balladofwindfishes
Member
This would be a disaster. At an acceptable speed for Sonic to move, the environments would need to be huge barren wastelands.
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Sonic Forces - Space Port Gameplay
- Thread starter Not75Drops
- Start date
This would be a disaster. At an acceptable speed for Sonic to move, the environments would need to be huge barren wastelands.
They created shadow the Hedgehog.
Professor Lexicovermis
Member
As unimpressive as Forces seems, at least there's one Sonic game I'm certain it'll be better than:
Secret Rings.
I've been watching a playthrough of it, and HOO BOY does it have some BAAAAD design decisions. I'm tempted to say it's objectively the worst Sonic? Because for as broken as 06 and Boom are, at least they're entertainingly buggy. Secret Rings is practically irredeemable. I have no idea why young me loved it...
Secret Rings.
I've been watching a playthrough of it, and HOO BOY does it have some BAAAAD design decisions. I'm tempted to say it's objectively the worst Sonic? Because for as broken as 06 and Boom are, at least they're entertainingly buggy. Secret Rings is practically irredeemable. I have no idea why young me loved it...
Secret rings only got better after you spent a couple of hours unlocking better controls. After that I found it to be just fine.
Forces just seems so uninspired so far. Too dark, too edgy, and really basic and even more automated level design
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
And yet a demo with neither structure nor the polish a full game would have, already proves it works and is fun. An open space to move in is not the same as a barren wasteland. You can fill the space with ramps, loops, platforms etc. And the speed doesn't need to be boost levels anyway. Speed wouldn't cause environments to be a barren wasteland any more than the boos formula does with linear environments.
Davey Cakes
Member
I legitimately enjoyed Secret Rings despite its faults, and found it to be a rewarding game thanks to the unlockable skills. That said, we're talking early 2007 on the Wii, where it was easy to give certain games a pass since there wasn't much else to play on the system at that time.
With Forces, we're talking a multiplatform Sonic game in 2017, and one that has a lot of other Sonic games to pull from and improve upon. There aren't a lot of excuses. People may have thought ill of the Secret Rings controls but at least they can admit that game was experimenting with some new, Wii-centric concepts. Forces is doing, what, custom avatars?
With Forces, we're talking a multiplatform Sonic game in 2017, and one that has a lot of other Sonic games to pull from and improve upon. There aren't a lot of excuses. People may have thought ill of the Secret Rings controls but at least they can admit that game was experimenting with some new, Wii-centric concepts. Forces is doing, what, custom avatars?
balladofwindfishes
Member
A demo is not a full game with interesting missions and gameplay.
The novelty of Sonic running around a big playground with nothing to do but ramps would wear off in an hour. There's also a ton of filler wasted space in that demo.
Professor Lexicovermis
Member
I enjoyed it at the time too, but... looking back it has some major problems.
I THINK making motion controls optional would've alleviated most of the problems; having to UNLOCK an acceptable level of control over your character is absolutely insane.
I will readily admit that it's a refreshing experiment, particularly with a unique setting for Sonic, but I'm not really comfortable with calling it a "good" game. Perhaps if it were originally released today, with button controls and some cleanup of the physics engine, it might have done pretty well for itself.
moltonasty
Member
I mean Secret Rings is pretty bad, but it's a masterpiece compared to the alternative at the time, Sonic 06.
Punished Stallion
Banned
I'm a generally positive person. I want every game to be successful
I take no pleasure in watching people fail. What's wrong with that?
Punished Stallion
Banned
I generally dislike hiveminds. Also going into a person's posting history just for fuel is beyond pathetic. Get a life
Linkstrikesback
Member
"Fuel". Yikes.
Each post a person makes isn't in a vacuum and if you make a statement that isn't supported by what you actually say, people are going to point it out.
BodiesWithoutOrgans
Member
So tired of this sonic gameplay needs to go back to adventure style or open world
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
And why exactly wouldn't you be able to provide interesting missions and gameplay in a full game in an open environment? The mechanics would allow for it. There is flexibility there. I have no doubt a talented developer would be able to pull it off. It's not just a novelty. You absolutely can design a full Sonic game with open 3D environments, traversal mechanics that work, and have more intricate platform based challenges in there as well. Mechanically there is nothing that is stopping a Sonic game from pulling it off well any more than any other franchise.
I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
I find this idea that Sonic can only work in a linear space in 3D especially odd considering the roots of this franchise are all about expansive stages that heavily reward exploration and very free flowing mechanics.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
On the contrary, making Sonic's speed a priority over the rest of the game design is a leading cause of why 3D/recent Sonic games are rarely, if ever, good platformers.
