“Our aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase.” That’s the problem. The fanbase is split, you’re better off keeping the Mania team for the Classic feel and have your own team work on the new stuff, thus covering more of your bases without compromising the main games.
Sonic Mania was for people that ONLY likes classic sonic Sonic Forces Wants to please Everybody including Classic Sonic Fans. So in 2017,the Sonic 25 birthday just feels off because they were clearly pleasing classic sonic fans to up the sales.
they also forgot people who grew up with the Adventure Era or anything from Adventure to Black Knight, a target that wanted a game since 2009, which they seemingly ignored for everyone instead
@@Izhen_UwU According to Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Mania brought in a large amount of new Sonic fans. The last Sonic game to do that to such a degree was Sonic Adventures
@@RodniDemental the Shadow costume for the avatar was exclusive to early purchases of the switch version and to the digital deluxe edition in other platforms. Now it’s available as paid dlc on steam I think but remains unavailable on other platforms
@@geeboysgamesandmore49 Hmm interesting, what I can tell you is I bought physical for xbox, it calls itself 'bonus edition' on the case (dunno if they all say this) and it had a code on a piece of paper for the bonus 'sega' skins (eg. nights, jetset, puyo, monkey ball and persona). But all this stuff became free and not require a code so don't know if there was ever a point where they charged for this stuff but it appears they intended to. I can also say shadow skin was apparently 'free' at around the same time super sonic update was introduced
Aaron Webber was Sonic's social media manager and is credited with making the Sonic Twitter account so popular. For a fanbase as big and vocal as Sonic's, getting a brand account to resonate with people so strongly required Sega to hire a superfan who really understands the masses. All of the Sonic social media people are like that nowadays tmk.
Let us remember that he said that they know everything about sonic on the internet Which makes me think he also knows about the Toilet fanart and the... masculine protection one...
Hearing Aaron Webber's comments regarding the story is honestly one of the most cathartic things I have ever heard, not only because it confirms the problems with the story but it simply shows how much Aaron cares for the Sonic franchise and wants whats better for it. He's honestly one of the things Sega needs especially now more than ever.
@@NoahNCopeland It all seems pretty on-brand for Aaron Webber. He's the guy who was in charge of the Sonic social media account and is the one responsible for it becoming so popular. He's a fan first and foremost, and he understands how the fandom tends to react to things.
I know a lot of people are already pointing this out in the comments, but... "We aim to please the entire Sonic fanbase" is *such* a fantastically wrong-headed sentence, I love it. Like, how do you think that's feasible in any world? The Sonic fanbase is as cohesive as broken glass, and about as painful to interact with.
@@JadenFox9 But sonic team has a huge phobia to that due to sonic 06. The thing Adventure fans want the most is adventure *writting style,* a coherent shonen-like story who takes itself somewhat seriously and shows character deep and development; they would be fine with boost if it wasn't alongside that massive Flanderization. Forces doesn't have coherence and lacks deep and development on their characters; also doesn't help the writers have been awful at their job since colors.
@@N12015 while sadly true Forces' story was the closest to getting the Adventure Era right compared to Colors to Lost World, not perfect, has problems especially being mistranslated and then chickening out, but close as for 06, they yet to realize it wasn't the game itself, it was the fact they were rushed with a small team like Matt said, SEGA seriously repeated this same mistake with ROL in 2016 and Ultimate now I know they're beaten down, and that's why the 2010s happened, but because of Ultimate, I expect them to go the opposite direction, which is why people aren't being harsh on it, they know what will happen
I met Aaron Webber once at pax, he was demoing sonic forces and you could hear the despair in his voice as he tried to explain decisions made about the game. He's a true fan though. He did a trivia contest afterward making up questions on the fly and the man knows sonic better than anybody.
To be fair, "we're going in hard and fast" doesn't seem nearly as infamous and quoted as Knuckle's iconic "None of this is good, vector. That's why it's called war."
They need to give Aaron more control over sonic games because he clearly has an awareness of what would work for a sonic story that people might like again a lot
So what I learned from this video: - Aaron Webber tried to save the story, but SEGA didn't listen to him enough. - Sonic Forces needed more time and it just didn't get it. - This all sounds very familiar. I really hope SEGA gets it right with Frontier/Rangers. They had their chance for a free "Win" with Sonic Colors Ultimate, but they bungled that too. So not holding my breath.
Yeah, Sega just keeps mucking things up for Sonic. I just cannot see them actually learning this time, if ever. At least the games are kinda fixed from what I heard, so at least they didn't leave behind a mess like other bigger companies do. (Still cannot STAND when they release a borked game on launched though.)
Sonic Colours: Ultimate was being screwed up by Blind Squirrel if you look at their track record. SEGA actually never wanted it to release in a horrible state.
@@thesonicsegakid As an ip owner its also part of Sega's job to make sure the game is up to standards, regardless of who is developing/porting it. Quality control is not just for the developer, but for the publisher too. Especially when the publisher does have the resources to do so.
@@gezzcombakking2454 Because you literally cannot make something that please everyone, since people have different tastes. Gaming especially some people like Mario games, and others prefer games like Silent Hill. You can’t make game that please both crowds since some elements just don’t work well with each other. It’s why you should just pick one element and make it work well.
There can't be a game for everybody. Its better for the game if they make a good experience for its target audience rather than a mediocre experience for everyone.
@@gayfishticks2839 alright so let me get this straight, your saying that if SEGA doesn’t come up with their own ideas for a new sonic game then they’re mostly likely to fail at some point?
It really sounds like the guys at Sonic Team are too focused having widespread appeal and not just making an enjoyable experience. Aaron's comments focus on having continuity and cutting out stereotypically bad scenarios, but the heads seem to want to focus on having the playable characters be big heroes and everyone else to be desperately in need of them.
I mean it would have made more sense to have Forces be a game where every level you play as a different member of the cast in their efforts to stop Eggman and save Sonic, with Sonic being an unlockable after beating the game perhaps.
@@jeremyabbott4537 they could've replaced Classic Sonic with the other characters instead and allowed the Avatar to tag with any of them as well as Sonic too
but that's the problem, they could do amazing things if they did focus on continuity and using the characters to they're fullest, they could make an enjoyable game too, but they don't either out of fear or please a part of the whole fanbase
I was very excited about jump force unfortunately its was not attempted to buy, the multi-player good enough but can lag lot and kick out of online battles. The roster was sausage party with not enough shonen women characters and story too repetitive every time you battle the same thing as vs mode like add horde mode or upgrade the woman roster to please the players and shonen fans.
@SuperStoryMode Some suspect it's a licensing issue, which sounds very plausible, considering how often the video game rights to Shonen characters and franchises shift around.
Perhaps not at the risk of everything else, but I think the Character Creation was an idea that was worth doubling down on. Anyone in my extended friend group (most of whom have become jaded towards the series) I have talked to notes the character creation as their favorite part, both for the ironic meme creations and the genuine stylized characters.
Yeah, that's the big thing, right? The only thing anyone has even remembered this game for was the character creator. It's literally the most fun part of the game and I haven't seen anyone ever really talk negatively about it. Sure, lots of people joke about how dumb you can look, but even for those people, it's still a really fun option.
I still stand by my thought that Forces should've basically been an OC version of Sonic Heroes. Make 3 characters that are speed, power, and flight types, and you have the option of 3 player online co-op with your friend's characters. Maybe even sprinkle in solo levels of the different types like Adventure 2.
It was wildly criticized that the avatar takes away too much focus and it's levels where dull. People wanted a Sonic game not a generic platformer. There was nothing they could do with the concept.
it's honestly surprising they didn't add it to TSR as a replacement for the Avatar and Mii, but that game also could've added a lot more, darn Budget Titles
I always referred to Forces as 'Good ideas, bad execution' The whole plot of Eggman actually winning for once and you have to take the world back sounds kickass. It was just don't poorly.
It is sad when Avengers Infinity War had a competently written premise of the heroes attempting to save the universe from the big bad villain’s grasp than Sonic Forces.
It didn’t help that the plot was basically the same as SatAM and by extension that of the Archie comics for like the first decade of its run so we know a story like that can be successful.
I find it a problem with developers on ANY franchise when it comes to audience. If a game focuses on one audience, there is a chance that the game would have a smooth development and succeed. But when a game focuses on multiple audiences, the game gets lost in development and you end up getting a middle of the road game. A big example is Resident Evil 6
Yeah but Resident evil 6 is a good game, plenty of content, looks great, amazing combat mechanics. A good horror game? Nope. But as a game by itself it is amazing, one of the best third person shooters
I've been thinking the same thing, I feel that Sonic should just choose an audience and make the best of that. And sure you could once in a while shake up things a little but just having more focus is enough
@@thegamingprozone1941 I’m not sure I can agree with this. Mercenaries Mode in RE6 is really fun, because that game has really excellent action game mechanics. But the level design in the main story is awful. The game failed in the more action centric direction it was going in, and failed to understand that level design is the thing that made RE4 popular not just the faster pace. It was also probably a mistake to make all the campaigns co-op. If anything, there should have been one big campaign that was action-y and co-op, and another that was single player, slow paced and followed the standard “solve puzzles and fight zombies in a castle” formula.
Hell naw dude he’s one of the idiots that made Sonic look like a fucking joke on Twitter, especially with all the stupid memes and shitposts, thank god his ass is no longer involved that much with Sega but they still can’t even get Sonic to be taken serious.
@@calebproductions1264 Sonic was already a joke before Aaron came along. He leaned into it and made it self-aware, which was honestly what the franchise needed. It needed to be "in on the joke." It's like what your parents might tell you about being picked on at school: when they make fun of you, just laugh with them. It isn't fun for them if you don't get angry.
I’m honestly glad Sonic Team has decided to take more time between “Sonic” titles moving forward, as that will hopefully create better games from a technical and story standpoint, and a potentially better experience for the development team. As for games to cover on “What Happened”, I think “Metroid Dread” should be covered. Not because it’s bad, it is literally one of my favourite games of this year, but because of its long, rumour-fuelling history, the extensive gap between it and “Fusion”, and the unfortunately shitty news that has been coming out regarding how MercurySteam’s team was treated by their upper management during the game’s development.
This game got a lot of time between it and Lost World. But they spent most of it on the lighting engine, essentially accomplishing nothing different from any other Sonic game.
