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Originally Posted by Wildcat
So youre just basing this on Forces? You say you loved the previous three 3D games.
I agree the writing gets corny in recent games but except for Forces I do not see things being scaled down. I do not know what the development process was like but maybe Mania got more attention and Forces was more rushed. Just a guess.
The gameplay is still the same even if you dont like boosting. They just needed to increase the difficulty and story mode. Would have liked more options for the create-a-character but thats a separate thing.
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I'm basing it on the direction the series has gone in over the last decade. As terrible as they were, Sonic 06 and Unleashed were really the last triple A Sonic games. After that, Sonic games were significantly scaled back for better and for worse.
Gone were the overly self-serious convoluted plots and abundance of characters and playstyles in favor for simple and straightforward stories and emphasis on Sonic the Hedgehog. After Unleashed, the games felt more focused, consistent, and polished. But they were also much shorter and weren't really pushing visuals the way 06 and Unleashed did, aside from Colors which looked great for a Wii game.
While the smaller scale improved the quality of the games, it also showed that Sega no longer considered Sonic a top player like they kept pretending he was. Their perception of the franchise took a shift and they started making Sonic a kid's franchise. This was evident in all the corny jokes and simplistic writing. But the gameplay was still solid and felt like it could be enjoyed by all ages, despite being more on the easier side.
Sonic Forces on the other hand went full force into the children's game category that they felt the need to streamline and automate the already rather simple gameplay so that it was even more accessible to children. It was bad enough that levels were so short, but they literally take control away from the player on numerous occasions. You're barely even playing it.
There's kid friendly and then there's straight up for kids and Sonic Forces leans heavily towards the latter with its lack of polish, laughable OC-centric story, incredibly easy difficulty, and short length. Even Sega knew it would be a rip-off to charge 60 dollars for that thing that they came out the gate at 40 dollars. There's definitely been a decline here somewhere despite how lucky they got with Sonic Mania which wasn't even made by Sonic Team. It was a game by the fans for the fans.
The boost gameplay is a whole other thing for me. It was a nice novelty at first. We've never seen Sonic move that fast in game before and that was pretty much the appeal of Sonic Unleashed in the beginning, but aside from a few levels, that gameplay started to show its cracks due to poor level design which did get better in later games. But it also heavily relied on 2D segments because all the 3D boost segments just started feeling the same. Hold boost button and see Sonic run through a track. It hardly feels like a 3D experience the way the Adventure games did and it's like Sega pretty much gave up on 3D Sonic which is why they've heavily relied on awkward 2D platforming and Classic Sonic's inclusion.
I honestly think Sega just can't develop a large quantity of good levels in that formula, maybe even ever given the numerous playstyles the Adventure games gave us. That was part of the reason they included the Werehog in Unleashed because they didn't think the game would be long enough with nothing but day time stages, which also explains the short length in the later games, which still tried relying on other gimmicks to avoid just pure boosting gameplay.
It just seems flawed to me and its "popularity" has gotten Sega complacent, but it just doesn't feel that good anymore, especially when they have Sonic slow down for a bit to attack enemies and his movement in the 3D environment just feels so stiff and awkward because he's mostly meant to just be running on a track and moving in 2D.
Which is why I found Lost World to be so refreshing. Sonic actually controlled well in 3D and they tried something different that was genuinely good. It wasn't perfect, but it felt like the first step towards a better 3D Sonic game and then Forces happened. More tired boosting that was somehow done a lot worse than before.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't like 2 people work on the stages for Forces or something? And I think they were inexperienced with that sort of stuff too. Which really says a lot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo656
Don't forget "entitled". That's a huge one.
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Re: "Forces" - Eh, I'unno. I had no expectations at all and had fun with it. I definitely noticed how short and easy it was, but I also had fun going back and re-playing all the levels to find the different paths and whatnot, mostly BECAUSE it was short and easy and I knew it wasn't going to be much of an investment. I don't often do that with Sonic games because in some cases the levels are a chore to get through even once, let alone multiple times.
I'm getting older, my standards are shifting a bit. More and more, I just need stuff that I can play for either ten minutes or several hours and still feel like I made progress either way, that's not going to have me cursing at the TV or raising my blood pressure. So I'm becoming a lot more forgiving in general. "Did this game make me want to tie one of the developers to a chair and poke them with a cattle prod? No, alright, then it's fine." 
I'unno. They could've aimed a little higher, maybe. But I know I'd rather replay that one a hundred times than ever play Sonic Adventure 2 or Sonic Unleashed again even once. Trying to replay SA2 last year or whenever it was, I was amazed and infuriated at just how awful it was, especially near the end. I'm amazed they were even able to keep making games in the series after THAT one. I think that's forever going to be my personal bar for Worst Sonic Game. I haven't played all of 'em, but out of all the ones I have played that one easily takes the Sh*t Sandwich. |
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Forces is a bad game, it's just not necessarily good either. Which is why I call it mediocre, and the timing of it couldn't have been worse with the way Sega has been constantly touting that they're prioritizing development time to ensure quality products and we were just coming off the highs of Sonic Mania too, which only reinforced why "Sonic doesn't work in 3D." It's a bad look.
Also, I know you're not talking sh*t about Sonic Adventure 2, man. You must have that game mixed up with something else or we're gonna have problems.
But nah, Sonic Adventure 2 is not nearly the worst in terms of 3D Sonic games, but I do agree that it gets pretty messy towards the end, which is true for a lot of Sonic games unfortunately. I usually look back fondly on Sonic Adventure 2 because every time I do revisit it, I usually just stick to playing some of the Sonic and Shadow levels, and I can't honestly say it ever got better than that for 3D Sonic.
The Adventure games are pretty janky, but it's a shame that they gave up on that kind of gameplay after Sonic 06, which was terrible for a lot of reasons, but all they really needed to do was refine the gameplay and make more levels like Sonic Adventure 2. The other playstyles were always unnecessary, especially when the Genesis games already did multiple characters a whole lot better.
Adventure 1 was definitely the easier game but I honestly never liked it as much as Adventure 2 because Adventure 2 just has more going for it. The Sonic levels were much better, the playstyles were reduced to only 3, and the tedious hub world was gone. Not to mention, that kick ass final boss with Live and Learn playing in the background. That sh*t has still never been topped.