Anyone actually like Forces???

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Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by ChillyChao »

Because at this point it feels like it's just me.
People complain aboqut controls, it think they're just fine.
People complain about what SEGA didn't do, they should stop complaining and just enjoy what they have, because it could be worse, as evidence from Sonic and the Secret Rings.
People complain about plot, the plot was just fine to me.
The only thing people should complain about, is Infinite, because he's a piece of trash.
Anyone else like it?
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Nano »

I know people who like it yeah.

Personally I don't hate it, but I think it's so incredibly bare bones average that it's borderline bad simply for being so painfully average. The controls didn't bother me too much, in fact they did some interesting things with the physics that I kinda enjoyed. SEGA though definitely dropped the ball. A single year dedicated to development time for the actual game is pathetic, and it makes me angry thinking about it considering the other 3 were dedicated to an engine they didn't even use lmao. When it came to the plot, it had a good concept, but terrible execution and a multitude of plot holes that stopped me from enjoying it. Infinite had amazing potential and could've been the spiritual successor to Shadow but of course they had to ruin him with a trash story line (I'M NOT WEEEEAAAAK). To top it all off, they shoehorned classic sonic in for basically no reason but to slightly pad out the game.

It's dumb, game isn't terrible but it's inexcusably average.
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Chao Professor »

Plot was one of the biggest issues for me, definitely. So many plot holes and poor execution. In fact, to even understand the entire story, you have to consult external media (the comics). But as Nano said, it did have great potential. It just failed to live up to my expectations. I don't hate it, and I still spent some time doing the S ranks (which is not difficult in these short af levels), but the final product just feels like so much less than it was built up to be. Infinite definitely had potential, but he was thrown away so fast. Wasn't even the final boss. His fights were okay, but that's all they were. O k a y .

Don't even get me started on classic Sonic. His stages were the worst part of this game, and he was absolutely useless. Classic fans were content with Mania. We did not need classic in Forces.

Instead, Tails should've worked alone and done something without Sonic for once. It's high-time for some character development on Modern Tails.
I totally despised Tails' characterization in this game. He's my fave, so this is a big deal. He took on Chaos 4 and won in Sonic Adventure, he should not be cowering in fear at Chaos 0. Wasn't his whole arc in that game about him gaining independence, realising he was his own person and he couldn't rely on Sonic for everything? Honestly, modern Tails bugs me. He definitely bugged me here.

One thing I did like about this game was the music, but I was hardly worried about that. Aqua road's my jam.

There are people who like this game, and those people are way more tolerant than I am lmao. I think it'd be a blast for newer Sonic fans.
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Ivogoji »

I haven't played it or any other recent games because I can't afford them.
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Sable »

I absolutely love Forces, and I think that it's a true return to form after the amazingly average Colors and the disgustingly poor Lost World.

Both of those games threw out everything that made Sonic, well, Sonic - the writing was dumbed down to ridiculous and patronizing Saturday morning cartoon bull****, everyone was disgustingly out of character, the games were padded to death with gimmicky systems that never felt fully integrated within their mechanics, and especially with Lost World, any semblance of originality or care in the aesthetics, art, and sound design was thrown out the window. This is most likely due to Morio Kishimoto, who was appointed director of the franchise beginning with Colors, (replacing Takashi Iizuka, who had handled nearly every major Sonic title from Sonic 3 & Knuckles up to Black Knight alongside Yuji Naka, who departed Sonic Team following Shadow the Hedgehog) as well as Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, who became the writers at around the same time. (replacing the roulette wheel of Akinori Nishiyama, Shiro Maekawa, the aforementioned Takashi Iizuka, and Kiyoko Yoshimura) Compounding this issue even further was the recast of the English dub's voice talent, which went in a very... questionable direction for a majority of the cast.