@@EgoLikol Basically, Spanish journalists have been publishing accounts by people who previously worked at MercurySteam, revealing issues such as roughly 50 people not getting credited for their work on the game due to a company policy where you have to be on a project for 25% of the development time in order to get credited, very poor management, and an overall negative workplace environment, all of which got worse during the ongoing pandemic. The few good things is that they didn’t crunch and Nintendo was very helpful and supportive of developers at MercurySteam, but the negative stuff makes me feel really bad for everyone, except for upper management, who worked on the game. 😰
Don't forget that during that time, Federation Force and (more critically) Other M was released, a spinoff that was ok at best and a meant to be mainline flop that made the state of the brand shaky despite the teaser for Prime 4 being in the area as well.
Its kinda interesting, because this was not the first time it was mentioned that there were issues with the work environment. As mentioned in Matt's video on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. I'm starting to think that may not have been just a disgruntled employee.
It was a fool's errand to attempt to create a game for all fans, because they've made so many different kinds of games over the years that there is a dedicated group for each of them. Some like the edgy stories, some like the atmosphere of the Genesis games, some like the lighthearted silliness of the Wii/Wii U games, Boost, exploration, puzzles, momentum platforming, characters that are exclusive to the comics and cartoons versus the standard game loadout of characters, you can't balance all of that out into one perfect game. They don't have to do 2+ releases every time from now on, but how they handled Mania vs Forces was a step in the right direction. Pick an audience to focus on for one project and just flesh that out. Any varying ideas that don't mesh with the vision of one project can get sidelined and placed into another project. I'm also happy that they're allocating real development time to projects from now on, because that was one of the biggest hurdles that they kept ignoring. The original Sonic trilogy + CD were all made under crunch and ended up as revolutionary games, so I'm sure they thought crunch was the secret to making a game good, when it's not. Those games ended up performing well DESPITE the crunch. Now that they realize that, I hope Frontiers or Rangers or whatever it's called ends up being a solid step up from Forces. From the leak descriptions so far, I think I want to get it. (It's an open/open-ish world exploration platformer, according to the leaks.)
I disagree. You can get both..sonic is a single character so I don't like this differentiation with "classic" Just seems like their avoiding recognizing their issues. Adventure held people. The problem is that they need to abandon that entire gameplay style and engine that they've had since adventure. It has nothing to do with sonic. It's never been great. If they do split it then they need to move sonic forward. Sonic staying 2d or not was not the issue. And they did 2d with new sonic as well. At that point they could just use shadow or silver for the edgy style. And a more general audience with Sonic.
I remember PS plus made it a free game to get, I think right after Mania. With Mania I was like "Ooooo okay!", with Forces, I was like "Even though this free, this feels like a scam, and they should be paying me to play it."
Damn I missed out on it just cuz I’ve been wanting to at least try the game out but Sonic being dull or good is always like going into a game with a 50/50 shot
It's not as bad as Sonic 06, but it's not that great. It's playable, the character creator is a nice idea and the music is good, but that's it. It's a rather forgettable game.
They also gave away Mighty Number 9, and I definitely wasn't going to touch that crap with a ten foot pole. Just the idea that downloading it might feed into some digital metrics they could show to an investor makes me nervous.
I like how the game was hesitant to imply that Sonic was going to be executed... instead talking about how he was being constantly tortured. I guess that's more family friendly, somehow?
It wasn't bad, but the lack of species (Where's the foxes?) and lack of body shape options *really* hurt it. Seems they were so focused on stupid little hats and shirts they kinda neglected the rest of it.
As someone that sometimes buys games based on character creation, it always irks me when there's wasted potential. I really don't like when a team does what feels like the bare minimum and moves on. Given just how many animals there are in the Sonic-verse there should've easily been a dozen to choose from. And a lack of any body customization (I imagine it probably was a gameplay decision) is really frustrating when you've got characters like Charmy and Vector that exist.
Technically, Sonic Wars was just a working title, which isn't the first for the series; Sonic Rangers to Sonic Frontiers Sonic Anniversary to Sonic Generations Sonic Synergy to Sonic Boom Sonic Discovery to Sonic Mania etc.
Trying to appeal to the entire fanbase can't be done, everyone wants something different. I hope Frontiers does its own thing and that Sega stands behind it and let the fans adjust, rather than half-assing the game trying to force fanservice in everywhere. I think Sonic Forces is harmless but forgettable and that sucks, I was genuinely excited about the darker storyline (I grew up with the Adventure games, sure the stories were a tad silly but they took themselves seriously enough to be fun.) but they didn't fully commit and falls flat.
Y'know, when someone who's a higher-up at the company says there's issues with the game, you should PROBABLY listen to them instead of pretending everything's fine.
Specially with the same writters as Sonic lost world, which basically guarantees that the adventure fans won't be pleased, specially considering that writting tend to affect gameplay.
Which is kind of an odd thing for him to say, cause Sonic always kinda had a lot of appeal compared to some other genres and franchises? I mean, get why he said it, but it feels kinda overkill still with retro Sonic and the OC stuff? I dunno, I do think OC stuff was kinda cool at least.
Every time I hear about Sonic games and their issues I hear about how the developers were trying to appeal to fans, like that's the only driving creative force in the development. It's always just about what the fans want, never about what the developers want or what kind of creative ideas they have. They are always just trying to pander to fans rather than actually do something creative, as if no one at Team Sonic has any ideas of their own or just doesn't want to work on Sonic.
Many people left Sonic Team and therefore Sega, like Yasuhara, Naka and Ohshima! From the "old guard" of Sonic Team only Iizuka is still around, and the rest are just a bunch of amateurs (like Nakamura), that were only hired because Sega cut the budget for Sonic games after the release of Unleashed by quite a lot!
Man, I would've loved if more games used the first Hedgehog Engine used in Unleashed and Generations, the models and loading tech used in those games is still amazing in my opinion
I think that they didn’t use it again because it would have been hard to make it work on modern consoles. At least they could have used it as base for the new one
Except they really can't use HE1 nowadays. Not because of some conspiracy like "they lost the source code!" or anything like that, but because that shit is old af, and is centered on long obsolete backends like DirectX 9, which is according to Skyth, a modder that bringed over some stuff from HE2 to HE1, "PAIN" Not only that, but HE2 is MUCH more advanced than 1, with better lightning in every possible way comparing it to 1, it's just that Forces used it extremely poorly So basically, it's not that they "choose" to make a new engine, HE1 started development in 2005 and got its first game in 2008, and as such it is, whether you like it or not, very outdated
I can definitely understand why. Having every new game just be a collection of things from old games would get stale. Although, they’ve kinda been doing that anyway, and it definitely has gotten stale.
@@Tom-jw7ii Most Sonic releases from the 2010s had Classic/Genesis era themes and imagery everywhere: Sonic 4, Generations, Lost World, Mania, and of course Forces, Colors and Free Riders were probably the only exceptions (the Boom series is also an exception I guess but, you know, nobody cares about Boom). They've been pandering to nostalgia for a whole decade, of course it became stale pretty quickly.
So you want more recycled stages from the past? In the current Meta Era (Ever since Sonic -4- Mobile) where its already being done and I dare say basically every Sonic fan is sick of the overreliance of nostalgia bait?
Pretty much, at least that's what I presume SonicTeam thought their target audience was when they came up with it. It's not like fans liked sonic games because they were fun and had interesting characters; I mean what kind of *Generations* would you think would come up with that *Mania* ? Nah man, ppl wanted a dark sonic game with their OC in; just like sonic Satam did! Also, we don't talk about the comics and what kind of *Penders* those can O' worms would open.
@@WakoDoodle Oh man. Sonic Satam and the comics was the breeding ground for some OC fuckshit in the 90s. I know because I was there. Like, RIGHT THERE, watching a neighbor trace Sonic from the comics, color him green, give him blonde hair, red eyes, and said "this is my original Sonic, "Conis the SuperSonic, and Sally is his girlfriend, he fights Sonic and Sally marries him when when he wins". ...I really just told my age with that... And I wish I was making that up.
"We wanted to make a game for everyone." *the beginning of your downfall* There is no such thing as a "thing for everyone", because not everyone likes the same thing. Once you start trying to please everyone, you just end up pleasing no one because of how much you have to strip the game from what it could've been. You start losing your current audience because the game wasn't what they expected or liked, and you start not bringing in newer audiences because of the now negative reception surrounding the game. Companies need to stop trying to please everyone, and just focus on pleasing their loyal customers that they already have. Those loyal customers will then recommend their friends to play your game.
Not-so fun fact about Hedgehog Engine 2: Because of Forces' reception, people are essentially saying "What's the point of making a new engine that isn't graphically good?", despite titles like Sakura Wars and Mario and Sonic 2020 showing what the engine can achieve. Those sadly get dismissed because Forces is the "definite proof". I remember someone tried porting a lot of HE2 stuff to Generations to make the Sunset Heights mod look the same as it is in Forces. The modder was frustrated when people are predictably pointing out his mod as the reason why HE2 is pointless, despite the modder basically saying that a lot of stuff were injected to Gens' code (something that in the past decade of the game's modding life, was impossible, until recently). And now for a fun fact: Files for Hedgehog Engine 2 were found in M&S Rio Olympics game, meaning the Wii U was technically capable back in the day while the engine was still developing.
I think people don't know the difference between graphic engine and art direction. HE2 is without a doubt a good engine, but Forces does not make a job showcasing it because it only shows like 3 diferent environments
@@lovelesswish1972 Yeah, and the sad part is that any of the other HE2 games are always dismissed when it comes to arguments about HE because it's "not related". I just saw a thread where someone pointed out HE2 features and how necessary the new engine was. And the argument of the other is that Gens and Unleashed looked good, so a new Engine wasn't even needed.
I heard they ditched Havoc for the Bullet Engine after Forces and could be seen in Mario and Sonic 2020 Olympics, seriously tho, the graphics of Forces was pretty good, problem was they should've made better assets
I just want then to get the game right, it doesn't have the be the most amazing technical showcase of anything, just focus on getting 3D Sonic gameplay right first! The best recieved games in three franchise in a decade was 16-bit styled
I'm glad Webber knew how dumb it was to just throw Silver in the game. They've been just throwing him in sonic games and it's just like "do they even know how/why this character exists anymore?" lol
At least Blaze has a reason to come back, yet she hasn't been in an actual noncrossover Sonic Game since Generations. Rush essentially established Cream as being Blaze's reason to return to Sonic's World. Ironically Cream is supposed to be 1 of the most popular characters among Japanese fans. I miss the days that Sonic felt like a shonen anime.
