General Sonic The Hedgehog thread

Now that Sonic Mania's out, do you guys think that Sonic Forces may get the luck of having the And You Thought It Would Fail case?

I certainly hope so.

Doubt it. It's certainly not going to do bad, but it doesn't look anywhere near as structured or polished as Mania.

I find he doomsaying about Forces to be overblown and kind of silly, so I'd like it too.

The hoopla about lives being here is weird, also, because everyone still uses them. Die, and you restart from a checkpoint. Die too much, and you reset from the beginning. The only difference nowadays is that thanks so saving systems - including with Mania - "the beginning" means the from your last save, or in other words the start of the current level or series of levels for Anti Frustration.

Mario uses it, Kirby uses it, Rayman uses it, etc. It's a basic part of the platforming challenge, because platformers tend to be too short and fast past to just allow the player to Save Scum from every checkpoint.

edited 16th Aug '17 7:47:34 AM by KnownUnknown

I really hope that becomes the case. Mania's success (which, surprise surprise, is freaking huge) deciding the future of the franchise already had me gravely worried about the fate of Modern Sonic. If Forces ends up failing one way or another, I seriously fear that SEGA may very well just drop Modern Sonic and everything in the Modern Era in general in favor of complete focus on Classic Sonic and that era

Maybe I'm just being needlessly worried (admittedly, that's what I do all the time), but SEGA has always been all too willing to cancel even the most popular Sonic media if they prove unsuccessful. Pretty much the only Sonic spinoff we've had since 2010 is the Olympics crossover with Mario, but that's bound to end after the lackluster sales of Rio, and SEGA even ended Archie Sonic despite its huge fanbase and great reception. Fans have been begging for the non-main cast to be brought back into the games for years now and they still remain on the bus (yes, Forces is bringing them back but so far only as a Voice with an Internet Connection except for Shadow, and even then we're still missing notable characters like Cream, Rouge, and Blaze). In regards to Modern Sonic, that has always been a mixed bag among the fanbase and even the general public, with people at least criticizing most aspects of it and downright loathing the Modern Era at worst. Meanwhile, people have nothing but high praise for the Classic Era and overall prefer Classic Sonic to Modern, down to the design. Should Forces fail, who's to say that won't be the last straw for SEGA and they decide "screw this, let's just pretend Modern Sonic never existed and the Classic is the main, present universe now"?

Yes, SEGA did continue on with Modern Sonic after the colossal failure that is Sonic 06, but I'm certain the reason why they continued after that is because 1) they knew the major issue was the gameplay and were confident that the Boost gameplay from Rush would redeem the games (and sure enough, it did) and 2) Modern Sonic was the only Sonic at the time, there were no alternate identities. But now, Classic Sonic is distinct from Modern Sonic, and Classic just got a brand new game in Mania which has gotten mega hype and is hailed as the best thing ever for the entire franchise, so now SEGA would have no reason to continue with Modern if Forces doesn't work out...

So yeah, Forces better not fail

edited 16th Aug '17 7:56:28 AM by KaoticKanine

Let's be perfectly fair, if Forces under-performs. Sonic Team have nobody to blame but themselves, they made the game and all of it's design decisions and thought "Yea, this is a good idea".

So yea, I'd probably feel a little bad, but I'm not gonna pretend like they haven't been under-performing for years now.

This can happen, but it'd pretty much mean Classic would continuously overshadow Modern.

edited 16th Aug '17 8:09:19 AM by BlackYakuzu94

Why not just continue to release Classic Sonic games and Modern Sonic games?

I honestly couldn't care less about Mania so I really hope Forces is good. At the very least I think it's moving in the right direction solely for using my two favorite Sonic villains (Metal and Chaos).

edited 16th Aug '17 8:27:17 AM by LordVatek

Because that's what Mario would do...

And no matter how sensible, SEGA won't do it...

But why not? Mania is fun and I recommend it

edited 16th Aug '17 8:28:57 AM by AlphaVII

I wonder how the Chaos boss fight will go in Forces. Sonic already beat up Perfect Chaos in Generations, and I can't imagine he'll get all of the Chaos Emeralds in this game.

Will it just be Chaos 0 again? Or maybe he'll transform from Chaos 0 to Chaos 6 over the course of the fight?

