

[calamityCons]

22 minutes ago, prowerboy26 said:

@calamityCons

Yeah I can see that. I also agree that critics can be a little harsh (some are just straight-up bullies who pick on fans and disparage people for liking Sonic) even if the review itself may otherwise bring up valid points.

I think the problem is that it has made some fans defensive against all journalists in general and turn on each other in the fanbase. When a lot fans are not happy with Forces, then they get called Adventure fanboys get pushed into the same box as critics. Our legitimate criticisms and love for the franchise becomes noise. Thing is, I want Sonic to be loved and well-liked too. But as a fanbase, I respectfully think we need to be more demanding and not so casual towards mediocre products.

For what it's worth, if you wouldn't tolerate someone in real life dismissing your opinion on Sonic as you "being an Adventure fanboy" then you should feel free to assert a boundary by blocking. You don't have to validate that kind of reductive thinking with a response, and you don't have to take the person who said that in good faith. A statement like that is obviously disrespecting you, imo.

5 minutes ago, Won't Stop, Just Go said:

And to be honest, I'm kind of tired of the fans that are clearly enjoying themselves feeling pressured to try and be more critical anyway. If someone thought a controversial or maligned release was fine, or even great, I'd love to hear why is resonated. That's more interesting to me than everyone trying to play armchair producer. 

I hear you on that front. It becomes more and more difficult for me to trust YouTube recommendations regarding Sonic because even the positive videos about my favorite era (the so called "Dark Age") always have to take at least a SMALL dump on my favorite game in the Sonic Franchise (Shadow the Hedgehog). Often for very glossed over and dismissive reasons ("the bad controls"/"destroyed Shadow's reputation"/"Shadow has a gun and shoots people!?") and it's usually hard for me to feel comfortable sharing my love for that game because everyone just dismisses it out of hand. It's frustrating and makes me sad sometimes.

[Nestor]

53 minutes ago, BadBehavior said:

I dont get how people can think Forces is anything better than awful. People say it's still better than 06 but

• Has multiple gameplay styles, none of which are remotely fun
• A story that takes itself too seriously
• Has Sonic's "shitty friends"

06 has all of those things too so what's different? The fact that Forces is so boring that at least it puts you to sleep before it starts getting bad? That Forces is so short that at least it can't get any worse before it ends?

I think the doubters might be onto something when they say that we're in a new Dark Age.

In fairness, Forces is a functional game at least; it doesn't have the glitches and insane loading times of 06. It also doesn't have the odd 'realistic' art style 06 went for, or the Elise romance plot. Forces's main issues are bland level design and plotting; it's not technically bad like 06, but it also isn't a really good game. It's just.... very mediocre.

[Wraith]

7 minutes ago, prowerboy26 said:

@Won't Stop, Just Go

I want to be clear as I think I may have miscommunicated. I don't feel that if you enjoyed something you need to be harsh on it or that you have bad standards. You do you. I am just saying let others air their problems with the games and don't condemn them for wanting the series to do more. Or don't falsely feel like you have to defend ST to prove you love the franchise. If a lot of people have a problem with a game, maybe there is something that needs to be discussed for the better. 

 

I mean, yeah that's true too. It just sucks when people try to control the tone of the discussion too much. 

[Empire88]

Yeah I apologize if it came off that way. 

In discussions, I enjoy hearing what other people liked as well. I just noticed recently admist this news drought that the negative opinions towards Forces get dismissed in certain Sonic communities. Though, positive ones do too as well in different ways. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

6 hours ago, batson said:

Forces isn't a mere case of stagnation though. It's a case of them doing something bad that they've previously been able to do good. And that's downright embarassing.

And part of that has more to them not really developing it any further to be interesting. It’s stale, doesn’t do much new that Generations already brought to the table beyond the Rookie and Episode Shadow, hence the stagnation.

I’ll be fair to say that maybe it was a test bed for some new ideas in the future, hence why they made the rookie, but it does very little new with Sonic himself (both Classic and Modern).

[BadBehavior]

10 minutes ago, CrownSlayer’s Shadow said:

And part of that has more to them not really developing it any further to be interesting. It’s stale, doesn’t do much new that Generations already brought to the table beyond the Rookie and Episode Shadow, hence the stagnation.

I’ll be fair to say that maybe it was a test bed for some new ideas in the future, hence why they made the rookie, but it does very little new with Sonic himself (both Classic and Modern).