Honestly, that's a problem with quite a few Sonic characters, or just concepts in the series in general. They get introduced with this story to them, but then because they want to keep using them Sonic Team ends up having to handwave explain why things are where they are. - Knuckles is supposed to be the guardian of Angel Island, but he appears all the time far away from Angel Island. The Master Emerald Shine is also outside where everyone can see it, so it's not like it's really hidden or anything. They don't even really address it most of the time. - Blaze is from another dimension, protects the Sol Emeralds, and if memory serves, the Sol Emeralds can cause problems if they're in close proximity to the Chaos Emeralds. When Blaze shows up they usually just say the Sol Emeralds willed it for some reason and leave it at that. - Silver being from the future, which they said was fixed in Colors DS, but then in the Forces pre-comic it's ruined again? Even if Colors DS isn't the canon story, they never set a hard stance on the status of Silver's future. Now that I think about it, I don't think they even explain how Silver time travels, as even if he used the 06 method he would need two emeralds and another person with Chaos Control both to go into the past and go back into the future. - The Deadly Six are exclusive to Lost Hex (which itself never really got much lore to it), and despite Zavok hating Eggman, he keeps working with him. Why does Eggman keep Zavok around given that if Eggman loses control Zavok can easily take over his whole army? Why does Zavok work with Eggman when he openly hates him and was an unwilling lackey for all of Lost World?
@@yourfriendlymemedeliverygu7493 I assume that parts referring to Team Sonic Racing, where Zavoc was assisting Eggman and Metal Sonic for... some unknown reason. He's kinda just there to be a Eggman-aligned power character I guess
They wanted to please everybody, so they ended up having no one. Seriously, they were already full steam ahead with the gritty concept during development. They would have had less problems with the story if gaps weren’t developed from the sudden course correction. The level design needed more time to be properly fleshed out, as even the stages that were already there definitely felt incomplete. I’m looking at YOU Arsenal Pyramid and Null Space! The railroaded nature of the controls would have been excusable if they properly leaned into it at all times. The standard platforming segments in some of the stages certainly felt too basic and Mario-esque in design. Etc., etc., etc.
Was I dissapointed that we didn't get much about the new Sonic game? Totally. Am I proud of Sega for actually taking their time and not rushing the game out for the anniversary year? 100% and I will play that game when it's ready.
Sonic forces took 4 years Sonic Rangers/frontiers will take 5 years to make The problem was Everyone at Sonic Team was trinking and making cosmetic things more than making the game itself So when the game development finally over,what you get is a Sonic Generations Skin with some new levels,Downgrades in Classic/Modern Sonic Gameplay and Half-Baked gameplay elements like the avatar gameplay style that is the same as the sonic's one but without the boost,the stages also being short and a lame final boss
@@Izhen_UwU Sonic Forces had about 1 year gameplay development time, with only 3 designers surrounding it (one of them worked at Sonic Lost World, and the other two never worked at a Sonic game at all)! No wonder why Forces feels like a half-baked version of Generations! It was basically in some sort of development hell!
Looking back to this nearing the release of Frontiers, you can really tell that Frontiers likely was cooking and prioritized even before Forces came out XD Also it seems they took Webber's advice to heart with Frontiers with Ian Flynn on writing and them changing up the story tone and structure.etc
Like that’s ever going to happen, when’s the last time they’ve made a good sonic game? No that piece of shit fan made game called sonic mania doesn’t count.
Man, this game had plenty of wasted potential. A lot of it I enjoyed but still left feeling whelmed. Didn't expect this to contain like huge other things behind closed doors like other Wha Happens, but this is still an interesting insight into its development nonetheless. Especially those comments from Aaron Webber, I genuinely didn't know those existed. Let's hope Frontiers will be the game it is promising to be, or at the very least decent.
Yeah. Not that this is the only reason, but them doing so many different things with the franchise means they have to pick and choose what sect to appeal to. And when they try to appeal to everyone (especially when they screw it up), they're almost guaranteed to please no one.
@@epsilonalphaargo1948 While I do like both the Boost and Adventure formulas equally, I will point out that the former formula does seem to be derived from _NiGHTS into Dreams..._ I would also recommend checking that game out to see what a Boost game could truly be like when done well.
@@epsilonalphaargo1948 "MY opinion is more valid than YOUR opinion" if the boost formula was as garbage as you say, Generations would be one of the most hated games in the series
it isn't that the hedgehog engine 2 is necessarily worse; it's that forces didn't utilize/demonstrate it's potential at all. it all just goes back to how incredibly half-assed everything around forces was, no thanks to it's year-long development.
That quote Takashi Iizuka made in the Nintendo UK interview, where he said that their aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase, speaks volumes on how and why Forces turned out the way it is. They tried to appeal to the older fans with the nostalgia pandering, they tried to appeal to the casual gamers with the custom character system and they tried to appeal to current fans with the boost formula. Too bad all that people-pleasing amounted to is an unfocused and horrific mess of a video game. To this day, I still view this as one of the worst Sonic games in recent history. The amount of idiotic design choices in terms of game design and also its poorly written story never ceases to make me cringe. If the game had focused solely on the custom character system instead of shoe-horning in Classic Sonic and making the game essentially Generations 2, I believe the game would've had better focus and turned out better than what we have right now.
I'll be honest, the character customization and gameplay was probably the best part of forces imo. Yeah, the whole thing doesn't fit together, like at all. But the OC freedom fighter bit could have been great as a separate, spin of game like the wario land series did for Mario. They should have had the game split more evenly, with the opportunity to pick weather you would play the modern stages as either Sonic or your OC. So you could play the whole game as just Sonic, or just the OC with the gear you unlock. Kinda like a toned down version of Heroes.
With infinite coming up, any thoughts on maybe doing master chief collection? Id love to see a chronicled take from the game's disasterous launch to it's rise back up nowadays, itd be really interesting i think
I'm one of the people who likes sonic forces and replay it from time to time.... but yeah, even I can't deny it's flaws. Which to be fair, as a fan you should be willing to do in the first place. things can just improve with fair critique, so seeing that they at least now take their time to develop the next sonic game is certainly a move in the right directions.
You know... why didn't they just go on to make more sonic adventure games seeing that those seemed to be what they were trying to build around? I miss chao gardens.
You've been extremely generous into describing the very core issue of this game: its utterly boring and nonexistent stage design. Whole sections which were replaced with QTEs that the player actually can fail and it plays the same. The whole game being just corridors with no verticality and even enemies that are just bowling pins to strike down that literally don't even attack Sonic when you're standing in front of them. Sonic steers by himself. They wanted to copy Sonic's drop dash for classic, managing to make it the least useful thing of the whole game. They even wanted to copy stages by putting every single one with the name of a past Sonic game, to atrocious results into wanting to sound nostalgic but literally only making garbage. I would've accepted and forgiven so much this game had if even just a single one stage of this game was ANY degree of fun. JUST ONE. Sonic 06 is the most broken game ever but at least that was FUN. Past Sonic games had 6-7 lead designers working on stage designs, this game only had 4, of which only one had any experience and it was with Lost World, another game that threw things to a wall but failed to even find the scoreboard. Not a single shred of joy could be obtained in this. And frankly? They knew. They dropped the cost of the game from 60$ to 40$ a couple months before the release, they knew people wouldn't want to spend money on this.
And to think, this was supposed to be the “PROFESSIONAL” made game from the original Sega Team, next to the simpler Sonic Mania made by a “Indie”, that I personally consider the BEST SONIC GAME IN YEARS!!! THATS SO SEGA!!!!
13:35 The sad thing is, Denuvo mostly kinda works on what it's supposed to do. Which is to prevent pirated copies on the first few weeks or months, which is usually successful. Denuvo only gets removed when the contract expires and at that point, the important sales are already done.
This. And I'm starting to believe that SEGA and Namco are leaving it up to individual producers/dev teams to decide on when it gets removed. It explains why they're so uneven about removing it and why it's only showing up in certain franchises nowadays.
Except that in exchange you end up losing sales, potentially permanently, from honest customers who don't want that bloatware on their computer. In the end to evade the bogeyman of "piracy" they remove actual paying customers and earn negative press.
@@MrJoeyWheeler The thing is, there hasn't been any major cases where a PC release flopped in sales because of Denuvo. Even if it did, most publishers (especially JP ones) would sadly just attribute it to "proof that PC ports are not profitable".
Thanks for doing this one, Matt. I was so angry at having waited 1 full year to play 3 hours of a mediocre game, you could tell that something went wrong. Ps. Aaron Webber is a legend
I wonder if the "attempting to please every Sonic fan" plan was a result of Sonic Boom's failure? Rise of Lyric not only was reviewed poorly, but is also the worst selling Sonic game ever. Sonic games typically sell well, critical reception be damned. While being exclusive to the Wii U probably had a lot to do with those poor sales, I wouldn't be surprised if Sonic Boom spooked SEGA in the idea that Sonic games could now fail financially. So making what they think would be total crowd pleaser would make sense in their eyes.
There are ideas in Forces that I liked. The custom character was a cool addition in concept, Infinite was a cool villain that didn't get proper time to shine, the music is pretty good....but that was about it. I'm hopeful that Sonic 2022 will be the next Unleashed, where I spent so much time on completing the game with all achievements and just enjoyed the story from start to finish. Also, Unleashed takes about 12 hours to complete with minimal side tracking compared to Forces only taking about three.
I would rather have a return to Adventure with the Chao Gardens literally being the perfect form of replayability. The Sonic Series will probably never surpass the quality it was 20 years ago, although we can only hope it tries to & manages to do better than Unleashed & Black Knight did about 13 years ago. Also if we ever get humans again who aren't related to Eggman under no circumstances let them look like the disgusting Unleashed People, Hatsune Miku style humans are preferred.
@@mtallmen184 ah yes, the turn based rpg that many fans state was a welcome addition to the series was shit. If you don't like turn based, then just say you don't like turn based.
"Our aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase" ANYONE who is in a leadership position thinks that "pleasing everyone" is a correct course of action for ANY reason should NO LONGER BE in a leadership position. You CAN'T please everyone and ATTEMPTING to do so you will only wind up pleasing NO-ONE.
Not to mention that at this point, I don't believe they have any relationship whatsoever with the actual original development team behind Sonic 1 who christened themselves with that name. EDIT: Well, I'm fairly sure certain current members have worked with people like Yuji Naka, but I mean, nobody who worked on Sonic 1 is still there or anything AFAIK. They're the Ship of Theseus of dev teams, in my eyes.