Generations was an excellent game, but it still suffered tremendously from poor writing and characterization as well as pandering heavily to nostalgia regarding Classic Sonic, who, in my opinion has rather iffy controls/physics and is markedly worse than other alternative playstyles like Unleashed's Werehog or the Adventure saga's treasure hunting - and all in all, it was merely a stopgap in Sonic's immense decline from its former identity. Every game up to Black Knight was, for the most part, tonally consistent, not afraid to experiment with unique gameplay experiences, had a wide and enjoyable cast of characters, and featured distinctive atmosphere and theming that shone through almost everything Sonic Team worked on and made them obvious labors of love, even despite executive meddling and poor design elements occasionally getting in the way.

With Sonic Mania, my interest in the franchise was completely revitalized - it took everything I loved about Classic Sonic, threw out what I didn't, and even made it better through the addition of things like the Drop Dash. The visuals and music were utterly fantastic, the level design was top notch, the play control and physics were absolutely perfect, the story took itself seriously and showed signs of promise, and ultimately I felt for the first time in close to seven years that the Sonic franchise was actually going somewhere worthwhile. I counted the days until Forces came out, it was my most anticipated gaming experience in an extremely long time, and at midnight I just sat down and played it - and for just a little while, I felt like nothing had ever been wrong with Sonic throughout the past few years.

I will admit there are rather glaring issues with the story, likely attributed to its well-known development hell; things like Infinite's transformation, the precise nature of the Phantom Ruby, Omega's repairs, etc. are all very annoying loose ends that, while not completely destroying the plot altogether, make it rather frustrating in hindsight. Additionally, Classic Sonic is very shoehorned in, likely to tie into Mania - ultimately his inclusion does nothing much to lower the game's overall quality, but it doesn't improve it any either as he's still as iffy and... tolerable as he was in Generations. Minimizing Modern Sonic's moveset is also questionable, but I want to say that nobody ever complained about this in the critically-acclaimed Colors, wherein he has practically the exact same abilities as Forces and even back then, it was a major regression on Unleashed's huge kit.

The localization is also not stellar - despite the writing being a dramatic improvement on recent games, (most likely due to Shun Nakamura taking helm as producer and Makoto Goya of Rhythm Thief and I Am Setsuna handling the writing) the English translation was still handled in part by Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, and it is not faithful in the slightest. This leads to a jarring disconnect between the significantly darker tone of the story and random, cringe-worthy quips. None of these are present in the original Japanese script, which is readable in part here - the main story will be done in due time, and a retranslation mod for the PC version is in the works. This is even further exacerbated by the aforementioned English cast, which delivers their absolute worst performance thus far. All of Roger Craig Smith's lines as Sonic feel pathetically phoned in, and it's almost as if Cindy Robinson forgot how to voice the original Amy after playing her in Boom-related media for so long.

Finally, the amount of asset reuse from prior titles is understandable considering the amount of trouble the development team went through, but it is still very noticeable and regrettable.

However, these are all ultimately very minor flaws to me, when the core of the package is so enjoyable. For the first time in ages, Sonic isn't standing around like some douche-y surfer dudebro, making awful puns and flailing his hands around with Tails practically hanging off his leg at all times. There's finally a sizable threat in the antagonist, and the narrative actually managed to keep me guessing about whether or not Eggman would be the final boss, which is something that hasn't been done in quite some time. A lot of the music was also fantastic, with tracks like Nowhere to Run, Moonlight Battlefield, Virtual Enemies, and especially Fading World serving as a true return to form, replacing the annoying high-tide music that comprised the majority of Lost World's soundtrack and taking the reins of older games by using each track's lyrics as a way to convey the characters' thoughts and feelings. In general, the soundtrack was quite good - although, a handful of Modern Sonic's songs could be rather samey at times, and Classic Sonic's were forgettable for the most part.