That might be part of it but I don't think people were asking for a more innovative game, they were asking for a game of equal quality. That's what they mean when they say Forces is worse: worse level design, worse controls, pretty much everything has been downgraded for no discernable reason. A downgrade from Adventure 1 or 2 to 06 is embarrassing, but to repeat such a "feat" again for an entirely different gameplay style just makes you wonder what the HFIL happened.

[Scritch the Cat]

5 hours ago, BadBehavior said:

I dont get how people can think Forces is anything better than awful. People say it's still better than 06 but

• Has multiple gameplay styles, none of which are remotely fun
• A story that takes itself too seriously
• Has Sonic's "shitty friends"

06 has all of those things too so what's different? The fact that Forces is so boring that at least it puts you to sleep before it starts getting bad? That Forces is so short that at least it can't get any worse before it ends?

I think the doubters might be onto something when they say that we're in a new Dark Age.

Don’t go reviving the myth that 06 was just bad because of the ideas behind it.  I won’t claim they’re good—Elise kissing Sonic would probably always make people cringe—but many of the other failures were due to them not taking enough time to complete the game.  SEGA shouldn’t live 06 down yet, but the real reason they shouldn’t isn’t because of its failure, which in itself they’ve apologized for, but because they have not yet apologized for learning the wrong lesson from its failure—that the way to fix the series was to tear out most of its parts.  I am not going to accept this company—or its apologists—protesting that it’s not attempting fully 3D environments and Tails and Knuckles playable since the risk of another 06 is too high, because SEGA managed to do those in Sonic games before 06.

Also get real; every main Sonic game released between 06 and Forces also had multiple gameplay styles.  This series is always going to face the problem of how to make its games feature-length because of how fast it’s hero travels, whether it solves that problem with excessive busywork to get the Chaos Emeralds, extra characters that move more slowly, segments that force Sonic to move more slowly, forced replaying of stages, etc, and since the dawn of built-in boost, that has gotten even more severe.  They’re going to keep releasing padded Sonic games, because the alternatives are short Sonic games.

5 hours ago, Nestor said:

In fairness, Forces is a functional game at least; it doesn't have the glitches and insane loading times of 06. It also doesn't have the odd 'realistic' art style 06 went for, or the Elise romance plot. Forces's main issues are bland level design and plotting; it's not technically bad like 06, but it also isn't a really good game. It's just.... very mediocre.

I haven’t played Forces myself, but it isn’t hard for me to believe it’s less broken than 06.  So what though?  A game merely being technically functional doesn’t make it fun.  It also doesn’t make its elements gel.  A game about a revolutionary war needs more and deeper combat.  I have no idea why they went for that scenario if they weren’t willing to go for that.  Likewise, a serious story needs better worldbuilding to make it work.

[BadBehavior]

22 minutes ago, Scritch the Cat said:

Don’t go reviving the myth that 06 was just bad because of the ideas behind it.

I wasn't trying to, I was just trying to challenge the assertion that Forces is somehow "better" than 06 despite the two games sharing many similarities. "06 bad cos multiple characters/ dark story blah de blah de blaaah". When this game has the same "problems" and is still just as bad.

Otherwise I agree, Sega are nothing short of cowards for de-listing 06 and other "mediocre" games like it. Just shows that they're not about learning from their history, but would rather repeat it which is what I predit will happen if this next game is even worse than Forces.

What shape this hypothetical game would take is beyond even my skills of prediction. Maybe they replace the Avatar with even more Classic Sonic. And then give him the drop dash, insta-shield and homing attack all on the same button. While giving him Sonic 4 physics.

[Rowesh]

(First active post, greetings.)

I can throw my two cents as a relatively newer fan: as an outsider growing up in the 2010's, Sonic was easily a joke franchise to me most of the time. It had charisma and was certainly a household name of respect from parents, but watching the series closely through (threacherous) youtube reviewers and comedy videos, the reputation wasn't quite upstanding. Sonic 06 and later Sonic Boom: RoL certainly stained me watching the horrendous glitches and yikes, the cringe scene of dead Sonic being kissed by a human girl...

Years later I find myself interested in it, contemplating this beautiful mess. It's great to be able to experience all eras of Sonic the Hedgehog so far, and I guess I can only pity those who feel sad watching the franchise fall into dismay for years. For all the janky games, weird cartoons and cool but sometimes bizarre comics, I can definitely feel the "cool edge" Sonic has held in many of his incarnations, and I can only say I'm dazzled by it.

