But that's just it, people knew its an early build. The people expressing frustration is more along the lines that they expected a bigger change to the game than just reusing the Boost formula yet again, and the footage being shown off not really resembling the general aesthetic of the franchise.
Like the biggest negative I see being posted, aside from how jank the game looks, is that it doesn't really resemble a Sonic game in the slightest.
Its Hype Backlash more or less, as with any Sonic game.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:26:05 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
That kinda falls into a fallacy of trying to assume what can make a Sonic game a Sonic game with just a few details and before the full picture is out.
Edited by LoneCourier0 on Jun 7th 2022 at 10:26:49 AM
"Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try."And I'm sure people are still going to enjoy this game despite themselves too...but it doesn't really change some people just had higher expectations is all. And that's just...well...life.
To compare it to another franchise that has had a similar track record as Sonic, albeit with much better reception. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart kind of succeeded at what Sonic has been trying and failing to do; make a game that satisfies its older fanbase while still being accessible enough for the new crowd.
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Doesn't matter; first impressions are everything. Unless you're Nintendo and have basically become a god among gaming, developers generally use existing tropes and material to ease audiences in before they start showing off the new stuff.
Had this footage been say, an open-world Green Hill Zone...and THEN showed off other exotic areas, I feel like it (might have) gone over a bit better.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:31:05 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.That's not really true any more.
Transparency about development is becoming more and more of an essential these days. Loads of games keep the fanbase in the loop about the stages of their development, warts and all. In most franchises, it fosters a healthy relationship between developer and consumer and makes the fanbase feel like they're being included as the game is made. Again, this is something Sonic Team has sorely needed in the past.
This intense reaction against seeing anything that isn't perfect when showing off the game is kind of... well... old fashioned. The industry works like that less and less every year.
This doesn't just speaks to Sonic Team's past failures, it speaks to the fanbase being stuck in the past regarding those failures. They can't forget them, even when they should.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:35:42 AM
But that's not what they're doing though, or at the very least, they're doing a very terrible job at it.
Because as mentioned, there's no context to any of the footage we have. No objective, no HUD, we didn't even have any story details before today either. Even the showcase today that was meant to serve to reveal more details....didn't really show off much more than what we already knew.
Like, how much credit does Sega deserve for "being transparent" when they're still giving the bare minimum in details and expecting people to get excited?
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:43:43 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.![]()
This is why I dislike corrosive resentment over past things.
Maybe they're taking some steady pace in terms of what content to show, and thought the gameplay was to be shown first and foremost in these stages.
Could it have been better handled? Most likely. But that doesn't change the fact that the vocal fan reaction is being detrimental to the image.
Edited by LoneCourier0 on Jun 7th 2022 at 10:44:32 AM
"Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try."
Yeah, this. As I said before, whether Sonic Team could have presented it differently doesn't matter to the point that the fanbase still screwed up, and needs to know they screwed up before this sort of thing builds to something full-on negative.
Or maybe we're just looking in different places. I was looking at the comments on the released videos, on twitter, reddit, etc.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:46:58 AM
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You can dislike it all you want, but that's where we're at. This was the longest developmental cycle for a Sonic game to date, so it was inevitable people were going to get their expectations high, especially since the last game was a Contested Sequel.
The last thing people wanted was to be drip-fed content after being ghosted for half a decade with nothing to hold them over besides an average racing spin off, a poorly ported game from 2010, and some shorts.
Think the fact that Sonic fans have been kind of spoiled since the series used to have annual releases way back when too is also playing a factor here. And its not just Sonic too to be fair.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:48:04 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.You mean an unpleasable fanbase that is liable to get so overcome with negativity that they cannot reasonably interface with their own franchise any longer and thus have a tangible part in its subsequent negative direction?
Yeah, I dislike it quite a bit, and I intend to criticize it whenever it happens. That's the only way it changes.
Going "meh, that's just the way it is" isn't helpful. If anything, it's actively condoning things getting worse. Going "it's the company's fault we make such bad decisions" is also passing the buck and doing the same thing. You can see with other infamous fanbases that all this does is ensure that even if the franchise does get batter, the negative part of the fanbase stays exactly where it is.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:52:14 AM
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You're assuming the fanbase is a hivemind though and that everyone's opinions are uniform. That's why its called a Vocal Minority. They're a minority for a reason.
And that's one of Sega's biggest problems imo, that they bend to said Vocal Minority. Like, you're not going to change how the fanbase reacts to certain things, because that's assuming everyone has the same opinion.