They also finally addressed the problem of Modern Sonic's controls in 2D - his jump carries momentum now, the boost has a logical arc and interacts dynamically with terrain, and overall it's much, much more manageable than the heavy and sluggish physics we were treated to from Colors until Lost World. Even in 3D, there has been a significant effort to loosen up the controls, which is greatly appreciated after Generations' wide turning radius, weighted jumps, and overall unresponsive free movement. It is worth noting that Unleashed had significantly better controls and physics than the other boost-formula games to this point in my opinion, and while Forces brings things in a different direction, overall, I think it's a much better approach than what they had prior.

Also, can I just bring up how amazing it is to finally be able to play as a character other than Sonic for once? Episode Shadow was an incredibly fresh experience all things considered, with heavy continuity nods, actual implications of GUN's existence for the first time in nearly twelve years, (!!!) and even the ability to play as him in a majority of Modern Sonic's levels. This brings me as well to the Avatar, a feature which I met with some heavy skepticism at first but ended up enjoying greatly when I finally got the chance to play the game. The diversity in the customization is absolutely insane, with well over 1000 parts available, and I love the Honors system which offers an incentive to play as every species and try out their abilities. The Wispons are absolutely the perfect way to integrate Wisps into the existing systems of the boost formula, and even serve as a nice acknowledgement of what worked from Shadow the Hedgehog; the gunplay in that game was widely considered to be the best aspect of its mechanics. There's such a wide variety of them, and the amount of perks available is truly surprising. The Avatar also has a rather large emphasis on score attacking thanks to this, and while it's nowhere near as deep as something like Adventure 2 or Heroes, it's something the series has been sorely lacking for a long while - in Generations, practically all you had to do to get an S rank was not die.

There's also a pretty huge amount of replayability in the form of collectables - the Red Rings are pretty bog standard, but the Silver Moon Rings and the Number Rings really force you to look at the levels and play them in a different way, sometimes guiding you through alternate pathways in the process. On that note, the linearity of this game is something I see derided a lot, which never quite made sense to me - Colors and Generations are significantly more linear than Forces. While they may have more defined alternate pathways, Forces' more dynamic physics allow you to hash your way through levels in a similar manner to the Adventure-era titles and with a little bit of creativity, you can absolutely go and do whatever you want within reason at most times. Even in regards to planned level design, Classic Sonic's levels are totally massive, and a majority of Modern Sonic's levels have at least two or three alternate pathways. The Tag Team levels as well, especially Null Space, have an absolutely crazy amount of paths to mix and match.

I have many more strong thoughts on Forces, but this post is beginning to drag on - while the game might not be perfect in any sense of the word, it shows a huge amount of promise in regards to restoring 3D Sonic to its former glory.
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Badwilds »

While I have not played it due to not being able to afford it, I have watched numerous playthroughs and reviews and from what I can tell, I both agree with Sable above and think the game is...probably average in reality if you just look at it for what it is and not what it could be made into with future games. Yes, I love it for what it stands for, not exactly what it is. But then again, let's be honest with ourselves, a truly masterful Sonic game isn't all that common (excluding Mania). I have a huge soft spot for Sonic, I love it, but they have never been super groundbreaking -- they don't need to be. They just need to be fun, which a good portion of the time they are in some way or another and I think Forces is no exception. You can get enjoyment out of Forces, especially if you love Sonic. However for a newcomer that has no attachment to the series it is average at best.

I think Sonic's greatest strength and draw is the branding and likability of the series - Arin Hanson of Game Grumps has kind of gone into this on the show a few times if you watch it. I agree with his words (although we have differing opinions on the games lol, I love Sonic Adventure) that Sonic's design is just instantly charming. But as Sable said above in more recent games the writing and characterization were completely cut short. They were just horrid in comparison to the Adventure characterization in my opinion. The characterization of Sonic Adventure 2 is why it's my favorite Sonic game.