Now, if I have faith in Sonic? Kind of. I'd find it difficult to believe in SEGA's management and Sonic Team's questionable competence coming from this rotten history. But frankly? Sonic has something few other franchises have: It's volatile, unpredictable and kinda exciting. Seeing from my interpretation how Sonic began as a staunch rival to Mario, went through many changes and adaptations to keep up with SEGA's goals, went through so many creative minds and was changed by the fans. My only fear, really, is Sonic becoming boring and stagnant, which kinda is happening in this era. Regardless, as I said, Sonic is unpredictable, for better or worse. I just hope it can keep being interesting. 

[batson]

8 hours ago, Rowesh said:

(First active post, greetings.)

I can throw my two cents as a relatively newer fan: as an outsider growing up in the 2010's, Sonic was easily a joke franchise to me most of the time. It had charisma and was certainly a household name of respect from parents, but watching the series closely through (threacherous) youtube reviewers and comedy videos, the reputation wasn't quite upstanding. Sonic 06 and later Sonic Boom: RoL certainly stained me watching the horrendous glitches and yikes, the cringe scene of dead Sonic being kissed by a human girl...

Years later I find myself interested in it, contemplating this beautiful mess. It's great to be able to experience all eras of Sonic the Hedgehog so far, and I guess I can only pity those who feel sad watching the franchise fall into dismay for years. For all the janky games, weird cartoons and cool but sometimes bizarre comics, I can definitely feel the "cool edge" Sonic has held in many of his incarnations, and I can only say I'm dazzled by it.

Now, if I have faith in Sonic? Kind of. I'd find it difficult to believe in SEGA's management and Sonic Team's questionable competence coming from this rotten history. But frankly? Sonic has something few other franchises have: It's volatile, unpredictable and kinda exciting. Seeing from my interpretation how Sonic began as a staunch rival to Mario, went through many changes and adaptations to keep up with SEGA's goals, went through so many creative minds and was changed by the fans. My only fear, really, is Sonic becoming boring and stagnant, which kinda is happening in this era. Regardless, as I said, Sonic is unpredictable, for better or worse. I just hope it can keep being interesting. 

Welcome to the forums!

It's always interesting to me to hear from people who grew up completely in the era where Sonic had become a joke. I sometimes find myself wondering whether today's youngsters have any respect for the franchise at all. As for people of my generation (me being born in 1986) they practically always have memories of the time when Sonic was considered the coolest video game franchise in the world, and no amount of terrile sequels seem to negate the fundamental appreciation they have for the franchise.

[iambitter21]

9 hours ago, Rowesh said:

I just hope it can keep being interesting.

don't worry, no matter how screwed this franchise is and how many fails sonic team has tried to endure, sonic is NEVER boring... except for the first game, the first game is boring after a while.

[DCFCSonic20]

To say that you hardly have any faith is being extremely pessimistic. Sonic is riding his cotails off the back of the movie. Which was a financial and critical success. If you say you're a Sonic fan in public nowadays, people won't groan at you or call you a child. They'd go "I used to love Sonic." Prior to the films release, that would just not be the case.

 

Sonic Forces had 4 years of development, with 3 of those spent on the graphics engine and not the game itself. With the 30th anniversary coming up next year. They will have had plenty of time to realise severe mistakes, hopefully fire Ken Pontac and Warran Graf and maybe get Ian Flynn from the IDW and Archie Comics to write a story for the games who actually knows about the franchise. Sonic needs to be stopped to be viewed as a joke, and being not serious with the stories in the games and being self aware is not helping Sonic's reputation. Hopefully the new 4 years of gathering ideas and developing the anniversary game isn't going to be for nothing. They are going to want it to be special like the 10th and 20th anniversary games in Adventure 2 and Generations respectively. 

 

To think they won't have learned something from this is being ignorant in my opinion. They need to be ambitious like their 2000s titles and not be scared to tell a compelling story. I have faith in Sonic team to give us something good for the 30th anniversary title.

[DCFCSonic20]

On 7/14/2020 at 10:54 PM, BadBehavior said:

I dont get how people can think Forces is anything better than awful. People say it's still better than 06 but

• Has multiple gameplay styles, none of which are remotely fun
• A story that takes itself too seriously
• Has Sonic's "shitty friends"

06 has all of those things too so what's different? The fact that Forces is so boring that at least it puts you to sleep before it starts getting bad? That Forces is so short that at least it can't get any worse before it ends?

I have multiple issues with this statement you just made. I'll breakdown my points one by one for you.