I've heard people say that they should've just released the character creator as its own thing because it was the best part, and I can't help feeling like that would've been the better option. I still enjoyed the game, though, as many problems as it had.
Then Frontiers happened and that dev time helped out A LOT to lay down Sonic's new generation but albeit not perfect. It's obvious some haven't changed as in the game has some unfinished parts they had to do due to lacking man power and SEGA getting impatient... Though as the chart shows being the one breaking records made by previous game, Frontiers is a step in the right direction and HOPE that they stick to it and also have more man power to do it.
They tried to make a Sonic game that appealed to everyone, but since it is, by definition, impossible to please absolutely everyone, they inevitably ended up pleasing no one by chasing that impossible goal.
4:56 ah there's your problem right there. The last thing you should look to when it comes to how a Sonic game should be are the fans. Sonic fans have no idea what they want, some want 2D sidescrollers, some want a new Adventure game, some want more Unleashed/Colors gameplay. It's a big fanbase full of a bunch of people who started on different games and who all have their own idea of what it should be.
As somebody who actually finds enjoyment in "Boost" gameplay (it's in the speedrun replays and trying to improve on your times), I actually enjoyed playing Forces for the most part. Classic Sonic gameplay was still not as accurate as what Mania gave us.
Boost gameplay can be extremely fun and exhilarating and it needs a pace break to avoid fatigue, but the 2D segments were just a little too slow and janky to work as the lower gear.
Boost is trash. They're glorified autolevels. The sonic adventure style was a perfect translation of the 2d gameplay put into 3d. Just needed to be more polished and less buggy.
You are forgetting forced, clunky 2D levels with Classic Sonic, which were further put to shame when standing by Sonic Mania. And like the comment above me says, everything else was just as poorly designed.
SEGA: "Wars is a bad word for kids." Star Wars: "Hold my lightsaber" SEGA: "No, you're not a kids game" LEGO Star Wars: "OK then hold my LEGO lightsaber"
Feel like Aaron was the guy that knew what was up really tried to warn them. As some one who seems to actually be a fan and who's position at the time where his job was to know and deal with the community and basically all his points fell on deaf ears or most anyway and a lot of those points he brought up in development (I.E Tails Character Assassination to list the most note worthy) that fans did no doubt pointed out. He called it as he saw it, it's weird when you realize he was no random person, but all the more telling on Sega or whoever for not heeding that advice. And look where that got them. Well hopefuly something has been learned.
Best thing to come out of Sonic Forces is the meme where "Forces" is used as a verb. "Sonic Forces me to play it, and I hated every second." That sort of thing. Made for great derogatory thumbnail/title quotes on review videos!
As much as I love Generations, it's still very much a 3D Sonic game, even on the 2D stages. I'll be echoing many comments by saying that it's best to keep the two fanbases split between classic and new Sonic. Heck, I love both!
To be fair, Sonic debuted in a time when game design and programming was both far cheaper and far less complex. Putting out a game every year was much more manageable in the pre-HD era, before both budgets and player expectations ballooned to a ridiculous degree. Heroes, Shadow, and Sonic '06 all came out in the span of three years, and the first two did fine, but Sonic '06 (which -- likely not coincidentally -- was the first Sonic game with an HD budget) crashing and burning was the wake-up call Sega needed.
@@GamingintheAM0801 sonic 06 wasn't even a big enough wake up call for them cause then they let sonic boom happen. I know they didn't develop it but they are the ones that royally fucked that project up.
@@ProjectTony That's a good point, but Sonic Boom came after a period of time where Sonic had actually managed to fall back into the audience's good graces with Colors and Generations (and Unleashed to a lesser extent). I guess they grew a bit too confident with the franchise at that point.
![[FREE] Pop Type Beat - DARK REFLECTIONS](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/qbh7kUY6KmY/mqdefault.jpg)
“Our aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase.” That’s the problem. The fanbase is split, you’re better off keeping the Mania team for the Classic feel and have your own team work on the new stuff, thus covering more of your bases without compromising the main games.
Sonic Mania was for people that ONLY likes classic sonic
Sonic Forces Wants to please Everybody including Classic Sonic Fans.
So in 2017,the Sonic 25 birthday just feels off because they were clearly pleasing classic sonic fans to up the sales.
they also forgot people who grew up with the Adventure Era or anything from Adventure to Black Knight, a target that wanted a game since 2009, which they seemingly ignored for everyone instead
THIS statement is false. The average human believes Sonic Forces is a poorly made game. "Trying to please everyone" isn't the problem.
Mainline Sonic games are simply bad. *Sonic Generations is basically "what if Sonic Forces didn't suck." Bad games are bad games.*
@@Izhen_UwU According to Takashi Iizuka, Sonic Mania brought in a large amount of new Sonic fans. The last Sonic game to do that to such a degree was Sonic Adventures
Oh man, I can't believe you didn't mention the Super Sonic fiasco where Super Sonic was originally meant to be paid DLC. That was a doozey
You act like they didn’t actually start charging people for Super Sonic for a month or two before backlash lead them to make it free again.
It was free, then it went paid, then it went back to free..
The shadow was supposed to be exclusive to early purchase initially or something
@@RodniDemental the Shadow costume for the avatar was exclusive to early purchases of the switch version and to the digital deluxe edition in other platforms. Now it’s available as paid dlc on steam I think but remains unavailable on other platforms
@@geeboysgamesandmore49 Hmm interesting, what I can tell you is I bought physical for xbox, it calls itself 'bonus edition' on the case (dunno if they all say this) and it had a code on a piece of paper for the bonus 'sega' skins (eg. nights, jetset, puyo, monkey ball and persona).
But all this stuff became free and not require a code so don't know if there was ever a point where they charged for this stuff but it appears they intended to.
I can also say shadow skin was apparently 'free' at around the same time super sonic update was introduced
I'm so glad they didn't get away with that
Genuinely baffled how they thought that was okay
Aaron Webber’s script commentary was amazing. I’m used to the people working on games being super out of touch but this guy seems to get it.
Dude ran and was responsible for the Sonic twitter being super well known, so it makes sense.
Aaron Webber was Sonic's social media manager and is credited with making the Sonic Twitter account so popular. For a fanbase as big and vocal as Sonic's, getting a brand account to resonate with people so strongly required Sega to hire a superfan who really understands the masses. All of the Sonic social media people are like that nowadays tmk.
Sometimes you not just work with a franchise but you are really a fan so you knows what the series needs.
th-cam.com/video/UedCMUwaQeM/w-d-xo.html
Epic!!!
@@theLikou1 english is hard sometimes huh lol
love the self awareness of Aaron Webber with his line of: ""we're going in hard and fast" is gonna be the most used out of context line"
Aaron is *very* aware of how things go in Sonic internet circles.
He says, on the sentence where Knuckles said he’s using a plan that he came up with in a fucking minute.
Let us remember that he said that they know everything about sonic on the internet
Which makes me think he also knows about the Toilet fanart and the... masculine protection one...
@@lovelesswish1972 tails... just chillin on a bench..
@@tufbubblz thanks I hate it
Hearing Aaron Webber's comments regarding the story is honestly one of the most cathartic things I have ever heard, not only because it confirms the problems with the story but it simply shows how much Aaron cares for the Sonic franchise and wants whats better for it. He's honestly one of the things Sega needs especially now more than ever.
Yeah. If that's actually really real. Sounds fake as heck to me.
@@NoahNCopeland I honestly disagree but u know what u do u.
@@NoahNCopeland you clearly don't know Aaron
Release the Webber cut
@@NoahNCopeland It all seems pretty on-brand for Aaron Webber. He's the guy who was in charge of the Sonic social media account and is the one responsible for it becoming so popular. He's a fan first and foremost, and he understands how the fandom tends to react to things.
I know a lot of people are already pointing this out in the comments, but...
"We aim to please the entire Sonic fanbase" is *such* a fantastically wrong-headed sentence, I love it. Like, how do you think that's feasible in any world? The Sonic fanbase is as cohesive as broken glass, and about as painful to interact with.
that's because everyone wants different things, they should've just aimed at the Adventure Fans since Mania was already covering the Classic ones
@@JadenFox9 But sonic team has a huge phobia to that due to sonic 06. The thing Adventure fans want the most is adventure *writting style,* a coherent shonen-like story who takes itself somewhat seriously and shows character deep and development; they would be fine with boost if it wasn't alongside that massive Flanderization. Forces doesn't have coherence and lacks deep and development on their characters; also doesn't help the writers have been awful at their job since colors.
@@N12015 while sadly true
Forces' story was the closest to getting the Adventure Era right compared to Colors to Lost World, not perfect, has problems especially being mistranslated and then chickening out, but close
as for 06, they yet to realize it wasn't the game itself, it was the fact they were rushed with a small team like Matt said, SEGA seriously repeated this same mistake with ROL in 2016 and Ultimate now
I know they're beaten down, and that's why the 2010s happened, but because of Ultimate, I expect them to go the opposite direction, which is why people aren't being harsh on it, they know what will happen
@@N12015 We Adventure fans do *NOT* want the Boost formula, we want it thrown out permanently.
@@epsilonalphaargo1948 And I don't blame them. It feels like the game is being played by itself instead of actual momentum.
I can’t believe Sonic Forces is 5 years old
Time flies by
th-cam.com/video/UedCMUwaQeM/w-d-xo.html
Epic!!!
I could feel the wrinkles forming on my face as I realized it.
Oh lords 2018 was only *4* years by now, almost 5
Time is ballsy
i remember i was hyped for the game too, i was 16 around that time 😭
I was actually supposed to start working after graduating school in 2017.
I met Aaron Webber once at pax, he was demoing sonic forces and you could hear the despair in his voice as he tried to explain decisions made about the game. He's a true fan though. He did a trivia contest afterward making up questions on the fly and the man knows sonic better than anybody.
what a guy
Aaron's a wholesome guy!
To be fair, "we're going in hard and fast" doesn't seem nearly as infamous and quoted as Knuckle's iconic "None of this is good, vector. That's why it's called war."
"please the entire sonic fanbase"
well THAT explains a lot.
0/10 not enough space echidnas
@@elcactusdelamuerte506 nah penders can keep his stupid space echidnas I just want shade back 🥲
They can’t please shit nowadays even before forces was a thing so idk why they would bother to say that.
They need to give Aaron more control over sonic games because he clearly has an awareness of what would work for a sonic story that people might like again a lot
Seriously, Aaron knows whats up.
