>>848 Sorry for being shallow, but I mostly want it to be good. I don't want them to disappoint. I'd much rather the game to be the fast side, though. Provided those things were granted, I'd probably want Shadow to be back being playable in some form, as he could bring some interesting, different things to the table, without having to completely ditch the idea behind the main gameplay, which should obviously be strong and polished. I think it'd be best if they either ditched the boost or changed it up quite a bit, provided they can find something that works just as well or even better. As much as I had fun with the boost games, that game mechanic did get boring fast and didn't leave a lot for replayability. I would also really like if they could give the players a bit more freedom in the stages. Generations and Unleashed had such big, gorgeous stages, but you could never do anything in them, you had to stay in the "track" and they almost never allowed you to get away from it into more interesting parts. It's probably a bad idea from a design standpoint, since it's something on the side of the main game and something that would probably be quite costly to implement, but it'd be nice nonetheless. Maybe there's a compromise that could be reached. Modern Seaside Hill was sort of nice in this regard, the first part at least. You could go several different ways in that first area, and exploring it revealed different new paths. Regarding plot, I have no idea. I just want it to be good, engaging, smart, and coherent. So, basically the opposite of what it has been. pls tell me they ditched P&G it's gonna be a massive turn off if they didn't. Oh, and fucking please, this is Modern's fucking game. Some character action is okay, but if they try to take the spotlight away from him and make this about some new literally who or, fuck, Boom Sonic, I'm gonna be pissed alright. What do you think about alternative ways of telling the story? So far we've mostly had the story be told through cutscenes, is that enough? Would it be a good idea to try different things? It'd probably demand a very different game than we're used to.

>>849 Honestly, I would like see a return of multiple playable characters in this game. Where they create three core game play styles based around the Speed, Flight and Power type classifications from prior games. As for characters I would like to see, that would be Sonic (duh), Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Big, Shadow, Rouge, Omega, Espio, Charmy, Vector, Jet, Wave, Storm, Silver, Blaze, Marine, Honey, Ray, Mighty, Fang, Bean, Bark, Antoine, Bunnie, Rotor, Sally, Nicole, Cosmo, Lupe, Ben, Dulcy, Manic, Sonia and/or Sticks. It would be nice if all were playable. But if most of them were just NPCs with prominent roles, I'd be fine with that as well. At least with that, Sega would show that they acknowledge the existence of a lot of the forgotten characters.

>>849 It's really depressing reading this eight years later and knowing that they managed to do almost the exact opposite of everything you wanted.

>not only find out that 8chan has a sonic board but that it has a sonic forces thread from before it was even called sonic forces in it Maybe 4chan going down isn’t all bad

>>28603 I came into this thread thinking that this was some kind of lost sonic prototype or something being resurrected by the infinite power of autism of the sonic fanbase Only to look at the post date and realize it was made during my senior year of high school.

>>30493 we're all so ooooold now

>>848 Can't believe zooms believe this was more "peak" than Frontiers and ShadGen

>>30613 I haven't seen anyone say this at all.

>>30635 Given that it was the only 3D multiplat Sonic game to release between 2012 and 2021, there are a lot of people who's only exposure to Sonic games as a kid was from Forces. In the next few years a (very small) Forces Defense Squad will emerge consisting mostly of nostalgia blinded Zoomers/Gen Alphas. Of course any defenses of the game will crumble when you point out basically everything in the game has been done better by other Sonic games.

>>31899 We've already had people who's first game was Forces for a few years on 4/sthg/, they didn't really bother defending it

>>31899 I've always defended Forces, and I started with the first game in 1991. I don't love the Boost formula to begin with, but I enjoy Forces about as much as the other Boost games. Maybe more than Colors. Is it as good as Generations? No. But that doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable. Saying something was done better by other games isn't a real insult.

>>31907 Forces Defenders won't come to /sthg/, they'll only exist in places where a hivemind can form (like reddit).

>>32003 What is it that makes Generations good and better than Forces?

>>32121 Idk. I just had more fun. So I guess I'd chalk it up to level design and the effect of the nostalgia levels. Even though Sonic uses the same stage themes over and over, I like going to City Escape and hearing the song and everything.

>>33556 I prefer Colors over Generations, so in some ways I find Forces more fun, well, when it's not trying to be Generations. I like Forces when it's original (the Avatar and the few new stages) or when it's similar to Colors, but Classic Sonic ruins it for me. If it had more content for the Avatar and Sonic/Shadow instead of Classic I would enjoy it much more than Generations Also yeah all versions of City Escape are great. Including that new Shadow Generations remix of the song that no one talks about

>>33557 Colors sucks and is maybe the worst mainline Sonic game. Okay, I beat it like three times so I guess it doesn't suck, but I don't like that the 3D sections are practically cutscnes with so little actual gameplay, and I don't like that the 2D sections don't even feel like Sonic. If they were like any Sonic game, it's Sonic Blast, an actual contender for worst Sonic game, mainline or no.

>>33561 That's valid, I was disappointed too for those reasons when I first played it. I thought I was getting a 3D Sonic game, not a 2D platformer with a Sonic skin. But one I accepted that I found it to be a really good 2D platformer with a Sonic skin. It's not what I expect from Sonic but I think it's one of the best games in the series despite that

>>30613 The only thing that I'll give to Forces is that it feels "comfier" than any other Sonic game somehow. When I open the game up and play a few levels it feels safe and familiar somehow. Maybe it's the well designed UI or the extremely low difficulty of the levels, but no other Sonic game really exudes that feeling for me.