 

1. "Has multiple gameplay styles, none of which are remotely fun." This is entirely subjective, someone who primarily plays first person shooters like Call of Duty would be bored to tears if he had to play a 3D platformer. Because it's something completely different to what they like, and most likely wouldn't like it. It's not the type of game they enjoy. I got a few kicks in some stages with 3D Sonic, boosting along can be pretty exilerating in my opinion. It was fun at points. I hated the way Classic Sonic played and the Avatar was very clunky to control. The gameplay has major flaws in having the level geometry and stage design compliment the gameplay. However, flaws doesn't make it boring. People enjoy Sonic 06, which they admit is very flawed in its gameplay but still like it, as well as in Shadow the Hedgehog. You may find that boring, other people enjoy it. Hence the point, that you saying it's boring is objective. When it's not. It's subjective.

2. "A story that takes itself too seriously." Since when? It just has a darker and intriguing premise, which thanks to crummy writing that doesn't make it serious enough. There's not enough depth, the major flaws are right there in the writing. I couldn't count how many times Sonic has cheesy lines about friendship or making stupid jokes. Sonic 06 took itself far too seriously, but there is no comparison to be made to Forces in regards to seriousness as they are at polar opposite ends of that spectrum.

3. "Has Sonic's "shitty friends."" And that's a bad thing? Everyone aside from the main cast has been put on the backburner since Sonic 06. Not including any spinoffs or the Storybook games. Sonic Unleashed, had Chip as the main sidekick with Tails being there every now and then along with Amy. No Knuckles, No Shadow. Sonic Colours had no one aside from Sonic, Tails and Eggman. No Knuckles, Amy or Shadow. Generations, to its credit had them. But did nothing to actually give them a role. They were primarily there for anniversary sakes. Sonic Lost World, had Tails with Sonic the entire time. And Amy and Knuckles back on Earth/Mobius. In that game, both Amy and Knuckles had no role to play in the story aside from just being there. 

Sonic Forces actually used most of his friends, with the exception of Blaze (seriously where is she?) . And gave them, a solid role in the story.  Knuckles was the leader of the resistance alongside Amy. Shadow was on a mission to infiltrate Eggman's base with Rouge and Omega. Silver tracked down Infinite to Luminous Forest. The Avatar went to go and save Sonic from the Death Egg. The fact that Forces has the balls to use most of their cast to significance in the plot, and you to claim they are just his "shitty friends" is completely ignorant. 

 

Forces isn't actually a bad game, it's just terribly mediocre. It's not even close to being broken like the 15th anniversary game Sonic 06. 

1 hour ago, iambitter21 said:

don't worry, no matter how screwed this franchise is and how many fails sonic team has tried to endure, sonic is NEVER boring... except for the first game, the first game is boring after a while.

Well, any game that you play over and over again will be bound to get boring eventually. 

[iambitter21]

10 minutes ago, DCFCSonic20 said:

Well, any game that you play over and over again will be bound to get boring eventually. 

bet.

[calamityCons]

Well now you’re just trying to start a fight

[Rowesh]

2 hours ago, batson said:

Welcome to the forums!

It's always interesting to me to hear from people who grew up completely in the era where Sonic had become a joke. I sometimes find myself wondering whether today's youngsters have any respect for the franchise at all. As for people of my generation (me being born in 1986) they practically always have memories of the time when Sonic was considered the coolest video game franchise in the world, and no amount of terrile sequels seem to negate the fundamental appreciation they have for the franchise.

Hey thank you. I believe Sonic still has a ton of appeal, and that may be something it cannot be taken away. At least in my perception, a lot of kids are interested and having fun with the franchise, and of course you can expect younger adult fans to come by with their own opinions over the content. I personally try to make up my mind and experiment with all eras, and I'm certain there is something to enjoy in each of them. Now is Sonic still a joke? Yeah, the memes and mockery from outsiders won't stop anytime soon. But if you ask me, the Movie so far brough a ton of positivity in mainstream media, and frankly that's all Sonic needs, quality content. At least for me, there is hope for more Sonic to come.

1 hour ago, iambitter21 said:

don't worry, no matter how screwed this franchise is and how many fails sonic team has tried to endure, sonic is NEVER boring... except for the first game, the first game is boring after a while.

Being interesting is great, although new good games and content are even better, don't you think? I wouldn't mind that.

[batson]

34 minutes ago, iambitter21 said:

bet.

Meh, I definitely think Sonic 1 is more fun than Sonic Adventure 2, but each to their own. The Sonic and Shadow stages in Adventure 2 are great, but the fact that the game forces you to play mediocre mech stages and boring treassure hunting stages brings the experience down.