The Genesis games and Mania utilized speed as a gameplay trademark, and the former group of titles were heavily marketed on speed. But they had far more material going on underneath the surface. Sonic was fast, but you still had the weird sloped level design, their momentum-based pinball physics, the wide variety of zone-specific/act-specific level gimmicks/mechanics, the branching paths and secret rooms, multiple characters with unique abilities in Tails/Knuckles, and shield powerups; among other elements. And those elements were all designed in tandem with each other.
Most of the later Sonic games are and have been exceedingly shallow in their design compared to them and other platformers--Mario, DK, Crash, Rayman, etc.--because making Sonic fast (whether it be with moves like the boost or homing attack, or heavily directed gameplay like speed boosters and scripted sequences) was more important than building dynamic levels or fleshing out Sonic's controls/moveset, among other things. They only have flakes of the aforementioned elements from the Genesis games, if they even have them at all; and they are all treated as background elements in importance.
The way most Sonic games are created, the impression you get from Sega/Sonic Team/Dimps/etc. is that speed is the only thing that holds up (3D) Sonic gameplay. Irregardless if it's a mini-sandbox 3D Sonic or a linear 3D Sonic, just make a good 3D platforming game. The speed is only a bonus component.
Waddle Dee
Member
Weird that we're getting into a discussion about Secret Rings of all games.
Yeah, I liked it to an extent back when it came out. It took a couple months for me to take in just how awful Sonic 2006 was (I was 14 at the time and in denial for a bit) so Secret Rings was a breath of fresh air in comparison. I actually went back and replayed Secret Rings (and 100% for the first time) back in 2012 and overall I think it's one of the lesser fun 3D Sonic games (Black Knight and Lost World are probably the least enjoyable for me) and I'm not talking about objective quality. Just how much fun I, personally, can get out of them. Sonic 2006 is a buggy mess and that leads to some fun goofing around and breaking the game and for as much shit as Shadow (rightfully) gets, I still find most of the base game to be entertaining in short bursts.
Secret Rings just isn't much fun because once the novelty of the Wiimote wore out, the game had little to back it up. It's overly restrictive, full of filler missions, and isn't quite consistent enough control-wise. The Arabian themed levels just aren't a great fit for the Sonic series for the most part and most of the environments are too bleak looking. I do really love the unique look of Levitated Ruins and the music there is beautiful, but most of the environments are underwhelming to me. The less said about the weird-ass plot, the better. It's not so-bad-it's-amazing, like Shadow or 06, it's just... odd.
At least it's better than Black Knight...? ¯\_(ツ
_/¯
Yeah, I liked it to an extent back when it came out. It took a couple months for me to take in just how awful Sonic 2006 was (I was 14 at the time and in denial for a bit) so Secret Rings was a breath of fresh air in comparison. I actually went back and replayed Secret Rings (and 100% for the first time) back in 2012 and overall I think it's one of the lesser fun 3D Sonic games (Black Knight and Lost World are probably the least enjoyable for me) and I'm not talking about objective quality. Just how much fun I, personally, can get out of them. Sonic 2006 is a buggy mess and that leads to some fun goofing around and breaking the game and for as much shit as Shadow (rightfully) gets, I still find most of the base game to be entertaining in short bursts.
Secret Rings just isn't much fun because once the novelty of the Wiimote wore out, the game had little to back it up. It's overly restrictive, full of filler missions, and isn't quite consistent enough control-wise. The Arabian themed levels just aren't a great fit for the Sonic series for the most part and most of the environments are too bleak looking. I do really love the unique look of Levitated Ruins and the music there is beautiful, but most of the environments are underwhelming to me. The less said about the weird-ass plot, the better. It's not so-bad-it's-amazing, like Shadow or 06, it's just... odd.
At least it's better than Black Knight...? ¯\_(ツ
_/¯I Wanna Be The Guy
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
At first I hated Secret Rings. Then it grew on me. Then I played it again years later and hated it again. Soundtrack is hot fire though.
Forces looks average at worst.
Shadow, 06 and Boom looked like garbage in comparison.
I dont understand how people can feel Forces could look worse than these abominations. I really dont.
Boom was the only Sonic game from the initial trailer that I had zero confidence and interest in
Shadow, 06 and Boom looked like garbage in comparison.
I dont understand how people can feel Forces could look worse than these abominations. I really dont.
Boom was the only Sonic game from the initial trailer that I had zero confidence and interest in
Yeah this Sonic Forces demo sucked hardcore.
It's like the worst parts of the Unleashed levels mashed with some stupid shit.
I don't know what they need to do but anything but this would be preferable...
Ok maybe not Sonic 06 or Sonic Boom...Ok not Shadow either.