>>35279 The comfiest UI for me is SA2(B). They look amazing, they have great music, you can unlock and select different themes, and you can have your favorite character talk to you in the menus. In the 2010s I often used to leave the game running on TV and occasionally play a stage once in a while, and I think the UI is something that encouraged me to do that. I agree that the Forces UI is nice though. After 2006 Sonic Team stopped making cool interfaces for their games, at least the main series, but Forces is okay. Probably the best one they've done since

>>35535 >After 2006 Sonic Team stopped making cool interfaces for their games Honestly they started stripping lots of stuff from the games out after 06. >Multiplayer mode was absent from all HD games after 06 except foe the Wii U port of Lost World >Multiple Playstyles were all but abandoned after 06 in favor of just Sonic >Hard Mode versions of stages were scrapped after Unleashed >Tutorial/Menu dialogue is no longer read to the player >Hubworlds were severely stripped back after 06, before getting scrapped entirely >Level Pack DLCs were largely scrapped after Unleashed as well >Co-op mode was planned for 06, but cut late in development due to crunch and was never brought back I understand that a lot of this was a result of them going back to basics and focusing on Sonic's gameplay after 06, but everything getting stripped down is really sad to see. Even if it wasn't on par with the ones from the pre-06 era it does make me wonder what inspired them to make such a good UI for Forces of all games.

>>35745 Indeed. And what you listed isn't even all of it. Another thing they removed is idle dialogue (2006 doesn't have it either but it's in the files, it's just unused). And after Colors they mostly stopped coming up with original stage themes. They're all minor details but they add up to one of my biggest disappointments with these games

>>35535 I really didn't enjoy SA2 very much but it really stood out to me how many details like that there were in it. It really felt like they tried to make something special and that the game had passion behind it. Not a lot of Sonic games felt like that since. >>35745 >but everything getting stripped down is really sad to see This is something that's been really peeving me for a while. The games started getting reduced to the minimum expression, to the point that they feel like little more than a map pack.

>>35947 >The games started getting reduced to the minimum expression, to the point that they feel like little more than a map pack. This is especially true of Sonic Generations. It's one of the reasons I don't find it to be an engaging game.

>>35948 If you look at Generations' code, it's effectively just a map pack for Unleashed. There's even leftover bits of the Werehog in there (like the Life Icon).

Why did Eggman do so little with the Phantom Ruby in Forces? I understand Sonic Team had budget restraints, but why did he make 1:1 copies of people who had already jobbed to Sonic instead of creating new stronger foes with it? After Sonic destroyed his main power supply, why didn't he use the Phantom Ruby to create a new main power supply? Why didn't he have Infinite disguise himself using the ruby and infiltrate the resistance? Why didn't he create Eggmanland?

>>37866 Does Eggman still want to make Eggmanland after he already built it in Unleashed? I don't think he's mentioned it since in the games, right? The others are all good questions

>>37876 >Does Eggman still want to make Eggmanland after he already built it in Unleashed? Ego City from Dream Team seems to be an idealized version of Eggmanland from Eggman's Dreams and in Colors he literally creates another amusement park. All signs seem to point to him still wanting to make Eggmanland unless there's something huge that I missed.

>>38529 I didn't know about Ego City, but it could still make sense since it's just a dream, of course he still dreams about his city even after he has built it >in Colors he literally creates another amusement park The way I saw it is that since he's built Eggmanland now he can move on to conquering other planets, while maybe expanding Eggmanland on Earth (which he basically does in Forces even if the game does a bad job at portraying it)

>>38623 Wasn't the park in Colors just a trap or part of his wider plan or whatever? And even then, he still wants to build an amusement park, which is basically what Eggmanland usually is. I figured once he rules the world, he'll turn it into Eggmanland. If he only rules one part, sure, that will be Eggmanland, but obviously he wants to expand it as much as possible.

>>38718 Yes, I agree with you. I assumed the park was still genuine to some extent, like obviously he wants to rule so it makes sense if he expands his amusement park empire to other planets

My biggest problem with forces as a game is that it really feels more like a tech demo rather than an actual, complete game. Straight-line levels that basically play themselves, short lenght, dumbed-down gameplay, poorly implemented and thought out features, reused assets, bland art style and music, etc. The kind of shit i'm willing to forgive from a random 3D fangame i'd download from gamejolt, not so much coming from Sonic Team asking 40 bucks for it, at the very least it's functional i guess which is more than i can say compared to other games from this franchise. What really bothers me it's the story, a lot of genuinely interesting concepts, completely wasted. >>37866 Simply bad writing, with how overpowered the ruby is supposed to be Eggman and Infinite should be literally unstoppable, they can just spam illusions of the strongest enemies the heroes ever faced in their most powerful form, this time fully loyal to Eggman (Perfect Chaos, Metal Overlord, Black Doom, etc), they can trap the characters in nightmares of their own forever like in episode shadow, shit they can literally kill them all just by thinking about it. There's also the phantom ruby prototypes which i don't understand the purpose of, i guess Eggman trying to harness the power of the ruby for himself but what's the point in that when he has full control of the actual thing already and can probably use it to create more, and faster?. Then again maybe this was explained somewhere and i just missed it, idk. It's clear they didn't put much thought into it and just wrote shit to move the plot forward and nothing else, like Mania actually has a better written phantom ruby, where you can tell it's a very powerful gem but not enough to the point it's unbelievable for Eggman to actually fail with it.

>>38792 This might be inaccurate, but here's my understanding of what happened. Forces was written as a self contained story, without Episode Shadow, without the prequel comic, and without Mania. Eggman's latest creations were Infinite and the some device (apparently called "Valtron") of which he had to make prototypes of. Mania was doing its own thing with the Phantom Ruby. They wanted the two stories to be connected, so they replaced "Valtron" with the Phantom Ruby. Then Episode Shadow and the comics (I don't know which came first) further retconned things with Infinite's backstory I might be wrong though, I've tried to make sense of this several times and I'm still confused