Sonic stories were always bad
@@atre5763
Not Sonic And The Black Knight, Not Sonic Adventure 2, despite it's poor presentation.
@@Laiser No those were bad too
@@atre5763 Foolish fool is laying Bait.
Obvious Bait.
So what I learned from this video:
- Aaron Webber tried to save the story, but SEGA didn't listen to him enough.
- Sonic Forces needed more time and it just didn't get it.
- This all sounds very familiar.
I really hope SEGA gets it right with Frontier/Rangers. They had their chance for a free "Win" with Sonic Colors Ultimate, but they bungled that too. So not holding my breath.
Yeah, Sega just keeps mucking things up for Sonic. I just cannot see them actually learning this time, if ever. At least the games are kinda fixed from what I heard, so at least they didn't leave behind a mess like other bigger companies do. (Still cannot STAND when they release a borked game on launched though.)
Forces didn't need more time. It had 4 years, what it needed was better time MANAGEMENT and better core values.
Sega just needs to get out of their own way
Sonic Colours: Ultimate was being screwed up by Blind Squirrel if you look at their track record. SEGA actually never wanted it to release in a horrible state.
@@thesonicsegakid As an ip owner its also part of Sega's job to make sure the game is up to standards, regardless of who is developing/porting it.
Quality control is not just for the developer, but for the publisher too. Especially when the publisher does have the resources to do so.
“We wanted to make a game for everybody” is always a red flag for a game.
Explain
@@gezzcombakking2454 Because you literally cannot make something that please everyone, since people have different tastes.
Gaming especially some people like Mario games, and others prefer games like Silent Hill. You can’t make game that please both crowds since some elements just don’t work well with each other.
It’s why you should just pick one element and make it work well.
There can't be a game for everybody. Its better for the game if they make a good experience for its target audience rather than a mediocre experience for everyone.
@@gayfishticks2839 alright so let me get this straight, your saying that if SEGA doesn’t come up with their own ideas for a new sonic game then they’re mostly likely to fail at some point?
That's the general idea.
It really sounds like the guys at Sonic Team are too focused having widespread appeal and not just making an enjoyable experience. Aaron's comments focus on having continuity and cutting out stereotypically bad scenarios, but the heads seem to want to focus on having the playable characters be big heroes and everyone else to be desperately in need of them.
That what happens when you make a mascot just for the sake of having a mascot and just slapped him on a game
I mean it would have made more sense to have Forces be a game where every level you play as a different member of the cast in their efforts to stop Eggman and save Sonic, with Sonic being an unlockable after beating the game perhaps.
@@jeremyabbott4537 they could've replaced Classic Sonic with the other characters instead and allowed the Avatar to tag with any of them as well as Sonic too
but that's the problem, they could do amazing things if they did focus on continuity and using the characters to they're fullest, they could make an enjoyable game too, but they don't either out of fear or please a part of the whole fanbase
Sonic Team cannot even port Sonic Colors properly. Let alone make a new Sonic game
Hoping you’ll cover Jump Force before that game gets delisted. Was actually looking forward to that one before seeing the reviews:(
Jump Force just makes me sad, especially compared to the amazing treatment the Dragonball cast got from Arc System Works.
I was very excited about jump force unfortunately its was not attempted to buy, the multi-player good enough but can lag lot and kick out of online battles. The roster was sausage party with not enough shonen women characters and story too repetitive every time you battle the same thing as vs mode like add horde mode or upgrade the woman roster to please the players and shonen fans.
@SuperStoryMode Jump Force didn't make enough money to justify the licensing costs so Bandai Namco is shutting the servers off
@SuperStoryMode Some suspect it's a licensing issue, which sounds very plausible, considering how often the video game rights to Shonen characters and franchises shift around.
I bought it. I refused to return it as a personal reminder to never buy another bad game.
Honestly the worst game I've ever played in my entire life.
"We're going in hard and fast"
-Knuckles before sending an entire army to die on a plan he made it in a minute and half.
Also that's what she said
"We're going in hard and fast" sounds kinky lmao
@@charg1nmalaz0r51That's because it is.
Perhaps not at the risk of everything else, but I think the Character Creation was an idea that was worth doubling down on. Anyone in my extended friend group (most of whom have become jaded towards the series) I have talked to notes the character creation as their favorite part, both for the ironic meme creations and the genuine stylized characters.
Yeah, that's the big thing, right? The only thing anyone has even remembered this game for was the character creator. It's literally the most fun part of the game and I haven't seen anyone ever really talk negatively about it. Sure, lots of people joke about how dumb you can look, but even for those people, it's still a really fun option.
I still stand by my thought that Forces should've basically been an OC version of Sonic Heroes. Make 3 characters that are speed, power, and flight types, and you have the option of 3 player online co-op with your friend's characters. Maybe even sprinkle in solo levels of the different types like Adventure 2.
I honestly like to see the character customization brought back in Sonic Rangers/Frontiers.
It was wildly criticized that the avatar takes away too much focus and it's levels where dull. People wanted a Sonic game not a generic platformer. There was nothing they could do with the concept.
it's honestly surprising they didn't add it to TSR as a replacement for the Avatar and Mii, but that game also could've added a lot more, darn Budget Titles
I always referred to Forces as 'Good ideas, bad execution'
The whole plot of Eggman actually winning for once and you have to take the world back sounds kickass. It was just don't poorly.
It is sad when Avengers Infinity War had a competently written premise of the heroes attempting to save the universe from the big bad villain’s grasp than Sonic Forces.
It didn’t help that the plot was basically the same as SatAM and by extension that of the Archie comics for like the first decade of its run so we know a story like that can be successful.
The entire history of Sega as a company can be summed up as “great ideas, poor execution.”
I find it a problem with developers on ANY franchise when it comes to audience. If a game focuses on one audience, there is a chance that the game would have a smooth development and succeed. But when a game focuses on multiple audiences, the game gets lost in development and you end up getting a middle of the road game.
A big example is Resident Evil 6
Re6 is a awesome action game but fails being a resident evil game
Yeah but Resident evil 6 is a good game, plenty of content, looks great, amazing combat mechanics. A good horror game? Nope. But as a game by itself it is amazing, one of the best third person shooters
@@thegamingprozone1941 very true
I've been thinking the same thing, I feel that Sonic should just choose an audience and make the best of that.
And sure you could once in a while shake up things a little but just having more focus is enough
@@thegamingprozone1941 I’m not sure I can agree with this. Mercenaries Mode in RE6 is really fun, because that game has really excellent action game mechanics. But the level design in the main story is awful. The game failed in the more action centric direction it was going in, and failed to understand that level design is the thing that made RE4 popular not just the faster pace. It was also probably a mistake to make all the campaigns co-op. If anything, there should have been one big campaign that was action-y and co-op, and another that was single player, slow paced and followed the standard “solve puzzles and fight zombies in a castle” formula.
Aaron is the type of Q&A tester most developers need. Most of his critique was on-point, dude didn't miss
Yeah, i also love how brutaly honest he is, it's just really funny to me
Hell naw dude he’s one of the idiots that made Sonic look like a fucking joke on Twitter, especially with all the stupid memes and shitposts, thank god his ass is no longer involved that much with Sega but they still can’t even get Sonic to be taken serious.
@@calebproductions1264 Nope, you are nitpicking and biased, i win, bye bye
@@calebproductions1264 Sonic was already a joke before Aaron came along. He leaned into it and made it self-aware, which was honestly what the franchise needed. It needed to be "in on the joke."
It's like what your parents might tell you about being picked on at school: when they make fun of you, just laugh with them. It isn't fun for them if you don't get angry.
@@GamingintheAM0801 Sonic is SUPPOSED to be serious and edgy.
I’m honestly glad Sonic Team has decided to take more time between “Sonic” titles moving forward, as that will hopefully create better games from a technical and story standpoint, and a potentially better experience for the development team.
As for games to cover on “What Happened”, I think “Metroid Dread” should be covered. Not because it’s bad, it is literally one of my favourite games of this year, but because of its long, rumour-fuelling history, the extensive gap between it and “Fusion”, and the unfortunately shitty news that has been coming out regarding how MercurySteam’s team was treated by their upper management during the game’s development.
This game got a lot of time between it and Lost World. But they spent most of it on the lighting engine, essentially accomplishing nothing different from any other Sonic game.
yo what news????
@@EgoLikol Basically, Spanish journalists have been publishing accounts by people who previously worked at MercurySteam, revealing issues such as roughly 50 people not getting credited for their work on the game due to a company policy where you have to be on a project for 25% of the development time in order to get credited, very poor management, and an overall negative workplace environment, all of which got worse during the ongoing pandemic.
The few good things is that they didn’t crunch and Nintendo was very helpful and supportive of developers at MercurySteam, but the negative stuff makes me feel really bad for everyone, except for upper management, who worked on the game. 😰
Don't forget that during that time, Federation Force and (more critically) Other M was released, a spinoff that was ok at best and a meant to be mainline flop that made the state of the brand shaky despite the teaser for Prime 4 being in the area as well.
Its kinda interesting, because this was not the first time it was mentioned that there were issues with the work environment. As mentioned in Matt's video on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. I'm starting to think that may not have been just a disgruntled employee.
"we want to appeal to every Sonic fan"
That right there is a recipe for disaster.
It was a fool's errand to attempt to create a game for all fans, because they've made so many different kinds of games over the years that there is a dedicated group for each of them. Some like the edgy stories, some like the atmosphere of the Genesis games, some like the lighthearted silliness of the Wii/Wii U games, Boost, exploration, puzzles, momentum platforming, characters that are exclusive to the comics and cartoons versus the standard game loadout of characters, you can't balance all of that out into one perfect game.
They don't have to do 2+ releases every time from now on, but how they handled Mania vs Forces was a step in the right direction. Pick an audience to focus on for one project and just flesh that out. Any varying ideas that don't mesh with the vision of one project can get sidelined and placed into another project.
I'm also happy that they're allocating real development time to projects from now on, because that was one of the biggest hurdles that they kept ignoring. The original Sonic trilogy + CD were all made under crunch and ended up as revolutionary games, so I'm sure they thought crunch was the secret to making a game good, when it's not. Those games ended up performing well DESPITE the crunch. Now that they realize that, I hope Frontiers or Rangers or whatever it's called ends up being a solid step up from Forces. From the leak descriptions so far, I think I want to get it. (It's an open/open-ish world exploration platformer, according to the leaks.)
I disagree. You can get both..sonic is a single character so I don't like this differentiation with "classic"
Just seems like their avoiding recognizing their issues.