Secret Rings for what it was worked fairly decently, it controls as you expect it to control (and being one of the early motion control games it can get unwieldy at times but nothing to stop someone from finishing it).
The major levels are big and full of secret routes you can go if you're skilled enough.
they kinda overstayed their welcome with the small missions you had to go through but nothing too egregious.
they fucked it up pretty badly with Black Knight and Sonic Forces look like the same stop and go gameplay that is unplayable and not even fun.
Oh and for the music, come on it's Sonic, it'll be decent at worst.
It's like the worst parts of the Unleashed levels mashed with some stupid shit.
I don't know what they need to do but anything but this would be preferable...
Ok maybe not Sonic 06 or Sonic Boom...Ok not Shadow either.
Secret Rings for what it was worked fairly decently, it controls as you expect it to control (and being one of the early motion control games it can get unwieldy at times but nothing to stop someone from finishing it).
The major levels are big and full of secret routes you can go if you're skilled enough.
they kinda overstayed their welcome with the small missions you had to go through but nothing too egregious.
they fucked it up pretty badly with Black Knight and Sonic Forces look like the same stop and go gameplay that is unplayable and not even fun.
Oh and for the music, come on it's Sonic, it'll be decent at worst.
Punished Stallion
Banned
The adventure style was bad and open world is played out
Professor Beef
Banned
You know what? Fuck open world. I'm so sick and tired of people trying to make every game an open-world one. Not every game would be better as an open world, it would just make every game more boring. Yeah it was just a demo but Sonic Utopia looked like the most boring trash I have ever seen since Nier Automata.
What the hell is wrong with a tight-knit obstacle course anyways?
Waddle Dee
Member
Yeah, I'm sick of open worlds too. I'm playing The Evil Within 2 and while I like the game, I greatly miss the more pulse-pumping linearity of the first game, where everything was tightly designed. Now most of your time is spent in open environments and the linear sections they do have feel underdeveloped.
The only game in recent memory where the idea of an open playground feels like a great idea is Mario Odyssey, but that's a big Nintendo game, and no one else puts quite as much effort into their key titles as Nintendo does. An open world 3D Sonic game would be an absolute mess.
DeathbyCheerios
Member
The open-world fatigue is real.
I liked when they were few and far between. Like I loved Oblivion. But it's a genre that is too over done and causes me to miss so much of the games cause I just say fuck it, and stick to the story anyways.
I still enjoy open world games. I don't think the problem is having more or less open worlds, but the quality of them.
This year we had Horizon, a top 3 , probably GOTY. And right now I'm playing Dragon's Dogma which is amazing.
That being said, not every game has to be open world, and I think Sonic is one of them.
This year we had Horizon, a top 3 , probably GOTY. And right now I'm playing Dragon's Dogma which is amazing.
That being said, not every game has to be open world, and I think Sonic is one of them.
Despite the control issues at the start secret rings is signficantly better tthan 06 and Boom. I actually speedran the game when I was younger(came close to getting a lot of world records on some missions in the game to) and I found it quite fun to play once I ranked my sonic to around level 50.Speedrunning the game was quite fun despite the lack of documentation. Also,you usually can equip skills around level 50 that make sonic run moderately fast(you don't run at his max speed until you get a certain skill in the game) and make it a lot easier to control him.
Astral Dog
Member
Sonic open world ohhboy i cant imagine how Sonic Team would do it.
Astral Dog
Member
its funny because all i read of TEW 2 is how the open areas are just a small part of the game and the best designed
Saying you don't want this to fail and saying it looks fine are two different things though and insinuating that people who point out how bad this looks somehow want to see it fail is also wrong.
Maybe it's not a hivemind but simply the majority of people sharing an opinion? Also looking up peoples post history first page takes like a minute. You're posting on a gamiing forum like everyone else here and tell others to get a life. Think about that for a second.
I mean being better than '06, Boom and Shadow is not a huge feat. It can better than those and still be garbage.
Not every game needs to be turned into an open world game, Sonic is one of them.
It's a quick time event, for some reason as it looks impossible to fail it unless one does it on purpose...like I will as I loath the Avatar characters.
Sonic Team sucks... they just suck. I'm sorry but it is what it is. It's been four years since the last 3D Sonic game, Sonic Lost World, and six years since the last boost game Sonic Generations. And this is what they come up with? I've seen nothing about this game that looks better than Generations was and that was six years ago. A fun game that was far from perfect and had room to improve on in terms of physics, length and story. But instead we get Forces, just an ultimate conglomeration of past ideas and concepts thrown on a drawing board with no understanding of what made people enjoy those things, only a prayer that fans will see some returning feature and pick up the game without analysing it first. I could go into more detail with the problems seen in the videos but I'll spare the effort as it's already been said in this thread and elsewhere many times, there's little point.