Oh I have no doubts about its quality, I've just never had strong feelings about the 2D games to begin with (I think they're good platformers but that's pretty much it) so a game that's dedicated to celebrating them doesn't sound particularly interesting to me at all.

edited 16th Aug '17 8:35:02 AM by LordVatek

x7 That's the thing though; WILL Sonic Team blame themselves for Forces' potential underperformance? I'm more inclined to think they won't because people largely prefer to blame other things over themselves for the failure of something, not unless they're humble enough, and this has happened before with other Sonic spin offs. When Sonic Free Riders became a critical and commercial failure, did SEGA blame themselves for deciding to make it exclusive to the Kinect and entirely controlled with motion (and do a poor job of it)? Maybe they did, but that certainly didn't stop them from ending the Riders series then and there despite potential. And Sonic Team was all too quick to go with the crowd and blame the Werehog for Unleashed's controversial reception when THEY were the ones who had the stupid idea to insert slow, Go W style gameplay into the game and use the Werehog as a vehicle for it instead of giving the form much better gameplay or using it as a power up a la the Wisps, ruining a potentially interesting idea (or an awesome concept, if you ask me) in the same way the fishing gameplay ruined Big the Cat (who's just now getting popular due to Memetic Mutation and the Archie Comics)

x6 That would be very ideal, hell I've been wanting for that to happen for the longest time! Just release the Modern and Classic games side-by-side and we're all good. But, again, SEGA has always been all too willing to remove something that isn't very successful regardless of popularity, and Modern hasn't been successful thanks to their bumbling. Also isn't SEGA low on funds right now? Well, maybe not anymore thanks to Mania, but all the same they'll be focusing on making back their bank and will focus on the most lucrative part of Sonic for that, which Classic is undeniably being at the moment in terms of merchandise and now a stellar game. Besides, as Black Yakuzu said, Modern would end up getting overshadowed by Classic, so it won't be much better for Modern fans like myself

edited 16th Aug '17 8:38:20 AM by KaoticKanine

Classic and Modern are so divorced from each other that they've developed two entirely different demographics, that aren't particularly interested in the other.

Unfortunately, Modern is run by Sonic Team :V

For me, when it comes down to it, I really don't care what happens as long as Sonic games continue to be made. As for the current situation, the reception for Mania has been a breath of fresh air for me, so I'm holding out Sonic Team pull out the ultimate Author's Saving Throw in Forces.

If not, well, we'll see what happens from there.

edited 16th Aug '17 9:36:10 AM by erazor0707

I do feel this game lacks a bit of polish. There's a lot of bugs and jank that shouldn't be there,which I guess is par the course for a Sonic game to some extent but for a 2D one like this it makes feel kind of fangamey. Idk what's going on with SEGA's QA department.

Thing about Forces is that Sonic Team has no excuses if it turns out bad. They had time. They had financing. Any development troubles is on them and bad management decision making,as well as failure to execute. I do feel there's this thing within JP directors to sort impose their own signature on a game franchise installment they're involved in and in many cases in favor of core ideas that are a part of that franchise's identity. Instead of how, how can I make the best Sonic game? and more It's how can I, personally, leave the best mark on the franchise? i kind of get that feeling from Iizuka especially after SA 2 as idk he sort of got bigheaded? Lol.

JP directors do seem more eager to let audiences know what part they played, hence why they seemingly get so much more publicity compared to Western ones where the entire dev team gets credit without one guy being the face, unless they do something groundbreaking like John Romero with DOOM or notoriously infamous(peter molyneux, John Romero for Daikatana).

Been playing this slowly.

Metal Sonic's fight is garbage. First thing in the whole game I've thoroughly unenjoyed. It's not even that it's hard, it's just tedious and not well designed.

edited 16th Aug '17 11:36:36 AM by Hashil

What's badly designed about it? I'll admit my perception of the game is heavily biased because I'm a big fan of Classic Sonic if it wasn't obvious.

...That does make sense give all of the translated Japanese interviews I've read in the past.

As someone who hasn't played the game, I do like that... 2nd phase/1st proper stage of that boss fight, but it probably would be better if Silver Sonic is guaranteed to crash into Metal Sonic if it reaches a certain height, then it would be a lot more reliable to actually deal damage.

edited 16th Aug '17 12:49:19 PM by Numbuh1234

If Silver Sonic kept to one bouncing pattern I'd of had no problem with it, or even if the pattern changed every hit you scored. As is, with its constant cycling 4 steps + Metal Sonic's fireballs and how wonky it is knocking Silver into Metal it's just a pain in the butt. Add to it the fact that you can straight up kill Silver Sonic when they're neutral, even though that accomplishes nothing, and there's an extra layer of unintuitiveness to an already frustrating fight.

edited 16th Aug '17 1:27:59 PM by Hashil

I notice we haven't talked much about the Hard Boiled Heavies, how do you guys feel about them?

Personally, I think they're pretty interesting. I always liked Eggman having his own set of Elite Soldiers to take care of things he isn't around, and they're different flare from Metal Sonic all of the time.

I wish there was more of an indication as to their actual nature and if they betray Eggman at the end.

It's actually All in the Manual.

https://board.sonicstadium.org/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://i.imgur.com/t4hywKer.jpg&key=037de0d5e9cc090c08abf40f0ed222b2c99adf0dc90ef883cf38980139b4a671

So, the gem corrupting them and changing them is canon, then?

Eggman didn't bother running diagnostics?

I know that this is technically your first time with rouge AI, Eggy, but come on.

edited 16th Aug '17 3:12:35 PM by Grounder