Sonic Forces suffers from a lot of 'show, don't tell' problems story-wise, but I won't shy away from admitting that that's always been a problem with Sonic. Again, I think Sonic Adventure 2 did it best although I'm speaking from a place of strong bias and even I know that Sonic Adventure 2 was never perfect in it's writing (WE ALL DID IT TOGETHER). But for me it was the most likable interpretation of the characters and setting. Sonic Forces is the closest I've seen Sega come to replicating that. It didn't get it totally right, but the fact that they're even taking steps in this direction again gives me so much excitement and hope for the series. Of course it annoys me that (perhaps this is just localization-wise) they drop lines like 'TAILS HAS JUST LOST IT' with absolutely zero pay off (seriously, guys, Tails is doing just fine) - if you're going to make a dark revolution story, then go all the way with it while keeping that PG rating - kids can handle it! We handled a friggin' execution in SA2! But we haven't heard even the slightest inkling of serious dialogue for a while in Sonic games for...quite a bit. So I'll take what I can get.

Final note being the decision to include an Avatar character was a super good move and I hope it isn't just a one-and-done type of thing, I think the Sonic Franchise could really benefit from keeping that up, I'm sure kids love it and it is supposed to be family-friendly series. Heck, I'd probably get a lot of enjoyment out of it if I had the game.

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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by chaoadventures »

I thought Forces was alright.

I liked it more than Generations, but I like Unleashed (360/PS3) and Colors more from a gameplay perspective.

I thought the story was interesting but could have been fleshed out much, much more. For example, I feel more time could have been spent on the Death Egg, Classic Sonic could have gotten more use, and a bit more on how the Phantom Ruby works.

That and the game was too short, but that’s also a problem I say Sonic Team has had since around Sonic 4. That said, the very levels themselves are too short.

To paraphrase what one of my brothers has said, “There’s 3 parts to a story (more or less) the rising action, the climax, and the falling action. The levels in Forces are good at rising action, and is okay with climaxes, but not falling action.”

Compare the Network Terminal stage to SA2’s City Escape.

Network Terminal has Tails talking to Sonic throughout the level, which really makes the level seem important.

It also has Sonic doing a bunch of things to navigate the traps and hazards of the Chemical Plant, which is great.

And then the level ends near immediately with Sonic actually getting to the terminal.
The climax of this section, so to speak.

Afterwards the characters only brief on this victory, and just keep going. Falling action here is very odd and abrupt.

In SA2 however, City Escape starts with Sonic falling from the sky, taking the immediate repercussions of jumping from a helicopter. The whole level is basically you watching GUN try super hard to catch Sonic with drones n’ stuff.

Then, you see a giant truck start chasing Sonic, which would be this section or “short story”’s climax.

This section not only ends with you seeing what happens to the truck, bringing the satisfaction of outrunning it, but also ends with a transition into a mini-cutscene and a boss, showing that everything you did was indeed acknowledged.

All of the levels in Generations also have similar story elements within them, but they’re smaller in proportions to the story, the appearance of the giant rocks in Seaside Hill and outrunning them for example, which just make the level feel fuller.

I feel like this story analogy wasn’t explained too well here, but I hope I got the basics of what I feel out.

- -

Honestly, I just want them to improve everything and try again because this game easily has the most untapped potential out of any Sonic game in a long time.
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Re: Anyone actually like Forces???

Post by Badwilds »

Chaoadventures, that makes a whole lot of sense actually! Glad you got it out there and this probably also explains that while SA2's stages were short, if not just as short (some of them only take two minutes to complete) they feel a lot longer and more impactful than some of the newer game levels IMO. Not to say the new levels are bad, usually level design is at least slightly above average in Sonic games. I know there are a handful of people that absolutely hate the 'on rails' sections in Adventure games, such as the truck chase scene, but you can't deny that it can serve to help the presentation and helps the entire thing feel like, well... yeah, an Adventure. Sadly, I think this is my biggest issue with Forces' story, is that it failed to do that. I've never once seen it as a rebellion or an adventure. It's always just been a game.

Certain video games don't need to immerse you at all. Tactical games, for instance, or certain types of simulation games, typically benefit from having no immersion. I don't think Sonic falls into that category though.
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