The underlying issue imo is that there was seemingly no grand thought or ambition put into this game whatsoever, with the best defense I've yet seen for this game being it's 40 dollars and it might actually be average not terrible. Like... no. Sonic deserves better. The fanbase deserves better than that at this point. The fanbase that's stuck with Sonic disappointing game after disappointing game, just hoping for Sonic Team to finally start building on something tangible and release something special for once, something actually worthy of Sonic's past legacy. Well they've had enough chances already, I'd be more than fine with someone else finally giving it a go now, it simply cannot be much worse. Perhaps I've simply become jaded with the years of waiting for something fun and being subsequently let down, but if that's true then many others have been feeling the same way. There must be a reason for that beyond simple nostalgia.
The underlying issue imo is that there was seemingly no grand thought or ambition put into this game whatsoever, with the best defense I've yet seen for this game being it's 40 dollars and it might actually be average not terrible. Like... no. Sonic deserves better. The fanbase deserves better than that at this point. The fanbase that's stuck with Sonic disappointing game after disappointing game, just hoping for Sonic Team to finally start building on something tangible and release something special for once, something actually worthy of Sonic's past legacy. Well they've had enough chances already, I'd be more than fine with someone else finally giving it a go now, it simply cannot be much worse. Perhaps I've simply become jaded with the years of waiting for something fun and being subsequently let down, but if that's true then many others have been feeling the same way. There must be a reason for that beyond simple nostalgia.
Music was so good. Loved Planet Wisp, Terminal Velocity, and Aquarium Park. Don't like how this game wants vocals everywhere.
It's really funny how some Sonic fans think this looks bad yet sing praises about Sonic Adventure 1/2 and Unleashed, games that were filled with garbage tier filler to go through just to get to some decent Sonic levels.
I'll take this OC gameplay over the shit in the games mentioned above any day.
I'll take this OC gameplay over the shit in the games mentioned above any day.
I mean I can explain it you if you are actually willing to listen
It's not even about the original the character gameplay, it's the overall level design of every stage that's been shown so far (including both Sonics) that looks bad.
Nintendoga
Member
We thought the dark age of Sonic was over but it only came back in full force.
The thought of a Mania 2 fills me with hope at least.
The thought of a Mania 2 fills me with hope at least.
So far the vocals have only been in the create a character levels. it seems deliberate
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
You say this as if the OC and the Classic Sonic playstyles themselves aren't filler gameplay players have to sit through alongside the Boost playstyle. Granted, the former two may still be platformers rather than complete genre shifts; but given how none of the three playstyles look exceptional as it is, that's not really anything worth trumpeting about as an advantage.
Days like these...
Have a Blessed Day
This looks like trash, they should have just refined Lost World and or Heroes.
Professor Lexicovermis
Member
Weird that we're getting into a discussion about Secret Rings of all games.
Yeah, I liked it to an extent back when it came out. It took a couple months for me to take in just how awful Sonic 2006 was (I was 14 at the time and in denial for a bit) so Secret Rings was a breath of fresh air in comparison. I actually went back and replayed Secret Rings (and 100% for the first time) back in 2012 and overall I think it's one of the lesser fun 3D Sonic games (Black Knight and Lost World are probably the least enjoyable for me) and I'm not talking about objective quality. Just how much fun I, personally, can get out of them. Sonic 2006 is a buggy mess and that leads to some fun goofing around and breaking the game and for as much shit as Shadow (rightfully) gets, I still find most of the base game to be entertaining in short bursts.
Secret Rings just isn't much fun because once the novelty of the Wiimote wore out, the game had little to back it up. It's overly restrictive, full of filler missions, and isn't quite consistent enough control-wise. The Arabian themed levels just aren't a great fit for the Sonic series for the most part and most of the environments are too bleak looking. I do really love the unique look of Levitated Ruins and the music there is beautiful, but most of the environments are underwhelming to me. The less said about the weird-ass plot, the better. It's not so-bad-it's-amazing, like Shadow or 06, it's just... odd.
At least it's better than Black Knight...? ¯_(ツ
Yeah, I think that about sums it up: odd.
MAKE BELIEFS REBORN
WHOS GONNA ROCK THE PLACE
ITS A JUNGLE
etc.
Yes, but do you see the issue that implies? You have to GRIND to UNLOCK control over your character. That's not good, in my opinion.
That's why I consider Secret Rings as bad as Sonic 2006.
Giving shitty controls to your character and having to "unshit" them with leveling is just a basic example on how not to do a videogame.