Sega can choose how they react to certain things and just let the chips fall where they may. Like, if you want to criticize how the fanbase reacts fine, but then you should also criticize Sega for bending over backwards to them too.
But to be fair to Sega, we're in an age where its all too easy to fans to have their voices heard with social media being a common part of our lives now. Before, if fans were unsatisfied with how a series went, they either had to deal with it or just move on altogether as getting feedback directly to devs was next to impossible. If a game got good review scores, it succeeded as far as they were concerned.
Its why Sonic Team consider Sonic Forces a success despite what the fanbase thinks, because the game sold well at the end of the day. But Twitter makes it all too easy for devs to see the general reception to their games and how it goes and makes them much more reactionary as a result.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:55:14 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.Nope. I'm criticizing a very specific phenomena that tangibly, demonstrably actually happened over the course of the last few days, and pointing out that this phenomenon in the fanbase was a negative thing that shouldn't have happened and could have negative results.
Shifting it to "well, not all fanbasers" isn't helpful either. Obviously, I'm not talking about the fans who weren't being over-cynical conclusion jumpers. My point was pretty obviously not that the entire Sonic fanbase, bar nobody, is composed entirely of bad faith arguments. It was that the general response from the fanbase was poor.
If it helps separate the two, we could always think up a good nickname for that portion of the fanbase. Star Wars has "the fandom menace," for instance.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:56:47 AM
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Then the question becomes, why do you care so much about what the vocal parts of the fanbase are saying?
Like, Sonic Adventure fans have been bitching and moaning about story and more characters for well over a decade and I just learned to tune them out.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 4:57:25 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Yeah, I dislike it quite a bit, and I intend to criticize it whenever it happens. That's the only way it changes.
It's every fan's responsibility to call out bad faith in the fanbase when it happens. Period.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 1:58:56 AM
Think you're kind of exaggerating by calling it a "responsibility". I'll do it if I see it, but I'm not going out of my way to confront and talk down to every random Twitter, Reddit user with a shitty opinion.
I'd burn myself out doing that; it's exactly why I just mute and avoid these topics in general. Its simply not mentally healthy to interact with these people on a consistent basis. Because they're not operating on logic and reasoning, but pure emotion.
If someone isn't willing to be reasonable, then telling them off is simply going to go over their head and they're just gonna double down on their shitty ass, toxic mindsets. It doesn't help that most of these social media sites are nothing but echo chambers where people reinforce their own shitty opinions and validate themselves.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on Jun 7th 2022 at 5:01:14 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.No, I'm not. Not calling out poor behavior in a fanbase is how you get fanbases overwhelmed with negativity, which is a breeding ground for worse and worse things. If more fans called out things they knew were poor rather than made excuses for it, then a lot of infamous situations that fanbases get themselves might not have happened.
It's a known problem and has been in pop culture fanbses for a long time - kind of a mob mentality thing. Hell, it's been a known problem for this fanbase for decades.
Also...
Okay? Where'd you get the impression that that's what I was doing? This is very obviously not a random thread where none of this is relevant.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 7th 2022 at 2:05:43 AM
You are giving Sega way too much credit here.
The game comes out in 6 months, tops. That does not give time to make any major changes based on feedback without delays, and the game was already delayed iirc. They were also not upfront about this being an earlier build. It's generally assumed a game coming out soon is going to be shown off using the latest build possible unless otherwise stated.
Additionally, if this is an earlier build (which I honestly doubt, and is probably from no earlier than like January of this year), how useful would any feedback actually be? We don't know how much the game have changed since said build.
Sega's track record with Sonic does not make people inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Edited by Karxrida on Jun 7th 2022 at 2:04:26 AM

Having to find some interesting way to pad the game out isn't exclusive to the boost formula (even if it did exaggerate it a little), it's been a problem literally ever since Sonic Adventure.
Audiences won't accept a short game at all during the early 3D era, it was all about the content, but Sonic's very core design means that you have to make more level on average for less playtime on average. So what do you do?
SA 1 decided to have 5 different characters all share the same levels + the chao gardens
SA 2 decided to re-use assets to have similar level themes across three different gameplay styles + the chao gardens
Heroes literally forced you to play the game four times to truly beat it
06 took the SA 1 approach but without the chao gardens and only across three campaigns
Ironically enough Shadow's attempt at padding did so in a way that hyper encouraged replayability, to the extent that the first level become a minor point of annoyance for having to see it so often