Adventure held people.
The problem is that they need to abandon that entire gameplay style and engine that they've had since adventure.
It has nothing to do with sonic. It's never been great.
If they do split it then they need to move sonic forward. Sonic staying 2d or not was not the issue.
And they did 2d with new sonic as well.
At that point they could just use shadow or silver for the edgy style.
And a more general audience with Sonic.
I remember PS plus made it a free game to get, I think right after Mania. With Mania I was like "Ooooo okay!", with Forces, I was like "Even though this free, this feels like a scam, and they should be paying me to play it."
Damn I missed out on it just cuz I’ve been wanting to at least try the game out but Sonic being dull or good is always like going into a game with a 50/50 shot
Yeah, I got it through PS Plus. Played it for a bit, but I couldn't even bring myself to finish it.
@@METR0lD same here tbh
It's not as bad as Sonic 06, but it's not that great. It's playable, the character creator is a nice idea and the music is good, but that's it. It's a rather forgettable game.
They also gave away Mighty Number 9, and I definitely wasn't going to touch that crap with a ten foot pole. Just the idea that downloading it might feed into some digital metrics they could show to an investor makes me nervous.
Sonic Forces: the textbook example of attempting to please everyone and satisfying no one.
In recent memory anyway. The target audience was probably happy to get it though. Thar being kids
@@noobartist6009 That is true. Kids are probably happy creating their custom hero.
Kids probably do not dislike this game.
th-cam.com/video/UedCMUwaQeM/w-d-xo.html
Epic!!!
Kids don’t even give a shit about sonic, they’re all into cod, fortrash, and all those crappy mobile games we see on TH-cam nowadays.
I like how the game was hesitant to imply that Sonic was going to be executed... instead talking about how he was being constantly tortured. I guess that's more family friendly, somehow?
The torture comment doesn’t show up in the Japanese script. Sega is Japanese. You do the math.
According to the Fridge Page for this game's Tv Tropes entry, the "torture" was just watching Eggman take over the world.
@@lance2580 Yeah, but that's Fridge logic, and not something explicit that most people would think of when the word "torture" is used.
Given that the character creator was one of the better things about Forces, i'd say those who asked for it ARE having a good life right now.
Yep.☺️
It wasn't bad, but the lack of species (Where's the foxes?) and lack of body shape options *really* hurt it. Seems they were so focused on stupid little hats and shirts they kinda neglected the rest of it.
Yesss
As someone that sometimes buys games based on character creation, it always irks me when there's wasted potential. I really don't like when a team does what feels like the bare minimum and moves on. Given just how many animals there are in the Sonic-verse there should've easily been a dozen to choose from. And a lack of any body customization (I imagine it probably was a gameplay decision) is really frustrating when you've got characters like Charmy and Vector that exist.
Technically, Sonic Wars was just a working title, which isn't the first for the series;
Sonic Rangers to Sonic Frontiers
Sonic Anniversary to Sonic Generations
Sonic Synergy to Sonic Boom
Sonic Discovery to Sonic Mania
etc.
"Sonic Discovery to Sonic Mania"
I didn't know this. Doesn't work at all.
Trying to appeal to the entire fanbase can't be done, everyone wants something different. I hope Frontiers does its own thing and that Sega stands behind it and let the fans adjust, rather than half-assing the game trying to force fanservice in everywhere. I think Sonic Forces is harmless but forgettable and that sucks, I was genuinely excited about the darker storyline (I grew up with the Adventure games, sure the stories were a tad silly but they took themselves seriously enough to be fun.) but they didn't fully commit and falls flat.
pretty much, they should've just aimed at the Adventure Fans, at least then they'll essentially please everyone with Mania covering the Classic Fans
Y'know, when someone who's a higher-up at the company says there's issues with the game, you should PROBABLY listen to them instead of pretending everything's fine.
Takashi: we shall make make a sonic game that pleases *everyone*
Me: Oh No.
Specially with the same writters as Sonic lost world, which basically guarantees that the adventure fans won't be pleased, specially considering that writting tend to affect gameplay.
By trying to please everyone you please nobody, games have audiences for a reason
Knuckles agrees.
Which is kind of an odd thing for him to say, cause Sonic always kinda had a lot of appeal compared to some other genres and franchises? I mean, get why he said it, but it feels kinda overkill still with retro Sonic and the OC stuff? I dunno, I do think OC stuff was kinda cool at least.
Every time I hear about Sonic games and their issues I hear about how the developers were trying to appeal to fans, like that's the only driving creative force in the development. It's always just about what the fans want, never about what the developers want or what kind of creative ideas they have. They are always just trying to pander to fans rather than actually do something creative, as if no one at Team Sonic has any ideas of their own or just doesn't want to work on Sonic.
It really does suck. The creativity is what makes the fans in the first place.
But that's the funniest part. In their pathetic attempts, they end up not pandering to anybody.
Many people left Sonic Team and therefore Sega, like Yasuhara, Naka and Ohshima! From the "old guard" of Sonic Team only Iizuka is still around, and the rest are just a bunch of amateurs (like Nakamura), that were only hired because Sega cut the budget for Sonic games after the release of Unleashed by quite a lot!
Man, I would've loved if more games used the first Hedgehog Engine used in Unleashed and Generations, the models and loading tech used in those games is still amazing in my opinion
I think that they didn’t use it again because it would have been hard to make it work on modern consoles. At least they could have used it as base for the new one
th-cam.com/video/UedCMUwaQeM/w-d-xo.html
Epic!!!
Lost World, the Olympic Games in the Wii U and Phantasy Star Online 2 (before the New Genesis update) used Hedgehog Engine 1.
Except they really can't use HE1 nowadays.
Not because of some conspiracy like "they lost the source code!" or anything like that, but because that shit is old af, and is centered on long obsolete backends like DirectX 9, which is according to Skyth, a modder that bringed over some stuff from HE2 to HE1, "PAIN"
Not only that, but HE2 is MUCH more advanced than 1, with better lightning in every possible way comparing it to 1, it's just that Forces used it extremely poorly
So basically, it's not that they "choose" to make a new engine, HE1 started development in 2005 and got its first game in 2008, and as such it is, whether you like it or not, very outdated
@@spongebobfan78 actually, the Rio game uses an unfinished version of HE2, believe it or not
"Didn't want to make a direct sequel to Generations."
These people legitimately frustrate me to no end.
I can definitely understand why. Having every new game just be a collection of things from old games would get stale. Although, they’ve kinda been doing that anyway, and it definitely has gotten stale.
@@Tom-jw7ii Most Sonic releases from the 2010s had Classic/Genesis era themes and imagery everywhere: Sonic 4, Generations, Lost World, Mania, and of course Forces, Colors and Free Riders were probably the only exceptions (the Boom series is also an exception I guess but, you know, nobody cares about Boom). They've been pandering to nostalgia for a whole decade, of course it became stale pretty quickly.
So you want more recycled stages from the past? In the current Meta Era (Ever since Sonic -4- Mobile) where its already being done and I dare say basically every Sonic fan is sick of the overreliance of nostalgia bait?
I’d rather take a generations sequel over a mediocre game that looked like it was made for three year olds and didn’t fuck with us Dreamcast fans.
@@calebproductions1264 That has nothing to do with whether or not it’s a Generations sequel or not. A Generations sequel could be mediocre too.
The game gives me the same vibes as
_"I'm not Sonic, I'm my own original character, Blonic!"_
Pretty much, at least that's what I presume SonicTeam thought their target audience was when they came up with it.
It's not like fans liked sonic games because they were fun and had interesting characters; I mean what kind of *Generations* would you think would come up with that *Mania* ?
Nah man, ppl wanted a dark sonic game with their OC in; just like sonic Satam did!
Also, we don't talk about the comics and what kind of *Penders* those can O' worms would open.
@@WakoDoodle Oh man. Sonic Satam and the comics was the breeding ground for some OC fuckshit in the 90s. I know because I was there. Like, RIGHT THERE, watching a neighbor trace Sonic from the comics, color him green, give him blonde hair, red eyes, and said "this is my original Sonic, "Conis the SuperSonic, and Sally is his girlfriend, he fights Sonic and Sally marries him when when he wins".
...I really just told my age with that...
And I wish I was making that up.
Don't you sonichu?
"So you're Sonic, but blond."
"We wanted to make a game for everyone."
*the beginning of your downfall*
There is no such thing as a "thing for everyone", because not everyone likes the same thing. Once you start trying to please everyone, you just end up pleasing no one because of how much you have to strip the game from what it could've been. You start losing your current audience because the game wasn't what they expected or liked, and you start not bringing in newer audiences because of the now negative reception surrounding the game.
Companies need to stop trying to please everyone, and just focus on pleasing their loyal customers that they already have. Those loyal customers will then recommend their friends to play your game.
Not-so fun fact about Hedgehog Engine 2: Because of Forces' reception, people are essentially saying "What's the point of making a new engine that isn't graphically good?", despite titles like Sakura Wars and Mario and Sonic 2020 showing what the engine can achieve. Those sadly get dismissed because Forces is the "definite proof".
I remember someone tried porting a lot of HE2 stuff to Generations to make the Sunset Heights mod look the same as it is in Forces. The modder was frustrated when people are predictably pointing out his mod as the reason why HE2 is pointless, despite the modder basically saying that a lot of stuff were injected to Gens' code (something that in the past decade of the game's modding life, was impossible, until recently).
And now for a fun fact: Files for Hedgehog Engine 2 were found in M&S Rio Olympics game, meaning the Wii U was technically capable back in the day while the engine was still developing.
I didn't know the HE2 was on the Wii U. That's really cool.
I think people don't know the difference between graphic engine and art direction.
HE2 is without a doubt a good engine, but Forces does not make a job showcasing it because it only shows like 3 diferent environments
@@lovelesswish1972 Yeah, and the sad part is that any of the other HE2 games are always dismissed when it comes to arguments about HE because it's "not related". I just saw a thread where someone pointed out HE2 features and how necessary the new engine was. And the argument of the other is that Gens and Unleashed looked good, so a new Engine wasn't even needed.
I heard they ditched Havoc for the Bullet Engine after Forces and could be seen in Mario and Sonic 2020 Olympics, seriously tho, the graphics of Forces was pretty good, problem was they should've made better assets
I just want then to get the game right, it doesn't have the be the most amazing technical showcase of anything, just focus on getting 3D Sonic gameplay right first! The best recieved games in three franchise in a decade was 16-bit styled
I'm glad Webber knew how dumb it was to just throw Silver in the game. They've been just throwing him in sonic games and it's just like "do they even know how/why this character exists anymore?" lol
At least Blaze has a reason to come back, yet she hasn't been in an actual noncrossover Sonic Game since Generations. Rush essentially established Cream as being Blaze's reason to return to Sonic's World. Ironically Cream is supposed to be 1 of the most popular characters among Japanese fans. I miss the days that Sonic felt like a shonen anime.
Honestly, that's a problem with quite a few Sonic characters, or just concepts in the series in general. They get introduced with this story to them, but then because they want to keep using them Sonic Team ends up having to handwave explain why things are where they are.
- Knuckles is supposed to be the guardian of Angel Island, but he appears all the time far away from Angel Island. The Master Emerald Shine is also outside where everyone can see it, so it's not like it's really hidden or anything. They don't even really address it most of the time.
- Blaze is from another dimension, protects the Sol Emeralds, and if memory serves, the Sol Emeralds can cause problems if they're in close proximity to the Chaos Emeralds. When Blaze shows up they usually just say the Sol Emeralds willed it for some reason and leave it at that.
- Silver being from the future, which they said was fixed in Colors DS, but then in the Forces pre-comic it's ruined again? Even if Colors DS isn't the canon story, they never set a hard stance on the status of Silver's future. Now that I think about it, I don't think they even explain how Silver time travels, as even if he used the 06 method he would need two emeralds and another person with Chaos Control both to go into the past and go back into the future.
- The Deadly Six are exclusive to Lost Hex (which itself never really got much lore to it), and despite Zavok hating Eggman, he keeps working with him. Why does Eggman keep Zavok around given that if Eggman loses control Zavok can easily take over his whole army? Why does Zavok work with Eggman when he openly hates him and was an unwilling lackey for all of Lost World?
@@flarestorm9417 i agree with your other points but im pretty sure that the zavok in forces isnt the real zavok and a copy made by the ruby
@@yourfriendlymemedeliverygu7493 I assume that parts referring to Team Sonic Racing, where Zavoc was assisting Eggman and Metal Sonic for... some unknown reason. He's kinda just there to be a Eggman-aligned power character I guess
Seriously love your delivery. Great writing. Great narration.
Keep it up, Matty 👍
Thanks, will do!
Aaron’s notes on the script were hilarious. It’s like he was the only sensible guy in the studio trying to fix out of touch writers.
They wanted to please everybody, so they ended up having no one.
Seriously, they were already full steam ahead with the gritty concept during development. They would have had less problems with the story if gaps weren’t developed from the sudden course correction.
The level design needed more time to be properly fleshed out, as even the stages that were already there definitely felt incomplete. I’m looking at YOU Arsenal Pyramid and Null Space!
The railroaded nature of the controls would have been excusable if they properly leaned into it at all times.
The standard platforming segments in some of the stages certainly felt too basic and Mario-esque in design.
Etc., etc., etc.
No joke, "None of this is good, Vector. That's why it's called war." is legitimately one of the worst lines of dialogue ever written for a video game.
This is what happens if you don't even give the voice actors more time to perform!
Not even top 50. It's a bad line but one of the worst? I assume you haven't heard that many bad lines in games.
No, the line just sucks, period. Daniel Day-Lewis could deliver that line and it would still sound horrible.
Shouldn't it be "true dat". I legitimately cringed at that one
@@definitelynotapervert5602 Why is it so bad?
"I thought of a great plot for the new Sonic game!"
"The game ships in 20 minutes, better work quick."
Was I dissapointed that we didn't get much about the new Sonic game? Totally. Am I proud of Sega for actually taking their time and not rushing the game out for the anniversary year? 100% and I will play that game when it's ready.
Sonic forces took 4 years
Sonic Rangers/frontiers will take 5 years to make
The problem was Everyone at Sonic Team was trinking and making cosmetic things more than making the game itself
So when the game development finally over,what you get is a Sonic Generations Skin with some new levels,Downgrades in Classic/Modern Sonic Gameplay and Half-Baked gameplay elements like the avatar gameplay style that is the same as the sonic's one but without the boost,the stages also being short and a lame final boss
@@Izhen_UwU Sonic Forces had about 1 year gameplay development time, with only 3 designers surrounding it (one of them worked at Sonic Lost World, and the other two never worked at a Sonic game at all)! No wonder why Forces feels like a half-baked version of Generations! It was basically in some sort of development hell!
if hopefully the game is good, i'll be extremely happy!
@Pink Morales uh oh...
@Pink Morales where'd you hear that?
A year later after this video and frontiers turned out to be one of the best Sonic games in YEARS who would have thought that was possible
Looking back to this nearing the release of Frontiers, you can really tell that Frontiers likely was cooking and prioritized even before Forces came out XD
Also it seems they took Webber's advice to heart with Frontiers with Ian Flynn on writing and them changing up the story tone and structure.etc
You forgot the part where they made Super Sonic paid DLC and then made it free after fan backlash. I can't believe they thought that was ok to do.
I sure do wish SEGA would eventually realize people really want them to make a good Sonic game
they realize, it's just that what makes a "good Sonic game" varies depending on who you ask
you know what they say about a jack of all trades
Like that’s ever going to happen, when’s the last time they’ve made a good sonic game? No that piece of shit fan made game called sonic mania doesn’t count.
Man, this game had plenty of wasted potential. A lot of it I enjoyed but still left feeling whelmed.
Didn't expect this to contain like huge other things behind closed doors like other Wha Happens, but this is still an interesting insight into its development nonetheless. Especially those comments from Aaron Webber, I genuinely didn't know those existed.
Let's hope Frontiers will be the game it is promising to be, or at the very least decent.
Sonic Forces.
And it's prequel: Sonic Requests.
And it's fan-made spin-off: Sonic Suggests.
When Sonic fans hate your game more than the journalists do, you know you’ve screwed up.
Man. When Sega tries to please the fans like this they just trip over their feet and break their faces on the pavement hard!
Hopefully the Yakuza studio does not leave Sega. Thats the only decent studio at Sega
@@garrulous645 I sure hope so
As usual, Sonic fans can please Sonic fans better than Sega can.
Yeah. Not that this is the only reason, but them doing so many different things with the franchise means they have to pick and choose what sect to appeal to. And when they try to appeal to everyone (especially when they screw it up), they're almost guaranteed to please no one.
@@garrulous645 *Atlus and Sega AM1 (the people behind Valkyria Chronicles and the new Sakura Wars) have entered the chat*
Loved the custom character's levels, all of them. They should have made the whole game around that
Can't wait to see you do an "What Happened?" on GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition
And BF 2042
My god I wanted the GTA Trilogy Remastered Edition to take a massive shit on colors ultimate so bad, so disappointed to hear that it’s not doing well.
Why did this have to be a boost game. If this game didn’t exist we would have a solid trilogy of boost games.
To be fair Colors' reputation would have eventually been tainted too with Colors Ultimate.
IMO the Boost formula is nothing but pure garbage, the Adventure formula is inherently superior.
@@epsilonalphaargo1948
While I do like both the Boost and Adventure formulas equally, I will point out that the former formula does seem to be derived from _NiGHTS into Dreams..._ I would also recommend checking that game out to see what a Boost game could truly be like when done well.
@@epsilonalphaargo1948 "MY opinion is more valid than YOUR opinion"
if the boost formula was as garbage as you say, Generations would be one of the most hated games in the series
When you prioritize in making a worse lightning engine over a mainline game
If only they had their priorities as straight as this game's level design
@@dorimeinterinoataparidorim1801 lmao
@@dorimeinterinoataparidorim1801 Hahahaha!
Forces was mid but bruh hedgehog engine 2 looks amazing to me the detail and lighting are good.
it isn't that the hedgehog engine 2 is necessarily worse; it's that forces didn't utilize/demonstrate it's potential at all. it all just goes back to how incredibly half-assed everything around forces was, no thanks to it's year-long development.
That quote Takashi Iizuka made in the Nintendo UK interview, where he said that their aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase, speaks volumes on how and why Forces turned out the way it is. They tried to appeal to the older fans with the nostalgia pandering, they tried to appeal to the casual gamers with the custom character system and they tried to appeal to current fans with the boost formula. Too bad all that people-pleasing amounted to is an unfocused and horrific mess of a video game. To this day, I still view this as one of the worst Sonic games in recent history. The amount of idiotic design choices in terms of game design and also its poorly written story never ceases to make me cringe. If the game had focused solely on the custom character system instead of shoe-horning in Classic Sonic and making the game essentially Generations 2, I believe the game would've had better focus and turned out better than what we have right now.
I'm going through these sonic vids again to prepare for sonic frontiers...
Yeaaaaah it seems history is repeating itself again doesn't it 😅
I feel like Matt just gets giddy each time he gets to talk about another Sonic title
As a Capcom character, I can tell you right now we're never gonna dry up.
Never.
...never...
I'll be honest, the character customization and gameplay was probably the best part of forces imo. Yeah, the whole thing doesn't fit together, like at all. But the OC freedom fighter bit could have been great as a separate, spin of game like the wario land series did for Mario. They should have had the game split more evenly, with the opportunity to pick weather you would play the modern stages as either Sonic or your OC. So you could play the whole game as just Sonic, or just the OC with the gear you unlock. Kinda like a toned down version of Heroes.
Sonic Team: Course correcting course corrections since Knuckle's Chatotix.
16:39 - Rouge: "The prisoners are being held in a kind of internment facility."
Oh... you mean like a PRISON?!
With infinite coming up, any thoughts on maybe doing master chief collection? Id love to see a chronicled take from the game's disasterous launch to it's rise back up nowadays, itd be really interesting i think
I'm one of the people who likes sonic forces and replay it from time to time.... but yeah, even I can't deny it's flaws. Which to be fair, as a fan you should be willing to do in the first place. things can just improve with fair critique, so seeing that they at least now take their time to develop the next sonic game is certainly a move in the right directions.
5:42 "our aim is to please the entire sonic fanbase" Calling that ambitious is an understatement.
Sonic is Matt's next Capcom once the latter dries up.
You know... why didn't they just go on to make more sonic adventure games seeing that those seemed to be what they were trying to build around? I miss chao gardens.
Sonic Frontiers is amazing. It's absolutely one of the best Sonic games made. Hope to see a video about it from you.
The show is about games with troubled development cycle, and so far it looks like frontiers didn't have any hiccups big enough for it to appear here
You've been extremely generous into describing the very core issue of this game: its utterly boring and nonexistent stage design. Whole sections which were replaced with QTEs that the player actually can fail and it plays the same. The whole game being just corridors with no verticality and even enemies that are just bowling pins to strike down that literally don't even attack Sonic when you're standing in front of them. Sonic steers by himself. They wanted to copy Sonic's drop dash for classic, managing to make it the least useful thing of the whole game. They even wanted to copy stages by putting every single one with the name of a past Sonic game, to atrocious results into wanting to sound nostalgic but literally only making garbage. I would've accepted and forgiven so much this game had if even just a single one stage of this game was ANY degree of fun. JUST ONE. Sonic 06 is the most broken game ever but at least that was FUN. Past Sonic games had 6-7 lead designers working on stage designs, this game only had 4, of which only one had any experience and it was with Lost World, another game that threw things to a wall but failed to even find the scoreboard. Not a single shred of joy could be obtained in this. And frankly? They knew. They dropped the cost of the game from 60$ to 40$ a couple months before the release, they knew people wouldn't want to spend money on this.
Null Space & Imperial Tower are fun, although yeah they aren't enough to defend the game with.
And to think, this was supposed to be the “PROFESSIONAL” made game from the original Sega Team, next to the simpler Sonic Mania made by a “Indie”, that I personally consider the BEST SONIC GAME IN YEARS!!!
THATS SO SEGA!!!!
The thing I fear is they look at this and go "well we can't let THAT happen again..." and stop any more sonic mania type games from happening...
@@jacklindsey8400 The team behind Mania is already working on a new game outside SEGA, already happened
13:35 The sad thing is, Denuvo mostly kinda works on what it's supposed to do. Which is to prevent pirated copies on the first few weeks or months, which is usually successful. Denuvo only gets removed when the contract expires and at that point, the important sales are already done.
This. And I'm starting to believe that SEGA and Namco are leaving it up to individual producers/dev teams to decide on when it gets removed. It explains why they're so uneven about removing it and why it's only showing up in certain franchises nowadays.
Except that in exchange you end up losing sales, potentially permanently, from honest customers who don't want that bloatware on their computer. In the end to evade the bogeyman of "piracy" they remove actual paying customers and earn negative press.
@@MrJoeyWheeler The thing is, there hasn't been any major cases where a PC release flopped in sales because of Denuvo. Even if it did, most publishers (especially JP ones) would sadly just attribute it to "proof that PC ports are not profitable".
Thanks for doing this one, Matt. I was so angry at having waited 1 full year to play 3 hours of a mediocre game, you could tell that something went wrong.
Ps. Aaron Webber is a legend
"...our aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase."
Literally impossible but ok.
I wonder if the "attempting to please every Sonic fan" plan was a result of Sonic Boom's failure?
Rise of Lyric not only was reviewed poorly, but is also the worst selling Sonic game ever. Sonic games typically sell well, critical reception be damned. While being exclusive to the Wii U probably had a lot to do with those poor sales, I wouldn't be surprised if Sonic Boom spooked SEGA in the idea that Sonic games could now fail financially. So making what they think would be total crowd pleaser would make sense in their eyes.
Aaron Webber and Christian Whitehead would be unstoppable at making a Sonic game together.
There are ideas in Forces that I liked. The custom character was a cool addition in concept, Infinite was a cool villain that didn't get proper time to shine, the music is pretty good....but that was about it.
I'm hopeful that Sonic 2022 will be the next Unleashed, where I spent so much time on completing the game with all achievements and just enjoyed the story from start to finish. Also, Unleashed takes about 12 hours to complete with minimal side tracking compared to Forces only taking about three.
I would rather have a return to Adventure with the Chao Gardens literally being the perfect form of replayability. The Sonic Series will probably never surpass the quality it was 20 years ago, although we can only hope it tries to & manages to do better than Unleashed & Black Knight did about 13 years ago. Also if we ever get humans again who aren't related to Eggman under no circumstances let them look like the disgusting Unleashed People, Hatsune Miku style humans are preferred.
On a more positive What happun: Yakuza.
It was quite the ordeal to make the first game and now it's basically the face of Sega.
@@xavier8951 Well to be fair, they tried like 4 times with Yakuza and not many cared in the west until 0 for whatever reasons.
@@mtallmen184 ah yes, the turn based rpg that many fans state was a welcome addition to the series was shit. If you don't like turn based, then just say you don't like turn based.
"Our aim is to please the entire Sonic fanbase" ANYONE who is in a leadership position thinks that "pleasing everyone" is a correct course of action for ANY reason should NO LONGER BE in a leadership position. You CAN'T please everyone and ATTEMPTING to do so you will only wind up pleasing NO-ONE.
I always think it’s so funny how the group called “Sonic team” can’t make a sonic game to save their life.
Not to mention that at this point, I don't believe they have any relationship whatsoever with the actual original development team behind Sonic 1 who christened themselves with that name. EDIT: Well, I'm fairly sure certain current members have worked with people like Yuji Naka, but I mean, nobody who worked on Sonic 1 is still there or anything AFAIK.
They're the Ship of Theseus of dev teams, in my eyes.
I've heard people say that they should've just released the character creator as its own thing because it was the best part, and I can't help feeling like that would've been the better option.
I still enjoyed the game, though, as many problems as it had.
I've been dying to see you cover this game! Not a lot of people have covered the development of this dumpster fire.
I really hope to get a good Sonic game one day
But keep whoever did the music in forces, so good
Tomoya Ohtani is around since Sonic 06 you know?
I don't think he's leaving soon,and I'm totally glad
Then Frontiers happened and that dev time helped out A LOT to lay down Sonic's new generation but albeit not perfect.
It's obvious some haven't changed as in the game has some unfinished parts they had to do due to lacking man power and SEGA getting impatient...
Though as the chart shows being the one breaking records made by previous game, Frontiers is a step in the right direction and HOPE that they stick to it and also have more man power to do it.
They tried to make a Sonic game that appealed to everyone, but since it is, by definition, impossible to please absolutely everyone, they inevitably ended up pleasing no one by chasing that impossible goal.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker would like to have a word with Sonic Forces. 😅😅😅
Fun Fact:
The game is still referred as "wars" in the game files
4:56 ah there's your problem right there. The last thing you should look to when it comes to how a Sonic game should be are the fans. Sonic fans have no idea what they want, some want 2D sidescrollers, some want a new Adventure game, some want more Unleashed/Colors gameplay. It's a big fanbase full of a bunch of people who started on different games and who all have their own idea of what it should be.
"War in the title of a kids game is bad"
As someone who loved Happy wars, and Advance wars as a child I'm appalled
As somebody who actually finds enjoyment in "Boost" gameplay (it's in the speedrun replays and trying to improve on your times), I actually enjoyed playing Forces for the most part. Classic Sonic gameplay was still not as accurate as what Mania gave us.
Boost gameplay can be extremely fun and exhilarating and it needs a pace break to avoid fatigue, but the 2D segments were just a little too slow and janky to work as the lower gear.
@@_CNT_ I don't think anybody has ever said that about '06, lol.
@@chowdown the Sonic 06 Twitter Stans™️ certainly seem to enjoy it
Boost is trash. They're glorified autolevels. The sonic adventure style was a perfect translation of the 2d gameplay put into 3d. Just needed to be more polished and less buggy.
@@_CNT_ If that was the case the opinions of some games wouldn’t be so split
Still can’t believe a boost formula sonic game with a build your own character feature can end up this divisive.
It’s entirely believable when the game itself is poorly designed and just isn’t any fun to play.
Aesthetic creative decisions be damned.
You are forgetting forced, clunky 2D levels with Classic Sonic, which were further put to shame when standing by Sonic Mania. And like the comment above me says, everything else was just as poorly designed.
Wasn't Boost Formula created to be divisive & split the fanbase between Adventure & Boost?
Never Forget when SEGA partnered with Hooters to promote Sonic Forces.
So it's just been confirmed that Sonic Origins as Denuvo DRM on the PC version.
We're two months from release...and they've ALREADY been caught.
The production quality in this video is insane
I never had trouble with the boost because at first I had little knowledge of it, so I didn't know how to use it.
SEGA: "Wars is a bad word for kids."
Star Wars: "Hold my lightsaber"
SEGA: "No, you're not a kids game"
LEGO Star Wars: "OK then hold my LEGO lightsaber"
Feel like Aaron was the guy that knew what was up really tried to warn them. As some one who seems to actually be a fan and who's position at the time where his job was to know and deal with the community and basically all his points fell on deaf ears or most anyway and a lot of those points he brought up in development (I.E Tails Character Assassination to list the most note worthy) that fans did no doubt pointed out.
He called it as he saw it, it's weird when you realize he was no random person, but all the more telling on Sega or whoever for not heeding that advice. And look where that got them. Well hopefuly something has been learned.
Ngl Classic Sonic being a Phantom Ruby construct sounds ALOT better than that "another dimension" bs.
Best thing to come out of Sonic Forces is the meme where "Forces" is used as a verb.
"Sonic Forces me to play it, and I hated every second." That sort of thing. Made for great derogatory thumbnail/title quotes on review videos!
As much as I love Generations, it's still very much a 3D Sonic game, even on the 2D stages. I'll be echoing many comments by saying that it's best to keep the two fanbases split between classic and new Sonic. Heck, I love both!
If Sonic Frontiers flops, then there's no point deciding whether to release a Sonic game every year or waiting years for a new one.
I'm completely dumbfounded that it took Sega over 20 years to finally say, "Hey maybe we should take our time developing a sonic game."
To be fair, Sonic debuted in a time when game design and programming was both far cheaper and far less complex. Putting out a game every year was much more manageable in the pre-HD era, before both budgets and player expectations ballooned to a ridiculous degree. Heroes, Shadow, and Sonic '06 all came out in the span of three years, and the first two did fine, but Sonic '06 (which -- likely not coincidentally -- was the first Sonic game with an HD budget) crashing and burning was the wake-up call Sega needed.
@@GamingintheAM0801 sonic 06 wasn't even a big enough wake up call for them cause then they let sonic boom happen. I know they didn't develop it but they are the ones that royally fucked that project up.
@@ProjectTony That's a good point, but Sonic Boom came after a period of time where Sonic had actually managed to fall back into the audience's good graces with Colors and Generations (and Unleashed to a lesser extent). I guess they grew a bit too confident with the franchise at that point.
And to this very day they still rush their shit like idiots, hey Sony, when are you guys gonna buy Sonic to make the series serious again?